HE KNEW WHERE he would be if he opened his eyes. The dreams were constant in their landscape.
“Nathaniel.”
The voice was a whisper, close to his ear. He could feel the breath of it against his skin.
“Here, let me help you.”
He felt arms around him lifting him to a sitting position. He saw her then. Naliv.
They were in a churchyard. As it so often seemed in Elaimat, it was dusk-light, the sky a muted gray and purple.
“Oh, we have many hours of the day, not only this,” she said, reading his mind in her usual way. “You have seen the poppies in sunlight, remember, and you know it is true.”
Nathan saw that her features were more worn than last time, the lines in her face more pronounced. Again she read his mind.
“It has been some years since we have seen you. Marn and I are both anxious to find a way to stop the course of things that Calum has set in motion. There is very little time left.”
“Years. In my dream.”
“In our lives.”
“What is this place?”
“I created it for you. You do not recognize it?”
Nathan focused on his surroundings. The trees were short, their pink blossoms closing with the approach of nightfall. Oleanders stood to his right, several in a row, their flowering rose color deeper even in the dying light. The grass lay long and dark green among the trees. A tree swallow made its final call before settling in with its flock.
Yes, he knew the place. A small cemetery occupied the grounds in back of the church. His parents were buried there. So was Jenny. It had always comforted him, to have them in such a quiet and well-kept enclosure, like a sanctuary.
“It’s exactly the same,” he said to Naliv. “I was a boy in this church. I remember the candles, and the sunlight through the stained glass windows. We came here often, Jenny and I.”
“Your child is here, too.”
Nathan gazed again at the ancient headstones tilted in the grass. The four he had arranged for stood upright, newer, familiar.
“Yes.” He had held her for only a moment, the still form of their newborn girl that hardly filled his hands, and Jenny crying beside him.
He felt the explosion before he heard it. Beyond the stone wall that surrounded the churchyard he saw the glow that covered the horizon, red against the oncoming night. As he watched, the cloud of color expanded in bursts and again he felt the ground tremble and heard the sound like distant thunder.
“Chaos lies on the edge of the city. It moves closer to us. We did not consciously create it. It comes because we have the instability, because we are not completely aligned.”
“You didn’t create anything. I did. This is my dream, remember?”
“No, Nathaniel. It is more than that. Our original loss of the source influences everything, including the life you live when you are not with us. Do you imagine we can be separate? The storm comes here to us because we no longer are fully aware of what we are doing. We have ceased in some way, all of us in Elaimat, to know what it is we want to bring into being. That is why we need you. You must stay here long enough this time.”
He could see her features, the silver strands through her hair shining in the ambient light.
“Where is Marn?”
YOU ARE READING
The Magic Hour
Mystery / Thriller"It was not exactly dark, but a kind of twilight or gloaming. There were neither windows nor candles, and he could not make out where the twilight came from, if not through the walls and roof." -Childe Rowland "T...
