The Ancient World

Chapter Five – Journal

JournalThe good thing about Ehrien’s school was that they scheduled all projects and reports in the beginning of the year, allowing the students to get a head start. Ehrien always started them in the first weekend, because one week into school was all it took for her will to vanish, which meant she had to concentrate before that happened. And since it was a probability she would lose most of Saturday because of the fair, Ehrien sat at her desk, doing her homework.

For two hours, she had been looking at the scattered notebooks over her table. Finally, she rolled her chair away and got up, stretching her shoulders and back. As she did so, her shirt rolled up and her tattoo reflected in the mirror.

For a second, Ehrien didn’t move, her arms still hanging over her head. Then she let her arms come down and sighed as her head fell back and she looked at the ceiling.

Her family had moved to that house when she was eleven, and at first, Ehrien had hated it. Before that, they had lived with her grandfather in Sintra. Ehrien hadn’t liked the change, never having been a particular fan of changes; she had felt uncomfortable, unable to separate herself from the feeling that she had forgotten something; she hadn’t been able to sleep for the first week.

On the second week, James and Oliver had sneaked into her bedroom and glued stars in the ceiling. Then they climbed into bed with her and with her brothers by her side and the starry sky above her head, Ehrien was finally able to sleep.

Ehrien turned to her wall of books when a chill ran down her spine. It told her to walk to the window and look outside. And so she did. He was there—that cloaked figure, he was there. Ehrien shut the drapes and stepped back. Not real.

She fell back on her bed in exhaustion and looked up at the ceiling. Her head was spilling over with things that simply couldn’t be real. And so Ehrien did the only thing she found helped her in these times; she wrote about her hallucinations.

Ehrien had a notebook on the drawer of her nightstand where she would write about them— how often they came, which shape they took, how strong they were and how long they lasted for. She also drew them. Ehrien felt that having them on paper allowed her not to feel as if they were so out of reach, as if maybe some part of them was real.

She opened her notebook to the pages she had devoted to that cloaked figure. For a few minutes, she simply added details to her drawings, making them darker. Darkness in that drawing was the equal to power, and that hallucination was gaining power.

Ehrien wrote and drew for a while longer, but soon her mind started drifting away and her eyes closed in grogginess. As she fell asleep, Ehrien remembered something; You might have a concussion.

You’re supposed to stay awake if you have a concussion, right? But she didn’t mind, and soon she was off.

“I hate having to wake up so early…”

“Come on Ollie, stop complaining.”

“If we are going to a different school, we could at least pretend classes start later. Waking up at these hours pretending to go study—study, of all things—is just exhausting, barbaric even, and I think it goes against my human rights!”

“Just to clarify, what kind of human rights are you referring to?”

At first, Ehrien wasn’t sure if she was dreaming, but the closer they got, the more she was certain her brothers were in the house. Ehrien stood wobbly from her bed and stepped out of her room, coming face to face with her brothers. Oliver grinned, “Well, look who’s home! Shouldn’t you be out enriching your mind?”

Ehrien’s eyes were still half-closed when she spoke. “What do you mean pretending to go study?”

When there was no answer, Ehrien made an effort to focus. The sight of her alarmed brothers was enough to fully wake her. Something was off. “What do you mean?”

“What are you talking about?” Oliver narrowed his eyes.

“You just…” Ehrien’s voice cut when a sudden faintness took over her, “said…” James was suddenly next to her. And when had Oliver gotten so close? “You said…”

“So, what do you think about going to the fair tonight?” Oliver asked.

“Maybe we could call Jack,” James offered, “He doesn’t usually do anything on Friday nights...”

“That would be fun. I haven’t talked to him in a while.”

Ehrien’s bedroom door opened, and her brothers stepped inside. Slowly, she turned her face to them and watched them parade around her room. “Could you not be so loud, please? I was sleeping…”

“Yes, we can see that, sis.”

“I dreamt about you two… you were talking about skipping school or something.” Ehrien rubbed her eyes and covered herself with her blanket.

“How low do you think of us, sister?” James winked and threw her a pillow as he leaned against the table. Ehrien didn’t react, too sleepy to move, letting it hit her.

“Well, well, what might this be?” Oliver hopped forward and grabbed Ehrien’s notebook. “A diary, is it?”

Ehrien jumped out of bed and ran to her brother, but he was too tall and had only to stretch his arm over his head to get the notebook out of her reach. “Give it to me. Now!”

“Uh, could it be?” Oliver grinned. “Is this where you write all your little secrets, sis?”

Ehrien’s blood froze. He was going to read it. He would know. “Ollie, please!”

Oliver threw the notebook over her head and at James, who gracefully caught it and jumped over the bed to get away from the two. She would have to watch helplessly as her deepest fears about herself were exposed to the people she loved. What would they think of her? Maybe they would think she was crazy, or maybe they would get her the help she so obviously needed. Would they hate her?

