Dreams That Wake You Up Twice

We were walking along the skyway, dusting the moon. The world was so far away, and yet, it was just at the ends of my fingertips, your hands in mine. It was the same dream from a few nights ago—the same, familiar, gruff voice whispering: "your heart left me a message, my dear, it told me to reach for the moon and climb through the stars. To let all of the clouds kiss me and pull me close. Holding me tightly, forever in your celestial embrace, I found you there…here, let us stay.”

Something about this vision was different, it called to me in ways I couldn’t explain. Just a few more seconds… I can finally see who it was…

The smell of dripping clouds and wet spoolwood pierced the confines of my deepest dreams. When I awoke— I wasn’t in my bed, I was on someone else’s floor, somewhere I was sure I had never been.

It was cold, bone-searing cold. Dripping drops of something warm puddled around me, dripping from somewhere far above, or so it seemed. My fan must have lost itself. I looked around, no lily-pad lamps, no glow-in-the-dark stars, no twinkle lights. No dark blue walls. None of that—and yet I was not outside. I half expected to see trees, but when I looked above me, something far worse greeted my eyes. The ceiling was nothing more than pitch-black darkness, stretching miles above. It appeared I was in a cathedral, a monastery, or a cave of some sort. Floor to ceiling bookshelves in dark cherry hand-carved wood surrounded me as far as the eye could see, not a speck of dust present. The spines looked tattered, the leather coming undone at the seams, the gold embossing dotted by time. There were so many books, so many books.

“Ah, princess, I see you have awoken from your fall?”

A gruff voice sounded from one of the corners.

A Fall? … Princess? … Is he talking to me?

I looked around, though nothing peculiar caught my eye. Through a series of stone columns, there were more walls with windows that looked out over frosted woodlands, barely visible through the arching lead-panes. Nearby the roaring flames from a fireplace took up another entire wall. A mirror nearly twice as tall hung precariously over the mantle, threatening to fall if the slightest grumble of the Earth presented. I could barely see my reflection in its smudged surface as I pondered this thought, how possible it would be for an upset in the ground beneath our feet. Though, I still wasn’t sure where “here” was.

I was pleased to see I still looked the same, albeit something was very different. It was as though my face had its same youthful glow, my hair was still wild. The only thing different about my cascading waves were the flowers and ribbons braided in like a crown. I was wearing a dress. Me, in a dress. This was definitely a dream. Maybe if I go back to sleep…

An explosion of light thundered across the room, interrupting my thoughts.

Thousands of candles dotted the vast darkness above, flickering small specks of light, like errant stars. Their snowy wax falling to the floor in brash clumps of tears, left to melt and harden where I had just lain. Each dripping drop felt like eyes. It was amazing how much beauty could exist amidst such chaos.

“Sorry about that,” the voice continued, still hidden amongst the shadows. “Someone will be around to scrape it up, shortly.”

Outside, the rain wasn’t just falling, it hammered the lead-window panes with unrelenting fury. Primal, rhythmic anger. We were miles from the nearest town, it seemed, and here I was trapped in the heart of a nightmare that was refusing to end, refusing to let me go, refusing to wake me up.

“You slept forever,” the gruff voice rasped from the edge of darkness.

It seemed to come from a large wing-back chair sitting amidst stacks of additional books—these evidently more well-used that the ones on the shelves. The figure sat, draped in nightfall, the crisp silken attire of a man well-made. A suit that pressed against his body as though it had been painted to bleed into the surrounding murk until he was less a person and more a void, spilling thoughtless ink from his wells. His being was silhouetted by the erratic glow of a single, guttural hiss emanating from deep within his throat. His words cut the air like the beast he was, dripping with the finest honey. His skin burned in the flames as he swallowed what little light remained in the room.

On the desk nearby, sat a black velvet box— a ring, of the finest blushed gold, with beastly prongs shaped like jagged flower petals, holding onto a large, well-polished stone. The flicker of which danced around the room as it trapped the lightening from outside with every bolt shot from the skies.

“I dreamed of this place, of you, your voice…” I whispered, my words catching every time the stone lit up. I was very aware of how small I sounded, how small I must have looked compared to him, to this room, to this place.

“No, my dear…” the figure replied, leaning into the shadows. His face barely illuminated by the roaring fire. His eyes were dark and storied, just like he was.

“You dreamt of leaving, of living another life. I brought you back…”

He paused, his eyes falling upon the ring.

“I brought you home…”

The rain suddenly picked up, drowning out the blood boiling up in my ears.

The figure reached for the ring, his fingers gently pulling it from the box. Around me the room shuttered, the books perked up on the shelves, it was as though they had come to life, one-by-one, in unison, just to see what I would say.

“In you, I found my missing chapters, the pages of words I could never speak to anyone else…” The figure let out a long, weary sigh as though he had been holding his breath for over a hundred years.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” he continued, his voice calm and collected. “The last time we did this, you nearly fell out of the tower, so I brought you here, back to your favorite place, but I must warn you…everything you see is a part of this world, this life… things come and go, I can’t keep them locked up forever to spare you….”

Just as the last of the words fell from his lips, a brigade of heavily enchanted brooms swept passed my bare feet. Their stiff bristles tickling the tips of my toes and brushing on the gruff marble like dozens of wild cat-claws as they nudged around me impatiently, picking up dust and errant drops of wax.

