It was obvious my other self was upset about something; her lower lip trembled and her other hand had fisted into the bedspread.
“You did nothing wrong,” Mom told her gently.
“But the roof,” the other Fortuna said in a small voice, casting her eyes upward. I looked up, too, thinking there would only be the ceiling of the cavern we stood in. But now there was a roof above them, and it had been completely decimated by the twisted tree. Jagged pieces of wood, broken plaster, and scraps of shingles littered the ground around its base.
That’s because it’s real, I thought with another rush of remembrance. The strange tree wasn’t just part of this grove in my dreamscape—it had literally sprouted in my bedroom. For weeks after that, Damon and I had been forced to share his while the repairs were being made.
Dad made a dismissive gesture. “A roof can be fixed.”
“We only care about you, sweetheart,” Mom added. She paused, and uncertainty flitted across her face. “Can you tell us how you did it?”
“I don’t know,” the younger Fortuna whimpered. “I was sleeping, I swear. I had a dream about the game.”
“The game?” Dad echoed, frowning.
“The one Damon and I play.”
“Ah, I see.” Dad’s expression cleared. He exchanged a glance with my mom that I couldn’t decipher, even now, and then he suggested, “Why don’t you sleep with Damon tonight? It’ll get cold in here soon.”
The other Fortuna nodded. Dad bent over and, careful not to jostle my cast, scooped me into his arms. He carried me through the open door. But apparently Damon, his bedroom, and none of the furniture were part of this memory, because it looked as if my father was setting me down mid-air when we reached the bed.
“There was a noise,” I heard Damon’s voice say.
Our mother made a soothing sound and sat beside him, or where I imagined he was. Dad went about tucking invisible blankets in more firmly around our small bodies, and Mom moved to kiss our foreheads. Then they were telling us to get some sleep and they’d be right down the hall if we needed them.
Adult me stood there, in the shadows, observing with a lump in my throat.
The girl in that bed was so infuriatingly clueless, and suddenly I had to suppress the urge to shake her. She didn’t know what was coming, or that she should cherish nights like this. Her parents had started teaching her how to protect herself when she was five years old, because that was the reality of being a Nightmare. Nothing would prepare her for losing them, though.
Though the memory seemed to be at an end, my younger self genuinely appearing to fall asleep, Oliver and I didn’t move.
It was a good thing we didn’t, because a few seconds later, we watched the other Fortuna creep from a bed we still couldn’t see. I wasn’t surprised when she opened the door and crawled down the hallway—eavesdropping was an interest I’d developed early in life.
“Typical,” Oliver said under his breath, bumping me with his shoulder. I gave him a watery smile before I turned back to the surreal play.
We still couldn’t see other walls or rooms, but I knew my younger self was heading toward the kitchen, which was on the other end of the house. She slowly poked her face around the corner. Dad was on his knees, picking up shards of a broken wine glass. He must’ve dropped it when they heard the roof shattering.
The glass slid into a trash bin, and then Dad turned to face Mom. “It’s time,” he said.
Christine Sworn didn’t answer. She just blinked rapidly, her lips pursed. In that moment, it fully hit me, how much I resembled her. I’d stared at myself in the mirror while I was trying not to cry—my face looked exactly like Mom’s did now.
“She’s seven years old,” she said finally. “She’s only seven.”
Dad looked like he was in pain. “And if she’s this powerful now, imagine what it’ll be like once she hits puberty.”
And with that, like the final scene to a play, the memory went dark. I stayed where I was, staring at nothing. I could still see my parents standing there, the air ripe with their dread.
“This is what sent them to Tamar’s,” I said, feeling dazed.
My abilities had been so potent that I was causing things to happen. My fear had been trickling into reality. There was nothing that could’ve prepared Mom and Dad for it—such unchecked power was unheard of in a child.
Oliver put his hand on my shoulder. “Fortuna?”
“What was your technique again? No, wait, don’t tell me,” I said abruptly. My mind loosened as I remembered, as if it had been twisting into anxious knots. “Picture the worst possible outcome. That’s what you told me. Damn, I really should’ve tried it. I wasn’t ready for this, Ollie.”
My voice broke.
I told myself it was just the stress of this endless night, but then Oliver put his arms around me. He rested his chin on top of my head. I waited for him to say something, because this was Oliver. He always knew the perfect way to offer comfort. But he stayed silent.
Something about that silence was my undoing.
I pressed my face into Oliver’s chest and started to cry. I cried in a way I hadn’t let myself since that day next to the garage, when Laurie had been the one holding me. The sobs wracked my entire body. Through it all, Oliver still didn’t speak.
Eventually the sobs faded into hiccups, and the hiccups gave way to a hollow silence. My cheek rested against the front of Oliver’s damp shirt and I stared toward the trees without seeing them; I was picturing the expression on my parents’ faces again.
“They were scared of me,” I whispered.
Oliver tightened his hold, as if he could use his body to shield me from the pain. “You don’t know that.”
“I do, though. I can’t even blame them. Somehow, I was manifesting…” I sucked in a shocked breath when I remembered those creatures. Those red-eyed hounds that had appeared in the woods during one of my jogs. Finn and I had killed them. The incident felt like a lifetime ago, and so much had happened since then that I’d tucked it away, always meaning to go back to it. Wonder where those things had come from.
There was still no other way to explain them. This was the piece I’d been missing, the knowledge I’d been seeking when I asked Dracula about the forgotten stories of my kind.
Somehow, my own fears had the capability of becoming reality.
What if… what if I could use this? I had no idea how that part of my abilities worked, or whether there were unforeseen consequences to using it, but that didn’t matter. Any of it.
Could it be possible to make Oliver part of my world? To bring him into the living, breathing, real place he’d been painting for as long as he’d existed?
In that moment, I imagined a future I’d only allowed myself to picture during my weakest moments. Oliver, standing across from me, not as an impossible dream, but as a surreal reality. Oliver, waking up beside me in the bed I’d fallen asleep in. Oliver, fucking me in the shower as he got ready for the day. Oliver, flashing his shy, crooked grin as he rushed off to whatever life he’d chosen for himself—art school, maybe, or working in a job that focused on helping people. Oliver, waiting for me at the end of an aisle, wearing a suit and my family standing all around. Oliver, holding my hand in a delivery room while I fought to birth the family we’d created together.