Dreaming Darkly

by Caitlin Kittredge

  I watched Doyle closely as he sat up again, leaning on the damp rock of the cave. Aware for the first time how utterly isolated I was, if some of the other Ramseys did show up to take out Neil’s death on a Bloodgood.

  I was pretty sure Doyle wouldn’t let them hurt me, but I didn’t want to find out for sure.

  “Let’s just say he didn’t accidentally walk in front of a bus,” he said. “He was out hunting, and someone killed him.”

  My heart started to beat faster. If I hadn’t hurt Doyle’s cousin, then whose blood was it? Why couldn’t I remember? Simon had said the signs of the Bloodgood sickness started showing up in my mother around now. And she’d definitely been violent. I wished now I’d thought to ask, Hey, Mom, are you prone to blackouts? I’ve had two and one may have ended in a man’s death, so, what’s the 411?

  “You never said anything,” I murmured. “Your cousin dies and you just . . .”

  “Look, no offense,” Doyle said. “But it’s family business, and we don’t generally share it with outsiders. Any outsiders. And . . .” He frowned. “This is just my family being idiots, and mainlanders being petty, but there have always been rumors about the Bloodgoods. To hear some of the locals talk, your family mansion is a real-life murder house. I’ve heard that crap my whole life, and I still catch myself thinking, Don’t tell her anything; she’s a Bloodgood, and she might use it against you.”

  My heartbeat picked up, but I didn’t know if it was from Doyle’s words or my anxiety at knowing I was sitting so close to my buried secret. “If there were bodies stacked like cordwood in my house, I think I’d know about it, Doyle.”

  “Me too,” he said. “Neil owed a lot of people money, and he had a bad habit of getting drunk and sleeping with their women, so I’m thinking somebody from the mainland came on over to settle a score. But I also think you owe it to yourself to be aware of what kind of danger you’re in, staying in his house.”

  I got up, pulling my jacket around me. Water was starting to swish across the sand below us, leaving lacy patterns that looked like the shredded hem of an old dress. Whatever Doyle held against my uncle, Simon had made an effort with me. He’d been up front about my mother’s mental state. He’d tried, albeit poorly, to comfort me. That counted for more than Doyle’s vague insinuations right now. “Tide’s coming in. I should go.”

  Doyle brushed his fingers lightly over mine. “You sure you’re going to be all right?”

  I shrugged. I was still shivering uncontrollably, even inside my jacket. “I always have been before.” I started to walk away, then stopped and turned back. “Do you really think my uncle is a murderer, or are you just trying to get at me?”

  “I don’t know,” Doyle said. “But I’d be careful of Simon. My dad’s known him a long time. Nothing I can prove, but to hear him talk, your uncle is not a nice guy. You can’t trust him. He’s dangerous. I don’t know what he wants from you but it can’t be good.”

  “I thought all that was just locals gossiping,” I said, words coming out louder than I meant and echoing off the cave walls. “So it’s not? You really do think I’m related to killers and psychopaths?” I knew I was being reactionary, but Doyle was hitting a nerve without knowing it.

  “I’m trying not to take sides here, Ivy,” Doyle said, his voice holding a snarl that made the skin all up and down my back prickle. “But I’m a Ramsey, and you’re a Bloodgood. Family is family, and you better hope you’re right in trusting Simon. Because if we find out your uncle did do something to Neil, my family will kill him.”

  I got so cold then I couldn’t feel my hands anymore. The tide rushed around me, the water bubbling until it turned to white foam. “I have to go,” I whispered, and ran, my shoes digging into the wet sand. I heard Doyle shout after me, but I kept running until I was up the cliff face and back in the kitchen. I shut and locked the door behind me and sank down on the muddy linoleum floor. It took me a long time to stop shaking.

  Chapter 14

  I tried to calm down after that, go up to my room and do my homework, but I couldn’t concentrate.

  I’d been mad enough to kill someone a few times, but not to the point I’d actually, physically use my hands to beat someone to death.

  Although if I were, as Simon so delicately put it, ill, would I even know if I’d gone past the point of no return, to the point where I’d hurt anyone who got in my way?

