If you'd told Carter a month before that he'd be spending his days like this…
Carter had pulled all-nighters before. He’d scrawled notes until his hands were swollen and his finger joints cracked like popcorn. He’d read and reread until his eyes went crossed and his pounding headache put him suddenly to sleep. Carter was intimately familiar with the grueling, suffering culture of the grind.
At least then sleep had been restful.
The weasel didn't show itself again, but it made sure Carter spent his nights in a prison of unfathomable proportions. The unknown and unknowable clawing at his consciousness whenever his eyes drifted shut. The creature chose to speak through Carter to the other two witches in their gathering. Every week they got together under the instruction of the animal.
Carter didn't mind the voice anymore, it didn't sound uncanny. It spoke to him as the only familiar sense in his awful dreams. It sounded more human than it ever had. He began to look forward to speaking with it as he slept, though the conversations were fuzzy memories when he woke.
"Alright, tonight we cover east of the lake," Alice spoke as she drew a circle around that area on the town map with a blue sharpie. They'd been targeting different sections of town with sleeping spells.
Nothing extreme; giving more hours of sleep to those with insomnia, extending the sleep hours of people on their day off. It was a harmless endeavor, but only Carter and the Weasel knew to what end.
"You're supposed to use lilac." Carter corrected Alice where she was placing the map on the table and setting up candles on top of it.
"Blue will make people less likely to consciously fight our influence." She explained. Erica nodded and made noises of agreement where she was copying sigils onto the pillar candles, a different-sized pencil held in her mouth.
"Is that ok?" He asked, by now they knew he wasn't asking them.
I trust your judgment.
The voice responded. Carter nodded at the girls but the voice wasn’t finished.
Friend, this isn't working.
Carter's grin fell.
"What do you mean?" He asked. Alice and Erica looked up in equal confusion. He waved to them and bowed out of the room.
No matter how many humans sleep, I won't pass permanently to the waking world.
"Well, what else can we do?" He asked hopelessly. The animal in his head hesitated for the first time.
As you pass from the waking world to the sleeping, it draws the two closer together. Pulling the waking world down with the weight of monumental unconsciousness.
Carter listened with rapt attention, the creature had been secretive about the mechanisms of his situation.
In this way, the space between these worlds, the place where I exist, gets narrower. Enough so for me to pass through it and wake up.
"So it's not how many we put to sleep, but keeping them asleep indefinitely?"
That is one way.
"That implies there's another." Carter guessed hopefully.
Yes, a direct link.
"To… the awake? What's what it's called..?"
If one were to sleep of their own will and find me in the in-between, I could wake up in their skin, with their flesh as my own.
Carter thought about the sentence before he answered.
"You mean you need someone to go to sleep forever?" He guessed, apprehensive.
Someone willing.
"But who would be willing to do that?" He asked in disbelief. The answer wasn't easy to swallow.
Maybe no one. But the more who sleep unwilling, the narrower the boundary. The closer I am to you.
Carter felt the brush of foreign consciousness in his mind. On his scalp, tickling the skin and space between his mind and inner skull.
Carter stood in silence for a long time as he thought. He wanted to be angry with the animal for forcing him to suffer alongside it. After weeks of it, however, he realized how long the animal must've dealt with the insanity. It's no wonder it would look for any way out, even something like this.
"We can't just put the whole town to sleep forever." He explained sadly.
Not forever, just long enough to find someone willing.
It explained. Just that long? Carter furrowed his brow in thought, resting his eyes that stung from lack of proper sleep. Of course, the whole town was a ridiculous idea, he could never justify stealing the lives of so many. But the concept was a lead, perhaps something borrowed instead of stolen could be what they need. Something to end the endless. They could try something smaller than the whole town to see if it worked.
"So you're saying that we're just gonna do something small for now and see if we have to go bigger." He rephrased.
That wasn't my suggestion, no.
"But it could work, The girls might think it's too far…" he'd almost forgotten about them. They didn't get it quite as he did. He could see the consequences every waking night for weeks. He had to keep them motivated. "We'll have to explain it to them after we see if it works. You know how they are."
I don't know anyone.
"Ok good." Carter agreed with himself.
He ducked back into the spell room to find the others waiting on their points of the triangle. Carter strode to his point and sat down, mentally apologizing that he didn't help set up that day. Beside him was the book they'd been writing the spell down in as they developed it, he took it and flipped to the newest page.
"I'm gonna add some herbs to this ingredient list if that's ok." He muttered. He got equally enthusiastic responses in return. On the page he marked 'research sleeping herbs' in blue ink.
Next week's spell was going to be a bit stronger.
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