Clary sighed. Rubbing her fingers continually to her temples, she gave up and placed her head against the cool tabletop. Her fiery hair pooled onto the table.
Jocelyn walked in, wrapped in a purple bathrobe and yawning slightly. She thoughtlessly wandered to the coffee machine and plugged it in. Coming to her senses, Jocelyn turned around and jumped at the sight of her daughter.
"Clary," She exclaimed, "What are you doing up so early? It's a Saturday."
Clary sighed once more and lifted her forehead from the table.
"I had the nightmare again." She mumbled thoughtlessly.
Light flashed in Jocelyn's eyes violently before settling. Currently, Jocelyn's behaviour had confused Clary to the extremes. It seemed almost as if she was encouraging the painful dreams to come. For some reason, this caused Clary to become very angry and to try to will away the dreams even harder. With no luck, of course.
"Well, you should probably think it over and try to remember it. If you know what's coming, it won't seem so scary…" Jocelyn cleared her throat.
"Mom!" Clary chastised, "I've had this dream frequently for the last three months- I think I know what's happening. But…tonight was different. I finished the entire dream-- At least I think I did. It just keeps getting stranger and stranger, mom. Every corner I turn in that dream I'm stumbling over some strange event. I really want the dreams to stop- and the headaches they ensue." Clary yawned.
Jocelyn seemed slightly annoyed.
"I'm sure if you think about it enough, you'll figure it out." Jocelyn said finally, rubbing Clary's back.
Clary shook her head and wondered why everyone was acting so strangely.
First, it had been Simon. He no longer wore his glasses and wore his bangs over his eyes, as if shielding something. He avoided her more and more, hanging out with a girl named Maia. And lately he had just blatantly refused to go to Pandemonium with her, claiming he had unsavoury connections with some individuals there. Clary hadn't thought that he would know anyone there, much less have unsavoury connections.
Luke too, had been a ghost and she barely saw him, though Jocelyn and Clary were currently residing in his small house. He seemed to be in a depression, and Jocelyn didn't seem to really notice. She found Luke was smiling less and less. Clary could barely remember how they were when they were close.
At least Jocelyn still looked like Jocelyn, with Luke constantly looking like he needed a blood transfusion and Simon looking sickly pale and yet better looking than ever before Clary was beginning to have trouble discerning whom she knew. But then again, Jocelyn sometimes seemed like a completely different person than the mother she grew up to. Jocelyn had just been looking into empty space lately, as if she was remembering a distant memory; and the entire helicopter-parent aspect of her seemed to be doing some kind of disappearing act. Not that Jocelyn didn't care, but she had obviously lost all -or most- of the anxiety that once ruled her parenting. All of this was making Clary very apprehensive.
Everything had become strange when they moved into Luke's place, Clary decided.
They had moved to Luke's because the old building that was their old house had become unliveable because of some very bad rotting and the unexpected death of their downstairs tenant. At least that was how Jocelyn told it; Clary had some trouble remembering all the details…
Suddenly realizing Jocelyn was speaking, Clary looked up to see her mother looking at her expectantly for an answer.
"Um…Sorry?" Clary forced the words out of her mouth. The world inside her head was so much more… simple. Jocelyn rolled her eyes and pushed her lips into the ghost of a smile.
"I asked what you were doing today." Jocelyn repeated.
"Uh…" Clary quickly raced through her mental schedule, "I was going to sketch a bit, then I was going to hang out with Simon, work on algebra and… piously worship the laptop gods... Why?" Clary's thoughts raced.
"Oh, I was just wondering because I'm going out with Luke for the day." Jocelyn said tonelessly.
Strange, thought Clary.
"I'll be pretty occupied, so don't worry about it." Clary murmured, the buzzing in her head making a come back.
"Okay…But if you decide to go somewhere call me, alright?" Clary nodded. Jocelyn sighed, poured the apparently finished coffee into a mug, and yawned again.
"Better go get changed so I can be on my way…" Jocelyn mumbled cradling the mug in her hands.
