Alisaura
Blue Crack Supplier
(Whoops, sorry, I didn't mean to leave it this long. With no further ado, the second half of the conversation....)
Usual Disclaimer: All harmless nonsense.
end of chapter 19:
--------
"You wrote the dreams down?" Glen said.
I nodded.
"Can I see them?"
I hesitated for only a moment. I hadn't gone into any sort of detail beyond the fact that Mag and Ewain were sleeping together, and I wanted to be completely honest about this whole thing. "Sure." I got up and fetched the notebook, handing it to Glen before I sat down again, on my end of the couch. I watched, still apprehensive, as he flipped through the pages.
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Chapter 20:
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A small frown creased his forehead.
"In some of these, you say 'I' instead of 'she' or 'Mag'."
"Well, you know... they were very vivid dreams... and you know what it's like, right after you wake up. They stay with you for a while. I usually wrote those down straight afterwards."
"I suppose so." Glen was starting to look concerned. "So, Ed somehow got hold of this, and tried to convince you he'd had the same dreams?"
I shifted uncomfortably. "That's what I thought at first. He swore he hadn't seen it, but I didn't believe him then."
"And you do now?"
"I'm getting to that," I said. If he wanted to hear the whole sordid tale, I'd tell it in my own way. Glen's frown deepened. "I was camping for the next few days, away from the village. There's a barrow there, I'd seen it before, on the earlier trips. I saw that someone had gone out there since I was there last, and excavated it..." Those feelings of outrage threatened to creep up on me again, and I squeezed my eyes shut until they subsided.
"Love?"
"I'm okay. I'm just tired," I said, trying to reassure Glen with a watery smile. "But when I went right up to the hole they'd dug... it was like one of the dreams hit me, wide awake. I was Mag again, and I was horrified that someone had desecrated Eleri's barrow, stolen her bones away from the earth." I had to stop again, and got up to get a glass of water.
Glen watched me with worried eyes, and waited silently until I sat back down.
"I don't know how long I was like that, but once I started to come back to myself, I ran. I got away from there as fast as I could. And I rationalised it away, I told myself it was like when I'd first seen Ed, that instant dislike, like he was invading my territory. Those archaeologists had done worse than that, and seeing as how I don't like Dr. bloody Lawson any more..." I shrugged, and Glen nodded.
"I dreamed about Eleri's death that night," I went on. "She'd been wasting away for months, and Mag had been nursing her, even after her own little son had died..." I stopped yet again. "Dammit," I muttered, and got up again, this time in search of tissues.
"Let me..." Glen said, starting to get up, but I waved him back as I hunted through the kitchen, sniffing.
"No, stay there... There they are." I needed the movement, needed to work some of this tension out. I blew my nose, and returned to the couch. I tried to distance myself from what I was saying – but how do you do that, when it happened to you? And not that long ago, either.
"A few days later, I saw Ed again, out in the field. I was near the stone circle again, and he'd gone out there on a horse. He couldn't have known exactly where I'd be," I said, forestalling Glen's question.
My man wore a sceptical expression, but only said, "Go on."
"He told me that, at dawn, there was no dew on the grass inside the circle, even though it was everywhere else on the hill. He gave me this big speech about my being a scientist, gathering data with an unbiased eye, and all that... I went up there the next morning, just to shut him up, to put an end to it. But he was right, there really was no dew inside it. I couldn't figure it out, I thought maybe it had something to do with the soil structure, or geothermal activity..." I glanced at Glen, I knew he would realise how unlikely it was that geothermal activity could have caused an anomaly like that, at least.
"You know more about soil than I do," he said.
"That's still not much," I replied. I didn't want to say any more, but I couldn't stop now. I shifted uncomfortably on the couch. "He asked me if I'd gone right inside the circle, and looked at the ground there, and I hadn't... so we both went in." I stopped, and looked Glen straight in the eyes. "The second I crossed that line, I felt dizzy, and then it was like I was having one of those dreams. I was Mag, I wasn't me. The other stones were gone, there was just one stone, the first one, and it had just been raised. Ed was gone too, but Ewain was there. The others, who had helped raise the stone, were going back to the village after the ceremony, and we were alone in the circle..." I looked away, rubbing my face, but made myself look back at Glen. His face was still carefully neutral.
