Sweet Nightmare, page 30
All the arguments.
All the secrets.
All the wasted time when the tapestry got one thing right—we are so completely out of time.
“I’ll make sure he gets it,” Simon tells me, his face more serious than I’ve ever seen it.
“You guys, come on!” Caspian yells as a full-blown lightning storm fills the sky. “We have to go now!”
Seconds later, hail starts falling onto anything and everything. It’s not big hail, thankfully, just dime size, but it still hurts like hell when it slams into us.
Caspian takes off running, with Simon and me right behind him. But the hail just makes things more complicated for me as I try to avoid…everyone.
I dodge a man in a bathing suit carrying a kayak—a kayak—only to end up running straight through a future Calder Academy student on a bicycle. Pain assaults me, electric shocks racing through my body from head to toe.
I stagger a little but manage to keep going as I fight through the agony.
“Clementine?” Simon calls, looking both confused and concerned as the hail continues to pummel us.
Up ahead, Caspian screams as he brushes up against a giant strolling along the center mall with a fishing pole the size of a large tree branch slung over his shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” Poor Simon looks completely bewildered now as my cousin stumbles to a stop.
“What is that?” Caspian wildly flails his arms.
“Do you feel something?” I ask.
But before he can answer, one of the other students starts shouting and spinning around in circles. I can see that she’s walked right through a group of future Calder Academy students, but she can’t, and she is completely freaking out.
As are a number of the other students surrounding us, screaming and scratching at themselves and looking completely possessed to everyone around them as they lash out at nothing.
Or, at least, what looks to be nothing to everybody else. To me, it looks like somehow—some way—they’re suddenly feeling, but not seeing, the people from the past and future that surround us.
But I can see them, and everyone who is freaking out is doing so because they’ve just brushed against or walked through or gotten too close to someone who was either exactly where they were in the past—or who will be, one day in the future.
It’s the wildest thing I could ever have imagined, and to see it happen right in front of me is even wilder. Plus, it’s made a million times worse by the fact that the island’s ghosts have decided to join in the melee. They’re shuddering and complaining about the rain, but they’re here in all their nondescript grayness, nonetheless. Probably because every ghost I’ve ever met has a terrible case of FOMO. They all know something strange is going on here, and they don’t want to miss out on whatever it is, even if it means braving the worst storm to ever hit the island.
But their presence makes a complicated situation infinitely more complicated, though—at least for me. Because not only can I see decrepit old Finnegan as he waves to me, I can see past Finnegan as well. I can’t help but stare at the guy in a peacoat and work boots who is floating along behind him, a wide smile on his very handsome face.
This is what Finnegan looked like when he was young?
As if he can read my thoughts, young Finnegan shoots me a wink and a thumbs-up.
And, just like that, I give up on even trying to figure out what is going on in this shit show that has become my life.
Caspian hasn’t, though, considering he looks straight at me and demands, “What is happening here, Clementine?” as he shudders nonstop.
I reach out and grab his hand, pulling him several feet forward—and away from the young girl with ponytails and a teddy bear that he was literally standing halfway through.
I don’t have time to explain it, so I just say, “Get right behind me and follow in my footsteps exactly.”
“Umm, why?” Simon asks.
“Because she can see ghosts!” Caspian tells him.
Simon’s eyes go wide. “Seriously?”
But I’m too shocked to answer him. “You knew? But I never—”
“Carolina told me!” he says, rain streaming down his face. “She wanted to make sure I could watch out for you if she wasn’t around.”
His words hit like body blows, and I nearly go down.
It’s too much. It’s all just too much.
Too much grief.
Too much pain.
Too much struggle only to lose again and again and again.
It never stops, and I don’t want to do it anymore.
I can’t do it anymore.
I’m so tired. So hurt. So broken beyond repair.
I just want it all to stop.
But then I look at Caspian, and I can’t help thinking that he’s kept my secret all these years. That, in his own way, he’s protected me all along, and I didn’t have a clue.
I take a deep breath and do my best to fight off the sorrow that presses down on me with the weight of the whole ocean. Because I can’t give up. I can’t let anything happen to him—or to Simon, or to anyone on this path with us. I have to get them through the tangle of time that stands between them and the beach.
Them and the portal.
So I shove the grief and the horror back down to a place I don’t have to think about right now. And then I run straight for the fence that surrounds the whole island and normally cuts the students off from the beach and the docks.
As I run, I dodge ghosts and flickers, past and present and future, and pain. So much pain. But I just keep shoving it back down and keep going because students and teachers alike are following the path I’m cutting now.
Only the retrieval crew stays behind, packing up student remains so they don’t get left behind, either.
The hail gets bigger and harder the closer we get to the beach, but there’s no time and no place to take shelter anyway. So I duck my head, throw my hands up to shield myself as best I can, and keep going while Caspian and the others follow right behind me.
