A Strange Fire (Florence Vaine) (24 page)

 
The sentence is too true of me and of Lauren to simply be the
bizarre concoction of my dreaming mind. Besides, I hadn’t even known about
Lauren when I’d had the dream. It has to mean something, but I’m hesitant to
admit that the woman who murdered Lauren had visited my dreams. If she can
enter my subconscious then who knows what she’s capable of.

 Dreams. I think of the concept for a minute and something even more
disturbing presents itself. My dream of the changing woman is not the only
unusual thing I’ve dreamt since coming to Chesterport. The women in the robes,
the cannibal women. And God, it just makes too much sense I almost faint. They
found nothing else of Lauren but her bones. That means something had been done
with her flesh.
Eaten
vibrates through my head, but I don’t want to
believe it.

 “Flo?” says Sam suddenly, breaking through my inner dialogue. “Are you
all right? You’ve gone deathly pale.”

 “S-some puzzle pieces are falling into place.” I reply, in a detached
voice. I’d barely recognise it for my own if it weren’t for the stammer on the
“s”. It must be the terrifying revelation that has me feeling so strange.

 “You need to tell me what you know,” he says, his light spreading out,
touching me in a way so comforting, I could just about allow myself to fall
into it and away from reality.

 “I’ve had two odd dreams recently,” I tell him, not even trying to avoid
answering. I need to tell someone about what I know if I ever want to get to
the truth. “In the first, I was witness to a monstrous act of cannibalism.
Standing at the back of a large underground room, I watched as a group of robed
women hunched over human remains and ate them. Another woman stood up on an
alter and watched, cackling like an evil witch from a fairy tale. I could see
everything in the d-dream but no matter how angry I got, no matter how much I
wanted to stop them, I couldn’t. And then it was over.”

 Sam leans forward in his seat, eyes open wide, taking in every detail.
“And in the second?” he urges.

 “In the second,” I begin, swallowing down a gulp of saliva, “a woman
visits me, we’re in this empty white space, but she doesn’t appear as herself.
Her body keeps shifting form into different people, she talks to me in mad
ramblings.”

 “Can you remember what she said?” Sam asks, almost holding his breath.

 “She goes on and on about how I’m causing problems, then says,” I pause,
remembering the words that opened the flood gates to these dream memories,
“that the last girl knew when she had been there, but that I know when she is
there, and that it isn’t good.”

 Sam’s brow furrows. “That’s certainly a coincidence. Her words are
similar to what you’re experiencing, and to what Lauren experienced. But this
is good, I think I can find out what we’re dealing with now.”

 “And when you do find out, are you going to tell me too, or am I going
to be kept in the dark about this as well? I mean, I don’t even know what you
are Sam. How do I know I can t-trust you?” I ask the question but deep down I
know that I
can
trust Sam. No one could have such an aura of the purest
light and be anything other than completely trustworthy. Or else it’s a very
convincing disguise, I try not to think about that.

 “You will be told soon Flo, don’t let your curiosity get the better of
you. Now, I’ll take care of this and find out what I can. But in the meantime,
is there anything else you would like to talk about? We still have time, if you
want to talk about how you’re finding your lessons, or your father?”

 Instantly I clam up. “No, Sam, I’m fine.”

 He half sighs. “Flo, however you’re feeling about being new here at
school, you’re going to have to come to terms with your past if you ever want
to find some semblance of peace.”

 “I hear what you’re saying, and I know I h-have to do it at some stage,
but not now. There’s so much else going on, I just need to push things back for
a while until I can give it my full attention.” I tell him, surprising myself
with my maturity.

 The ghost of a smile takes shape on Sam’s lips before he says, “All
right, you should probably get back to class then.”

 I get up from my seat. “Bye Sam.”

 “We’ll talk soon Flo,” he replies, reassuring me in some way that he’ll
get to the bottom of what’s been happening to me. I really hope he does.

When I get to Business the teacher is in the middle of some long and
tedious explanation, it allows me to slip in unnoticed. I walk quickly to the
back of the class and sit in my usual seat beside Frank. He passes me a note,
since the class is too quiet even for whispers to go unheard.

