Author's Note: In Somniis translates to In Dreams in Latin. I think. I am not as well educated as Edward though, so I don't actually know how to conjugate Latin. But if I'm wrong and it should be in somnis or something else entirely...let me know.

- Chapter 6: In Somniis -

"Bella, there's a telegram for you!"

Angela waved the familiar yellow envelope over her head as she burst through the kitchen door from the service drive. Ben followed behind her at a much more sedate pace.

"Eric from the post office dropped it at my house first thing this morning," he said. "He asked me to bring it up when we came."

I snatched the envelope from Angela's hand and slid my finger hurriedly under the flap, hoping it would be news of an imminent arrival.

"It's from Edward," I said, scanning quickly. "He and his family will be here Tuesday and the cousins' train will arrive in Seattle on Wednesday afternoon."

"Three days to prepare," Angela muttered, tapping her lip. "I ought to see if my mother can come help this afternoon—she won't want to work Sunday."

Today was Saturday—Edward had been gone since Wednesday, though it felt much longer than that to me. With a firm date of return in my hand, I felt lighter than I had since he left.

"I can help," I said. "I'll give Nessie some things to work on alone this morning."

Angela shot me a grateful smile. "That would be wonderful," she said sincerely. "We'll need to get all the family's rooms ready, of course—and I think some extra polish wouldn't go amiss…"

Angela was already off, beginning her morning duties. Sucking down the last of my coffee, I went off in search of Nessie. The sooner I could give Angela a hand, the better.

- o - o - o -

Angela kept me busy all day, scrubbing floors and beating rugs while she readied bedrooms and made endless lists of necessities and tasks. Ben, who was busy himself with a number of to-dos that required more strength than Angela or I possessed, made time to retrieve Mrs. Weber after lunch.

I liked her instantly on arrival. She was shorter and a good deal stouter than her willowy daughter, making her motherly embrace feel like being wrapped in a soft eiderdown.

"Goodness, you're skin and bones," she remarked as she pulled away from the greeting hug she'd given me. "Have either of you eaten anything since breakfast?" She glared sternly at Angela and me. Seeing our sheepish expressions, she huffed and marched straight to the pantry to see what could be done about our unsatisfactory condition.

Angela rolled her eyes, but the gesture was belied by her involuntary smile.

Mrs. Weber took over the kitchen entirely, sending her daughter and me off to polish silver until she had something ready for us to eat.

- o - o - o -

By the time I stumbled to bed that night, I ached from all the physical work of our preparations. I wasn't sure how I was going to get up and care for Nessie the next day. Luckily, tomorrow was the Lord's day, as Mrs. Weber said; she and Angela would be at church in the morning and taking their divine right to rest for the afternoon. I had offered to do a few small chores, but Mrs. Weber forbade it.

"We'll have plenty of time to finish Monday," she'd told me sternly at dinner, wagging a warning finger in my direction.

At the time, I'd suppressed a grin and just planned to ignore Mrs. Weber's orders. Now, though, with my head against the pillow and my poor, battered muscles sinking ever-deeper into the mattress, I was thinking I might just take advantage of the Sunday rest after all.

Before I even felt my eyelids close, I was back in the same dream that had dogged me each night since Edward left.

I was in a high tower of the medieval castle where the presence had brought me that first night, but this time, I was alone. I gazed longingly out the window, resting my chin on one hand as I ran my other through my long, long hair.

I sighed as I stared out over the vast, dark forest below me. What I waited for, however, I couldn't be sure. I felt as though I had known it once, but had forgotten. It was right there, at the edge of my mind, if I could reach just far enough to grasp it—

A loud crash and a high-pitched scream snapped me awake. I rolled over to see Nessie sprinting across my small room and launching herself into bed.

She was a wreck, wailing incoherently as she clung to me.

Still dull and dragging from being roused so suddenly, I sat up, wrapping my arms around her as I petted her back, her head, her arm—anywhere I could reach.

"Nessie, darling, you have to breathe so I can understand you," I murmured.

She pressed her damp face into my shoulder, trying to slow her hyperventilating enough to speak. "There were eyes," she moaned.

A nightmare, I realized. I held her a little tighter, making soft shushing sounds. "Where were the eyes?" I asked gently when her hiccupping breaths started to slow a little.

"At my window." She shivered. "They were…red."

The sobs began anew and I sighed at my own stupidity. I shouldn't have asked.

"Oh, Nessie," I said. "You were dreaming, that's all."

"No I wasn't!" she insisted. "I was awake, I know it! I was getting up to get a glass of water and I turned my flashlight and then, the window—"

She was incomprehensible again.

I rocked her in my arms for a long time, doing everything I could to quiet her. "Shhh," I whispered. "I'm sure it was only a possum or an owl—their eyes glow red when you shine a light at them in the dark."

