Dream Weaver (Dream Weaver #1) (5 page)

             
And, it had always been enough, to imagine.

BLEEDING OUT
by Emari Sweet

Oh that I could rend the flesh to ribbons

Outer portrait of the condition of my soul

Eager death

For freedoms sake

Release the grief held captive in my heart

For claws to rip the tender flesh

Consumed in fire

Cut to ribbons

Oh for release from the pain

That my heart daily walks in

For freedom from the pain

Like heaviness upon bruised skin

Like salt within an open wound

Oh to claw within my breast

And wrench the tattered soul within

To sever arteries torn from flesh

Crimson flood

Pool of blood

Upon the floor

For pain and grief cohabit

No release for me

Imprisoned by duty

Shackled by right

I cannot rip the flesh deep enough

Cannot rend the tissue wide enough

To extract the tattered soul that lies within

CHAPTER 5 Tourniquet

             
I was done. All my reserves tapped. Time to shut down. My self-imposed prison gates thundered downward, the echoing boom as dungeon doors crashed to the floor in rolling succession.

             
Safe.

             
Safe inside myself.

             
Yet, was the inside of me any safer than the outside world? With my eyes wide open, my reality was clear and without any kind of comfort. No knight battled to free me, and even if one championed my cause, there was no freedom to be won; no refuge from my tortured truth.

             
In the real world, outside my dramatized, traumatized brain, the doors to my little cottage in the woods remained bolted.

             
I texted Ivy once: “
Doing fine. Safe and sound. Don’t worry. Love you Baby. Thank you for everything. PS Shutting off phone…‘til I’m ready…I’M SORRY…
”
and shut down my cell. I knew my silence would wound her, as if I’d crashed my life so violently into hers and left the scene, hit and run. I’d abandoned her to deal with her own damage—so I could succumb to mine.

             
“Baby,” I whispered so my own voice didn’t frighten me, again. In junior high, Ivy started calling me Sweets or Sweetie. She loved my last name. Unfortunately, the nickname stuck, and other people picked it up as well. In retaliation, I started calling her Baby. We became Sweetie and Baby, the dynamic duo; well, maybe not so dynamic. More like the dorky duo, but Baby made being a dork okay. We even dressed up like vampires, wore our realistic custom fangs to the midnight releases of the newest vampire movies, and when it wasn’t Halloween. She loved to drag me along to
Rocky Horror Picture Show
. She even supplied the props and a script, warped and waterlogged from the torrential squirt gun downpours. The memory of her friendship warmed a tiny unbroken place in my heart that I hadn’t thought still existed.

             
My bed became my paradise and my perdition. I’d shoved it into the corner of my room; the corner where I lay so I could feel one wall with my feet and one wall with my head. Safe—where no one could sneak up behind me. As long as I had something solid at my back, I felt vaguely reassured. I would never allow my guard down again.

             
Outside, freezing gusts howled through the trees, lonesome wolves baying mournfully at the sky. My little house shivered from the cold. I stared through the darkness, wide-eyed, and wondered if
he
was out there, if
he
knew where I lived, or had followed us home. What if
he
was waiting for a moment to come in to get me, to hurt me again? Fear drove me to my phone as I reconsidered my decision not to let Ivy or Jesse stay with me. But no, alone, secluded was better—for them and for me.

             
“Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” hummed through my lips. For some strange reason, the simple lullaby bestowed a superficial comfort. I hummed myself to sleep but the grace of the song wilted into the hell of the nightmares. Once again, the crunch of fists, the pounding of the violence overwhelmed me. My sleep swam with images of torture, terror and blood. The filth of his touch, the vileness of his words, the threats made to silence me.

             
“If you so much as breathe too loud I will snap your neck. And your little amiga will be next. Understand?”
In the dream, Ivy entered the room and his fists went to work, breaking her like a porcelain doll. He forced me to watch while he took her.

             
I awoke thrashing, my body entombed in blankets. Tears soaked my pillow. Silent tears that evolved into a mournful whine, ricocheted into a scream that wrenched from my throat as the rage and anguish ravaged me. It severed from the deepest chasm within me; the audible sounds of my heart disintegrating.