 How did it go with Sam?
He asks, the words scribbled onto a page
ripped out from his notebook.

 I slide the page over to my side and begin writing a long essay
detailing what I spoke about with Sam. I want Frank to know everything. More
importantly, I want his opinion. It takes a while to get it all down, then I
pass the page to him, now covered front to back with my writing. Frank’s
eyebrow quirks up, as if to say,
a couple lines would have sufficed
. I
shrug and urge him on, desperate for him to read it and tell me what he thinks.

 The bell signalling the end of class rings just as he’s finished
reading.

 “I don’t like the sound of these dreams you’ve been having,” he tells me
as we walk to our lockers.

 “Well I don’t enjoy having them, so that makes two of us.” I reply.

 “But even more than that, I really don’t like the idea that some sick
murderer has been stalking you, walking in your dreams. And the invisibility
indicates it’s definitely something supernatural. What it is though, I couldn’t
tell you,” he stops a minute, we’re at his locker now, he dumps several books
inside. “Although it’s a good thing your ability is so intuitive that you can
sense when it’s following you,” he zips up his bag, turns to me and smiles.
“You really are something special, Florence.”

 “I’d take ordinary over special a-any day,” I tell him in a small voice.
“Especially if it meant I didn’t have to deal with such frightening things
happening to me.”

 We move on to my locker, and Frank goes to talk to Alex for a minute as
I put my books in, swapping them for others. I let myself exhale, my shoulders
drop, and a certain amount of tension leaves me. What’s the point in worrying?
I need to face my destiny head on. Lauren couldn’t escape hers after all.

 A familiar presence slinks up to me, I’m becoming more and more aware of
when Josh is near me, and I’ve yet to determine whether that’s a good thing or
a bad thing. Malevolence and dark interest mark him out. I don’t even need to
see his colours any more, I can simply feel them. This is new to me, just like
my discovery of how I can manipulate emotions rather than just see them. I look
to see where Frank is, he’s still talking to Alex in a serious manner, most
likely about my new predicament.

 I wait for Josh to make some snarky comment, but it doesn’t come, and I
don’t want to look at him right now. I’m too vulnerable. Too many thoughts
occupy my brain space, and despite how much I tell myself not to worry, that
it’s pointless and counterproductive, I still do. I can’t help it. It’s as
natural to me as the need to scratch an irritating itch.

 I fiddle with some stuff in my locker, dragging it out, pretending not
to notice he’s standing right beside me, watching me like some creep.

 Finally I let out a long and frustrated sigh. “What do you want, Josh?”
I ask, before looking up. His usually gelled into place hair is ruffled and a
little scruffy looking. There are grey patches underneath his eyes, premature
worry lines on his brow and around his mouth.

 He pushes my locker closed, turns over the lock, then grabs me tightly
by the wrist and yanks me around the corner, pulling me with him. His movements
are so quick that I’m in too much shock to react. My heart hammers in my chest
and I open my mouth to tell him to stop, to scream, call Frank, anything. But
I’m already hyperventilating as Josh pulls me along with him and I can’t get
the words out.

 Everything is too sharp, too rapid, and I’m far too panicked to be able
to do anything but try to resist his pull. I dig in my heels to stop him from
propelling me forward, but before I know it he’s opened the door to a small
storage cupboard and pushed me inside. He flicks over the lock after he’s shut
the door tight.

 The darkness of the small space makes me feel even more trapped. My
laboured breathing fills my ears like a fog horn. Then Josh turns on the light
switch. Shelves of cleaning supplies surround me and I try to focus on the
labels, going over the names of the products, reading them out in my head as a
means of gaining some calm. It helps, and after a minute of silence that feels
like an hour, I look up at him.

 My eyes are wide and confused when I say, “Why are you d-doing this?”

 Josh scratches his head, rubs his eyes, before answering, “I....don’t
know.”

 “You like to scare people, don’t you?” I tell him, my voice small but in
increments getting more stable, more confident. I let my gaze drop, because I
can’t bear to look at him. Both because his actions disgust me but also because
within his colours there is so much suppressed pain. Anger. Frustration.

