Stiles leaned against the cool locker fatigue in his bones he could have fell asleep waiting for the strawberry blonde to arrive at her locker. After his night terror, he quickly dug out his old middle school yearbook looking for Gabriella Martin, but the words – letters – were running down the pages. It did help that he fell asleep at his desk looking at the third grade class and the powernap made the words readable. She was right he did know her then, but he didn't know her now.
His brain tried to rack through anything regarding this Martin girl, but he couldn't remember anything other than after her father's car crash she stopped attending their middle school and was transferred somewhere else. He believed he heard she was emotionally fragile and school would be too much for her. He didn't question it especially since he knew the pain of losing a parent two years later.
So his next plan of action was to ask her cousin, Lydia Martin, about her and her known whereabouts. The only problem he didn't know how to approach the topic of her cousin without Lydia becoming suspicious. Plus with his literacy skill being that of a three year old he couldn't necessarily hack into the Beacon Hills police department to do a background check.
Stiles was watching his peers wander the halls filling it with gossip when Lydia appeared in front of him looking at him inquisitively. "Stiles is everything okay?"
Stiles vigorously nodded his head as he answered, "Yeah, yeah, I just need to ask you a question."
"Okay." She replied as she waited for him to continue.
Stiles rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at Lydia trying to figure out how to word his question, "Your cousin, Gabriella, does she still live in Beacon Hills?"
He watched as Lydia looked at him concerned as she pursed her lips together and opened her locker as she began speaking, "Gabriella…I haven't spoken to her in years…my mom told me she was sent to live with one of my dad's cousins a few states away."
"So you never heard from her in the past eight years?" Stiles asked his brows furrowed, as this information didn't help him in anyway plus it conflicted with how Gabriella told him she was still in Beacon Hills.
Lydia closed her locker door as she peered back up at him her eyes emitting confusion, "Why are you asking about my cousin?"
Stiles shook his head, "It doesn't matter. Forget I asked." He told her as he began walking away. He could faintly hear Lydia call after him, but he ignored her as he made way to his first class. He knew in the past Lydia had the exterior of being cold and heartless, but he didn't think that would extend to her cousin and not question why she hadn't heard from her in eight years.
Maybe he was analyzing the situation to hard, but he needed to know – understand – why he was seeing Gabriella in his dreams.
Stiles walked down the school hallway. Kids were in their cliques huddled together in laughter. It amazed Stiles after everything that has happened in this school with classmates being sacrificed and teachers missing or dead how life still went on as if the events didn't happen since they didn't impact them immediately. He still found it uncomfortable sitting in English class, some days he expected Jennifer to walk through the doors since her body was never found and who is too say she didn't find her way back to the Nemeton to suck some more juice out of it knowing his sacrifice jumpstarted it again. Although everyday a new substitute walked into the classroom and Jennifer's presence was seemingly forgotten, but to him she would always have an imprint on him. He still remembered the text she sent in class and his morbid mind he still had it and practically memorized,
"The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky – seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness."
Before his ability to read started to go haywire, Stiles read the book in the search for some clarity on what was happening in his life and everything – everyone that surrounded him. In the book madness was a result of Imperialism. Stiles quickly concluded that the madness him, Scott, the Pack, and Beacon Hills experienced was from the Alpha Pack, most importantly, it's leader Deucalion. If he didn't insist that a prerequisite for joining the pack was to maul all its members including its emissaries Jennifer wouldn't have gone mad in her quest for vengeance. Then the book had a theme of the irrationality of evil – moral confusion. Really, between the Alpha Pack and Jennifer who really was the lesser of the two evils. In hindsight, Jennifer wanted to get rid of the Alpha Pack of course her sacrificing innocent people wasn't helping her cause especially since she tried to kill his dad, but she wanted them gone. For the Alpha Pack there was no redeeming quality. They were killers plain and simple. They killed Erica and Boyd in cold blood and they wanted to turn his best friend into a killer. Lastly, the Congo River was a key location in the novella and in the now, in Beacon Hills, they have the Nemeton. It was key player in the supernatural and it represented that Beacon Hills was indeed a Beacon. Then that Nemeton gave him and his friends that heart immersed in darkness.
Stiles went into his classroom and began taking out his school supplies for class. Stiles was tapping his pencil against the desk when he realized the room wasn't being filled with oblivious students or a teacher wasn't even preparing for the current lecture that half the class wouldn't even be listening too.
Stiles looked around the room curiously and the sound of him tapping his pencil echoed louder and louder in his eardrums and it emulated the pounding of his heart. He looked at the clock in the room above the chalkboard and realized class was supposed to start fifteen minutes ago.
That familiar panic seized his chest as he realized the classroom held the science classes not English – his first class. Stiles stumbled up from his chair grabbing his books and materials when he turned to go to leave the room and into the hallway but stop and stood still in the doorframe when he saw the Nemeton resting in the middle of the deserted hallway. The lights were dim and shredded decorations covered the lockers while confetti cloaked the floor. His mind went back to that night on the Winter Formal; he half expected Jackson to emerge looking troubled from his need of power that caused him to spill the truth about Scott to the Argents.
