“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”

                                                     –Edgar Allan Poe

      Oonagh awoke to blue moonbeams bathing her comforter and spilling onto the dusty floor. The biting air needled at her ears and cheeks, and she sucked in a sharp breath. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she padded over to the window and reached for the sun-bleached curtains. Before she could close them, she spotted something rather curious. A stream of fifteen or twenty girls were walking, in a line, to the center of Knacker’s Yard.

      Standing on her tiptoes, Oonagh pressed her nose to the cold glass. The girls were all clearly students, same as her. Night rendered their navy uniforms deep black, and Oonagh thought they looked like oversized ants. She watched as the girl in front shuffled her way through the ankle-deep snow and approached the well in the courtyard’s center.

      Gripping the stone, the girl stood up on the wall of the well, facing straight ahead. To Oonagh’s horror, she stepped forward, falling out of sight. The next girl moved up.

      She whipped the curtains across the window and stepped back. She had heard of sleepwalking before, but she never imagined that so many people could be doing it at once. And what was with jumping into the well?

      Oonagh’s tutor, Aoife, had mentioned once that Knacker’s Yard was riddled with ghosts, but the woman’s sputtering had made it hard for Oonagh to properly read her lips. She had taken the words with a grain of salt, but she didn’t have any other explanations.

      Oonagh risked another look, just catching another girl disappearing down into the well. Panic flushed her, and her neck felt hot. The smell of smoke tickled her nose, and she felt her eyes fill with tears. It always smelled like smoke in the boardinghouse, but the stench was worse than usual.

      Coughing, Oonagh turned away from the window. The candle on her bedside table was unlit, but she didn’t know what else could produce this kind of smell. She may have to sleep with her mouth open, but she would go back to bed, and she would forget about this. The sleeping crystals she took each night would help her drift off. She shouldn’t have even woken up.

      Just as she climbed back into bed, her head whipped to the door as it inched open. She pulled her legs up to her chin and peered through the crack. It was too dark to see into the hallway, but Oonagh knew something was there.

      Two white pinpricks lit up near the floor, and Oonagh relaxed. The silhouette of a cat padded across the room and sat at her bedside. Its round eyes stared up at her.

      She grinned. It was only Puisin. She hadn’t seen him since the day before. He must have been exploring somewhere on the school grounds. She patted the bed.

      Puisin slowly blinked, ignoring the gesture. His gaze turned to the window, and his head cocked. Oonagh patted the bed again, not wanting the cat to disturb the curtains, and this time Puisin conceded. His mouth stretched open in a yawn as he walked up the bed and curled up against the crook of her neck. He was vibrating. She was told that this was called purring.

      Pressing her ear to Puisin’s fur, Oonagh closed her eyes as the soft skin of her cheeks engulfed the cat’s little tremors. She wondered if purring made any sound.

 

***

 

      The morning sun did nothing to warm the boardinghouse. The January chill crept underneath the floorboards and windowsills, and it had crawled under Oonagh’s comforter. Puisin was gone.

      The smoke’s stink lingered in the room, and she crinkled her nose. It was a smell that was impossible to get used to, and something about it upset her. Ignoring the air that nipped at her face, Oonagh got out of bed to open her window.

      She exhaled, watching with amusement as her breath tumbled upwards, towards the pale sky, and dissipated into wisps. The chilled breeze gently blew the shredded clouds along, and Oonagh snickered at one that resembled a misshapen duck.

      Knacker’s Yard was empty, as it usually was this time of year. Snow clung to the leaves of the massive pine tree that grew just a few feet from the well. The three wooden benches situated around the yard were coated with a thick slush that spilled off onto the ground.

      Oonagh decided that she had time to look at the well before Aoife’s lessons began. The other girls in the boardinghouse ignored her, as they usually did, so she didn’t sit around and chat like the rest of them. Aoife had told her that the girls just didn’t know how to talk to a deaf kid. Oonagh knew it was the fact that they didn’t want to learn.

      She felt strange as she descended the peeling staircase. The boardinghouse didn’t feel as full of life as it usually did. She didn’t have to step around the two girls who played jacks at the bottom of the stairs.

      To Oonagh’s confusion, the well was empty. She looked again to make sure, even leaning over the wall to peer inside. Around ten feet down, she could see a layer of ice. Oonagh half-expected to see faces frozen underneath, and she turned away.

