Free Visioness by Lincoln Law Page A

the
concern she had for Larraine. Intending to visit her after her trip to the
professor, she had received a missive stating that Larraine wasn’t in any state
to talk yet and that an exchange would have to wait until the day following.
    And again, the day
following, she received a letter stating that Larraine was still too deeply
entrenched in the nightmare that had terrified her the night previous. At
night, Adabelle slept and fought off the nightmares attempting to take her. She
kept an ear out for the lullaby and a nose up for the scent of Therron’s
cologne. But it didn’t appear.
    There was time for her to
practice violin, too, and that gave her a small comfort during the times when
her troubles seemed far too great for her to deal with. In a way, her practice,
particularly of The Dreamer’s Lullaby was a way for her to keep the tune
fresh in her mind, to remind her to be wary so that when that song appeared
again within a dream, it did not shock her into inaction as it had last time.
Combined with work at the café, she had enough to keep her mind occupied.
    It was another day before
she was given an opportunity to visit Larraine, and when they informed her, she
demanded a visit first thing in the morning.
    When she arrived at the
ward, she found Larraine sitting up in bed with a bowl of porridge. The cheek
that had been cut open was sealed with stitches, a staccato line of thread seeming
to hold her face together. She smiled when she looked up from the bowl at
Adabelle, and set her spoon down so that she could give Adabelle a hug. The
smile made Larraine wince, yet she didn’t seem overly troubled by it.
    “Morning, Adabelle,” she
croaked, not sounding well at all.
    “Larraine,” Adabelle
replied, pulling up a seat beside the hospital bed, “how are you?”
    “I’m all right,” she
replied, though her tone suggested the opposite. “My cheek still hurts, but I’m
hoping it will heal without too much of a scar. I’ve been told that, with the
depth it cut, I’m lucky it’s not infected.”
    Adabelle’s gaze brushed over
the healing wound, at the wires sticking out of that curved black line, at the
softly red tint to the skin around the cut, and the subtle way the skin dipped
in slightly around her cheek. She would have that scar forever. No amount of
positive thinking would ever heal that deep a cut.
    “Well I suppose we can be thankful
of that,” Adabelle said. “Oh, before I forget. I brought you a book to keep you
busy.” She picked the emerald, cloth-bound book out. It was Dream Theory and
Cognitive Skill, the same one the professor had used. In her day off, she’d
been able to find a second hand copy in a bookshop. She hadn’t time to flick
through the book, but while her cousin was in hospital, Larraine would.
    Larraine glanced at the
title.
    “What is it?” she asked,
opening it up to the title page. It read:
     
    Dream
Theory and Cognitive Skill
    A
reference for Somnetii
    With
Pictures and Diagrams
    by
Lady Noelle Morphier
     
    “It’s a dream book,”
Adabelle explained. “The professor referred to it when I went to see him about Therron.”
    “Professor Oakley?” Larraine
inquired.
    “Yes. And he found some
useful things in it. I thought, since you’re the one who keeps being…well… a
target, you should probably read it. Start with the part about phantasmagoria—that’s
what I’m planning on using should I need to—and then read on as you wish. But
especially the phantasmagory section.”
    Larraine closed it and put
it to her bedside table. “Thank you.”
    “It was the least I could
do.” Adabelle smiled, though it was mostly apologetic. “Can you tell me what
happened?”
    Larraine’s hand absently
rose to touch her face where the stitches held the skin together. She touched
it, wincing quietly with each soft tap against the wires. Her grimace, which
was deep and mournful, suggested a girl who was about to cry, as did the quaver
of the voice. Yet when she spoke,