Sleep Journal - 190207 - Fairge Anma

[kimurho]

Sleep Journal
7 February 2019

Sarah Farris

The fates were not kind. The ground did not rise up to swallow me. So I sank down, turning my back to the door.

If I could not see them, then they could not see me; this is a fact of magic that all children understand.

I leant back against one of the chairs drawn up under the table. Chin on my knees, hands over ears, eyes shut tightly, I wished with all my heart that I had not come here this day. I wanted to be gone, to be out of there, but how?

The door? There was only the one and I did not think I'd be able to slip past as Nikki had.

A window? We were three flights up ... No, we were five flights up from the pavement. This side of the building overlooked Donner Street, not Highland Avenue.

Dimly, I heard someone talking. I lifted on hand to listen. No one I knew. It wasn't him ... Craig ... Dr. Stevenson. I didn't answer. I covered my ear again.

I hadn't done anything wrong.

I ... I hadn't.

I defended myself. It's allowed now for me to defend myself. No one has the right to touch me without permission. Joe tried to ....

Joe belongs here. I don't. They're going to take his side. I ....

I came here to talk to Craig ... to Dr. Stevenson. To ... to do what? Why had I come? What did I expect to happen?

I was a fool. I should have expected something like this. Why should they believe me? Why should they believe anything I said now.

Why had I come?

My thoughts were racing round and round. I could hear the mumbling of voices in the outer office but they didn't impact me.

Confusion, delusion, bemusement.

Then, though the muffling of my ears, I heard someone call my name. I lifted my head out of my hands. A voice I recognized. Not Craig's but familiar.

"Sarah? Miss Farris? This is Doctor Monaghan. Can you hear me?" His voice was a low rumble. Deep. Calm. I could use some calm.

"I hear you." My lips felt stiff, speech seemed difficult, as if I hadn't spoken for years.

"Can you tell me what happened in here today?"

Could I?

"I'm not sure," I said ... breathed, the words barely making it past my lips. "I don't ... Is Craig there?"

That was the real question, in a nutshell. Was it Craig who was out there? Or was he Dr. Stevenson? And if he was Dr. Stevenson, could I still talk to him?

"He's right here," Dr. Monaghan told me. Except he wasn't. I could hear sounds of dissension. Craig, or Dr. Stevenson, protesting. Arguing. Refusing. I heard Dr. Monaghan over-riding his protests and ordering ... persuading him to come closer. To talk to me.

"Sarah? Do you ... really want me here?" He sounded ... He sounded like Craig. Vulnerable. Reluctant. Hurt and sullen.
"Douglas ... Dr. Monaghan wants me to ask you what happened."

Odd wording. Did he chose his words with care? I was no longer sure about anything. As much trouble as I was, and I glanced up at Joe to remind myself of that, I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. "Is that what you want to know?"

There was a long silence, almost a minute.

"No," he said at last. "Or maybe yes but not yet. What I want to know is ... How are you? Are you hurt? Did Joe hurt you?"

I heard a thud.

"What was that?"

"JJ's shoe. Dr. Monaghan just threw it into the room."

"Why?" Was it an attempt to know the rune-spell down? What significance did a shoe have?

"It's leather. They're trying to figure out the parameters of the force-field. So far they've shoved a glass vase, a plastic doll, and a tea mug through. And a pencil. And they've pulled them out again. Hold on; I've been asked to move out of the way; they want to try a chair." It seemed silly to me. I heard the scraping noise that indicated their success.

"Back again. JJ speculates that the only thing it excludes is people, but Nikki was able to pass through it so he wants to know if it's only one way?"

"No. At the moment, only the lass ... Nikki ... can freely enter and exit the room." The sail dropped kite-wise, I suddenly realized why they were testing the barrier. Or ... what was it Craig called it ... force-field?

I asked him. "Is that what you are calling it, force-field?"

"It's what I call it," he replied wryly. "JJ ... Dr. Stillman ... I don't think you've met him, yet. Really nice guy. You'll like him." His voice changed, the amusement going black and bitter. "Better than me, anyway. Everyone does. Likes JJ, I mean. He calls it a ward. Laura said it was a barrier. What do you call it?"

