"Watermarks in Dreams"
She noticed how high and vaulted these buildings were, as though the sides of a mighty birdcage, enclosing everyone who lived and worked within it. The school gave off a feeling of great space and altering dimensions, and if she wasn't of the practical mindset that it was simply her mind playing tricks on her due to stress, she would have sworn that it moved.
On her first day there, after unpacking her pictures, clothes she took from him, shoes she inherited from an aunt, and everything of a past life as a girl and a present life as what she wanted to be, she lay down on the soft down of her bedding and watched the ceiling. Shadows played like children in and out of the light fixture and the furniture, chasing each other as light shifted somewhere outside the thin, watery pane of glass of her window. That night, she woke up in the little hours of the morning, the sky still a washed-charcoal grey, and saw the girl sitting on her desk chair. Her skin was corpse-pale and her hair was short, the color of crushed violets. She was watching her through dark eyes that spoke of secrets and hidden jokes. When the girl smiled, she closed her eyes and fell back into dreams.
At night, she haunted her dreams as a faceless, flitting presence. She tied torn ribbons in her hair and mocked her false beliefs, smiling sweetly as she did so. Rain was constantly falling; puddles spread out and wet the ground beneath their bare feet. The girl was wet from head to toe, her sodden gown trailing behind her in long trails of blended water and cloth. She would discard it like it was trash and stand naked before her, a mocking smile on her face as she caressed her hair. The buildings in her dreams were closer, always coming closer once she turned her face away, and she felt as though they were forming a face, and a mouth. She couldn't ever move.
The last night, she followed her down a closed, dark hallway, watching her flicker in and out of sight as she moved through trails of light. The hall was lined with half-finished paintings, and the rain that was always present dripped upon them and made them bleed. When she came to the end of the hall, the girl turned and smiled at her. Two little girls lay on the floor, but one was dead and the other, golden-haired and pigtailed, coughed up a stream of water before she began to breathe.
"She fell in first, and the prince saved her. I wanted to be saved too, but he couldn't save me because she killed him. No one even knew there were two little girls. I came here, where the dead can live. Now you will stay here, too."
And when she awoke, her tears tasted like bitter rainwater.