Julia Dream

Verse 3: Am I Really Dying?

Will the misty master break me?

Will the key unlock my mind?

Will the following footsteps catch me?

Am I really dying?

Part 4

10

Gwen sat in the chair in the corner of Jake’s hospital room. She had no more tears left to cry. Every day for the last eight days she had come to St. John’s to see her dying husband. And every day she would ask herself why. Jake had tried to kill her… twice. He had a psychotic episode, then a psychotic break, that ended with several people dead and Jake himself driven to suicide. All because of a fucking dream! And yet, here Gwen sat, mourning the inevitable death of her husband.

“Shall I set up last rites for your husband, Mrs. Chambers?” This was the nurse at the makeshift nursing station outside the door of Jake’s room just two days prior.

It took everything Gwen had not to laugh out loud. Had Jake been the only patient in the ward, perhaps she would’ve thought differently, but four days ago they had brought in an inmate from Pontiac prison. From what she was able to overhear, the guy’s name was Clarence Osterhoff and he was serving a 33-year term for the death of his wife and children. She remembered the trial from a few years before. Osterhoff had been named by a low-level Chicago mobster who flipped on a plea deal.

Though the world didn’t have much use for the mob anymore, it still existed. Drugs and guns were still the name of the game, but modern-day society found it much more palatable then when Gwen was a child. The cartels from Mexico, in association with the Chinese fentanyl suppliers, had a wide and deep net in the United States. The middle-men mobsters were more like ancient relics with the new system of drug trafficking. Running guns wasn’t even as lucrative and enjoyable as it was thirty years ago. There was money to be made, however, in the rampant and ongoing Chicago gun trade. Chicago was the poster child for guns run amok, and politicians on both sides used it to score political points. None of them would ever think of doing, or suggesting, anything to alleviate the crisis. Hell no! That would take away a perfectly valid, and seemingly eternal, point of moral superiority! No, no! Let those guns keep a-runnin’.

The only thing the Chicago mob kept clear of (I suppose the Italian and Irish legacy mob still had some form of morality) was child trafficking. In fact, such trafficking was nearly non-existent in mob-loving cities. Something to be said there, I think.

Clarence Osterhoff, though, was just an accountant. But he had overplayed his hand, apparently, when it came to gambling. Typical, right? So, in order to prevent Tony “Four-Fingers” from paying him a visit, he chose to strike a deal with the mob and become their accountant. Apparently, their last accountant had a freak boating accident after it was found out that he was banging the boss’s daughter. Then Osterhoff’s boss got caught in a loan-sharking scheme, and the Feds came down pretty hard. There was an FBI raid at some secondary offices, and a couple of arrests, as well. That’s where, ironically, Tony “Four-Fingers” flipped and named Osterhoff. The boss went into a rage and threatened him with his life and the untold horrors that awaited his wife and kids. So, Osterhoff thought it prudent to murder his family to protect them.

Osterhoff now laid in the bed in the room across the hall, trying to recover from shiv wounds to his abdomen, upper back, and neck.

“Mrs. Chambers, shall I set that up for you?” the nurse asked again.

Gwen smiled wryly and raised her eyebrow. “No, I think not. God wants nothing to do with my husband. And I’d be willing to bet that my husband wants nothing to do with God.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the nurse answered.

As Gwen turned away to walk to Jake’s room, she saw the sheepish woman make the sign of the cross. A Catholic! Oy vey! The thought had forced Gwen to stifle another chuckle. That was two days ago, and Jake’s condition, though critical, had remained unchanged. So, here she sat, waiting for him to die. In the eight days that she had come to visit him, each visit around four hours long, Jake’s eyes had never stopped their movement. She had heard that REM sleep only lasted a few minutes at a time, and occurred several times a night, for the typical human being. Furthermore, she had never heard of comatose patients showing visible signs of REM sleep. Nor had the doctors. Jake was something new, something of an aberration. Did that mean that he was close to the surface of the waking world? If he was this close, then why couldn’t he come out of it? These were questions that, as of yet, had no answers.

