Chapter 14
Dani notices that she is tucked away in the little room more and more often. It is the same as before – she remembers that she has the dream, remembers that she is having the dream more and more frequently, but some of the specifics are lost in the waking, as always happens with dreams. She feels as though something is missing – as though she is close to grasping something – and that feeling remains, but what she was so close to understanding, what she was trying to understand? That is lost entirely. Only the feeling, and eventually, even that fades.
Still.
It doesn’t worry her as much as it did before. The dream happens while she is asleep, while Jamie is asleep, and is usually just an indication that the creature is waking and walking – and while that does worry her, it has yet to do anything too terribly terrible. She suspects that it is just reading the Shakespearean books, but she has nothing to prove herself correct. Whereas before she sometimes woke curled up on the couch with one of the books under her arms or on the table just next to her, now she always finds herself in bed with Jamie. So perhaps she is wrong. Perhaps the creature isn’t waking and walking. Perhaps the dream is truly just a dream.
She tells herself that, but she doesn’t quite believe it.
And the thing of it is – Dani feels much more rested now than she did before, and that feeling allows her to be more productive than she has been in the previous months. She wakes with Jamie or just after. She cooks – not as well as Owen does, but who among them can cook like that other than him? She spends more time in the flower shop, and she’s needed there, with Valentine’s Day quickly approaching. More and more people are there making more and more orders, and Dani stays on top of it as much as she can, managing the schedule, managing when people should come to get their flowers, managing who is getting what and how many of them—
She’s good at the technical side of the business, much better than she thought she would be. It isn’t that Jamie isn’t – she is, and often just as well or better than Dani – but Dani is admittedly better at the personable part of the process. She is more patient than Jamie, whose temper can flare unexpectedly in frustration at her customers, who sometimes smiles through gritted teeth, but who is much better at the bottom line and firm no than Dani is. Still, it feels good, having something that she can actually help with.
And, being around more often, there are other things.
“Hey.” Dani plops a little box of home-cooked food in front of Jamie, grin spreading across her face, and after a quick check to make sure no one is looking (and why would they?), she bends down and presses a peck to her cheek.
“Morning, Poppins.” Jamie turns toward her and gives her a proper kiss, arms wrapping around her waist. “You’re down here early today.”
It’s a joke – it’s a joke – and yet Dani feels herself growing defensive, stepping out of her arms. “I was cooking. We were running out of those readymade frozen leftovers, and I thought it’d be a good idea to make more of them, and here.” She nods to the little container, hands propped on her hips. “This is some of it still warm. Figured you’d like that.”
Jamie nods. “Aye, you got that right.” She reaches over and brushes a hand through Dani’s hair. “You know I’m not really mad, Dani.”
“Yes. Yes.” Dani’s gaze lowers. She starts to say something else and then stops, noticing the book hiding beneath their records. “What’re you reading?”
Jamie’s eyes widen. “Oh, this?” She shoves it to the side. “It’s nothing.”
But Dani recognizes that binding, and she pulls the book out. “Is this Romeo and Juliet?” she asks, voice tight. She glances up and meets Jamie’s eyes. “I thought you didn’t like Shakespeare.”
“I don’t, honestly.” Jamie props her elbow up on the counter and leans against it. Her head tilts to one side. “It’s proper boring. Sometimes think it’ll make me fall asleep right here at work. Bit of a hazard, really.”
Dani runs her finger along the words and taps it. “Have you been taking notes?”
Jamie sighs. “I’ve been reading the ones there. They help. Sometimes.” She rolls her eyes. “Sometimes they make it worse. Gotta take notes or my noggin’ll get heavy with all of that.” She raps her knuckles against her forehead.
“If you hate it so much,” Dani says, eyes narrowing, “then why are you reading it? I won’t mind if you don’t.”
Jamie takes a deep breath, shrugs, and then sighs. “I figure, if you’ve read it and your ghostie’s read it—”
Dani tenses at the mention of the beast still living within her. She expects that will cause it to appear, and she waits for the accompanying pressure to start at the base of her skull, that recognition of the creature to the mere mention of it. But there is nothing.
“—then I’d better read it, too.” Jamie presses her lips together. “Thought maybe if she started leaving us notes, I might want to be able to understand them.”
“She’s not going to leave us any more notes,” Dani says, her voice firm, and she shuts the book tight, holding it against her chest. “And if she does, we’re not going to read them.”
