Chapter 7

If this reaches you, the barrier is weakening.

I stared at the ceiling.

Then I covered my face with my pillow.

  "No."

The pillow offered no assistance.

I moved it aside and sat up.

  "Absolutely not. We're not doing this again."

I reached for my notebook.

It was still open on the bedside table, exactly where I'd left it. The words I'd written at four in the morning stared back at me.

Seraphina, about fourteen.

She wrote: Can you hear me?

The barrier is weakening.

I read the notes twice.

Then I closed the notebook.

There.

Problem solved.

I got out of bed, washed my face, and dressed for university. By the time I reached the kitchen, I'd almost convinced myself that the dream had been nothing more than an elaborate story my mind had invented.

Daniel was making tea.

He glanced at me. "You're quiet."

  "I'm always quiet."

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

He raised an eyebrow.

  "Fine. I'm sometimes quiet."

  "That's better." He said 

I took a seat and reached for the bread.

Daniel placed a plate in front of me. "Did you sleep well?"

I hesitated. "Yeah."

It wasn't entirely true, but it wasn't entirely a lie either. I'd slept. The fact that my dreams were becoming increasingly strange wasn't something I knew how to explain.

Daniel returned to his tea. "Good. You looked exhausted yesterday."

  "I was reading."

  "Reading what?" He asked 

  "History." 

He nodded toward the book I'd left beside my bag the previous evening. "That explains why you looked like you were preparing for an examination."

  "I might as well be. My lecturer seems to believe we have no lives outside his class."

Daniel laughed.

For a moment, I considered asking him a question.

Had he ever heard of a kingdom called Aurelia?

Had he ever read about a royal family whose history had disappeared?

Had he ever encountered the name Seraphina Aurel?

I opened my mouth.

Then I stopped.

I could already imagine the conversation.

Why are you asking?

Where did you hear that name?

Elena, is something wrong?

I wasn't ready for that.

So I finished my breakfast, grabbed my bag, and left.

The questions could wait.

For now.

At university, I made a serious effort to concentrate.

I attended my lectures. I completed my notes. I even participated in a discussion without once thinking about underground archives, mysterious barriers, or princesses who wrote messages to unknown people.

For a little while, I was proud of myself.

Then, during a break between classes, I opened my notebook to check an assignment deadline.

The page with my dream notes was directly behind it.

I glanced at the words.

Can you hear me?

I stared at them.

Why had Seraphina written that?

The question suggested she was trying to contact someone. Perhaps she'd found an unusual book, or perhaps the archive contained some kind of communication device.

That was a ridiculous thought.

I didn't even know what kind of technology existed in her world.

The pen she'd used had looked ordinary to me, but that didn't prove anything. It could have been a writing instrument from her own time.

And the word barrier could have meant something entirely different from what I imagined.

I turned the page.

I was not going to interpret every detail as evidence of something supernatural.

I had made that mistake before, and it had led me to spend nearly two hours searching for a kingdom that might have existed only in my imagination.

I closed the notebook.

My phone vibrated.

A message from my friend appeared on the screen.

#Are you coming to the library after class?#

#I replied that I would.#

Then I added:

#And before you ask, no, I haven't been investigating anything strange.£

Her reply came almost immediately.

#I wasn't going to ask. Now I'm worried.#

I laughed.

For the first time that morning, the sound came easily.

Whatever was happening in my dreams, I still had a life outside them.

I intended to keep it that way.

The library was crowded when we arrived.

My friend found a table near the windows, and we spread our books across it.

For the next hour, we worked on our assignments.

Well, mostly.

She kept stopping to complain about the amount of work we had been given, and I kept reminding her that complaining wasn't going to complete it.

Eventually, she put down her pen.

  "You're in a good mood today." She said 

I looked up. "Am I?"

  "Compared to yesterday." She said 

  "Maybe I've finally accepted my fate."

  "Which is?" She asked curiously 

  "Academic suffering."

She laughed.

Then she leaned back in her chair. "Seriously, though. Are the dreams still bothering you?"

I looked at her.

She remembered.

I hadn't expected her to.

  "A little."

  "Have you had another one?" She asked 

  "Yes."

  "What happened?" She asked once more

I hesitated before answering. "I saw the girl again. She was in a library, writing something."

My friend waited.

I glanced around to make sure nobody nearby was listening.

  "She wrote a message asking whether someone could hear her."

