Seeker

Quin was in the nursery, listening to the sounds of the others somewhere down the hall. There were two children in the room with her, a boy and a girl. They might have been twins, but it was hard to tell. They were huddled together in a corner against flowered wallpaper, the flowers looking like dark red stains in the moonlight.

I’m dreaming. It was a distant thought, somewhere in the furthest reaches of her mind. I always dream of this night. Sometimes there’s only one child, but two is the real number. There were two.

“I’m frightened,” the little girl was saying in French. Her long blond hair hung disheveled about her shoulders.

“So am I,” said her brother. They looked terrified, saying the words to each other, but also to Quin, as though they expected her to do something. They expect me to help them.

There was a scream from another room. A woman’s voice or a man’s—it was impossible to be sure.

“Is that Mummy?” the little girl asked, her eyes opening wider.

“Of course it’s not,” Quin said in French, trying to soothe them, even as she herself felt sharp icicles of fear in her chest. “Come, I’m going to take you out of here. Hold my hands.”

They were reluctant. If only I’d been better at keeping them calm, she thought in that distant part of her awareness.

“Come, take my hands,” she urged again.

They wouldn’t, but she took their hands in hers and led them to the door. Hiding them both under her cloak, she slipped out of the nursery and down the hall.This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

As she came around the landing in the grand staircase, she saw someone by the front doors below. She pulled the children behind the balusters and out of sight. The little boy was sobbing in soft, panicked gulps against her legs.

“Shh, shh,” she breathed. “You have to stay silent. Please.”

The little girl was crying freely, but making almost no noise at all. “That’s right,” Quin whispered to her.

Quin peered around the stair railing and watched the figure by the doors stop and look up toward the second floor. Had he heard them? She turned around, her back against a wide baluster, willing him not to see her. A boot took a heavy step on the bottom stair, then another step. He had heard them! He was walking up the stairs. She grabbed the children’s hands, ready to run down the upper hall.

Then there was noise from a room farther away, below them. The man’s footsteps were retreating. She glanced down to see him moving away from the stairs, his long cloak swinging about his legs as he walked off into another area of the house. He wasn’t just a man, of course. He was Briac. Briac, she thought, with the part of her mind that knew this was a dream. That’s his name, but there’s something else I call him.

As soon as Briac disappeared, she ran quickly down the stairs, the children clinging to her hands now. The little girl tripped on the final step, knocking over a vase perched on a small table against the wall. Before the object had even hit the ground, Quin was grabbing both children around their chests and running toward the front doors.

She heard the vase shatter behind them, then those heavy footsteps approaching. He was coming for them.

“Quin!” Briac yelled. “Quin!”

What if I hadn’t stopped? she wondered with the part of her mind that wasn’t dreaming. What if I’d kept going? I can keep going …

She was through the doorway and out into the night air. The children were too heavy for her to continue carrying them, but now she could see Yellen. Like a miracle, her horse was waiting outside, pawing the ground impatiently. Yellen was never there, her mind told her. But what if he had been?

The angry tread of boots was getting louder. The children were still crying, but they felt her urgency now and were helping. Frantically, Quin threw both of them up onto Yellen’s back, then swung herself into the saddle between them.

Briac’s steps were like thunder. He was just beyond the doors.

“Hold tight!” she ordered the boy, who was sitting behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist.

A shadow in the entryway, an angry voice, calling her name. She didn’t pause to look back. She dug her heels into Yellen’s sides, and the horse took off across the gravel path cutting through the moonlit garden expanse.

“Quin! You have to do this! There’s no choice. Now.”

It’s my dream, she thought. I can ignore him. I can do this right. The children were holding on, the wind was in their hair, and Yellen was carrying the three of them far away. She could hardly feel the tears running down her cheeks.