Irish Magic

Part One

Chapter 1: Let's have a chat.

Morning comes inevitably as it does every other morning, bright skies, not a cloud in sight. Just another normal day. I groaned loudly, rolling over and opening my eyes. Why me? I thought as I sat up to find the snooze button on my alarm clock.

*buzz, buzz, buzz*

God would it not shut up? My hand sprung out, clumsily knocking over a book on my nightstand as I blindly searched for that wretched button of my annoying little alarm clock.

*Buzz, Buzz, Buzz* Geez was it getting louder? I can't see a thing. "damn it" I mumbled softly. I sluggishly searched for the little light on my headboard that I used for reading at night.

*BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ!*

Ok now it was screaming. I nimbly found the lamp and flipped the switch on. A dull film of light filled my sight. "Oh will you please shut that thing off already?" My sister moaned from across the room.

Sleep was quickly dragged away from me as my eyes focused on the sound my ears couldn't ignore any longer. I quickly found my snooze button, flipped the light back off and flopped back down on my pillow with a sigh. "Sorry Hope." I muttered softly into the dimly lit, dawn filled room. The sun had just peeked over the horizon only moments ago. The birds chirped cheerfully outside the windows and the warm rays of sunlight began streaming into the room, pooling delicately onto the floor.

"Why do you have to set that thing so damn early every morning? And god, do those birds have to be so cheerful?" My sister Hope grumbled quietly as she shifted her pillow to cover her head.

My twin sister Hope is usually pretty calm in the morning, but last night while I was reading, I listened to her toss and turn with another nightmare. She's been having a lot of those lately I've noticed. And as much as it sucks, it seems there is nothing I can do to help her except wait it out. She's always crabby the morning after too. Every few months she has nightmares that last a few nights and then nothing again for a little while. Though as I said it's been happening a lot more lately. She can never remember very much about them other than it's not like normal nightmares. She says they are like a mix of colors and faces she can't quite see; like a camera lens out of focus but she could feel so many emotions swimming around her. And then there's the ones she could see clearly, vividly remembering in way too many details.

Weirdest thing though, she feels like these faces and places she sees in her sleep are a huge part of her, familiar even and somehow familial. So even though she has never met any of them she keeps telling me she feels as though she's deeply connected to them in some profound way, something so deep that the only descriptive word she could come up with, that was even close to describing the feeling she said, was love, intense, powerful, and completely undeniable love.

Then there was the guy she has been dreaming about for the past several months. When she tells me about him, she gets all flushed and blotchy, something I had never seen on her before. And the way she spoke of him as though she had fallen in love with this figure from her dream. I had told her once that she should write a book about her dreamworld and it's mysterious dream lovers. She rewarded me with her famous evil eye and chucked her pillow at me.

I could only laugh at her though, it all sounded so ridiculous. 'His voice is like the velvety folds of a chocolate moose. (For her this was the pinnacle of compliments, cause in her mind nothing was better than chocolate!). His smile always reminds me of the stars at night.' Yuck! She is so gooey about this guy she dubbed Derrick! I kept telling her he was just a figment of her imagination! He isn't real! I know she knows this, but I don't think she wants to believe it. I would probably vomit if I read what she wrote in her journal about him.