Alisaura
Blue Crack Supplier
Disclaimer: Don't know the band or much else... any errors are my own... for entertainment purposes only.
Language warning, also.
end of chapter 34:
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Glen shot a venomous look over the fence before we went back inside. He shut the door rather more firmly than he needed to.
"The bloody nerve of them... as if I would ever... what if I'd been the one getting beaten up, anyway? It does happen. You used to give me a wallop when you..." Glen stopped short, realising he'd strayed into what was apparently taboo territory for him.
"When I started having those nightmares," I finished.
"Yeah."
"I don't think you would have screamed like I do, though."
"Probably not."
There was an awkward silence. Glen remembered the tea, and set the kettle to boiling again.
I tried to summon a sense of relief that the dreams had finally run their course, but all I had was grief and anger. I couldn't even be sure whose it was.
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Chapter 35:
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"Feckit, I can't wake 'im up! He's been groaning and twitching and carrying on for five bleedin' minutes..."
"If you can't wake him, then we're best just leaving him alone until he wakes up on his own."
"But what if he is dreamin' about... what he said? He'd want us to wake him..."
"We tried! This is makin' me nervous... what do we do if he stays like this?"
"He won't. He's going to wake up."
"I'm glad you're so bleedin' confident."
"It's amazing that he went to sleep at all, the amount of caffeine that must be in him still."
"Did you throw out all the coffee?"
"Yes. Regretting it now?"
"It may have been unnecessary... but I didn't know he was going to drop off that quickly."
"Oh god. It's not me. It's not me! ... Uuurgh..."
"Shite, he's awake! Where's he going...?"
"The bathroom. He doesn't sound well..."
"Geez, wait for him to come out, at least."
.......
"You miserable fucking bastards. You knew. I TOLD you what would happen. And you let me go to sleep. And he's done it... god. I still feel ill."
"But you survived, right? You wouldn't've lasted much longer, keepin' yourself awake like that. THAT was insane."
"You have no idea... I killed her! And she was pregnant! I have blood on my hands..."
"No, you don't. How many times have you said it? You're not him. You are not responsible for what you dream, and certainly not for things that might have happened thousands of years ago."
"You don't underst--"
"You're right, we don't. I don't understand why this is happening, and what it means, if anything. I don't understand how dreams can turn your life upside-down, and threaten your relationship with your family, and with us. I don't understand, so tell me. When is this going to end? Will it end? Do you even want it to end?"
"Of course I do! What kind of a question is that?! Do you think I'm ENJOYING this??"
"I didn't say that. But you've been so ... absorbed in this whole thing... If your family and the band aren't enough to keep you interested, then...?"
"This is not voluntary! I would give anything, ANYTHING, to have things back the way they were. If one aspect of my life was affecting another this way, I would cut that aspect out. But this just arrived out of the blue, and affected everything. I can't cut it out, because it's inside my head. And no, I don't know when it will end."
"You dreamed about... that Ritemaster woman dying, though, right? Isn't that the end of it?"
"I don't know. Ewain is still alive, after all. I hope it's over... Oh god, what about Lisa?"
"Never mind her. We don't know what she's been dreaming, and that's the way it should be."
"... Okay, forget it. Is my car here? I can't even bloody remember how I got here. I need to go and have a shower. At least the walls have stopped moving now."
----------------------------------------
I cancelled my next appointment with Andrew, it was too soon to talk about it. But I couldn't put it off forever. At the next session, I told him why I'd cancelled, and then I told him about the dream.
"Have there been any more?" he asked.
"No, thank god. I don't think there are any more. The story's over."
"It wasn't a very happy ending."
"Sometimes there aren't happy endings, you must know that." I felt flat, dull and cynical.
"Have you been looking for work?"
"No. I was hoping I could get this all sorted out before the next field season – I lost one job because I couldn't keep my mind on it, I don't want that to happen again."
"Maybe you should start looking around. You might be feeling powerless because you haven't been working. You suffered a blow to your sense of professional worth when you were fired, I think you need to regain confidence in your abilities."
I sighed. "You're probably right."
"Have you been keeping up with the literature? Are you still interested in geology?"
"I suppose so, but I haven't read a journal in over a month. I just haven't been able to concentrate. I've been reading far too much mystical crap on the internet." I made a face of self-disgust.
