Well. I'm actually using last year's dead NaNoWriMo book, because I only got about 8000 words into it, so I decided to revise it and fix it up a little. I'll definitely go over 50,000 words, simply because that's just what I do… Playing Agent Smith Smith (book 1 in the Agent SS series) is like… 100,000 words. and it's not even done. so I'm not worried about last year's 8000. I'll definitely make up for it.
Anyway. Here is last year's excerpt part 1 and part 2 (I updated them both to the revised text), and here (below,) is this chapter 3! I think I've got six chapters written now.
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Chapter 3
Supposedly, I slept for a long time. Supposedly I slept all through the rest of that day like a dead girl, and through the night, and woke up at about seven thirty the next morning.
Supposedly.
So why was I still exhausted?
Maybe my mom was right—months and months of tossing and turning all night had finally caught up with me, and eighteen hours of sleep wasn’t enough to make up for it.
I rolled out of bed and looked down at my clothes. I was wearing my old torn up blue jeans an red t-shirt, the one I had gotten at camp two years ago. I found the fact that I was wearing this, to be very very odd.
Because I hadn’t gone to sleep wearing these clothes.
My forehead creased, but I rolled my eyes and forgot about it. Maybe mom had dragged me up and changed me while I was half asleep and I hadn’t remembered it. Maybe I'd changed in my sleep.
I went downstairs and yawned and started pouring myself a bowl of cereal. My mom looked up from her tea and set her book down. She looked at me with a worried look on her face.
“Hey mom, guess what.”
“um… you had a bad dream.” She said, smiling woefully.
“no, I slept for almost eighteen hours. Straight. And I’m still tired.” As I said it, I thought oh God, this might be the end of it!... maybe it'll all be over now.
My mom cocked her head slightly, and asked “What did you dream about, Olivia.”
I took a bite of cereal. “Nothing,” I mumbled around my food. “I don’t dream. Haven’t for years.” Haven’t since you told me about Daddy.
My mom continued to look at me.
“What?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Olivia, last night at about two in the morning, you started screaming.”
I stared at her. I didn’t say anything.
“I couldn’t wake you up. You were screaming and thrashing…I shook you, I yelled at you, I slapped your face…” she touched my cheek, where I felt a bruise beginning to develop, and winced. “you wouldn’t wake up. you weren’t saying anything, no words, but…” She stopped, and sniffed. “Are you sure you don’t remember what it was?”
I looked out the window. Chills were running down my spine, and I felt Goosebumps growing all down my arms and legs, like ice cold water chilling me to the bone. What was wrong with me?
“I… don’t… know…” I finally spat out. I looked at my clothes.
“You had been crying and were all sweaty after you finally stopped, so I changed your clothes. But you were out like a light, I couldn’t wake you up then, either. I called the doctor and he came over and looked at you, he said you just had a night terror and were asleep again. He said not to worry.”
I was still looking out the window. Cam drove up. But instead of breaking and waiting for me he parked and turned off the engine and rushed out of the car. He hurried up the steps and knocked twice, then opened the door and let himself in. he dashed into the room and stopped short when he saw me awake.
“You’re alive!” he yelled.
“Sorry to disappoint,” I said in a strange muted withdrawn way that I didn’t understand. Why was I suddenly in a sour mood? Oh yeah—something was definitely wrong with me.
Cam walked to me quickly dropped his bag on the floor, and drew me into a firm hug. I put my hands on his shoulders and dropped my head, willing myself not to cry. I wasn’t sure if it would work or not.
“Olive what happened.” He whispered in my ear. Mom had gotten up and cleared her dishes.
“I don’t know Cam. I thought I had slept through the night fine and now all of a sudden… I’m a screaming maniac. I don’t have any answers.”
“What did you—“
“I don’t know what I dreamed about!” I yelled, pulling away from him and turning my back. “I don’t know. I thought I was fine… I guess I’m not. I just…” I trailed off, not caring any more.
Instantly I felt bad about snapping at Cam. He stood behind me not moving or saying anything. I was worried he’d leave.
“Olivia, I’m sorry.” He whispered. He turned and left the room.
I was embarrassed and I wanted to go back up to my room and hide, but I felt lonely all of a sudden when I heard the front door close and saw Cam get into his car again. I ran out the front door and down the steps in time for him to see me. He got back out of his car and let me run into his arms again. I was shaking and I heard a ripping sound. I didn’t realize it was my crying until Cam started whispering to me to calm down. He rubbed my back and whispered.
