#just one night no dreams no vivid premonitions no visitations just sleep

[dojimakaichou]

SENT FROM @stingslikeabee​​​ ―     ( unprompted / always accepting )

It had been a dream, Melissa realized as soon as she opened her eyes and found the ceiling of her own chambers above her head - but it had been unlike anything else. The queen was used to have some of them over the last few years, of all kinds - but nothing came closer to what had just happened during that evening. It felt like a memory instead of something conjured by her mind; a premonition or, more accurately, a vision. It was said that queens could be visited by the Goddess in the form of dreams during important times of their lives or rule, but what made the current monarch pause was the fact that life in Solaris was... Peaceful. A hand went over to her stomach almost by instinct - she knew she was with child, their third one... But would this be the event that had merited the attention of the Goddess? It felt strange for a particular baby to be singled out like that, but Melissa couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to it. The woman who had visited her... The words lingered, as clear as a meeting held with her council on the day before; the visage and simple clothes too, the face of the stranger vivid in details except for the fact she had never seen her before. The queen, however, was sure she would be someone close - there was an air of familiarity that was impossible to miss. A known accent, a comfortable, welcoming aura and... The eyes - she knew her eyes. Melissa turned in bed, hands searching for the candles near the bed and lighting a couple of them. Their feeble flames hadn’t been enough to wake up Daigo, but the woman did that next, shaking him softly and rousing her husband from his precious sleep which she wouldn't ordinarily disturb. But the moment he blinked into consciousness, Melissa knew - it had to be. It had to be Yayoi. “Daigo, sweetheart - don’t worry, I’m fine. The baby is fine, too,” she soothed the prince consort, a hand rubbing circles over his chest while she leaned over his stronger form with a surprising alertness for the late hour. “I know it’s the middle of the night, but Daigo... I think I just met your mother,” she said quietly, knowing how strange it all sounded - but it was the only possible explanation. A gift of the Goddess - and yet, the way the dream had ended, it felt like there would be more. Was it a message? “I think Yayoi came to me in a dream, my love. I’ve never felt anything like this...” she trailed off, biting her lower lip, “It feels like she was here - and that we will meet again.”

★. ―

Daigo came to quite suddenly, pulled out of a comfortable sleep by Melissa’s persistence. He winced at the light ( though soft ) that pierced his eyes. Blinking, he reached for her, shaking fingers grabbing her gently in alarm. Daigo had no real sense of the hour, but his half - awake mind knew it was early.

          Were they in danger?           Was she hurt?           Was the baby unwell? the pregnancy stable?

          Wild scenarios sprang up in Daigo’s thoughts  ―  FUCK, HE COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT HER, SHE HAD TO BE ALRIGHT  ―  as he searched her expression. He opened his mouth to ask, but she answered before he could. Daigo inhaled deeply and nodded at her reassurances. The Prince settled under his wife gradually, still groggy ; his palm pressed briefly to her stomach to greet their child.

          Melissa’s explanation for waking him, however, snapped Daigo to full awareness. His brows knitted together. The blood drained out of his face, and he fought for the right words to reply to her. Melissa’s mention of Yayoi clearly spooked him. Daigo swallowed, a hand drifting up to brush her hair out of her face. He tucked it behind her ear.

          “  ―  my mother  .    .    .  ” the Prince repeated breathily.

          To meet Yayoi in a dream would have sounded extremely far - fetched to the Koutetsujima native years ago, but he now had some faith in the Solarian Goddess. As such, he was willing to believe that Melissa’s dream was more than fiction. 

          Besides, there were not many paintings of his mother. Daigo’s beloved wife had seen only the one he salvaged from his home of the late Queen of Koutetsujima holding him as an infant, and that picture was so precious that it was kept sealed from general viewing. Daigo couldn’t recall the last time he brought it out of its safe place. Melissa couldn’t have known it was Yayoi in her vision based on immediately seeing her  ―  so there had to have been other identifying characteristics, which further eliminated some of Daigo’s doubts.

          There was weight to Melissa’s claim that she had met Daigo’s mother, if only in a dream. Daigo didn’t know how to feel about that, and he cycled rapidly through a mix of emotions. He was afraid of what this might mean, nervous  .    .    .  and also timidly hopeful. If the Goddess ( he assumed ) was sending Melissa images of Yayoi, perhaps his mother’s soul was whole in the next life and doing well. Daigo had prayed frequently in his adulthood to ask that the Glass Snake heal any wounds his tyrannical father may have carved into his mother’s true self.

          “She was beautiful, wasn’t she?” the Prince Consort asked softly, brushing his knuckles along Melissa’s cheek. “That’s what I remember most about her.”

          Daigo sighed. “My love, I don’t know why she came to you, but I am glad you were introduced to her.” For additional emphasis, he touched her belly again lightly. “This little one is very lucky, as well. That they got to meet their grandmother.” 

          “She,” Melissa corrected with conviction.

          Her husband raised a brow. “A girl?” he asked curiously.

          “I’m certain of it,” Melissa answered, smiling. “Something about my dream, Daigo. I know it.”

           The Prince nodded tiredly. “I am sure my mother was pleased.  ―  and I hope you get to speak with her again. I’ve always said she would have adored you as much as I do.”