"They were going to... 'bless' the stone, the occasion of raising it. And they were lovers anyway. They kissed... and then my nail broke, and the pain kind of snapped me out of it... we both ran out of the circle. In opposite directions. I didn't know! It wasn't me. I was not acting of my own volition."
I didn't know whether it was something about me, or about Glen, or both, but after eight years, there were still times when I had no idea what was going through my man's head. I searched his face, but this was one of those times. And it wasn't as if this was the first he'd heard of it. Fear churned cold in my guts, and I reminded myself of the dinner. I rubbed a thumb over the finger with the broken nail. I had to break this silence, and the only way to do that was to keep talking, no matter how shaky my voice became.
"Ed was just as freaked out as I was, he'd had the same experience, but from Ewain's point of view. I have no idea what happened – it was terrifying. To lose myself so completely, not even knowing who I was, or what I was doing, or what was around me... I'm not going back there again. I don't care how much they pay me." I was hugging myself.
"You won't have to, don't worry about it," Glen said, his face softening.
"The night after I called you," I went on, determined to finish, "I had another dream. I had one nearly every night I was away, but this one was worse. They were raising the second stone, but it fell, and killed Moryn. One of the men in the village. But they went ahead, and buried him at the foot of the stone." I swallowed hard. "Ewain told Fenwyn that Moryn had been chosen by Fire, and he believed it... Something felt wrong about it but Mag went along with him. It was the only explanation they had..." I reached for another tissue. Concern was back on Glen's face.
"I saw Ed the next day, while I was packing the car. He told me about the dream he'd had that night, and it was exactly the same as mine. Again." I looked at Glen with pleading eyes. I'd never felt so lost and bewildered in my life. "That's all. I didn't see him again after that."
Glen looked at me for a long moment.
"I do not know what to make of this," he said at last. He shook his head, gesturing helplessly. "Why didn't you tell me about these dreams before?"
"I didn't think there was anything to tell. Just weird dreams, you know? I don't tell you every time I dream about my teeth falling out, or dancing hippopotami, or taking over the world with an army of gerbils. By the time I knew Ed was dreaming the same things, I was out in the field."
"You haven't mentioned yet how Ed convinced you that he really did have the same dreams. Why couldn't he have just read your diary?"
"He swore to me he'd never seen it. I couldn't figure out how he could have found it, anyway. And after that... incident in the circle, it wouldn't have explained everything. Or when he saw me after the dream when Moryn was killed."
"And you believed him when he said that?"
I sighed. "Eventually, yes, I did. He looked me in the eye and swore blind."
Glen scowled. "Who mentioned the details of the dreams first, you or him?"
"He did. I even asked him what Eleri's last words were, and what he said matched exactly with what I'd dreamed."
Glen's scowl deepened, and I knew he'd been relying on my saying that I'd talked about the dreams, and Ed had just been saying 'Me too'. But if that had been the case, I would never have believed him.
"It's not possible," Glen said in a flat voice. It reminded me forcibly of myself, only a week or two before.
"I know," I said wearily. "But that doesn't mean it didn't happen." And now, I was reminding myself of Ed.
"When you... in the circle," Glen began hesitantly, "You don't really believe that Ed and the stones had actually disappeared? It must have just been in your head..."
"Oh yes, it was," I said hastily. "Obviously nothing had really changed. But in the hallucination or whatever it was, there was only the one stone, and instead of Ed and me, it was Ewain and Mag. I know it wasn't real. But for those few minutes, I guess in our heads, we believed it. It was terrifying, like I said."
Glen reached out to me with his hands, and a little unsure, I put mine into his. He examined my fingers until he found the one with the short, jagged nail. I knew he needed to see the proof, but it still hurt that he couldn't believe me. He kept on holding my hands, and looked at me. I tried not to cry.
For a long minute, Glen seemed unable to speak. I was determined to wait, this time. I'd said everything I could.
"Trust is such a fragile thing," he said at last, and my heart constricted. "You've told me all this, and I don't know what to think. It does mean a lot to me, that you did tell me. But I'm very worried. What you said scares me too, and in more than one way. This is so not like you, Lise. What's happened?"