             
“No. No. No. She’s okay. She’s okay.” I rocked, manic and desperate as I struggled to convince myself. Scrabbling through mounds of used tissue, I hunted up my phone, and stifled the wail that warred in my chest.

             
Baby, u there?
I texted feverishly, and waited insufferable moments, the cell pressed to my heaving breast. “Answer. Answer. Answer.”

             
Right here, Sweets. I can come if  u need me.

             
NO! I just…needed 2 know U R OK.

             
I’m fine. R U OK???

             
Yes. Bad dream.

             
I can come.

             
No. Just needed 2 know. ILY!!!

             
I can call.

             
It’s OK. No voice.

             
R U sure??

             
Yes. I love you, Baby.

             
Love u 2, Sweets.

             
Such simple words appeased my stricken heart.

*              *              *

              Time eked by in hazy patches of waking pain and dreaming torment. Awake or sleeping was of little consequence, the pain thrived in some form in either state.

             
The images of my parent’s fiery crash scorched my heart, left me singed and blistered; my nerves raw and tender.

             
The death of my parents blew a gaping hole in my chest. And now, this—this monster placed its cruel claws on the ragged remnants and rent me in two.

             
My torture chamber of night terrors tore me from sleep. I huddled in a blanket in my window seat, stared blankly at the swirling eddies of snow. It all looked so innocent and unassuming. Right now. But I remembered that day, eight months ago, that changed my life forever.

             
I’d been out in front of the house, washing my urban-orange CX9, and waiting for my parents to return from a house hunting trip in Cali—their snowbird home after I graduated. I worshipped the sun, absorbed the warmth after its long hibernation. Winter’s chill melted off my bones like thawing glaciers. The sweet scent of pine filled me. Birds filled the trees with preening and the air with song.

             
Pop! Pop!
The staccato pop of tires on the gravel driveway drew me out of my tropical reverie to the police cruiser edging toward me. The cold stone in my stomach forewarned me, but I chased it away with denial.

             
Please, God, let it be an invitation to the policeman’s ball.

             
But I knew.

             
Please, God, let it only be minor injuries.

             
But I knew when the troopers stepped out of their car and donned their hats, stern-faced and reluctant in their strides. The hose dropped to the ground, where it hissed like an angry serpent. I’d wanted to run away, but my heart surged, drew all my blood from the rest of my body, and encased my feet in ice.

             
No! Don’t say it. Just don’t say it!

             
I wanted to rush them, to shut their mouths, to keep them from saying aloud what I already knew, as though unspoken words constrained the truth. If only I could silence the words I could keep them from being real.

             
But I knew. I knew my parents were dead.             

             
I always knew things; my gift, or curse, of foreseeing outcomes. Not quite predicting the future, just knowing the end of a situation before the rest of the world. Unfortunately, most of the time, my foresight involved a death.

             
“Are you Miss Emari Sweet?” asked the blonde deputy. R Blair glinted from his name badge.

             
“Yes.” I sounded like a strangled mouse.

             
“Your parents are Zecharias and Jane Sweet—driving a maroon 2012 Cadillac?” Blair asked.

             
I folded my arms around myself, already held myself together as the troopers delivered the news.

              “Miss Sweet, there’s been an accident on I-90 near Fourth of July Pass.” Blair’s eyes scanned my face and filled with hesitation. I nodded, too numb and racked with pain in the same instant. “I’m sorry to inform you, ma’am—that both of your parents were killed.”

             
I lunged at Deputy Blair. “No!” He held me at bay by my wrists. Someone was shrieking. The whole world secretly shifted a degree on its axis and forgot to tell me. I groped for a hold on the Earth and my sanity.

             
One of the troopers put a strong arm around my waist and began leading me inside. A wave of nausea twisted my stomach. I leaned over the porch rail and retched on the rose bushes. They guided me into the house, sat me on the couch and gave me a drink of water. My body shivered, in shock.