***

      The room that Aoife taught in was just as frigid as the rest of the boardinghouse. It was the smallest classroom, as there was no need for anything larger, and Oonagh liked that the windows faced the woods that hugged the south side of the building.

      Aoife greeted her with a sad smile, and she looked down at her clasped hands as Oonagh sat down. Aoife had already set out paper and a fountain pen, and Oonagh scrawled ‘Are you feeling any better today?’

      Aoife faced her and spoke slowly so she could read her lips. ‘Don’t worry about me, dear. How are you?’

      Oonagh smiled up at her, taking in every aspect of her face. Aoife was the most interesting looking woman she had ever seen. She had the nose of a bird, but her eyes were like a doe’s: large and brown. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead and neck, even with the cold outside, and her hands shook.

      Their conversation was slow-going, but Oonagh always looked forward to this part of the day. Aoife ended lessons early, so she used the extra time to ask her about the smoke smell that didn’t seem to go away.

      Aoife looked sad at this, but she answered. ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.’

      This felt cryptic to Oonagh, but she spent the next few hours trying to follow the smell. There didn’t seem to be anywhere in the boardinghouse that the smoke hadn’t spread to, but she couldn’t find anything that would’ve caused it.

      This was all so strange to her, and it made her angry that she didn’t understand it. If Aoife was right and Knacker’s Yard was haunted, did that have anything to do with the smoke? She had more to ask her, but it would’ve been obvious even for a blind girl to see that Aoife was sick as a dog.

      But she could wait.

 

***

 

      Only three girls threw themselves into the well that night. Oonagh had tried to bang on the glass of her window, clap her hands, even smack the outside of the boardinghouse. The girls either hadn’t heard, or they had ignored her.

      Between her failure to get their attention and the persisting smell of smoke, Oonagh was in a sour mood and couldn’t sleep. Puisin was asleep on her pillow, and she absentmindedly pet him until exhaustion started to set in.

      ‘I’m sorry, little guy,’ she thought as she scooped her hands underneath his body. The cat startled awake and scratched at her arms before darting off down the hallway. Instinctively, Oonagh pulled away, but her eyebrows furrowed. She hadn’t felt anything.

      The smell of smoke suddenly worsened, and her vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. Oonagh wiped at her face, but the smell was permeating from her skin. The thickness of it choked her, and she gagged at the taste.

      Stumbling from her room, she sobbed as she rubbed at her arms, praying that the smell couldn’t catch up with her. She didn’t know where Aoife slept at night, but she would knock on every door if she had to.

      It turned out that she didn’t. Aoife found her in the hallway, and she pulled Oonagh into a hug as the two slid to the floor. It took a few minutes for Oonagh to calm down, but once she had, she looked up at Aoife.

      Her bangs were plastered across her forehead, and there was a frenzied look in her face. Oonagh reached for Aoife’s cheek, and it was wet with tears and sweat.

      ‘I am okay,’ Aoife mouthed. It was obvious to Oonagh that she was not, and she looked away. She hated when people lied to her.

      Aoife walked Oonagh back to her room, all the while keeping a hand on her shoulder. The woman froze once Oonagh had climbed back into bed, her gaze fixated on the window. Aoife’s eyes were huge, like they were trying to escape from her skull. Her hands shook with such ferocity that her entire upper body tremored.

      Oonagh crawled down the bed towards her. Her little fingers wove between Aoife’s skeletal ones, and the trembling stopped. Aoife turned away from the window, her expression softening. ‘Get some sleep,’ she said.

      Oonagh did as she was told, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how Aoife’s breath smelled like smoke.

 

***

 

      Oonagh welcomed the cold as she walked around the school grounds. She couldn’t bring herself to attend Aoife’s lessons after last night, and her head swam from how confused she was.

      All of the other girls were in class, so the grounds were empty, as Oonagh liked them. The front of the boardinghouse opened up to a winding dirt road that disappeared over a hill and through a grove of silver birch trees. The morning sun glistened against the ice crystals that tipped the brown grass blades.

