12. Why Do Epiphanies Always Happen in the Middle of the Night?

Indistinct whispering. A busy hallway. Dark, carved wood, expensive, sound-muting carpet. Children and teens in navy blazers, backpacks on their shoulders, two lanes of traffic, shoulders bumping in the middle. Insults are muttered out of earshot of the teachers who stand expressionless at their classroom doors. That one checks his watch. This one smiles sharply, her eyes distant.

One boy nudges his friend before shooting his foot into the oncoming stream of students, tripping a girl. She cries out, pitching forward, falling on the students in front of her. Now one side of the hall is a jumble of bent legs and arms, spilled backpacks. Others halt as though at a precipice while the students passing on the other half of the hall continue on, heads twisted to gaze back on the carnage.

The boys smile secretly, the tripper feeling overwhelmingly pleased. He did that. The girl had shown him up in English class, knowing an answer he hadn't. As if anyone cares about poetry. She isn't feeling too good now, is she? He entertains himself, playing the moment over and over again.

The friend finally lets out a giggle and then nods toward a boy they're about to pass. The tripper shakes his head. It's too soon, and he knows it. The teachers will be alert, the other students too.

A long, dark corridor. Where have the students gone? Same dark wood and expensive rug, but this hall isn't filled with teenagers bustling to class. Whispering. Soft voices conspiring behind one of the many closed doors along this dimly lit corridor. Plans are being made. For next time.

The image jumps.

Delicate hands work the mortar and pestle. Murky light sways, always in motion. Torchlight. Her hand twists, a ring glinting on her finger. A familiar peridot ring. Calliope. Chanting fills the dark stone room, two voices twined. Blood drips on the open page of a grimoire.

The image jumps.

Someone is looking through a narrow slit in the shutters, into the studio where she sees herself sleeping on the couch. A finger with a long, sharp claw taps on the glass. She sleeps through it, but someone else has woken. Someone else is walking quietly down the loft stairs, head swiveling, trying to find the source of the tapping. She pauses at the sleeping figure, pulling up the blanket to cover her shoulder.

The taloned finger taps once more and then drags the claw down the glass. The woman turns to the door, thinking about seals and tennis balls, not the darkness that beckons. She reaches for the door—

"Arwyn? Honey, are you okay?"

I startle awake, my gaze flying to the back door. "Did you hear tapping on the glass? Is that what woke you?"

"No." Hester follows my lead and glances toward the door before focusing on me again. "I heard you whimpering in your sleep. You'd said you have nightmares every night, so I came down to check on you. That's all."

That's all, she said, as though it was nothing. I couldn't remember the last time my own mother comforted me when I cried in the night. And then I did. I remembered exactly the last time and felt sick with it. I'd been six or seven years old, sleeping in the room next to hers. I'd woken from a horrible dream, one that hadn't just scared me but had me crying inconsolably.

My mother was there, asking me what I'd seen. I'd told her Auntie Sylvia had a shadow following her around, one that sat on her chest, took her breath, and killed her. Mom stood abruptly and left the room. She never came back and shortly after that, I moved to the turret bedroom that I'd been asking for. Mom had been saying I was too young to sleep so far away from her. After that nightmare, I couldn't be far enough away.

"You're wearing gloves," I said, staring at Hester's hands.

"Oh." She looked down at her hands. "I wasn't sure if I was allowed to wake you or not, but you sounded so scared, I grabbed that pair that was sitting on your worktable so I could touch you and not make it worse."

She held up a gloved hand. "Are these special? Should I not have touched them?"

I let out a gust of breath. "No. It's fine. I have gloves stashed everywhere around here." Reaching out, I squeezed her hand. "I'm not used to people checking up on me."

She brushed curls out of my face. My heart clutched and I had trouble breathing. Why did epiphanies always come in the middle of the night? I loved my mom but had bitchily been snarking about her for as long as I could remember. In my defense, she could be a real piece of work. But she hadn't always been. She'd been sweet and loving when I was small, and then it had disappeared one night with a vision about her sister.

I'd gone from her baby girl to be cuddled and indulged to the problem child who needed to be endured while being pushed away. I hadn't understood why, to my mind, she'd stopped loving me, but I knew it had to do with the nightmares, the visions. I knew the problem was me but didn't know how to fix it, so I'd withdrawn, not wanting the darkness in me to hurt anyone else.

And now here was Hester, treating me like a child deserving comfort and willing to give it. When my eyes filled with tears, I went to the kitchen. "I could brew some soothing tea, so you can go back to sleep."

