© 2002 by Alessandra Azzaroni aazzaroni@hotmail.com http://au.geocities.com/vcastairwaytoheaven/index.htm

STORY LAST UPDATED ON 01/07/2002

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Written in Australia. This story was partly inspired by Flowers in the Attic.

CHAPTER FOUR: DREAMING?

"I'm hungry. I'm so hungry."
"Far will be here soon. He wouldn't forget us."
"But how come he isn't here with our dinner? He never forgets. What if something's happened to him?"
"Don't worry. Far wouldn't intentionally not come. Maybe he just couldn't get couldn't get away to feed us."
A long, silent pause followed.
"Maybe Mother wouldn't let him come. She's punishing us! We've done nothing wrong. Not lately-"
"Don't worry. He'll be here soon. Come on, let's just go back to sleep. If we sleep, we won't need to eat."
"But-"
"Jag är sömnig. Sova, sova…"

I sat up, blinked and rubbed my eyes. What kind of a dream was that? The thing was, I didn't know if dreams had to have visual bits or not. This one sure didn't. There was only sound.
And what was happening in the dream? It seemed to me as if the two women hadn't been given dinner yet. But why didn't they just go and get their own food?
I'd opened the curtains a little bit before bed, and I used the moonlight and starlight to brighten the dark red carpeting, so I could see my watch. It was 1:57 in the morning. Time to go back to sleep.
I lay back down, but I couldn't get the dream out of my head. If it even was a dream. Somehow I thought that maybe I had heard voices, real voices speaking. And what about the last bit I'd heard from the second woman? The words were obviously in another language, but which one? And why did she not speak in English then?
I cleared my mind of its cluttered thoughts as best as I could. Then I tried to concentrate on my breathing, for that usually helped.
Soon I was going back to sleep again.

I heard heavy knocking coming from the other side of my bedroom door. Sunlight had entered the room, illuminating the precise 7:30AM on my watch. "Yes?" I called out.
Fergus opened the door. "Te lady of te manor wants ye to be a-helpin' me in te kitchen wit breakfast. Be down in fifteen minutes." He closed the door.
Fully awake, I got out of bed, grabbed a white bathrobe out of one closet, for the other one was locked, and went into the bathroom for a quick shower. I towel-dried my hair and dressed quickly into a long-sleeved blue top, black trousers and black scuffs.
I found my way into the kitchen, and Fergus explained to me the schedule mealtimes were run by. "Breakfast be always at eight, so you be here at quarter to. Lunch be at one, so you be here at quarter to. Dinner be at eight, so you be here at half past seven. Got it?"
"Got it. What are we making?" I asked.
"English muffins and tea for te lady," he answered, peeking through cupboard doors, before removing a bag of English muffins. "Jonas has requested falukorv for this mornin'. He's already bought it."
"And what is falukorv?"
"Fried pork sausage." He chuckled. "Viviana would never eat what he eats. He usually makes his own lunch and dinner, and I'd be a-guessin' to say he'd want to share wit ye."
"Any reason in particular?"
Fergus cut a muffin in half, and sighed. "Te lady doesn't like him a-bringin' his Swedish tings into te house. She doesn't like tem."
I furrowed my eyebrows. "Has she tried giving it a go?"
He laughed. "Te lady would never!" He pointed his head in the direction of the fridge. "Te falukorv is in there. Get it out and I be a-helpin' ye fry it."
Soon I was successfully frying the falukorv, and my mind was still on the "dream". I dared to believe that I had not dreamt it, and that I had not imagined it, either.
Suddenly, I had an idea. Maybe the language I'd heard was Swedish! It was quite possible, seeing as though my lovely grandfather was from Sweden. But that only sparked another question into my head. Who were the women, and were they somehow related to Jonas Carlsson?
I turned the falukorv over, and tried not to fuss over the matter too much. I probably had just imagined it, and more likely had dreamt it.
But that didn't make it feel any less real.