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I desperately tried to placate my stirring conscience.I know this is wrong, but I have no choice. If I don’t do as Mother says...I didn’t even want to think about the consequences. Mother had always been vague about them, leaving my imagination free rein to wonder what they could possibly be, which only gave her threats greater power over me.
I risked a glance towards her fierce look of warning, which only compelled me to return to scanning this morning’s dream offerings. Since it was a nightmare I’d be forced to enter, I tried to find one that would be less frightening, but the shape and color of the dream offered few clues as to how much fear each contained.
I finally settled on a nightmare hovering near young Sophia, a murky brown triangle that seemed more innocent than the others. Its shrunken size gave me hope that most of its details had faded with the morning, leaving fewer emotions for me to try and find...if they existed at all. How I hoped they didn’t; the last thing I wanted was for Mother to succeed in her sinister endeavors.
I took a wavering breath and locked my consciousness to the dream to tumble inside. Once there I blinked, disoriented, as I tried to adjust to the dream world around me. As I suspected, most of the details had faded, slipping away as Sophia’s hours awake stretched on.
The details were faded and the colors were blurry, washed away like I was watching everything through a rain-splattered windowpane, making it difficult to discern what the dream was about. After some concentration I managed to pull my consciousness away from the dreaming Mortal’s in order to tug my body fully inside so I could more easily look around.
My brow puckered as I finally registered the dream’s location: a simple corridor, specifically a corner, where young Sophia huddled, crying. My first instinct was to step towards her in order to offer comfort...before remembering we were in a dream that had already passed, and thus she couldn’t see me.
I searched the abandoned corridor. Since this was the dream of a child, I expected monsters to approach, or the shadows to spring to life, or perhaps an intruder to turn the corner, but instead the hallway was simply...empty.
My attention was drawn back to Sophia when she tentatively spoke through her tears. “Mummy?” Her voice was small and frightened. “Daddy?”
No answer. Her tears increased, staining her cheeks, each one wrenching my heart.
“Mummy? Daddy?”
Again no answer. Her sobs became sharper, more desperate.
“Mummy? Daddy? Please, don’t leave me here by myself.”
But her heartfelt pleas remained unanswered. No one was coming. She was alone.
Horror cinched my heart as I suddenly realized what this nightmare was about. Sophia’s Nightmare Weaver had carefully crafted a dream that would touch on any young child’s greatest fear—being frightened yet left entirely alone. Even without seeing Sophia’s emotions I could feel them—the despair, the heartache, the loneliness, the fear...the abandonment.
Abandonment. Being alone. Forgotten. Discarded.
The emotions filled the nightmare, pressing against me from all sides until I couldn’t breathe. I wanted nothing more than to forcibly eject myself from the nightmare in order to escape, but my fear paralyzed me, leaving me frozen.
I watched each tear as it trickled down Sophia’s cheek...and suddenly I wasn’t watching her, but myself, so that it wasmewho was alone in a corridor with no one...because Mother wasn’t coming. She didn’t care.
Though I knew Mother wasn’t Sophia’s Weaver and had no way of knowing I’d tumble inside such a dream, I still felt as if she’d singlehandedly created the perfect one that would frighten me most. There was nothing she could have shown me that would have had greater power over me than this nightmare did, compelling me to do her bidding.
Whatever her elusiveconsequencesentailed should I fail to please her, I had no doubt that what I was seeing would be part of any future that resulted from my disobedience. Watching it unfold before me made it all the more real, which only gave my fears greater power.
Desperation rose within my heart, already tight with pain and anxiety—the need to do anything,beanything, to keep this nightmare from coming true.
Breathless and desperate to escape, I finally found enough magic to yank myself from the dream, pulling so forcibly I fell from my dream-watching tree. Pain spread through my body as I landed on the hard ground. For a long moment I didn’t move, simply stared up at the sky above me, murky grey just like my thoughts.
“Eden?” Mother approached to stare down at me, at first appearing annoyed. But then, to my shock, concern filled her eyes. She crouched on her heels beside me and rested a hand on my hair. “You look shaken. Are you...alright?”
The words seemed difficult for her to say, but she did say them, even as worry puckered her brow as she stared at me. I’d been shaken after searching a nightmare before, but not like this. My breaths were sharp, short, even as the shadowy memory of the nightmare entangled me, causing terror to cinch my chest until I could scarcely breathe.
“Eden?” Her tone was softer than it’d been in a long time. I latched on to her concern, however small, an assurance that despite her frequent hardness she cared about me, which was what I most wanted. If she cared, what reason had I for not wanting her to keep me? Why shouldn’t I do everything in my power to remain with her?
My conscience protested the direction of my thoughts, opposite where Darius had been trying to gently lead me. For a moment I fought this inward battle before my fears once more reigned victorious.
And nothing frightened me more.
Chapter 20
It took Caspian several days to arrange the promised meeting. I tried not to wonderwhyit was taking him so long—was Angel truly so bitter?—and didn’t question Caspian about the delay, too afraid of his potential answer. The anxiety was even more unwelcome considering Mother’s pressure to explore nightmares in search of the Mortals’ emotions had only increased.
The longer I continued to fail her, the harsher she became, leaving me yearning for the glimmer of kindness she’d shown me. And since it’d been nearly a week since I’d seen Darius, the strength I’d received from him was beginning to falter. The longer I went without my light, the more darkness began to creep into my heart, smothering the hope that he’d ignited within me.
This darkness and each nightmare I was forced to explore smothered my newly awoken conscience, and the effort to suppress it quickly became draining. The abandonment nightmare continued to haunt my waking moments with the reminder that it would certainly become my reality if I wasn’t careful, allowing my fears greater power in suppressing the true Eden whenever she fought to surface.
