“There’s a giant ass bird in the tree right there,” he says. “Could it be that? Looks like a raven.”
“Oh, well there just happens to be a fucking raven outside my window, can’t mean a thing,” I tell him, coming over.
I peer outside and sure enough, there’s a raven sitting at the end of the tree, its silhouette lit up by the streetlights. It cocks its head at me, staring at me with beady, glassy eyes, then flies off, its wings beating heavily as it goes.
I shudder again. There aren’t a lot of ravens around here, only crows. And I’ve certainly never seen any past midnight, nor hanging around the tree outside my window.
“Ignoring the bird for now,” Dex says, though from the hard look in his eyes I know he’s thinking something of it too, “then what happened?”
“I heard the closet door open. It wasn’t open before. It was closed. I swear it. Then I went toward it.”
“As you do when you think there’s something horrible in your closet,” Dex says.
“And then I heard my mom’s voice. She said, help me, Ada.” I look at Perry with wide-eyes. “It was her. I know it was her. She sounded so far away, so . . . strained. Then the light went on and I screamed and ran.”
Perry and Dex exchange a look.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Perry says, coming over to me. She puts her hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “Want to sleep with us tonight?”
I wrinkle my nose. “No thanks. You do believe me, don’t you?”
“Of course we believe you,” Perry says. “You could tell me my old stuffed animals are trying to kill you and I’d believe you.”
“Wait, what?” I ask, my eyes flitting to the bed where I know her stuffed animals are stored in a box underneath.
“But I also think you’re stressed and exhausted and liable to seeing things. I know sometimes when I was seeing shit it wasn’t because there were actual ghosts, I was just so on edge that everything seemed out to get me.” She looks at Dex. “Sorry baby, I’m sleeping with my sister tonight.”
He shrugs. “Suit yourself. You girls need anything, you know where I am.” He leaves the room, stretching his arms over his head. “Love you,” he calls over his shoulder. “You too, Perry.”
She raises her brow in mild amusement and looks back to me.
“You don’t have to stay here,” I tell her.
“You’ve done the same for me before,” she says. She looks around her. “Though honestly this isn’t my favorite place to be.” She climbs into the bed, moving to the other side. For a moment I’m transported back two years when Perry still lived here, our mother was still alive and things, at least for me, were more or less normal.
But my brain won’t let me pretend for long. Even though Perry is still just twenty-five and looks pretty much the same as she did, there’s a world-weariness to her eyes, the kind that old souls have, the kind that says she’s seen too much and can never go back to the way she was.
I quickly get changed into my matching camisole and boy-short set and get in bed beside her, feeling like a little girl again under the covers.
I turn over on the pillow to look at her. “You know what this reminds me of? When we used to go to the cabin when we were little.”
She rolls over to face me, folding up the thin pillow underneath her head. “Was this when you said I had an imaginary friend and I’d go and talk to him through the window every night?”
“But he never was imaginary, was he?”
She shakes her head, frowning. “No. Nothing ever is.” She closes her eyes. “Nothing ever is.”
You’d think it would be impossible for both of us to sleep, but in seconds she’s out like a light.
Then I follow.
***
I’m dreaming.
For once, I know it.
And I know exactly where I am.
I’m in the Thin Veil, a place I’ve only been to once and here I am again; here but not.
The world is both red and grey, a desaturated hue that seeps into everything, my hands, my clothes, the crunchy, dead grass beneath me.
I’m sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean, much like the one Perry had mentioned earlier, the one in her dreams. Only she’s nowhere to be found. There’s only the empty sea with waves crashing below, faraway islands in the distance. There is a forest of fir and hemlock behind me, a dark, seemingly fathomless thicket.
Hi.
I whip my head around to see a man, the man, the leather jacket wearing ginger who may or may not be a man named Jay, standing over me.
I stare up at his hulking body, no jacket this time, just a plain t-shirt that shows off every taut muscle, and jeans. He gives me a half-smile.
Mind if I sit down?
He’s speaking to me, right into my head, without opening his mouth.
I’m not a fan of this.
I open my mouth and am surprised when the words, “Can I talk?” come out.
“Of course,” he says. “I understand it must be strange for you. It’s still strange for me.”
I frown at him. My dreams have been so lucid lately, but never the ones that have involved him. I’ve never been able to just exist like this, to interact with him and have it be so real.
I need to take advantage.
“Who are you?” I ask him. “I mean, I know I’m dreaming.”
He stares down at me, his smile twisting slightly. My god, this dude is even more handsome up close. I’m starting to think there is no way in hell that I met him in real life because if he really was the guy from the wedding, I know I would have remembered every detail of his face, no matter how blackout drunk I got.