Tangled Dreams

by Cecilia Dominic

  "Did she say anything else?"

  "Nah, she was mostly incoherent after that. I just got her in the car and to the E.R. and handed her off to Rizzo, the attending."

  "And the other two?"

  "Same story. October eighteenth and then this morning, the second without the bloody hands, but the third looked like she'd been in a fight with a barbed wire fence. I ended up taking them to DeKalb, and with them being confused, I followed the substance abuse protocol. The only difference was that the one last night was naked. At first people thought it was a convincing Halloween costume, but the poor girl was as out of it as the other two."

  "Did Rizzo do drug screens? Are they back yet? And are the girls still there?"

  "Yes, and he said they'd be in this morning. I can introduce you on my way home if you like." He looked at the now empty coffee cup, his poor judgment hitting him along with the jitteriness that occurs when too much caffeine meets too little sleep. But if he didn't go to Java Lemur, he wouldn't get to see the cute girl. "It'll be a while before I can sleep, anyway."

  "Good morning." The store proprietor called out from behind the counter and smiled when she saw Audrey. "Oh, good, you found me." She smoothed the red apron over her black jeans and a black silk blouse—not the blue satin dress from Audrey’s dream. "You wouldn't believe the favors I had to call in to get this place set up."

  A wave of dizziness washed over Audrey, and she plopped back on a chair carved to look like a throne. "Margaret?" she whispered. Whereas the dragon statue in the window could have been a coincidence, the woman standing in front of her assuredly was not. Her eyes sparkled behind lightly tinted green lenses, and her straight red hair fell around her shoulders in stylish layers. "Where's your dress?"

  "Maggie here, actually. Just don't call me Mags. It really pisses me off. As for the dress, it was a dream world manifestation." She walked around the counter and approached Audrey.

  Audrey massaged her temples, not sure if she wanted to run or stay and get her questions answered. Curiosity won. "So all that I dreamed last night… It was real?"

  "Yes. Did you suspect it might be?"

  "Well, no. Yes. Maybe?"

  Maggie patted her shoulder. "Don't worry, the dizziness will pass. It's a natural reaction to your paradigm shifting."

  Audrey looked at her with a frown. "What happened to the store that was here?"

  "The owner was going to take an extended vacation to India anyway to care for her sick mother, and then she was told by a spirit in a dream to close the store and sub-lease the space out in case the mother's illness turned out to be more than she expected. Don't worry—we'll have everything back to normal when she comes back."

  "Oh, gods, did you make the mother sick?" Maybe she should bolt if these beings, whatever they were, would do such a thing to an innocent old woman.

  "No, don't worry, she was already ill."

  Audrey exhaled and then asked. "So all those interesting people next door…?"

  Maggie folded her arms. "Which interesting people?"

  "There were some little guys who looked like garden gnomes, but bigger. Some chicks with wings who were worried about their weight. And some cloud of something that was fixing coffee drinks. But none of the regulars reacted like anything was strange."

  "You saw them?" Maggie clapped her hands. "That's incredible. You do have the gift!"

  Excitement flared in Audrey's chest, then was replaced by trepidation. "What gift?"

  "The gift of seeing, and going to, different planes. To the non-gifted customers, the creatures look like regular people. They get temporary access to this plane of reality today in exchange for setting this place up for me."

  "Lovely." Audrey leaned back, put her feet up on a plush purple velvet footstool, and covered her face with her hands. "Does this gift come with a return receipt? This is too much."

  Maggie sat on the red stool next to hers and put a hand on Audrey's shoulder.

  "Don't worry, you'll get used to it. Have you found your guide yet?"

  Audrey dropped her hands. "My what? This gets more complicated?"

  "Your guide to the Collective Unconscious. It's law 5HT-324, that every human novice shall have a spirit guide to help them navigate the unfamiliar territory of the dream and spirit worlds."

  Audrey shook her head, but her mood lightened at the thought she wouldn't be in this alone. "Nope it's just me so far."

  "It's not supposed to be me or the dragon Zin. That much I know. It's strange though." Maggie bit her bottom lip. "Has anything else tried to make contact with you?"

