Mistfall (13 page)

Pixie tea is something I recommend you try if
you ever get the chance. It is made up of the nectar of a plant. We
were drinking the tea of the rare Chocolate Cosmos. The tea tasted
nothing of chocolate, the term only referring to the rich, dark
cocoa color of the plant’s petals. What did it taste like? In one
word: sin. It smelled of vanilla and tasted like cake frosting. It
was the most indulgent and delicious thing I had ever tasted.

While we were having tea, a few of the pixies
insisted on doing my hair. They wove ivy throughout the waves of my
raven hair, accenting it with blue and purple flowers.

One of the male pixies fluttered up to John’s
eye level and shook a fist at him. The pixie told John to not even
think about getting his hair done or the only thing of color on him
would be black and blue. John reassured the pixie he wasn’t
interested in being prettied up.

I hadn’t been without my contacts for too
long at that point and time, so I was a bit apprehensive when the
pixie girls told me the colors they used brought out the purple in
my eyes. My fear was assuaged when they assured me that I had
nothing to fear because they had known about me for some time.
Trees happen to be huge gossips. The hamadryads and the pixies,
thankfully, were the only ones that spoke the language of the
trees. Both were excellent secret keepers.

Jaz finished me up by shaking some pollen on
me. When the sun’s rays lit upon my head, the pollen shimmered,
reflecting the light like a prism. John told me I looked like the
embodiment of Mother Earth. That’s when he took the photo that now
sat on his mantle.

Sighing, I turned away from the fireplace and
continued my tour. I was perusing through a book left on the coffee
table when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I
turned to the picture window to see what it was. The forest was on
fire! Trees and bushes were engulfed in the hellish flames. The
thick, shadowy tendrils of smoke rose to the air like spirits from
their graves. Papery white particles snowed down, covering what
wasn’t burning in a haunting blanket of ash.

A hand touched my shoulder and I turned to
see John standing behind me.

“Everything okay Violet?” he asked,
worried.

Looking back at the picture window I was
greeted with the forest’s usual tableau of greenery and birdsong. I
tilted my head.
What was it that had distracted me in the first
place?

“Everything’s fine. I just thought I saw…” I
wasn’t sure what I saw, come to think of it. My face scrunched up
in contemplation, trying to remember.

“Saw what?” he inquired dropping his hand
from my shoulder to the small of my back.

The thought slipped my mind completely. “I
don’t remember,” I laughed, shaking off the foreboding feeling.
“Guess it wasn’t that important.”

“Sweet Violet, always on guard,” he said,
admiringly. He turned me to him and embraced me in a long, slow
kiss. The feel of his lips against mine almost ran that nagging
feeling in the back of my head off. Almost.

I pushed John off of me and slapped him hard
across the face.

“What the fuck was that for?” he yelled, his
left hand held against his cheek.

I ignored him and walked back to the window.
What I needed was some time to think. Fragments were forming in my
mind. Everything was on fire, scenes changing, and Melissa and John
at the kitchen table. The very same table I was just sitting at not
too long ago.

John’s face was betraying him. He paled. The
only ounce of color left was the hand shaped welt that had formed
on one side of his face. I knew he was connected to all of this,
but I was still figuring out how.

I was still connecting the dots when he took
two long strides and grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me. “What
is wrong with you Violet?” he demanded.

I put my hands out, at the ready, in warning.
“Get away from me John.”

I guess I was talking to a wall. He grabbed
me by my arm and flipped me, head over heels, onto the floor. I
felt little pain, though I should have felt much more hitting the
ground so hard. That should have tipped me off, but I was only
seeing red.

I shot back on to my feet and opened my hands
and attempted to shoot off a few fireballs at him. Nothing came. No
fizzle, spark, or smoke. That’s when it hit me. All the dreams I
had of John recently had been manipulated. I had been manipulated.
I flashed to the dream of John, Melissa, and the robed people. The
Dreamweaver! He wore the same robes.