After what seemed like hours I finally calmed down enough to stand up on my own, but now I had a headache and was dizzy, and dehydrated.
“Let’s get you some water. Maybe you should stay home from school?”
I nodded. I didn’t want to go to school. I wanted to go up to my room and sleep some more.
Cam walked me back up into the house, and my mom poked her head through the doorway and looked at me. She had a very worried look on her face. I could hear the microwave going; I assumed she was making me a cup of tea or something.
We went up stairs and I collapsed on my bed. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to let tears come out. I was not a baby, I shouldn’t be crying over this.
Crying over what? What is this? What’s wrong with me? I wondered.
“Nothing’s wrong with you, Olivia.” Cam said, and I realized I’d Spoken out loud.
“hmph.” Was all I said in reply. Right. Because normal people scream in their sleep.
I heard my mom come into my room. She set whatever she’d brought on my bed side table and then sat on the edge of my bed. Cam stood beside her, looking down at me. I opened my eyes and looked at him. He looked really scared, but he was trying not to.
“I’ll call the doctor.” My mom assured me.
“What’ll that do?” I asked. Benadryl really wouldn’t help me at this point.
“I’ll call the sleep lab. He’ll probably have you stay overnight in the sleep lab, and they’ll do some tests. Maybe we can find out what’s wrong. It could be stress, or… something. I can call a psychologist, too… maybe it’s something about—“
I silenced her with a look. “No.” was all I said. We’d had this argument before. I wasn’t going to a shrink.
Mom sighed and took the cup of hot liquid and gave it to me. I sipped carefully, searching her face the whole time.
“We’ll talk more when I get home,” she said as she stood, which was her way of telling me that she wasn’t done arguing about the psychologist thing. She looked at Cam, who realized that it was time for him to leave. He ducked down and kissed my cheek, and I turned my face just in time to brush his lips. It always embarrassed him to kiss like that in front of my mom, but I knew she didn’t mind.
“I’ll come by later, Olive.” He said as he was leaving.
“Okay. I’ll just… study, I guess.”
He smiled at me as he closed the door behind him.
I sat up in bed for a while and finished sipping my tea. I didn’t feel like doing anything but sitting there and not thinking. I didn’t want to think about the dreaming thing, or the voices thing, or the Daddy thing—
Let him in.
“Great,” I said to myself, “the voices are starting again. Now what.” Then I heard a knock at the door.
My forehead creased as I got out of my bed and wrapped up in my purple fluffy bathrobe that Daddy had given me before the world changed. It was one of the things that I would always hold on to, regardless of how old it got. He’d given it to me when I was eleven, and it has much too big. But he’d given it to me because it was the last one, and it was on sale, and it was discontinued. It matched my eyes perfectly.
Doctors, every single one I ever saw, were always surprised when they saw my eyes. They were a deep purple that could never be mistaken for any other color. I always wondered what they would put on my driver's license when I got one.
I set the mug on the kitchen table and looked out the window.
Blake was on my front porch.
“What?” I said. “Why on earth…”
I opened the door just enough to talk to him, and he pushed the door as if to try to open it more.
“Stop it!” I said as I put my foot in the way. I knew he could still get in if he wanted to… but he stopped.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
“Well you’re supposed to be in school, too.” he said, his grey eyes focused on mine, unwavering. His lips twitched, as if he was trying not to laugh. I felt shivers going down my spine. I could tell there was something off about this guy just by looking at him.
“I’m… sick.”
“uh-hu.”
“I am.”
“Well if what you have is considered an illness, then I’m sick too. So I don’t have to be in school. But you should be in school.”
“I could skip half the school year and pass every test. You…” I trailed off, realizing a little too late that it would be dumb to insult a guy who was stronger than me by far when I was alone in the house.
Oops.
His face grew hard and he shoved the door open, without breaking eye contact. I jumped back and he walked into the house, and closed the door behind him. I backed up as he came towards me, but I ended up against a wall. He grabbed my arm and hauled me towards the couch, studying me scrupulously the whole time.
He practically threw me down onto the couch, and then stood in front of me, looking down at me for a long time, feet apart and hands by his side. His expression was clouded and impossible to read, a cold hard mask of nothing but slate. I was terrified and I felt my body shaking. I hardly knew Blake, all I knew was that he was strong and could get away with anything and everyone was afraid of him. Oh please don’t let him touch me…
“What do you want?” I spat out.