Often, Gwen would look at the scar that sat smack-dab in the middle of Jake’s forehead. The flame of anger inside of her would flare at the sight of it. Knowing what he did to get here was bad enough. The reason why he did those things was too monumentally insane to accept. But she still loved him. She had no answer for that, either. Gwen simply knew that she did, and that she must be here for Jake in his last days. Her and the kids, whom she had sent to her mother’s place in Fairview Heights, a suburb of East St. Louis, they would need years of therapy to cope with all that had happened in the last few weeks.

Gwen stared at Jake, angry and forlorn. Then his breathing changed. For eight days it had been calm and nearly soundless. Now it was rapid and getting deeper. She looked at the vital signs monitor and watched as his heart rate began to climb. The monitor began to beep in alarm. She had given the doctor, as Jake’s Power of Attorney, a DNR order. As she watched his last moments play out on the hospital bed, she changed her mind.

The door opened and the nurse came through. No panic was in her eyes, but neither did she have a crash cart in tow.

“Save him!” Gwen yelled, panic rising as quickly as Jake’s heart rate.

“Mrs. Chambers, you gave the hospital the order to-”

“I know what I said, goddammit! I don’t care! I rescind the order! Save him!”

“Yes, ma’am,” the nurse obeyed. But Gwen could see the mild expression of disdain. The nurse opened the door to the room. “Code red! Crash cart, now!”

In moments, the room was a flurry of activity. There were only the two nurses, but they moved like clockwork. The one who had come in first grabbed the crash cart brought in by the other, and immediately pulled out the automatic defibrillator, what they call an AED. Then she pulled down Jake’s blanket and gown and began placing pads. The other nurse pulled the stainless-steel tray table over to the bed and began preparing multiple injections. Over the loudspeaker she heard, “Doctor Allgeier to the Corrections Wing, Code Red! Doctor Allgeier to the Corrections Wing, Code Red!”

The first nurse had only placed three AED pads when Jake went into cardiac arrest. The highest number Gwen had caught for his heart rate had been 163 beats per minute. Now, it was zero. He was flatlining. He was dying. She began to cry. As the world blurred through her tears, time had begun to blur in her mind. The constant beep of the vital sign monitor, telling her that her husband had flatlined, was like a tornado siren in her ear.

“AED ready! Clear!”

Gwen watched her husband’s blurred body convulsed with the shock. The beep continued. Doctor Allgeier burst through the door.

“Where are we?” he asked hurriedly.

“First shock administered, no response.”

“Nancy,” he said to the second nurse, “get the paddles. Lisa, shock him again.”

“AED ready! Clear!”

Another convulsion. The beep continues.

“Lisa, standby, injecting half a milligram epinephrine! Get the bag.”

Lisa turned to the cabinet and reached in to get the resuscitator. At the same time, Nancy rolled through the door with the paddles.

“Charge to 300 joules!” commanded Dr. Allgeier.

Lisa had found the resuscitator and put it over Jake’s mouth and nose and began to squeeze rhythmically. Allgeier ripped the shock cords from the pads on Jake’s body and then held the paddles out for Nancy to apply the gel. Just like on television, the doctor rubbed the paddles together and placed them on Jake’s chest.

“Three hundred joules! Clear!”

Nancy pulled the resuscitator away from Jake’s face and Doctor Allgeier zapped him. The beep indicating Jake’s flatline stopped for half a moment, then continued. Gwen could only stand silently and watch. Her husband was about to die of kidney failure after weeks of strange behavior that culminated in a psychotic break. Will this count as a suicide? She had no idea where the thought came from, but it sickened her.

Doctor Allgeier progressed through 350 joules, 375 joules, and 400 joules. Each time, Jake’s flatline was momentarily interrupted and then resumed. Finally, nearly out of breath and staring at Jake blankly, the doctor stole a glance at the clock on the wall above and behind Gwen.

“Time of death, eleven thirteen AM.”

Gwen dropped to her knees.

