#cleena

 “No,” she whispers, her hand reaching for the one that held hers. She feels around for the impeccably soft forearm, the heaviness of it holding her down on the bed. The breath of relief comes quickly as her fingertips graze across skin. Fingers slide up the arm and reach for her bedmate’s hand. She grips firmly, feeling the action mirrored as sure fingers squeeze hers. “Why now?” her voice scratches through the silence. She keeps her eyes closed, knowing that as soon as she opens them, this dream will fade and Leena will be gone. 

She feels lips on her cheek, a kiss pressed with only the purest of affection. Hair tickles her cheek and she blesses Leena with a watery smile. Claudia’s eyes finally flutter open, her breath stalled. Her throat aches as she swallows down the love that never was. Never could be. She rubs her fingers together, the tingling not lost on her as she sits up in bed, ruffling her short, freshly chopped hair. “I dreamt about you,” the whisper hurts just as much as swallowing did. 

“I know,” comes the chirp. She looks around the empty bed with squinted eyes. 

“I’m tired,” her voice is small, only there for the innkeeper whose projected dreams are enticingly like home. 

“Sleep then. I’m not stopping you.” The response is in her head now, she knows it. But it doesn’t stop her from reaching up to her cheek to touch the damp spot left behind. 

“No,” Claudia sighs. She swings her legs over the edge of the bed and gives in to the stretch her body yearns for. “I’m up now, no thanks to you.” She smiles despite herself, touching her cheek again. Silence greets her as she walks over to the small sink in the corner of the bedroom. She’s lived in the B&B now for a decade. Nobody could convince her to be anywhere else. This is her home. She may not have aged, but her hands, oh, she notices them as she splashes water over her face. They tell a story. She wrinkles her nose, remembering one late (very late) night in the dining room. 

*-*-*-*

“Don’t be scared,” Leena whispered. 

Claudia cockily shrugged her shoulders, rolling them back. “Scared about some woo-woo fortune telling?” 

Leena laughed then, rolling her eyes. “Is the Warehouse woo-woo?” 

The agent cleared her throat, shaking her head. Words failed her, so she watched curiously. Leena took her hand in her own, using her thumbs to trace the lines, wrinkled passages telling a story of who she was, how she came to be and who she would become. “Is this a fortune telling, or a massage?” 

Leena chuckled. “Neither. I just want to see something…” She gazed down at the hand in hers. Her eyes blinked in the dimness of the night light, two lamps in each corner of the room dimly lit the space before her. She turned the hand, cupping Claudia’s wrists as the clock on the mantel struck one in the morning. The only noise in the room, wholly unnoticed. “You’ll look at these hands at some point in the future, and notice that they look older.” 

“Uh-huh,” Claudia snorted. “Because that’s what happens when you age, you know? You wrinkle.” 

Leena smiled coyly. “Oh you do, do you? Well good luck waiting for that.” She playfully bit the edge of her lip. “When you notice you’ve aged, don’t panic. You’ve got a really long life ahead of you, Claudia.” 

Claudia shakes herself from the memory, towelling down her face and wiping off any remnants of her dream kiss. She looks down at her hands and sighs. The only signs of ageing she’d experienced were smile lines, some crows feet sprinkled around the corners of her eyes and her hands, scattered with threads of age. Valleys of creases and folds well earned from years of tinkering and engineering. In the last three years, the wrinkles haven’t changed depth. 

It’s Myka who notices something in Claudia that morning. They’re in the dining room, debriefing on the latest retrieval mission of Emanuel Swedenborg’s journal in Stockholm, Sweden. Myka and Pete had replaced it with a replica, still full of the scribbled drawings of his Flying Machine, but safely printed this time rather than the penned sketches in the original. “You okay Claud?”

Claudia looks up from the notes Myka had supplied them with. “I didn’t get much sleep,” she admits though her eyes never move from the page. The photo evidence is all there. She sifts through the file in her hands. It’s all there. Dreams. Astral projection. Flying Machines. Talking to angels. She shakes her head. “So how many people were affected?” Myka nibbles on the edge of her pen. “We counted 29. All victims were visitors to the exhibit with Swedenborg’s belongings. All victims recounted that their dreams were coming to life. His dream journal was the culprit.” Myka keeps her eyes on Claudia who is furiously flicking through the file. Her hands are shaking, eyes pricking with tears. “What is it, Claudia?” A hand sweeps through Claudia’s dark hair and she closes her eyes. “Shh…” She hears the voice in her ear, the soft placating whisper and she drops the file onto the table. 

Claudia’s eyes quickly shift to Pete who is oblivious to her anguish. Her body shivers as the hands leave her hair, those same hands from this morning only… she’s awake now. It somehow hurts more. “Did all of the victims who read the sheets from the journal return to normal?”

“Yeah, we waited for confirmation from the psychiatric unit, all were lucid three days after we snagged and bagged,” Pete chimes in. 

“Right,” Claudia wrings her hands, twisting the rings on her fingers. “Right, okay.” 

“Claudia?” Myka’s shrewd eyes never leave her face. “What is it?” 

Claudia takes a breath, hoping to feel those hands in her hair again. It’s hard to swallow again, and the tears come freely. She stares up at the ceiling, not realising that Myka has jumped out of her seat to kneel beside her. “Nobody told me,” it comes out as a hoarse whisper.

“Told you what, Claud?” Myka’s voice drips with concern. “How much sleep did you get last night?” 

Claudia shakes her head, biting her lip as her hand comes up to wipe the tears from her eyes. “It’s been three years since I became the Caretaker, right? And… and each day, the bond gets tighter. She’s there, she’s just always there.” 

Pete sits up immediately, Claudia’s last words mirroring that of one of the patients in Stockholm. Myka squeezes her hand. “Who’s there, Claud?”