Conspiracies - Mercedes Lackey [54]
Strangely, Spirit seemed to be the only person in the class that found this scene acutely uncomfortable, disturbing, invasive. Ms. Smith leaned over Mariana slightly, not touching her, but really getting into the girl’s personal space. “Every time I start to fall asleep, I get so s-s-scared,” Mariana gulped, rubbing at her eyes with the tissues and smearing her eye makeup. “It’s like I can feel it starting all over again. And when I do fall asleep, the nightmares…” She faltered, and took a shuddering breath.
“Is anyone else having nightmares?” Ms. Smith asked. She looked like she was enjoying this.
“The nightmares are the worst. I keep fighting something I can’t see,” said Taylor Parker, in a low voice, as if he was ashamed to admit he had nightmares, but couldn’t help talking. “It’s—it’s dark, and there’s something that keeps grabbing at me and hitting me, like in blind randori. Only it’s not practice and I’m not blindfolded and every time it hits me it slices into me so fast I don’t even feel it until I look down and I’m bleeding from all these slices—”
“I’m running, I’m back at home and I’m running,” sobbed Mariana. “I’m trying to get to my house, but the street keeps changing and there’s something behind me, and I know if I turn around to look at it, I’m going to die!”
“I’m here at school in my dreams, but my brother’s here, too.” That was Andrew Hayes, and although his voice was steady, his face was so bleak Spirit didn’t even want to look at him. Of course, just like the rest of them, Andrew’s family was dead.… “There’s this thing after him, this huge, shadowy thing, and I’m trying to get to him to save him, only I can’t!”
One by one, Ms. Smith got them to tell her their nightmares. Even Spirit—though Spirit lied. She just buried her face in her hands and mumbled something about dark and evil eyes. She didn’t think it would be a good idea to stand out by not talking.
This had been going on for days now. Only about half of the class was spent on math. The other half was Ms. Smith and her not-exactly-interrogations. This was the first time she’d grilled them about their nightmares, though, and actually, this was the first time Spirit had heard that practically everyone was having them. If it hadn’t been that Spirit’s mom had taught her lucid dreaming back when she was a little kid and having night terrors, she’d probably be having them, too. But she wondered if Burke and the others were having the same problem. I could ask Loch. He’ll tell me, even if the others don’t.
Most of the time, Ms. Smith had been asking about the night of the dance, getting not only what everyone had experienced, but what they’d been doing and thinking before the lights went out. Definitely creepy … extracting details from the kids that Spirit was pretty sure they’d had no intention of telling any teacher. The sort of stuff you might put on your blog, for your friends, but not for anyone else. Certainly not for anyone old.
Spirit couldn’t figure out how Ms. Smith was doing it. Was it magic? Or was it just that she was really, really good at getting things out of people? At least there was only five minutes more of this before class change.
Is she like this with all her classes? Spirit wondered. Or is it just this one? She had thought about asking Addie or Loch, but … no, better wait. If she started acting suspicious of Ms. Smith without any reason except that—well, on the surface, it looked as if the teacher was actually trying to help everyone, and they might think she was being paranoid again.
Just a few more minutes …
Ms. Smith handed Mariana another wad of tissues and went back to her desk. “I don’t want any of you to think that we’re making light of this,” she said, raking her eyes over the whole class. “You’ve all had a nasty shock, and Dr. MacKenzie is of the opinion that this has brought up a great many