Begin Chapter 3 - Mia

I am outside and the cold wind and rain are slapping my cheek with a stinging force that takes my breath away.  I am alone - and I am dreaming again.  I think I am.  I look down and see I am wearing a long cloak.  It scratches my throat so it must be wool.  I look around.  I am barely able to see through the driving rain.    What I can see are shadows of looming rocks and low lying brush - no trees, no cars.  A sudden flash of lightening cracks the sky, but I can’t hear the thunder.  I can feel it though.  It rumbles beneath my feet.  I look down and see my feet are clad in leather boots.  I stare at the small rivers of water slipping past my boots until another bolt of lightening sizzles across the dark sky, making me jump.  I am beyond cold.  My cloak is wet and so heavy it seems impossible to consider trying to take a step forward.  I want nothing more than to sink down onto the ground and ride this dream out from there.  Another violent flash.  “Oh, come on,” I think.  “This is my dream.  Don’t I get any say in the weather.”  Sharing a meal with a handsome stranger is one thing.  Strange, a little disquieting, but kind of cool too.  Getting fried by lightening is something else altogether. 

I can’t stay here though.  Dream or no, I need to find cover.  Before I stir from my little piece of paradise I reach up and tug at the tie fastenings of my cloak.  It falls in a sodden heap as soon as I release the last tie, but my relief is short lived as the wind bites into my shoulders and arms. 

I am contemplating picking it up again when I see movement and a flash of feeble light a little ahead of me.  I hurry towards it, the shadows giving way slowly to reveal a boy.  Not my boy.  Not Dreamboy. He is too slight.  Like Dreamboy, I can’t see his face.  He is a cypher.  He is holding a small lantern that is smoking and sputtering in the deluge.  I look at his hand to be sure.  No scar. 

He looms over me, angry, and grabs my upper arm, tight enough to hurt.  I flinch.  That is all I do, though.  I don’t run.  I don’t cry out.  I stand there in the darkness, my face upturned,  letting the rain pelt my cheeks and the boy press his fingers harder and harder into the soft flesh of my arm. 

Then he releases me, turns,  begins to walk.  I follow him.  I follow him!  Why am I not running in the opposite direction?  Fear roils through my gut - fear of him, of the storm, of the unknown - but I walk, and keep walking, squelching through peat and mud, following the dim light of his lantern until I am too tired to remember what fear feels like.  The path is narrow and winds forever up a hill I cannot make out in the gloom.  I can’t see it’s absence either, the side that drops into nothing.  I can feel it though - it is from that side that the wind and rain attack. 

And then it happens.  Lightening cracks across the sky in anticipation and the path beneath my feet crumbles and disappears.  I fall, my stomach hitting the hard earth, and then I begin a slide towards nothing. 

My hands scrabble at rocks and mud, then wrap, finally, mercifully, around a thick root.  It is the only thing holding me back from the void.  With a shuddering jerk the root gives way a few inches and my feet scrabble to find purchase where there is none.  My hands are bleeding and my arms and shoulders scream in agony.  The light of the lantern suddenly shines down on me and I look up. The young man I followed is looking for a way down, a way to reach me.  But the thing is…I know he won’t save me.  Even as he inches down the broken earth, I know the root will give.  I know when it will give.  He will be close enough to save me.  He will anchor his feet against a jutting rock and just as he reaches for me the root will tear violently from the ground and I will fall.

It happens.  Exactly like that.  The root gives.  For one shattering moment time stops, and for that one instant I can see his eyes.  They are bleak and hopeless.

Then I am falling.  I am screaming.  The wind  pushes my dress, and my head tilts down as I cartwheel through the air.  I scream as the ground approaches me.  I scream until the ground crushes the sound from my lungs.  And then I die.



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Mia woke with a start, not sure where she was, and, for an insane moment, before she felt the chill of tile floor beneath her cheek, not sure she was really alive.  What the hell?  People weren’t supposed to die in their dreams.

“Mia…Mia.  Can you hear me?”

Mia blinked and tried to focus on the face swimming above her.  A man. Not her father.  Where was she?  Her eyes darted quickly around.  A forest of legs and feet surrounded her - sneakers, sandals, toenails painted pink and chipped. 

“Are you alright, Mia?”

It was Mr. Ellis, the Spanish teacher, who hovered above her.

“I…I’m fine.”  Her voice sounded weak and scared.  She swallowed.  “I”m fine,” she repeated, her voice more steady this time.  She sat up cautiously and the forest of legs and feet shifted, reforming into a new nightmare, almost as scary as the one she’d just awakened from. 