             
“Miss Sweet, is there someone we can call for you?”

             
Don’t you get it, you fucking moron, there is no one else!
“No. I can call my Uncle Adrian.”

             
Blair handed me my cell from next to the couch and after three fumbling attempts, I dialed Adrian’s number.

             
“Uncle Adrian? Something…it’s Mom and Dad. Their car…they crashed. The police say they’re…” but I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t give life and solidity to words of death by speaking them aloud.

             
The troopers stayed with me until Adrian arrived. One of them was some sort of chaplain/cop or something. I didn’t really have much use for him, all things considered. So I sat, blind and empty, and caved in on myself.

              Vaporous phantoms of the past haunted my wakefulness. Remembrances of happy times with my parents, family vacations to amazing places like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon or chasing whales off the coast of San Diego. Tender moments that brought brief joy to recollect, but cut like a double-edged sword.

             
Nightmares of blaze-engulfed wreckage staked their claim on my sleep. An array of painful and gruesome images assaulted my mind each time I closed my eyes. Chimera stalked me, left me dreading sleep. I resisted its pull until it finally overtook me and I collapsed from exhaustion or narcotic inspiration.

             
And when the sting of my sleep wasn’t poisoning my brain, I teetered on the precipice of my prison wall with nothing but an inky nebulous below. The slightest gust of wind or the change in barometric pressure would be the catalyst that plunged me into those lurid depths. I gave no resistance to the gusts of icy air, and surrendered to gravity. In freefall, I plummeted into the mire, acquiesced to the darkness, obediently bowed to its command.

STONE COLD
By Emari Sweet

Cold, Stone cold

Piercing frost, frigid ice

Tender flesh, damaged soul

My heart may break

And soon may shatter

For it has turned

Cold

Stone cold

Only rage, burning hot

Conquers all the others

Suppressed and pressed on every side

Show nothing…feel nothing

BE NOTHING

O how I long for a gentle touch

Soft and warm

A caress that desires nothing in return

A hand that seeks to give and not to take

And yet I stand

All alone and

Cold

Stone cold

A warm wind blows, not long enough

To melt this stone cold heart

Icy prison, Frozen gates

I’m safe from you, yet trapped within

Who will crash the gates and rescue me

No figment knight in shining mail

Sets me free

Captive of

My cold

My stone cold heart

Unrequited dreams

Delusions, illusions and fairy tales

A fool’s errand to believe

Daydreams shattered

Reality’s icy shards

Ruins at my feet

And the scattered battered pieces

Of my cold

My stone cold heart

Chapter 6 My Last Breath

             
My days fused together, drifted in diverse shades of grey.

             
Ivy came out to the house one day to check on me. She knocked and rang the bell. My phone remained off and I hadn’t yet bothered to check messages. She was worried. Baby did that. She knew I was home. There were no new tire tracks in the freshly fallen snow, so my car remained in the carport, right where she parked it when we got home from the hospital the other night. I could hear the
clump clump
of her combat boots as she paced the length of the porch.

             
I just wasn’t ready. I sat on my bed, curled in a ball, my arms wrapped around my legs, and watched her reflection in the hall mirror. Animatedly, she talked to someone on her cell phone as her free hand gesticulated dramatically. So Ivy. I could only rock and hum to myself. As much as it grieved me to see her sweet care-worn face twisted in worry, it just couldn’t be helped. I was safe. I was where I needed to be, where I chose to be. Alone.

             
Finally, she placed a beautiful bouquet of mixed flowers by the door and heaved a vaporous sigh. Her fear that I’d done something self-destructive vibrated through her, but she turned and shuffled miserably through the snow to her car and drove away. Perhaps the person on the phone had assured her of my safety; although, I wasn’t aware of anyone with that kind of surety.

             
I listened as her tires crunched through the frozen snow and the memory of her pain overwhelmed me. I rummaged through the mountains of Kleenex for my cell phone and cursed it for booting so slowly. Finally, the screen glowed: a picture of the three of us, Ivy, Jesse and me, mugging for the camera. I messaged,
“Baby, I’m OK. Honest. Plz, just a little time. Will call. Promise. Sweets.”

