* * *
The steady pattering of rain on a glass roof roused me. It was still dark, but there was an early morning light filtering in through the leaves of houseplants. Outside, a bird and a squirrel screamed threats at one another.
It felt like I had glue for tears. My entire body ached. I lifted my head, and was rewarded with a skull-splitting pain over my temples.
Groaning, I pushed my face into my pillow. It shifted and yawned, moving in a stretch.
“Morning, Miss Cling,” Mordon said.
What had him here, and why was I curled up on his chest? Thank goodness my hands hadn't wandered anywhere awkward during sleep.
Despite the aches, I pushed myself up on my elbows and blinked until I could focus. Mordon sat up, the movement dizzying. I squeezed my eyes shut again and rubbed them. “What do you mean by Miss Cling?”
“You took hold and wouldn't let go.”
“You're stronger. You could get free,” I said, easing myself into a sitting position.
“Didn't have the heart,” Mordon said. He winked at me.
I ran my fingers through my hair, and found it tangled beyond recognition. Wincing, I pulled back and started finger combing it out at the ends. “Honestly I wasn't sure you were even here. Things got pretty strange.”
“Yes they did,” Mordon said. “But you are being yourself again, much to my relief.”
Then Mordon jumped to his feet and ran into the kitchen. Perhaps neither one literally, but at the pace my brain was working at, normal speed seemed like racing. A paper slid under my nose and I squinted at it. “What is this?”
“Disenchanted parchment. You asked for some. It seemed like the most reasonable thing you told me all of last evening,” Mordon called from the kitchen.
How did he move so fast? I must really be feeling like crap. I stared at the paper and rubbed my eyes. I remembered, gradually, the events of what was apparently last evening.
Previous encounters with potions made it quicker to regain my senses and to sort out the truth from the ramblings of the subconscious mind. It was mornings like these that had started my journals. I looked around for Skills of the Thaumaturge.
The dark crept in on me. I shuddered and eyed a shadow with suspicion. “What time is it?”
“Five-thirty,” Mordon said. There was the hiss of water in the sink. That shut off, replaced by the clanking of pots and a click as he turned on the stove.
“What did I tell you?” I asked. Suddenly I remembered how Railey had stood behind me and transformed into the animation. I twisted, agony ripping down my back, and heaved a breath of relief to see it was Mordon drying his hands on a towel.
“A lot of very colorful things. Pink elephants. Talking lilacs. Dancing squirrels having tea with mice. And throughout this whole narration, you kept on talking about the walls bleeding.” There was a question in this statement, and it jarred a memory.
“No,” I said. “Not bleeding. Painted. Symbols painted on the walls, in such a hurry they didn't try to stop the drips. Do you have a pen?”
Mordon pointed to the ground next to me. A quill rested there, I picked it up. A shiver ran down my back when I put the tip to the parchment and envisioned the first symbol.
It was a memory, I reminded myself, a memory and nothing more. It can't hurt me. And I can't unknowingly cast it now, not on this parchment.
Feeling sick nonetheless, I pushed my memory and I forced my hand to move. I had thought I would feel some sense of accomplishment now that I had a fragment of memory back, now that I had tangible evidence of what had happened. But I did not feel accomplished. Merely tired. Not to mention confused. And very, very guilty.
No matter what had truly happened, I knew that Railey had met a terrible end trying to protect me. Again. And this time, I didn't even have the goodness to remember her sacrifice. I gave the paper to Mordon, who frowned at it. “This is something for Barnes.”
I nodded and followed him out, but I seemed to have fallen into a trance, trapped in memories and the after-effects of mandrake. While Leif and Barnes examined book after book following the symbols, I sat on the couch and brooded. I remembered that night when she was at my window. I remembered her voice, the tapping on my bedroom window. I remembered digging. I remembered her scream and a struggle. I remembered her death.
I had sworn that never again would I feel so helpless, so useless, so unprepared. Yet here I was again. I turned back to my book, determined, even as I found nothing.