My friend blinked. "That's quite specific."

  "I know."

  "Did you answer?" She asked 

  "No."

  "Why not?" She asked again 

  "Because I couldn't."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean I wasn't actually there. I was watching. She couldn't hear me."

My friend studied me for a moment. "Have you tried writing down everything you remember immediately after waking up?"

I nodded. "Yes."

  "Does it help?"

  "With remembering the details, yes. With understanding them, no."

She considered that. "Maybe you're trying too hard to find a connection."

I looked down at my hands.

Perhaps she was right.

  "Maybe."

She picked up her pen again. "Finish your assignment first. You can investigate your imaginary princess afterward."

I gave her an offended look. "She's not imaginary."

The words came out before I could stop them.

My friend stared at me.

I stared back.

Then I cleared my throat. "I mean, she's a character in my dreams. Obviously, I know that."

  "Of course." She smiled and returned to her work.

I did the same.

But her words stayed with me.

Maybe you're trying too hard to find a connection.

Perhaps I was.

Perhaps the dreams were simply dreams.

And perhaps, if I stopped looking for answers, they would eventually lose their hold on my attention.

I decided to try.

That evening, I wouldn't search for Aurelia.

I wouldn't read about forgotten kingdoms.

And I certainly wouldn't spend another 2 hour trying to work out what a fictional princess meant by a weakening barrier.

I would go home, eat dinner, and sleep.

That was the plan.

It was a very good plan.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten one thing.

I couldn't control what happened when I fell asleep.

That night, I went to bed without opening my notebook.

I didn't search for anything on my phone.

I didn't review my dream notes.

I simply lay down, turned off the light, and closed my eyes.

Sleep came slowly.

Then the room disappeared.

I found myself in the underground archive again.

For a moment, I thought I was seeing the same dream.

The shelves stood where I remembered them. The stone walls were unchanged, and the narrow windows allowed pale sunlight to fall across the floor.

But something was different.

The room was quieter.

I could hear water dripping somewhere in the distance.

I turned toward the sound.

A narrow passage led away from the archive, disappearing into darkness.

I had never noticed it before.

I took a step toward it.

Then I stopped.

I didn't know why, but I had the uncomfortable feeling that I wasn't supposed to go there.

I looked back at the shelves.

There was a desk near the far wall.

A book lay open on it.

I recognized the cover.

The same book Seraphina had been holding in my previous dream.

I approached slowly.

The pages were blank.

I turned one.

I frowned.

  "Where did the writing go?"

My voice echoed through the room.

Then I noticed something at the bottom of the final page.

A single sentence.

I know you're there.

I froze.

I read it again.

The words remained exactly where they were.

I stepped away from the desk.

For several seconds, I simply stared at the page.

Then I shook my head.

  "No. No, thank you."

I turned to leave.

Footsteps sounded behind me.

I spun around.

Seraphina stood at the entrance to the archive.

She looked about fourteen.

Her dark hair was tied back, and she wore a pale dress with a narrow ribbon at the waist.

She was carrying the same book.

I stared at her.

She stared at the desk.

Then she looked toward the doorway, checking that nobody had followed her.

She entered and closed the door.

I stepped aside as she passed.

She placed the book on the desk and opened it.

For a moment, she did nothing.

Then she took out her pen.

I watched her write.

Can you hear me?

She waited.

Nothing happened.

Her shoulders lowered slightly.

She looked down at the page. "I knew it."

She reached for the book to close it.

Then stopped.

Her gaze returned to the words.

She seemed to be thinking.

Slowly, she turned to a clean page.

She wrote another sentence.

If you can hear me, write something. Anything.

I leaned closer.

My heart had begun to beat faster.

Why was she doing this?

Was this part of the same dream as before?

Or had my mind simply remembered the previous scene and created a continuation?

Seraphina put down her pen.

She sat still, watching the page.

Seconds passed.

Then a minute.

Nothing changed.

She sighed and began gathering her things.

I looked at the book.

I wanted to tell her that I could hear her.

That I could see her.

That I had been following her through her palace for nights.

But I couldn't.

I had tried speaking before.

She never reacted.

I couldn't touch anything.

I couldn't move objects.

I couldn't leave a mark.

I was nothing more than a silent observer.

And even if she somehow heard me, what would I say?

Hello, I'm a university student who has been watching you sleep?

That sounded considerably worse when I put it into words.

