{Cary}

After dinner, Cary got his book from his bag and went down the hall to his father's study. His stomach was turning in slow flips; he had only managed a few bites of the meal. At his father's closed door Cary breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, shutting the sick feeling away with everything else. He was stone. He knocked on the door.

"Come in."

Cary's father, Conall, was a professor at the university. His study was lined with shelves full of leather-bound books. There was a tall granite fireplace on one wall, its mantelpiece cluttered with academic awards and discarded pipe stems. Conall was in his leather desk chair, bent over his desk, marking. His broad shoulders were framed by two stacks of papers. He finished grading with a slash of his pen, turning the sheets onto the left-handed pile and said without looking up.

"Ciaran. Pour us some coffee."

A metal coffee urn stood on the sideboard, a few mugs stacked around it. Cary tucked his book under his arm to pour him a cup.

Behind him, Conall's desk chair creaked as he leaned back, stretching his long arms and fingers until his knuckles popped. Cary flinched, splashing the coffee over the rim of the cup. Shit. He drew his shoulders up to his ears and quickly wiped up the spill with the hem of his shirt.

"Pour one for yourself too, if you like."

Cary shot him a glance. His father was clearing the low table which stood between the two chairs in front of the fireplace. He seemed a little abstracted, but relaxed. Cary guessed he had a chance of keeping him that way, if he was careful. Maybe. He was always careful.

He set the cup of coffee on the corner of the table, holding it steady with both hands. Conall pulled up an arm chair, catching him with dark, intent eyes. "Sit."

Cary sat. Conall unlatched a small, flat case and opened it on the side table. Inside, the case was patterned with white and black triangles. Conall let the leather dice cup fall into his hand.

"Have you ever played backgammon, Ciaran?"

Cary shook his head. "No, sir."

"It's a man's game. Take these pieces." Conall poured the shiny disks onto the table in front of Cary. "Set them on the board like this."

Cary paid close attention to his father's instructions. As the evening wore on his father's mood showed no signs of breaking and Cary's fear ebbed away, leaving only his habitual caution. His inevitable mistakes were met with a brisk "Tactical error, Ciaran" as his father moved the pieces into their proper place.

When the game was done, his father the victor, Conall sat back in his chair with a grunt of satisfaction and fished in his pockets for his pipe and matches. Cary gathered the game pieces back into the box, aware of the movements of his father's hands on the edge of his vision. He couldn't think of the last time he'd spent more than an hour alone in a room with Conall like this. He was exhausted from being on high alert all evening, and he needed a cigarette. He wished his father would forget the book and let him go.

The match lit with a 'hiss' and Conall pulled the flame into the bowl of his pipe. The sweet-strong smell of tobacco stung the inside of Cary's nose. "You brought your novel?" His father asked.

Cary swallowed and brought it out from where he had stuck it under his leg. Conall gestured to the fireplace. "Stand up there. Read me the first chapter."

Cary got to his feet and his head seemed to get up faster than the rest of him. He planted his feet on the granite floor and braced his legs to keep them from shaking. His father sat back in the leather armchair, his long-fingered hands folded in front of his chest. He watched Cary through half-closed eyes, sucking on his pipe stem.

When he opened the book the words jumped and danced on the page. Cary made the first word come into focus and stuttered through the opening sentences until his father cut his hand across the air.

"Stop." Conall frowned. "I can't understand a word you're saying. Don't they make you read like this in school?"

Cary shook his head, watching his father sideways. He gripped his book so tightly he could feel the corners bite into the palms of his hands.

"Can you tell me anything you just read?" Cary went to open the book again and Conall sat forward suddenly, catching it in his hand and holding it closed. "From memory."

Cary went still. "I can't."

Conall let the book go. "Of course not. You're only seeing a word at a time. Look at the sentence."

Cary took a breath and opened the book again.

"Read it to yourself. Silently. Now – read it to me."

Cary obeyed. His voice was flat with tension, but the words came out more smoothly.

Conall nodded. "Good. Do the same with the next paragraph."

With a glance at his father, Cary obeyed.

When he was finished he looked at his father for a cue.

"Go on," Conall said.

Haltingly, Cary read the entire chapter to his father. When he was finished he looked up and found Conall's eyes on him.

"You see how to do it?" His father said.

Cary nodded.

"Are you passing this class?"

Cary nodded more slowly.

Conall's mouth turned down as he looked at his son. "When I was your age I could have memorized that passage in the time it took you to simply read aloud." Cary ducked his head, holding still. Conall snorted. "With a mind like yours, Ciaran, you will have to work far harder for a B plus than I ever had to work for an A."

Cary was silent, barely breathing. He would be lucky if he held onto his C in this class.

"You understand that's what I expect of you," Conall said.

"Yes father," Cary said softly.

"Finish the book by Friday. I will have some questions for you about what you have read." Conall waved him away.

"Thank you father." Cary backed out of the room and escaped.

After that, Cary was exhausted but too wound up to sleep. He laid in the dark of his room listening to the sounds of the water running and his parents distant footsteps. He thought about his mother putting her arm around the round weight of her stomach, and his father's hands moving the black and white game pieces on the board. Six months ago he'd been planning to run, to get on a bus and never come back. He could never have imagined an evening like this evening in this house. Maybe his mother was right. Maybe things were going to be different.

Sleep finally carried him off, and when he came to he was lying in the grass at the edge of a small body of water. It was the wilderness he'd been reading about that evening. The tail of a downed plane jutted out of the lake. It was dusk. There was a figure silhouetted against the indigo sky.

Cary started up and found he couldn't move. "Who's there?" His voice wavered.

The figure had a mouth full of light, as if there was a glow bead under his tongue. "Can you walk?"

Cary looked at himself in the gathering dark. His legs were splayed crookedly in front of him. "Both my legs are broken," he said. He set his hand on his leg. They didn't feel like anything.

The figure drew nearer, rustling through the grass. Cary was afraid.

"Don't come any closer!"

"Don't you want to leave this place?" The man asked. His face was faintly illuminated by the light in his mouth.

"I'm fine." He could feel the broken bones shift under his hand, loose in a sleeve of muscle. Distantly his mind cried a warning: if there was no pain in a break this bad something was very very wrong.

A noise reached them by the water: little coughs escalating into a drawn out wail.

"The baby's crying," the man said.

Cary tried to arrange his legs so he could stand. They flopped and bent at wrong angles. "Shit. You get it then."

The man stepped forward and scooped Cary into his arms. His face loomed over Cary, huge and distorted. Light poured from his mouth and eyes.

"GOT YOU."

Cary woke with a gasp and slapped the light switch on the wall. His room was empty. He sat forward, touching his legs under his blanket. They were reassuringly intact. He turned off his light and lay back in the dark.

*Gah nightmares! What do you do to fall back asleep after a bad dream?*

1484 words.