Andrew just smiled. "What have you been doing since your birthday?" Since the dream.
"Not much," I admitted. "The weird thing is, I've not heard anything from Ed. I don't even know if he dreamed... that, as well, or not."
"Do you want to know?"
"I dunno," I said, shifting uncomfortably. "It's strange that he hasn't emailed me or something, especially after he went to the trouble of warning me about this, and telling me about Ewain. He was right, and it all happened, but I haven't heard a thing. I guess... I dunno, I guess I'm worried about him. And I shouldn't be." I scowled.
"Why not? There's nothing wrong with being concerned about him, it doesn't mean you have any inappropriate feelings. You have other male friends, don't you?"
"Yes, yes, I know. But I never kissed any of them, did I. Glen's probably hyper-sensitive about anything to do with Ed and I."
"And so are you."
"I don't know that I'd even call him a friend." I said, stubbornly.
"There's still a connection there, a relationship of some kind."
"Yeah, I know." Whether I wanted it or not.
------------
A week later, while Glen was at work, I debated with myself about emailing Ed. I hadn't initiated any contact with him since that phone call. And even that had been in response to the first email from him.
I could call him, I realised. It would be no more awkward than trying to find words for an email. On an impulse, I found the number, and dialled it before I could think.
"How can I help you?" Once again, no preamble. At least I knew what to expect this time.
"Good morning, my name is Lisa Erikson. Could I speak to Ed, please?"
The briefest of pauses. "Hold, please."
Again, hold music.
-------------------------------------------
"Sorry to interrupt, guys, but there's a phone call for you. It's Lisa Erikson, she's still calling you Ed."
"...."
"He's busy. We all are."
"I can take a message..."
"No, I'll take the call."
"This needs to be sorted out today --"
"We will sort it out today. But I'm declaring a recess, and I'm going to take this call."
"Shite. I thought this was over!"
-------------------------------------------
The hold music stopped as someone picked up the line.
"Lisa." It was Ed. I was absurdly relieved to hear his voice. It sounded rough.
"Um, hi." I really should have put more thought into this. I pulled myself together. "I just wanted to make sure that you were... you know, okay. I never thanked you for trying to warn me."
"It didn't do any good, though. You dreamed it, then?"
"Yes. She's dead. And she saw, right at the end, why he'd done it."
Ed sighed heavily. "I'm sorry. I know it's not my fault, but I'm sorry. I tried to stop it, for myself at least, but I suppose it was inevitable." He sounded depressed and weary.
"Did you see a counsellor, then?"
"No, I just didn't sleep for three days."
"Oh. Well, the counsellor didn't do me any good, either. At least in terms of stopping the dreams before that happened."
"Mine haven't stopped."
"Oh no..."
"It didn't work, you know. Mag was right. He's unravelling completely. Everyone's leaving, or sick and dying, the animals are all dead, nothing will grow except masses of weeds and grass. The fields are overgrown, the village is dying. He's destroyed it all, and he spends his days up in the circle, burning things and begging the spirits to give his son back. He's lost it."
"The only spirits left were twisted, they only wanted fire and pain and death. And it looks like that's what they got."
"Did Mag see that, after she... you know?"
"Just before she died. Her blood on the altar stone... something happened, she was aware of everything in the circle, just for a moment. She saw a glimpse of Ewain's mind, and then she died. Nothing more." I paused, thinking.
"At least now I know why I had such a negative reaction, when I first saw you," I added. "Even though none of the dreams had started yet, I guess something of Mag's memories surfaced, and recognised something about Ewain in you..."
Ed grunted, probably unwilling to acknowledge any similarities between himself and Ewain, and then was silent for a long moment.
"I wanted to ask you, how that stone they used could be related to Fire," he said at last. "Surely any rock would be aligned to Earth?"
"It's volcanic rock," I said, realising in that moment how it could be. "The local stone is sedimentary, sandstone or something. But from the quarry in the southwest, that rock is dolerite, an igneous rock. It was made with fire, so to speak."
A brief silence. "Of course... But they can't have known that," he added. "They wouldn't have known anything about volcanoes, living there."
"I very much doubt it. Mag didn't know about them, I'm sure of that. She never suspected the stones could have had any other aspect but Earth."
