shadows

August was the coldest month (2)

The grass was a bright blue. And alive. Swaying in the wind. Shaking up a wind. The birds had gone quiet. The sky was dark. The sun was gone dark, behind the darkest cluster of clouds. The moon was hiding under the distant c***k splitting sky and earth.

Green was in the middle of the blue sea. Everything behind her. And in front, the burning building. The old white walls scarred and burning faint green. The windows screaming and spitting pieces of broken glass and shooting out silver fumes.

Her eyes floated in through the lowest window. Through the darkness. Falling upon the boy in the heart of the darkness. The ignition point. On the ground. Curled into himself. Black flames spilling out of every pore. Flames that wouldn’t stop until everything was consumed.

A giggle ripped through the vision. Grabbing her. Dragging her back. To the living room. To the roundtable. To Emil.

She had seen this before. In a painting from a different era. The work of a witch who defined that era. The painting was named Cold. And it depicted the fury of August, the reincarnation of a god, at the world that deserved the love of gods no more.

“Okay,” Green said.

“Yes,” Emil screamed, radiating joy as he threw a punch upward. “I knew this would convince grandma. I’m going to call grandma Renee. Tell her the great news.”

“Careful,” Emilia shouted as she followed after him.

And then, it was only Green and Ray in the room.

“What is it?” Ray asked in a low voice.

“Cold,” Green said.

“Cold?” Ray asked.

“Do you know who August is?” Green asked.

-

Elizabeth woke up in a cold sweat. It was the middle of the night. Still a long way to go before dawn, before it was time to wake. And she wasn’t surprised. It was three weeks now since the nightmares. She saw herself. Younger and older. And a different life.

It was the same family. Dad. Mom. Her little brothers and little sister. And another brother. A little boy that no one really liked. Bastard, was what everyone called him. Not even the servants respected him. And one day, he was gone. Sent away to a school far away. And never heard from again.

At least, not by anyone else.

“Brother,” she whispered.

The word sounding like a sob. She was clutching the shirt over her chest. Her eyes unfocussed. Overwhelmed by emotions she couldn’t understand. That she was almost too terrified to recognise. She reached for the notebook on the floor by the bed. She left it there before falling asleep, so she could reach it easily when this happened. When she needed it.

She unscrewed the pen. Wrote into the notebook what she saw in the dream. And when she was done, she read it. And then, lay back down. It took a while, but she was asleep again.

Come morning, she was a different girl. She was worn down after weeks of it. It couldn’t be just a dream. It couldn’t be merely a nightmare. It had to be more. And having accepted that, she felt relieved. And compelled. She had to understand.

There was a voice in her head. A voice she recognised easily even though it was entirely unfamiliar. The voice led her to her father’s study. To his desk. To the underside of the second drawer. To the thin envelope glued to the wood.

She pulled out the envelope. Grabbed a pencil from the desk. Pushed the nib into the edge of the flap glued shut. And slowly rolled the pencil, ungluing the flap. The envelope sat open without any traces of being opened. Inside were a few pieces of paper, a few photographs of her father with some other woman, and a bank statement.

She didn’t care about anything else but the face of the woman and the name in the bank statement. Emilia Horn.

That was the woman she needed to find. That was what the voice told her. Putting everything back, she quietly left the study. And back to her room.

She had the pieces. The notebook showed her how the pieces fit. Told a story.

Around eight years ago, her father had an affair with the woman, Emilia Horn. And then, he ended it. But that wasn’t the end. Emilia had a son. In the other life, the life in the dream, her father found the son, and brought him home. And everyone hated the boy because he was born not of love but of betrayal. The bastard had to pay for the sins of his mother.

Elizabeth felt her heart ache. There was more that she was yet to see, yet to remember. Even this was impossible. If there really was another life, she shouldn’t remember it now. But she did. Why? What did all of it mean?

The voice had gone quiet. As if it had said all that needed saying. And didn’t care about the questions.

She did care though. The questions mattered to her. And she stopped relying on the voice. She could go the rest of the way herself.

First step, finding Emilia Horn.

-

“Really?! Everyone agreed?”

Renee was having coffee when the call came. She held the large mug in one hand, she enjoyed a large mug of black coffee as breakfast in the morning, and the phone to her ear with the other hand. And she broke out in a smile. Her immediate reaction was delight.

Then came anger.

“Wait. You all had a roundtable without me? Didn’t you? How could you? My poor Emil must have been all alone in his corner. It was Green, wasn’t it? She deserves a good beating.”

And then, joy again.

“You’re right. Doesn’t matter. You’re going to school. I’m so happy. Now we find the school.”

It was Emil on the other end. And he enjoyed the phone calls with grandma Renee. She was nice in person too. But she had the best phone voice among everyone he knew. He liked her most on the phone.

“No,” he said. “We have the school. Augustus academy.”

Renee was surprised.

“Augustus academy?”

She hadn’t heard the name. And that meant something. She had children. And grandchildren. And there were so many more children in the family and of her friends. She had done the research. She knew all of the best schools in the city, and the good ones.

“Yes,” Emil said. “Even I found it by accident. Grandma Green looked like it was impossible that I found the school. And that is something. Isn’t it?”

“It is,” Renee agreed.

Despite what she said, she knew Green wasn’t just an ordinary old woman. And something that could get a big reaction from Green, was definitely something big.

“Augustus academy,” she repeated.

“Yes,” he said. “When you come, we will decide on the visit. You said we all need to see the school before I actually go there.”

“That’s right,” she said, taking bigger sips of the coffee.