books 1 - 3

by Ella J. Smyth

  This close to town there were a lot more people about. Despite the threatening weather, or maybe because of it, streetside cafes were busy, shoppers spilling onto the pavement. Further down the square, there was even a little farmers’ market. Adi stood and stared. Everywhere she looked, there were wild animals.

  Her psychiatrist back in Germany had taught her to question the logic. Was it likely that she could see predators, lions, ocelots, tigers, wrapped around ordinary people? Wouldn’t they turn on each other or on their owners, especially since they didn’t seem to be restrained at all? When she was a little girl, his reasoning had worked, and eventually she’d stopped seeing those hallucinations, those imaginary friends.

  Now she was grown up. She had no excuses. Adults didn’t need mental crutches to combat loneliness. When adults saw things that couldn’t be there, it was called a psychotic break. She was experiencing a psychotic break. She was sure of it. Her heart drummed so hard that she felt the beat in her teeth. A rushing noise in her ears dampened the everyday sounds around her, the honking and accelerating of cars, the sad strain of a lonely saxophone not far from her, people animatedly conversing as they passed her by. A hand grabbed her arm and she jumped, pulled out of her shocked state.

  “Miss Gutseel, what is going on?” Diepger stood in front of her, regarding her suspiciously. “I’ve been calling out to you several times, did you not hear me?” The monkey’s dry chittering set her teeth on edge.

  Adi stuttered, “I’m—I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention, please…” She stopped. What was she asking him? She had no idea. She just wanted to get away from him and his freaky companion, but he held her arm.

  “You look pale, are you okay?” There was a look in his eyes, calculating, dissecting, that made her very uncomfortable.

  She finally pulled herself together enough to pull her arm away from him. “Yes, I’m fine. I need to go.” His next words stopped her cold.

  “I heard about your mental health issues. You know that it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Please feel free to talk to me if things get on top of you.”

  Adi felt like he’d slapped her in the face. He knew of her problems? How? Nobody knew about this, other than her doctor back in Germany and the firm who drew up the legal documents. And the people who were present at the reading of the will. Like her father’s mother. Could it be…? Adi feverishly thought of another reason why her grandmother might have her cell phone number. How Diepger could know of her mental health problems.

  How he had known that her inheritance paid for her education, or as he had called it, “coasting on her family’s coattails”. That was such an odd phrase that she’d been thinking about it on and off ever since he had thrown it at her. And now, suddenly, she remembered where she’d heard it before.

  When the executor had revealed that she was to inherit her father’s estate, her grandmother had said exactly that. “Adalwolfa, don’t expect to coast on your family’s coat-tails for the rest of your life.”

  Adi had been too numb to shut the woman up as she’d deserved, but she remembered those words. To this day she didn’t know what she had done to deserve the cold reception and cutting remarks from her own paternal grandmother. Her father had never talked about his family, and Adi hadn’t even known they existed until the day her whole life had changed.

  She’d had to leave Germany because she couldn’t bear spending time in the city, where so many memories reminded her of what she’d lost. Finding out that a trust fund waited for her in the US, and that it allowed her to finish her education had been a godsend.

  And now everything made sense. Diepger had been feeding information to her grandmother. Part of the testament stipulated that Adi would lose access to the trust if her mental illness ever returned. Having a psychotic break in the middle of the city center would probably count.

  She had to get out of here. Adi took one last look at her tutor’s insincere smile and hoped, really hoped, that he wasn’t her family’s spy. Then she turned around and started on the long way home, the monkey’s high-pitched triumphant squeals following her.

  Adi wasn’t good company when she felt maudlin. Not to others and definitely not to herself. Her head down, she put one foot in front of the other. Her mind kept going around and around. You’re so stupid, how did you not see this? Honi did. You’re so dumb. It’s not paranoia if they’re all out to get you. Honi isn’t.

  She kept coming back to this. Honi hadn’t lied to her. He had taken her seriously. She should have trusted him, but she had pushed him away. She’d been horrible to him. She’d accused him of being sick. She was sick, not him. But if he was right, then she wasn’t sick. She’d never been sick.