"His knife, as well..."
"Obsidian, of course. Volcanic glass. Mag had never seen anything like it." It made sense. It just boggled the mind that the people then had somehow divined the origin of those different types of stone.
Another long pause – Ed was thinking, but I couldn't guess at where his thoughts were taking him. I thought about making my excuses and ending the call.
"Do you remember, the first time you called? I said I was willing to put the past behind us."
I remembered that he'd been talking about my revolting behaviour when he'd startled me in the field. "Yes."
"I meant it about the recent past, our past. But I don't think it's going to be possible about the more distant past, between Mag and Ewain. I don't think it will be so easy to put that behind us."
"I'm not going back there," I said flatly. "Why would you want to, after what happened last time?"
"Everything began there. I don't think it will be finished until we go back." There was a quiet, resigned sort of certainty in Ed's voice.
"Why do we have to do anything? These things happened to other people who are long dead. Nothing we can do now will affect that. What are you going to do, build a time machine to go back there and change it?"
"No, I don't think so," Ed said, and I was sure he sounded amused.
"What's so funny?"
"I'm sorry, it's nothing. Just a private joke."
"Right. Well, I'm sorry that you're still having dreams, but I don't see a reason why we should go back."
"You don't? You don't want to correct the mistake Ewain made? You don't want to make all those deaths mean something?"
"If you say 'closure', I swear..."
"There's nothing wrong with closure, for all that the word is over-used. I need it. I don't know what I can do there, but I need to go, if only to acknowledge Mag's life. And her death. Everything that happened."
I said nothing for a moment. I hated to admit it, but there was something to what he was saying. Despite the fact that I hadn't dreamed again since Mag's death, it had still felt unfinished. I was still thinking about it constantly.
"Where did they bury her?" I asked. Maybe if Ed told me what happened afterwards, I could lay it all to rest in my head.
Ed cleared his throat. "Uh, they didn't." He sounded uncomfortable, ashamed. "The next day... they took her bones, and scattered them. To the wind, to the water, to the earth and to fire. They wanted to disperse her spirit completely, to make sure it wouldn't hang around and haunt them, or something."
"Well, I can understand why they would take precautions," I said dully. The news came as a blow, although I wasn't sure why. Perhaps because, if I was to go back there, there was no barrow or grave where I could... do whatever. Pay my respects. Acknowledge her, as Ed had said.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"What about Alun, and their children?" I was almost afraid to find out what had happened to them.
"They left, soon after... after Mag was killed. Alun took the kids and left, heading east, into the hills. No one heard anything more from them, but I'm sure they found somewhere else, another village or something."
"I hope so. None of them deserved what happened."
"No."
My mind strayed onto another line of thought. "How do you think you can correct Ewain's mistake and give meaning to the deaths? It's a very old mistake. What can you possibly do?"
"I don't know," Ed sighed. "I just feel responsible. Why else have we been dreaming these things, if not to do something about it? However belated. They used to have ceremonies to honour the Earth spirits. I don't know..."
A horrible suspicion grew in my head. "I hope you're not planning on us 'blessing' the circle, like they did when the first stone was raised...?" Maybe Glen had been right all along...
"What? No! Oh no, not that at all! I didn't mean it like that! Please, I wasn't trying to... you know. I wouldn't."
"All right, all right. I believe you." Ed's genuine panic had convinced me. I knew it wouldn't have convinced Glen, but I had realised that Glen could hold some very deep reservations that became almost impossible to dislodge. "Thousands wouldn't," I added, trying to lighten things up a little.
Ed just grunted. "There were plenty of rituals that didn't involve sex, you should remember some of them."
"I do... but come on, appealing to spirits?" I was still sceptical about the whole spirit thing.
"They were real enough to Mag and the others then. Why not now?"
"IF they were ever really there, they've gone now."
"I'm not so sure. There's definitely something in the air out there, it's like nowhere else I've been."
I heard muted voices in the background while I was ruminating on that.
"Look, I need to get going. Thank you for calling, Lisa. It's good to talk to someone who doesn't think I'm insane."
"You're welcome, I guess. I hope... well, I hope your dreams stop. Or something."
"Or something," Ed agreed. He hung up.
And as usual, a conversation with Ed had left me with a dozen more things to think about than I'd had before. Typical.
