28. COUNTING SHEEP
LEESA SAT DOWN NUMBLY on the edge of her bed, her eyes moving back and forth from the soda stain on her rug—where the wastebasket had started—to the basket itself, now lying on its side across the room against the dresser. How had it gotten from one spot to the other? Sure, she had kicked at it after she stumbled over it, but she hadn’t actually connected with it. Or had she? The evidence was right there in front of her, lying against the dresser. She must have kicked it. What other explanation could there be? Wastebaskets did not fly across the room on their own. Unless….
She thought back to the Red Bull can. Maybe the darn thing had actually slid a few inches across her desk. Maybe the can and the basket hadn’t moved on their own—maybe she had somehow caused them to move. She remembered a special she had seen on TV, about a guy who claimed he could move objects with his mind. Maybe she was doing the same thing. But that was crazy, right—moving stuff with her mind? Either that was crazy, or she was. More likely, she was just imagining things.
She shook her head, unable to believe it was just her imagination. Sure, she might have imagined the can moving—it was only a couple of inches, after all—but no way had she imagined the basket flying across the room. Could she have kicked it without realizing it? Maybe. She guessed perhaps she was tired enough for that.
The Red Bull thing had occurred during finals, when she had been exhausted. Maybe she wasn’t crazy—maybe her mind just played tricks on her whenever she was overly tired. Between her dreams and her tossing and turning, she certainly had not gotten anywhere near enough sleep lately. She wished more than ever that Rave was here. Not that she expected him to have an answer about any of this, but she was pretty sure if she could just lie down cradled in his arms, she could get a much needed good night’s sleep.
But Rave was not here, and she had no idea when he would be back.
She wondered if Dr. Clerval might know anything about vampires being able to move things with their minds. She had never heard of them doing it, but that did not mean it wasn’t true. And if they could, maybe Stefan’s aborted bite had been enough to transfer a bit of that power to her. She definitely needed to ask the professor about this. First chance she got on Monday, she was going to head to his office.
There were no answers she could get tonight, though. Still, there was one thing she could do now, something she should have done already if she hadn’t been so stunned by all this. She got up from the bed and wet a washcloth in the sink. Dropping to her knees, she began cleaning up the soda spill.
Ten minutes later, Leesa had cleaned up the spill as much as she could. A faint brown stain was still visible on the rug, but that would need some real carpet cleaner or shampoo to get rid of. She had also put the spilled trash back into the wastebasket and returned the basket to its normal place beside her desk, where there would be no chance a fake kick would send it flying again. Her eyes were growing heavy, so she washed her face, brushed her teeth and climbed into bed.
Once again, sleep did not come easy. Her body was tired, but her mind refused to turn off. Just because her eyes were closed and she was tucked comfortably under the covers did not mean the questions racing through her brain were going to stop. She tried focusing on other, more pleasant things, recalling memories of favorite times with Rave, but the relief was only temporary. Warm and fun, for sure, but temporary. As soon as she began to drift off, images of the wastebasket flying across the room or dead bodies coming to life reappeared.
Finally, after what seemed like hours of tossing and turning, she fell asleep.
Sleep did not offer the succor she had hoped for. A familiar dream rose up from her unconscious, returning her to the cave, where she once again faced the dark figure with glowing eyes. Behind the vampire was the same poor girl, chained to the cavern wall. No, not to the wall—the girl was now tied to a small tree. What a tree was doing here deep inside the bowels of the mountain, Leesa had no idea. As before, she was certain she knew the captive, but something kept the image blurred. The girl was tantalizingly familiar, yet frustratingly unrecognizable.
Leesa’s eyes snapped open, only to be met by more darkness. At least this was real darkness, not some magical dream dimness that revealed some things and kept others hidden. Why couldn’t she see the girl more clearly, she wondered? Her other two dreams had been so clear—much clearer than she wanted—but not this one. Why had she been able to see every detail of the rotting corpses coming back to life, but the one figure she desperately wanted to see remained just out of her grasp? Was her brain protecting her from something? Or was this another kind of dream, not related to the other two? All three dreams felt the same, different in some profound, powerful way from her usual dreams, yet they differed in this one very crucial element.
Another thought struck her—one that brought both comfort and despair. Each of her zombie dreams had occurred just once, and then had seemingly come to pass, at least as far as she could tell from the television news and the YouTube video. This one she’d had twice now, more than two weeks apart. Perhaps the repeat signaled that this dream had not yet come true, that no girl was being held captive in a dark cavern somewhere. Maybe there was still something Leesa could do to prevent it from happening. But how was she supposed to stop it, when she had no idea who the girl was?
The only thing Leesa knew for sure was that she needed to get some sleep. Unable to turn her mind away from her problems, she decided to concentrate on them instead, to count them, sort of like counting sheep. One, Rave was several hundred miles away…Two, even if Rave was around, she would not be able to kiss him, because something had weakened his control over his inner fire…Three, magical energies were inflaming the blood thirst of the vampires…Four, some guy was looking for her and claiming to be her father…Five, objects in her close proximity were moving without apparent reason…Six, there was a chance that in some unknown way, she was making them move…Seven, she’d had two dreams of dead bodies reanimating, and both had apparently come true…Eight, she had twice dreamed of a girl in trouble, but despite a strong feeling of familiarity, she could not recognize who the girl was….
Somehow, in a perverse and unexpected way, listing her problems sent her drifting off into much needed sleep.