Nessie whimpered softly, slumping in my arms. She was starting to calm a little, I thought.

"I'll tell you what," I said, guiding her down to the pillow. "You sleep right here. I'll stand guard for possums, all right?"

I tickled the spot where her neck met her shoulder, and she gave me a wet snuffle that might have been a laugh.

"That's better." I scooted to the edge of the bed so she could lie all the way down and covered her with my blanket, tucking her in securely. "You go back to sleep. You're perfectly safe with me."

For good measure, I hummed a little lullaby my dad used to sing for me and rubbed her back, over and over, until her breathing finally slowed.

- o - o - o -

Each hour crawled by on Sunday. Nessie seemed unaffected by her dream, but she was cranky and tired from our late night—and frankly, so was I.

By evening, we had little energy left even to read, so after dinner, I turned on the radio in the library. Nessie played quietly with her dolls and I idly sketched in my notebook as we listened to a serial.

I'd never been a great artist, but I found drawing soothed me. It was an opportunity to turn off the words part of my brain that sometimes tripped up my thoughts; with images, I could just let things flow.

As the radio program we'd been listening to ended, I looked up at Nessie—she was curled up on the rug, fast asleep. I smiled at the image; she really was an adorable girl.

Before I stood to coax her up the stairs to bed, I looked at my lap. I had been drawing without paying much attention to the result, and I was somewhat startled to see the page was covered in studies of eyes, the same pair over and over, in various expressions.

I snapped the book shut before I could examine them too closely, not wanting to think too hard about just whom my sketches might resemble.

It took a few minutes of cajoling to get Nessie to stand up on her own, but I really couldn't lift her by myself; as petite as she was for a girl of eight, there was no way I could carry her up the stairs. But we managed eventually, her leaning against me in that particular kind of lolling stupor common to children and drunks. She stood agreeably still, swaying only slightly, as I peeled off her clothes and tugged a nightdress over her head. And when I helped her into bed, I don't think she fell asleep so much as dove into it headfirst.

I kissed her slumber-hot forehead tenderly before flicking off her lamp and leaving her to hopefully sweeter dreams than the night before.

In my own bed, sleep was a little harder to come by, despite my fatigue. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my page of sketches burned behind my lids in the darkness.

I'd been ignoring the impending realization for weeks, but it refused to decamp; in fact, it had taken advantage of my avoidance to set up a more permanent residence.

I was, of course, rather infatuated with my employer.

I pulled a pillow over my face and whisper-screamed my frustration into it.

It had been easy to brush it off as watching for more signs of my…particular delusion of his otherness. But it had bubbled and grown, like an unwatched pot boiling over. I was fascinated by what he was, certainly, but I was also just fascinated by him.

This was very, very, very inconvenient. I could only hope that by acknowledging the crush, as the girls at my college called these passing fancies, I would find it easier to get over.

These things happened, I told myself. Though of course, it had never really happened to me before—at least, not so intensely. Still, I'd watched my classmates fall in and out of puppy love over the years. The smart ones spent some time sighing on their own, then moved on.

The girls that stoked the fire, however, usually got burned.

If I wanted to keep this job—and I did—I needed to be the former. When Edward returned the day after next, I'd be stricter with myself about the wayward glances and girlish blushes.

With that looming concern finally addressed, a somnolent fog rolled gently through my mind, and sleep took me.

- o - o - o -

I was in the living room of the white clapboard house where I'd grown up in Aberdeen. Nessie played on the rug while I sat mending a tear in a pair of pants. The needle flashed in the light of the sun that streamed through the lace curtains, dappling the floor and walls.

Tires on gravel. The slam of a door. Nessie leapt up to run to the front hall. I floated after her, a pleasant buzzing warmth of contentment settling over my shoulders.

"Papa!" she squealed as she flung open the front door. A rich male laugh, carefree, rang over the sound of little feet churning across the wood porch.

I stepped outside. Nessie was wrapped around Edward's waist and his hand smoothed her copper-gold curls. They both gleamed in the late afternoon sun, matching fiery halos crowning their heads. She looked up at him adoringly, and I saw her eyes were no longer evergreen, but rich brown—like mine.

Edward spotted me then and beamed, opening his free arm in invitation. Suddenly I was there, and he wrapped me in close.

"My girls," he murmured, gazing down at me in adoration. He was close enough that his breath tickled my lips.

I placed my hand on his chest, just over his heart. "We missed you."

"I missed you, too." And then he kissed me, warm and familiar and right, as though he were unquestionably mine and I, his.

With peculiar speed, a great storm cloud rolled across the sun, and the sky went dark. Distant thunder crashed.

"Bella," Edward said urgently, his grip on my waist tightening almost painfully. "Get Nessie in the house!"

I didn't understand—everything had changed. His face was blanched white, gleaming bone. The thunder was louder now. The wind screeched. He pushed me away, and I took Nessie's hand.