“I tried for the romantic tranquility of the clock tower...it is, after-all the highest point of my castle, but the hands moved—against my direct, implicit orders— trying to hug you—and…well, you know what happened next. It is wholly surprising because you love it here, and this place is just as equally alive and full of magic as they are…” he gestured to both the books and the brooms. “The castle, like myself, has a mind of its own, and can be a beastly, reckless thing if not properly loved. We both mean well…but never you mind that, I want you as comfortable and happy as possible.”

He leaned over to shoo the circling brooms from their myriad of wax-droppings, stepping over a wayward dustpan and a nearly-full trash bucket.

“Please, please…please, whatever you do, please give me a chance.”

The figure took my hand, holding it firm. His eyes were intensely focused and beckoning, like sirens over turbulent seas. He made all the storms and the confusion seem normal in those few fleeting seconds as he held me. The ring, in his other hand, shining brilliantly, waiting for my hand.

“You keep fighting this, falling into longer, deeper sleeps. Your soul isn’t used to the weight of my magic, but you need to be patient,” he whispered, his thumb caressing my fingers ever-so-gently. My hands swallowed in his.

“I cannot wait any longer, it has to be now, before you fall asleep again.”

The air was heavy against my skin as more syrupy words fell from his lips, stringing themselves into a bouquet of triumph.

“Will you bind your life to me, to this madness, to this place, forever?” he asked, his words a resolute shake, hints of his beastly, velveteen growl hidden. “Will you vow to live this life as my equal, my love, my wife? For better bitter or soiled ruin, in prosperity and light, even if the stars mute themselves to the water and you are tired? Will your dreams have teeth and spiral you back to my heavens?”

His fingers didn’t hesitate or tremble as they brought the rose gold ring up to my finger.

“Third from the heart,” he whispered, his eyes open, stared longingly in wait.

“Yes,” I whispered. The words losing themselves in a sudden bolt of light that seemed to shoot through the top of my head, down my spine and through my finger—as he slid the ring on. The ring wrapped itself tightly, anchoring me to a world I didn’t yet know. The stone and the storm growing more furious by the passing clouds. The enchanted brooms froze mid-sweep as though stunned, the candles shot sparks, flickering to a sudden stop. In that second, I saw the figures face—for what it was, not a shadow, or a mirage, but a man marked by terrifying beauty, shadowed magic—darkness that filled the room, swallowing us whole, entirely as we became one.

The room seemed to fall from beneath my feet, just as it had before. The smell of burning wood and rain dissipated, leaving the faint smell of tea and lavender in its wake. There were no more books, no more heavy rains. Just the idle hum of the air conditioner as comfort washed over.

“It was just a dream,” I gasped, choking. The night sweat cooled against my skin. My heart was ribbing out of my chest. It was just a nightmare. Just a nightmare.

But, something caught in the covers. A sharp, metallic tug snagged at the woven threads, stilling me as I pulled my hand back, confused. There it was, the rose gold claws of the ring tangled deep within my blankets. The stone sparkling in the morning twilight, catching the room aglow with wild, fiery sparks of light—holding deeply to the trapped shadow of the library’s fire—and the eyes of that beastly figure that had captivated me so.

The stone didn’t just reflect the sun, or the stars, or the moon and all it’s lightening, it captured those fawning worlds, swallowed them whole, before sending each back ten-fold, pulsing with venom and new life. It took a few seconds to unravel the ring from my bedding, my breath catching as each sparkle took on a new flame. Now that the shadows of dreamland had receded, the rings true beauty emerged. It wasn’t gaudy or ugly or masculine in any way, no, the ring was binding wild briars, delicately wrapped by the petals of an ancient god. Grasping tightly to a bed of lilies and two wilting roses. The initials R. M. holding the stone on either side.

I held my hand out in front of me as my feet touched the floors. They were much dirtier than normal, and there would be no brooms coming to clean them, but that was no matter. The unmistakable layer of dust paled in comparison to the stacks of books that littered the floor, their path leading to the edge of my room where my bedroom door stood slightly ajar, waiting for my presence. The ring felt heavier with each step as I trailed into the dark unknown.

The trail of books led, not to my kitchen table, my couch, or my front porch, but to my bookshelf. New books lined each shelf, wedged between some I had read once, and others I had turned the pages repetitively. Just at the center was a book that was slightly pulled out, in a darker binding than the others, and smelled like it came from the library from my dreams. The familiarity of spoolwood and rain called to my senses as the first set of pages fell open in my hands. The ink felt raw, new, full of life. The dust rattled at my feet, swirling around the edges of my pajamas as I stumbled through the first few sentences on the last page.

"...and then she awoke," the page read, the handwriting familiar, jagged, unknown. "She hadn't yet realized that some doors, some dreams, once opened cannot ever be closed. Especially when one takes her beastly vows."

The ring had begun to tighten on my finger, as though it the flowers were taking root, thorns ready to dig deeply into my skin. I shut the book, settling the dust as it dropped back onto the wood planks. Even the mirror at the end of my hallway seemed to turn at the thought of his presence. The world seemed darker, more dreary. It wasn't the drizzly skies of a summer rain, or the welcoming sun over warm skin. It was the flickering, amber glow of starlit candles, each one weeping over a life I could not fully live. Not with him, not with myself. His words felt like they would soon bury me whole.

I picked up another book. These words much darker.

"I told you," the figures words dripped from the page, "you cannot exist in a world that doesn't fit you anymore. It no longer exists, not as you knew it..."

As the last of the room fell from around me, evaporating into the pages of my dreams, I soon realized, the ring hadn't just followed me home, I had finally let the nightmare consume the only reality I had left.