  By the time the storm hit, the cold drops cooling her burning cheeks brought relief. With the deluge came sudden clarity, and her headache lifted. She needed to pull herself together and start fighting back.

  The dorm building rose from the cloud of rain that now descended on the town like a mosquito net made of water. She stumbled straight for the yellow glow inviting her in, away from the cold spray. Once inside, she straightened her spine and smiled.

  Tomorrow she would go back to Honi and apologize. If he was half the man she thought him to be, he would accept and help her. Even the icy drops running down her neck couldn’t spoil the relief she felt. For the first time in days, she had a clear idea of what to do next.

  Blue sky over swaying grasses. Reminiscent of that Japanese movie she used to love as a child. Spirited Away? Yeah, that was it.

  Adi lay on her back, arms crossed behind her head. Buzzing insects, the smell of fresh earth, a feeling of peace. Her body relaxed further, and she closed her eyes. Something was irritating her, like a mosquito whining around her head. Her eyes opened slightly. A random flash of unease stopped her from falling asleep. It clawed at her subconscious, fleeting images of wing, claws and beaks.

  Adi sat up with a gasp. It was the same landscape as in her nightmare. She wasn’t safe here, no matter how beautiful and relaxing it appeared. She jumped to her feet and looked around frantically. What had seemed peaceful a moment ago had taken on a whole different meaning.

  Miles upon miles of empty grassland. Adi felt utterly alone. Anybody or anything could use the tall grasses as cover and attack. She would never see them until it was too late! Adi spun around, eyes darting from side to side. She was overwhelmed by the need to get away, to find protection from an unknown danger.

  Something was approaching. A malevolent presence, creeping soundlessly, invisibly closer and closer.

  Wake up, wake up, wake up. A desperate chant repeating in her head, she tried to get back to her bed, to reality. More and more memories flooded her mind. Somebody else had been there last time. A friendly being, and like a beam of light, a name slowly surfaced. Honi. He had saved her last time.

  Adi caught a small movement from the corner of her eye. A tiny animal sat in front of her shoe. Sleek gray fur, little black eyes and a short thin tail. The mouse raised her head, and her cute button nose twitched. She’d always loved mice and gone out of her way to save them when the neighbor’s cat had played with its unfortunate prey.

  The grass rustled and a second one appeared, slightly larger. Adi moved her foot and the animals hopped back a little. She frowned. That wasn’t really mouse behavior. Usually they were such shy animals. As if on cue, another one popped up. Then another one and another one.

  Adi’s eyes grew wide, her unease growing and toppling over into fear. Where there had been two animals a moment ago, now ten or more stuck their little heads out from the grass. She shuddered. One mouse was cute, ten not so much. The grasses trembled, and suddenly the stalks collapsed under the weight of an ocean of gray.

  A flood of fur flowed towards her, crushing smaller animals under the combined weight of tiny bodies. The mass of twisting, writhing shapes screamed, a high-pitched noise reverberating in Adi’s ears. She was frozen in shock. It took her brain a moment to catch up with the fact that the a
nimals were coming towards her.

  A sharp pain pulled her out of her daze. She looked down and grimacing, shook a mouse off her leg. Another ran up her foot immediately. Adi jumped back on one leg, madly shaking the other. She used her hands to brush more of the animals off her body. They were so quick!

  She turned around and tried to run. Her breath was coming fast, and she panted in terror. A weak mewling noise worked its way out of her chest when more and more sharp claws scaled her legs and lower back. She spun around again and tried to reach the mice on her back, but there were just too many.

  Her body shuddered in revulsion as the soft scrapes multiplied, flowing upwards towards her shoulders. A sharp bite in her neck made her scream. Her terror threatened to overwhelm her, and she stumbled.

  Somehow, the deluge of tiny creatures had pushed under her toes and unbalanced her. Soon her feet didn’t touch the ground anymore. She felt tiny bones break and little bodies squash whenever she put her feet down. Her shoes sank into the unstable surface, and she lost her balance.