James cleared his throat. “Time and time again, I’ve wondered if these sights are real, if these dreams are mere dreams or if it is simply my desire to turn them into dreams that makes them so. If I can’t control how blurred the lines have become, can I still say what a dream is? Can I still say what reality is? Can I still say what I am?”

James stopped, a bit dazed, and Oliver focused on her, lips parted. Ehrien ran forward and took the notebook from her brother’s hand. James and Oliver gazed at each other for a few seconds and then at her, as if she had somehow grown a second body. In that moment, Ehrien felt like a stranger to them.

Stepping out from his trance, Oliver took the notebook again. Ehrien still tried to hold on to it, but Oliver pushed her back. It wasn’t violent, but it was still unsympathetic. “He was outside again today. He still scares me, no matter how much I try to pretend otherwise. It isn’t rational for him to scare me like this; he has never touched me, or spoken to me, harmed me in any way. Why would he hurt me now? God… What am I saying? It’s not rational for me to fear him? What isn’t rational is for me to see him. But I do. Every day. Every day, I see him.”

“Stop…” Ehrien whispered, hugging herself. “Please, just stop...”

Oliver turned over to another page, eyes glued to the words in front of him. “Today, I went shopping with Laura. She said I had been down for a while and shoe shopping would do the trick. For her, every problem can be solved with a credit card. I wish it really were that easy; I wish that things could disappear like that. But they can’t. For years now, I have believed one thing. Lie, lie again. Maybe one day it won’t be a lie anymore. I keep lying; in fact, I’ve gotten pretty good at lying, but it still hasn’t become the truth.”

“Stop! Please STOP!” Ehrien’s eyes were burning, and her heart had sunk inside her chest when she grabbed the notebook again, falling to her knees. Oliver continued looking at his hands, as though the notebook was still there.

“Ehrien,” Oliver lowered his hands and his head, “what the hell was that?”

“I…” The tears were coming. “I—”

“Why didn’t you come to us?” James seemed calmer, though not necessarily less freaked out.

“And tell you what?”

“This! All of this! Everything you’ve been writing down!” Oliver turned to her and once again took the notebook out of her hands, opening it to a random page and pointing at it. Ehrien couldn’t handle it, and before she could think of stopping herself, she was tearing out the pages of what had been her solace for so long.

“Ehrien! EHRIEN, STOP!” James grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her back, as pages flew around them, pieces of her soul in ink.

“I want you out,” she said, but it was weak even to her own ears. “Get out...”

“Ehrien, we need to talk about this.” James, the voice of reason. And all Ehrien wanted was to punch him. Her rage was swallowing her essence; it was becoming her.

“Get out! Get out! GET OUT!” Ehrien pushed them to the door aggressively, knowing any more time with them would turn her desire to kill them into something dangerously real. Why was she so angry? Why did she feel so violent?

James froze at the threshold. “The fair...” he whispered, a silent conversation with Oliver.

Oliver glanced at his brother and nodded. Then he looked over his shoulder. “If you’re this scared, if things have gotten this bad, don’t leave the house tonight.” His eyes were dark and grim. “That’s when the real monsters come out.”

How could he be so cruel? How could he mock her? Ehrien turned away.

“Get out…”

Ehrien was looking out the window of her room when she saw her mother driving up. Oliver and James had been waiting for her outside, and by the expression on her mother’s face, it was obvious they had already talked to her.

The three gathered around the car’s door and talked quietly. That figure, that being that haunted her waking hours stood with them, as though sharing in the conversation. It couldn’t be...

Her mother took the phone from her purse and dialled a number quickly. Ehrien opened the window slowly, letting the voices she shouldn’t have been able to hear echo around her bedroom. “Karl, you have to come home. I think it’s happening, and it’s worse than we could have thought. I think we might need to return to the Manor.”

Happening? What’s happening? Kathleen glanced toward her bedroom window and saw her. Never had her expression been so fearful. Ehrien moved back and slid down the wall below the window, hugging her legs. Could it be real?

The car’s door closed, and anxious, Ehrien got up. They were coming to talk to her. But she had forgotten where she was sitting and as she climbed to her feet, her head hit the window frame. The pain was sudden and sharp, hazing her vision intensely. Could everything she’d seen be real, or was it part of the concussion? Was she having a dream? Was anything real?

Ehrien stumbled forward, grabbing the back of her head, just as she heard her brothers climbing the stairs. She ran to her bedroom door and locked it before her brothers got the chance to open it.

“Ehrien?” said Oliver.

“Go away, please.”

“Promise me you won’t go anywhere.”

“Oliver…”

“Promise me!”

“I promise.”

Chapter Six