11

Jake bursts through the roof of the cottage and takes flight. He gains altitude quickly and banks down and to the left. The Sapphire Tower stands stark before him, rising into the sky almost endlessly. Jake wonders if the Tower of Babel was just as imposing and impressive a structure. He sees her and her host, Klytemenester, Minister of Roses. He makes a bee line for her, for he has a question that desperately needs an answer.

The flight to Kly is only a few moments long, but Jake revels in it, nonetheless. The wind in his hair, the freedom of movement. Jake the Hulk loved the extended jumps, but this Jake, Neo Jake, loves to fly. He is unbound from the earth below.

Jake pulls up short of Kly and gives her a nod of his head in greeting. Kly turns her opaque eyes to him, an expression of concern evident in her features.

“I see you have found the dress,” her voice is cold and hard. “What are your intentions, Jake?”

Inside, he is pleading. Outside, he remains calm and forthright. “I must know where you stand, Kly. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I need to know that you’re with me on this.”

She draws herself up and approaches Jake with a regal air. “Julia is my queen, Jake. I will serve her until the end. Do not ask me to choose a side, because there are no sides for me. I helped you because I knew what you meant to her. But a betrayal of her trust and her love would be unwise.”

Kly nods towards the plaza below. Jake follows her eyes and sees the plaza full of the red prismatic roses. He can see them spreading throughout the streets like blood flowing through previously empty arteries. Then he sees twinkles of gold burst from each flower. He can’t tell from looking at them, but Jake knows that they are fairies.

“I am the Minister of Roses and the Lord of Hosts. Do you intend to test my power?”

The threat is as clear as the invisible shield protecting the Sapphire Tower. Jake, however, knows something that Kly does not. His power will be infinitely more than hers when this journey reaches its end. He hopes that he doesn’t have to do the unthinkable. To do it in the world he “belongs to” seemed only natural over the last few weeks. It served a higher purpose to commit those acts of horror. But Jake doesn’t want to kill Kly, or any of her fairies.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, my lady. Such a tragedy does not belong in the Sapphire City.”

Jake’s threat is much softer than Kly’s had been, but just as obvious. He gives her a respectful nod of his own, then takes off towards the balcony at the top of the tower where he knows Julia will be waiting. From his pocket, Jake hears a small squeak. It’s Harvey the Mini-Wallbanger. The squeak isn’t one of protest or fear, but one of warning. He can feel it. There is not much time left. He is dying.

Instinctively, which comes as a huge surprise, Jake narrows his bridge to the Waking World to that of a tether. The orange monarch butterfly clinging to his back takes flight and is quickly left behind as Jake climbs higher and higher. She can’t know about that bridge. Not until the last moment. This is why he’s staying outside of the tower’s shield until he reaches the top. He wants no form of alerting Julia to anything outside of what she expects.

At last, Jake reaches the pinnacle and gazes finally upon the face he hasn’t seen since that fateful dream. Julia is there, on the balcony. Her eyes gleam, her hair blows slightly in the breeze, her smile melts his heart in an instant. This is why he went through all the events of the last few weeks.

“Jake, my love,” Julia says quietly, her words breathy and inviting. “Come…”

He floats to the balcony, no more than thirty feet away. A shiver runs through his body from head to toe as he passes through the shield protecting the tower. He touches down in front of Julia. He barely notices that the aureole no longer sits upon her head. Instead, he sees her milky white skin, her flowing, white locks, her penetrating sapphire eyes, and her lithe body barely hidden by the sheer, layered dress of white. Julia lifts her hand to Jake’s face and cups his left cheek. He can’t speak.

“You have come far to find me, your Velvet Bride. Are you ready for me, Jake?”

He still can’t speak; he can only stare into her eyes. All thoughts of what he must do are lost in his trance.

She purses her lips and softens her eyes. “Come now, you silly goose. Snap out of it. We have business to attend to.”

“Yes…” It is all that Jake could blurt out.