[starlightaxolotl]

is it mental illness or is it actually a dodgeball, only time will tell.

[furubaa]

Notes on Mushishi - Vol 1 & 2

This is the start of my personal notes on every Mushishi chapter (anime ep # in brackets). I’ve reread the manga over and over again looking for specific stories, so this is just for easier reference. 

VOLUME 1

1 - The Green Gathering (S1E1, The Green Seat)

Ginko learns of a boy who can create life by drawing or writing and decides to pay him a visit 

“The green here is so vivid it’s eerie”

A personal invitation to a banquet, presented with clear sake in a shallow green saucer - the exquisite scent of kouki, the water of life. 

The dull pain of being frozen mid-transformation, one foot out the door; realisation of emptiness, and yearning for a full exit from the world

Color seeping out of an untouched brush; power passed down the generations

Everything covered in moss where the kouki soaked in the ground

2 - The Soft Horns (S1E3, Tender Horns)

Ginko is summoned to cure villagers from hearing problems caused by Mushi, and to cure the village head’s grandson Maho, who has sprouted four horns on his forehead.

A quiet village deep in the mountains where even the wind does not pass; absolute silence on snowy nights, when even the sound of your voice disappears.

Bombarded with a flood of sounds, the spirit tires, and body weakens til death. The murmuring of a single Mushi is a microscopic sound, until made aware of the trillions of Mushi clamouring all over the world, calling to each other like echoes.

An intimate gesture of protection - the sound of your mother. A volcanic eruption seen long ago. The lava inside of you, dissolving everything.

3 - The Pillow Path (S1E4 The Pillow Pathway)

Ginko pays a visit to a man named Jin who has premonitions in his dreams as a result of a Mushi affliction caused by Imeno no Awai. 

4 - The Light in the Eyelids (S1E2 The Light of the Eyelid)

Ginko visits a girl named Sui, who is suffering from a Mushi affliction that has made her eyes sensitive to light.

“Behind your eyelid you have another eyelid.” 

There's a river of light flowing underground that illuminates even the pitch black; there has to be total, true darkness to see it. “Light particles come from very far away/ and they flow past me.” “Stretching out for eternity at your feet”

Ginko sitting on the opposite side of the river bank; a warning from a stranger.

“You spent too much time in the dark with Sui” ... Mushi that breed in the darkness. 

5 - The Traveling Bog (S1E5 The Traveling Swamp)

Ginko is traveling through the mountains to see his friend, Adashino. Along the way, he meets a girl named Io, who lives inside a swamp that is capable of moving by itself.

Ginko finding himself travelling in step with a swamp that sinks into the earth and then floats up over and over again, passing through the mountains

A girl sacrificed to save her village from a flood, wearing ceremonial robes; a bride presented to the water god, pushed off a cliff in a storm.

A large green thing that calmly rose up through the raging water; swimming at the bottom of a river that was overflowing its banks. It said, “You should continue to live.”

“When people drink them, their bodies become transparent... and then, they flow away.” Choosing to become Mushi is to exist between life and death; slowly wearing away at your human heart.

Following the journey of a ten thousand year old swamp to its death; moving towards the sea, the dying form of a liquid mushi. Accompanying it on its final journey.

“Swamps are born, eventually they stagnate, and when the universe they have contained within themselves ends... they get up on their own and start to move.”

VOLUME 2

6 - The Mountain Sleeps (S1E11 The Sleeping Mountain)

While traveling, Ginko passes through a town settled near a mountain. He learns that a Mushi Master is living on the mountain, but hasn't visited the village for quite some time, and every person who had been sent to find him has fallen ill and died.

“A smell both sweet and rancid that rises from the ground and touches each leaf. One by one. Coiling around them and choking their skin. A light vein, where the river of light flows.”

Ginko tapping into a mushi that acts as the mountain's nerves, sinking their wills into the plants and running around. 

“The water of life (...) Women bear children like cats or dogs; twins, triplets, or even quadruplets, abandoned in the mountains.”

A travelling Mushishi who puts his roots down. The one he loves committing an unforgivable act so that they can be married. Assuming the role of a slain mountain boar god; his bones will lie here. 

An aged man, summoning an immortal spirit to take his place of guardian forever - a necessary sacrifice to return the world to natural order.

7 - The Sea of Brushstrokes (S1E20 A Sea of Writings)

Ginko comes to a house which has a library full of mushi-related scrolls. There, he meets the girl who writes the scrolls, and hears the story of the curse that has been afflicting her family for generations.

A large dark crypt; an enormous library of scripts recording ancient history

Scribes cursed with immobility and marked for death, the only way to quell the Mushi is to seal them with words. A tradition of inviting travelling Mushishis to feed the writers myths in order for them to expel their words, physically manifesting them, an excruciating process for survival of self - and if not, the survival of your descendants. Plucking words and returning them to order, duty. Little by little, a receding scar. 

8 - They That Breathe Ephemeral Life (S1E6 Those Who Inhale the Dew)

Ginko's services are requested by a boy named Nagi, who lives on a distant island, to investigate the case of Akoya, a girl revered by the people as a "Living God".