*              *              *

              Darkness slipped over the house. The living room glowed TV blue in the wee hours of the morning, the only light in the house. I lay cocooned in a thick fleecy blanket on the couch, a cup of cooling herbal tea on the floor within reach. I watched the glowing screen without seeing for what seemed like eons, until the twang of a country western crooner pierced my non-thought. Images of frail, neglected puppies and kittens intermixed with graphics like “pain,” “loneliness,” “sadness” and “never know love” flashed across the screen and crashed through my retinas. They pounded into my heart like one more nail in my coffin. Sweet little animals with wide sorrowful eyes, pleading for love that no one would give them. I swiped away tears with the back of my hand.
Aw, how stupid could I get?
I harassed myself.
What is wrong with me, crying over a stupid TV commercial?
I lay there and allowed the tears to soak my cocoon.
What’s the deal? It’s just a commercial.
The images played and replayed in my mind, unbidden. What
was
the deal?

             
A penetrating darkness pierced through their irises, and it clicked. I remembered those eyes, that expression. The same expression I’d seen in my own eyes the last time I dared to look myself in the face in the mirror. The same forsaken stare gazed back at me in the glass. I was the huddled kitten, the tiny pup, shivering in the gutter, cold, alone, and sad. “Never to know love.”             

             
My chest throbbed with pain, the rupturing and shredding of my heart was audible. How strange. As I lay in my bundled cocoon, and shivered and twitched as if some metamorphosis rippled within my skin, I realized that these strange, inhuman noises, like the keening of an injured animal were tearing from my own throat.

             
Outside, the wind roared through the towering pine trees around the house, and I hoped that it drowned out my primal screams. Vagrant leaves escaped their prison of snow and skittered across the porch like little brown mice scurrying to safety. A strange shadow crossed the doorway, something almost human in form. I tried to control my sobbing, as my swollen, gushing eyes searched the wintry darkness and found nothing but whorls of sparkling snow. My finite fragment of control crumbled and the creature inside me broke free again. Not even a stun gun could subdue it now.

             
The cold outside made the joints of my old house pop and groan. Each protest from the house sent electrocutions of fear zapping through me. Then, mixed with its aged grumblings, I could have sworn I heard a floorboard creak. I froze and held my breath. Listened, watched, waited. I slid my hand under the couch cushion, groped for the curved hardness of the stun gun. My fingers curled around the cool grip. As I rolled off the couch onto my knees, I withdrew the gun and pointed at the effervescent glimmer of the snow reflected in the glass of my built-ins. I scanned the blue darkness, ferreted the house, turned on every light in every room. Soon I was sure my house could be seen from space. For the hundredth time, I re-checked every door and window to reassure myself they were bolted from the inside and alarmed.

             
Finally satisfied, I crawled to the corner of my bed, wrapped in a blanket cocoon. I rocked and hummed.

              “Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are,” was my self-pacifying hum. The song drifted into a nameless melody, soft and consoling. It tumbled from my throat and filled my mouth and heart. I rocked myself to mollify my ache, and drifted into a daze. Soon, a warm, peaceful sleep ensconced me like a heavy winter blanket, though the song played on from somewhere inside me, became my sleeping lullaby.

             
I dreamed a cool hand touched my emotionally fevered cheek in a gentle caress. A peaceful sigh drifted through me. A hum of relief responded. For the first time in days, real sleep enveloped me—warm, quiet, sleepy sleep, not drug induced, or the kind laden with monsters and phantoms stalking vulnerable prey. For the first time in months, my slumber was devoid of nightmares, or worse, replays of reality. Just sleep.

*              *              *

              In the morning, I awoke feeling
almost
normal, though the hollowed out cavern inside remained. Perhaps the only ‘normal’ I knew. The beauty outside my window of the new fallen snow, white and pristine warred with my inner blight.