He follows her into the room beyond the balcony and its glass door. The black and red monarchs flutter into the air and land delicately on the balcony’s railing. Sunlight flows in from the small, circular window to Jake’s right. Identical circular windows are found ahead of him and to his left, the deep blue sky of approaching sunset is the only thing visible through them. In the center of the room is a large, butterfly shaped bed. There is no frame and no box spring, only a four-foot-thick mattress dressed in thin and thick blankets of varying red hues. But the most striking attribute of the room is the mirror-covered outer wall. Jake’s eyes return to Julia, who is walking (almost slinking) towards the bed and removing her dress.

Her body is even more picturesque than Jake could’ve ever imagined. Toned muscles extend and contract beneath the taut, milky white skin. There is a stirring between his legs as his stare rises above her legs. She’s perfect, he thinks. Julia’s back reminds him of a swimmer, strong but not mannish. Her hair flows like a white waterfall down her back. She stops and turns her head to the left, eyes looking down at the hardwood floor.

“I believe you have something that belongs to me,” she commands.

Then she does an about-face, exposing to Jake her ample breasts, flat stomach, and downy-white nether region. Jake can barely contain himself, and he walks towards Julia with the blue, velvet wedding dress over his shoulder all but forgotten. Also nearly forgotten is his reason for being in this room. The only thought in Jake’s head is sex. The basest feature of human manhood, sex, and not just for procreation, has overtaken every fiber of his being. He stares her down as he gets closer, and she appears to understand the thought that is written across Jake’s forehead. Jake grabs her roughly by her arms, just below the shoulders, and slams his lips into hers. He feels like an animal, not worried that he might hurt her. Then a quiet squeal erupts from his right pocket.

Jake disengages his lips from hers and locks his eyes onto hers. It is a moment that feels like hours.

“Forgive me, Dreamboat Queen,” he says to her, almost out of breath. “We have a ceremony to attend to. And my body is quickly dying.”

Stepping back from her, Jake pulls the dress from his shoulder and bows his head slightly as he holds it out to Julia. He can only hear the sweet, chiming laughter of his Velvet Bride, but he can see her face in his mind’s eye. If he were any other man, then he thinks that her beauty would kill him.

“What a king you shall make for me, Jake the Hulk! Jake the Cyborg! Jake the Digital Warrior!” As she takes the dress, Jake dares to look up at Julia. “Soon, my love, death will never touch you!”

As Julia puts on the velvet dress, a new crown appears on her head. Not the simple aureole Jake had seen her wear before, but a much fuller ringlet of shimmering and prismatic titanium. Sunlight glints off of the crown’s reflective surface and lights up the room thanks to the mirrors. Jake imagines a disco ball for a split second. Despite the velvet dress’s slinkier design, it changes Julia from voluptuous, love-seeking princess to demure, power-hungry queen. Harvey, the miniature armadillo, squeals again from Jake’s pocket. For the second time, though, his bride doesn’t seem to notice it. But it reminds Jake of what must be done.

Julia pivots to Jake’s left and begins to walk towards, and then parallel to, the mirrors. The dimensions of the room are small enough that the angle between the mirrors creates a near infinite reflection. The image is dizzying as Jake follows her around the room.

“There is no doubt that your conversations with Klytemenester and Jason have made you aware that the World of Death is ruled by my brother, Jeron. There is also no doubt that you have bridged the gap between his world and mine. Jeron will be waiting once the gap is permanently bridged.”

Julia walks the perimeter like a military leader, head bowed to the floor and hands clenched together behind her back. Jake takes his eyes from her and glances at the black butterfly on his right shoulder. You think you have it all figured out, my love. But you shall know the bitterness of betrayal and the taste of my tears for doing it. He feels his stomach turn to acid with the thought.

“Your back will be turned to him when the portal opens. Stand firm, Jake. I will defeat him.” Julia flourishes her arm to the balcony behind him. “This is the ace up my sleeve.”

He does an about-face, a mirror image of the one Julia performed just a couple of minutes before. Hovering over the balcony is what appears to be another fairy. Instead of butterfly wings, however, this one’s wings are more like a dragonfly.