"Callaid dhroighean. Hedge of thorns." Then I added, since we seemed to be sharing, "Joe called it a threshold. I don't remember what Nikki called it, sorry."

I took a deep breath then, working up the courage to ask my question. Before I did, he returned to an earlier question, saying, "Speaking of Joe, you didn't answer me. Are you all right? Did he hurt you?"

I didn't rush to speak, not sure how to answer. If I answered truthfully, it meant that I was in the wrong; but I didn't think I was. Craig waited.

Finally, I said, "Not really. He frightened me." I glanced at Joe again, this time checking the strength of the rune. It held. "I daresay I hurt him more than he actually hurt me, but it was the second time. I'd already given him a warning." Did Joe's eyes widen? Granny always said that those caught by the freeze spell could still hear and see. Could they blink? Breathe? I frowned, and loosened my grip slightly. Joe's chest rose as he took a deep breath and he closed his eyes, but he made no other move.

"Sarah, are you still there?"

"Where else would I be?" I replied cautiously. Casting my mind back, I realized I'd missed several things he'd said.

"I don't know. I don't know how you're keeping us out of this room, or how you warded the room in the library against us either." A pause, then, "Can you teleport out of there?"

"Chan i sìtheag a th' anam!"

"I take it that's a no. What?" His voice went quieter, as if he were turned away. "Gaelic? Really?" And then louder again. "Dr. Monaghan says you're speaking Gaelic? Are you from the Highlands, Sarah? Is that where you learned to do what you do?"

I couldn't answer, even if I wanted to, which I didn't. I could to talk about Granny and her teachings, and the village. I wasn't sure if I could talk about my ... existence with him. Not that I wanted to. Ever.

Thig an Donas ri ' iomradh. Evil comes when spoken of.

The Others and the Otherworld, however, and my passage into this the World, I could not speak of at all. Those were the terms of my escape to here.

So I went back to the thing I realized earlier.

"You're recording this, aren't you? Our conversation. Your tests and trials."

"Yes. We can't see you, though, if that's a problem. All we're getting from you is audio."

I answered slowly. "I think ... I think it's a relief. I'll only have to say this once." I surprised a snort of laughter from him.

"Fat chance of that," he warned me.

I heard some whispering, caught the words 'take it down'. I considered answering the anonymous querent but took too long to decide.

"Can you lower the force field?"

A complicated question. At the moment, the hedge-rune was the only thing making me feel safe. I could not summon the will or desire to remove it and without that, my attempts would fail.

I gave the simple answer. "No."

"Who can?"

"The intern ... Nikki." I spared a glance at the immobile Joe. The hedge-rune would do me no good if this one got free to attack again. Was there a change in his position? Perhaps not, but his expression seemed a bit distraught. Moreso than before, I thought.

"This one ... Joe. Maybe. But I defined an marrach with Nikki at the centre."

A rumble of voices in the outer office. Dr. Monaghan telling someone to find the girl. I had a sudden mild panic that Craig was the one being ordered away. I called out his name.

"I'm here. Right here. Hold on ... what?" More whispering, asking about Joe. I guessed they wanted me to let him go. This time, I answered directly.

"I would really rather not release him just yet. He is not harmed, he just can't move." I struggled to find the words to explain without making myself a object of pity. "I don't trust him not to try again. I gave him a warning, earlier, when I first started to leave. I thought he understood. This time ..." I sighed. "It's an air rune. It's not meant to last long, only as long as the person who cast it remained in range and held it. I planned ... I only wanted to stop him long enough to make my escape. But then you were there and ... and I couldn't get out."

Craig said something borderline snarky just as Dr. Monaghan addressed me directly. "Sarah, you don't need to be afraid. Nobody here is angry with you. It sounds as thought you were just defending yourself. As long as Joe is unharmed, there's no crime here. Please let him go and then come out; I promise you, everything will be fine."

I heard another male speaking. "She said Nikki was the only one who could go in and out and Nikki is the only one who can lower the ward."

Dr. Monaghan and Craig started to reply at the same time, their words tangling together in a snarl. Dr. Monaghan won, his voice rising with frustration. "Where is Nikki? Why hasn't Justine found her yet?"