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Language warning, also.
end of chapter 34:
--------
Glen shot a venomous look over the fence before we went back inside. He shut the door rather more firmly than he needed to.
"The bloody nerve of them... as if I would ever... what if I'd been the one getting beaten up, anyway? It does happen. You used to give me a wallop when you..." Glen stopped short, realising he'd strayed into what was apparently taboo territory for him.
"When I started having those nightmares," I finished.
"Yeah."
"I don't think you would have screamed like I do, though."
"Probably not."
There was an awkward silence. Glen remembered the tea, and set the kettle to boiling again.
I tried to summon a sense of relief that the dreams had finally run their course, but all I had was grief and anger. I couldn't even be sure whose it was.
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Chapter 35:
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----------------------------------------
"Feckit, I can't wake 'im up! He's been groaning and twitching and carrying on for five bleedin' minutes..."
"If you can't wake him, then we're best just leaving him alone until he wakes up on his own."
"But what if he is dreamin' about... what he said? He'd want us to wake him..."
"We tried! This is makin' me nervous... what do we do if he stays like this?"
"He won't. He's going to wake up."
"I'm glad you're so bleedin' confident."
"It's amazing that he went to sleep at all, the amount of caffeine that must be in him still."
"Did you throw out all the coffee?"
"Yes. Regretting it now?"
"It may have been unnecessary... but I didn't know he was going to drop off that quickly."
"Oh god. It's not me. It's not me! ... Uuurgh..."
"Shite, he's awake! Where's he going...?"
"The bathroom. He doesn't sound well..."
"Geez, wait for him to come out, at least."
.......
"You miserable fucking bastards. You knew. I TOLD you what would happen. And you let me go to sleep. And he's done it... god. I still feel ill."
"But you survived, right? You wouldn't've lasted much longer, keepin' yourself awake like that. THAT was insane."
"You have no idea... I killed her! And she was pregnant! I have blood on my hands..."
"No, you don't. How many times have you said it? You're not him. You are not responsible for what you dream, and certainly not for things that might have happened thousands of years ago."
"You don't underst--"
"You're right, we don't. I don't understand why this is happening, and what it means, if anything. I don't understand how dreams can turn your life upside-down, and threaten your relationship with your family, and with us. I don't understand, so tell me. When is this going to end? Will it end? Do you even want it to end?"
"Of course I do! What kind of a question is that?! Do you think I'm ENJOYING this??"
"I didn't say that. But you've been so ... absorbed in this whole thing... If your family and the band aren't enough to keep you interested, then...?"
"This is not voluntary! I would give anything, ANYTHING, to have things back the way they were. If one aspect of my life was affecting another this way, I would cut that aspect out. But this just arrived out of the blue, and affected everything. I can't cut it out, because it's inside my head. And no, I don't know when it will end."
"You dreamed about... that Ritemaster woman dying, though, right? Isn't that the end of it?"
"I don't know. Ewain is still alive, after all. I hope it's over... Oh god, what about Lisa?"
"Never mind her. We don't know what she's been dreaming, and that's the way it should be."
"... Okay, forget it. Is my car here? I can't even bloody remember how I got here. I need to go and have a shower. At least the walls have stopped moving now."
----------------------------------------
I cancelled my next appointment with Andrew, it was too soon to talk about it. But I couldn't put it off forever. At the next session, I told him why I'd cancelled, and then I told him about the dream.
"Have there been any more?" he asked.
"No, thank god. I don't think there are any more. The story's over."
"It wasn't a very happy ending."
"Sometimes there aren't happy endings, you must know that." I felt flat, dull and cynical.
"Have you been looking for work?"
"No. I was hoping I could get this all sorted out before the next field season – I lost one job because I couldn't keep my mind on it, I don't want that to happen again."
"Maybe you should start looking around. You might be feeling powerless because you haven't been working. You suffered a blow to your sense of professional worth when you were fired, I think you need to regain confidence in your abilities."
I sighed. "You're probably right."
"Have you been keeping up with the literature? Are you still interested in geology?"
"I suppose so, but I haven't read a journal in over a month. I just haven't been able to concentrate. I've been reading far too much mystical crap on the internet." I made a face of self-disgust.
Andrew just smiled. "What have you been doing since your birthday?" Since the dream.