"Go!" he urged.

I turned to run, but branches caught my skirt and my hair whipped around my face, slowing me down. I tugged Nessie's arm, urging her faster. But the house got further and further away with every step we took.

I turned my head to look for Edward, to beg him to run with us, but he was nowhere to be seen. A sob caught in my throat as I gasped for air.

Then, Nessie's hand slipped from mine. I looked down at my side—she was gone, too. "Edward!" I shrieked. "Nessie!"

I whirled around frantically, my skirt wrapping around my legs until I was caught, trapped. The house had disappeared—there was nothing but darkness.

"Edward," I gasped again, as though his name on my lips might bring him back to me.

The screech of the wind doubled and echoed from all sides, morphing into the most beautiful, terrible, howling laughter. A woman's laugh, inhuman and more horrifying than I could ever imagine.

I opened my eyes, and there, before me, two crimson lights in the darkness.

Eyes. Glowing, red.

I tried to scream, but terror clenched my throat, and it came out strangled and hoarse. I couldn't move, couldn't run—

The laughter ceased, and the eyes were gone, and I was again in my bed. The covers were twisted around me, and a frigid draft turned my sweaty skin to ice.

I turned on my lamp quickly, illuminating my little room in a soft amber glow. I was, of course, alone. The window, though, was open. It must have been poorly latched.

I tentatively extracted myself from the sheets, trying to catch my runaway breath. I was all right, I told myself. An awful dream, to be sure, no doubt influenced by Nessie's the night before. But a dream all the same.

When I was free, I went to close my window. I could see no animal on the roofline, no bird in the sky that might have explained the eyes I'd seen. So I'd just dreamed of waking—it wouldn't be the first time that had happened to me. The grounds below were still, only the gentle waving of the forest in the light breeze.

I glanced at my alarm clock; quarter past five. I could sleep another hour if I wanted, but I didn't think I'd be able to after that dream. Maybe I ought to bathe the drying sweat from my skin and start my morning. After all, Angela and Mrs. Weber would probably be here early; it was our last day to prepare for the family's arrival.

Still shaky, I gathered my robe and headed for the bathroom to wash away the last vestiges of my nightmare.

- o - o - o -

"Seven times six?"

A miserable sigh was the only reply.

"Nessie," I admonished, trying to keep my cool. "We need to get through this."

My charge made a big show of hiding her face in her folded arms, resting on the card table that we had claimed for the afternoon. "I don't know it," she whined. "I can't remember anymore."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. This was definitely the hardest part about teaching Nessie: if she didn't have the answer to these types of memory-based questions right away, she often declared defeat without further examination. And once she got on a track of self-deprecation, it only got harder for her.

"Let's think for a moment before we give up," I cajoled. "If we knew what seven times five is…"

"Thirty-five," she said dully, tilting her head to one side so she could peek at me over her elbow.

"Right." I smiled at her. "Then seven times six would be thirty-five plus what?"

She grumbled something I couldn't quite make out.

"What was that?"

"Forty-two," she repeated, still sounding grouchy.

I beamed. "Precisely," I said, trying not to be too effusive. In this sort of mood, I found excessive praise could irritate her more.

"But I didn't know it until you helped me." She made a face, intent on misery.

I put an affectionate hand on her forearm. "Well, memorization isn't infallible," I said gently. "Everyone has a little lapse now and again. Honestly, that's exactly what I do when I forget one of my times tables. I go back to the nearest one I do remember, then add from there."

Nessie turned again, this time resting her chin on her wrists. She stared out the window at the front drive blankly, but I thought I could see the corner of her lip twitch.

"Now. Seven times seven?"

"Forty-nine. And seven times eight is 56, and seven times nine is 63, and seven times 10 is 70."

She gave me a slanted look that was meant to be sullen, but she was cracking already, that little twitch becoming a true curve of a smile that she had to bite back.

"You little imp," I teased, tickling her exposed ribs.

"Don't!" Nessie gasped, trying to fight the giggles rising in her throat.

I gave her side one more light pinch before granting her mercy.

"Nessie, you know I don't do this to torture you," I said, letting my hand rest on her shoulder. "You need to know all the single digits by heart to be able to multiply bigger numbers. It's just how it works."

"I know," she said, voice small. She smiled at me tentatively. "But I really, really hate it."

I laughed at that. "Well, you're entitled. So long as you do it anyway."

"How long until Uncle Edward gets here?" Nessie asked suddenly.

Aha, I thought. She'd given me a perfect opening for a bit more arithmetic and she didn't even realize it.

"Well, let's see." I looked at the bronze and mahogany clock decorating the mantle. "It's 3:07 now. He's due back tomorrow. He didn't say the exact time, but let's assume the family will be here by half past five in the evening," I hedged.

