Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

She raises her brow in mild amusement and looks back to me.

“You don’t have to stay here,” I tell her.

“You’ve done the same for me before,” she says. She looks around her. “Though honestly this isn’t my favorite place to be.” She climbs into the bed, moving to the other side. For a moment I’m transported back two years when Perry still lived here, our mother was still alive and things, at least for me, were more or less normal.

But my brain won’t let me pretend for long. Even though Perry is still just twenty-five and looks pretty much the same as she did, there’s a world-weariness to her eyes, the kind that old souls have, the kind that says she’s seen too much and can never go back to the way she was.

I quickly get changed into my matching camisole and boy-short set and get in bed beside her, feeling like a little girl again under the covers.

I turn over on the pillow to look at her. “You know what this reminds me of? When we used to go to the cabin when we were little.”

She rolls over to face me, folding up the thin pillow underneath her head. “Was this when you said I had an imaginary friend and I’d go and talk to him through the window every night?”

“But he never was imaginary, was he?”

She shakes her head, frowning. “No. Nothing ever is.” She closes her eyes. “Nothing ever is.”

You’d think it would be impossible for both of us to sleep, but in seconds she’s out like a light.

Then I follow.

***

I’m dreaming.

For once, I know it.

And I know exactly where I am.

I’m in the Thin Veil, a place I’ve only been to once and here I am again; here but not.

The world is both red and grey, a desaturated hue that seeps into everything, my hands, my clothes, the crunchy, dead grass beneath me.

I’m sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean, much like the one Perry had mentioned earlier, the one in her dreams. Only she’s nowhere to be found. There’s only the empty sea with waves crashing below, faraway islands in the distance. There is a forest of fir and hemlock behind me, a dark, seemingly fathomless thicket.

Hi.

I whip my head around to see a man, the man, the leather jacket wearing ginger who may or may not be a man named Jay, standing over me.

I stare up at his hulking body, no jacket this time, just a plain t-shirt that shows off every taut muscle, and jeans. He gives me a half-smile.

Mind if I sit down?

He’s speaking to me, right into my head, without opening his mouth.

I’m not a fan of this.

I open my mouth and am surprised when the words, “Can I talk?” come out.

“Of course,” he says. “I understand it must be strange for you. It’s still strange for me.”

I frown at him. My dreams have been so lucid lately, but never the ones that have involved him. I’ve never been able to just exist like this, to interact with him and have it be so real.

I need to take advantage.

“Who are you?” I ask him. “I mean, I know I’m dreaming.”

He stares down at me, his smile twisting slightly. My god, this dude is even more handsome up close. I’m starting to think there is no way in hell that I met him in real life because if he really was the guy from the wedding, I know I would have remembered every detail of his face, no matter how blackout drunk I got.

“Are you dreaming?” he asks, easing himself down to sit beside me. He props his elbows on his knees and gives me a sidelong glance. “Or are you awake?”

All the hairs on my arm stand up and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s so close or the way his eyes seem to gaze right into the heart of me, or because I’m starting to think maybe I am awake after all.

“You never answered my question,” I tell him, shifting away slightly, his proximity to me producing a strange push pull, like two magnets about to connect. “Why do I keep dreaming you? Have we met before? What’s your name?”

“So many questions, Ada, so little time” he says. There’s something so soothing about his voice, both low and silken, even in such a dead place like this where all sound is worn down, dull. “But you have met me before. At the wedding.”

“I knew it,” I whisper, feeling mildly triumphant.

“I guess it doesn’t say much about me that you don’t really remember,” he says with a wince, a piece of wavy hair flopping on his forehead. “Or maybe it says a lot.”

“I blame the champagne,” I tell him. “So now I know I’ve met you before. Am I conjuring you up because I found you absurdly handsome and I’m hoping to pick up where we left off?”