Past the main dorm, through the dense copse of trees that stands between the students and the fence, and finally—finally—through the brand-new opening in the fence to the beach beyond.
And then I run some more. I don’t stop—none of us do—until I make it to the loose sand right before the ocean meets the beach.
We’ve been running so hard for so long that my breath is whistling in and out like a freight train. I bend over, hands braced on thighs, and try to bring it back under control as I stare out at the roiling ocean.
It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, but also the most perilous. Because the surf is churning in the storm, causing giant waves to continuously hit the shore. They kick up detritus and carry it up the beach in seawater that’s gone black and foamy. The roar of the sea is deafening, overwhelming, and I can’t help wondering—even with the portal—how we’re going to get everyone through this.
Each wave that rolls in is bigger than the last, and it’s only a matter of time before a tsunami comes crashing down and floods this whole part of the island.
I look around for Jude, for our friends, for my mother, but between the storm and the hundreds of people from all different times milling around, it’s an utter disaster out here. I can’t see shit.
At least not until my mother starts shouting my name through a megaphone.
I follow the sound through the crowd—and even manage to get past the Jean-Jerks unscathed—until I finally see my always impeccable mother drenched in rain, hair plastered to her head, and blood, which I’m pretty sure isn’t hers, streaked across her face. Next to her is a younger past version—all bright and shiny in a pair of pinstripe pants and a white button-up, with a backpack slung over her shoulder—and a future version, stooped with age, an afghan thrown over her shoulders.
For a second, I can only stare at these two versions of my mother that I don’t even recognize. But then something else catches my eye, and I turn to see my uncle Christopher standing next to her. Next to him is Jude, looking as broken—as defeated—as I feel.
I stumble toward them, calling his name as I go. But the storm is too loud and he can’t hear me—none of them can. At least not until I’m standing right in front of them.
“Clementine!” My mother looks dizzy with relief as she pulls me into her arms. “Oh my God. I was so worried that the nightmares had…”
She trails off as I hug her back, and though I’m relieved she’s okay, I’ve only got eyes for Jude, who is staring back at me like I’m the only lifeline he’s got.
“There she is!” I hear Uncle Christopher growl at him. “She’s fine. Now it’s time for you to keep your end of the bargain, Jude. Let’s go.”
At first, Jude doesn’t seem to hear him. He just keeps staring at me with haunted, kaleidoscope eyes.
“Clementine,” he whispers, and for the first time ever, I don’t mind that he’s used my real name. How can I when he makes it sound like I’m the most important thing—the only thing—in his world?
Even knowing what he told me, even knowing what we’ve somehow done, I can’t stop myself from reaching for him. From needing him.
He closes his eyes as my fingers brush against his hand, his face alive with an agony that slices me to the bone.
“Jude,” I whisper, clutching at him because I can feel him slip away. Even before he pulls his hand from mine.
And this time, when he looks at me, his face is completely blank.
“Jude,” I say again.
But he doesn’t respond. He doesn’t say a word. Instead, he takes three steps back and just disappears.
Chapter Sixty
Any Portal
in a Storm
I scream his name as I dive after him, but my mother grabs me around the waist as all three versions of Uncle Christopher quickly follow Jude into the portal.
“Let me go!” I tell her as I struggle against her.
But my mother has manticore strength, and she uses every bit of it to hold me tight as she orders, “Calm down, Clementine! You’ll see him soon enough.”
“He’ll be at the warehouse?”
“Honestly, where else would he be?” She eyes me impatiently.
“I don’t know,” I answer slowly. “I just thought, people are…”
I trail off because I don’t want to say it. I’m not sure I even can say it.
“Dead?” My mother doesn’t shy away from the truth. “Not saying it doesn’t make it not true, Clementine. Just like not saying it doesn’t make it not Jude’s fault. There will be consequences for this—severe consequences. But did you really think I would banish him for one mistake? This school doesn’t work like that, and you should know that. Besides, there’s nowhere else for him to go. We are the last resort.”
The words the Aethereum dance on the edge of my tongue—it’s where I’ve been terrified they would send him from the moment he told me what happened, just like they sent Carolina—but if my mother hasn’t thought of it, I’m certainly not going to bring it up right now. Or ever.
“Now, can you please help me with this?” She thrusts her tablet with its waterproof cover at me. “Christopher was marking people off as we send them through the portal, but now you can do that. And let’s move, shall we? The sooner we get everyone through, the sooner we can go through, too.”
I take the tablet from my mother, and as I do, there’s a strange flicker—half beside her, half on top of her—and then I’m staring at a younger woman who looks a lot like her, but also doesn’t.
At first, I think it’s just her past self, but that doesn’t make any sense. Because her past self is on her other side, right next to her future self. There can’t be four versions of my mother, can there?
Except, when I look closer, I realize the flicker is the same woman that’s been haunting me—same brown hair, same floral nightdress, same pregnant belly.
