Page 22

Eight

Petra

June 2026

Someone is crying.

I am standing on the stairs. Around me, the house is dark. Slowly, I ascend.

“Karmela?” I call.

No one answers. The sobs grow louder; they are coming from my room. The door stands slightly ajar at the end of the hall. Dread climbs up my throat as I enter.

My mom kneels beside my bed. I cannot see her face, for it’s buried in her arm, though I recognize her deep umber hair. She is the source of the crying, her whole body heaving with each sob. I’d seen her cry like that only once before, when I was a child, and it’s even more awful now, to witness it as an adult.

She’s clutching the hand of a man in bed. He looks faintly familiar, though something is off about his skin, the shade wan and pale.

Two facts hit me then: I am dreaming. My dad is dead.

The scene shifts, blinding me with a burst of sunshine as I’m transported outside. A middle-aged man with a mustache harvests lavender in the field, his tall body hunched over a lavender bush. Somehow, I know it is my grandfather. He straightens, wiping an arm across his brow, then stiffens. Instantly, the color drains from his face as his body slackens and crumples to the ground.

Next comes a woman with golden hair, kneading dough in Karmela’s kitchen. I do not know who she is, but I sense she is connected to me somehow. As she works, a plump green fig rolls off the counter behind her. When she bends to pick it up, she suddenly gasps and falls to the ground. Then I witness a man collapsing on his way up the stairs. Another man lying motionless in bed. Death after death after death, a gruesome montage of my family history that I cannot escape.

The dream slows as it morphs into the cemetery I visited. A man in old-fashioned clothing stares at a tomb, a haunted look on his face. I approach him, but the sound of my footsteps makes him whirl around in panic. “Get away from me, mora!” he shouts, pushing me away. I stumble backward. Only, I don’t hit the ground—I keep falling and falling, deeper and deeper into darkness.

I wake with a start.

The shadow figure hovers above me, its faceless head peering down.

A scream builds in my throat, but it can’t escape my clamped lips. I can only watch helplessly as the presence looms closer and closer, sucking in air. An inky tendril of hair slithers across my clavicle. On the inside, I squirm with revulsion. But on the outside, I’m still. Trapped in my own body.

Nails clack against the floor somewhere to my left. As soon as Rex enters the room, the shadow vanishes. My body slowly unlocks, and I heave myself upward, breathing deeply to calm my racing heartbeat. With a weak arm, I move the canopy aside to peek at the dog. He sniffs all around, his heavy metal collar glinting in the starlight. Not just any metal, I realize.

Iron.

With a tired sigh, I set my laptop down on the chipped wooden table before me.

The café, with its peeling posters on the walls and faded floor tiles, isn’t very inviting. But the Wi-Fi works and that’s all I need. I order a bijela kava—white coffee—and pull up a search page, doing my best to avoid the wary stares of the other customers. There has to be some logical reason my body becomes paralyzed every night.

As I wait for the results to load, I skim through my work emails. I’m on vacation for the first week of my trip, but after that, I should be finalizing a marketing campaign for a new winery opening in Napa in the fall. Thankfully, I’d already prepared several ads working overtime back home, so the rest of my load should be light.

My body tenses at the mention of Lavender House behind me. I glance over my shoulder to see a group of middle-aged women clustered close together, peering in my direction. Despite their lowered voices, I’m able to understand several snippets of their conversation.

Isn’t her family cursed? one of them asks—met with ominous grumbles of affirmation.

She better stay away from my son, Josip.

I heard her mother went mad.

I throw them a dark look in response. They quickly finish their drinks and leave.

Good. Less distraction.

I refocus on my computer, studying the search results with fresh determination. My spine straightens when I open a page with the following description:

Sleep paralysis is the sensation of being awake but unable to move. It happens as the body transitions between stages of wakefulness and sleep. During these moments, you may find yourself temporarily frozen, unable to speak or move, with the experience lasting anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes. Some individuals also report experiencing a heavy pressure on their chest, a sensation of choking, or frightening hallucinations.

There are several potential causes, including genetics, stress, irregular sleep patterns like jet lag, and even sleeping on your back. The last three all easily apply to me, and I take comfort in the explanation. Further proof that what Davor said was nonsense. The knot in my stomach loosens. My family isn’t cursed; the paralysis should go away with time.