Chapter 5

Chapter

Five

CINNAMON

I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there's no relief in waking.

Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

Low checklist:

Sit up… fine.

Take meds. Sure.

Brush teeth. Okay.

Brush hair. No. Ponytail.

Clean clothes. Sleep shirt and leggings is fine.

Food? No.

T he rest of the checklist? Don't care.

What if he died in the dream? If we died in the dream, would we die in real life? Wait, that didn't make any sense because he didn't exist. Maybe I should tell my therapist about Mare.

Oh yeah, therapy.

Fingers snapping in front of my face pulled my attention. "Lucy? You're disassociating quite a bit today.

Oh yeah, my therapist.

"Just tired," I lied. "Just ready for bed," I truthed. My attention flicked to the bare maple tree out the window, it swayed in the cool wind as if shaking its head at me in disapproval. Whatever, all I wanted was to go to sleep and find?—

"I said, are you still experiencing reoccurring nightmares? Are they now affecting your ability to function during the day?"

No, no, no . I'd been in therapy enough to know where that train of thought was going, and I did not like it. He wanted to change up my meds, he thought I was crazy, didn't he? If I pretended harder to be normal, he would give me a therapy gold star for the session, and I was one hour closer to bedtime.

"My medications are great, I like them. I'm sleeping fine."

"That doesn't answer the question. Are you still having recurring dreams? Why don't you walk me through one of these nightmares, Lucy."

Pulling a pillow into my lap I fidgeted with the tassels at the corners. Dr. Truman was giving me that serious look. I preferred his bored, disinterested look. This was the you're a puzzle I want to solve look. He was a pigeon, and I was a chessboard. I didn't want him kicking my game pieces over. There was no way out but to talk, and my brain wasn't as sharp as it could have been. Why was I keeping my phantom a secret, anyway? What was the point? This wasn't a chess game with a bird, it was just talking to my doctor— still, if I spoke about my nighttime adventures, they could disappear. What if it broke the spell somehow? I couldn't bear that, and the fear that it could happen, that I could never see my violet-eyed man again, haunted my days like the white sheet ghosts that decorated the neighborhood streets three months prior. Halloween. I wished I could go back to Halloween.

Thirty-nine minutes left of the session.

"Looking at the clock won't help, Lucy." Dr. Truman tapped his pen against his clipboard.

Knight versus pawn.

I had to give him something to get him off my back. "One setting stays the same, the rest shift. The person I see is always the same."

"Who?"

"I don't know who he is."

"Interesting." He tapped the pen to his beard. "And what are the landscapes of these dreams?"

"Sometimes a maze, usually I dream of the maze once or twice a month. The others change. The other night it was outer space, before that, a pirate town." I shrugged. "Like you said, the neurons in my brain misfiring, probably."

He hummed to himself. "Do you think of these dreams during the day? You know, statistically, most people forget ninety-seven percent of their dreams upon waking. Thus furthering the theory that these nighttime scenes we play a part in are just our brain's function of sifting through stimuli. Like a disposal system for our mind."

Disposal system. My chest tightened. What if my brain disposed of my phantom, and I never saw him again?

"You look distressed." Dr. Truman made a note on his pad. "How do you feel when I explain that information to you? How does your body feel physically right now?" Dr. Truman's dumb ballpoint pen scratched against his yellow notepad. Listening to someone write about you was worse than overhearing people gossiping about you. At least then, you knew what they were saying. I'd prefer a gaggle of high school girls chattering about my outfit over a balding doctor scribbling some hypothesis on why I'm fucked up.

I glanced at the clock, hating his open-ended line of questioning. Therapist-speak sucked. "My jaw hurts," I mumbled.

"So, the nightmares are worsening?"

"Why would you ask that?"

"Grinding your teeth at night could lead to jaw pain. A lot of folks grind their teeth during nightmares. Does your jaw hurt worse in the morning? Do you wake up with aches and pains, in general?"

No, I wake up with aches and pains because what's happening to me in dreams is real. Is what I wanted to say, but what I really said was, "I don't know."

He leveled me with a doubtful look. Dr. Truman knew I was a bullshitter. I was probably his least favorite client.

Afraid, scared, unsure?—

"I'm fine," I added half-heartedly.

He raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "Lucy, what are you not saying?"

Twenty-seven minutes left.

"Lucy," he pressed.

"I—" should tell him to shut the fuck up before I gut him like a pig in his sleep.

I startled. The voice that fluttered through my mind wasn't my own— it was— it was his. Mare .

Sitting up straight, I felt my cheeks flush.

"Are you okay, Lucy?" Dr. Truman poured me a glass of water, the ice clinking into the plastic cup. "Is it too warm in here?"