  "Nope, and I haven't seen the ghosts of past, present, or future, either. But I do have new sympathy for Ebenezer Scrooge."

  Maggie laughed. "That's a delightful tale. And Charlie was such a doll."

  "Charlie?"

  "Dickens. He could see us, you know. That's how he came up with the whole thing. It happened to his great uncle. The gift runs in families."

  "Right." Audrey stood. She wanted to thank Maggie for her time and get the hell out, but managed a polite, "I should go. I have to prepare for an interview."

  "Where?" Maggie pushed the glasses up on her head, took a feather duster from behind the stool, and flicked it over the window display shelves.

  "A new restaurant. I'm doing a behind-the-scenes review, and I'm applying for a serving job. I have to make this one good because everyone in the hospitality industry seems to know each other here, and it's only a matter of time before they figure me out."

  Audrey put a hand over her mouth. She didn't usually talk about her assignments or her secret identity, especially not to strangers.

  Maggie shrugged. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you spill your guts. It's part of my job as a Truth Seeker. It doesn't happen when I wear my glasses, but the tint on the lenses makes it difficult for me to fine-tune the displays."

  "Right, no problem." Audrey paused. She was already here, so she might as well get her questions answered. She was a journalist, after all. "Wait. Can you help me remember the rest of the dream? I feel like it's important, like I'm supposed to do something."

  "Yes, I can, and yes, it was. No wonder you're so confused." Maggie turned the sign to Closed and brought Audrey behind the counter and into a small office. "Just sit and relax, and I'll have you remembering in no time. Then you can ask me any questions you may have. I imagine there will be a lot."

  Audrey sat but couldn't relax, her desire for knowledge again warring with a sense that if she walked out now, she could forget the whole thing. Again, curiosity won. She only hoped that the proverb about the curious cat didn't apply to her.

  The E.R. still bustled when Charlie and Damien arrived.

  "I don't know what's in the water, Officer Lewis, but we got another crazy in here," said the triage manager at the front desk. "Doctor Rizzo's talking to him now."

  "We'll wait for him," Damien said. He glanced at the clock, which said nine-thirty. The jitters had worn off to be replaced by a crash, and he wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep.

  He and Charlie leaned against the wall across from the triage station, and Damien's eyelids grew heavy. He'd almost fallen asleep standing up when he heard gunshots. Without thinking, he snapped his gun out of its holster, and with Charlie behind him, ran into the chaotic ward.

  "Police! Is anyone hurt?" Charlie yelled at the mass of people that rushed past them. Damien couldn't tell if their injuries were new or what had brought them to the E.R. They shoved past the couple of nurses who tried to restore order and went down the hall, looking into rooms. Damien went left, Charlie to the right. The individual examination rooms stood empty except for one, in which all he could see was a pair of feet. He crept around the corner into the room and came upon Arthur Rizzo bleeding from wounds in his chest and abdomen.

  "Man down," he said into his radio, his voice thick. His training kicked in even though he was already in a hospital. "Medic!"

  "I.D.?" came Charlie's voice.

  "It's Riz
zo."

  3

  Maggie's golden eyes put Audrey right back into the dream where her memory left off.

  She stood in the cave with the dragon and folded her arms over her thudding heart. "Are you going to eat me?" She eyed the dragon's fangs.

  "Look, baby girl, the fact that you're here means you gotta help. There's something rotten in the state of the C.U."

  "The C.U.?"

  "Collective Unconscious. That's where you are, where dreams come from."

  Audrey looked around. She'd never dreamed anything like this, not as far as she could remember. "Since when is the Collective Unconscious a place? None of this makes any sense."

  The dragon rolled its emerald eyes. Audrey didn't know dragons could roll their eyes. This is turning into some strange dream.

  "Look, Audrey." The dragon lightly placed one clawed paw on Audrey's arm, its weight light but significant. Instead of a reptilian set of claws, it looked like a human hand covered in scales. "I know this all sounds weird, but trust me, I'm a vegetarian. Plus, you'd be able to smell it a mile off if I had any foul intentions. You have the potential to be a great Dream Weaver."