  She was still frantically brushing mice off her body, but now her fingers touched wetness. When she looked at her trembling hands, they were red with blood. Her vision swimming, she was still screaming her terror and disbelief into the world.

  Then she fell onto one knee. Immediately the torrent crawled up her body, biting, scratching, hurting her. She was now on all fours, still trying to stem the tide. Her eyes were clenched shut. Every time she opened her mouth, the nauseating brush of fur made her close it tightly again. Her nostrils burned with the acrid stink of mouse excrement.

  It was no use. She grew weaker and weaker. The excruciating bites bled into each other until her whole body shook with pain. She had stopped screaming long ago. The only noise emanating from her was a pitiful whimper, drowned out by the chittering and squeaking of the tiny monsters.

  Soon her body collapsed and she rolled into a ball, helpless against the sheer number of attackers. She couldn’t feel any more feel pain. The tugging on her lips and ears, the happy squeals of sated rodents, meant that she was being eaten alive, and there was nothing she could do. The helplessness was more horrifying than her impending death. Sith her last conscious thought, she wished Honi were here with her.

  Adi opened her eyes and screamed. The sound died on her lips when she looked up at the weird stain on her ceiling that had been there since she moved in. The ordinariness of that pee-yellow outline she’d always thought looked like Australia dragged her back to reality.

  Another dream. More vicious and terrible than the others, but still only a dream. She closed her eyes but forced them open again immediately. She couldn’t go back to sleep, she just couldn’t. The dream was still too vivid—even the pain hadn’t passed yet entirely.

  She rubbed her forehead and frowned when her fingertips felt wetness. It burned. She grabbed her phone from the bedside table and shined the light at her hands. Her fingers were red and sticky.

  Adi gasped. She pointed the phone at her arms and torso. Tiny bites, some still bleeding, appeared out of the shadows like stills from a horror flick. She began to tremble, the shaking increasing in strength as she shook her head in desperate denial. Nonononono, this wasn’t possible, it had been a dream, what the hell was wrong with her? She was going insane, that was the only explanation. Adi swallowed convulsively and desperately tried to get her breathing back under control.

  This wasn’t real. When she opened her eyes, she would be back in her bed, unhurt. Yet her whole body ached and the bites burned and stung. There was no denying that she was injured. She held her arms away from her body because touching the bites promised more pain. She needed help. Her last dying thought came back to her. Honi. He would help her.

  She slowly got out of bed, wincing all the time. First she needed to get cleaned up—otherwise she wouldn’t make it to Honi’s dorm. She couldn’t have a shower in her dorm. It was Saturday night, and the chance was high that someone wanted to shower late after partying. If they walked in on her in the communal bathroom, she would have no explanation at all for why she was covered in blood.

  So she wiped herself down as well as she could, using paper towels and bottled water. None of the injuries were deep. Scratches, really, and the only thing that made them so terrifying was the way she’d received them. Could they really have carried over from her dream? There was no other explanation, surely. She rubbed faster and got dressed quickly. The sooner she spoke to Honi, the better.

  Adi had turned on every light in her room and still she shied away from the pool of shadows under her bed. She didn’t feel safe until she pulled on a pair of winter boots. They were far too warm for spring, but they went up all the way to her knees. They made her feel better. Then she pulled the door closed and faced the ten-minute walk to Honi’s room.

  Adi had walked this way many times. The buildings and grassy edges along the gravel path were as familiar to her as the city she’d grown up in. But when she looked along the stretch of concrete and gravel ahead of her, her mind conjured up movement where there was none. She tried very hard not to run, because running meant giving up control, giving in to her rising panic.

  So she stalked stiffly, her eyes straight ahead, arms tightly wrapped around her body. It was cold. Spring had arrived, but there was a distinct chill in the air, remembering a hard winter not long past. Yellow crocuses, pushing through the earth underneath budding trees, looked gray in the darkness.

