Falling

Falling by Amber Jaeger Read Free Book Online

Book: Falling by Amber Jaeger Read Free Book Online
Authors: Amber Jaeger
finally fully realizing I had no idea what to expect.
    She put her hand on my wrist again. “My name is Ash. I’ll be here every night when you wake up, or if you need anything while you’re here.”
    I nodded again, not trusting my voice.
    Ash opened the door and ushered me out into a cavernous hallway. More smooth river stones ran the floor and halfway up the walls where thick wooden columns and beams took over. The arched ceiling was high overhead and everything smelled vaguely of campfire. There were no carpets to soften the floor and I could feel the chill through my thin slippers.
    All the doors we passed were closed and all the windows too high up for me to really see out of. I could hear a bustle of activity ahead and felt myself slowing.
    Ash grabbed my arm and pulled me along out into a great stone room. The smooth stones sloped down into limestone that was cut into stairs wide enough for giants. The two fireplaces on either side of the room could have roasted a whole moose but the light their fires gave off couldn’t reach the ceiling. Down the stairs we went into a wide, deep hallway. Beveled glass windows lined each side. Eventually we came to a heavy, banded door. Ash knocked, opened it and ushered me in.
     

     
    Compared to the yawning rooms and halls and cold stone and glass, the new room seemed almost cozy. The ceiling’s cathedral height was the lowest I had seen. The floors, while stone, were covered in thick carpets detailed in bright greens and violets. I couldn’t tell what the walls might have been as they were entirely covered in bookshelves. Small windows interrupted every three or four columns and seemingly random artifacts peppered the shelves, placed in front of, behind and in between books.
    Jordan sat in the middle of the room in one of two enormous armchairs arranged artfully in front of a gaping fireplace. He didn’t get up or say anything, just watched me as I made my way to the empty chair. I sat, uncomfortable and unsure of what was coming next.
    “I’m glad to finally see you here,” he said after an intolerably long time.
    That snapped me out of my insecurity and I remembered my questions. “Where exactly am I?” I asked.
    “Here, with me,” he said vaguely, waving his hand to indicate the room.
    I frowned. “Yeah, I got that. I mean, is this your Nightmare Town? Or mine? I know it’s not real.”
    “Not real to you, perhaps,” he said with a frown of his own. “This isn’t where I dream, this is where I live.”
    I tugged up a shoulder of the slippery green dress. “Okay. So, where exactly—geography wise—are we?”
    “About the same place you were when you fell asleep.”
    I raised an eyebrow. “Really? I don’t remember any big, spooky log cabin castles in Hemlock Bay.”
    “We aren’t in Hemlock Bay,” he said, taking an ornate glass with a long stem from the small table between us. He motioned for me to do the same. “You could think of it more as Hemlock Bay being in my backyard.”
    I ignored the glass on the table. “So we’re what, a mile, two miles, from my house?”
    “You wouldn’t get there by walking,” he said.
    “Then we can’t be that close,” I snapped.
    He shrugged. “Same land, same moon and stars and all that.”
    I tried a different approach. “All right, so how did I get here? Sleep?”
    “Partly. But for you, it’s mostly those,” he said, pointing at the bracelets.
    My mouth hardened into a thin line. “About those. I really don’t like them. They remind me of … manacles.”
    “They aren’t meant to be,” was all he said.
    “I want them off,” I insisted.
    He frowned. “We made a deal. You promised.”
    “Right,” I said, leaning forward. “In a dream I promised a figment of my imagination to answer a few questions and when I woke up, my brother was alive again and I have these on, which I can’t get off.”
    His eyes narrowed as he saw the bandage on my right wrist. “You tried to take them off?”
    “Of

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