             
I shuffled to the bathroom and stood shivering. The fear of my reflection in the mirror launched my heart into V-tach. My face felt better, less swollen, but I hadn’t actually looked at myself in a few days. I drew in a bracing breath, and prepared myself for the ugliness. With forced courage I finally turned around to look myself squarely in the face—a difficult feat even without the trauma.

             
“Oh my god!” I launched myself closer to the mirror. It was unbelievable. Miraculous healing, though I didn’t believe in miracles. Not anymore. The bruises, the bloody flare of the hemorrhages in my eyes were already diminishing. Obvious handprints still ringed my throat, evanescing ghosts of the former gore. The corners of my mouth still curled up slightly. My secret smile. My daddy’s smile.

             
I inspected my face in the mirror, gingerly pressed around the stitches to check for infection, and angled a hand mirror to get a look at the sutures at the back of my head. The bathroom filled with toasty heat; and with the heat came the courage to assess the rest of the damage.

             
Okay, the rest of me
, I thought, bravely bolstered by my unexpected progress.

             
The blanket fell to the floor in a heap around my chilled feet. My scowling skull jammies slid into the cloth puddle. Gathering my courage I pulled my eyes back to the mirror, and was staggered. My arms, ribs and legs, where the beating had been slightly less severe, only showed traces of bruising and abrasions.

             
I released my forgotten breath. Maybe, I might be okay
.
Maybe I wasn’t as fragile as I’d imagined under the jackhammer of fists.

              Steaming water tumbled into the bathtub and I dumped in some ‘Bubble Up Girls’ huckleberry milk bath. The sweet creamy fragrance flooded the room. I closed my eyes and savored the juicy, tart scent—it smelled almost edible.

             
The morning after I came home from the hospital I’d showered, scoured and soaked myself clean. I knew I could not still smell like
him
but I could still smell him on me, still taste the ashtray-cheap-beer of his mouth crushing mine. My stomach roiled at the memory.

             
As the tub filled, I scrubbed my teeth and rinsed with mouthwash that stung the still-healing wounds inside my mouth. When the tub frothed with luxurious steaming foam, I shut off the faucet and sank slowly into the inviting depths. The hot water seared my tender skin but eased my aching muscles as I steeped in the heat and fragrance.
Aw, to be human again
.

             
The hot bath did wonders. I did feel almost human again dressed in my zombie sheep pajamas. A tattered green sheep shambled across the chest. ‘Brainzzz’ he bleated. I smirked at our resemblance.

             
I turned on my cell phone. Once it booted up, all the bells and whistles sounded; missed call alerts, voicemail alerts, text message alerts. I pulled up the text messages—all from Ivy.

             
“Sweetie, call me when u wake up. Luv u. Miss u. Ivy”

             
“Sweets, call me, I’m getting worried. Ivy.”

             
“Emari…I KNOW u r home. Come answer this door right now!”

             
“Em, plz call me. I miss u really bad and I’m worried about u. Ivy.”

             
“OK Sweetums, I know u just need some time. I won’t pester u anymore. Call or TM if u need me, ok? I love you! Ivy”

             
Sweet Ivy. I knew I’d better call her soon, before she imploded.

             
I checked the voicemails next. More of the same from Ivy, but the anguish in her voice was more wrenching, her voice raw with pain. A lump caught in my own throat as I realized just how much this girl cared for me. She was one of the reasons I would ever only
imagine
that scalpel blade to my wrist.

             
Shock jolted my heart when, in the midst of the messages, one from Adrian played. His voice was tremulous. “Emari…” Seconds ticked by and I could hear muffled sounds as Adrian composed himself. “We keep hoping it’s not you we’re hearing about on the news. Please,” his voice broke, “call us, as soon as you can. Celeste is worried sick. We both are. We love you. Please call.”

             
I sat frozen in time, remembered the major confrontation he and I had after my parent’s funeral. We’d stood, toe to toe, in this very living room, and glared at each other like two snarling pit bulls. He and Celeste had wanted me to live with them, wanted to coddle and baby me…