Beyond Wild Imaginings

by Brieanna Robertson

  She frowned and crossed the remaining distance between them. “That’s because I think the last time you came to me was when I was ten. Am I right?”

  He turned his baleful gaze down to her and nodded just slightly.

  Kelly’s eyes widened as her mind tried to wrap around what was happening. This was so abnormal and insane. “I lived in Syracuse when I was ten,” she said. “I had a backyard and a house. I didn’t live in the middle of Manhattan.”

  He made a frustrated-sounding, snort noise and shook his head. “Syracuse. Manhattan. These names mean nothing to me. All I knew then and all I have ever known since is Kelly.”

  Her stomach turned over, and the watermelon feeling came back in her throat. “Garren,” she whispered. “Are you really the man from my childhood? The man I dreamed up to protect me and be my companion? The man I all but forgot? This can’t be possible.”

  He shifted his powerful body so that he was turned to face her. “You, who dreams of realms and fantasies not of this world, speak of what can and cannot be possible?” He shook his head. “I am here because you did not forget.”

  She blinked, confused and disoriented beyond all logical thought.

  “I can’t find them!” Chad shouted, flying back into the room. “What are we going to do? What if she’s—”

  “Chad!” Kelly cried. “Calm down, for crying out loud! I’m fine!”

  He came to an abrupt halt, stared at her, and then heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness. I thought you’d had a heart attack and it was all my fault.”

  She frowned. “Why would it be your fault?”

  “Because I was the one who told you to jump off the roof!”

  Garren turned toward Chad with a scowl on his handsome face. “You are the one who put Kelly’s life in danger?” He didn’t shout, he hardly even raised his voice, but the sting of his reprimand snapped like a whip.

  Chad paled a shade and swallowed hard. “I, uh…”

  Kelly sighed and shook her head. “Okay, it doesn’t matter who did what or who told what to whom. At this point, I’m starting to think I’ve lost my ever-loving mind so would someone”—she turned her attention to Garren and gave him a pointed look—“that someone being you, tell me what the crap is going on?”

  Garren’s eyes softened and he dipped his head toward her. “Whatever you wish.”

  She huffed in exasperation and folded her arms. “I have questions.”

  “Ask them, my mistress,” he said, his voice like a silky caress.

  Chad arched an eyebrow, and Kelly stared at Garren for a few heartbeats before she waved her hands as if to erase his statement. “Okay, first of all, I’m not your mistress. My name is Kelly.”

  His smile was devilish, and his sad eyes came to life with a twinkle of mirth. “Yes, I know that.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she looked up at him. “I’m glad you find this so amusing because I’m really not thinking you’re too funny at the moment. Are you really the Garren I remember from my childhood?”

  He nodded. “One and the same.”

  “Why do you look different than I remember you? In my memories, your hair is lighter, and you don’t look like you just came from an emo concert.”

  He frowned. “A what?”

  She shook her head. “Never mind. Just answer my question.”

  His lips split into a stunning grin, and he chuckled. “Kelly, please sit down. I will tell you everything from the beginning.”

  She pivoted on her heel, more than happy to return to the refuge of the couch. Her legs still felt rather unstable and sitting seemed like a very good plan. She snapped her fingers at Chad and motioned for him to come and sit next to her. She needed something familiar around. Her best friend of seven years. A human of flesh and blood. Not a translucent, winged creature she’d imagined as a little girl.

  Chad took his place next to Kelly while Garren continued to stand facing them. He glanced over Chad for a moment before his eyes settled on Kelly. “You write beautiful things,” he stated. “Magical, mythical things. Your mind conjures the impossible, and you create worlds of it for people’s entertainment. You make the impossible come to life.”

  She frowned and shook her head. “That’s fiction. It isn’t real—”

  He held his hand up to silence her, and a small smirk touched his sensual lips. “Let me tell you the story of the Lucienus. Then you decide for yourself what is fiction and what is fact.”

  She swallowed again and unconsciously scooted closer to Chad.

  “A realm exists,” he began. “A dimension in between the line of fantasy and reality. It’s made up entirely of magic—”

  “Magic?” Kelly interrupted, sounding almost too skeptical to be the bestselling fantasy novelist that she was.

