The Red King and the Witch

Late Nights and Early Morning's

"Wela, I've been to England almost as many times as I have Chicago or New York. I'm not going to meet a man in some fancy suit, men dont even wear suits there, I think it's illegal."

"Mija, I am only telling you what I dreamt, and the man wore a suit. He wasn't very tall, but he had blue eyes just like you used to dream about, recordar? I don't know why you won't believe me. You always say that my dreams never come true but you never say that when I interpret your dreams."

"That's because my dreams have actually happened or will happen, your dreams always include a man in a suit coming to marry one of the thousands of cousins in this family and yet a great majority of us are still single. Or you dream of someone in the family pregnant and then act surprised to find out that they actually already are pregnant."

"Dios Mio Amanda! You used to be more open to interpretation, to your dreams, to visions, you have such a beautiful gift but you hide it all trying to live in reality."

"Wela no offence, reality is what we all live in, and besides I don't dream anymore, so I think that gift has parted me."

"Ay amor, you still dream, you just don't remember them yet."

I woke up with a start, with the voice of my grandmother Luz still whispering in my head of visions and dreams, of meeting a man in a suit and it takes all my self control to not jump out of bed.

My Wela Luz dreams have only ever come true after she's dreamt them. Often she would dream of a cousin in a white dress, hands curved around their stomach.

A majority of the time the whole family already knew Maria or which ever cousin was pregnant and that Wela Luz's dream from the night before was just a confirmation of the pregnancy. Only once had she predicted a birth, and that was only because my cousin Ron tried to keep it secret.

When grandma Luz had a dream about a man in a suit, this normally ment someone was going to meet a rich man, get married, or both. When my mother met my father, Wela Luz claimed to have dreamt of him the night before, she had told my mother she had seen a man in a black suit driving an expensive red car. My mother had laughed her head off when she met dad in Manhattan. He had been in a nice suit and red expensive car, but as a part time valet driver, not a rich man.

When you grew up in a Latin household, you learned over time that secrets don't exist and that dreams never lied.

Dreaming of the last conversation I had with my grandmother was sending my mind into overdrive. My grandmother's dream had come true, I had met a man with blue eyes, wearing a suit, in England.

In fact that same man currently had his arms tightly wrapped around my waist and his body pressed against my back.

After accepting that I was completely alone and lost in the past, I had a complete breakdown. When we returned to his home, Tommy had stepped into the role of caretaker. Gently cleaning my face and my feet of mud, feeding me some bread and tea.

All while I sat silently, tears rolling down my cheeks, and listened to him calm me down. He did everything slowly, making sure to look at me first before wiping mud off the inside of my leg. His hands are now gentle and soft, opposite from the fight we just had twenty minutes before.

"You really promise to help me get home?" I asked again and as he knelt in front of me, he looked at me directly and repeated his promise.

"I swear it. I will find you a way back or I will give you a home here." He finished placing the dirty rag back in the water and standing. He said it with such determined certainty, as if really believed he could really get me back.