"I don't know! I don't understand it either..."
Glen shook his head. That wasn't what he wanted to hear.
"It's over now, anyway," I said, squeezing Glen's hands.
"It's not that simple..."
"I know, but at least it can't get any more complicated."
Another long silence.
"Tell me there's nothing between you and Ed," Glen said. Our eyes met.
"There is nothing at all between us," I said, and meant it. In the way that Glen meant it, at least. Nothing at all romantic...
"'But'?"
"But what?"
"'But' something. I can see it in your face."
I sighed, and scrubbed a hand through my hair. "I'm being honest with you. There is nothing romantic between Ed and me, nothing lustful or dirty or whatever, nothing that should come between you and me..."
"Except you kissed him."
I winced. "Technically. I didn't want to. He didn't want to. It wasn't US. It was—"
"Yes, it was a dream, you said. I heard you."
"You don't believe me," I said.
Glen paused. "I can see that you believe it," he began, "but I can't make myself believe all of that, no. It doesn't make sense, it's impossible. There must be another explanation. I can't deal with all of this..."
"Oh, and I can? I told you a week ago, you've have time to assimilate it. Why would I make all of this up?"
"I hoped so much that I'd misunderstood what you said on the phone. You almost sounded hysterical. And I didn't say I thought you'd made it up..."
I pulled my hands away from Glen's, and rubbed my face again. "I'm tired. I can't do this now. I need sleep, and if we go any further before I get any, we'll probably both regret it. Now, am I sleeping on the couch tonight?"
"Come on, don't be like that."
"I'm too tired to guess at what you're thinking." A touch too sharp.
"I am not going to make you sleep on the couch." Overly patient.
"All right then. I'm going to bed."
Glen followed me up about half an hour later. I pretended to be asleep, but he probably knew I wasn't. I lay awake for a long time, almost wishing I had stayed on the couch. It wasn't until I heard his breathing change, and I knew he was asleep, that I managed to relax enough to fall asleep myself.
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Usual Disclaimer: All harmless nonsense.
end of chapter 19:
--------
"You wrote the dreams down?" Glen said.
I nodded.
"Can I see them?"
I hesitated for only a moment. I hadn't gone into any sort of detail beyond the fact that Mag and Ewain were sleeping together, and I wanted to be completely honest about this whole thing. "Sure." I got up and fetched the notebook, handing it to Glen before I sat down again, on my end of the couch. I watched, still apprehensive, as he flipped through the pages.
-----------
Chapter 20:
-----------
A small frown creased his forehead.
"In some of these, you say 'I' instead of 'she' or 'Mag'."
"Well, you know... they were very vivid dreams... and you know what it's like, right after you wake up. They stay with you for a while. I usually wrote those down straight afterwards."
"I suppose so." Glen was starting to look concerned. "So, Ed somehow got hold of this, and tried to convince you he'd had the same dreams?"
I shifted uncomfortably. "That's what I thought at first. He swore he hadn't seen it, but I didn't believe him then."
"And you do now?"
"I'm getting to that," I said. If he wanted to hear the whole sordid tale, I'd tell it in my own way. Glen's frown deepened. "I was camping for the next few days, away from the village. There's a barrow there, I'd seen it before, on the earlier trips. I saw that someone had gone out there since I was there last, and excavated it..." Those feelings of outrage threatened to creep up on me again, and I squeezed my eyes shut until they subsided.
"Love?"
"I'm okay. I'm just tired," I said, trying to reassure Glen with a watery smile. "But when I went right up to the hole they'd dug... it was like one of the dreams hit me, wide awake. I was Mag again, and I was horrified that someone had desecrated Eleri's barrow, stolen her bones away from the earth." I had to stop again, and got up to get a glass of water.
Glen watched me with worried eyes, and waited silently until I sat back down.
"I don't know how long I was like that, but once I started to come back to myself, I ran. I got away from there as fast as I could. And I rationalised it away, I told myself it was like when I'd first seen Ed, that instant dislike, like he was invading my territory. Those archaeologists had done worse than that, and seeing as how I don't like Dr. bloody Lawson any more..." I shrugged, and Glen nodded.