  It occurred to me as I stared up at the water-stained ceiling in my tiny room that if Doyle and his family found my bloody shirt during one of their cave parties, or got any hint I’d been in the woods that night, none of the stuff about me not being strong enough to kill a full-grown man armed with a hunting rifle would matter. The Ramseys clearly had it in for Simon. They’d never believe I didn’t have something to do with it.

  I jumped up, determined to go back to the cave, dig up the shirt, and get rid of it for good. Somehow. I grabbed my copy of Jane Eyre as cover—I could be going for a walk to clear my head and planning how to write a pointless paper. Definitely not destroying evidence.

  I opened my door and almost smacked into Simon, his fist raised to knock. “Oh, you startled me,” he said, grabbing at his sweater vest with his other hand. It was chunky and striped in blue and brown. I was going to have to chat with my uncle about what exactly was acceptable attire for full-grown men who were not attending a snooty 1950s prep school.

  “Sorry,” I said. Simon tilted his head to examine the book in my hand.

  “Jane Eyre,” he said. “You know, I find her so tiresome. If she’d just minded her own business, none of that nonsense with Rochester would have happened.”

  I tossed the book back on my bed and tried to smile. “Jane’s pretty nosy.”

  “Girls nosing into secrets that aren’t theirs to know never ends well in the real world,” Simon said. “If any of our nannies had gone exploring in our family possessions when your grandmother was alive . . .” Simon pulled a mock-horrified face. “The bay would run red with blood. Anyway, I came to tell you supper is ready.”

  I followed him downstairs, silent, unable to stop thinking about the bloody shirt. Dinner was a nightmare, Mrs. MacLeod glaring at me every time my fork clinked against my plate. I practically ran back to my room, only to have Simon show up again.

  “I thought you might like some tea,” he said, offering me a mug. “It’s herbal, to settle the stomach. You weren’t looking well downstairs.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking it and starting to shut the door. Simon stuck his arm out and stopped me.

  “Are you all right, Ivy? Did something happen at school today?”

  “Just tired,” I said. “I have this paper to write, so . . .”

  Simon smiled, not taking his hand off my door. For such a skinny guy, he was really strong, and I gave up trying to push against it and just let him come in. He looked at all my stuff, examining all the old stickers on my suitcase, and smoothing the ratty quilt on the bed.

  “I hope our conversation yesterday didn’t bother you.”

  “That’s one of the least crappy parts of my day, believe it or not,” I muttered.

  Simon pulled out my desk chair and sat down. “There’s something else we should discuss.”

  The tea that touched my tongue was bitter and hot. I was starting to think that when Simon said “herbal” he just meant “kinda gross,” no matter what type of tea he was offering. I still kept the mug at my lips, a barrier between me and whatever bad news my uncle had.

  “The police in Omaha have released your mother’s remains,” Simon said. “I know this is hard, but I’m having her interred here, in our family cemetery, and I think we should have a small service.” He studied me, the lenses of his glasses reflecting my desk lamp. “That is, if this isn’t all too overwhelming for you.”

  I knew what the right answer to that question was, so I swallowed my tea and said, “Okay. Whatever you want.”

  “It won’t be anything involving priests or anyone else at all, re
ally.” Simon stood. “Just a few words in my sister’s memory. Anything you want to say, that feels appropriate.”

  I rolled the warm mug of tea between my cold fingers, thinking that Simon really didn’t know what he was asking. He reached out and squeezed my shoulder when I didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t want you to lie or sugarcoat. But we both need to say goodbye. Even if you don’t realize it now . . .” He trailed off, staring out my window into the dark. “Saying goodbye is a privilege. Many of us never get that.”

  I bit back anything else I might have had to say about my mom. Simon was right. He’d never gotten a chance to say anything to Mom as an adult—he’d been not much older than me when she bolted. The least I could do was grit my teeth and get through the only goodbye my uncle was going to get. Even if it turned my stomach to keep my mouth shut.

  “I guess you’re right,” I said.

  Simon gave me a limp, benevolent smile, like I was one of those little purse dogs and I’d done a trick. “Sleep well, Ivy.”