“Jake, meet Helene. She is Klytemenester’s twin sister. She is also the Sapphire Cleric and the Lordess of Illusion. She is the ‘magic’ of the Dream World, where her sister is the mechanism. A bit esoteric, right?”

She looks at him as she takes her place next to the hovering Helene. A bit? I’m not sure I understand any of it, honey! But he nods as though he agrees and understands her words. Julia gives her hand a dismissive wave, bows her head to Helene, and continues her circuit around the mirrored room.

“Klytemenester will handle my brother’s minions. The Death Horde is a monstrous bunch, but that doesn’t make them efficient warriors. My Lord of Hosts will keep them at bay. Helene will stabilize the portal your bridge creates. Then I can face Jeron on my terms. I must subdue him, for I cannot defeat him.” She turns towards him again and looks at him askance. “You will give me the power I need to subdue him.” It was almost a question… almost.

“As you command, my queen,” Jake says with a bow of his head. I will be the one doing the taking, love.

Julia continues to speak about Jeron, her brother and King of Death. But Jake isn’t paying attention. Sure, he’s watching her as she speaks, but his mind is running through the possible progression of events once the bridge is established. He already knows how Kly will most likely react. Will Helene react the same? Jake is pretty sure she will. It appears to be a four-front battle for Jake. He will need to syphon Julia’s strength as quickly as possible. Will I be able to? I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing! The voice in the back of his mind is having an anxiety attack, and the voice in the front of his head suddenly speaks up. Instinct, Jake! Instinct!

Are you ready, Jake?

I wanna say, ‘you’re damn right I am!’ But I don’t know… Can I trust my instinct?

“Jake,” says Julia, mildly perturbed. “Are you ready, Jake?”

He blinks rapidly and turns his head back and forth, looking for Julia. She is standing behind him and to his left. Jake can see her in his peripherals, and she looks more than a little miffed.

“Yes… yes, my love,” he stammers. “I was thinking only of finally being your king.”

“Indeed,” Julia says, holding the second syllable a moment or two too long. She walks towards him authoritatively. A step or two from Jake and she lets out a shrill laugh. She turns to face him with an ear-to-ear smile, “No need to be so nervous, Jake! We will win out to victory.”

Julia stiffens her neck and speaks loudly, “Helene, it is time. Bring the ceremony to order. The future king and I will await your word.”

Helene, who had been hovering stiffly since her arrival, does her best to give Julia a bow and says, “At once, my queen.”

The fairy disappears in a blue flash.

“Jake,” she speaks to him quietly. “I do hope you’re planning to be a more ‘ceremonial’ version of yourself. I don’t really feel like marrying a Digital Warrior.”

“Who would you choose me to be, Julia? I can be anyone.”

“I want you to be Jake. The Jake that Gwen married.” Julia purses her lips again and tilts her head down, keeping her eyes locked with Jake’s. “I want to be with her man.”

“But he’s just a man. Weak and vulnerable.” This is what Jake says, but not what he feels. Instead, he feels a rising anger towards this woman he is insatiably in love with. His jaw clenches. Jake knows what he did to his wife. Here in the Dream World, he can feel sorry for what he did to her. But the need to see these events through to their end did not allow him to feel the same with Gwen in the Waking World. The juxtaposition is maddening to him. For Julia to want the same man that Gwen married, though, seems to him sacrilegious.

“That’s where your true power lies, Jake, in your vulnerability. I need you to be powerful.”

Jake cannot argue with her point, but he doesn’t like it, either. Indeed, when he dispatched the good doctor, then the lawyer, he had been quite vulnerable. But he was able to channel his power from the Dream World into the Waking World and create some major mayhem. Yes, this is his key! Being himself will allow him to draw from himself in the Waking World. And as his body dies, he can draw power from himself as he enters the World of Death. It would be all the power he needed to successfully betray Julia and subdue her brother, too.