A brief moment during the spring tide is the only time you can get to the island; only safe one day per month to take a boat out. a barren island with little soil, villagers surviving with moral support from their god. 

Tapping the center of the forehead with a needle, a curlicule of a mushi spiralling out

“When i was the Ikigami and aged when the sun set i could always shut my eyes and fall asleep feeling satisfied (...) But now my legs tremble at the immense amount of time ahead of me.” Living Mushi's life cycle of a single day - every second of every day experienced fresh, so much wonder you can't keep up. “My heart was always satisfied.”

When faced with tragedy, the girl finally chooses to return to the state of suspension - the luxury to forget and detach from mortal burden.

9 - Rain Comes and a Rainbow is Born (S1E7 Raindrops and Rainbows)

Ginko encounters a man named Koro, who has a strange habit of pursuing rainbows, and helps him find one particular rainbow that he is looking for - the Kouda.

A father delirious for rain - a strange man running around happily, and a mysterious rainbow dancing in odd shapes. A body that thirsts - “I miss that rainbow so much… I can’t stand it.” 

A boy who runs away to escape the burden of a dying father; to prove his worth and his father’s.

Ginko who must travel constantly, taking a break by finding purpose in small goals - You can’t live only for the sake of living; rest is essential. 

A natural phenomena created from light and imbued with kouki - “There's a reason they occur, but they have no purpose - existing only to keep flowing. Nothing can affect them, but they affect those around them, and then they leave.”

* 10 - The Veil Spore (S1E21 Cotton Changeling)

A couple summons Ginko to investigate their sick child, Watahiko, who has developed green spots all over his body. The father explains that the child didn’t look human when born - instead, it was a strange green mass that swiftly escaped. A year later, he found a baby under the house.

A wedding procession that passes through a forest - “A green stain on my cotton wedding gown.” A boy born green and formless, that slipped out and under the house. The main body; a mat of spores spreading under the house, dirt that wriggles under the sun.

One year later, it sends out a human-mushroom; every half year, the same child born again and again. Harmless children joined together at the root, that exist only to collect nutrients, that die and spit out seeds. “Mushi that wear the skin of your dead child.”

The human instinct to kill everything we don’t understand.

A baby with a body that grows faster than the mind. Children that evolve rapidly - “After learning words i forgot how.. I forgot how.” The primal instinct for survival lost. The cost of intelligence.

The Watahiki, when faced with danger, disconnects its children from the root, in an attempt to save at least the seeds - the children change form and enter a long dormant period.

An organism that strays from its recorded life cycle. 

Not that I’m doing this for public consumption (who even is going to read all this) but anyways FYI I’ve got structured notes on the next volumes in my drafts & if I ever get round to finishing all of them they’ll be tagged as #mushishi notes 

[unsettlingshortstories]

Caterpillars

E.F. Benson (1912)

I saw a month or two ago in an Italian paper that the Villa Cascana, in which I once stayed, had been pulled down, and that a manufactory of some sort was in process of erection on its site.

There is therefore no longer any reason for refraining from writing of those things which I myself saw (or imagined I saw) in a certain room and on a certain landing of the villa in question, nor from mentioning the circumstances which followed, which may or may not (according to the opinion of the reader) throw some light on or be somehow connected with this experience.

The Villa Cascana was in all ways but one a perfectly delightful house, yet, if it were standing now, nothing in the world – I use the phrase in its literal sense – would induce me to set foot in it again, for I believe it to have been haunted in a very terrible and practical manner.

Most ghosts, when all is said and done, do not do much harm; they may perhaps terrify, but the person whom they visit usually gets over their visitation. They may on the other hand be entirely friendly and beneficent. But the appearances in the Villa Cascana were not beneficent, and had they made their “visit” in a very slightly different manner, I do not suppose I should have got over it any more than Arthur Inglis did.

The house stood on an ilex-clad hill not far from Sestri di Levante on the Italian Riviera, looking out over the iridescent blues of that enchanted sea, while behind it rose the pale green chestnut woods that climb up the hillsides till they give place to the pines that, black in contrast with them, crown the slopes. All round it the garden in the luxuriance of mid-spring bloomed and was fragrant, and the scent of magnolia and rose, borne on the salt freshness of the winds from the sea, flowed like a stream through the cool vaulted rooms.

On the ground floor a broad pillared loggia ran round three sides of the house, the top of which formed a balcony for certain rooms of the first floor. The main staircase, broad and of grey marble steps, led up from the hall to the landing outside these rooms, which were three in number, namely, two big sitting-rooms and a bedroom arranged en suite. The latter was unoccupied, the sitting-rooms were in use. From these the main staircase was continued to the second floor, where were situated certain bedrooms, one of which I occupied, while from the other side of the first-floor landing some half-dozen steps led to another suite of rooms, where, at the time I am speaking of, Arthur Inglis, the artist, had his bedroom and studio. Thus the landing outside my bedroom at the top of the house commanded both the landing of the first floor and also the steps that led to Inglis’ rooms. Jim Stanley and his wife, finally (whose guest I was), occupied rooms in another wing of the house, where also were the servants’ quarters.

