5. The Nightmare

Almost as soon as Micah fell asleep, he dreamed about women in black. Empty eyes stared through the space of his dreams. The lily wrapped with bone dangled over him, bright orange petals dripping off and turning to ash. All he could do was watch, helpless, as if the petals were his loved ones. His dream legs tried to move him, but they were paralyzed.

Hands gripped his shoulders and spun him around, making him stumble. The blue-haired witch smiled sweetly at him, cradling her broken arm—bloodied and dangling with the bone thrusting through, sharp and white.

Micah gasped and fell back, crashing into ground that felt too warm, too wet. Heart hammering, he looked down. Blood painted the limestone under him. He lifted his hands and they were smeared with it, congealing under his nails, sinking into the crevices of his ring and staining the agate black.

With a cry of horror, Micah tried to get his feet under him, tried to scramble upright. But the ground was slick, making him slip and collapse on his injured shoulder. He screamed; the eruption of pain was blinding, worse by far than when the athame had first sunk into him. Micah rolled toward his good arm and tried to push himself upright, but not fast enough. Somebody jumped on top of him, clawing for his throat and finding purchase as they pinned him to the ground, crushing his windpipe so he couldn't breathe. Vision dark with panic, Micah groped at the hands crushing his throat. He lifted his eyes toward the face looming over him.

It was Sam.

Sam's slender face was gray, his eyes sunken, black tatters of clothing draping over his shoulders. His lips pulled impossibly far back from his teeth, turning his features skeletal. Under his matted bangs, his eyes were feverish, his pupils tiny pinpricks. Micah scratched at his friend's wrists, his lungs igniting with desperation as they fought for the last wisp of breath inside. His heels scrabbled into the dirt but just kicked it loose, doing nothing to free him, leaving him to die.

In her wolfskin, Fionna jumped on top of Micah's limp, clammy body in his bedroom, clamping onto the collar of his shirt. She lifted him off his pillows and gave him a violent shake. When he didn't come to, she dropped his shirt, sprang onto his legs, and sank her teeth into his calf.

In his dream, Sam's expression blinked out as if changing channels on the television. He suddenly wasn't Sam; his face was rounder, eyes brown and smeared with dark makeup, lips making an angry red Cupid's bow. Micah shoved desperately at the stranger holding him down. As he did, a manacle of heat clamped onto his ankle and ripped him out from beneath the assailant. He woke with a hoarse scream in the dark of his bedroom in the city.

Unable to discern threat from salvation, he kicked at the stabbing pressure on his leg and struck Fionna with his heel in the side of her head. She yelped and released him, stumbling off the bed and slinking across the room with her tail tucked between her legs. Startled by her yip of fear, Micah returned to the waking world with a jolt. Pain shot through him and wrenched a cry from his chest, but it burned its way up through his throat. Was he really dying? He flailed in his sheets and fought to sit up as Andrew reached blindly toward Micah's ragged gasping, which descended into hiccupping, breathless sobs.

"Micah?" Andrew swiped his arm into the lamp at his bedside; it teetered, and he caught it just before it fell. He clicked it on to cast garish light across Micah with his knees pulled up to his chest, rocking, cradling his left arm. Unseeing, his eyes were wide and flashing blood-red in the lamplight.

"Micah? Micah. Love. Micah. Hey, you're awake. You're safe." Andrew touched Micah's shoulder and then snatched his hand back. His fingers were smeared with blood. "What the f…your back is bleeding again. What happened? Y…you were just…"

"Th-They came in my dreams," Micah whispered, frantic, still rocking as he began to whimper, touching his throat with violently trembling fingers, eyes and nose streaming.

Though the words sent a chill racing up his spine, Andrew gingerly pulled off Micah's shirt, as careful with the left arm as he had been right after his injury. The athame wound over Micah's shoulder blade was open where it had been a raised pink scar yesterday, now slowly oozing and seemingly darker around the edges, like fruit rotting after you take a bite and set it aside. Bile rose in Andrew's throat, his heart lurching in his chest.

"Honey, c'mon, breathe with me. Look at me." He leaned down to try to get into Micah's line of sight, to try to push back some of that faraway terror turning Micah's eyes into chipped rubies. Then Andrew jolted. "Shit! Your throat." He tipped back Micah's chin and brushed the column of his throat, which was dotted with faint brown bruises. "What the ever-loving f…"

He turned as Fionna's claws clicked on the floor. She emerged from under the desk, ears pinned back on her head, her haunted eyes lit from within. Before Andrew could address her, she turned away toward the windows. Throwing back her shaggy head, she loosed a low, warbling howl through her dark lips and glinting silver fangs.

Micah jumped. His first coherent thoughts shook back into his head thanks to the trembling song falling from the wolf's throat. Andrew's arms were cool and solid as they wrapped around his waist and eased his sense of terror, but as he continued to come back to his body, he realized something was horribly wrong.

"Oh my god," he cried, curling up against Andrew. "My shoulder…it's wrong."

Micah's blood was caked under Andrew's fingernails. It paralyzed any words of encouragement from leaving Andrew's mouth. Instead, he held onto Micah's shoulders and tried to swallow his fear.

Micah shuddered as he tasted mulberries through his slightly open mouth. He peeled open an eye and straightened to look over Andrew's shoulder, toward the windows, which then gave him such a start he almost screamed again. "I-Ingrid?"

Ingrid stood under a moonbeam, chest heaving, one foot slightly forward as if she'd arrived mid-step. Her eyes were wide, shining like pools of shed blood. She stared at them for a moment and then shifted her gaze to Fionna.