But Jake is not going to do it without some class. Neo Jake morphs into ‘everyday’ Jake who is clothed in a charcoal suit from turn-of-the-century England. Black wingtip shoes begin the ensemble and give a mild contrast to the charcoal gray of the suit. The pants are high-waisted like a tuxedo. The overcoat sports long, broad tails and is unbuttoned over a buttoned vest and a darker gray, high-collar shirt. Completing the outfit is a chest-covering Victorian bowtie clasped in the center with a silver broach in the form of a rose. Jake wears a top hat of the same charcoal color with a band of lighter gray at its base, he sports transparent blue nose-clamping sunglasses, and holds a black cane with an ornately carved butterfly as the handle. The red and black butterflies had flitted into the air when his transformation began, now they settle back on his shoulders. This may be Jake’s most vulnerable form, but the power flowing through him is intoxicating. His chances of pulling this off, he thinks, have gotten much better.

“A future king you are, Jake!” Julia’s smile is the warmest he’s yet seen since coming to her balcony. “Now I see exactly what Gwen saw in you. And now you’re mine!”

He keeps his cool even though his anger rises closer to its boiling point. He tried twice to kill his wife, yet he is now almost immeasurably angry at Julia for wanting to steal him from her. Jake’s heart skips a beat, and he takes a sharp breath.

“Are you well, Jake?” Julia asks without hesitation.

“I’m fine, your highness.” But he isn’t. In the Waking World, Jake’s body has begun the process of dying. His time is running critically short.

Luck is not completely gone, though, as Helene appears once more in the Sapphire Tower’s uppermost chamber. “The ceremony is prepared and ready, my Queen.”

“Very well, Helene.”

With a nod from Julia, Helene once again disappears. Then she levels her gaze at Jake, her lips pursed. Will I be able to betray her? She’s so beautiful! Julia turns her back to him and clears her throat loudly. Jake gets the hint. He steps forward and comes up on her right. Extending his elbow out, Julia puts her arm through his.

“This way, my love,” she says and leads him to a spot just about halfway between the bed and the room’s edge on the north side. She makes Jake her pivot point and spins him around until they are, once again, facing the bed. “Are you ready for this?”

He is about to answer when she taps her foot on the floor. Before any words can escape his mouth, the floor beneath them begins to descend. But it’s not the whole floor, only the three-foot-by-three-foot piece that they’re standing on. Beneath the floor of Julia’s room was nothing but darkness. The light from the room, now several feet above them and receding quickly, shifts from white to yellow. Jake feels the platform speed up, and a wind begins to blow around them. The entire experience is disconcerting and frightful. He turns to look at Julia and all he can see is a faint glint in her eyes and a dull sheen on her hair. Nothing else can be seen. It’s as close to blind as Jake has ever been. A feeling of vertigo starts to plague him, and he tilts his head forward to compensate. It doesn’t help.

Without warning, Jake’s abdomen tightens and his head and shoulders tilt forward. The action is accompanied by a quick exhale of breath. His chest is tight, and he sees stars in his vision. He knows something terrible is happening to his body in the Waking World. He must hang on.

Julia doesn’t seem to notice Jake’s moment of distress, for which he is thankful. Nothing can clue her into what he is about to do. The space beneath them begins to brighten. Jake fears a worse case of vertigo is coming. His fear comes true. The elevator, the best word to describe it, he thinks, is descending so quickly that Jake only sees a blur. He guesses that there is floor after floor of… something. Rooms? Workspaces? Perhaps he’ll have to take a good long walk through every floor of the tower to learn and inventory its contents. Jake also wonders if there is an ‘Obsidian Tower’, the World of Death’s analog to the Sapphire Tower. I will have lifetimes of exploring to do when all of this is over.

But those thoughts do nothing to help his vertigo. The blur is dizzying, and Jake is beginning to not feel well. Another spasm catches Jake unawares, and, this time, Julia notices.

“What is ailing you, my love?” The look of concern is genuine.

Jake can’t blame her for her concern, after all, one of her suitors did die at the altar. Louis the Sixteenth?! Wild… But the thought is short-lived. He turns his eyes to hers, “Feeling a bit nauseous is all. This is not my idea of a fun way to travel.”