  He left, and I drank the rest of the tea. I tried to keep my eyes open to read and make notes for my paper, but I couldn’t do it. I fell asleep in my clothes and woke up just as dawn was starting to peer over the eastern line between the sky and the water. My room was lit by an eerie blue, and I swung my feet to the ground to grab my notebook and write the world’s worst paper on romantic love in Jane Eyre in the few hours before school.

  Something sharp and crunchy bit into my sole, and I yelped. I looked down and saw a litter of broken ceramic on my floor, little white chips scattered everywhere like fragments of bird bone. One chip protruded from my foot, and I pulled it free, wincing as dark blood welled up and dripped onto the braided rug.

  I wrapped a sock around my foot and slid into boots sitting close by my bed. My desk lamp was trashed as well. Everything in my room that had been on a surface was on the ground. My few clothes were thrown in the four corners of the room, and one of my shirts had been shredded. I tried the switch, and electricity popped and fizzled. The bulbs in the ceiling light were shattered, little more than smoking stumps.

  As I stared at the chaotic swirl my room had become, I clued in to the fact that the stuff scattered everywhere wasn’t mine. My backpack had vanished, along with the few things I’d brought with me. My stomach plummeted just as it had when I opened my eyes at the top of the lighthouse.

  My room was different in every way—the furniture was new and polished, the walls were covered in bright, flowery paper, and as it strobed my eyeballs, I saw the lighthouse on the promontory was whole and working, a bright white spike poking into the barely morning sky.

  I breathed in, out, in again with a panicked weight settling in my chest. I had to be dreaming, but it was like I wasn’t fully there, like I was just a passenger in my own body, in these strange clothes, long black dress, pointed lace-up boots. I was definitely rocking the OG Goth look instead of my usual jeans. My breath made a pale fog—it was freezing, ice crystals creeping over the windowpane.

  I heard a faint sound from outside my door and without any intention on my part, moved down the hall, down the broad front stairs, past the solarium, and toward Simon’s office. I wasn’t in control, and I got the feeling that even if I could have made my lungs work to scream, I couldn’t have made a sound.

  The choking gasps that I’d guessed to be a radiator at first got louder, and I passed into the library, only to take a sharp turn through a narrow door into a room that was all odd angles and lines, ceilings that sloped down to almost touch my head on one side and rose at least ten feet above me on the other. I was in some slice of the house left over when everything else was finished, and I skidded to a stop when I saw a girl bent over on the carpet, sobbing. Her back heaved inside her blue-and-white-striped dress, the white lace collar stained and spattered just as her pale skin was.

  She’d collapsed in front of a wall of portraits, most of them those old, muddy-colored photographs you see in antique stores.

  The girl looked at me, her green eyes wide and rimmed in red, hair even lighter than Simon’s tumbling in perfect barrel curls over her shoulders. She looked about my age, but in the way that you can’t really tell with folks from way back, when sixteen was an adult and twenty-one was practically old.

  Reaching out, the girl unfolded her fist. Blood soaked both her arms up to the elbows, the small curved blade between her fingers black with it. She choked, rocking.

  “Look what I’ve done,” she moaned. “Look . . . look . . .” She threw the blade aside and began clawing at her cheeks, yanking her hair, tearing at the collar and hem of her dress.

  “Look!” she screamed. “Look at me! Look what you’ve done!”

  Strong hands grabbed me and yanked me out of sleep. Waking up felt like crashing into a wall, and I thrashed, cracking Mrs. MacLeod across the nose.

  “Settle down, Ivy!” she thundered. I jerked away from her. I was covered in sweat, a deep V soaked through the neck of my shirt, and shaking so hard I felt like I’d been shocked. Still, I was back in my room. I was really awake, and for that I was profoundly grateful.

  “Saints wept.” Mrs. MacLeod slumped into my desk chair. Her hair had come loose from its bun, and thick curls flew around her face. “You were screaming to wake the dead. What’s gotten into you?”

  I rubbed my hands over my arms until I thought I’d bruise myself, but I couldn’t get warm. “I’m sorry,” I managed to chatter. “I had a nightmare.”