Seraphina closed the book.

Then, just as she was about to leave, she stopped.

She looked toward the shelves.

I heard footsteps in the corridor.

Her expression changed.

Someone was coming.

Seraphina hurried to the desk and reopened the book.

She picked up her pen and wrote something quickly.

Then she slipped the book beneath a loose board in the desk.

The footsteps grew louder.

A voice called from outside. "Princess?"

Seraphina straightened. "Yes?"

  "Your tutor is waiting." The voice said 

  "I'll be there in a moment." Seraphina said 

The footsteps paused.

Then moved away.

Seraphina waited until the corridor was quiet.

For a moment, she looked toward the blank wall beside the desk.

Then she whispered, almost too quietly to hear:

  "Please."

I didn't know what she was asking for.

An answer?

A sign?

Proof that somebody existed on the other side of whatever she was trying to reach?

She turned toward the door.

Before leaving, she glanced at the book one last time.

Then she disappeared into the corridor.

I stood alone in the archive.

The room seemed colder than before.

I looked at the desk.

The loose board was still there.

I approached it and reached down.

My fingers passed straight through the wood.

I pulled back. "Of course."

I looked at the book-shaped space beneath the desk.

There was nothing I could do.

I couldn't answer her.

I couldn't even prove to myself that this place existed beyond my dreams.

The only thing I could do was watch.

And wait.

The archive began to fade.

The shelves disappeared first.

Then the walls.

Finally, the desk vanished, leaving me standing in darkness.

I woke up.

I sat upright in bed.

For a moment, I couldn't remember where I was.

Then I looked around my bedroom.

My own room.

My own bed.

My own life.

I exhaled slowly. "That was... different."

I reached for my phone.

4:11 a.m.

I rubbed my face.

The dream had felt longer than the previous ones.

I remembered the archive clearly. I remembered the desk, the book, and the message.

Especially the message.

If you can hear me, write something. Anything.

I reached for my notebook.

I wrote down everything I could remember.

Then I stopped.

Something about the dream bothered me.

Not the archive.

Not the strange passage.

Not even the message.

It was the way Seraphina had waited.

She had written something, put the pen down, and watched the page as though she expected an answer.

She hadn't looked like a girl playing a game.

She had looked like someone who desperately wanted to know whether she was alone.

I stared at my notes.

Then I shook my head.

I was getting carried away again.

Seraphina was a person in my dream.

My brain could make her look frightened, hopeful, angry, or happy. It could make her write letters and wait for answers.

That didn't mean she was communicating with anyone.

It didn't mean the messages had any significance.

I closed the notebook.

I would not spend the next day searching for an answer to a question I had no way of verifying.

I would get up in the morning.

I would go to university.

I would finish my assignments.

And I would stop thinking about the dreams.

I lay back down.

This time, I managed to fall asleep without reviewing the scene again.

The next day passed normally.

I attended my lectures, spoke with my friends, and completed the work I'd been putting off.

I didn't search for Aurelia.

I didn't look up Seraphina.

I didn't even open the notebook until I got home.

Daniel was in the kitchen when I arrived.

He glanced at me. "You're looking better today."

  "Thank you."

  "Did you finally get some sleep?" He asked 

  "Yes."

  "Good." He said 

He returned to what he was doing.

I stood in the doorway for a moment, watching him.

I wanted to tell him.

Not necessarily everything.

Just enough to explain why I'd been distracted for days.

But the words wouldn't come.

I didn't want to make him worry over something I couldn't explain.

So I went to my room, changed, and started working on my assignment.

That evening, I watched television with Daniel.

We argued about the programme.

He claimed the ending was obvious.

I claimed he had ruined it by guessing what would happen halfway through.

He said he hadn't ruined anything because he hadn't told me his guess.

I told him his smug expression had ruined it.

He laughed so hard that he nearly dropped the remote.

For a while, I forgot about the dreams completely.

And when I finally went to bed, I wasn't thinking about the archive.

I wasn't thinking about the messages.

I wasn't even thinking about Seraphina.

I closed my eyes.

Sleep came.

And somewhere far beyond my bedroom, in a palace I had never visited, a fourteen-year-old princess opened a book and looked at a page that had remained blank for years.

She dipped her pen in ink.

Then she wrote one final message.

Whoever you are, I hope you can hear me.

She waited.

Nothing happened.

Seraphina closed the book.