Shaking off her wolfskin, Fionna hugged herself and whimpered, "Witches."

Swiftly crossing the room, Ingrid approached Micah and began inspecting him like he was her injured pup, perched on the edge of the bed. She lightly folded him down and swiped a finger through the blood on his shoulder before touching it to the tip of her tongue. Immediately, she grimaced and spat, leaping back to her feet.

The door to Micah's room burst open to a bedraggled Julian wrapped in a crookedly tied robe. He exclaimed, "What is that wolf—"

"Dad," began Micah.

Julian froze, wide-eyed like a frightened deer. When he collected himself enough to speak, he asked in almost a whimper, "Ingrid? Wh…What did you do?"

A flash of annoyance came and went on Ingrid's features as she turned toward Julian by the door. She said with kindness belied by the look in her eyes, "I apologize for the disturbance, Mr. Stillwater. Micah—"

Micah interrupted, "I just keep getting into trouble. I'm sorry, Dad. Can we have the first aid kit and some chamomile tea?"

Julian stared at Micah and asked flatly, "What's the matter with your voice?"

"Just the usual," said Micah. "Just a nightmare."

"Was it her?" He nodded at Ingrid.

Ingrid's expression darkened.

"She came here to help," Andrew said swiftly.

"Ever since you have gotten closer to her," said Julian, voice brittle, "you keep getting hurt."

Andrew stole another glance at Ingrid, who looked to be trying very hard to keep her mouth shut. He said gently, "Julian, I know you might think it looks that way, but I promise you that she is only protecting Micah."

"Dad," said Micah, firm but quiet, his voice strained and his face contorted with pain. "Please? I need your help. Can you bring the first aid kit?" He let out a thin sigh. "And strong tea. In the pot."

Julian closed his robe over his chest, his face creased with an angry frown. He clicked his tongue and turned to leave, slamming the door behind him.

"Why don't you have more protections in this house?" Ingrid spun to face Micah, fists clenched, voice brittle as glass. "How have you lived here this long without warding it? No wonder the Redwood Queen lured Julian back!"

Micah flinched. He stared at his hands, wringing them together.

Andrew fixed Ingrid with a fearsome glare, bright with fury. She met his eyes, brows lowered. As Andrew stared her down, slowly shaking his head, Ingrid's resolve faltered.

Sighing, she sank onto the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"No," rasped Micah. "You're right." He lightly rubbed his bruised neck. "This place needs better protection."

"Yes. But you can do it. You have the power." Ingrid clasped his elbow.

"I need your help." Micah shut his eyes.

She nodded. "You have it."

Andrew slid his arm around Micah's neck and kissed his damp cheek.

Micah opened one eye and looked over at Fionna, beckoning to her with a raised hand. As a frightened little girl in heart pajamas, Fionna shuffled up to the bed and climbed onto the blankets and into Micah's outstretched arm. She tucked herself in among Andrew and Micah and bowed her head, sniffling, rubbing at her eyes. Then she pulled on Micah's pant leg to expose her bite mark, crouching over it and licking at the red indents with her little human tongue.

"Oh, oh baby girl, you're okay—stop," laughed Micah as he and Andrew gently drew the girl away from his ankle. "It hardly hurts. I bet it hurt way more when I kicked you. I'm so sorry."

Fionna's face crumpled. She threw herself around Micah's middle and squeezed him so fiercely it knocked the breath out of his lungs. Standing over them, Ingrid rubbed the girl's back with a faint smile.

Fionna rasped, "I don't want the witches to kill you."

Micah's heart sank. "Yeah," he whispered. "Same, kiddo." He took the tissues Andrew offered him and held Fionna for a few minutes until her crying abated, and then he leaned her back to clean her up as she whimpered softly.

Fionna stayed pressed to Micah's side when Julian returned with what Micah had requested. His hands trembled on the transparent teapot. The amber contents were about to slosh over the edge until Ingrid reached over his shoulder and plucked the pot from his grip. Julian jumped, shying away from her, rushing to drop the first aid kit in Andrew's lap. Micah caught Julian's hand between his own before his father could back away. Julian's breathing was shallow and his eyes were downcast.

"Dad." Micah rubbed his thumb over Julian's knuckles. "Breathe. You're safe. She was helping you. Look at me, please." When Micah met his darkened amber gaze, he smiled faintly and said, "Just take a pill and try to get some sleep. Sorry we woke you up. Fi, can you go hang out with him?"

"Sure, we can cuddle!" Fionna yipped.

Julian pried his hand free from Micah, nodded faintly, and backed toward the open door. Pulling on her wolfskin, Fionna thumped off the bed and trotted after him, licking his fingers and bumping into his knee. Julian scratched her ruff and murmured something to her as he left the room and shut the door behind him.

Frowning, Ingrid sat heavily on the bed behind Micah's back, pulling her long legs up to sit criss-cross. Andrew unzipped the medical kit and crawled across the bed to sit beside her, and in weighty silence they began tending to Micah's raw, weeping wound. Ingrid sniffed audibly several times while she swiped an antiseptic wipe; Micah hissed and clenched his fists. Once they had wiped away the tar-like blood oozing from the athame wound, Andrew carefully stuck a patch of gauze over it which Ingrid taped down with neatly torn strips of adhesive.

"Andrew…" Micah's voice was a thin, haunted whisper. "In my dream, someone was trying to kill me."

Andrew glanced up, nodding, as if he'd already reached that conclusion.

When he looked over his shoulder to meet Andrew's eyes, Micah's irises were burgundy. "It was Sam."