"Not much," I admitted. "The weird thing is, I've not heard anything from Ed. I don't even know if he dreamed... that, as well, or not."
"Do you want to know?"
"I dunno," I said, shifting uncomfortably. "It's strange that he hasn't emailed me or something, especially after he went to the trouble of warning me about this, and telling me about Ewain. He was right, and it all happened, but I haven't heard a thing. I guess... I dunno, I guess I'm worried about him. And I shouldn't be." I scowled.
"Why not? There's nothing wrong with being concerned about him, it doesn't mean you have any inappropriate feelings. You have other male friends, don't you?"
"Yes, yes, I know. But I never kissed any of them, did I. Glen's probably hyper-sensitive about anything to do with Ed and I."
"And so are you."
"I don't know that I'd even call him a friend." I said, stubbornly.
"There's still a connection there, a relationship of some kind."
"Yeah, I know." Whether I wanted it or not.
------------
A week later, while Glen was at work, I debated with myself about emailing Ed. I hadn't initiated any contact with him since that phone call. And even that had been in response to the first email from him.
I could call him, I realised. It would be no more awkward than trying to find words for an email. On an impulse, I found the number, and dialled it before I could think.
"How can I help you?" Once again, no preamble. At least I knew what to expect this time.
"Good morning, my name is Lisa Erikson. Could I speak to Ed, please?"
The briefest of pauses. "Hold, please."
Again, hold music.
-------------------------------------------
"Sorry to interrupt, guys, but there's a phone call for you. It's Lisa Erikson, she's still calling you Ed."
"...."
"He's busy. We all are."
"I can take a message..."
"No, I'll take the call."
"This needs to be sorted out today --"
"We will sort it out today. But I'm declaring a recess, and I'm going to take this call."
"Shite. I thought this was over!"
-------------------------------------------
The hold music stopped as someone picked up the line.
"Lisa." It was Ed. I was absurdly relieved to hear his voice. It sounded rough.
"Um, hi." I really should have put more thought into this. I pulled myself together. "I just wanted to make sure that you were... you know, okay. I never thanked you for trying to warn me."
"It didn't do any good, though. You dreamed it, then?"
"Yes. She's dead. And she saw, right at the end, why he'd done it."
Ed sighed heavily. "I'm sorry. I know it's not my fault, but I'm sorry. I tried to stop it, for myself at least, but I suppose it was inevitable." He sounded depressed and weary.
"Did you see a counsellor, then?"
"No, I just didn't sleep for three days."
"Oh. Well, the counsellor didn't do me any good, either. At least in terms of stopping the dreams before that happened."
"Mine haven't stopped."
"Oh no..."
"It didn't work, you know. Mag was right. He's unravelling completely. Everyone's leaving, or sick and dying, the animals are all dead, nothing will grow except masses of weeds and grass. The fields are overgrown, the village is dying. He's destroyed it all, and he spends his days up in the circle, burning things and begging the spirits to give his son back. He's lost it."
"The only spirits left were twisted, they only wanted fire and pain and death. And it looks like that's what they got."
"Did Mag see that, after she... you know?"
"Just before she died. Her blood on the altar stone... something happened, she was aware of everything in the circle, just for a moment. She saw a glimpse of Ewain's mind, and then she died. Nothing more." I paused, thinking.
"At least now I know why I had such a negative reaction, when I first saw you," I added. "Even though none of the dreams had started yet, I guess something of Mag's memories surfaced, and recognised something about Ewain in you..."
Ed grunted, probably unwilling to acknowledge any similarities between himself and Ewain, and then was silent for a long moment.
"I wanted to ask you, how that stone they used could be related to Fire," he said at last. "Surely any rock would be aligned to Earth?"
"It's volcanic rock," I said, realising in that moment how it could be. "The local stone is sedimentary, sandstone or something. But from the quarry in the southwest, that rock is dolerite, an igneous rock. It was made with fire, so to speak."
A brief silence. "Of course... But they can't have known that," he added. "They wouldn't have known anything about volcanoes, living there."
"I very much doubt it. Mag didn't know about them, I'm sure of that. She never suspected the stones could have had any other aspect but Earth."
"His knife, as well..."
"Obsidian, of course. Volcanic glass. Mag had never seen anything like it." It made sense. It just boggled the mind that the people then had somehow divined the origin of those different types of stone.