I try to ignore her as she stares straight at me with big blue eyes the same color as my mother’s—and mine. That’s when I realize that she’s in color. Like full, actual color. Not just her nightdress now, but all of her. Dark brown hair, soft blush lips, freckled ivory skin, nightdress in varying shades of pink.
She reaches for me, her long, skeletal hand flying for my wrist as, instinctively, I flinch away. She cries out then, a long, low wail that turns into a scream just as she morphs into the wild-haired, desperate sunken creature that’s been haunting me since this storm began.
Her fingers wrap around my wrist in an iron grip, and the moment they start to squeeze, pain radiates through me. Sharp, visceral, overwhelming.
Visions engulf me, slamming into me like wild, storm-tossed waves against the shore, before dragging me down into an abyss.
A man—a fae with the same orange eyes as Jean-Luc.
My mother, grabbing onto a wrist stacked with multicolored friendship bands.
Carolina, struggling to free her wrist as tears pour down her face.
My mother looks so angry, Carolina so scared.
Fear swells inside of me, blends with the wild confusion whipping through my mind. But for the first time since these visions began, the fear is nearly drowned by rage.
“Clementine!” My mother’s voice—sharp and impatient—cuts through the fear. “Will you please pull yourself together and help me?”
I blink, and the creature vanishes like mist, though the emotions it invoked take longer to fade.
“Clementine! Are you listening?” my mother demands.
“Yes!” I wave the tablet as I force myself to pay attention to what’s happening right in front of me in the real, corporeal present. “What do I need to do?”
“I just went through the whole thing,” she tells me. “Were you not listening at all?”
I duck my head and mumble, “Sorry.”
She gestures to the tablet. “We’ve got the students divided alphabetically into groups of twenty. Each group is with a teacher that will accompany them through the portal. We mark each student off as they enter the portal, and your aunt Carmen marks them off as soon as they get to the warehouse on the other side of the portal. We are not taking any chances with leaving even one student behind, so you have to do this right. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yeah, of course.” I stare down at the list on the tablet in front of me. Juniors with last names A through C.
“We’ve already got the freshmen and sophomores over, so let’s get the juniors and seniors over now. Then we can finally get out of this hellish storm.”
As if to reinforce her words, the wind chooses that moment to let loose with a long, low, animalistic yowl. It slams into me with the force of a wrecking ball, almost knocking me off my feet.
My mother steadies me, and her face is even more grim, though I didn’t know that was possible. “Let’s get this done,” she tells me.
“Why did we choose to do the portal out here?” I ask, shouting to be heard over the roar of the wind and the sea.
“The security witches said this was our best bet to build a portal this complex that would allow us to transfer several students at the same time,” my mother answers with an annoyed wave of her hand. “Something about the meeting of three powerful elements being much stronger than two not-so-powerful ones.”
I can’t help glancing back at the ocean. Yeah, there’s definitely power there. Too much power, at the moment, if you ask me.
We start the first group through, and I mark each of them off as they step into the portal. “Are all portals like that?” I ask my mom as the sky shimmers and vibrates above us. I can’t actually see any defined walls for the portal, but there’s definitely something there because everything kicked up by the wind keeps slamming into something as it flies through the sky.
“Secure ones are,” she answers. “We have a very specific protocol in place in order to keep these students safe and their powers locked down. That shimmer you see is part of it.”
I’m not sure what about this screams safety to her, but I don’t say anything else as we start on students with the last names D through F. Then again, how else could we safely evacuate people in the middle of all this? There’s no way any traditional modes of transportation would get through this mess.
So, as the storm rages around us, I concentrate on doing my job as quickly and efficiently as I can—as does my mom. We’re all the way up to the junior class Ts through Zs when another bout of lightning fills the sky.
Again, there’s that weird shimmer in the sky that doesn’t seem quite right to me. I blink and rub a hand across my soaking-wet eyes and look again. And scream as I watch dozens of students suddenly fall through the air.
“Clementine!” My mother turns to me wild-eyed. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What do you mean what’s wrong?” I point at the disaster unfolding in front of me. “Can’t you see?”
“See what?” she asks.
I blink and the scene disappears as quickly as it came. “I don’t understand,” I whisper. “I saw—”
“What?” my mother demands. “What did you see?”
“I don’t know. There were students falling through the sky. It didn’t make any sense to me.”
She studies me for a few seconds, her eyes moving over every inch of my face as if she’s looking for something. I don’t know what. And then she turns and walks several feet to Ms. Picadilly and Mr. Abdullah—the two most powerful witches on campus—who, I now realize, have been casting the portal this whole time.
“Is everything okay?” she asks them. “Any problems holding the portal?”
“No,” Ms. Picadilly shouts to be heard over the storm. “Everything’s perfect. It’s going like clockwork.”
“Abe?” my mother asks, turning to Mr. Abdullah. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s fine, Camilla,” he says. “Why? Do you think something’s wrong?”