I arrived just in time for lunch on a brilliant noon of mid-May. The garden was shouting with colour and fragrance, and not less delightful after my broiling walk up from the marina, should have been the coming from the reverberating heat and blaze of the day into the marble coolness of the villa. Only (the reader has my bare word for this, and nothing more), the moment I set foot in the house I felt that something was wrong. This feeling, I may say, was quite vague, though very strong, and I remember that when I saw letters waiting for me on the table in the hall I felt certain that the explanation was here: I was convinced that there was bad news of some sort for me. Yet when I opened them I found no such explanation of my premonition: my correspondents all reeked of prosperity. Yet this clear miscarriage of a presentiment did not dissipate my uneasiness. In that cool fragrant house there was something wrong.

I am at pains to mention this because to the general view it may explain that though I am as a rule so excellent a sleeper that the extinction of my light on getting into bed is apparently contemporaneous with being called on the following morning, I slept very badly on my first night in the Villa Cascana. It may also explain the fact that when I did sleep (if it was indeed in sleep that I saw what I thought I saw) I dreamed in a very vivid and original manner, original, that is to say, in the sense that something that, as far as I knew, had never previously entered into my consciousness, usurped it then. But since, in addition to this evil premonition, certain words and events occurring during the rest of the day might have suggested something of what I thought happened that night, it will be well to relate them.

After lunch, then, I went round the house with Mrs. Stanley, and during our tour she referred, it is true, to the unoccupied bedroom on the first floor, which opened out of the room where we had lunched.

“We left that unoccupied,” she said, “because Jim and I have a charming bedroom and dressing-room, as you saw, in the wing, and if we used it ourselves we should have to turn the dining-room into a dressing-room and have our meals downstairs. As it is, however, we have our little flat there, Arthur Inglis has his little flat in the other passage; and I remembered (aren’t I extraordinary?) that you once said that the higher up you were in a house the better you were pleased. So I put you at the top of the house, instead of giving you that room.”

It is true, that a doubt, vague as my uneasy premonition, crossed my mind at this. I did not see why Mrs. Stanley should have explained all this, if there had not been more to explain. I allow, therefore, that the thought that there was something to explain about the unoccupied bedroom was momentarily present to my mind.

The second thing that may have borne on my dream was this.

At dinner the conversation turned for a moment on ghosts. Inglis, with the certainty of conviction, expressed his belief that anybody who could possibly believe in the existence of supernatural phenomena was unworthy of the name of an ass. The subject instantly dropped. As far as I can recollect, nothing else occurred or was said that could bear on what follows.

We all went to bed rather early, and personally I yawned my way upstairs, feeling hideously sleepy. My room was rather hot, and I threw all the windows wide, and from without poured in the white light of the moon, and the love-song of many nightingales. I undressed quickly, and got into bed, but though I had felt so sleepy before, I now felt extremely wide-awake. But I was quite content to be awake: I did not toss or turn, I felt perfectly happy listening to the song and seeing the light. Then, it is possible, I may have gone to sleep, and what follows may have been a dream. I thought, anyhow, that after a time the nightingales ceased singing and the moon sank. I thought also that if, for some unexplained reason, I was going to lie awake all night, I might as well read, and I remembered that I had left a book in which I was interested in the dining-room on the first floor. So I got out of bed, lit a candle, and went downstairs. I went into the room, saw on a side-table the book I had come to look for, and then, simultaneously, saw that the door into the unoccupied bedroom was open. A curious grey light, not of dawn nor of moonshine, came out of it, and I looked in. The bed stood just opposite the door, a big four-poster, hung with tapestry at the head. Then I saw that the greyish light of the bedroom came from the bed, or rather from what was on the bed. For it was covered with great caterpillars, a foot or more in length, which crawled over it. They were faintly luminous, and it was the light from them that showed me the room. Instead of the sucker-feet of ordinary caterpillars they had rows of pincers like crabs, and they moved by grasping what they lay on with their pincers, and then sliding their bodies forward. In colour these dreadful insects were yellowish-grey, and they were covered with irregular lumps and swellings. There must have been hundreds of them, for they formed a sort of writhing, crawling pyramid on the bed. Occasionally one fell off on to the floor, with a soft fleshy thud, and though the floor was of hard concrete, it yielded to the pincerfeet as if it had been putty, and, crawling back, the caterpillar would mount on to the bed again, to rejoin its fearful companions. They appeared to have no faces, so to speak, but at one end of them there was a mouth that opened sideways in respiration.

Then, as I looked, it seemed to me as if they all suddenly became conscious of my presence.

All the mouths, at any rate, were turned in my direction, and next moment they began dropping off the bed with those soft fleshy thuds on to the floor, and wriggling towards me. For one second a paralysis as of a dream was on me, but the next I was running upstairs again to my room, and I remember feeling the cold of the marble steps on my bare feet. I rushed into my bedroom, and slammed the door behind me, and then – I was certainly wide-awake now – I found myself standing by my bed with the sweat of terror pouring from me. The noise of the banged door still rang in my ears. But, as would have been more usual, if this had been mere nightmare, the terror that had been mine when I saw those foul beasts crawling about the bed or dropping softly on to the floor did not cease then. Awake, now, if dreaming before, I did not at all recover from the horror of dream: it did not seem to me that I had dreamed. And until dawn, I sat or stood, not daring to lie down, thinking that every rustle or movement that I heard was the approach of the caterpillars. To them and the claws that bit into the cement the wood of the door was child’s play: steel would not keep them out.

