Voices
Tadeus and Emireen were at the kitchen, having coffee. Zac took a glass of water to Hayden. Harry had prepared the coffee and gone to sleep. He had to get up early that day.
“What are we going to do with you?” Zac asked Hayden. She stared at the almost invisible steam coming from her coffee. It was getting colder.
“I don’t know.” She stared at Zac. Her eyes were red and pompous, painful, like burning. “I’m sorry I woke you up again.”
“This is it.” Tadeus said. “Was it really the same dream of last night (and others)?”
She shook her head, trembling.
“Not really.”
All stared at her surprised.
“A different one??” They said together.
“Well, not too different. This time, I was Dora. I was leading everyone to a war.” She shuddered. All had been so real… even Zac’s apparently death. But she decided it’d be better to omit that part. “I entered the wood, the—” she searched for Zac’s eyes. “The Willow Wood. All was dark,” she stared at her hands, interlacing her fingers. “I saw a blue tree in middle of all the dead, grey trees. It was shining and shaking softly; there wasn’t wind, though.”
Her brothers would have laughed but she was talking very serious, and her face showed confusion and fear.
“I heard someone talking to me. His voice was familiar, I heard it yesterday in the lib—” but she made a pause. She didn’t want her family to reconsider the idea of the mental hospital. “I heard a voice and he told me a few things. He explained me that I had to find the blue tree in a week.”
“What? Why?” Emireen asked.
“He said…” Hayden remembered. “That I had had six months to find it. That was the reason of my dreams. But now, countdown has started.”
All frowned, even Hayden.
“And I decided I will go to find the blue tree. Whether if you support me or not is your own business. I have my car, I have vacations, provisions, money, and I want these nightmares to stop. And if you think I’m mad, you might be right because that’d be the most logical thought about me. These dreams aren’t just dreams.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow. And… I wouldn’t like to leave… alone.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Tadeus opened his mouth but no word came out of it.
“What do you think, guys?” Zac asked them.
Emireen bit her inferior lip.
“This is out of the common things.” She said. “I suppose we should… take more seriously this… business, right? It looks like senseless, but I’m getting more and more scared with this.”
“So am I.” Tadeus said
“And if it helps to stop Hayden’s dreams, we should do something about it.” Emireen added.
Zac stared at his friend, his big mom, his twin sister with sweetness.
“You know I’m obviously going, Hade.”
“You’re very comprehensive. Thanks.” Hayden smiled sadly and her face showed a bit of the frustration she was feeling. “This is driving me crazy. This was one of the worst dreams. It was real. It seems that what I’m dreaming happened, truly happened, lots of years ago, before we were born, I’m quite sure of it... except about the blue tree.”
“Well,” Tadeus, like his father, loved biology and trees. “I can’t affirm there aren’t blue trees around the world but I’m sure that if anyone’s seen one, it means it’ll be very hard to find them.”
“But wait a minute!” Emireen said. “This won’t be as hard! You said Dora was in the Willow Wood, wasn’t she? So, of course, the Blue Tree is there!! We’ll have to go… to go… there…” Her voice disappeared. They all knew that was the place where their father had apparently died. Hayden tried to swallow the lump on her throat.
“Listen, Tad, Zac, Emi,” She started. “I know that’s the last place where you want to go. But if this has something to do with our father, and I’m sure it does, don’t ask why, I’ll be perfectly disposed to find out the truth.”
Zac sighed.
“I’m game if you are.” He told her. Tadeus drank his coffee and smiled after he was done.
“Yeah,” He said and everyone agreed. “It sounds pretty cool.”
Then, a noise in the door.