  At first, Adi was glad for every puddle of light supplied by the lamps dotted along the main path. But every time she was forced to leave the imaginary safety, her eyes had to adjust to the darkness. Every single time, for a split second, she saw movement from the corner of her eyes. And every single time, she sped up a little, her heart thudding in her ears, to reach the next sanctuary of light.

  Shortly before she reached her destination, a branch cracked to her right. Her head whipped around, and out of the darkness, a body hurtled itself at her. She inhaled involuntarily and whimpered. Her whole body froze up, and her eyes were wide in shock. Everything slowed down. A fox flashed across the path and ran into the bushes on the other side.

  For several long seconds, all Adi could do was stand there and shake. Her breath whistled in and out, and she felt light-headed. Then she focused on the door that was within a few yards of her. When another noise startled her, she gave up. Without looking around, she sprinted as quickly as she could and grabbed the handle. The door flung open, and she took the steps two at a time, until she stood in front of Honi’s door.

  Honi raised his head and groaned. What was that racket at the door? What time was it? His hand groped for his phone with blurry movements, then he swore quietly but passionately. What the hell? Was there a fire alarm that he had slept through?

  The noise didn’t stop. Honi rolled himself into a seated position and leaned forward in order to push himself onto his feet. He was really bad at being woken, he knew that. There better be some kind of emergency or whoever was raising hell at his door would regret it.

  With that cheerful thought, he pulled the door open hard. It seemed that whoever was on the other side had leaned against it. A low growl behind him warned him of Ho’neo’s displeasure. Before he could reassure the wolf, a body fell towards him and his hands went out reflexively to catch the person.

  Adi’s tear-stained face looked up at him. She looked awful. And was that blood? Honi’s eyes flickered over her face and body as he took in her disheveled appearance. There were scratches on her hands, and why was she wearing those winter boots? He pulled her into the room.

  “What happened?” Had she been attacked? Fury rose in him at that thought. “Do you need me to call the police?” He could hardly hear his own words over the continuous rumble emanating from his spirit animal.

  Adi was crying harder now. She clung to him so tightly that he could only hear fragments of her reply. It sounded like she’d said “nightmare”. Honi frowned. A nightmare might explain her frantic state of
mind, but what about her injuries? He disentangled himself and gently guided her to his bed. A stern glare at Ho’neo finally shut him up.

  “Sit down, let me look at those scratches. They look nasty.” Honi opened her jacket, and his eyebrows rose when he saw that she was barely wearing anything underneath. Had she been in such a rush that she hadn’t even put on proper clothes? There were scratches on her shoulders and bloody stains on her pajama pants.

  “May I?” he asked before pulling the fabric aside a little. Sure enough, more wounds were visible on her hipbone and tummy. Honi took a deep breath to calm down. Losing it in front of the terrified girl wouldn’t do anybody any good. As gently as he could, he stroked her hair until her sobbing subsided.

  None of the scratches seemed deep enough to warrant medical attention, but she needed some care to prevent infection. Maybe a bath would help. He stood up. When she looked questioningly at him, he smiled at her. “You know you’re safe here, right?”

  When she nodded, he helped her to her feet and led her to the bathroom. “I’m going to run you a bath, okay? We need to make sure that those scratches won’t get infected.”

  Actually, they looked more like bites. What could have attacked her? It was probably a good idea to make sure she hadn’t been bitten by some rabid rat or something. He shuddered a little. That would have been a lot of rats to cause that much damage all over her body.

  Ho’neo sniffed Adi’s skin, and the threatening rumble from deep within his chest started up again. Honi’s protective rage made him kick out against the wolf. The animal jumped and returned his glare with an accusing glance of his own. Then he vanished. Honi clamped down on his anger as hard as he could.

  That wasn’t what Adi needed right now. The way she looked at him with wide eyes and a hesitant smile on her lips, like he had all the answers… the sinking feeling in his stomach told him that he was in way over his head. He wanted to protect her, to be with her. Not the right moment for that kind of epiphany. He stored the thought away for a later time, when he was alone and more awake.