Nessie was concentrating hard, her little brow furrowed. "So that's…"

"How many hours in a day?" I prompted.

"Twenty-four."

"Good. So 24 hours from now, what time will it be?"

"Three! And then it'll be two hours and…" She looked up as though the numbers were written on the ceiling, lips moving as she calculated silently. "Twenty-three minutes til 5:30, so that would be 26 hours and 23 minutes?"

"At most," I confirmed. "Well done!"

Nessie beamed.

"Our little mathematical genius!"

Mrs. Weber was at the door to the drawing room. She was the picture of domestic warmth in her crisp white apron, somehow spotless despite the hours she'd already spent cooking and cleaning that day.

Nessie jumped up from the table, grinning. Mrs. Weber had showed up on her first day with a pocket full of sweets for the child, training her like a puppy. Now Nessie was conditioned to cheerfully take on any task Mrs. Weber might offer, no matter how tedious.

"Bella, dear, I came to see if you two are almost done in here," Mrs. Weber said sweetly. A mysterious crinkling noise came from the pocket of her dress as she tucked a hand inside. "There's crystal that needs polishing and I was hoping to find someone with little fingers to help me get in all the nooks and crannies."

Nessie's hand shot above her head to volunteer, slender fingers wriggling to demonstrate their ideal size for such a task.

"Oh, I suppose I can spare you," I said to Nessie, trying not to giggle at her enthusiasm.

"Come here, pet," Mrs. Weber said, opening an arm to the girl.

"Recite your times tables while you work!" I called after them both as Nessie scampered off to the kitchen, Mrs. Weber chuckling as she followed.

With the drawing room to myself, I set about straightening all the various areas Nessie and I had been using for lessons that week. It was really more of a hall, I thought, running the full width of the house, with multiple clusters of seating scattered throughout. Games tables, conversation areas, a writing desk—and at the far end, by the intricate stained glass bay windows overlooking the back lawn, a beautiful piano that I hadn't seen anyone play before. The room looked like it was designed precisely for the sort of gathering we were preparing for.

I plumped up the pillows on all the sofas and chairs, straightened the various decorative items on the occasional tables, inspected the glass in the windows on either end of the room and the French doors leading to the loggia outside. Angela must have cleaned them recently, I thought—the panes all spotless. The smooth stone fireplace had been swept and readied for use again. I thought perhaps the rugs could use a second vacuuming; I knew Angela was planning to do one last tour with the Hoover in the morning so I resolved to mention it to her.

Really, the only other thing left was to scoop up Nessie's schoolbooks and find a place for them in the library, which would be our school room while the house was full up.

I'd just placed the small stack in one of the cupboards below the bookshelves when the rap of a hand on wood sounded from the entry hall—someone at the front door.

Despite my earlier resolution to set aside my little crush, I felt my heart leap—could Edward have come home a day early?

But no, that was silly, I reprimanded myself. He wouldn't knock on his own front door, he'd just come in.

Three more knocks, more insistent. A delivery maybe? Someone who didn't know about the service entrance by the kitchen?

I straightened my dress quickly and tried to smooth back the locks of hair that had escaped the confines of my chignon as I slipped out of the library to the foyer.

When I opened the door, there under the cover of the entry porch was a woman I didn't recognize—and unlike any woman I'd seen before.

She was covered chin to toes in black, with an old-fashioned, high-collared coat that flowed to mid-calf, revealing only muddied button-up leather boots underneath. Her hands were covered by black gloves. But she wore no hat and her long, black hair tumbled to her waist, wild and wind-blown.

Strangest of all, she wore round sunglasses with dark lenses despite the clouds.

Her lush lips, dark berry against her opalescent skin, parted to reveal perfectly even, white teeth. I felt a tremor flow through me, though I didn't understand why.

She was the most terrifyingly beautiful woman I'd ever seen.

"Hello." Her voice was dark and honeyed, pitched low and husky. "I'm an old friend of Edward's. Is he home?"

Some instinct deep within the animal recesses of my nervous system screamed at me not to answer, to slam the door shut in the woman's face and bolt it tight. I balled up my fists to hide the shaking.

"I'm sorry," I said, forcing myself to be polite. "He's indisposed at the moment. I'd be happy to take your card, so he may call on you when he's able."

I didn't know why I was lying, but the idea of telling her that Edward was gone made that wild animal cower in fear.

"Oh, that won't be necessary," the woman said softly, leaning closer toward me. She tilted her lovely chin down to peer at me over her sunglasses, and I went numb. "It's really you that I'm looking for."

Her eyes, now visible above the dark frames, were blood red.

- o - o - o -

Author's Note: As I said last chapter…we're getting into the thick of it now! Any guesses on the identity of our mysterious visitor? Love reading your theories and reactions!

Trying to get consistent with Friday updates so hopefully you won't have to sit on this cliffhanger for too long. :)