A/N: Again, two chapters at once. Make sure you've read chapter 10 (Golden Dreams,) before reading this one. And I'll love it if you tell me what you think. ;)
Chapter 11: Truthful Dreams.
Sarah fidgeted uncomfortably, poking at her scrambled eggs with a fork tine.
"Sarah dear, what's wrong?" Karen asked once more. Hurriedly, Sarah pasted on a smile and took a bite of the food.
"You seem distracted this morning," Jared commented, downing a hearty portion off his own plate. Sarah quickly refilled her mouth and shook her head, making amused sounds of denial.
She was distracted. She had shut the window when she woke up, taken another quick glance around the room, and returned to bed. The memories of her dreams had come back as she idly twirled the feather between her fingers. Gaelle's innocent face across the table made her feel a strange, distant sort of guilt for such thoughts; after all, they were just dreams. Idiotic illusions her mind had conjured up. Nothing real.
But it had all seemed so real. Usually real people she transferred into her dreams looked different in some way; occasionally, they sported completely new faces. Gaelle had looked exactly like she would have when younger. And what about that French word, Mère? Sarah knew no French. She could only assume it meant 'mother.' For all she knew, it could mean 'sock.' So those important details would lead one to believe the dreams hadn't merely been dreams, would they not?
If they hadn't been dreams, though, what had they been? Visions or something equally ridiculous? Sarah fully believed in such things, when other people received them. She flatly refused to even entertain the notion that she could do such a thing.
"Are you sure you're ok, Sis?" Toby asked. His hand, tucked firmly around Gaelle's, sat on the table. Sarah's eyes fell momentarily on the knot of fingers, and she was instantly worried for her brother.
"I'm fine, really," Sarah replied. Glancing down at her half-filled plate, she came to the realization that she simply could not force herself to eat one more bite. "But I'm going to go to the bathroom."
Sarah sat on the toilet seat, once more twirling the feather. She didn't know why, but she had tucked it into her back pocket before going down to breakfast, and now she held it again, waiting for it to reveal more secrets. Dreams! They were dreams, not secrets.
Frustrated with herself, she threw the feather into the trash. It looked forlorn, nestled among the used tissues and dental floss, but she stood and left the room.
That night, Sarah was plagued by the same dream. Upon awaking, she forced it from her mind, refusing to spend another day avoiding eye contact with the house's other occupants.
She made herself sit in Karen's floral-and-pink living room and chat casually with Gaelle. She learned the girl's mother was dead, but her father was alive and she had no siblings. That proved it, certainly. Sarah hadn't dared to ask if she had children.
She told the girl stories of growing up with Toby, watching the way she giggled whenever she got to a part where the boy did something particularly cute or amusing. She seemed a mite smitten. Eventually, Abby and Melanie wandered in with pumpkin pie and added to the tales; they jointly told the story of when Karen had somehow accidentally put Sarah's name on Toby's Christmas gifts and Toby's on Sarah's. His face had been priceless when he opened his first present to find a sheer pink blouse. And then later, when he had snuck out of the room and put it on as a joke, the whole family had almost died laughing.
She quite enjoyed the girl's company, and when she went to bed that night, she desperately hoped she wouldn't dream of her again.
Her hopes were futile. The dreams came back, different this time. More forceful and sickeningly realistic.
Again, she sat in the corner of the dark room. She heard the boy sniffling against the opposite wall. She opened her mouth to speak, offer pointless words of comfort, but it felt as if her throat was filled with glue.
The door opened, and the girl from the other dream, the younger girl with short hair, walked in. She carried a dirty wooden tray, on which a bowl sat. Sarah couldn't see what the bowl contained, but she could tell there was very little of it.
The girl sat it on the floor, cast a despairing look towards the boy, and left the room.
Fade; blur.
A young Gaelle sat at the round kitchen table, sobbing freely. Her mother sat across from her, eyes wide and terrified.
"No, Gaelle! We can't afford to feed another mouth! You're mistaken, my daughter. You're mistaken!" She frantically screamed.
"No, Mère. No! I am not mistaken," she rubbed at her bloodshot eyes. The tears had stopped, but her mother's had just started. Sarah felt immense sympathy for the woman and pity for the girl.
"There's a chance, isn't there? There's a chance it's just a mistake!"
"No. No!" She stood suddenly, sending the battered chair skidding across the splintered wood floor. She dashed across the room and down a hallway. Sarah watched as the woman leaned on the table, each of her racking sobs wrenching her heart.
It changed again.
The younger children, with the exception of the tortured boy, sat under a tree. Although she couldn't feel it, Sarah knew the sunshine that filtered through the leaves and branches burned against their pale skin.
"There's nothing we can do, Amandine. Nothing," the oldest boy said. The girl who had served the other boy glared defiantly at him.
"Because you don't care! Defy her, for once! Defy Gaelle, what'll she do to you?" She hissed at him, holding tightly to the smaller girl, who bore a striking resemblance to Gaelle. Her lip quivered as her sister held her closely.
"She could starve me, for starters. Start thinking, Amandine. There's truly nothing we can do for him!"
"Starve you? You're fifteen years old, you could find work easily. Don't let her rule you because it's easy, David. Don't let her!" She shrieked the last sentence and the little girl pressed her face tighter against her ribs.
"Because it's easy?" David leaned forward, scorn showing in his eyes. "Maybe it's because it's what Mère wanted! She asked Gaelle to take care of us, not me!"
"Mère wanted this? She wanted Gaelle to torment Mathis just because he's her own son? Mère never would have guessed what a monster she would become!"
The smaller girl began to whimper, and the other boy, standing away from the confrontation, rushed to comfort her.
"You're frightening Oriane. Please stop it. You'll just get us into trouble."
The girl's strong front cracked, and tears fell down her face. "You haven't seen him, David. You haven't seen what she's done to him." She let herself fall to the ground. David watched her, tears of his own falling onto the dry, sunlit dirt.
Sarah woke crying and shivering. Unsurprised, she noticed the window was open again. Without hesitation, she slipped out of bed and went to close it.
She found no feather this time, but if she had looked, she would have seen several nestled among the leaves on the ground below.