Craig won, his voice rising. "She said she planned to run out when she froze Joe, so she must have thought she get through it. Right Sarah?"

"Correct," I sighed.

"That was JJ, by the way. Dr. Stillman. The one I told you about."

What did he expect to to say to that? "Hello Dr. Stillman?"

"You can call me JJ. Everyone does."

I didn't say anything. Apparently my greeting him was encouragement enough, because he continued to address me. "Earlier, you told Craig that you called this ... barrier a ... calledge groyan? Is that right?"

"Callaid dhroighean, yes."

"But you just called it something else." I had? I thought back. Before I figured out what he meant, he supplied the phrase for me. "An maric."

"Oh. Marrach. That's the area enclosed by the hedge. Not that I actually enclosed this space, but it required definition of what was inside and what was outside. Nikki was defined as belonging inside. Everyone else was defined and belonging outside."

"Ahh... I see. Thank you. That's very clear." There was a pause. Craig started to say something but his friend wasn't finished. "One more thing. You said that Joe called it a threshold. How does this ... threshold ... work?"

I was tired. Tired almost beyond bearing. I let my head drop onto my knees as I answered, keeping it as simple as possible.

"Those who belong can pass in or out. Those who do not belong cannot enter without an invitation."

"And those who do not belong can exit?" he guessed.

I tried to remember the definition on the rune. My eyes closed. "I'm not sure."

"You believe that you can exit through the ... calledge groyan?" That wasn't a question. "Can you invite someone in?" I did not want to answer that question. "Can you invite ... me ... in?"

All of a sudden, fear dropped on me. I had been lulled into compliance. I couldn't ....

"No!" A stranger. A man. I didn't know him. "No no no. I ... I can't ... I ... Craig ... I can't." I lowered my face to my knees and started rocking back and forth. The sound of my name, repeated, cut through the unexpected rise of panic. Craig's voice.

"Sarah, it's okay. It's me. JJ's sorry. He didn't mean to upset you."

"I'm sorry. I so sorry. I thought I could do this."

"You can do it. You are doing it. You are doing fine. Just breathe, okay? You are going to be fine." After a few minutes, he observed, "They're going to bring Nikki back here pretty soon, you know." I didn't answer. "Mrs. Logan said you were looking for me. Earlier." He paused, waiting.

"Yes." He didn't speak so I continued. "I was. Looking for you."

"Are you going to put a curse on me?" he asked. He sounded even more miserable than I felt and the question shocked me out of my funk. I sat up with a gasp of outrage, twisting around so I could look at him through the legs of the chairs in the way.

"No! Of course not! Why would you think that?"

Craig sat on the floor outside the room, leaning against the outer part of the door frame, looking away. His hands were hanging limply between his knees.

Somehow, knowing that he wasn't looking at me made it easier. I found the courage to turn all the way around. I stayed seated on the floor, though.

No one else was visible through the open doorway. I knew that someone was there, but I couldn't see them, so I could ignore their presence.

"Why do you think that I would want to curse you?"

He mumbled something I didn't quite catch about the library. I asked him to repeat it. "The library. You put up one of those calledge groyan things in the library?"

"No." I was quite firm on this. "I did not set that up in the library."

"It was your handwriting." I sighed and agreed that I had scribed the spell on paper. Craig continued, "We ... I measured the field strength of the .. the force-field. The calledge groyan. Or marric. Whichever you want to call it. The field strength increased whenever a man approached the threshold. It increased a lot more when I got close to it than it did for anyone else."

He paused, rubbed his forehead. "It was pretty clear that it was set against me specifically. Laura ... Dr. Wingate ... One of the other professors in the group ... She said that you ... that the way the spell reacted to me indicated that you ... you hate me. That you wanted to make sure I couldn't come anywhere near you."

I noticed that, unlike when he first mentioned his friend Dr. Stillman, Craig did not indicate any liking for the absent ... and judgemental ... Dr. Wingate.

"Doctor Wingate is wrong," I said firmly.

"How else can you explain it?" he cried.

I didn't want to speak of my private pain, my hidden weakness. I had no desire to share my shame. But the pain he was experiencing cried out for a salve. And I had come here today intending to tell him ... not that. I never wanted to tell him that.

It seemed I had no choice.

