Visioness by Lincoln Law Read Free Book Online

interested in these matters. He
spends half his time lost in books about dreams and magic as it is.”
    “I suppose it wouldn’t do
any harm to speak to him,” she said. “It’s just a matter of making an
appointment with him.”
    “I’ll organise it if you
want,” Mrs. Abeth said. “He’ll probably respond faster to me anyway, and I’ll
let you know how it goes.”
    “Thank you,” Adabelle said.
“I appreciate it.”
    “It’s the least I can do,
really.”
    Mrs. Abeth had been present
on the night of her mother’s disappearance. She had been the one to take
Adabelle in, the one who accepted her, though she knew not whether the mother
would return. Flashes of that night sometimes came to her, though they were
nearly always blurry. She had been so young, and for the longest time she had
tried to repress it. The door had opened, the woman standing there, in rollers
if she remembered correctly—or was that her mind making up details?—and she put
an arm around her and took her in. She remembered her mother’s last embrace.
She didn’t think mother or daughter had expected it to be their last.
    Releasing those memories had
been a painful part of her therapy she had gone through as a child. So young to
lose both parents—though she only counted one—she was sure to suffer. Her
sister hadn’t needed to go through the same therapy; she hadn’t been born and
so had never experienced memories with her mother. She had been born and then
her mother whisked away. Mrs. Abeth said, almost as a constant reminder, that
on that night she had made a deal with her father. She had not known the
details, but somehow her mother had ensured Charlotte could be born, and after
she was born, she was gone. Adabelle’s father, too.
    In some fantasies, her
mother tricked her father, sealing him away in the dream without her, and they
all lived on together, happy. Better yet, her father had been a kind, loving
man, instead of the cruel monster he had actually been, and they all lived
together. A family.
    But that was not her life,
and she could not dwell. That was why she had repressed those thoughts in the
first place. That was why there were places in her memory where things went
foggy.
    “So I guess I’m left with a
rather great conundrum,” Adabelle said. “I can either visit the Oen’Aerei and
put myself at risk of them trying to conscript me into their army.”
    “Now, now, Adabelle,” Mrs.
Abeth chided. “It’s not an army now is it? It’s a service.”
    “They were originally an
army,” Adabelle retorted. “Back long ago.”
    “And now they’ve changed
their stance on the world. They work for us, rather than against us. They do a
mighty good amount of work protecting us. Unlike the Dreamless: they’re just a
guild asking for trouble.”
    “At least the Dreamless
don’t try to pilfer people from their happy lives to serve as conscripts.”
    “Maybe not,” Mrs. Abeth
replied, “but at the very least the Oen’Aerei are not doing any real physical
harm. The way those Dreamless walk around in that forest green uniform of
theirs…” she shivered.
    Adabelle nodded, conceding
that fact. “So I can either go to the Oen’Aerei, and seek their help, which
they’ll end up making a bargain for—and we all know what that will result in—or
I can just sit like a insect in the light, and wait for him to strike, if he
has indeed released himself. Either way, I’m not going to be sleeping well.”
She sighed, falling back into her chair.
    “Take some comfort in
knowing your sister is completely safe,” Mrs. Abeth said. “She cannot dream and
never will, and so long as your father is contained within the boundaries of
the dream frequencies, she’s safe. And besides, you’re rather a good Dreamer
yourself. I think you’ll be able to protect yourself just fine.”
    Adabelle grimaced. “I don’t
like to sit and wait, though,” she replied, “and I’m sure my father is much
better than I am at controlling