Excerpt: Recurring Dreams

Lucy had had enough and opened the curtain on the window. A shadow with two burning, gleaming eyes stared back at her. Her heart raced. She was angry. Lucy pushed herself through the shadow into the window land and closed the curtain behind her. The smell of liver sandwiches vanished. A light, cool scent infiltrated her sleep. It smelled of lavender. She had used lavender soap to wash her face before she had gone to sleep. Lavender crept by her ears and into her nostrils and past her cheeks, down her neck to her breasts. Half her nightgown was gone; she wore lavender only. The shadow did not move from where he had met her. She could not see his eyes, but he felt hot and burned the air around him. She touched his ashy skin and retracted her finger immediately. It was singed the color of lavender. She touched the burnt finger to her lips and sucked out the pain. She spit it on the ground and a little hole formed where her saliva eroded the soil. The shadow touched the hole and a sprig of lavender grew there. The shadow picked the sprig for Lucy and put it in her hair. She was now wearing a long flowing white gown, like her nightgown but made out of silk instead of cotton. She drew her fingers across the fabric and they lit up with cool moisture. Dew dropped to the earth from her fingertips. Sprigs of lavender and freshly cut grass grew where they landed. The shadow bent over and smelled the new growth. Lucy joined him on the cool soil and pressed her hot forehead to the ground. A rush of cold spread all the way down to her toes. Where Freddie bit her, her big toe still throbbed slightly in the early morning. The shadow touched Lucy’s cheek and Lucy began to cry. Her tears made lavender. Her hair touched the ground and little streams flowed and wetted the earth. The sun boiled up her work but she persisted with the shadow through the heat to remake her creations and make lavender.

The sun dropped slowly down ever closer and closer to where Lucy and the shadow were planting gardens of flowers and little streams of water and bees and insects and little mammals. The sun was on a track towards the earth, the horizon, boiling and burning as she went. Lucy and the shadow shimmered in her light and shivered. Lucy was afraid. The shadow was afraid of turning to dust. The sun burned the earth black. The earth was a blank canvass, only to be filled by the shadow and Lucy and their vain attempts to renew the earth. The earth was too hot for them. They cowered next to the window, hoping for escape. The curtains would not open. Perhaps they were caught on a nail. Lucy tugged but they would not budge. Her hand scrapped on something and blood trickled down to the earth and made more sprigs of red lavender. Lucy stared cross eyed at it but did not understand. The shadow was disintegrating into ash from the sun’s heat. Lucy held onto his hand and dust came off in her fingers and fell to the rusted earth. Lucy was feverish. She tossed and turned on her blankets. Lavender and blood trickled onto the cotton of her nightgown. Freddie licked her ear. The shadow held onto her hand. The sun boiled. The earth went black from light. Lucy trembled. The shadow cried. He cried out, calling out to the sun to stop, stop, please, just for the lavender. Let the lavender be.

Lucy took action and grabbed a sprig of lavender and pulled the shadow’s hand and dragged him flying across the night day sky into the valley, the hollow valley, the damned valley, the broken jaw of our lost kingdom. There were no eyes there, no more eyes to cry and Lucy felt afraid. Her heart was screaming to be rescued from her body, it beat against her rib cage and called foul. It committed crimes against her soul and kicked and yelled and the shadow touched Lucy’s chest and the pain subsided. The shadow’s eyes burned by the reflection of the sun. The sun and the shadow’s eyes were at duel. Lucy cowered in the hollow valley. Flecks of shadow swam away in the still wind and the shadow fried them up. The fell onto Lucy’s tongue and she cried out. The shadow placed a hand on her head and stroked her hair and his eyes burned and the sun boiled and the earth went black. Mountains rose up out of the darkness behind them. They were a pale blue. All along their ridges grew clumps of lavender.