“Not sure that’s the best idea, Poppins.” Jamie turns, leaning her back against the counter so that she can get a better look at her. “Flora says your beastie was a woman once. Maybe if we pay her a spot of attention, she’ll be a proper woman again and not some faceless wandering menacing beastie. You give her a story yet?”
“No,” Dani says, still firm, “and I’m not going to. I’m the one having to live with this thing, Jamie. You don’t know what it’s like, not knowing when it’s going to decide to tuck me away, not knowing when it’s going to show up and stretch beneath my skin like I’m just an extra set of clothes to it.” She takes a deep breath and shudders. “It’s horrible. No notes it leaves are good. It says I’m not dead – and I’m not – but it also said that it wants to feast on me. Those aren’t the sort of notes I want to read.”
Jamie takes a deep breath. “Not sure it meant that it’s feasting on you—”
“I know my Shakespeare, Jamie. I read what it left.”
“Yeah, just,” and here Jamie hesitates, as if unsure, “what I’m learning about Shakespeare is he doesn’t always say things quite literally. They mean something else. So if the literal is the feasting, then that’s probably not what it means. It probably means something else.”
Dani presses her lips together and shakes her head. “Tell me that when a ghost leaves those lines for you.” She takes a sharp breath in and lets it out. “Let’s just agree that we don’t talk to the beast, okay? I don’t want it….” She lets the breath out. “I don’t want it interfering more than it already does. I don’t want it thinking that it’s okay to just tuck me away in a dream and do whatever it wants.” She meets Jamie’s eyes. “The more reach we give it, the more it will take. I don’t want it to take me.”
“I don’t want it to take you either.” Jamie reaches over and pushes Dani’s hair back out of her eyes. “That’s the last thing I want.”
“So quit trying to talk with it. You and Owen both.” Dani sighs. “I should’ve had a talk with him while he was here. Just let the thing sleep, and eventually, maybe….” She doesn’t say anything else. She knows the beast won’t sleep forever. She knows that one day it will eat her. But the more she ignores it, the more she can maybe push that day off.
That’s the hope, anyway. The best one she has.
Dani laughs at herself and steps back. “I sound crazy, don’t I?” she asks, and she forces herself to smile. “Let’s just get the shop to running. You eat your food. I’ll put this,” she gestures to the book, “somewhere else. Let’s not think about it, okay?”
Jamie meets her eyes, but the worried look is still there as she nods. “Okay, Poppins,” she says, hesitant. “As long as you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
You did not intend for your name to be underlined – sometimes circled – over and over and over through your copy of Twelfth Night, and yet you find that this is so. It makes you stare at the book and wonder if the words that are in this, and the words in the others, are truly what is written in the actual texts or if they are just the words that you remember, if there are other changes to them just as you have made changes to this one. Your changes here might not be textual, but that does not mean that you have not made others that way. You would need to lay the two texts next to each other to tell.
Or, on second thought, given that you have read and reread these so many times that some of them you think you could quote from memory, you could just as well reread one of them while your host is tucked away. That would be a simple enough test. You determine to try this with her copy of Romeo and Juliet at some point, although a part of you worries that you will forget.
You have been forgetting less since taking your place in this room. This should be a good thing. You are certain this is a good thing. And yet, there is no one to share this with. Most of your memories are of this room, of your path, of the jungle, and of your host’s apparent hatred of you. They aren’t particularly good memories. Sometimes, you wonder if they really are better than nothing.
But at least now you have something to look forward to – your talks of Shakespeare with the brunette.
Names are still beyond you, and perhaps that is because you have yet to claim your own as truthfully as they have claimed theirs. You have not been formally introduced, and neither have they.
(You know that your host is Dani – Danielle Clayton – and you know that the brunette is Jamie. But they do not seem as though they want you to know this, and so you choose to act as though you do not know. When they want to discuss with you, they will introduce themselves. Then, perhaps, you can introduce yourself, if your name feels right. You are unsure.)
It is at the end of one of your discussions that the brunette requests, with a yawn, that you stay away for a day.
You narrow your host’s eyes, and you stare at her. “Why?”
Over the course of your conversations, it has become easier for you to speak. You still stumble every now and again, and you have yet to try and speak in your own body, in your room where you live when you have not tucked your host away, but you feel better about it. You think that you could speak, if you were called upon, just as easily as you speak here, if your body still allows for it.
