In a matter of minutes, sleep lured me into what I had anticipated to be a nightmare, only for it to be a dream I’d never had before.
I was inside the House on North Lane, seated at the dining table, sun pouring in from the kitchen window as I finger-painted with Auden. He looked only around three or four, which meant I must have been around eight or nine. We wore identical Spider-man aprons, our fingers stained a mix of green, red and purple.
My father was mowing the lawn out the front, the sound echoing through the entire first floor while my mother dusted the living room. She was asking Auden and I what we werepainting when she accidentally knocked a candle from the bookcase, smashing it to pieces. With a yelp, she stepped back and in distress, called for me.
“Help me clean this up,” she said, hands shaking.
I reached for a dustpan and broom and began cleaning up the shattered glass and wax.
“Help me, help me, help me,” she kept repeating.
I was confused, given the fact that Iwashelping her. And then her words changed tofind me, find me, find me.And those quickly becamesave me, save me, save me.
I turned to face her, dustpan falling from my hands as I instinctively backed away. Her hair was dishevelled and tearing from her scalp, her skin deathly pale. She was wearing the same white gown she’d worn that last night in North Lane, ash and dust clinging to the material.
Her hands found my wrists, holding me in place as she whispered, “Help me. Find me. Save me.”
“You’re right here, Mumma,” I said, desperately trying to unshackle myself from her firm grip.
“Help me. Find me. Save me.”
Her face twisted and her jaw snapped open, an inhuman scream escaping her throat as the floor trembled beneath us. Small critters poured from her mouth, falling to the wooden floorboards like a raging river. They crawled up my legs, slipping beneath my shirt and under my skin. She leaned closer, the stench of death and decay massacring my nostrils, and repeated her phrase.Help me. Find me. Save me.
The nightmare ended with heavy breathing and a pool of sweat. I sat up, glancing toward my alarm clock and the blearing red 3:33am. Running a hand over my face, I focused on my breathing and blindly reached for my phone. I had dozens of messages and missed calls from Nathaniel, and the memory of the day before came crashing back to me.
Guilt weighed heavy on my chest as I read through each one of Nathaniel’s messages asking if I was okay, apologising, begging me to let him know where I was.
I didn’t understand why he cared so much, and although I was still weary of whether any of it was real, I knew I’d hate myself if I let him worry a moment longer.
'Hey, sorry, I’m okay', I wrote back, 'I’m home.'
I didn’t expect a response until a reasonable hour, but Nathaniel’s message came in under a minute.
'Thank God. I’m sorry for today. I’m here if you need anything.'
I didn’t have the energy to assure him I was fine, so I liked his message and put my phone away, my mind returning to the dream.
Help me. Find me. Save me.
It was no doubt a crazy thought, but what if my mother was trying to reach me? She needed help, she wanted me to find and save her. Maybe after all this time, she realised she was in a cult and couldn’t get out on her own. I had no evidence to back up this absurd claim, but it was the only reasonable explanation for why she never came back. She needed saving and my father had failed. And I, too, would fail if I didn’t try to find her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Auden was eating cereal at the dining table when I finally emerged from my bedroom, a National Geographic documentary playing on his laptop. His headphones lay abandoned atop his scattered schoolbooks, the narrator's voice following me into the kitchen as I opened the refrigerator to an absence of groceries. A long sigh escaped my throat.
“What are you watching?” I asked, squinting to catch the title of the documentary on his screen. “Oh, is that Pompeii?”
“Herculaneum,” he corrected.
“Oh, the Pompeii wannabe,” I joked, letting the refrigerator door fall shut. “I’m going to go the cafe to get some banana bread and–”
“Herculaneum is not the Pompeii wannabe,” Auden interjected.
“What?”
“You said Herculaneum is the Pompeii wannabe but it was its own town with its own unique features and history. The only things they share is that they’re Roman and victims of Mount Vesuvius.”
“Alright...”