I lunged at John, knocking him to the ground.
I may not have magic, but I could still beat the crap out of him. I
straddled him while I hit. I pulled no punches, every hit being
targeted to inflict the maximum amount of pain. He didn’t fight
back, but blocked what punches he could.

“You asshole!” I shouted. “What did you do to
me?”

“I’m trying to find you,” he replied bluntly
while moving his head to avoid a punch to the face.

I stopped hitting him. “That makes no sense.
You’ve been hacking into my dreams for the last few weeks. What
gives?”

“Get off of me first,” he urged me.

I moved to sit in front of him, digging one
of my knees into his thigh for good measure. He pulled his knees to
his chest, giving me a cocky grin.

“You still hit like a girl you know,” he
taunted.

I kicked my leg out swiftly, aiming for his
shins. He had expected my retaliation and moved out of the way.

John held his hands up in concession. “I know
you’re upset. Just calm down and give me a chance to explain.
Please.”

I crossed my arms in a huff. “You have five
minutes,” I told him.

“First, you have to drop the glamour of the
dream. I can only manipulate what you see. Its power is in what you
believe to be real,” he informed me.

“How do I do that?” I asked.

“You’ve done it before. You just didn’t know
what it was that you were doing.” He scooted across the floor to my
side. “Close your eyes,” he instructed. “Try clearing your mind and
then subtract everything you see, including me, little by little,”
John instructed soothingly.

My eyes popped open at that. “Wait,” I said,
putting my hand up. “That sounds awfully similar to what the
Dreamweaver told me to do when he shanghaied me to his realm days
ago.”

My eyes weren’t the only ones as big as
saucers now. I’m not sure if his surprise was because I knew about
the Dreamweavers or that they went behind his back.

“A Dreamweaver met with you in your
dreams?”

“Um, not exactly. Hijacked my consciousness
was more like it,” I said.

“Why? What did he talk to you about?” he
inquired hungrily.

Ha! Even with someone I know is trustworthy,
I wouldn’t give up that information. That little nugget of life
altering info was mine to keep until I figured a way out of it.

I shook my head. “Nuh-uh. That’s between me
and him.” I raised an eyebrow in question. “How did you know it was
a he?”

“There are only three of them left. They’re
all he’s.”

So that’s why they wanted me to join them.
They needed a breeder.
Fantastic, I’m cattle now.
Relegated
to a vision of a four way with the beaked bastards of doom and a
dairy cow, I quickly focused back to the matter at hand.

“Alright, let me drop this glamour and then
we can talk,” I told John.

My hostility had abated, but the anger was
still there. I was willing to listen to his story and wait until
after he was done to resume the unabashed violence.

I closed my eyes. In my mind I slowly drew
down the darkness. I started with John, subtracting him from the
equation, limb by limb, until only a torso was left. That too I
made disappear. I probably could have made him disappear in one go,
but my aggression was still playing itself out, childishly at that.
Little by little everything dissolved around me as the light ebbed
away until there was nothing left.

Just as I had darkened the vision, I allowed
the light to wax full. The scenery was the same as I had just left
it.
Clever ass,
I thought. He knew I was breaking through
the magical dreams. John made this dream so similar to the reality
that, if I broke through, I wouldn’t know the difference.

There was a difference though. Aside from
John and the Dreamweavers, Melissa was there.

“Melissa!” I exclaimed as I ran the distance
between us. “I thought you were dead.” I tried to hug the
honey-haired Witch, but walked right through her like a ghost.”

John saw the puzzled look on my face and
addressed my confusion. “Sorry Violet. This is all real,” he
pointed out gesturing to the house and its occupants, “but you’re
just a mental projection here.”

I would later find out the true power of the
Dreamweavers. They were masters of telepathy and out of body
experiences. They could enter anyone’s mind, willing or not. That
knowledge scared me a little.

“Luca told me that he offered you his place
to stay. I thought, because he betrayed me, you were dead,” I
directed to Melissa.