“I want you to calm down. I need to talk to you.”
“You need to get out of my house before I call the police.”
“Olivia, breathe please. I’m not going to… whatever. I just need to talk to you.”
When I’d realized he wasn’t going to try to kill me or rape me or something, I calmed down a little.
“Close your eyes.” he said after a few minutes
“What?” I raised an eyebrow incredulously.
“Just do it.”
Listen to him.
Why?
Yeah, listen.
He won’t hurt you.
Just listen.
There were too many little whispers in my head at once… I closed my eyes and they stopped. I sighed a momentary sigh of relief.
Blake stood in front of me, and didn’t move. I started to relax as nothing happened. I actually got a little tired… and I yawned and then got sleepier…
“Why are you so tired?” He said, jerking me back to the present.
“I haven’t slept in…A few months.” I said around a yawn.
“Why.”
“I don’t know. I just can’t sleep. Can I open my eyes now?”
“Not yet.” He said. “Just a little longer.”
“I don’t understand why I’m doing this,” I said, shaking my head slightly.
“You’ll understand eventually.” His voice was smug.
“Does that mean I’ll be seeing more of you,” I asked wearily.
“Yeah. Aren’t you a lucky girl?”
“Pfsh.” Was all I said. Oh yeah, incredibly lucky.
“So what was with the flood yesterday? I heard the janitor had to come out and clean up your mess.”
I clenched my jaw. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Sometimes you have to talk about things that hurt.” He said. And I detected a little bit of resentment in his voice.
I opened my eyes, and saw that he was standing there, with his eyes closed, too. My forehead creased, and I said “What are you doing?”
His eyes popped open. “I told you not to open your eyes yet! Geez.” He turned his back towards me and started walking around the room slowly.
“Please explain what we’re doing?”
He didn’t answer.
“I said please.”
He rolled his eyes. “What have you got to eat around here?” he picked up his pace and headed towards the kitchen.
“Ok now that you’re done with my psychological examination, could you please get out of my house? Hey, get out of the fridge!”
He was rummaging through one of the drawers in the fridge. I could see the very edge of his boxers over the top of his jeans and I turned my eyes away. I nudged his leg with my toe.
“Out.” I said.
He stood up, holding a Tupperware container with some old chicken and rice. I knew it had been in there for several weeks. I hoped, if he was going to eat it, that he’d get sick.
“Can I eat this?” he asked, not looking at me and not waiting for an answer. He grabbed a plate out of the dishwasher and shoved it in the microwave.
“If you really want to,” was all I said, then looked away. I looked around at the kitchen. It was a disaster. I sighed and started unloading the dishwasher. Blake obviously wasn’t going to leave any time soon, so if he wanted to help clean out the leftovers in the fridge… fine. That meant I didn’t have to eat it.
“So what was all that about.” I asked again.
“I’ll tell you eventually.”
“Blake,” I said, hating actually having to say his name, “I really hate the secretive stuff.”
“I’ll make you a deal, cutie.” He said as he leaned against the counter, watching the microwave rotate his lunch. “You open up to me, I’ll open up to you.”
“That’s stupid,” I muttered. “Why should I tell you anything?”
“Because you have questions, and I have answers. So the real question is, why should I tell you anything?”
“Well you’re the one who shoved his way into my house.”
“Your house?” he said, raising an eyebrow. He opened up the beeping microwave and started shoveling the old chicken down, seemingly without chewing. I realized I’d have to get him out of the house in case he threw up.
“You know what I meant.” I muttered.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said around his food, finishing off the chicken. Man he ate that fast. “I’ll ask a question and you answer it, at least part way. Maybe not all the details, but at least some of it. If you answer that, you can ask me a question and I’ll do the same. Deal?”
I studied him, hoping maybe we could get this over with before he threw up all over my floor. Yuck.
“Ok. But only one question and then you have to promise to leave and not tell anyone you’ve been here.”
“That’s a high order, cupcake. Why wouldn’t you want people to know about us being here alone?”
I hated the way he phrased that. “It’s… damaging to my reputation.”
He smirked. “just being around me is damaging to your reputation.”
I felt a twist in my gut and my eyes left his face. I really hoped I wasn’t blushing… but the look on his face had just done something to me that I hadn’t expected. I didn’t like it very much.
