Mermaids in Turkey

Chapter Thirteen

Her dreams were filled with restlessness that night. She dreamt that she was being chased. She could see the rapid images of a torch and the sound of dogs in the distance. The sense of urgency filled her as more images of darkened woods filled her vision. She felt a hand on her arm. 

"RUN" said the faceless voice. 

She gasped and shot up in bed. She was gulping trying to fill her lungs with crisp air. When a chill crawled down her arms. She was not alone. Forcing her body to turn towards the quiet intruder.  There was the tall shadowed silhouette of a man standing near her bay window, she opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. 

Her eyes fluttered open. Her body was coated in sweat, she pealed the nightgown from her body as she lay naked under her covers. A dream within a dream she had not experienced that phenomenon in a long time. She turned on the lamp on her night stand, and spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling until her eyes closed. No more nightmares plagued her for the rest of the night. 

When daybreak finally came, she ran out of her room to find Nehir. Her cousin sat bleary eyed at the counter nursing a cup of coffee. 

She shook the stem with the skull pods "Where did you get this?" shaking it like a rattle.

"Please keep your voice down, I have an awful hangover" she muttered as she continued to sip the dark liquid. 

"Its important!" Ayça told her as she set the stem down in front of her. Nehir huffed slightly as she picked it up her facial expression unchanging before setting it back down again. 

"They're snap dragons" she took another sip savoring its warmth "Grandmas favorite flower...she had a small garden of them on the other side of the hotel" 

Ayça flew off the stool and headed in the direction of where her cousin had pointed to. 

"You might want to cover up your -" Nehir scratched the left side of her neck.

Ayças hand flew up to the area on her neck and the image of what Alp had been doing to her only hours before came flooding back to her. She felt a tingling sensation between her thighs  "I burned myself with the curling iron" she stammered as she struggled to contain the heat that bubbled under the surface of her cheeks. 

Nehir narrowed her eyes to slits, a playful grin spreading across her face  "Uhuh right" as she grabbed her mug off the counter and disappeared around the corner. 

She found a garden trowel that hung outside of the shed and stood in front of the patch of snap dragons, the flowers waving at her every time the wind blew. With her hands on her hips, her eyes scanned the plot before her unsure of where to begin. Finally settling on an area at the outskirts of the garden, she got on her hands and began digging. She dug and dug. Not noticing as the sun migrated across the sky. She wiped the beads of sweat that had formed on her forehead but she continued even though her arms burned. Migrating from spot to spot. 

As she was about to stop for the day she heard a faint clink. She thrust the trowel again, her heart leapt when she felt metal scrape against metal. Throwing patience to the wind, she dug the rest away with her hands until she held a metal box no larger than a shoe box. Her dirt encrusted fingers ripped it open, tossing the lid aside. Located within this metal box was a smaller size wooden box.  Inscribed on the top were the words'The carbon copy holds the key in her heart'.  She flicked the metal latch open. Nestled inside was a metal golden tube with five rows of letters. The golden tube was heavy as she turned it over inspecting it, what is this? 

"What is going on here?" 

She turned to see Selma staring at her, horror sketched across her features at the sight before her. The garden was littered with holes. Ayça's face was smeared with a coat of dirt and her knees were caked with it. Her head was a helmet of frizzy unruly hair. The once white furry slippers on her feet were a murky shade of brown.