Instead, his mouth called out another name as if she was there that night. The roles reversed like Lydia was looking for Jackson, he was looking for Gabriella.
"Gabriella?" Stiles called out in the hall, but he the only thing that answered his was silence and the sound of his own breathing. He went to turn to leave his position in the hallway, but met a chalkboard with Lydia's artistic representation of the Nemeton filling its space when he turned around to go back into the classroom.
He backed away only to fall upon the bark of the Nemeton that was in the hallway now in the classroom. His breathing paced harder and faster as if he just got done running the trail for track practice as the dimensions of his world were rapidly changing and defying logic. He turned around trying to gather his wits when a thick vine shot out of the stump causing him to shoot back up and to feel a hand on his shoulder and he met Scott's concerned gaze on him no doubt listening to his rapidly beating heart.
"You okay?"
Stiles looked wide-eyed around the room that was quickly filling with students unaware to his rapid beating heart and clammy skin. They were unmindful to the supernatural events that plagued Beacon Hills or the pack of supernatural creatures that walked the hallways. They weren't aware of any of that or even the recent murders and their true cause – the motives behind them.
They weren't even aware of the ramifications he, Allison, and Scott were even going to bring just like him.
He wished he could have had that ignorant bliss.
Stiles eyes glazed from the remnants of his dream – delusion - turned away from Scott and nodded his head. "I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
Stiles knew it was pointless to lie to Scott because he was already listening to his heartbeat doing his personal polygraph. Just at that moment, he was fine because he could distinguish that he was alert and was fine with that but he knew his heartbeat was erratic from all the other things that plagued his mind from Gabriella and his newfound appreciation of coffee – French vanilla coffee to be exact. With his ADD, he never needed the extra added caffeine to give him an energy boost.
Stiles pursed his lips together and gave his best friend a firm nod, "I'm good."
Gabriella knew she was dirty and grimy and probably smelled questionable. She was lucky she had no one to impress, as her hair was matted to her head and greasy. Even though she was content in sitting in the plush and comfortable leather couch she felt bad for her lack of personal hygiene at least the couch was leather and easy to clean.
Although, her newly appointed therapist, Ms. Morrell didn't seem to be fazed by her odor she believed Ms. Morrell wasn't deterred by anything with her perfectly pin straight hair. Ms. Morrell seemed to be at peace fixing people's minds and advising them although her degree in behavioral psychology seemed to attest to this fact also.
Gabriella wouldn't say she disliked Morrell, but she didn't like her either. It was more of indifference.
She sometimes believed Morrell had her best interest at heart, but recently she felt like a puppet or she was Will Graham to Hannibal Lector – an extreme comparison – but there was something questionable happening outside of Eichen House in the real world of Beacon Hills that was affecting her here. Plus, Morrell didn't seem she was curious as to what was going to happen although Gabriella felt she was in some sort of mind game. Morrell was preparing for a battle of something.
Yes, she was self-aware of who and what she was. It didn't take too long for her to figure out after the numerous tests and prodding and all the accidents she predicted through the years. In addition, Ms. Morrell seemed to want her to be aware too as she had no problem in divulging her in the mythology surrounding all of them.
Gabriella was well aware of the hidden floor in Eichen House where most of the screams came from.
"It is concerning how much you are spending time in the closed unit for behavioral issues. They are becoming more frequent and uninhibited."
"I've noticed," Gabriella quipped.
"You're not screaming out of fear not or out of warning most of the time. Night terrors and sleep paralysis since late September and we have yet to discuss these new symptoms or the fact you are clearly avoiding water." Morrell stated without the aid of notes and from memory.
"It's because everyone is screaming. I can't turn it off."
"You used to be in control of your powers these setbacks could hinder you in being released when you turn 18."
"That is practically two years away." The only reason Gabriella was still in Eichen House was that she had no one to sign her out. Her stay here was being paid for by the State. She knew a little screaming here and there wasn't going to have her committed for her whole life.
"But for you to be released on your own they are going to review everything."
Gabriella shrugged her shoulders and she was honestly exasperated and tired. Plus the plant on Morrell's desk was making her think of the appearance of that tree stump in Stiles' dream. She could taste the blood that filled her mouth filling her lung that caused her to start choking for life. She was sure she actually bit her tongue. She was not even going to psychoanalyze the meaning behind her injuring her tongue of all things in a dream.
All she did know since the dreams started she woke up terrified of the dark and shadows. She knew she should probably mention to Morrell how she was practically invading another person's dream. She didn't know why she was avoiding all topics of dreams because it wasn't like she was the one suffering from the dreams and she fleeted with the possibility that maybe dream walking was a side effect from being a Banshee.
Gabriella flicked her gaze up to Ms. Morrell who was watching her steadily. Of course, Morrell's face was neutral of any expression baring no hint of her emotions or thoughts. Gabriella leaned back in the couch, "I'll blame hormones for the behavior."
She watched as Morrell's lips twitched upward for a millisecond as she too leaned back and flicked her gaze between the office plant on her desk and to her, "You seem to be transfixed on my Bonsai plant."
"It's a nice plant I wish we were allowed to have plants in our rooms."