But with the sweet and noble return of day the horror vanished: the whisper of wind became benignant again: the nameless fear, whatever it was, was smoothed out and terrified me no longer. Dawn broke, hueless at first; then it grew dove-coloured, then the flaming pageant of light spread over the sky.

The admirable rule of the house was that everybody had breakfast where and when he pleased, and in consequence it was not till lunch-time that I met any of the other members of our party, since I had breakfast on my balcony, and wrote letters and other things till lunch. In fact, I got down to that meal rather late, after the other three had begun. Between my knife and fork there was a small pill-box of cardboard, and as I sat down Inglis spoke.

“Do look at that,” he said, “since you are interested in natural history. I found it crawling on my counterpane last night, and I don’t know what it is.”

I think that before I opened the pill-box I expected something of the sort which I found in it.

Inside it, anyhow, was a small caterpillar, greyish-yellow in colour, with curious bumps and excrescences on its rings. It was extremely active, and hurried round the box, this way and that.

Its feet were unlike the feet of any caterpillar I ever saw: they were like the pincers of a crab. I looked, and shut the lid down again.

“No, I don’t know it,” I said, “but it looks rather unwholesome. What are you going to do with it?”

“Oh, I shall keep it,” said Inglis. “It has begun to spin: I want to see what sort of a moth it turns into.”

I opened the box again, and saw that these hurrying movements were indeed the beginning of the spinning of the web of its cocoon. Then Inglis spoke again.

“It has got funny feet, too,” he said. “They are like crabs’ pincers. What’s the Latin for crab?”

“Oh, yes, Cancer. So in case it is unique, let’s christen it: ‘Cancer Inglisensis.’ ” Then something happened in my brain, some momentary piecing together of all that I had seen or dreamed. Something in his words seemed to me to throw light on it all, and my own intense horror at the experience of the night before linked itself on to what he had just said. In effect, I took the box and threw it, caterpillar and all, out of the window. There was a gravel path just outside, and beyond it, a fountain playing into a basin. The box fell on to the middle of this.

Inglis laughed.

“So the students of the occult don’t like solid facts,” he said. “My poor caterpillar!”

The talk went off again at once on to other subjects, and I have only given in detail, as they happened, these trivialities in order to be sure myself that I have recorded everything that could have borne on occult subjects or on the subject of caterpillars. But at the moment when I threw the pill-box into the fountain, I lost my head: my only excuse is that, as is probably plain, the tenant of it was, in miniature, exactly what I had seen crowded on to the bed in the unoccupied room. And though this translation of those phantoms into flesh and blood – or whatever it is that caterpillars are made of – ought perhaps to have relieved the horror of the night, as a matter of fact it did nothing of the kind. It only made the crawling pyramid that covered the bed in the unoccupied room more hideously real.

After lunch we spent a lazy hour or two strolling about the garden or sitting in the loggia, and it must have been about four o’clock when Stanley and I started off to bathe, down the path that led by the fountain into which I had thrown the pill-box. The water was shallow and clear, and at the bottom of it I saw its white remains. The water had disintegrated the cardboard, and it had become no more than a few strips and shreds of sodden paper. The centre of the fountain was a marble Italian Cupid which squirted the water out of a wine-skin held under its arm. And crawling up its leg was the caterpillar. Strange and scarcely credible as it seemed, it must have survived the falling-to-bits of its prison, and made its way to shore, and there it was, out of arm’s reach, weaving and waving this way and that as it evolved its cocoon.

Then, as I looked at it, it seemed to me again that, like the caterpillar I had seen last night, it saw me, and breaking out of the threads that surrounded it, it crawled down the marble leg of the Cupid and began swimming like a snake across the water of the fountain towards me. It came with extraordinary speed (the fact of a caterpillar being able to swim was new to me), and in another moment was crawling up the marble lip of the basin. Just then Inglis joined us.

“Why, if it isn’t old ‘Cancer Inglisensis’ again,” he said, catching sight of the beast. “What a tearing hurry it is in!”

We were standing side by side on the path, and when the caterpillar had advanced to within about a yard of us, it stopped, and began waving again as if in doubt as to the direction in which it should go. Then it appeared to make up its mind, and crawled on to Inglis’ shoe.

“It likes me best,” he said, “but I don’t really know that I like it. And as it won’t drown I think perhaps – ”

He shook it off his shoe on to the gravel path and trod on it.

All afternoon the air got heavier and heavier with the Sirocco that was without doubt coming up from the south, and that night again I went up to bed feeling very sleepy; but below my drowsiness, so to speak, there was the consciousness, stronger than before, that there was something wrong in the house, that something dangerous was close at hand. But I fell asleep at once, and – how long after I do not know – either woke or dreamed I awoke, feeling that I must get up at once, or I should be too late. Then (dreaming or awake) I lay and fought this fear, telling myself that I was but the prey of my own nerves disordered by Sirocco or what not, and at the same time quite clearly knowing in another part of my mind, so to speak, that every moment’s delay added to the danger. At last this second feeling became irresistible, and I put on coat and trousers and went out of my room on to the landing. And then I saw that I had already delayed too long, and that I was now too late.

