Read Wake Unto Me for Free Online Page B

page, running toward her through a forest of twisted trees. Caitlyn had drawn the picture with a ballpoint pen, the marks violent and jagged on the white paper, and blotted with ink. The picture still gave her chills.
    That first drawing, and the next half dozen in the journal, had been her attempt to exorcise the Screechers from her dreams, as if putting them on paper would exile them from her mind. It hadn’t worked.
    She flipped through the Screecher drawings. They were all humanlike, with smeared, indistinct faces. They clawed, struck, or cursed at her. They screamed and howled, and threw things. Worst of all, though, were the ones who did no more than silently, intently stare at her with their round, dead eyes.
    She shuddered and turned the page. After several months she’d realized that drawing the Screechers wasn’t making them go away, and to save her own sanity she’d turned her pens and pencils to recording images from her more benign dreams. She thumbed through those pages now, seeing her gradually increasing drawing skill more than the images themselves: hunters chased a dear; a pioneer girl rode a horse; teenagers loafed on a couch. On one page, a man stabbed his friend in a bar; on the facing page, a woman dressed for her wedding. There was no rhyme or reason to the dreams, no pattern that she could ever tell.
    She turned to the drawing of the woman being burned at the stake, and paused. That had been an unusually creepy dream. It had lingered in her imagination far longer than was comfortable. It had felt so real, she almost wondered if she herself had once been a woman burned at the stake.
    Caitlyn closed the journal and looked out the window, not wanting to think about flames and burning flesh. The countryside dressed in cold shades of gray was a welcome antidote to the hot orange flames licking at her memory.
    The Mercedes was off the main road now, and they wound their way through a small village built into the base of a steep ridge of hills. They followed the black asphalt road upward as it clung to the edge of the hills and passed under dark, evergreen oak trees.
    The driver suddenly cleared his throat, making her jump. His eyes met hers in the rearview mirror as he slowed the car and brought it to a stop in the middle of the empty road. He nodded to the right, where there was a break in the trees. “Château de la Fortune,” he said, pronouncing it “shah-toe de la for-toon.”
    Caitlyn lowered her window, her sea-green eyes searching the landscape. The car was stopped halfway up the ridge. At the top of the next hill, a golden limestone fortress stood strong at the edge of a cliff, the stone of the earth merging with the foundations of the castle.
    A tingling mix of excitement and fear ran over her skin, and a deep feeling of familiarity and recognition settled in her gut, as if she had at last come home.

CHAPTER Four
     
    The Mercedes passed through a gate in a thick defensive wall and entered a parklike setting. The castle and grounds were on a headland jutting out above the valley, and the outer wall, complete with crenellations and towers, went from the cliffs that curved around the castle grounds on the south, to the cliffs curving around to the north, walling off the castle property from the dark forest that covered the rest of the hill.
    The driveway continued through close-mown grass to the massive square castle, an archway piercing its center front. Gardens, riding stables, and outbuildings surrounded the castle itself. Caitlyn looked up as they rolled slowly through the archway and saw the iron points of an immense portcullis in the shadows above them; it was the first time she’d seen such a thing in real life. A shiver ran over her skin, as she realized she was really here.
    The car came out into an immense courtyard in the center of the castle, and the thick-necked driver parked and shut off the engine.
    Caitlyn drew a breath and got out of the car, pulling up the hood of her