So when you ask, it is with your brows furrowed, with the slightest lean forward. You know better than to consider the brunette as anything other than a conversation partner; she still does not much like you, as you well know, and she still has not introduced herself to you. In fact, you think that these talks are merely an excuse to keep tabs on you the way a babysitter might keep tabs on children while their parents are away (and although thinking of yourself as a child is slightly better than thinking of yourself as a dog – at least you’re still human in this analogy – you aren’t a child, and your host is not your parent. Truth be told, you think she would hate this analogy as much as you hate the dog one (you think she would prefer that of the dog)).
“It’s Valentine’s Day,” the brunette says by way of explanation. “You know what that is?”
“Yes.”
“So you know why you should be gone.” The brunette’s brows raise. Then she grins, smug, and leans back against what has become her arm of the sofa. “Buzz off for a little bit. It’s for your own good.”
You take a deep breath, fingers interlacing across the top of your book. Although your first conversation involved Twelfth Night, you have since abandoned it and replaced it with one of the others. For now, you do not want to hear your name in the brunette’s mouth, even if it isn’t you she is referring to. There’s a disconnect there – more than the one you already feel with your name – and it is safer, easier, to read through one of his other books. The main problem with this is that whichever book you mean to discuss with her is gone during the day – taken with her to her flower shop – which means your host reads something else entirely.
This is likely a precaution – if the brunette has the book, then you can’t tuck your host away to read it. As though there aren’t other books around the house, as though you are in the habit of tucking her away while the brunette is at work.
“I know what it is,” you say, hesitant, “but I do not remember it. Perhaps I would like to live through a Valentine’s Day.”
The brunette’s brows shoot up. “Oh, no, you don’t. I could kill you if—”
”—if I weren’t already dead?” The smug smile traces your own lips – no, not your lips, her lips; it is so hard to maintain that there is a difference when you are the one in control – and one brow raises. You jest. You mean to jest. The brunette never takes it as such. She always takes you seriously. That’s how you know that she still does not like you: she is never truly comfortable or relaxed in your presence. “I won’t interrupt your romantic interlude. You didn’t need to ask. I haven’t interrupted them yet.”
The brunette opens her mouth as though to speak, but you continue on anyway, cutting her off, “I do appreciate the forewarning, though. You cannot imagine how unsettling it is to be out taking a stroll only to begin hearing that everywhere. It is most unpleasant. You could be a tad bit softer.”
For a moment, you expect the brunette to grow angry with you, to tell you very sternly that you should not be paying any attention and to quit eavesdropping on them, but instead her eyes grow wide, she licks her lips, and she gives a great nod.
“Blimey.”
This is not the sort of taking you seriously that you want.
“Well, I hope you were entertained.” The brunette takes a deep breath, places her hands on her knees, and lifts her cup of tea for one last sip of its contents. “We weren’t really in it for that, but if you’re getting your jollies listening in—”
“The entire point was that I was not entertained and I was not getting ‘my jollies’ in the slightest.” Your eyes narrow, and you stare at the brunette as she continues to sip at her by now quite empty cup. You press your lips together. “You’re jesting with me, aren’t you?” you ask after a few moments of quiet, hesitant and unsure.
The brunette shrugs. “Whatever do you mean? I’m not in the habit of joking with ghosties. Why would I start now?”
“Because you are truly speaking with one.”
“Huh. Hadn’t noticed.” The brunette stands, brushes her pants, and stretches until her back just pops. “You want me to take your cup, or do you still need it?”
This, too, has become typical. The brunette cannot stay up near as long as you do, given that she still needs sleep while you do not, and while she does not like you maintaining your control over her love’s body while she sleeps, there is not much she can do to dissuade you. This request is the closest she gets to it – the notice that she is leaving and if you wish to better accommodate her, then you should leave as well.
You glance over the cup, over the book the two of you have been discussing, and then give a shake of your head. “Seeing as you are relieving me of any opportunity to read on the morrow, I shall use the time I have to indulge myself now.” Your lips curve into a smile, and your brows raise. “I trust that you will not be opposed to my decision?”
The brunette shrugs – which is not a no, per say, but it is the closest you get to it. “Until next time, ghostie.”
“Yes,” you murmur, voice soft as always. “Until next time.”