"I dreamed about Eleri's death that night," I went on. "She'd been wasting away for months, and Mag had been nursing her, even after her own little son had died..." I stopped yet again. "Dammit," I muttered, and got up again, this time in search of tissues.
"Let me..." Glen said, starting to get up, but I waved him back as I hunted through the kitchen, sniffing.
"No, stay there... There they are." I needed the movement, needed to work some of this tension out. I blew my nose, and returned to the couch. I tried to distance myself from what I was saying – but how do you do that, when it happened to you? And not that long ago, either.
"A few days later, I saw Ed again, out in the field. I was near the stone circle again, and he'd gone out there on a horse. He couldn't have known exactly where I'd be," I said, forestalling Glen's question.
My man wore a sceptical expression, but only said, "Go on."
"He told me that, at dawn, there was no dew on the grass inside the circle, even though it was everywhere else on the hill. He gave me this big speech about my being a scientist, gathering data with an unbiased eye, and all that... I went up there the next morning, just to shut him up, to put an end to it. But he was right, there really was no dew inside it. I couldn't figure it out, I thought maybe it had something to do with the soil structure, or geothermal activity..." I glanced at Glen, I knew he would realise how unlikely it was that geothermal activity could have caused an anomaly like that, at least.
"You know more about soil than I do," he said.
"That's still not much," I replied. I didn't want to say any more, but I couldn't stop now. I shifted uncomfortably on the couch. "He asked me if I'd gone right inside the circle, and looked at the ground there, and I hadn't... so we both went in." I stopped, and looked Glen straight in the eyes. "The second I crossed that line, I felt dizzy, and then it was like I was having one of those dreams. I was Mag, I wasn't me. The other stones were gone, there was just one stone, the first one, and it had just been raised. Ed was gone too, but Ewain was there. The others, who had helped raise the stone, were going back to the village after the ceremony, and we were alone in the circle..." I looked away, rubbing my face, but made myself look back at Glen. His face was still carefully neutral.
"They were going to... 'bless' the stone, the occasion of raising it. And they were lovers anyway. They kissed... and then my nail broke, and the pain kind of snapped me out of it... we both ran out of the circle. In opposite directions. I didn't know! It wasn't me. I was not acting of my own volition."
I didn't know whether it was something about me, or about Glen, or both, but after eight years, there were still times when I had no idea what was going through my man's head. I searched his face, but this was one of those times. And it wasn't as if this was the first he'd heard of it. Fear churned cold in my guts, and I reminded myself of the dinner. I rubbed a thumb over the finger with the broken nail. I had to break this silence, and the only way to do that was to keep talking, no matter how shaky my voice became.
"Ed was just as freaked out as I was, he'd had the same experience, but from Ewain's point of view. I have no idea what happened – it was terrifying. To lose myself so completely, not even knowing who I was, or what I was doing, or what was around me... I'm not going back there again. I don't care how much they pay me." I was hugging myself.
"You won't have to, don't worry about it," Glen said, his face softening.
"The night after I called you," I went on, determined to finish, "I had another dream. I had one nearly every night I was away, but this one was worse. They were raising the second stone, but it fell, and killed Moryn. One of the men in the village. But they went ahead, and buried him at the foot of the stone." I swallowed hard. "Ewain told Fenwyn that Moryn had been chosen by Fire, and he believed it... Something felt wrong about it but Mag went along with him. It was the only explanation they had..." I reached for another tissue. Concern was back on Glen's face.
"I saw Ed the next day, while I was packing the car. He told me about the dream he'd had that night, and it was exactly the same as mine. Again." I looked at Glen with pleading eyes. I'd never felt so lost and bewildered in my life. "That's all. I didn't see him again after that."
Glen looked at me for a long moment.
"I do not know what to make of this," he said at last. He shook his head, gesturing helplessly. "Why didn't you tell me about these dreams before?"
"I didn't think there was anything to tell. Just weird dreams, you know? I don't tell you every time I dream about my teeth falling out, or dancing hippopotami, or taking over the world with an army of gerbils. By the time I knew Ed was dreaming the same things, I was out in the field."
