Dream Casters: Shadow

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

THE CURE

I opened Natalie’s door and stepped into yet another dark room. Even Charlie’s cage was covered with a blanket.

I walked over to the cage first and lifted the blanket. My nose wrinkled at the smell that wafted out. The newspaper lining the cage was littered with mounds of bird droppings.

Charlie rested limply on the newspaper, not on his swing or his branch like he usually did.

I opened the door and tenderly removed him from the cage. He let out a tired squawk.

I didn’t put him under running water like I had done with Mr. Grey. Instead I poured some lukewarm water in the sink and soaked a cloth in it. I started cleaning all his feathers one by one, as well as his beak.

I managed to get enough water on him for him to wake up properly.

“Thank you, Chas,” Charlie spoke in his parrot voice. “That was a horrible flu. Yep, horrible as they come.”

I didn’t know if I should tell him the truth. Perhaps it would be best if everyone thought they only had the flu?

My brain was still trying to comprehend exactly what had happened and who was behind this. I wasn’t all that worried that it was someone as strong as Selene, which would mean she wasn’t the only Somnium alive. No, what I was most worried about was that Leigh had never steered me wrong, and he had zero doubt that it was Selene.

What did he know about Selene that I didn’t? Could she truly be behind something this awful?

“Chas,” Charlie spoke my name to get my attention.

“Sorry, Charlie. My mind drifted a bit. What is it?”

“Can you please help Natalie? Help Natalie.”

Sometimes I wondered why he repeated some things. Charlie wasn’t like normal parrots; he was smarter than that. He didn’t mimic words. He spoke for himself.

I smiled. “I’ll try my best.”

He dipped his head twice and I took it as his way of saying thanks.

I cleaned his cage first, to get rid of the stench that permeated the air.

When Charlie’s cage was clean, I put him back and he was rocking on his swing in no time, eating his seeds and drinking water as if he hadn’t had a decent meal in a week.

I looked over at the heap on the bed that was Natalie.

I was going to lift dead weight, but she was my friend. I owed it to her. I couldn’t let her suffer like this.

I turned on the water in her bathroom before I went over to her bed and pulled off her sheets.

She started shivering. This was a horrible side effect of whatever spell we’d been hit with.

I pulled her weak arm around my neck and lifted her up.

She let out a moan.

“C’mon, girl. I need to get you to the bathroom. You’ll feel better in no time.”

“Do what Chas says, Natalie. You will feel better, Charlie promise, Charlie promise.”

She heaved in my arms, gagging as she tried to swallow back the vomit.

I set her down softly and she doubled over the toilet.

I gave her some privacy as she emptied her stomach. Her gagging was making me feel nauseated again, and I had to cover my ears to muffle the sounds.

When I no longer heard her vomiting, I helped her into the shower.

She sank down into the corner with her back against the wall.

Water streamed over her, covering her entire head, washing what I now saw as an invisible virus away.

I left her there for a few minutes and went to sit against the bathroom wall, watching her.

Her weak face changed slowly in front of me. The water was visibly returning some of her strength. I’ve never seen anything like it. I couldn’t stop gaping at it.

She finally opened her eyes, shut them again, and blinked repeatedly. Finally she seemed to register what was going on around her.

“Welcome back to the living.”

She looked at me. “Chas, what are you doing here?” She looked at me and then at the water pouring from the shower head. She got up and turned off the faucet.

She frowned and her confused gaze shifted to me. “What happened?”

“Flu,” I said. She narrowed her eyes and I could tell she wasn’t buying the lie. “Or that’s what they want us to believe,” I finished. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

I could tell by the blank stare on her face that she was thinking hard. After a few moments, she shook her head. “I was making my way to the audio lab. We heard that they found evidence Leigh is still alive,” she said looking at me. “I can’t remember anything after that. I don’t understand.”

“The last thing I remember is hearing Leigh’s voice in the audio room,” I lied. I couldn’t tell her I had been dreaming of Leigh in the past four months. “Mr. Grey thinks someone took our memories with some sort of incantation. Someone very powerful.”

“Why?” Natalie asked.

“To hide something they didn’t want us to know?”

She didn’t like it. Nobody in her right mind would like it.

“Like what?”

“That’s the number one question nobody seems to have the answer to. Those who do, well, I don’t think we can trust.”

She blinked at me.

“I think Mrs. Irwin is in on whatever happened to us.”

“What?” Natalie gave me a shocked look.

“So, if she asks you how you managed to shake off this flu, you need to tell her you have a strong immune system or something. Don’t tell her that it was the water. I don’t want her to know we figured out the cure.”

“The water?” she asked as if it was the most ludicrous thing she’d ever heard.

I struggled to come up with an explanation that would make sense.

“I know it sounds strange, but yes. It’s like water washes away whatever clings to us.”

She scoffed at me. “Okay,” she said dubiously, resting her head against the wall.

I got up and went to get her a pair of clean clothes.

“Natalie okay?” Charlie asked.

“Natalie is fine, Charlie.” I smiled.

“Thank you, Chas,” he squawked.

“It’s what friends do.”

Once I had the clothes, I went to the bathroom and placed them on the vanity, leaving her to get dressed in private.

The bathroom door opened and she walked out, towel-drying her hair.

“Natalie is okay, Natalie is okay,” Charlie said a few times and she smiled at him.

She walked to his cage and picked him up. “You silly bird. Of course I’m fine. You didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?”

He bobbed his head up and down. She laughed, peppering his neck with kisses.

He hopped onto her shoulder as she moved to open her curtains.

Sunlight streamed into the room.

She took a deep breath as she turned around. “Now please, tell me everything. What the hell is going on?”

I told Natalie as much as I could, leaving all the bits and pieces about Leigh out. I replaced Leigh with Mr. Grey and it somehow made sense.

“A Somnium. Are you sure it’s Selene?”

“I don’t know. I’m not even sure that she is capable of something like this, but Mr. Grey seems adamant that it is.”

“Where is he?” She looked around, furrowing her eyebrows.

“You know him, always investigating things.”

It was quiet for a moment. “Unless there’s more than one Somnium alive, Chas. Someone else who has the power to do this to us.”

“But why? What did they want us to forget?” I shook my head, as if that would give me the answers I needed. “We need to get to Margot and get her into a shower. Maybe she knows more than we do. I mean, she wasn’t one of the students, she was like the lecturers’ right hand or something. I’m sure she’d tell us what the hell is going on.”

Natalie nodded. “That’s an idea. But if you think Mrs. Irwin is part of this, we have to be quiet and…” she trailed off. “As horrible as it sounds, Margot has to suffer a little longer.”

Natalie was right.

Sorry, Margot.

“The best thing we can do now is lay low. Tonight when she goes to bed, we go and help Margot get rid of this awful spell or whatever we were zapped with.” She shuddered.

“Okay.” I got up.

“I can’t believe water was the trick.”

“I know, it sounds so unreal, doesn’t it?”

“Totally.”

I snuck out of the room and walked back to mine.

I’d almost made it to the top of the stairs when I heard my whispered name behind me.

I turned around and found Mrs. Irwin standing on the level just below ours.

I walked down toward her. She seemed exhausted. “Could you please help me?” She gave me a weak smile.

I nodded. “Of course. What can I do?”

“You take the second level, and I’ll take the first. We need to soak down their temperatures, give them this horrible nausea medicine and make sure their sheets are fresh and dry.”

I nodded and accepted a bucket that held clothes and bottles of medicine. There were also seven syringes, which I assumed was how the medicine would be administered.

I stopped in front of Lisa’s room and took a huge breath.

You can do this, Chas.

I opened the door and stepped inside.