The whole of the landing of the first floor below was invisible under the swarm of caterpillars that crawled there. The folding doors into the sitting-room from which opened the bedroom where I had seen them last night were shut, but they were squeezing through the cracks of it and dropping one by one through the keyhole, elongating themselves into mere string as they passed, and growing fat and lumpy again on emerging. Some, as if exploring, were nosing about the steps into the passage at the end of which were Inglis’ rooms, others were crawling on the lowest steps of the staircase that led up to where I stood. The landing, however, was completely covered with them: I was cut off. And of the frozen horror that seized me when I saw that I can give no idea in words.

Then at last a general movement began to take place, and they grew thicker on the steps that led to Inglis’ room. Gradually, like some hideous tide of flesh, they advanced along the passage, and I saw the foremost, visible by the pale grey luminousness that came from them, reach his door. Again and again I tried to shout and warn him, in terror all the time that they would turn at the sound of my voice and mount my stair instead, but for all my efforts I felt that no sound came from my throat. They crawled along the hinge-crack of his door, passing through as they had done before, and still I stood there, making impotent efforts to shout to him, to bid him escape while there was time.

At last the passage was completely empty: they had all gone, and at that moment I was conscious for the first time of the cold of the marble landing on which I stood barefooted. The dawn was just beginning to break in the Eastern sky.

Six months after I met Mrs. Stanley in a country house in England. We talked on many subjects and at last she said:

“I don’t think I have seen you since I got that dreadful news about Arthur Inglis a month ago.”

“I haven’t heard,” said I.

“No? He has got cancer. They don’t even advise an operation, for there is no hope of a cure: he is riddled with it, the doctors say.”

Now during all these six months I do not think a day had passed on which I had not had in my mind the dreams (or whatever you like to call them) which I had seen in the Villa Cascana.

“It is awful, is it not?” she continued, “and I feel I can’t help feeling, that he may have – ”

“Caught it at the villa?” I asked.

She looked at me in blank surprise.

“Why did you say that?” she asked. “How did you know?”

Then she told me. In the unoccupied bedroom a year before there had been a fatal case of cancer. She had, of course, taken the best advice and had been told that the utmost dictates of prudence would be obeyed so long as she did not put anybody to sleep in the room, which had also been thoroughly disinfected and newly white-washed and painted. But–

[jeichanhaka]

If Any Would Avenge: 30

Chapter 30:

It was warm, the flickering flames from the fireplace filling the cottage with light and heat. Everything was illuminated, the stone floor and handcrafted furniture, the decorations lining the walls. The light shone brightly on it all. Her eyes widened taking in her surroundings, and she wondered at how even just breathing in felt distant. As though it and everything else were happening to someone else or somewhere else. It took only a moment for her to figure out where she was, if where was the right word.

"The dream world." Belle gasped, her eyes searching around the cottage expectantly, and her muscles tensing. She barely breathed until she noticed the cradle, and continued holding her breath until she saw the baby lain inside it. Her eyes glistened with tears of joy seeing the tiny bundle sleeping soundly. "My son...my baby boy." Holding back her tears, she picked him up and cradled him against her breast. "My…." She tensed as a hand suddenly touched her shoulder, and she held the baby more protectively against her. Her eyes tinged with a fierceness only a mother who'd lost a child could have. "Don't you…." She growled and peeked behind her, all her fierceness crumbling suddenly upon sight of the other's face. "Gid...Gideon."

"Mother…." Gideon smiled warmly at his mother, his form that of his adult self.

"My son, you're here." Belle gasped, her throat tightening and her tears falling freely down her cheeks. Joy filled her eyes, her sorrow drowned out by sight of her son's smile. Along with her memory of the truth, until she felt the baby in her arms flailing its arms and legs. Glancing down at it and then back at Gideon, her brow knit. "You're…how are you here? This…." She looked around at her surroundings, at the cottage and hearth. The cradle the baby had been slumbering in. "Is this...just a regular dream?"

Gideon shook his head and grabbed his mother's arms, trying to stave off her collapsing in despair. "No, your first instinct was right, this is the Dream World."

"But how are you…." Belle's lips trembled. Though she'd never explicitly been told either way, she'd always thought only those living and dreaming could visit the Dream World. Yet...what of the baby in her arms? Was he too not real?

"Thank father for that." Gideon replied with a gentle smile, his eyes beseeching his mother to cheer up at least a little. His expression softened when Belle stared up at him, curious and confused. "While juniper trees cannot raise the dead, they do allow spirits to visit the Dream World and similar ephemeral realms…." Pausing a moment, he squeezed his mother's arms reassuringly. "Father...buried me beneath one."

"Buri…buried? He…." Belle closed her eyes, anguish, joy, despair, anger - so many emotions filled her, mixing inside her like a torrent. And while her son's kind grasping of her arms helped calm her despair, it did little for her other emotions. "He already buried you? I...I...no." Tears welled in her eyes again, these ones born of anger and betrayal. "The one thing...the one thing we should've done together...that there never should've been any question about doing together...and he...he did it alone? He…."

