Fairies in My Fireplace by R.L. Naquin

Author:R.L. Naquin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

A scream from within the house woke me in the night. Considering Riley and I were supposed to be the only ones inside, it kicked my adrenaline into a high-octane blast. My feet hit the floor and my bathrobe was already around me before Riley had a chance to sit up.

Part of my fear-rattled mind had time to register how truly beautiful he was, bare-chested and sleep rumpled in the sliver of moonlight shining through the window slats. Still, my feet kept moving even while that small, hungry part of my brain lingered behind.

Shrieks and moans drew me out the bedroom door and into the hallway. I followed them into the junk room where Janey and Toby had been sleeping on previous nights. They’d planned on camping out. But the sounds I heard came from a little girl.

I flipped the light on and knelt on the floor next to the thrashing goblin.

“Janey, wake up, honey. Wake up.” I held her in my arms and tried to soothe her while the nightmare held her in its grip.

She sobbed and screamed again, then her eyes flew open, and she saw me.

“It’s okay, honey. I’m here. I’m here.”

She flung her arms around me and cried, clinging to my robe. I rocked her and made soothing nonsense noises while I smoothed her hair like my mother used to do. I didn’t ask her any questions until she’d calmed down enough to pull away a little.

Riley stood in the doorway wearing only his jeans, with an odd, quiet smile on his face. “I’ll get her a glass of water,” he said and disappeared.

Janey sniffled, and I handed her a tissue from a box on the nearby table.

“That was a pretty bad dream,” I said.

She nodded and blew her nose.

“You want to talk about it?”

She shook her head. “Not really. It was dumb.”

“Ah.” I straightened the blankets around her. “Most dreams are just our brains taking out the garbage at night anyway.”

“You’re making that up. Brains don’t have garbage.”

“We see and hear a lot of stuff during the day. Our brains don’t get a chance to process all of it. Sometimes your brain waits till you’re asleep to finish up. And when it all gets muddled up, sometimes the garbage on the way out is scary.”

“This wasn’t garbage.”

Riley came in with a water glass, and I took it from him. “Well, other times, if we’re angry, or sad, or scared and we ignore those feelings, our brains work through them for us while we’re asleep. You’ve been through a lot of bad stuff, sweetie. Your dreams aren’t dumb. They’re your brain taking care of it for you.”

She nodded and took the glass from me. “I dreamed a big snake was chasing Toby and me. It was orange with green spots and a mustache.”

“The snake had a mustache?”

She nodded. “He looked like Mr. Shimbletrot, our principal. And he kept waving a flag at us and saying we were grounded.”

“So it had arms.”

“No. It was a snake.

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