The next morning when my alarm woke me, the previous night’s jaunt felt like no more than a hallucination. If I hadn’t felt the dampness of my clothes hanging over the back of my chair to dry, I might never have believed it. As I dressed, my heart was heavy. I felt like I was losing control of my consciousness, and I knew I needed to seriously consider the possibility that I had a sleep disorder. Since coming to Hildegard, I’d had instances of both sleep paralysis and sleepwalking, and while the former was frightening, the latter, I knew, could be dangerous. What if I hadn’t awakened when I did? What if I’d fallen into the lake?Would I have woken up when I hit the water? Or would I have just continued on, dreaming a liquid death as I slowly sank to the bottom?
In something of a haze, I managed to make myself some coffee. After pulling on boots and a robe, I started out to the garden, but still groggy, I stumbled on the path and went careening into a lilac bush. A string of expletives followed.
“You okay over there?” Finn called from beyond the wall.
“Fine,” I called, standing up and dusting myself off.
“I made cinnamon rolls,” he called again. “You want one?”
“You made cinnamon rolls?” I asked, incredulous. “Like, youmade themmade them? Like, with dough?”
“Yeah. I’ll meet you at your front door. They’re still warm.”
I didn’t ask him how early he must have gotten up to make the rolls, though I was curious if this was some essential part of his character or if it was an aberration. I stuffed down two warm, delicious cinnamon rolls while sitting on the couch, legs tucked underneath me, blanket over my lap. It was the most at home I’d felt in… well, in a long time.
Together, we sipped coffee and we chatted about books and pop culture, the conversation light and healing. He must have known something was wrong—I was so exhausted from the previous evening that I could barely keep my eyes open—but he didn’t mention it or ask about it, which I appreciated. And when I asked him about the others, he was happy to oblige, regaling me with stories about the time he and Aspen accidentally took mushrooms, or when Lexi once set a barn on fire.
“I didn’t even realize you had a barn here.”
“Well, we don’t anymore,” he said, throwing us both into a fit of laughter.
As we laughed, though, I started to feel uneasy again, like someone was watching me. Dr. Casimir, wild woman of the woods?
“This is going to sound crazy, but are you sure Dr. Casimir isn’t still here?”
“I’m pretty sure one of us would have noticed,” he said with a flash of a smile.
“This is a big property. Couldn’t she be out in the woods somewhere?”
“There’s no way she could have survived the winter.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Though I suppose she could have come back. Is there a reason you think she might be here?”
“Wishful thinking, maybe. I’m still really hoping to get my hands on the artifact she found. If you had to guess where she might have put it, what would you say?”
“Honestly? I would guess she took it with her.”
“Really? But what if it’s an important artifact? She wouldn’t just take it with her and disappear, would she? What if it got damaged?”
“You have to remember, she was kind of a dick.”
I laughed. “You say that, but I’m having the hardest time trying to understand her. Some of you loved her, while some of you didn’t. She was a hard science person, but maybe she also believed in magic. The whole thing gives off a ‘madwoman in the attic’ vibe. What was she really like?”
He lowered his eyes. “You don’t want to know about that.”
“No, but I do.”
He sighed. “You say that now, but someday you’re going to look back on this conversation and wish you hadn’t had it.”
That unsettled me a bit, but I decided to press on.
“I won’t hold you to anything you say. And I won’t repeat it. Please? We’re neighbors.”
He leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “Okay, fine. What do you want to know?”
“Well, I’m having trouble getting an accurate picture of her. Everyone seemed to have been in awe of her except for you.”
“Yeah. I told you before, I didn’t care for Isabelle.”
“But why not?”