"I'm fine. You should try to get more sleep, though."

I blinked my eyes dry and then turned back to her. "No. I'm done for the night. This is when I'd usually bake, but I have an image in my head that I need to get out, so I'll paint. You should go back up to bed, though. Hopefully you can get a few more hours. Thankfully for you, painting is quieter than baking." I smiled, trying to project mental stability, but Hester wasn't buying it.

"Can I hug you?" she asked, opening her arms.

I almost waved her off, saying I was fine, but stopped myself. I walked into her arms and was hugged in a way I could barely even remember. If she felt the tears soaking through the fabric on her shoulder, she didn't say anything. Eventually, I got myself under control and went back to the kitchen to brew us a pot of tea.

"Would it be all right if I watched you paint?"

I nodded, handing her a fragrant cup. "It'll be boring, but you're welcome to stick around."

I was afraid her presence would make me self-conscious and effect the painting, but once I started mixing paints and staring at the canvas, I forgot she was there. My head was in the darkened corridor. I was seeing every detail, intent on recreating the vision.

When I finished, I saw the early morning light leaking through the shutters. Flicking my fingers, I turned off the overhead bulbs and opened the shutters. I'd wash my brushes in a minute. Right now, I needed to let the cold wind skating over the ocean blow the dark images from my head.

I went out on the deck and hung over the railing. "Good morning, Charlie. Morning, Herbert. Greetings and salutations, Cecil!" A tentacle splashed the surface of the water. I glanced around the deck but didn't see the tennis ball. "Good morning, Wilbur, wherever you are."

A moment later, the tennis ball arced over the railing and bounced across the deck. I ducked into the studio to get the plastic throwing doohickey and found Hester standing in front of the painting, studying it.

"Oh—I'm sorry. I completely forgot you were here." I shook my head. "Too used to being alone. I didn't mean to wake you."

She turned and smiled. "You didn't. I was watching you paint. I did drift in and out a little, but the last hour or so, I've been wide awake and watching. You're extraordinary," she said.

The wonder in her voice made me well up again. What the hell was wrong with me? "Let me at least get you a muffin." I hurried past, hoping she hadn't noticed.

"I mean, I watched you," she said again. "The canvas was blank, white, and then you knew exactly what to do, which colors to use, how to apply the brush, how to layer the colors and the strokes until where there was nothing, there's now a creepy corridor."

"Does it feel creepy to you?" I walked back, studying my own work.

"Absolutely. Evil things are happening behind those doors."

Nodding, I said, "I believe you're right about that. I just don't know what those things are yet."

Hester pointed to a painting in the corner. I followed the gesture and recoiled. Shit.

"I don't like that one." She patted my shoulder. "No offense intended. You know what I mean, don't you? I keep telling myself not to look at it and then my focus would drift from the corridor to the water. And every time I looked at it, the pinch to my heart became a jab, and then a slice." She paused, staring. "It's what my Pearl saw as she was dying, isn't it?"

I couldn't lie to her, as much as I wished I could. She already knew. I nodded and then she did too.

"I thought so." She looked between me and the painting. "Should I take it? Should I ask for my girl's final minutes?"

I shook my head. "No. This was me working out what I'd seen in a vision. Just like you saw me do with the corridor. Painting what I see can help me process it. Sometimes details I don't even remember come out in the painting. These are like—I don't know—journal entries. They're my dreams. I don't sell them."

I turned Pearl's death to the wall. "She wouldn't want you to see it, let alone have it. You heard her. She wants you to teach your neighbor how to garden." I took her gloved hand in my own. "She wants you to live, not follow her into death."

She nodded, but her heart wasn't in it.

"She'd probably also like it if you helped out your niece."

Hester's focus shifted from the back of the painting to me.

"I could use help in the gallery, a salesperson who knows how to properly brew tea."

Her lips tipped up. "Well, I do know how to do that."

I shrugged. "It might be nice to get out of the house and do something completely different for a few hours a day."

"It might be. I'm going to get out of your hair now. I know you have a mural to finish." She squeezed my hand. "I think Pearl wanted to make sure I was here last night because she was afraid of my being home alone. Thank you for helping my girl take care of me."

"You're always welcome here. I want you to remember that. I'm not used to having someone take care of me after a nightmare, so thank you."

She collected her bag and took the muffin I handed her, nodding her thanks. "I'll be back," she finally said as she walked out the back door. She leaned over the railing, said something, and then shook her head on a smile as she left. Hopefully, Cecil had said goodbye.