"I ... wasn't exactly myself when I scribed those runes. I ... In your lecture yesterday, you talked about mental telepathy. How great it would be to be able to talk to someone mind to mind. Afterwards, in the library, I started thinking about that. And about ..."

"Yesterday in the library, I was working on my class notes and thinking about you and what you said in class and then I started thinking about ... about someone else ... and I ... I ..." There was no way to say it except to say it.

"I had a panic attack. I get them ... sometimes. I use to get them a lot. I hadn't had one this bad in years. I thought I was over it. I think ... it's possible ... in my confusion, I got you and ... and him ... confused. I scribed the runes ... and the encompassing ... against him. If he ever finds me ..." My breath was growing ragged. I tried again. "If he ... ever ..."

"Sarah! It's okay! He's not here and he's not going to find you. I won't let him." Craig was up on his hands and knees, peering at me with such an expression of concern on his face, I knew that my fear of him was a foolish fancy. "You don't have to tell me anything. Especially not if it's going to put you in another state. I'm sorry that anything I did caused you distress."

There was a brief silence.

"Help me to understand, though," he said at last, speaking slowly. "Because ... I don't. I don't understand what I did that was so horrible you ... got me confused with this ... criminal. What did I do?"

I didn't want to go there. I didn't want to remember. I turned around, my back to him, and drew my knees up to my chest again.

That helped, but not enough. I closed my eyes and hugged my knees tightly.

"I thought you were a student. Did you know that."

"I ... No." He gave a breathy laugh. "Explains a lot though. I was so impressed with how you never let it matter who I was. But ... no. I didn't know."

"When I found out that you were a professor, it was like ... like what ... something ... that had happened before and ..."

I stopped again. This wasn't coming out right.

"I'm sorry. I don't want to .... This isn't easy for me. When I was ... about ten years ago, I met someone. A man. Male. In the woods. Near where I lived. Once upon a time. It doesn't exist anymore, the place where I lived. Where I grew up. It's gone and I don't know ..."

"I thought he was the same age I was. A student. Just approaching the rites of passage, ready to start training to take our place in society. He ... He wasn't afraid of me. He talked to me and helped me with my lessons and I thought he was my friend."

"He wasn't. Because I was young and foolish and believed in him ... I lost everything. There's nothing left of who I was before I met ... "

I don't know how much of what I was saying he ... Craig ... was understanding. I was mumbling, crying. Not afraid, though. The panic wasn't rising.

"I'm sorry," Craig said softly.

Neither of us said anything for a long while after that.

Then, very quietly, Craig said, "I know it doesn't help, to say sorry. It didn't help when people said it to me, but that's all I have. I'm sorry for your loss." He drew in a breath. "But I didn't know that you ... didn't know. Who I was. Who I am."

"I know." I whispered, confessing to my knees. "I was in class yesterday ..."

"I didn't see you!" He sounded so aggrieved that I couldn't help laughing, through my tears.

"You weren't meant to," I informed him. Then I sobered. "I sat with a group of other students. Real other students." He gave a chuckle at that. "I listened to them. Maybe if I'd done that earlier, I wouldn't have been so ..."

"Surprised?"

"Betrayed," I breathed. Louder, I went on. "I must be the only person in that class who didn't know who the great Craig Stevenson is."

"Hey!" Then, sounding pleased, "The 'great' Craig Stevenson? I like the sound of that." I huffed. Finally, he asked, very seriously, "So ... are we good?"

Were we? "Yes. I think we are." I unfolded and stood, turning around to face the door. Craig was on his hands and knees, looking through. Our eyes met. "Doctor Craig Stevenson, please enter and be welcome."

He stood more slowly and turned around, a look of surprise and ... awe? ... on his face. He inclined his head in respect and stepped through. His eyes glanced toward the intern ... Joe, still standing, prepared to lunge.

"You know, that looks very uncomfortable."

I examined my erst-while attacker thoughtfully, then moved away, putting the bulk of the table between us.

"It does, I agree. I've never held anyone this long. It's probably not good for him." I didn't say that I was about to lose it anyway.

"Probably not," Craig agreed with faux-deliberation.

I loosed my hold on the rune, and Joe stumbled free.