      As she danced around, she spotted something approaching the boardinghouse. Squinting her eyes, Oonagh could make out two large horses pulling a coach. No one had visited their school in a long time, and she grinned as excitement welled up within her. Even from a distance, she could tell that the coach was shiny and clean, as were the horses.

      The coach came to a halt at the front of the boardinghouse, and two well-dressed men exited, donning pristine white gloves and black rimmed hats. One had blonde hair that curled out from behind his ears, and he said something to the other man, who stepped back to look up at the building.

      She moved closer so she could read their lips. Neither would face her or even glance in her direction, but she found a position where she could see both of their faces.

      ‘It’s much worse off than you described,’ the blonde one said, casting a judgmental look to the other man, whose thick mustache bounced as he pursed his lips.

      ‘I do recall telling you that it was a pretty nasty fire that did this place in,’ the mustached man retorted. ‘Not my fault you expected different.’

      She couldn’t tell what the blonde man said, but the other laughed at his comment. The two looked up at the boardinghouse.

      ‘No survivors? Not even the girl who did it?’ the blonde asked.

      The mustached man shook his head.

      ‘Damn, how sad,” the blonde man said.

      Oonagh’s head spun. The smell of smoke infiltrated every pore in her body, and she felt herself wheezing. Her chest ached as her breathing quickened, and dismay enveloped her. She didn’t understand what they were saying. The boardinghouse was old, and as such, the rooms were dusty and the wallpaper peeled, but it wasn’t that bad.

      She ran up to them, trying to figure out how she would ask them all her questions. They looked over her head, still discussing the state of the boardinghouse. She lifted her arms, trying to block their vision. They didn’t acknowledge her.

      Her breath caught in her throat, and she could feel tears threatening to spill from her eyes. She hit the blonde man in the arm, refusing to accept that they didn’t see her, and she fell back at the look of fear in his eyes. He said something to the other, but she didn’t look at them anymore.

      She cried so hard that her throat burned and her eyes throbbed. She staggered over to the coach, using it to hold herself up. Did she even exist?

      Oonagh lifted her gaze to her reflection, and she froze. Her bald head was covered in blisters and chunks of torn skin, and the curve of her skull peeked through a hole in the side of her temple. The tip of her nose was gone, revealing the inner workings of her nasal cavities, which were full of ash and charred skin. Her lack of eyelids made one of her eyes protrude from her head, while the other had burst and dripped down her cheeks, mixing with her tears. Yellow fat and teeth were exposed in her peeling face, and there were so many splits in her forehead and chin that she could barely recognize herself.

      She stepped backwards, unable to take her eyes off the hideous thing before her. She felt arms wrap around her, and she wailed and kicked, scratched and bit. The arms turned her around.

      A corpse stood before her. Swollen skin clung in clumps as it peeled off their body. Smooth red flesh peeked from behind charred strips, and black crusted their head and arms. Their hands were shaking. Oonagh’s sobs had turned into hiccups, and she began to violently shake her head.

      Aoife pulled her close, swaddling her in leather-skinned arms. Oonagh had fallen silent. She stared straight ahead, noting that the men had disappeared inside.

      A hand on her chin tilted her face upwards. Aoife’s burnt lips slowly mouthed something to her. ‘It will be okay.’

      She was led through the boardinghouse, and everything hit her at once. The building was a husk. The walls were stained black, and pieces of the ceiling fell into each room, coating the floor in ash and splinters. Remnants of chairs and bookshelves littered the ground, and all former rugs and curtains were gone. The smell of smoke followed them as they headed into the courtyard. The grass was black and ugly, patches of it burnt to the point where dirt peeked through.

      They stood in Knacker’s Yard, holding each other’s hand. Puisin was weaving himself between their legs, and he rubbed his cheek against her blackened calves. The cat looked uninjured.

      Oonagh felt a strange pull towards the well, like a string attached to it had wrapped itself around her chest and tugged at her. She took a step forward.

      Aoife squeezed her hand, walking up with her. They stood at the wall of the well, and she motioned for Oonagh to look at her.

      ‘Are you ready?’ she mouthed, her scorched tongue licking at her dry lips. Oonagh nodded.

      Puisin jumped up next to them as they climbed up onto the wall. He sat down with his paws together, his tail resting atop them.

      Still holding hands, the two stepped forward, falling down into the dark. Wind whipped against her singed skin, and she smiled.