  She ignored the latter part, dismissing it as her dream ego. "You're…a vegetarian?"

  "Yep. So damsels and the like are safe. Eggplants aren't."

  "What do you do, grill them with your flame?" She imagined the purple dragon holding a stick with charred vegetables on it.

  "Something like that."

  She smiled. "Ah, what the hell? It's only a dream, after all."

  "There ya go, throw caution to the wind, live a little. Now make yourself comfortable. I'm afraid I don't have much for humans to sit on." The dragon sighed and gestured to the ground.

  "The floor looks fine."

  Audrey sat cross-legged by the hearth and put her hands on her knees. Her clothes had changed at some point. She now wore a skirt of rough-hewn brown fabric and a cream-colored blouse to match.

  "Guess I'm a peasant, huh?" She fingered the rough material. So much for dream ego. "But the Greeks were in modern clothes."

  "As you journey through the C.U., your aspect takes on different appearances unless you're powerful enough to assert your desired one. They are that powerful." The dragon sat on its haunches, its tail curled around its feet. "I do apologize, darling, I never introduced myself properly."

  "No worries. I'm used to my dreams starting in the middle of stuff and not worrying about social niceties."

  "Oh, this is more than a dream. Much, much more." He bowed with a flourish of one scaly hand. "I'm Zin."

  "Zen? Like the Eastern religion?"

  "Oh, no, honey, I'm not cut out for all that philosophy stuff. We reptiles don't have that much in the way of frontal lobes, you know." He tapped his head with an index claw. "No, it's Zin, as in Zinfandel."

  "As in the wine?"

  "The elixir of life, you mean! And you are…?"

  "Audrey Aurora Sonoma." She shook Zin's paw. "It's nice to meet you. You're named after my favorite wine."

  "Or maybe it was named after me." He winked. "Well, Miz Sonoma, you've walked here before, although you may not remember it, and your presence is strong. We need your help."

  "'We?'"

  Margaret entered as Audrey remembered.

  "Audrey Aurora Sonoma, meet Margaret of Cornwall, also known as a Truth Seeker and the missing aunt of King Arthur."

  "Really?" Audrey shook hands with the woman, who must have been centuries older than she looked. Dream weaver, truth seeker… These dream folks like their weird titles.

  "Really. When the others went back to Avalon, I stayed in the world and got recruited."

  "Recruited by whom?"

  "The Truth Seekers, an organization dedicated to law enforcement among supernatural beings."

  Audrey accepted a cup of tea from Zinfandel. "I didn't realize supernatural beings have laws."

  Zinfandel proffered a tray with delicate bone-colored porcelain pots and tiny teaspoons. "Sometimes they don't, either. But they do, otherwise human kind would be in a lot more trouble than they already are. Sugar or honey?"

  "What?" Audrey didn’t follow the subject change. He lifted the tray higher, catching her attention, and she said, "Oh, honey, please."

  "Yes, dear?"

  Audrey laughed. This was the most interesting dream she'd had in a long time.

  "So, anyway," Margaret said, "something is allowing too much commerce between here and the waking world."

  "Really? How do you know?"

  Margaret accepted a cup of tea from Zin. "Well, the C.U. has been in flux for a while. First, it almost became a ghost town, well, more than the normal ghosts. People are getting less REM sleep. You do know what that is, right?"

  Audrey thought back to the psych class she took years ago. "It's Rapid Eye Movement sleep, when people have vivid dreams."

  "And when they come here if they're able. If they can, the archetypes play their roles, and it keeps them busy. It's kind of like the difference between being in a situation and watching it on television. Those who have the talent, dream weavers, are the ones who have the lucid dreams, and they take an active role. Others feel like they are, but it's only because of archetypal images overlaid on their everyday experiences." Margaret's eyes took on a far-away look, and she sipped her tea. "So a movement was planned for the inhabitants of the C.U. to escape, but it was quelled. A mortal like you made a grand sacrifice."

  A chill slid down Audrey's spine. "Someone got killed?"

  "Banished, actually. It was her choice. But now something is opening the doors that keep the C.U. residents out of the real world. They step through the trap door and don't realize they're stuck until it's too late."