  Garren’s lips quirked. “Not magic as in sorcery and spells, and not magic as in sleight of hand. This realm is made up entirely of creative magic.”

  She blinked in confusion. “I’m not really familiar with that term.”

  Garren’s smile grew, and he bent at the waist so that he was staring straight down at her. “If my mistress would kindly be patient, I would be more than happy to explain it.”

  She scowled. “You’re impertinent,” she stated. “I don’t remember you being impertinent. And quit it with the mistress thing.”

  His grin remained, and he nodded, standing straight again. “Things have changed since you last saw me, little one,” he said softly. “I have changed because you have changed. But I will get to that.”

  She swallowed and averted her eyes for a second as warmth washed over her at his term of endearment. She remembered him calling her that as a little girl. She remembered how it had always made her feel so safe. The words on his lips took her back to a time that seemed so far away. Feeling more childlike at that moment than she had in years, she hunched her shoulders and wrapped her arms around herself.

  “As I was saying,” Garren continued, “this realm is made up entirely of creative magic. Creative magic is what exists within people like you, Kelly.”

  She looked up and met his mesmerizing violet eyes, such a stark contrast to his black hair.

  “Certain people are born into the world with exceptional imaginations, with creativity beyond what is normal in a human. Those people have the power to create things, to make real and bring life to things most people would only see as imaginary.

  “Years ago, five little girls brought an entire race of people to life. They created a world where winged creatures existed that protected them and watched over them. They were noble creatures, guardians and companions.”

  “The Lucienus,” Kelly whispered.

  Garren nodded. “My race.”

  She let out a slow breath as she tried to process the information he was giving her. “So, you’re saying that the power of mine and my four friends’ imaginations brought your race to life in this…realm thing?”

  He nodded again. “But we are not made of flesh and blood as you are. We exist only as thought. We were alive to you so we became such, but we are not visible to those who do not believe as you do.”

  Chad frowned. “But I never knew anything about creatures Kelly created in her childhood. I didn’t even know Kelly then. How can I see you?”

  Garren turned his attention to Chad. “You must have an amazing amount of creative power yourself. Only those with exceptional imaginations, who can believe in things otherworldly, can see a creature of the creative realm.”

  Kelly shook her head. “But Rachel,” she protested. “Rachel was one of the girls who thought up the Lucienus. Why couldn’t she see your feather? And why are you even called the Lucienus? We never named you that.”

  Garren gave a soft chuckle. “You’re getting ahead of yourself again, little one.”

  She huffed, folded her arms, and sat back against the couch with a scowl.

  Garren smirked. “There were many of us for several years, but out of us all, five were the most important, the leader
s of the Lucienus. They were Harrison, Guardian of Lanelle; Andril, Guardian of Beth; Rowan, Guardian of Rebecca; Eamon, Guardian of Rachel; and Garren, Guardian of Kelly.”

  His voice softened as he spoke his own name and title, and Kelly’s heart somersaulted. Her fingers were trembling. “Those were the names of all my friends,” she whispered. “The five of us. Your kindred spirit sisters.” She looked up at him.

  He nodded, and his eyes lit up at the usage of the name. “Yes, that is what you were. The queens of us all. The Kindred Sisters of the Lucienus. The ones we vowed to always protect above all others. I, along with the other four, led the Lucienus. We ruled them. We were royalty.”

  Kelly slowly nodded her head as bits and pieces of memory returned. “Yes, I remember. You were the most powerful, the strongest and best of your race. The best to protect us.”

  Chad shook his head in confusion. “Wait, hold on a second,” he blurted out. He waved his hand. “Clueless over here. I wasn’t part of your childhood, Kelly. What the heck are you talking about?”

  Kelly sighed and turned to look at her friend. “When I was little, my sister and I were part of this playgroup. There were three other girls who were part of it, and we were best friends for a number of years. We would always play in the backyard and have fantastic adventures. We would pretend we’d been transported to different worlds or whatever. You know, we would play. Like most kids do.”

  “But you weren’t just ordinary children,” Garren interjected. “You were very special.”