"Mother, please."

Belle swallowed and shook her head, pulling away from Gideon. Her emotions overwhelming her. Never before had she felt so betrayed by her husband, even more than when she'd thought he'd dosed her with the aging potion that sped up her pregnancy two years ago. Her stomach twisted at a sudden realization. "That...that's what Rumple was doing when Fortunato...when…." Belle tensed, remembering how the blade the assassin plunged into her abdomen felt. "...wasn't he?"

"Mother...mom. Please, calm down."

"Calm down? I…." Belle glared, teary-eyed, at her son. "I just lost you. We just lost you. And your father...buried you without me. He…." She faltered, her voice catching in her throat and her chin trembling. "If...if he hadn't…. Or if he brought me along, then…."

"Mother…." Gideon grabbed for his mother's shoulders, his own eyes filled with tears seeing her so upset.

Belle shook her head, but didn't pull away this time. "...if your father hadn't been selfish...we'd still have your brother or sister to look forward to." She sucked in a breath and glanced down at the baby in her arms, half expecting it to have disappeared. Her brow knit with confusion seeing and feeling it still snug against her. Though she hadn't forgotten about the child from her earlier dream, her baby from Isaac's book, Fortunato's words echoed in her ears. "...how is this child…? Fortunato said I can't...that he cursed…." Her face brighten suddenly as an idea flashed in her thoughts. If it was a curse Fortunato had used, then surely it could be broken with her son's kiss, just like before when she was under a sleeping curse.

"Mother…." Gideon gazed down at his mother, and smiled a small, sad smile. "...I'm not sure it was a curse Fortunato used. But it can't hurt to try." He added after a pause, before leaning down to kiss Belle on the forehead.

"Actually…." A voice echoed through the cottage, which suddenly felt colder as the hearth fire died out and left them standing in complete darkness. As dark as a tomb. "...it can."

x

Lying unconscious on a daybed beneath a heavily curtained window, Belle's face scrunched up. A chandelier flickered overhead, its light bouncing off the mahogany walls of the room and casting deep shadows. While the younger woman mumbled and turned fitfully in her sleep, the woman with the donkey skin cloak peered down at her.

No longer wearing the hood over her head, the older woman's face was no longer obscured from view; even under the flickering chandelier, anyone could see the similarities between her and Belle. Identical, except for a gray curl in the former's hair and a slight crease between her nose and cheeks.

-"My, my. Aren't we living dangerously? This may not be against the plan, per se, seeing as you want to change a significant chunk of the future. But seriously…." Her subconscious muttered, chiding her. "And lowering your hood….you know he'll be able to sense you." -

"Eventually, yes. But right now his grief blinds him. Besides...it's not like he'll do anything to me." The woman muttered, and waved away her manifested subconscious. She scowled, her eyes narrowing as she shifted her attention towards the table in the center of the room. Littered with papers and books, some stacked neatly, others tossed into haphazard piles, the table drew her attention. Gazing at it with her head tilted to the side, she considered its messy surface, mumbling to herself before shifting her attention towards another one.

Small, barely bigger than an end table, the papers and whatnot that once cluttered its surface tossed to the floor beside it, this table held a wooden chest: aged and splintered. Placed within it were two crystalline hearts, visible due to its lid being no more than an inch of cedar ragged at the edge and unable to cover more than a third of the base.

"Hm…." The woman approached the chest, considering the two hearts and smiling a small, cold smile.

It was dark, the sky outside the cabin window nearly starless and lacking any hint of the moon, while inside the only light was that from the fireplace. The fire itself was weak, hardly more than embers smoldering amid the ash. Not enough to exude warmth nor light.

Sitting in a rustic chair in front of the fireplace, he stared at the dying embers, not glancing up even when the cabin door opened. Or when his visitor, bundled against the chilly autumn night, shut the door and hung up her coat. He barely noted the cold, his magic protecting him against such trivial things as temperature, focused instead on the soft tread of his visitor as she approached.

"...why are you here, dearie? Shouldn't you be off celebrating?" He grumbled, glancing at his visitor only when she knelt at the foot of his chair and reached for his hand. The paleness of her cheeks intensified by the straight locks of ebony hair streaming down to her shoulders, her blue eyes appearing gray under the sparse lighting, Sadie gazed up at him. Trepidation in her eyes.

"I….I need to tell you something. I…I'm..."

x

Gold sucked in a breath, his whole body tense as the vision passed. Having come unbidden just as he waved his hand and teleported himself, George, and five-day-old Sadie to his cabin, the vision bewildered him. It was the most vivid and real feeling vision he ever had, as well as the most straightforward. Yet at the same time most perplexing...and worrisome.

At least that's what he'd felt during it, watching the scene play out through his own eyes, unlike his other premonitions. Usually his visions steered clear of his personal future, especially the vivid ones, and instead showed him threads of others' people's fates.

