The Vault of Dreamers by Caragh M. O'brien Read Free Book Online Page B

Janice the night before. I backed
     up nervously as she stepped around me. She swiped her hand briskly across the touch
     screen to turn the monitors dark.
    “What is all this?” I asked.
    “You’re off-limits,” she said. “Come back on camera. Did Mr. Ferenze let you back
     here? Where is he?”
    “No one was at the desk,” I said. “What were those images?”
    “Oh, those,” she said, with a self-effacing wave. She was slender, of Asian heritage,
     and up close, she seemed younger than she had in the dorm. “It’s just my hobby. I’m
     experimenting with photography. It’s hard to work here without getting inspired.”
     She laughed, but she also kept crowding me back toward the hallway until she could
     close the door. “I’m Dr. Glyde Ash. Thanks for coming in. Right this way.”
    She led me down the hall and gestured me into an examining room.
    “What am I here for?” I asked.
    “It’s nothing serious. Have a seat.” She patted a paper-covered bench. “One sec. I’m
     with another patient, but I’ll be with you shortly.” She stepped out, and I listened
     as her high heels clicked down the hallway. “Ferenze?” she called.
    I hitched up onto the bench to sit and let my feet hang. A button camera on the windowsill
     aimed at my face. Another was on the ceiling. Out the window, I could see Otis’s lookout
     tower. I hung my head and knocked my boots together a few times. Then I flopped back
     and covered my eyes with one arm, trying to look bored.
    Inside, I was dying of curiosity. What was Linus’s connection to Otis? And Dr. Ash’s
     pictures were definitely weird. I didn’t buy that they were just a photography project.
     These glimpses off the edges of the show were baffling. Worst of all, I dreaded having
     the doctor ask me point-blank about last night, when I’d been out of bed. If only
     I knew how to play this.
    Dr. Ash returned a few minutes later and washed her hands at a little sink. “Sorry
     to keep you waiting. Busy day here. Lots of stress-related issues.”
    “What’s wrong with me?” I asked.
    “Nothing serious, I’m sure,” she said, ripping a paper towel from the dispenser. “I
     just want to follow up on some readings we had the last couple nights.”
    Here it comes , I thought.
    She took out a penlight. “Look up,” she said, and shone it in my right eye, and then
     my left. The glare half blinded me. “Good. Now down.”
    “What kind of readings?” I asked. I would play dumb as long as I could.
    She looked in my ears next. “Elevated heart rate and breathing. Just because you go
     to sleep at six o’clock doesn’t mean we stop caring. Some of our new students have
     a mild reaction to the sleeping pills. We monitor you all very carefully, and at the
     first sign of an irregularity, we’re right there.”
    “So I had a problem?” I asked. “Does that mean you have to send me home?”
    “No, no. I wouldn’t say it’s a real problem,” she said, with a smile. She rolled a
     temperature gauge along my forehead. “You were very restless. Having a bad dream,
     no doubt. It happens, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t fit to stay, provided you make
     the cuts. Finger, please.”
    I held out my finger, and she put a white clamp around it. It sounded like she was
     giving me a warning. Maybe that was all this was.
    “I don’t have any dreams here,” I said.
    “You do. You just don’t remember them.” She lifted the back of my shirt. “Take a deep
     breath.”
    I did. The cold disk of her stethoscope on my back made me flinch.
    “Again,” she said.
    I took a few more breaths, as directed. She pulled my shirt down and took the stethoscope
     out of her ears to loop it around her neck. Then she took a small, triangular hammer
     and beat it against my knee. My leg jerked. She did the other knee, too, and then
     took the clamp off my finger to inspect it. She backed up to tap into her tablet.
    “Have you had any dizziness? Nausea? Headaches?” she