Dreamweaver

Chapter 5

“Hey!” A voice yelled from the distance. At once the girl began to change. Her beauty, her innocence faded as her face twisted into a snarl, and she seemed to fold into herself, becoming nothing more than a formless shadow and blasting into the night sky with a shriek that filled the silent night long after the creature had disappeared.

For a moment I stood, mouth agape, staring blankly at the spot where the demon had vanished into the sky. “Nicholas?” the intruder’s voice rang out again, bringing me reluctantly from my reverie. I turned to see Amirra, of all people, hurrying towards me.

“Wha-What are you doing here?” I stuttered, rather shocked to see her, thus forgetting all formalities. “I should be asking you.” She called back, striding forward in her usual bold manner, quickly closing the gap between us. A torrent of questions came to my mind, but as I opened my mouth to speak, a goddess appeared behind me with a blast of... moonlight.

Of course, I didn’t know it was a goddess. All I knew was that suddenly there was an really, really tall woman towering over me, surrounded by a pool of moonlight, wearing flowing white robes and bare feet. Amirra now stood beside me looking puzzled, but while I stood, dumbfounded, but she spoke up, addressing the being in a respectful voice, though she seemed wary. “Who are you? What’s going on here?” The goddess laughed, a musical laugh that sounded like a chorus of voices rather than a single one. “Don’t you know?” She didn’t wait for a reply but continued on. “I am Selene, goddess of the moon and night.”

I started giggling. Yeah, you heard me, giggling. I’d lost it, the freaky woman walking on water, the repeating dream, the lake, and now this. A goddess. Yeah right. Amirra looked surprised at the claim, but unshakeably sceptical. Selene smiled at me in a bemused way. She didn’t have the beauty of the lake-girl, but an odd timelessness, a perfection that made her age impossible to guess, her looks impossible to measure.

“You need proof?” she asked, smiling at me vaguely, without concern. “Fine mortal, watch.” And before my eyes, she scooped up a piece of night. Really, she held a piece of night cupped in her hands. She held it out, and when I looked closer I saw it was a miniature version of the black sky that draped above us, the moon, the stars, the inky darkness, all contained within a tiny sphere in the goddess’ hand. Needless to say I stopped laughing, and stood, stupefied, in silence once again.

“Better.” Selene said simply, letting her tiny ball of sky slip from her hand into the lake’s edge, where it sunk into the waters’ depths. "What's going on?" Amirra demanded as Selene turned back to us, apparently no longer able to contain herself, "We don't need your magic tricks, either explain what's happened here, or you can leave." Selene looked taken aback by Amirra's boldness, but I wasn't surprised. Amirra always spoke her mind, probably part of the reason no one liked her, and by the look on her face there was no way in hell she thought Selene was anything more than a tall eccentric playing dress-up. Selene didn't take it lightly. "Don't speak to me as you do your dirty mortal friends." She hissed, and, with a nearly effortless guesture, demonstrated on her an act of torture far too agonizing to be compared to any magician's act.