Sleep No More

TWENTY-EIGHT

Everything is dark and small. It’s like my supernatural plane in faded miniature—a lesser twin of my own world. I keep the bat clenched in my hand. I don’t know where Smith is or what he’s doing in this little alcove in my brain. I don’t know anything. Even the few things I’d figured out about the supernatural plane are uncertain because of Smith’s lies.

The air darkens even further and I feel my stomach twist as I peer up at the scenes around me. It’s the murders. All of them. Even the ones I didn’t see.

Bethany running from black-clad Smith. He loops an arm around her neck and pulls her against his chest. His knife flashes. Red.

Eddie, Smith standing over him, a short bat in his hand. He swings it above his head like an ax, bringing it down on Eddie’s body with all his strength. Matthew, the back of his head exploding. Nathan . . .

Nathan!

I step toward his scene. There’s a dark figure holding a knife, but I can’t tell if it’s Smith.

Or me.

I run forward, ready to fling myself into the scene, but just as I leap, the dome rolls and a dark chuckle emanates from the space surrounding me.

I trip and fall on a gravelly surface that’s cold, but not snowy. The wind blows my bangs across my forehead as I get to my feet. I’m on the hill beside a freeway bridge overlooking a section of the road near my house. A sinking feeling engulfs my heart as I realize where I am.

I’m standing beside a truck—a light gray Chevy—and I know without looking that its license plate number is AYT 247. My breath comes in gasps as I peer into the driver’s seat at the man I’ve never known and always hated.

He’s not alone. There are two people.

Him.

And Smith.

I watch Smith point up the road and then slip quickly out of the passenger seat. As soon as the heavy truck door slams shut the truck takes off, spraying pebbles that sting against my skin.

I can’t look.

I can’t not look.

My breathing is ragged, as I watch the gray Chevy slam into the white car, which holds my parents, Sierra, and six-year-old me, with a deafening crunch.

I saw this once before in a vision. When I was six. But that time the truck hit the hood of our car, swinging it around to where another vehicle rammed the door closest to Sierra. I watch now, my throat choking, as the gray truck plows into the passenger door, pushing the car around just enough for the passing vehicle to hit the driver’s side door, pinning my parents in a veritable death trap and leaving Sierra and me almost unharmed.

Six-year-old me made the change—I delayed us over ten minutes by spilling juice all over my shirt. It should have been more than enough and I’ve always wondered why it wasn’t.

It did matter. Couldn’t have mattered. It was no accident—he was waiting for us.

I whirl back around to vision-Smith. “You did this!” I shriek, even though I know he can’t hear me. He’s not really here; he’s just a phantom. A memory. I stand there, barely managing to remain upright. Everything I always thought I knew was wrong.

I didn’t kill my father.

Smith did.

And my entire world tilts off-kilter.

“How could you?” I whisper.

He stands there, silently, out of sight of the crash scene, with a tiny smile of satisfaction on his lips. I want to strike him, to punch him in his smug mouth, and my hands are clenched into achingly tight fists when he turns, looks directly at me, and grins.

My two seconds of surprise give him the upper hand and by the time I lunge at him he’s already moving away. I leap, but a second later I’m sinking through the ground and settling into another scene. I turn, looking for Smith, wondering where I am, but he’s gone.

I try to walk forward but something holds me back. I look down at my arms and there are thick strands of black twine tied around them. My hands, my elbows, my feet, my knees. I try to brush them away, but they only tighten painfully until I let out an agonized groan and stop trying.

“That’s better.” Smith’s voice again. But not from all around me like before; it’s definitely from above. I look up and see a giant Smith’s face, enormous fingers holding something. All of the strings are connected to it and it takes only seconds for me to realize that he’s put me in a bizarre puppet/puppeteer scenario.

“This isn’t real,” I whisper in confusion. These strings, this weird setup, it’s not actually true. It can’t be. His dome is somehow different than mine. It shows the past. It shows physically impossible scenarios. I don’t understand any of it.

But my hands are moving and now that I can see past the strings, I realize I’m at my house. I’m making coffee. My hands reach into my pocket and pull out a small, dark glass bottle. I add something to the drink and then wrap my hands around the steaming mug. The heat from the coffee seeps through the ceramic and burns my palms, but I can’t let go. Tears sting my eyes from the excruciating pain, but the strings just guide my feet down the hallway to my aunt’s room.