He isn’t lying, of course, but he isn’t telling the truth, either. Aside from the spasms (Jake hasn’t figured out what they’re all about yet), the ride is making him queasy. He hopes the ground floor isn’t much further away. Suddenly, his mind fills with a picture of a person. A man. His skin reminds Jake of rust. The man can’t be more than an inch or two taller than Jake, but his physique is rather astounding. His hair is jet black and falls straight down his face and over his shoulders. Upon his head he wears a circlet of five(?) feathers. There is a bow in his right hand and its quiver on his back. He is shirtless, wearing only aged and worn, tanned leather pants and matching moccasins.

Howler in the Wind… Tate-ho. Perhaps, one day, I will find you. As quickly as the image and the thought have come, so they go. An instant later, Jake sees Louis XVI in his mind. He can see the arrogance in the dead king’s image. He understands that, if the king were to be standing in front of him at this very moment, Jake would snap his neck out of disgust. Should all of this end the way Jake hopes it will, will he take the time to find snobby Louis in the World of Death? Nope! The thought is immediate and forceful. What the hell did Julia ever see in him?

The image of the French king fizzles from his mind’s eye the way that the real king, apparently, fizzled from the Dream World. Then came the next image.

“Gaius was a handsome devil, don’t you think?” Julia’s voice startles him. “’Tis a travesty that he had such poor command of that damned alligator. Gaius would have made an excellent king.”

She smiles at Jake, almost nonchalantly. She doesn’t have his full attention, but she has enough of it to elicit more anger and jealousy. This time, though, she does it through a veiled attack on Jake’s manliness. She’s settling for me? The idea of it maddens him. She knows my power is greater than these three combined, but she’s settling for me? Jake takes in her expression of longing and chides himself for ever feeling anything for Julia Dream. Lowering his eyes to the dress, he studies it for the first time.

Hidden in the stitching, barely perceptible, are animals. Jake sees a cougar, a cobra, an owl, a crocodile. Many animals he sees, and there, on her left breast and over her heart, Jake can see an armadillo. Then he sees the hawk. The dress is a memory of those who had come before him. That’s why he, the chosen one, had to have the dress to cross into the tower. He had to infuse the dress with his power and give himself over to her. All this time, Jake has believed that all of this was a mutual choice. Julia had chosen him, now he must choose her. But he knows that’s not what is truly happening. It’s not a choice… it’s a submission. The strong are rarely coerced into submitting to anybody or anything. The one exception for the strong is addiction. Not necessarily to drugs and such. But to power and control. The strong expect others to submit to them.

It’s not easy to get a king to submit, is it Julia? But kings can die. And that is why Jake is here and Julia is not yet married. Jake prays silently that his body lives long enough to see this weirdness to its end.

All of a sudden, the memories of the tower are left behind and Jake and Julia plunge into a tube through which the ‘elevator’ continues to descend. Jake crosses his arms to make sure that a rogue limb doesn’t scrape the side of the shaft. The platform slows significantly and rapidly, compressing Jake from head to toe. Then they are out of the shaft.

The space they are in is large beyond compare. Jake realizes that they are on the ground floor of the Sapphire Tower. He can see the cavernous space stretches away from him on the opposite side, a ribbon of light at the bottom of it signifying the colonnaded entrance to the tower. Thousands and thousands of people, dreamers and dreamed, stand waiting for the ceremony to begin. Main lighting for the space comes from three enormous skylights and thousands of candles lit throughout. Jake dares to look below him, and there he sees a large dais getting larger by the second. The view is terrifying for him, but he keeps his cool and calm.

The platform finally comes to a stop on the grand dais, decorated profusely with representations of the Sapphire Tower, totem animals of various sizes (an armadillo is set above the wedding arch in the center of the dais), and flowers galore. Upon each flower there rests a prismatic red butterfly. Julia raises her right hand into the air to the loud cheers of the gathered crowd. She looks to him and gives him a nod. Jake raises his left hand into the air to even greater cheers.

“Come, my love,” Julia says to him, her smile pursed on her lips. “Destiny awaits.”

Click Here to Continue to Part 9