It was always the same, sliding in along the fringes of her sleep and enveloping her before she even realized. No sense of place. Only a grey and swirling mist surrounding her. And the man, stepping out of that greyness to take form. Old but not bent. Strong and stern. He knew Layne but she didn’t know him.
“But you do know me,” he said. Always a different conversation.
Layne shook her head. “You’re mistaken.”
“Do you know why you’re afraid of the dark?”
Layne frowned. “I’m not afraid of the dark.”
“You are,” he persisted even as she moved away from him. “And with good cause. You know what dwells there. You’ve hunted it.” He paused, and Layne turned back to see his eyes glittering in the half-light. “And now it hunts you.”
The nerves tingled along the back of Layne’s neck. “You’re nuts, do you know that? I don’t know who you are or where you come from but you’ve got the wrong girl. Go invade someone else’s sleep, will you?”
“Keep this in mind,” he said to her back as she walked away from him. “If I found you, so will they.”
# # # #
“Where’s your head at, girl?”
Layne looked up, nearly dropping her armload of books as she rounded the corner and walked into Schriber. He reached out a gnarled hand to steady the precious tomes, glaring at her over the rim of his antiquated spectacles. Layne muttered an incoherent apology as she struggled to keep her hold on the books.
“You need to stay in on work nights if you can’t do your job the next morning.”
“It’s not that,” Layne objected.
“No? Then what?”
“I haven’t been sleeping well, that’s all.” Layne tried to step around Schriber but he blocked her. “These are really heavy, you know?”
Schriber snatched three of four of the musty books off the top of her stack and whirled to set them down on the nearest table, gesturing to her to do the same with the rest.
“The dreams again?” he asked as she deposited her treasure next to the others and flexed her arm to work out a kink.
Layne hadn’t wanted to say anything to Schriber about the dreams. He always seemed to read more into things than was actually there and, quite frankly, she was already wigged out enough about this latest dream. She didn’t need to rehash it with him. Unfortunately, the aged librarian had the tenacity of a terrier when he was after something.
He pulled out a chair and motioned Layne into it against her objections. “Tell me.”
She sighed. “It’s nothing, Schriber. Honestly.”
“So you say. Tell me anyhow.”
He watched her with the intensity of a hungry cat as she relayed what she could remember of the two weeks worth of nightly interruptions. She tried offering the condensed version but he pried for more, making her strain to recall the minutest detail.
“This man,” he said. “Describe him to me.”
Layne rolled her eyes. “He’s maybe about 60 or so? Tall. Has a nice build for an old man. Straight and strong. He’s got a beard and mustache, neatly trimmed, and dark hair that’s going grey. His hair’s down to his collar, but back off his face.”
“His eyes?”
She shrugged. “I’ve never seen them close enough.”
Schriber wandered to one of the nearby stacks, fingers flitting from one binding to another as though he were a blind man reading by feel. The book he jerked from the shelf was huge and thick with an ornate leather cover set with stones. Layne didn’t have time to admire it. He plopped it onto the table, shoving the others out of the way. Flipping through the pages he stopped on one, swiveled the book so Layne could see it and stabbed a finger at the drawing there.
“Is this him?”
Layne couldn’t stop the gasp. “I must’ve seen this book,” she reasoned.
“No. You haven’t.” Schriber closed the book, cradled it in his arm and held his hand out to her. His expression had gotten suddenly gentle. “I think it’s time we talked.”
