The Cursed Blood, стр. 68
I was scooted off to bed and tucked in by a still slightly peeved Aunt Milly, and she and Gramps left me to sleep with Manx curled at the squishy foot of my bed as they were going to head back to the dining are for a snack and nightcap. The lights clicked out and the door creaked closed and I lay there staring at the ceiling to the sound of Manx gnawing on a bone.
Needless to say, after the day I’d had, well the last month or so really, wasn’t conducive to a good, restful night’s sleep. I tossed and turned in the thick, heavy yet silky comforter and sheets and no matter how I pounded at it, flipped it, or folded it, I couldn’t get comfortable on the pillow.
I felt odd, like something was watching and the unsettling quickening of pulse and such that accompanies such worries gave me quite the time of it no matter how tight I shut my eyes in slipping into any kind of sleep.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but the dream this night was painfully vivid, disconcerting, and real in more ways than one. I dreamed that the pretty young girl I only knew as Miss M was somehow sitting at my bedside, staring at me.
For some reason she was holding my hand and the look she had on her porcelain like face wasn’t altogether happy, despite the sweet smile. Pain and anger seemed to burn in her soft amber eyes that shone with fierce determination.
“She’s coming for you, my sweet one,” she warned in a voice that to me sounded like angels singing. “She’s coming and I can’t stop her. She has me tethered, making me do it– But oh, how I’ve tried! She punished me bad last time! So, so bad. It was just awful.”
The dream girl appeared like she was about to cry or perhaps scream in agonizing rage, but instead her hand just tightened painfully about my own. “I had to do horrible things just to be able to talk to you now, to warn you. I’m so sorry… I never asked for this, never wanted to do this to you, but I hadn’t a choice. You’re my only hope. I’ve seen that, and I can’t let you die. I pray that someday you can forgive me and understand why all this happened.”
She let go of me and I felt suddenly cold without her touch, like a warm comfortable blanket had been ripped away on a particularly cold night as she cried bitterly into her lace gloved hands. After a moment she seemed to calm herself and again grabbed my hand in a vice like grip as she stood and smoothed my hair and kissed my cheek, leaving me feeling happy, confused, terrified, and totally bewildered. “Please, Ben, tell your grandfather everything. He must know what’s coming.”
“What’s coming?” I asked wearily.
“I am,” she answered softly with dread and sinisterness in her voice that settled over me like a shroud of constricting ice that left me gasping for air. She wiped a tear from her face and traced a gloved hand over my cheek. “I’m so sorry, but you need to wake, you need to tell, you need to run. I’m coming, and I can’t stop myself.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the shadow of your future, Benjamin Bright, and perhaps a friend. Perhaps someday, something more than that.” She smiled, pretty amber eyes now glowing an unsettling shade of ethereal yellow. “I know you don’t understand that yet, but I promise you that one day you will. Wake and remember.”
I screamed.
That’s the first thing I remember as the world went mad and the door to my room all but crashed in off its hinges. Manx was going wild and light all but blinded me as Aunt Milly shrieked in horror and Gramps cursed and shouted.
The second thing I remember was the cold. So cold, colder than I ever remember being so as even the comforter was frosted and my breath misted as I blinked and gasped for air. I tumbled from the air and back onto the mattress with a creak.
For a long moment I couldn’t move. I just lay there as Gramps shook me and shouted things I couldn’t make sense of. Aunt Milly yelled and Manx barked like he had caught sight of a particularly maddening squirrel that he just had to have on the other side of a window.
“She’s coming,” I finally managed, and Gramps face paled even though he obviously had no idea what I was blathering on about and was obviously in a complete blind panic.
“She’s coming. We have to run,” I repeated mechanically in a voice I didn’t recognize amid the blur and fuzz the world had become as my head throbbed and my eyes swam. “We have to run,” I repeated as he shook me, demanding I explain.
“She’s mine, and she’s coming. She did bad things. She hurt her, and now she’s coming. Coming for us all, and we have to run. She warned us, and we have to run,” I babbled.
“What in the dizzy hells is this?” Gramps yelled as he whipped about and stared at his sister-in-law. The terrified look on Aunt Milly’s face said it all. She knew, and that alone turned his face a shade of grey I’d never seen.
“He’s been compelled,” Aunt Milly hissed. (A compulsion spell is a wickedly potent bit of spellcasting that forces another to say or do something the caster desires, limited only by their powers and the strength of the victim’s mind and the caster’s will).
“How is that even possible?” Gramps gasped. “We’re immune to magic!”
“Not all