Another long pause – Ed was thinking, but I couldn't guess at where his thoughts were taking him. I thought about making my excuses and ending the call.
"Do you remember, the first time you called? I said I was willing to put the past behind us."
I remembered that he'd been talking about my revolting behaviour when he'd startled me in the field. "Yes."
"I meant it about the recent past, our past. But I don't think it's going to be possible about the more distant past, between Mag and Ewain. I don't think it will be so easy to put that behind us."
"I'm not going back there," I said flatly. "Why would you want to, after what happened last time?"
"Everything began there. I don't think it will be finished until we go back." There was a quiet, resigned sort of certainty in Ed's voice.
"Why do we have to do anything? These things happened to other people who are long dead. Nothing we can do now will affect that. What are you going to do, build a time machine to go back there and change it?"
"No, I don't think so," Ed said, and I was sure he sounded amused.
"What's so funny?"
"I'm sorry, it's nothing. Just a private joke."
"Right. Well, I'm sorry that you're still having dreams, but I don't see a reason why we should go back."
"You don't? You don't want to correct the mistake Ewain made? You don't want to make all those deaths mean something?"
"If you say 'closure', I swear..."
"There's nothing wrong with closure, for all that the word is over-used. I need it. I don't know what I can do there, but I need to go, if only to acknowledge Mag's life. And her death. Everything that happened."
I said nothing for a moment. I hated to admit it, but there was something to what he was saying. Despite the fact that I hadn't dreamed again since Mag's death, it had still felt unfinished. I was still thinking about it constantly.
"Where did they bury her?" I asked. Maybe if Ed told me what happened afterwards, I could lay it all to rest in my head.
Ed cleared his throat. "Uh, they didn't." He sounded uncomfortable, ashamed. "The next day... they took her bones, and scattered them. To the wind, to the water, to the earth and to fire. They wanted to disperse her spirit completely, to make sure it wouldn't hang around and haunt them, or something."
"Well, I can understand why they would take precautions," I said dully. The news came as a blow, although I wasn't sure why. Perhaps because, if I was to go back there, there was no barrow or grave where I could... do whatever. Pay my respects. Acknowledge her, as Ed had said.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"What about Alun, and their children?" I was almost afraid to find out what had happened to them.
"They left, soon after... after Mag was killed. Alun took the kids and left, heading east, into the hills. No one heard anything more from them, but I'm sure they found somewhere else, another village or something."
"I hope so. None of them deserved what happened."
"No."
My mind strayed onto another line of thought. "How do you think you can correct Ewain's mistake and give meaning to the deaths? It's a very old mistake. What can you possibly do?"
"I don't know," Ed sighed. "I just feel responsible. Why else have we been dreaming these things, if not to do something about it? However belated. They used to have ceremonies to honour the Earth spirits. I don't know..."
A horrible suspicion grew in my head. "I hope you're not planning on us 'blessing' the circle, like they did when the first stone was raised...?" Maybe Glen had been right all along...
"What? No! Oh no, not that at all! I didn't mean it like that! Please, I wasn't trying to... you know. I wouldn't."
"All right, all right. I believe you." Ed's genuine panic had convinced me. I knew it wouldn't have convinced Glen, but I had realised that Glen could hold some very deep reservations that became almost impossible to dislodge. "Thousands wouldn't," I added, trying to lighten things up a little.
Ed just grunted. "There were plenty of rituals that didn't involve sex, you should remember some of them."
"I do... but come on, appealing to spirits?" I was still sceptical about the whole spirit thing.
"They were real enough to Mag and the others then. Why not now?"
"IF they were ever really there, they've gone now."
"I'm not so sure. There's definitely something in the air out there, it's like nowhere else I've been."
I heard muted voices in the background while I was ruminating on that.
"Look, I need to get going. Thank you for calling, Lisa. It's good to talk to someone who doesn't think I'm insane."
"You're welcome, I guess. I hope... well, I hope your dreams stop. Or something."
"Or something," Ed agreed. He hung up.
And as usual, a conversation with Ed had left me with a dozen more things to think about than I'd had before. Typical.
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performing rituals with Ed..
great chapter, Ali!!
"time machine" 
mayve it thair past live.