She was surrounded by the entire Spanish class.  Some of the kids in the back were even standing on desks and chairs to get a better view of the freak show. A dozen different emotions registered on their faces, concern, surprise, amusement.  But the current connecting each of them was the hint of glee in their eyes - elation that they were here, a part of this, a part of something less mundane than pop quizzes, conjugations, and who did what last weekend.  When a girl in the front row pulled a cell phone out of her purse Mia lurched to her feet. "I'm ok.  I just fell."  Had she been screaming?  She swallowed hard.  Please no screaming. 

Mia brushed off her jeans and slid into her seat.

“You are as white as a sheet,” Mr Ellis said.

“I just fell.”  She was the only one in her seat.  Just like she’d been the only one on the floor a minute ago.

“It didn’t look like just a fall.”

“I fell asleep,” Mia said finally when he continued to hover over her.  A twitter of laughter sounded behind her but she kept her focus on Mr. Ellis.  Please stop.

Mr. Ellis looked worried, but as the seconds of normalcy stretched into a minute, Mia could see the concern begin to ebb. And hidden behind his concern, Mia could see the same current of glee that had infected the teenagers surrounding them.  She couldn’t blame him.  Not really.  From what she’d seen passing by the door on her way to class, the teacher's lounge looked like a pretty dull place.  With a little creative editing,  the story of her trip to the floor could liven things up a bit - especially if her scream had registered in prime time and not just in her dream.

“I fell asleep.” She repeated.

Finally, reluctantly, Mr Ellis stepped away from her desk.  "Alright class.  Show's over.  Everyone, back to your seats."  He clapped his hands for emphasis and gradually disorder became order and everyone switched from outright staring to the occasional furtive glance.  Mr. Ellis returned to the front of the class, calling out a question as he did so. “Derrick, cuál es tu alimento preferido?

“Azul?”

“No.  Try again.”

The last fifteen minutes of Spanish class dragged slowly by.  Mia spent those minutes with her eyes glued to her desk, urging the clock forward with her mind.  When the bell finally rang she gathered her things slowly, giving the rest of the class the extra time they needed to tell fifty of their closest friends what the new girl had done in Spanish class. If she timed it right she could slip into World History just before the bell rang.

"Miss Haver...A word please."

Mia was half tempted to pretend she didn’t hear him and bolt for the door, but the thought that he might follow her into the hallway squelched the impulse.  Out of the corner of her eye she could see she wasn’t the only student lingering in Spanish class.  Ben Green was there, not pretending to be anything but curious.  She had two classes with Ben but they’d never met.  He was a loner, by preference it seemed.  She’d figured that out pretty quickly.  School had only started two weeks ago, but it was a small school - it hadn’t taken Mia long to get an idea of the pecking order.  She knew Ben’s older brother was a hotshot on the football team and she’d seen him wave Ben over to his table during lunch.  Ben always shook his head, preferring to eat alone. 

“I said Miss Haver.  Have you had a recent name change, Ben?”

The boy shrugged nonchalantly. "Nope.  Had a question about the assignment."

Like….should he bother to do it? Like...was this Spanish class or Algebra?  Mia had already pegged Ben as an indifferent student who did just enough to get by, or maybe a little less. He usually sat by the window and stared outside, ignoring everything inside, except the bell that released him from Spanish.  He was dawdling because he was bored and getting a few extra details on the new girl's nose dive was slightly more entertaining than whatever was going on in the hallway right now.

Mr. Ells wasn't buying it either.  He took off his glasses and laid them on his desk.  "Read pages 101-175 in the textbook and answer the questions at the end of the chapter.  Just like it says on the board."

Ben glanced over to the blackboard, then dropped his pack onto a nearby desk and began an unconvincing fishing trip through it.  "I should write that down."

Mr. Ellis sighed...."Get to class Ben."

"You got a pen?"

"The assignment is in the syllabus..."

"Lost my syllabus.”  By then Ben had to know that he wasn’t going to be getting any extra dirt.  He was just enjoying the process.

"It's on the web page."

"Oh.  What's the url again?"

"Go Ben."

"You don't want me to do the assignment?"

"Go Ben."

Ben finally gave up.  He grinned at her and Mia almost returned the smile before she remembered he was being an asshole.  She’d never seen him smile before.  Ben looked average in almost every way, average height: nearly six feet,  average hair: dark brown, average eyes: lighter brown.  But his smile lit up those eyes and invited reciprocity.  “Have fun, Mia.”  Winking at her,  he hoisted his pack onto his thin shoulders and sauntered from the room.  She stared after him, wishing she could follow.  Mr. Ellis cleared his throat.  The interrogation was brief and embarrassing:

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“You still look a little pale.”

“I’m fine.”

“Maybe you should go see the nurse.”

Oh God no.  “I’m really really fine.  I just fell asleep.”

The good news: Mia didn't have to go see the nurse.  The bad news: he called her dad.