  “I’ll say.” I felt her rough hand reach out and squeeze my shoulder. “Real or imagined, it was just a dream, Ivy. Let it go now.”

  I was so surprised that she’d actually been nice to me I stopped shaking. Maybe that was her evil plan all along. “I’ve always had them,” I said. “I’m—I’m sorry if I woke you.”

  Mrs. MacLeod pursed back up into her trademark hag-face. “Get dressed and come downstairs,” she said. “It’s not just me who’ll be awake the way you were carrying on.”

  I showered under the hottest water the groaning pipes in my bathroom were capable of and threw on one of the sweaters I’d found in my mother’s closet the day before. It was gray and shapeless but warmer than anything I owned. It smelled like cedar and clove cigarettes and dust.

  The dream flowed back to me, and I realized I’d breathed in that same smell when I’d been wearing the other clothes, the long dress and granny boots that were oh so retro . . .

  They were my mother’s clothes.

  I gagged, ripping the sweater back off and flinging it across my room. At least I hadn’t really trashed anything. My books and bag were still on the desk, dirty clothes piled in the hamper, tarot cards and crappy vampire paperbacks in the nightstand. My foot ached when I pulled my boots off, and I peeled my sock back off, finding a neat red puncture on my sole, an almost perfect circle in the center of a bruised purple halo.

  Despite the scalding shower I’d just taken, I was freezing again, the blood rushing out of my head.

  There was no way that dream had been real. Maybe I’d stepped on an errant nail or something and then . . . what? Sleepwalked around cleaning blood off the floor and sterilizing my cut?

  I bent down and examined the rug, where dozens of fat blood droplets had landed in the dream, but it was pristine. I crouched and peered under the bed. It was clean, of course—any dust bunny that tried to take up residence in this place clearly died a quick death.

  I was about to stand up and try not to worry I was losing my mind when the faint sun caught a small fragment of white under the bed, far away against the wall. I squirmed under the tiny bed frame, rough timber scraping my back, and grabbed for it.

  The tiny arrow-shaped piece of mug had a tip of red, where it had pierced my foot. I stared at it for a moment, wondering if there’d been an LSD chaser in that chamomile tea I’d had before bed.

  “Ivy!” Mrs. MacLeod hollered from somewhere in the bowels of the house. “Your breakfast is going cold, girl!”

  I s
hoved the fragment into my pocket, grabbed a hoodie from my suitcase, and ran downstairs, ignoring the pain in my foot. The rambling, mall-sized manor house seemed too small again, and I just wanted to get out.

  Mrs. MacLeod plunked a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of hot chocolate in front of me when I came into the kitchen. “Eat,” she said. “Warm yourself up.”

  I looked down at the bowl. “Is it poison?”

  “It might be if you keep up like this,” she said, pouring herself coffee from the old-style silver percolator. She sipped and stared at me. I tried to eat, but my stomach bunched up every time I thought about the girl crying, and the blood, and standing in front of her, a strange little child holding her strange little knife.

  “Do you have episodes like that often?” Mrs. MacLeod asked.

  I let the spoon clatter back into my bowl, glaring at her. I didn’t have the energy to deal with her crap, not after the last few days.

  “It’s a fair question,” she went on. “Especially since Simon has decided to welcome you into the fold. I look after him. I need to know if you’re going to be a harm to this family and this house.”

  “You mean am I going to come at him with an ax from the woodshed?” I snapped. “I don’t know. You seem to be intimately familiar with all of my family’s mental issues, so why don’t you tell me, Dr. Veronica?”

  I pushed back my chair so hard the linoleum shrieked, grabbed my bag, and stormed out the door. My heart thumped like a fist trying to beat its way out of my rib cage as I stomped down to the boat dock. It was a long walk even downhill, but I needed it to try and get myself under control, so I wouldn’t show up at school with my face looking like I felt. Twin spots of hot tears worked their way down my face, and I hated myself way more than Mrs. MacLeod then. I was losing it. I never used to cry unless I had a damn good reason and the tears were a means to an end. Uncontrolled crying was useless and made you look weak, and whatever else I might be in light of the blackouts and the bad dreams, I wasn’t that.