wound around my heart.
I told myself that it was just the shifting curtains or the branch of a tree
outside…but then, with a soft, slow motion, the old rickety mattress sagged
beside me. I tried to whip my head around to the right, but my body only
moved as if pushing through molasses.
Deep dread squeezed my lungs and throat as I looked into the blurred,
inky face of the intruder.
The faceless man.
He sat there beside me on my bed, head cocked curiously to the side.
I opened my mouth to scream, but he quickly placed a finger to my lips.
“Come, now, we don’t want to wake anyone up. It’s the middle of the night.”
My cry burned in my lungs, but no sound came out, no matter how hard I
pushed.
The blur followed his face, just like when I’d scried. But his appearance
was different—his body distorted the air around him, stretching the shapes of
everything like fabric pulled tight over an object beneath. It was as if,
somehow, he were pushing his way through a picture of my room.
A familiar voice snarled in the back of my mind. Wake up!
Shit. It was still a dream.
I forced words out of my leaden lips. “I. Am. Still. Dreaming…You.
Aren’t. Here.”
He brushed my hair from my shoulder and whispered, “Yes, Savannah.
You’re dreaming. But your eyes are wide open because I want you to see
what happens next. Don’t worry. Soon, you’ll be with me.”
Rage fogged the corners of my vision, and I pushed a hiss from my frozen
lips. “Soon, you’ll be dead.”
His hand paused. “Oh, Savannah, you have such a penchant for irony.”
The faceless man rose, strode around the end of the bed, and examined
the random sketches scattered over the furniture. “You do art things. How
quaint.”