Page 33 of Some Kind of Haunted

The Feed.

Nora said the Feed. Just like Harrison did in my dream. I stare at her and suddenly I can hear the hideous slurping sounds that have haunted my dreams my whole life. Not because they’re happening—thank God—but because those are the sounds the words the Feed bring to mind.

But I shove those revolting sounds aside because something way bigger is happening.

They’re all acting as if the events of my dream last night are something that actually occurred. And more, like it happened to all of us. Like Logan and Jack were really there. Like everything Harrison told us is real and true in the light of day.

You have to appease the demons, the old man said.

I look around the table. Everyone is serious. Everyone is . . . No one thinks that I dreamed last night. Jack, who hasn’t exactly taken me under his gruff wing, remembers it like he was there. Because he was.

Because it was real.

All the things I convinced myself couldn’t be real, weren’t truly a threat anywhere but in my head, and were laughed at by anyone I confided in—except Logan—are suddenly . . . just what happened.

Like I’m not a lunatic after all.

Not in Midas, Iowa, anyway.

I lean forward across the table and meet Nora’s blue gaze. I want to reach out and grab her hands and hold on for dear life, but I know better. I know how my impulsive actions tend to be received, particularly when I feel this wild beating of my heart. Like too much panic and not enough sense. And I don’t want to scare Nora off.

“You . . . had the same dream I did last night?” I ask her, almost whispering it. I’ve been down this road too many times. Showing my crazy parts and having them shoved back at me with a vengeance. I should know better.

Nora tilts her head. “Yours wasn’t a dream, Lexi. I dreamed what was happening to you,” Nora says, her gaze shifting briefly to Logan before it returns to me. “Kind of like I was there, but I wasn’t.”

It takes me a minute.

Maybe more than a minute, because I can’t accept this so easily. Too many years of not being taken seriously and, in fact, being pathologized for the things in my head. Too many years of therapists and medications and interventions and low, concerned conversations about psychiatric holds.

I would think that Logan must have told them to play along with my dreams. He’s likely already in their group chat. But . . . that doesn’t make sense. Nora seems like the type to coddle someone in the midst of a psychotic breakdown, sure, and Cleo can apparently be friendly when she chooses.

But Jack Bellamy? No way. If he won’t even entertain my asking for an off-menu item, he’s certainly not going to pretend demons exist for my peace of mind.

Demons. Slurping. Evil clock towers and flood walls with blood. All these things here in Midas that I recognize from my dreams are real. My heart is beating so hard it hurts. It’s not that I don’t believe them.

It’s that I want to believe them. Too much.

It’s that if I let myself believe . . . I have to close my eyes a moment and breathe. Find some kind of center.

“So, you’re expecting us to believe you dreamed what was actually happening to Lexi?” Logan asks her. I imagine that is what he sounds like when he cross-examines a witness he wants to discredit.

I open my eyes and Nora has gone very . . . blank. While Cleo scowls at Logan. And as much as I love my brother and the way he’s always stood up for me, I don’t love him aiming doubt at Nora.

I know too well what it’s like to be the one being treated that way.

I open my mouth to defend Nora, but Cleo beats me to it.

“I vote we feed him to the demons first.”

Logan scowls. Cleo smirks, and Nora leans forward very earnestly. “I do expect you to believe that,” she tells him. Very seriously, looking right at him.

I am fascinated to watch my brother be the one to break eye contact first, to look away, almost like he’s ashamed.

Then Nora turns that earnest gaze to me. “It didn’t occur to us you didn’t know. We kind of thought you stayed away, well, because you did know. Most people who leave can’t remember the truth about Midas. But your grandmother always told Harrison your father remembered enough to keep you away. To keep you safe. And that the photos he sent her proved it. I suppose he could have been protecting you, too.”

“Protecting us from . . . demons?” I reply, still not sure I can fully buy in to last night being real. In to deals made with founding families. Feeding every generation.

And a harbinger whose arrival warns it’s coming all over again.