Page 18 of One Last Touch

“I miss you.”

“I’m with you always.”

“You promise?”

“I do.” Her hands pushed through my hair, soothing me like she hadn’t done since I was a child. “I wish you would leave here, darling. If I’d wanted you to be in this place, I would never have left.”

“Why did you?”

I was no longer concerned with whether or not I was dreaming, I had to be, but god how much I longed to be able to ask her these questions in real life. How desperately I wanted to see her and hug her one more time. It was a physical ache and I closed my eyes again to hide from the pain.

“It’s complicated.”

“Mum…”

“I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth.”

“Is… Is Edward my father?”

She sat up, pulling her hands away from my hair and at once I missed her touch. I sat up too and realised I was not at the bottom of the lake as I’d initially worried, I was in my bed and she was perched on the end. Her skin let off this silvery-blue glow that made my lips part in awe until she turned her head and I caught a glimpse of the wound on the back of her head. The one that had killed her.

“Mum,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears. I’d had a lot of dreams like this in the first few weeks after she’d been found, dreams where I saw her or she came to me, half-rotted and wanting to bring me with her to the land of the dead. This didn’t feel like that, though. It felt… sadder. More honest.

“I don’t know,” she said, ignoring the tears that dripped steadily down my cheeks. “I never could tell.”

“Tell what?”

“Shhhh.” Her pale finger touched my lips and I recoiled, she was cold and the sensation raised the hairs on my arms. “He’s here now, darling. I have to go.”

“You told me you’d stay!”

“I’ll be with you.” She pressed a kiss to my forehead and brushed several tears off my cheek. “Listen to him, darling, won’t you? This is a place for the dead.” She held me tight for a moment and I couldn’t breathe. “I want you to live.”

I stared up at her, confused and unsure and she pushed me back down onto the bed gently.

“Close your eyes, darling.”

I did and when I next opened them I gasped.

The room was empty.

Of course it was empty. I had been dreaming of her, my mother. I touched a hand to my cheek, feeling the dried tracks of tears— had I been crying in my sleep again? I pressed my hand to the end of the bed where she’d sat in the dream and let the grief grip me for a moment, pressure mounting so hard and fast it felt like my head might explode from how tightly I held on, how deeply I spiralled, as I let the ache touch me down to my soul.

I sniffed hard as I slowly sat up and tried to breathe past the imagined scent of roses and violets and vanilla that still lingered on the air. It felt so real, like I could still reach out and touch her if only my imagination would let me.

I padded out of bed to the bathroom, blowing my nose and splashing some water on my face before I checked the time. It was only 4am so I got back into bed. I’d obviously fallen asleep early that night after all the gardening work, and I still felt exhausted now. I settled back against my pillow before reaching for the water on my bedside. Instead, my hand met pages. Another of my books had been opened. It lay open on Angela Carter’s The Werewolf and I knew I hadn’t been reading it recently. In fact, it had been at the bottom of my book pile. Someone had been in here, messing with my things.

My mouth ran dry. What the hell was happening to me? The dreams, the things I kept thinking I had seen or felt… I felt unhinged, like Alswell had cracked me open for the night air to rush in and freeze my soul.

I leaned forward, shining the light from my phone screen down so I could see the passage that had been highlighted. My mouth went dry and I shone the torch around into each corner of my room before looking back down at the page. The Devil is as real as you or I.

I definitely wouldn’t have drawn in my book. Why would someone highlight that and leave it for me to find? Was it a warning? A prank? I set my jaw, switching off the torch light. Whatever it meant was irrelevant. If somebody was trying to scare me off they would have to do a better job—including my own subconscious. I hadn’t thought there was a single part of me that agreed with Sage, that I should just leave and start over and live my life. I wasn’t built that way. I couldn’t just shove all my grief into a box and bury it in the ground with her. No, I needed to rage and scream and I needed to know.

That someone had been in my room, messing with my things, didn’t even scare me any more. No, it pissed me off. That was the best they could do? Leaving a spooky little quote? Running around upstairs? Pathetic.

I got out of bed, muttering under my breath as I pulled on my socks angrily and stomped over to the door. I pressed my ear to the wood and then pulled it back sharply, my eyes wide. There, outside the door—the same breaths I’d heard trapped in the closet.

I leaned in to listen again and bit my lip when I heard it clearly. A sharp knock followed and I jumped, stumbling back away from the door. It was a trick my mum had used when I was a kid and had been out of bed on a book hunt. I would listen to see if the coast was clear and if I couldn’t hear anything, begin to slowly turn the handle. She would snap it back up from the other side, stronger than my small hands could best, or rap sharply on the door one time and I would scramble back to bed.

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