Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [129]
“I was checking your breathing. You were moaning and making noises like you were going to wake up.”
“I was dreaming,” I said, as if that explained everything.
“So you’ve said. Repeatedly.” The woman, her skin the color of oiled mahogany, nodded. “It’s good. You are beginning to remember. I wondered if the dragon shard would not speak to you in such a manner.”
Dim little warning bells went off in my mind—the sort that are set off when you’re trapped in a small room with someone who is obviously a few weenies short of a cookout. “Well, isn’t this just lovely? I feel like something a cat crapped, and I’m trapped in a room with a crazy lady.” I clapped a hand over my mouth, appalled that I’d spoken the words rather than just thought them. “Did you hear that?” I asked around my fingers.
She nodded.
I let my hand fall. “Sorry. I meant no offense. It’s just that . . . well . . . you know. Dragons? That’s kind of out there.”
A slight frown settled between her brows. “You look a bit confused.”
“You get the understatement-of-the-year tiara.Would it be rude to ask who you are?” I gently rubbed my forehead, letting my gaze wander around the room.
“My name is Kaawa. My son is Gabriel Tauhou, the silver wyvern.”
“A silver what?”
She was silent, her eyes shrewd as they assessed me. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“That I ask questions or rub my head? It doesn’t matter—both are yes. I always ask questions because I’m a naturally curious person. Ask anyone. They’ll tell you. And I rub my head when it feels like it’s been stomped on, which it does.”
Another silence followed that statement. “You are not what I expected.”
My eyebrows were working well enough to rise at that statement. “You scared the crap out of me by staring at me from an inch away, and I’m not what you expected? I don’t know what to say to that since I don’t have the slightest idea who you are, other than that your name is Kaawa and that you sound like you’re Australian, or where I am, or what I’m doing here beyond napping. How long have I been sleeping?”
She glanced at the clock. “Five weeks.”
I gave her a look that told her she should know better than to try to fool me. “Do I look like I just rolled off the gullible wagon? Wait—Gareth put you up to this, didn’t he? He’s trying to pull my leg.”
“I don’t know a Gareth,” she said, moving toward the end of the bed.
“No . . . ” I frowned as my mind, still slowed by the af tereffects of a long sleep, slowly chugged to life. “You’re right. Gareth wouldn’t do that—he has absolutely no sense of humor.”
“You fell into a stupor five weeks and two days ago. You have been asleep ever since.”
A chill rolled down my spine as I read the truth in her eyes. “That can’t be.”
“But it is.”
“No.” Carefully, very carefully, I shook my head. “It’s not time for one. I shouldn’t have one for another six months. Oh god, you’re not a deranged madwoman from Australia who lies to innocent people, are you? You’re telling me the truth! Brom! Where’s Brom!”
“Who is Brom?”
Panic had me leaping to my feet when my body knew better. Immediately, I collapsed onto the floor with a loud thud. My legs felt like they were made of rubber, the muscles trembling with strain. I ignored the pain of the fall and clawed at the bed to get back to my feet. “A phone. Is there a phone? I must have a phone.”
The door opened as I stood up, still wobbling, the floor tilting and heaving under my feet. “I heard a—Oh. I see she’s up. Hello, Ysolde.”
“Hello.” My stomach lurched along with the floor. I clung to the frame of the bed for a few seconds until the world settled down to the way it should be. “My name is Tully, not Ysolde. Who are you?”
She shot a puzzled look to the other woman. “I’m May. We met before. Don’t you remember?”
“Not at all. Do you have a phone, May?”
If she was surprised by that question, she didn’t let on. She simply pulled a cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans and handed it to me. I took it, staring at her for a moment. There was something about her, something that seemed familiar . . . and yet