“Thought you could use a fresh cup,” my mouth says against my will as I set the mug on my aunt’s desk and am finally able to release my burning, throbbing fingers.

“Oh, thank you, Charlotte,” Sierra says with a smile, and takes a sip.

The strings yank me backward and I fall on my butt, jarring my spine. But still, backward, backward, until the lighting changes and I’m in a new scene.

A grave site. I stand by my mom as she sobs. I don’t want to look but the strings turn my head and I see Sierra’s name on the stone. “No,” I whisper. “I won’t do it.”

“You’ll do whatever I want you to,” Smith says from above.

I try to run. But I take only two steps before the strings pull me back again. I claw at the grass, my fingernails tearing against the stony soil, but still the strings drag me. My bathroom this time. The air is steamy and I see my mom’s empty wheelchair sitting beside the deep tub. She’s lying in the warm water with her eyes closed, a rose candle burning on the edge of the bathtub.

My hands are rising in front of me even as I try to push them down. I’m silent, despite the screams in my mind, and she doesn’t even open her eyes until I’ve grabbed her head with both hands. She’s too shocked to resist when I slam her skull against the handicap shower bar with all my might. Blood pours from her temple, but she fights me now.

I have too much of an advantage; I’m whole and on solid ground. My arms shove her beneath the surface and hold her there as she thrashes. I scream, I beg for this to end, but I can’t even close my eyes as her body stills, gives one final twitch, and then relaxes.

“You can’t make me do this!” I yell to Smith, and finally the words escape my mouth, rattling my teeth.

“I can make you do anything,” Smith says not in a victorious voice, but simply stating a fact: like the sky is blue, and grass is green.

“No!” I grit my teeth and reach into the water that’s turning red from my mother’s blood. I have to rescue her!

Before I can touch her, the strings pull me away and suddenly I’m dangling from them, swinging violently back and forth. I look up as the tiled bathroom wall rushes toward me and I brace myself for the hard impact.

There is none. Smith swings me into another scene where together, we torture someone I don’t recognize. Then time is passing quickly and scenarios flash by in more of a montage than individual snapshots. Soon it becomes clear that I’m rising in power and wealth. And influence. Everywhere people pander to me. I order; they obey. I see myself clutching the necklace as I change the future to my favor, gain influence, and rid myself of enemies.

But now, in the background, so nondescript that everyone’s eyes pass over him, I see Smith. Within arm’s length all the time as we kill, as we curry favor, as we trample those weaker, smaller, until I’m sitting behind a huge desk in an ornate office somewhere, signing documents.

The text is blurred—of course he wouldn’t reveal his true intentions to me now. But I know whatever I’m signing can’t be good. It must mean destruction, agony, death. Smith is standing by my elbow, silently, but now he steps forward, addresses me directly. “This is our future, Charlotte.”

“It’s not my future,” I say through gritted teeth as my hand scrawls my signature across another paper. I don’t fight it. I can’t beat him physically. There has to be another way.

“These,” I say, gesturing to the strings on my arms, “they aren’t real. Everyone would see them. That,” I say caustically, pointing at the giant Smith-face above our heads, “is obviously not real. Every vision in my dome has the possibility of actually happening. This is some twisted version of my plane, and I can tell the difference.”

His lips tighten and I know I’ve said something right.

“These are your desires,” I continue, rambling in what I hope is the right direction. “And . . . your memories,” I add, remembering the scene of my dad’s accident. Non-accident. Then I understand. “You don’t have any actual Oracle power here. You can’t affect the future in your dome. Only I can do that.”

I expect another angry look, but he smiles. “You think you’re so smart. So invincible. I control you now. I’ve been wrapping tiny strings around you for weeks now—ever since you let me into your second sight. Every hour you spent using the necklace to come here strengthened my hold on you. Did you really think you were just practicing?”

Shame burns through me—that’s exactly what I thought.

He circles me like a vulture as I hang, unable to move. “You say these strings aren’t real, but they may as well be. We’re bound so tightly, you can’t resist me.” A low chuckle escapes his throat. “And you have no one to blame but yourself. The very first time you let me into your mind, you made the door. And every time you use the necklace with my spell in it, the door gets bigger. My world gets bigger. And it’s pulling your world in without any help from me at all. It’s too late to stop me—you had your chance the first night you reached the door. But what did you do? You went and had a date with Lover Boy instead. And now the balance has tipped.”