Violence flashed in John’s eyes, turning them
light, like the first greens of the spring. (Yup, another
Otherworlder trait. Extreme emotion causes our eyes to light up
like Christmas lights) I didn’t understand his reaction. Yeah, a
bad guy had played me like a fiddle, but John and I had been in
worse situations.

Melissa smiled and quickly diverted my
attention from John. “I’m alive and well. When Luca came back to
check on me, something didn’t quite feel right about him. After
living with you for the past five years, I’ve learned to trust my
gut.” She laughed and attempted to lightly punch me in the shoulder
but drew her hand back after remembering I was non-corporeal.

“Anyway,” she continued, “instead of going to
Luca’s I came straight to John and told him what happened.

“We would have found you too, but your
boyfriend got to you before we did,” John added, putting heavy
sarcasm on the word boyfriend.

“He’s not my boyfriend John,” I chided
him.

“From what I hear, you two were getting
rather cozy with each other,” he accused.

I sat on the floor, afraid I’d fall through
anything else I tried to sit on. “What Luca and I did or did not
have was over the minute he knocked me out. What business of it is
yours anyway John?”

He lowered his gaze from mine, his cheeks
slightly tinted pink. “You’re right. It isn’t any of my
business.”

“Great, now that your done being a jerk would
one of the two of you mind telling me what’s going on?” I asked the
both of them.

John began the story. “Before Willa was
murdered she suggested I search out the Dreamweavers. Willa thought
the idea of a psychic lojacking was a good one, just in case you
needed to be found.”

Melissa jumped in. “It’s a good thing too.
Locating spells haven’t worked. Even the Dreamweavers are having a
hard time finding you. We need you to tell us where you’re at.”

I leaned back on my hands and stared at the
wooden beams that formed the ceiling of John’s house. Each of them
had been hand hewn from trees in this very forest. “I’m safe and
sound, for the time being,” I advised them. “Finish the story
first. Then maybe I’ll be a bit more forgiving to you dream
terrorists and tell you where I’m at.”

Melissa glared at John. “I told you she
wouldn’t like the subconscious thievery of her mind,” Melissa
scolded him.

“Not my brightest moment, but I was pressed
for time and my options were limited,” he claimed. “Now can I
continue?” he asked the two of us.

Melissa and I nodded our heads in silent
assent.

John went on. “It took me until last year to
find them. The Dreamweavers are ancient, older than some of the
gods even.” He gestured to the three brown hooded men. “Their
numbers, once in the millions, are now reduced to these last
three.”

“So they just flit through anyone’s psyche
with ease?” I asked.

“Except for you,” Melissa chimed in.

John nodded in agreement with Melissa. “That
is true. I will get to that soon.”

He put his hand to his chin, trying to
remember where he had left off in his story. “Where was I? Oh yes.
The Dreamweavers can move through a mind with ease. In the
subconscious they manipulate dreamscapes. In the conscious mind
they cause daydreams. All in all, they troll through our minds for
information.”

I was both awed and outraged by that
statement. They were acting as Big Brother, overreaching with their
power.

“You’re wearing your thoughts on your face
again Violet,” John informed me.

Mental note: never take up poker.

“It’s nothing like what you’re thinking,” he
went on. “They use the information only to create dreamscapes,
hence their name. They have never once, in their entire existence
used the information they gather to wield power over others.”

My lips rounded and formed a silent oh. “I
guess that makes sense,” I said warily, still not convinced their
actions were benevolent.

John explained further. “They agreed to help,
training me for the day I might have to search you out. I was told
by one of the Dreamweavers that I would regret my decision to find
you.” He sat on the ground next to me and spoke quietly, his next
comment only for my ears. “They wouldn’t tell me why, but I know I
could never regret rescuing you.” He tried to caress my face but I
felt nothing and he was only greeted by the empty air.

He smiled at me and I returned it. Inside, I
knew what the hooded harbingers of doom meant. John’s belief in me
solidified my determination to find an option that didn’t end in
doom or gloom.

The story wasn’t over. John still had much
more to tell me. “When Melissa found me-.”

I interrupted him. “I was wondering about
that. How do you and Melissa know each other?”