"Now what?" George spat, glaring at Gold and holding Sadie in his arms. The fussy newborn wailed louder and louder, her tiny arms and legs flailing about. Unable to hold Sadie himself, the Dark One had demanded the ex-king to do so, or be tortured on the spot. "I assume you want this...brat...for something, considering you…."

Gold ignored the other man, his thoughts consumed by the vision and what it meant. Despite not hearing fully what grown up Sadie had been about to say, he knew what it was. Or felt like he knew - no doubt the result of his future self in the vision knowing or suspecting it himself. Yet...it couldn't…his suspicion couldn't be correct

"Why would she tell me that?" Muttering to himself, Gold shook his head and glanced at the five-day-old, whom a cankerous George had just placed on a cushioned chair. "Why…."

-'Does it matter?' His subconscious interrupted, its imp form crooning in his ear. 'It's all moot, dearie. Once you hand Sadie over to Nemesis, her future is through. Nothing you foresaw will come to pass.'-

Twitching as though trying to brush off an irksome pest, Gold scowled at the apparition's words, before approaching the tiny newborn. Peering down at her swaddled in a peach baby blanket, Gold's eyes shifted from cold determination to warm curiosity. Not as warm as when he held her at the sheriff's station, but warmer than when he decided to kidnap her.

Noticing the Dark One's focus on the infant, George eyed the cabin's exit. Every muscle in his body tensed with the urge to flee while Gold was distracted, but before he took even a step towards it, it vanished.

"I'm not done with you." Gold crooned, his finger still pointing at the door after casting his spell. Although he addressed George, he didn't even spare a glance at the wizened man, not even to see how his tone chilled the ex-king. Nor to see the man's expression shift from fear to loathing.

"Fine. If you're going to kill me, kill me. Torture me, whatever." George spat, turning to face the Dark One despite his survival instinct shouting against it. "I knew I was a dead-man the moment I hired that jester."

His lips pressed into a thin line, contempt darkening his face, Gold glowered at George.

"...it'll take more than an angry glare to frighten me, Dark One." George continued, his straight spine and rigid posture defying the fear eating at his gut. "Especially coming from a coward who'd kidnap a baby and pin it on anoth…." He started gasping, cut off mid-sentence by Gold magically choking him.

"You call me a coward?" Gold seethed, as he choked the other man. "You hired an assassin to murder an unborn child. You…."

"I did not." George rasped, unable to speak loudly while his throat was being magically squeezed. "Fortunato was already going after Belle. I simply paid him to…." He flinched at the rage lighting Gold's eyes.

"A moot point." Gold growled, stepping close enough to George to physically squeeze his throat. "You knew the bastard's plan and you gave him ample incentive. Or am I wrong about this," With a flourish of his free hand, Gold summoned the small red-orange gem he'd taken from Fortunato, and showed it to George. "...originally being yours?"

Seeing the gem in the Dark One's hand, George froze. "You found him?"

Gold's lips twitched. "You expected I wouldn't? Really, dearie? Heh." He chuckled coldly, relishing in the fear that now marred the ex-king's face. "Or did you think his foolhardy attempt to summon the dagger from me would actually work?"

"I...it...it should have…." His face pallid and body shaking, George stammered, drained of his earlier bravado. Though not originally counting on the assassin's plan to steal the dagger, once Gold threatened him with years of torture rather than death, George had quietly hoped that Fortunato's plan would succeed.

"Yes, well…." Gold muttered, magicking the gem back to his basement and summoning Fortunato's tanto in its place. "Too bad for you, dearie, the fool got ahead of himself and tried summoning the dagger without using Fortuné's chest." Holding the ex-king firmly by the neck, his fingers itching to simply crush the bastard's throat, Gold pressed the tanto's blade against George's face. A dribble of blood pooled from beneath the keen blade seconds after it touched the man's skin and slid down his pallid cheek. "...we both know you're a dead man. The only question now is how long to torture you?"

"I...um…." George swallowed, eyeing the blade pressed against his face and feeling the cut of it as it pierced his skin. Slicing right through it while the Dark One slid the tanto across the ex-king's cheek, opening a deep and angry gash there. The wizened man barely flinched even as the blood poured down his cheek, and simply eyed the blade. The scarab-skull mark, especially. "That is...the assassin's blade..." He mumbled, ignoring the piercing glare Gold gave. "Interesting."

"Interesting?" Gold growled, infuriated by the other's nonchalant reaction. "I'll show you 'interesting' when I use this to eviscerate you and…."

"Why aren't you using the Dark One dagger?" George interrupted, his tone remarkably calm. Strangely, infuriatingly calm. As though oblivious to his wound and the anger of the Dark One. "I thought you'd be using it."

"Why the fuck are you so calm?" Gold snarled, tossing the tanto and slamming the ex-king against the cabin wall. His eyes darkened with fury and he held his arm against the wizened man's neck, using that to pin him against the wall and slowly choke him. "Well?" Getting no answer, at least not quickly enough, he plunged his hand into George's chest. "You're going to answer, even….."

"Good. You get it now." George replied a moment after Gold fell silent, the latter's hand in the former's chest grasping for a heart that wasn't there. "I was beginning to wonder if I'd have to just blurt it out." The wizened man drawled and despite it being his voice heard, the words were not his own.

Gold scowled.