“Meadow?” My mother’s voice had cracked and my father had been there right alongside her. They looked like they’d seen a ghost which I got because I was supposed to be dead. I hadn’t said anything, I’d just turned away from my parents and followed after Buffy when she’d called my name. I didn’t tell her that I’d seen my parents, mostly because I wish I hadn’t seen them.
Even if you took out being sold as a sacrifice to a demon, I didn’t have the best home life with my parents. I was alwayswrong. Nothing was ever good enough. As much as I tried to be perfect, I couldn’t manage it.
It was because of the dreams.
The night terrors.
The never ending dreams that reduced me to a screaming mess as a child. I was so loud, so not normal in a place like Sweet Tooth where children were to be seen, not heard because who wanted a potential sacrifice that ruined the vibe? Anyways, in a place like Sweet Tooth, I was less than ideal. I’d never be accepted as a Blossom if anyone found out about my nightmares. Anything less than perfection wouldn’t be good enough to be a Blossom and my family had been nothing but obedient. Always privileged with a Blossom being taken every other generation, enough so that we had one of the biggest houses in town and my dad had a fancy job down at the bank. We had a better car than most, a stipend for shopping that was double what other families saw and my mother never wanted for a thing, especially not the wine she enjoyed every night.
“It’s because of the stress you cause me,” she told me while pouring another glass at the kitchen counter. She’d missed her glass, gotten it on the counter. A mess I would have to clean up before our cleaning lady saw it the next day. “If you weren’t so fucked in the head, I wouldn’t have to drink. You did this to me. Why can’t you be normal, Meadow? Why can’t you just be normal? Why?”
I didn’t know why I wasn’t normal. It’s not like anyone tried to help me, no one could, not with the way they hid it. My room was just sort of a room. Not really a place that I slept on the regular if I was having “a bad spell,” as my mother said.
When I had a nightmare, when I screamed and they woke me up by throwing water on me and dragged me down the stairs to the basement. That’s where I slept. That’s where I was kept night after night. That basement was a place no one ever went, not likethe way the other families had game rooms, or stored extra knick knacks and keepsakes they just didn’t know what to do with.
Our basement was my prison.
No one knew that. Not even my best friend. I’d never told her because if she knew, if Buffy had known that my family forced me to sleep in the basement for fear I’d scream so loud a neighbor might hear and tell…well, I know she’d do something about it. She’d find a way to make them pay. That was just the way Buffy was, it didn’t matter if it would get her in trouble. Interfering in the insanity that had my parents locking me in the basement was something she’d get in trouble for gladly.
I knew that about her. I loved her so much for her fierce heart but there was no way I was letting my best friend sacrifice herself on the altar my parents had built. And the basement wasn’t always bad. There were nights I slept peacefully down there, falling to sleep so fast I woke up in another dream where I wasn’t alone. Sometimes the dreams looked like they would be terrifying, with the ground opening up around me, screaming monsters flying past me and hands I couldn’t see grabbing me but up ahead, there would always be respite. A red light that beckoned me forward. There was always someone waiting for me in that red light. I never saw them, not properly. They always turned away when I tried. Their face a blank in my mind. Still, I was safe when they were there. I slept in that light, curled up like a cat in the sun without a care in the world.
Sometimes there was no red light and I woke up in the basement again, but that person would still be there sitting on the floor beside my bed. I could relax when they showed themselves. Nothing would grab me from the dark or make me scream so loud my parents wouldn’t open the door the next morning. In those dreams I spoke my fears to the dark and there was an answer to keep me company. Those nights were good. Somehow those dreams made up for how I’d ended up downthere. So I did what any girl trapped in a cult would do in that situation, I shut my mouth. I slept in the basement, I prayed for the day the nightmares would stop.
They’d mostly stopped now that my parents were living on the outskirts of town in a shared home with paper-thin walls and I, for the first time, had a home where I wasn’t scared to do something wrong.
I sigh, lift my head and look around the greenhouse. The late afternoon sun sets, orange light hits the glass in the perfect way to cast a rainbow prism across the floor. The light reminds me of my dreams. I watch that prism fade into nothing as the sun sinks behind the trees, and then I go inside.
Chapter
Three
Charlie snores.
Like…a lot.
I sip my tea and roll my shoulders while I hear a sound that can only be described as an eldritch growl comes from Charlie’s room. We had dinner together and it was nice. Just a simple affair of spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread. I made the spaghetti, Charlie made the garlic bread and salad and I had to give it to him, the man understood garlic bread on a scientific level.
We’d played a game of cards after dinner, something I appreciated for the fact that it kept my mind from wandering too far down the path I’d started down earlier. When I thought about my parents, about the basement and the sound of the lock when they closed the door, how it was always cold no matter how many blankets I used, or the way the darkness pressed in around me making me feel like I was in a tomb, not my home…well, things weren’t great on those nights. I stayed home on those nights. If I went into town for company, or over to Buffy’s where the gang gravitated, I’d be found out. Sunday was particularly astute to emotions even if she didn’t really seem to have any.
Charlie snorts and I almost drop my teacup. Oh well, it was nice having someone else in the house, even if their snoring would prompt lesser women to take up arms. Though, I worried about what would happen if I had an episode while Charlie was here. If I did, it was going to be tough to explain what was going on.
“Sorry…sometimes I scream in my sleep?”
“No, you can’t wake me up. No one can.”
“If I scream too loud, just put on some music?”
I sigh and shift in my seat. I look down at my teacup. It’s empty now, just the dregs and some tea leaves that stick to the side of the porcelain. The blend is something I came up years ago with while researching sleep and my dreams in the library. It was a little tricky explaining to the librarian Mr. Prost what I wanted the books for, or why I was searching up plants and herbs.
“It’s for sleep. I want to get the best sleep I can to look my best for my wedding night. You know how it is as a Blossom.”
That had been enough of a reason for the librarian to hand over the books and show me how to use the card catalogue. The apothecary in town was good to me, the woman, Ms. Sylvan was a friend of Ms. Donna’s and on the more discreet side of Sweet Tooth residents. She made sure I had everything I needed for the tea blend I was sure would cure me. The jury was still out on if the tea had cured me but I’ve been drinking it for a couple of years now and the longer I drank it the less I had night terrors. Who knew a good night’s sleep mostly devoid of terror was just a mix of lemon balm, valerian, skullcap and lavender, away? It was just enough of something to take the edge off before I went to bed. I’d added in mugwort for good measure in this batch. Charlie snores merrily away in the background, the sound almost soothing, because it reminds me that I’m not alone in the night.
Sometimes when I wake up, I forget where I am, and for a few terrifying moments I’m back in the basement without even the voice I whispered to for comfort. I’m there, under my house and sealed away from everyone else in the dark.
As long as I can hear Charlie snoring, I know for sure I’m not back in the basement so I guess his snoring is more than alright in the grand scheme even if there is a possibility that I’ll freak out in my sleep and have some explaining to do.
“No sense in worrying about things that haven’t happened yet. You haven’t had an episode in months.”