 His blue eyes tilt downwards, then they scrunch up in outrage. “You gave
me the finger today in class, do you think you can just do that and get away
with it? Ingrid saw you do it, and now everybody knows.”

 “So what do you intend to do? Beat me up to teach me a lesson, then
what, I’ll have a black eye or something and everyone will say ‘oh look, Josh
didn’t let that bitch get away with telling him to fuck off, s-serves her
right.’ Are you deluded?”

 He shakes his head. “No, that’s not what I intend doing at all,” and a
strange expression takes form on his face. His colours go dark, so dark that I
cannot even fathom what he must be thinking of doing. He takes a step forward,
and another, until he has me backed up against the shelves. They prod into my
back, pinching and hurting me.

 He breathes down on me, his breath smells too sweet, like he’s been
sucking on apple drops. When he reaches down and rips open the button on my
jeans, realisation of his intentions hits me, and I struggle to break free of
his fingers clenched around my upper arm.

 “You d-don’t have to do this, Josh, I know you feel like you have to
reassert your dominance, but really, hurting me isn’t going to make you feel
any better. All it’ll do is sit on your conscience, eating away at you like a
plague.”

 “Who said I have a conscience?” he asks, voice hard, but I can see his
colours shift. A tiny glimmer of fear breaks through the darkness of his
intentions.

 “I know you have one. And I know what it feels like to have your parent
constantly undermine you. That’s the real reason why you’re angry, not because
I flipped you off.”

 His gaze narrows. “You know nothing about me.”

 “I know that I saw your dad t-treat you like a piece of dirt on the end
of his boot. I know it makes you feel like there’s a hole in your heart. And I
know that it makes you want to regain the power you lose when your father tells
you you’re worthless by putting others down. By making them scared or hurt.
Just like you’re doing to me right now.”

 His eyes go wide, and I watch as an inner struggle ensues. His colours
battle it out, deciding whether to go ahead and hurt me or to stop and admit
vulnerability. Finally his grip loosens and he steps back.

 “How do you know all that?” He asks, his voice tiny. Sad and defeated.

 In a moment of sheer insanity I lift my hand and touch it to the dark
spot above his shoulder, closing my eyes and envisioning light replacing it.
Seeing purity and happiness fill up the deep, deep, blackness. Josh lifts his
eyes, no clue what I’ve just done, but some of the frown lines on his forehead
immediately disappear.

 In this moment I begin to wonder. I wonder if it’s my weakness that
attracts Josh to me, since I’m such an easy target to dominate, or is it
because he somehow knows I have the ability to heal him?

 “I’m good at reading people.” I answer simply. Good in a way he might
never understand.

 He rubs a palm over his jaw, and looks at me as though he wants to say
something. I study him a moment, and yes, I think he wants to apologise. But he
pushes away the instinct. Josh may be able to admit that I understand how he
feels, but no way would he sink to the level of apologising, pride is a wall
few succeed in breaking down.

 “It’s just...this place. It suffocates me sometimes,” he sighs, and I
can tell it takes a lot for him to admit to any kind of weakness.

 “It’s school Josh, that’s what it’s supposed to do.” My words seem to
break his tension. Josh steps out of my way, and unlocks the door.

 “Go,” he says to me, but his aura tells me otherwise. He really wants me
to stay, to talk to him. Sometimes it’s true that it’s easier to tell your problems
to a stranger rather than to those closest to you. I sit down on the cold tile
floor.

 “You want to talk about it?” I ask, the urge in me to heal is so strong
now in this enclosed space. I don’t even like Josh, but I feel this pulse in
me, willing me to make him better. Just like with that woman I saw in the
psychiatric hospital. I’d wanted to march right up to her and fix her, but I’d
been able to resist then. Now I can’t. Josh is right in front of me and his
emotions are so shattered that I feel like I’ll die if I don’t make them
better.

 “You’re the last person I want to talk to right now,” he replies, in a
cold, dismissive tone.

 I look him in the eye. “Be that as it may. I think you know I can help.
You’re just too proud to admit it.”