“Blake.”
He stared at me smugly for a few seconds, then said “fine.”
I scooted some dish towels out of the way and sat up on the counter, my feet dangling down.
“You start,” I said quietly. I knew what was coming.
“Where’s your dad?”
I closed my eyes. I had been hoping he wouldn’t ask that.
“Dead.” I whispered.
He was silent for a second. “I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not. You never knew him.”
He hesitated, then said, “Well obviously you’re pretty beat up over it, and I don’t like that. So yeah, I am sorry.” I heard his defenses go up.
“Fine. Whatever.”
He didn’t say anything for a while. “How’d he die?” he asked finally.
“I thought it was my turn to ask a question?”
“Well go ahead then,”
I thought of the best way of phrasing my question. “I don’t understand what we were doing with the whole closing the eyes thing. Can you explain it?”
He looked at my eyes, his expression shrouded. Then his expression changed and I saw something raw and hot fighting to come up. he looked at me with that crazy expression, like he was imagining things in his head… things about me… I’d seen that expression on guys before. I felt my eyes grow wide and I turned my head away.
I looked back a minute later. His face was a cold hard façade again.
“Yes.” he said smugly. But didn’t continue.
“Well?”
“Yes I can explain it. That doesn’t mean I will.” With that, he smiled just a little bit, a smug smile at the corner of his lips. I hated the tightening of my stomach that I felt when he did that, and it made me feel sick. Great, I thought. I thought he was the one who was supposed to be getting sick.
He left then. He turned on his heel and walked right out the door.
I hoped he got really sick and threw up all over the inside of his fancy-pants car.
Chapter
It wasn’t until a few minutes later that I realized what had been weird about our whole conversation. It was something he’d said at the beginning, something I’d skipped over trying to show off.
Well if what you have is considered an illness, then I’m sick too.
What had he been talking about? And what did Blake know about me?
I didn’t get a chance to even think about it, because the phone rang.
“Olivia?” my mom's voice greeted me.
“Oh, hi mom.”
“I called the sleep therapist. I made an appointment for you next Monday. I’ll fill you in when I get home. Are you ok?”
“Yeah I’m fine. I can’t get back to sleep, so I think I’ll study or something.”
When I hung up I went upstairs. It had been a very long time since I’d gone into the storage attic, but today I needed something besides that beloved purple robe. I needed the violin.
Daddy had played the violin for me every evening when I was little, and I’d dance around his feet and clap. Sometimes he’d play She Moved Through The Fair or Dubhdarra or Whistle Up The Wind, and I’d sing. He’d taught me to play it as soon as my arms were long enough to hold it.
The storage closet was awful. I had always hated the thing, because it was big and dark and smelly, incredibly dusty, and full of spiders. I took a deep calming breath before I opened the door and switched on a flashlight. I used a shoe to dust away the cobwebs from the corner of the room and shivered and looked away when I saw something move. I grabbed the dusty case, holding my breath so I wouldn’t cough and suffocate and then ran out, slamming the door behind me.
In my room I opened the case delicately. The violin was just as beautiful as it had always been, the strings were preserved well enough to play. I knew if I ever started playing in front of people again, I’d need to get it fixed up, but for now I just wanted to play for myself.
I tightened the bow and rubbed my resin across it a few times, then blew the dust from the violin again. I placed it below my chin.
I sang as I played She Moved Through The Fair, one of my favorite old Celtic songs about a girl who was in love but then disappeared and never got to marry her beloved. I wasn’t sure why I loved the song so much, because it really was quite depressing. But the melody and the harmonies, the singing of the violin, and the high shrill notes just seemed to speak to me.
I played all my favorite songs, even some songs I listened to on the radio that I played around with by ear. By the time I was done, I realized I’d played for a good two hours. I looked at the instrument and sighed. Maybe I could start playing again…
Not worth it.
I put the violin back in its case.
*******
Let me know what you think if you read it. You can also go to the Scribd page and read all 12000-ish words of it if you like.
IN this star-studded cross-genre anthology, seventeen of the greatest modern authors of fantasy, science fiction, and romance explore the borderlands of their genres with brand-new tales of ill-fated love. From zombie-infested woods in a postapocalyptic America to faery-haunted rural fields in eighteenth- century England, from the kingdoms of high fantasy to the alien world of a galaxy-spanning empire, these are stories of lovers who must struggle against the forces of magic and fate. 
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