  Audrey remembered Demeter's distress. "Like Persephone?"

  "Exactly," Margaret said with a nod. "I can pass between the two worlds because of who I am, but I need help finding her in yours."

  Audrey lowered her teacup. "My world is a big place. She could be anywhere."

  "But you heard Demeter's cries, which means you're a key to finding her daughter. Just keep an eye out for her."

  It seems like a long shot, but Audrey asked, "What does she look like?"

  "A real pretty girl," Zin said. "Tall and slender with long legs, flowing brown hair, and beautiful big brown eyes."

  "Also, if a goddess is in the C.W., or Conscious World, strange things are likely to happen around her."

  The hearth crackled and popped, and Audrey scooted backward from a shower of sparks.

  "Margaret, I should have known you would be here," a black shadow in the midst of the flames intoned.

  Margaret frowned. "Hades, for gods' sake, stop trying to make an entrance and just walk into the room like a normal being. This is no time for games."

  "That's what Demeter said," the shadow replied. The flames lengthened, and the handsome blond man from the wheat field stepped into the room. He again wore all black. "The woman has no sense of humor."

  "At least not where you're concerned," Zin muttered.

  "Lay off, dragon," Hades said. He stood tall enough to look the dragon eye-to-eye.

  Zin slapped Hades' rear end with his tail. "I just love it when you play hard to get."

  "Zin, down," Margaret snapped. "Hades, do you know what happened?"

  He shook his head. "It was just another interminable visit with Demeter, the last before we were to get in my chariot and ride to our winter home."

  Zin leaned toward Audrey and stage-whispered, "That's what he calls the underworld."

  Hades ignored the aside. "So Persephone noticed that the fall mums were in bloom, and she went out to gather some. I wanted to go with her, but Demeter wanted me to fix her computer. Again." He rolled his ice blue eyes under bushy blond brows. "All I can tell you is that I heard 'Sephone scream and saw the fissure open up and swallow her."

  "Where did she go?" Audrey asked.

  Hades shrugged. "I immediately took my chariot into the underworld to look f
or her." He spoke quietly. "But she was nowhere."

  "So let me get this straight," Audrey said. "You're missing a goddess, she's nowhere to be found here, and so you think she's in my world?"

  "It's the next logical guess." Margaret blew on her tea before taking a sip. "And that's where all the signs are pointing."

  "What signs?" Audrey pictured street signs—Caution-Goddess This Way.

  "Divination signs, oracles, that lot." Hades waved a hand. "Bunch of rubbish if you ask me. Everyone wants to know when they'll come see me…" He grinned, and the image of a skull flashed over his face. "But I'll never tell."

  Audrey tried to look nonchalant but suspected she didn't hide her racing heart very well. Does the C.U. have cardiologists? "I'll look for her. Do you have any idea where she'd go if she was dropped in my world by mistake?"

  "Honey, she'd be so dazed and confused, she wouldn't know what to do," Zin told her.

  "But she's got a good head on her shoulders," Hades put in. "She's extremely practical, so if she was stuck somewhere she couldn't leave, she'd put her skills to work."

  "So she'd get a job. What kind?"

  Zin tapped his lips with one long nail. "Something where she gets to take care of others in a practical way."

  "That doesn't narrow it down much." Audrey thought about all the service industries in the waking world.

  "Well, girlfriend." Zin handed a mug of coffee—black, of course—to Hades. "Like I said, you're tied into this, so it's likely to be somewhere close to you, maybe even one of your regular haunts."

  "All right, I'll help. Is there anything else?"

  "Not for now." Margaret stood, and Audrey took her cue that it was time to leave. "I'll keep in touch. Look for me in your world."

  "Thanks for the tea, Zin."

  "My pleasure, Audrey."

  Audrey fumbled for proper Greek god etiquette and came up with, "Hades, I'm not sure it's appropriate to say that it's been nice to meet you."

  The dour man laughed. "Most people don't, but I appreciate it anyway."

  Audrey stopped in the doorway and asked, "What do I do with Persephone once I find her?"