"You haven't mentioned yet how Ed convinced you that he really did have the same dreams. Why couldn't he have just read your diary?"
"He swore to me he'd never seen it. I couldn't figure out how he could have found it, anyway. And after that... incident in the circle, it wouldn't have explained everything. Or when he saw me after the dream when Moryn was killed."
"And you believed him when he said that?"
I sighed. "Eventually, yes, I did. He looked me in the eye and swore blind."
Glen scowled. "Who mentioned the details of the dreams first, you or him?"
"He did. I even asked him what Eleri's last words were, and what he said matched exactly with what I'd dreamed."
Glen's scowl deepened, and I knew he'd been relying on my saying that I'd talked about the dreams, and Ed had just been saying 'Me too'. But if that had been the case, I would never have believed him.
"It's not possible," Glen said in a flat voice. It reminded me forcibly of myself, only a week or two before.
"I know," I said wearily. "But that doesn't mean it didn't happen." And now, I was reminding myself of Ed.
"When you... in the circle," Glen began hesitantly, "You don't really believe that Ed and the stones had actually disappeared? It must have just been in your head..."
"Oh yes, it was," I said hastily. "Obviously nothing had really changed. But in the hallucination or whatever it was, there was only the one stone, and instead of Ed and me, it was Ewain and Mag. I know it wasn't real. But for those few minutes, I guess in our heads, we believed it. It was terrifying, like I said."
Glen reached out to me with his hands, and a little unsure, I put mine into his. He examined my fingers until he found the one with the short, jagged nail. I knew he needed to see the proof, but it still hurt that he couldn't believe me. He kept on holding my hands, and looked at me. I tried not to cry.
For a long minute, Glen seemed unable to speak. I was determined to wait, this time. I'd said everything I could.
"Trust is such a fragile thing," he said at last, and my heart constricted. "You've told me all this, and I don't know what to think. It does mean a lot to me, that you did tell me. But I'm very worried. What you said scares me too, and in more than one way. This is so not like you, Lise. What's happened?"
"I don't know! I don't understand it either..."
Glen shook his head. That wasn't what he wanted to hear.
"It's over now, anyway," I said, squeezing Glen's hands.
"It's not that simple..."
"I know, but at least it can't get any more complicated."
Another long silence.
"Tell me there's nothing between you and Ed," Glen said. Our eyes met.
"There is nothing at all between us," I said, and meant it. In the way that Glen meant it, at least. Nothing at all romantic...
"'But'?"
"But what?"
"'But' something. I can see it in your face."
I sighed, and scrubbed a hand through my hair. "I'm being honest with you. There is nothing romantic between Ed and me, nothing lustful or dirty or whatever, nothing that should come between you and me..."
"Except you kissed him."
I winced. "Technically. I didn't want to. He didn't want to. It wasn't US. It was—"
"Yes, it was a dream, you said. I heard you."
"You don't believe me," I said.
Glen paused. "I can see that you believe it," he began, "but I can't make myself believe all of that, no. It doesn't make sense, it's impossible. There must be another explanation. I can't deal with all of this..."
"Oh, and I can? I told you a week ago, you've have time to assimilate it. Why would I make all of this up?"
"I hoped so much that I'd misunderstood what you said on the phone. You almost sounded hysterical. And I didn't say I thought you'd made it up..."
I pulled my hands away from Glen's, and rubbed my face again. "I'm tired. I can't do this now. I need sleep, and if we go any further before I get any, we'll probably both regret it. Now, am I sleeping on the couch tonight?"
"Come on, don't be like that."
"I'm too tired to guess at what you're thinking." A touch too sharp.
"I am not going to make you sleep on the couch." Overly patient.
"All right then. I'm going to bed."
Glen followed me up about half an hour later. I pretended to be asleep, but he probably knew I wasn't. I lay awake for a long time, almost wishing I had stayed on the couch. It wasn't until I heard his breathing change, and I knew he was asleep, that I managed to relax enough to fall asleep myself.
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Another fine chapter, Ali. Thank you. 
) I'm deeply into things that are strange, unexplained, if you like. 
he's not gonna buy it!
