Page 146 of Whisper of Nightmares

“I saw you wandering out there,” Kelda is saying. “I watched you walk toward that cliff, and for a moment I thought…”

Her eyes glaze with tears, her voice strangled, and Euphemia realizes then what she must’ve seen. A young woman who’s lost a father, who left one troubled family for another, wandering toward a cliff in the dead of night. Kelda must have thought the worst.

Blinking away the tears, Kelda just stares at her, fighting with words that ultimately are too painful for her to voice. With a shake of her head, she eventually ends with, “For a moment, I thought Thorfell Manor might be cursed for all the grief it seems to bring.”

For once, Euphemia hardly notices the word cursed.

It doesn’t matter nearly as much as what Euphemia just accidentally put Kelda through.

Before she can second-guess herself, Euphemia throws her arms around the woman. “Oh, Kelda. I’m so sorry I made you worry.”

To her surprise, Kelda does not push her away.

She allows herself to be embraced.

Slowly, she wraps an arm around Euphemia as well.

With a sharp sniff, she ends the hug though. “Yes, well, that still doesn’t answer my question. Does it?”

Nerves twist Euphemia’s chest. It’s time.

“Alright. I’ll tell you. But you might want to be seated for what I have to say.”

For a moment, Kelda stands her ground, a challenging look in her gaze. But whatever she finds in her assessment must be enough to convince her because ultimately, she takes a seat. Asvald, however, remains where he stands, arms folded.

“Very well,” Euphemia says, standing before them.

But where does she even begin? What does she even say? That she’s been visiting with this woman’s son in her dreams? Does she tell her why the dream ward failed and that it was Euphemia who scared the spirits away?

Fear twists in her belly.

What if she tells them and they don’t believe her?

Worse, what if they try to stop her?

Euphemia clutches the cloak around her shoulders more tightly. “You’ll think me mad to say it.”

A single belt of laughter comes from Kelda as she leans an elbow onto the side of the settee. “You think I have any leg to stand on when it comes to calling someone mad? If anyone is near madness here, it would be me. Now spit it out already.”

The reassurance is enough to bolster Euphemia.

Perhaps Kelda is right. After all, she’s proven she is willing to do anything to save her son. Maybe she could help. At a bare minimum, it will be nice to have an ally, and not to have this secret wedged between them anymore.

Inhaling deeply, Euphemia begins.

“It is going to sound strange, but…I believe I have seen Dagfinn in my dreams.”

When Kelda’s expression does not flinch, Euphemia tells her as much as seems useful. She leaves out anything that might make the woman worry—like the helhest, Níðhöggr, the Wave Maidens, or the part where Dagfinn had been stuck inside a helhest skull for the better part of their encounters. She also decides not to share anything about the deed or the ghost, since in order to mention either, she feels like she’d have to mention Otho first, and that is a wound she doesn’t even want to graze.

What’s left is actually simple and quite tame.

A man in purple meadow by a brook.

A girl trying to uncover his forgotten identity.

Them spending a few nights conversing, and slowly him remembering more of himself.

Her seeing his face for the first time in the tower, and everything clicking.