“Let me go.” I yanked my arm, trying to free myself from his grip. “Let me go.”
“Wake up, and I will.” His voice sounded different, too, like my mind couldn’t remember what he was supposed to sound like.
“Wake up?” I pulled on my arm again. “I am awake.”
His black eyes beheld me for a moment, and then he threw back his too long face and laughed. The sound grated on my nerves. It wasn’t a laugh, but the sound of dry twigs and leaves breaking against my ear drums. It drowned out every other noise until I couldn’t even hear my own voice. My mouth was moving, but no sound came out.
Sherborne let go of my arm, and even though I still couldn’t hear anything, I turned and tried to run. Before I could take more than two steps, his spindly fingers wrapped around my ankle.
My weight shifted, and I toppled face first onto the ground. My cheek was raw and my jaw hurt, and my mouth was full of dirt. I coughed, and he dropped my foot and walked around my body to check on me.
Then, he grabbed my leg and began to pull.
The ghoulish version of Sherborne dragged me down the street by my ankle, chanting something I could just barely hear over the strange sound of his laughter that was like dead leaves: wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.
“I am awake!” I shouted back at him, pulling on my leg to try and free it from his hold. “Stop saying that. I am awake!”
Suddenly, the pulling stopped along with the sound of his laughter and his chant. Everything was quiet. Until…
“Are you awake?”
But this time, the voice didn’t belong to the strange Sherborne. It sounded familiar…female.
Before I could place it, there was another sharp blow to my head, and the dream was over.
The first thing I heard was water. Not fresh running water like a stream or creek, but the sound of water splashing. It happened once, twice, and again, like someone was slipping their hands beneath the surface and bringing water to their face. Then, it went quiet.
I wanted to open my eyes, but they felt too heavy. My entire body felt too heavy.
Each of my limbs ached to the bone, and even the thought of turning my head made my brain slosh. My thoughts were beautiful trinkets hidden behind a soaped-over window. I couldn’t seem to make them out as clearly as usual. Everything was happening from behind a veil of fog and confusion, and I didn’t know where I was or how I’d gotten there.
The sound of the water stopped and the crunching of leaves started.
I recognized the sound from my dream. It was what I’d heard come out of the strange version of Sherborne. But it hadn’t been a dream at all. I realized now the sound had been real. It had been reality leaking into my dream, trying to warn me. But about what?
Wake up, Sherborne had said.
Are you awake?, another voice entirely had asked.
My muddied mind clung to that second question. I rolled the memory over in my thoughts again and again, looking for a foothold, for something to grab onto. I recognized it, but why?
I’d heard voices earlier in the night, too.
Shadows dancing around a fire. Old women praying to the moon.
Margaret and Abigail Wilds had been trying to cast spells on the moors, and now I was being hauled through the woods.
Were they doing this? I’d been confident I could outrun the old women, but were they faster than I could even imagine? Made faster by their supernatural connections? Were they dragging me through the moors now?
Are you awake?
I heard the voice again and it didn’t sound like the women. I knew their voices from time spent together in their home, and it wasn’t either of the Wilds. So, who?
Before my mind could clear enough for me to be sure, my sore body was hefted up by sure hands under my arms. I managed to crack my eyes open, but there was only more darkness.
Then, a splash.
Icy water soaked through my coat instantly, stinging my skin and stealing my breath. I opened my mouth to gasp, but water flooded between my lips and down my throat. I gagged and choked before I realized I needed to get out.
It was so dark that I couldn’t tell which way was up, but when I kicked my legs, my foot hit something hard. I assumed it to be the bottom. So, I pressed my foot against it and pushed.
I stretched my heavy arms over my head and felt the moment my fingers broke the surface of the water. Cool air turned them icy, and I knew I needed to get back to the house as soon as possible once I got out of this water. It was too cold to be wet and outside.
My knee screamed in pain as I kicked for the surface, but I ignored it and kept going. My head came out of the water, and I sucked in the cold air, filling my lungs with ice.
Everything around me was dark. The light of the full moon couldn’t reach wherever I was, so I had to feel blindly for the edge of the water, hoping it would be close. I didn’t assume Catherine and Charles had any lakes on their property, so the body of water had to be small. At least, I hoped it would be.
Those hopes proved true when my fingers grabbed onto cold wet mud.
I threw my arms onto the damp ground and tried to lift myself out of the water, but my coat was so heavy, and my legs were going numb from the cold. I could no longer feel anything below my ankles.
Kicking hard, I released my hold on the bank just long enough to shrug