It's going to be mighty warm when I set his house on fire. Mare's voice purred into my mind. Hello, Lilac.

I stood, dropping the pillow and my purse to the ground, before hurriedly picking everything back up with shaking hands. "I'm sorry, Dr. Truman, I—I—" I couldn't even think of an excuse.

Breathe, tell him you have to pay your parking meter. Mare guided me, and I sucked in a breath, doing as he instructed. Dr. Truman bought it enough to let me leave.

"This isn't happening," I murmured to my steering wheel. "You aren't real."

Shall I smack you again? I did quite enjoy that.

His voice was so clear. I pinched my arm until it hurt— I was awake. Very awake. And I was hearing him. Or were my delusions creeping into real life now? Fear pressed into me like cold rain atop my head. My thoughts, my mind, they weren't my own anymore. What a terrifying realization… and even more so that I didn't care, because it was him. It was him during the daytime. It was Mare in my real life, somehow.

You're frightened. His voice purred through my mind as clearly as someone speaking from the passenger seat. Good .

"How is this happening?" I whispered.

Finish the rest of your water bottle, eat your protein bar, put your key in the ignition, go to work.

His demand was soft authority woven through my mind like an echo through an empty room.

Do as I say , he urged.

"I hate driving," I whispered to myself, to him. The closest I'd come to admitting what happened.

I know , he answered softly.

I obeyed his instructions.

At work, I made small talk with Brandon, remembering my stupid promise to watch old zombie shows with him.

I scanned organic apples as conventional for the nice people.

I scanned conventional oranges as organic for the mean people.

And Mare… he didn't speak again.

Work was dull. My headphones muffed my ears, an audiobook telling me a story as I absent mindedly scanned groceries.

"What are you listening to?" one nosey customer asked.

"Marked by Cain, by A.R. Rose," I replied, avoiding eye contact as I arranged the old man's boxes of pasta and ice cream in a paper bag. "It's filthy," I added as I handed him his bag.

He gave an uncomfortable smile and departed quickly. Sam and Dr. Truman would be proud— I shared about myself. I was proud because I did so, and it scared a man away. It was a win-win.

Two co-workers caught my glance as they whispered in my direction. The girls' faces flushing when they noticed me staring before they quickly busied themselves with arranging their tills. They were talking about me. I turned up the volume on my audiobook.

Finally untying my apron felt like unleashing a dog as the cool wintery air chilled my lungs. Nearing my car, a woman was hunched over on the ground, gathering items from a broken bag. The credits rolled on my audiobook, leaving my brain uncomfortably silent as I knelt and helped gather rolling oranges.

"Oh, thank you, dear," she said, reaching for a jar of cinnamon and spilling the contents of her purse on the pavement. Ornately decorated cards splayed atop the white parking lines behind the tires of my Honda. "Well, would you look at that? I believe a spirit is trying to talk to you."

I froze, meeting her hazel eyes for the first time. "What did you say?"

The old woman's long white hair swooped over her shoulder as she ran wrinkled fingers over the cards as we remained kneeling in the moonlit parking lot. She pointed to each card with furrowed brows. "The Devil, Death, and The World Card. An eerie reading, if I'm truthful."

"What does it mean?" I dared to ask, hating the silence that rang in my ears with the absence of my book or music or just something blaring into my mind. Somehow, I was on the ground with a bundle of oranges and someone who seemed like a modern-day witch.

"Honey, I feel there is a devil of sorts haunting you, plaguing you… death… it is all around you…"

My jaw tightened, and I fiddled with the buttons on my headphones. "Well, thanks—" I said, standing.

"But wait," she said, using my car as support as she stood, bag in tow. "If you defeat the devil in your mind, if you let him die, the whole world awaits you. The world… it is the luckiest card."

I bit the insides of my cheeks, pushing the unwanted emotions away. She offered me her jar of cinnamon. "It's the first of the month, dear. Blow some cinnamon into your doorway to keep the evil spirits out."

Not attempting to fake a smile, or hide my unease, I shook my head. "Keep it." My car beeped as it unlocked. "I don't want to keep the evil spirits out. I want to let them in."

As I slowly pulled out of the lot, I glanced in my rearview, and she was gone. There were no cars behind me, no one standing in the empty grocery store lot. Not the phantom I'd wanted, but the phantom I'd got, I guessed. Or maybe she'd been a figment of my imagination. Or, she was abnormally quick for an eighty-something-year-old. Whatever the reason, the chill bumps on my arms didn't subside until they met the hot water of my warm shower.

Slipping under my blankets, my shoulders relaxed, I exhaled, closed my eyes… and I waited.

I waited for my devil.

Finally, I met my bed again.

And then I had a nightmare.