“No.” But the word is quiet, a no of surrender. I hang limp from my strings and want to cry. What have I done?

But . . . I brought Smith here. And his world is so much smaller than mine. How can he have the power? It doesn’t make any sense.

I brought him here with the necklace. He talks about the stone like it only helps him, but it’s helped me too. It gave me the power to pull him onto my supernatural plane.

Against his will.

I still have the upper hand. Or, at least, I do with the focus stone. I feel it pulsing against my chest and know I must be right.

It’s my only shot. I move my hand slowly, hoping he won’t notice. It’s hanging just inside my coat—between my shirt and my coat. I need to touch it, grab it.

“Why me?” I ask, keeping the resignation in my voice. Anything to keep his attention away from my hand.

He chuckles and the sound frightens me so much I almost forget about reaching for the necklace. “Because, Miss Charlotte, you are my perfect revenge. You will be everything Shelby wasn’t.” He draws in a deep breath like he’s smelling a delicious scent and I don’t understand again. “Those tiny visions you couldn’t fight—I fed off of them for many years. But just barely. Now I feast like a king.”

“What happened to her? What happened to Shelby?” I fling the words at him desperately. He cares about Shelby—I know he does. And the more emotional he is, the better.

His face snaps somber and I feel a little thrill of victory. “I couldn’t break her,” he says, his voice quiet. “I couldn’t make myself go all the way. I won’t have that problem with you.”

Straining against the twine tied on my arms, my fingers wrap around the stone and a surge of power runs through me. I picture the strings breaking and with a leap of faith, I throw myself forward, imagining myself strong and powerful. Stronger than him.

For a moment, the strings strain against me and I think I’m going to fail. Then, almost as one, they snap and I’m free.

Smith’s eyes are wide as I tackle him. He puts out his hands to break his fall against a rounded wall, but when my weight crashes into him, we sink through it to somewhere else.

Voices shout around me and one of them sounds like Smith’s, but I can feel him struggling beneath me and the sound is coming from somewhere to my right. Smith stills when a female shouts something I don’t quite understand. I look up to see a younger Smith—his hair dark with no sign of gray—his arm outstretched toward a tall, slim girl maybe a little older than me with strawberry-blond hair that falls down her back in shining waves. I can’t see her face, but I can tell there’s . . . there’s something wrong with her.

And then I realize her limbs are bent funny and she’s walking toward Smith like she’s trying not to. It’s a sensation I understand all too well.

Young Smith’s expression is weird too—like he’s fighting himself. When she gets close enough, a scowl curls across his face and he draws his hand back and slaps her so hard that her head snaps to the side.

And I see her face.

Sierra.

Shelby. Sierra is Shelby.

You don’t know how bad the visions can get, she told me when this whole thing began. Not even you.

I stand there immobilized by shock as a younger version of my aunt sobs, her shoulders shaking. Then in a show of strength she doesn’t look capable of, she somehow wrenches free of his control and jumps on top of him. For a few seconds, fists and fingernails fly, but Smith throws her off and then he’s above her. His hands clenched around her neck. I scream as her body begins to twitch, her face purpling.

But just as I’m sure she’s about to die, Smith’s hands fall away. His body collapses and writhes, and a small trickle of blood trails from his ear as Sierra gags and coughs.

The scene fades and I’m shoved violently off of Smith and barely manage to keep my fingers clenched around the necklace. Smith stands and looks down at me and I hold out my fist with the silver chain trailing from it in front of me like a talisman.

“You think that’s going to save you?” Smith says, and the fury in his eyes takes my breath away. I was not supposed to see that scene. I wasn’t supposed to know his secret.

Her secret.

“I’m more powerful than you,” I say, willing it to be true despite my trembling voice.

He grins and reaches out for my legs. I try to kick away but his hands are so strong and he pulls me across the floor to him. His nose is inches from mine and I’m frozen in fear as he says, “You think you’re in control? Even your powers are not your own anymore.” Then he reaches out two fingers, braces them against my forehead, and shoves me.

I fly across the room, through a wall, and expect to land in another scene—another grotesque dream of Smith’s—but there’s only blackness. And I’m falling. A scream tears itself from me and I pinwheel my arms trying to find something to grab on to.

But I just fall.

Fall.

Fall.

Until I hit the ground with a bone-splintering crunch.