"What? You're leaving now. It's 6:30 am, mom. What will you are doing with Luke?" Clary was fairly shocked that anyone would do anything in the morning.
"Oh, nothing much. Don't worry honey; I'm much past my crazy years." Jocelyn responded as she left the room. Clary grinned slightly.
As Clary sat on the windowsill, sketchbook in hand, she wondered why she felt so sad all the time. There was nothing wrong with her life, nothing obviously missing or gone. Everything was perfectly normal. Maybe that was it. Perhaps she was hungering
for something different, out of the norm. Clary couldn't think of anything that could really fill the space though. Or maybe it was the dreams.
At that thought, Clary turned back to her sketchbook. She sighed and let her mind go blank; her hands started moving almost of their own accord.
She didn't know why, but thinking about the dream always made her feel uncomfortable, like some scandal she was involved in. It just made her feel queasy. Probably the penetrating eyes of that boy. The way he seemed to know her so well and predict what she was going to say, how he had the ability to hurt her.
Clary shook her head and chastised herself, she shouldn't have been letting such unimportant thoughts into her head.
Finally, she opened her eyes, and was not surprised to see his observant eyes staring back at her. He had been the ghost haunting her sketchbook since the dreams had begun. Seeing his face still made Clary's heart give two involuntary tugs.
Drrrrring!
The abrupt sound of Luke's doorbell caused Clary to jump. She realized quickly that time had passed faster than she thought and it was the early afternoon already, and that Simon had arrived.
She hastily jumped to her feet, nearly tripping on the piles of paper on the floor and stumbled out of her room.
Cringing slightly with the effort, Clary yanked Luke's stubborn door open.
On the outside, Simon stood grinning.
"Glad to see that you haven't lost the ability to open doors, among the many other things, Fray." Simon greeted in his easy sarcasm as he glided through the doorway.
"Please Simon, that door is long past 'might need replacing', and besides, I haven't 'lost' anything." Clary said as Simon flopped down on the worn couch.
Clary heard Simon mumble something under his breath that sounded like, "I beg to differ," but Clary couldn't be sure, besides, that didn't make any sense.
"So," Simon continued, "What did you do all day?"
"Just the usual of sketching and looking longingly into the sky," Clary responded, flopping down beside him; happy to settle back into their easy friendship.
"Hey," Simon said after a short pause, "Would you show me some of your sketches? I mean, only if you want to." Simon added the ending after seeing Clary's blank stare.
After a few seconds, Simon started to wave his hands in front of her face as if to see if she was still alive. "Clary?" He poked. Clary blinked and came to.
"I'm sorry Simon, of course you can, but-- it's just that no one ever really just openly asked me like that before." Clary sighed, hesitating a little before standing up and retrieving her sketchbook from her room. When she sat back down, she still seemed to be making up her mind whether or not to let Simon see her sketches.
"It's okay, Clary. You really don't have to show me if you don't want to…" Told a Simon that didn't seem so sure of himself.
"No, no," Clary scolded, "Just… don't laugh, alright?" Simon's grin returned. He lifted up his right hand.
"I do solemnly swear to you Clary Fray that I will not-" Simon shouted.
"Oh just shut up and look." Clary giggled as she shoved the sketchbook into his hands.
"As you wish," Simon replied sarcastically. Clary shook her head and smiled.
Simon immediately began flipping through the pages, gazing quickly on every sketch.
"You're getting really good, Fray," He murmured as he continually flipped through the book. Suddenly, his hands stopped.
He was staring intently at the last sketch, the sketch she had drawn this morning.
"And you're getting really good at drawing Jace…" Simon added under his breath. Clary's headache that had lessened to a dull ache suddenly exploded in her head, causing her to yell out in pain. She cringed and held her head in her hands.
"Are you alright Clary?" Simon said in increasing alarm.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Clary muttered after a couple seconds of dissipating pain.
"Are you sure? Should I call your mom," A sudden realization flowed into Clary's mind, clear as day but unexplainable, "because if you-"
"How did you know his name was 'Jace'?"