"Do you have a favorite type of tree, if I may ask?"
"I say it would be a cross between a Willow and Oak. You know Eichen is an Oak."
"Yes, I did know that."
"I like the meaning behind the oak: strength, stability, and nobility."
"Do you wish to attain these qualities?"
"I want someone else too," Gabriella replied with no hesitation.
"Who?"
She wanted Stiles to achieve those attributes. She wanted his mind and body to have the strength and stability to overcome these dreams that were plagued with a frightening force, and she hoped whatever these nightmares were doing weren't breaking his nobility.
"There was a tree stump in my dream last night." Gabriella revealed to her deflecting from her question.
"Go on." Morrell egged on piqued with interest.
"My dreams start with a labyrinth or riddles and I end up in a room I call Purgatory. It is all white with just a mirror and a sink. Finally last night the setting of that room changed and this tree stump emerged and I tried to run away but the vines brought me down and I swore I bit my own tongue in the dream, but the vines dragged me away and I woke up before I could see where they were taking me."
"What was so terrifying about the stump that made you run?"
"It wasn't necessarily the presence of the stump that was terrifying it was what came from that stump, but the thing is I never dreamt of this tree before or probably ever saw it."
"You know in Celtic myths druids picked a large, older tree in a grove to represent the center of the world. Some believed that cutting or harming the "world tree" would bring severe problems like fires, plagues, strife, "death and destruction of all kinds" to surrounding settlements."
"You're talking about a Nemeton, but what does that have to do with my dream?"
"What do you predict?"
Gabriella furrowed her brows at the question with the obvious answer, "Death."
"Death brings things like destruction, strife, and pain. Although it would help if you discussed these dreams more with me. I can't help you if you don't tell me the whole story."
Gabriella's eyes snapped up to Morrell as that phrase had been echoing in the facility.
Morrell seeing she wasn't going to be discussing the full nature of her dreams, "Tell me how do you feel?"
"Fatigued," Gabriella stated plainly picking at the fabric of her long sleeve shirt.
"You don't feel any pressure in your chest?"
"What like I can't breathe or something heavy is weighing down on it?" Gabriella asked for clarification arching her eyebrow while Morrell nodded her head. Gabriella leaned forward in her chair, "I always have that feeling before I scream."
"Your father's –"
"Oh don't," Gabriella interrupted standing up from the chair shaking her head, "I'm not talking about this."
"You can't avoid it forever."
"I'm not avoiding it. I just don't understand why everyone wants to dissect the accident. I told everyone what happened. No one believed me and my grandmother locked me up at her lake house before she turned crazy and became my roommate here. So what could my dad's death have to do with anything that is happening now?"
"You mentioned your dreams begin with riddles. You mentioned in the past you detest riddles."
"Yeah because towards the end all my dad did all day was mutter riddles. It became the topic of conversations."
"And we speculated that your dad wasn't himself when he passed."
"Are we done?"
The room engulfed in silence, Morrell watched Gabriella walk to the door waiting to be dismissed from the room. Morrell got up from her desk and began walking towards Gabriella, "I'm ordering the orderlies to escort you to the shower room and get cleaned up for the day avoiding water isn't going to help you."
Gabriella nodded her head and accepted Morrell's orders as her dismissal but Morrell placed a hand on her shoulder stopping, "I need to ask you one more question before you go. Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski do those names sound familiar to you?"
Gabriella snapped her head up from looking at the doorknob to peer at Morrell. "Stilinski was the name of the Sheriff that found me and McCall was the name of the nurse who took care of me in the hospital. I believe I went to grade school with their sons."
Morrell didn't say anything but let Gabriella leave the room.
...
"Morrell allowed you 30 minutes, Martin." Nurse Cross stated as she shut the door to one of the private shower stalls.
Gabriella watched Cross turn around to give her a semblance of privacy. Gabriella usually didn't need supervision to shower she had autonomy but since being in the closed unit more frequently her independence for the most part got restricted.
Gabriella made quick work in removing her grimy clothes and when removing her sweatpants she was all more aware of the long pink raised flesh on her thigh one of the few visible remainders of the car crash that killed her father.
Gabriella lightly traced the scar with her fingertips sometimes she still felt the burning from the puncture wound and how her pants became sticky from her blood. She barely remembered the pain of it.
She turned the shower knob on to the highest temperature her body could withstand. She tested the water for any voices with her fingertips but it was eerily quiet. Gabriella took the plunge under the water the water enflamed her skin and caused the walls to sweat.
Gabriella was actually enjoying this shower as it was quiet and was massaging her tense muscles from her body being on high alert from the nightmares and just by living in Eichen House in general. She briefly wondered if Stiles felt like this or he ever got a moment were the worry and terror would wash away for a little bit, plus it was nice to see clear liquid wash away in a drain and not a crimson color.
She was lathering her skin with the soap when the soap slipped out of her hands to the floor. She mindlessly bent down to pick up the soap that fell by her feet when terror seized her bones when she saw it was a piece of chalk.
*The quote belongs to Joseph Conrad on the last page of "Heart Of Darkness"
I want to give thanks for those who reviewed last chapter and for those who followed!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
-T
See you next week.