  Kelly glanced up at him, then back at Chad. “One day one of our friends was upset. She came to the playgroup really quiet with a tearstained face. I think she was nine at the time. Most of them were around nine or ten. I was the youngest.” She shook her head. “Anyway, Rebecca was upset. She had a difficult home life. Her father was an alcoholic and would get violent sometimes. He never hurt Rebecca, but she was always terrified that one day he would. The rest of us didn’t want her to be sad so we started to play a game.

  “There was this gate in my backyard, and it was all overgrown and covered with ivy. I think I started it by saying it was a portal to a magical land or something, and we all kind of ran with it. Soon we’d made up an entire race of creatures who watched over us and kept us safe.” She gestured at Garren. “We all had one that we created special for us. We did it to make Rebecca feel better, but we all got so wrapped up in it that it became the only game we ever played. It became a secret club of sorts, and we would dance in a circle with flowers in our hair and sing rhymes to call our guardians to us so that we could travel to their world and have adventures.” She shrugged. “It was just a child’s game.”

  Garren shook his head. “Not just a game. It was a world. It was a civilization. With your creative powers, you all caused an entire race to come into being. My race. A race we named the Lucienus. After you created us, you gave us power to do and say as we would. You believed in us so much that we became the closest to living humans as creatures of myth and thought can ever be. We lived as you do in that Creative Realm. We had lives. We had families. All because of your creative magic. We lived and breathed to you. We existed and, because you all believed it so wholeheartedly, it was real.” A whimsical smile crossed his handsome features. “For two years, the five of us ruled a beautiful, fantastic world. We lived a beautiful, fantastic life. We loved our mistresses who we protected.” His brow furrowed, and he looked away, shoving his hands into his pockets and turning away. He shook his head sadly.

  Kelly frowned. “What?” she prodded. “Garren, what happened?”

  “They betrayed them,” he whispered.

  Her frown deepened. “Who? Who betrayed them?”

  He looked at her over his shoulder. “The others. They said that they were our kindred spirit sisters. They said we had their promise and their trust, but they lied. They betrayed us. They abandoned us.”

  A cold wave washed over Kelly, and a knot settled in her stomach. She had a feeling that this story was about to take a horrible turn. “How?” she forced herself to ask. “How did they betray you?”

  “They forgot.” His voice was barely discernable, no more than a breath on the air.

  She waited, but when no explanation came, she frowned. “I-I don’t understand.”

  He turned back to face her. “Do you know what happens in the Creative Realm when creatures of thought are forgotten? We die!”

  She jumped at the sudden bitterness his words carried.

  “We are made up of nothing but belief! If we are forgotten, we cease to exist! I watched as my entire race slowly disappeared, one by one. First, they would go into a state much like myself.” He held his arms out. “Slightly transparent, not exactly solid. That is the first step. Then, as more memory is lost, they became unable to move beyond the Creative Realm. They were trapped there, no more than ghosts. Finally, they would vanish altogether. They all died, every last one.” He swallowed hard, the pain he was feeling obvious in the lines of his face. “All but me.”

  Kelly blinked rapidly, her mind turning as she tried to grasp onto his words. They had killed them. They had obliterated everything because they had gotten so wrapped up in life that they no longer had time for fantasy, for magic. They no longer had time for imagination. She fought tears as she looked up into Garren’s sad face. “But I forgot too,” she murmured. “I forgot you.”

  He smiled just a little. “Not completely.” He knelt down in front of her. “You were the last one to let go. You held on the longest to me and my world. Even when you thought you forgot, you never really did. You stopped calling me to you, stopped talking to me. I became a ghost myself, unable to leave the Creative Realm. I was isolated in solitude for years, but I never ceased to exist. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, I still lived.”

  She stared at him, her heart aching at the thought of him being stuck in seclusion for so long. “How are you with me now?” she asked with no more than a tiny squeak of sound.

  He reached out and took her hands gently in his own. “You called to me. You started dreaming of me. You brought me back to you.”

  “Whoa, that makes total sense,” Chad said suddenly. “You created Garren as a little girl to protect you, to be your guardian, right?”

  Kelly nodded.

  “It only makes sense that, during the worst trauma of your life, your subconscious would resurrect his memory to help you deal with your situation.”

  She turned her attention back to Garren, studying his sorrowful eyes and his beautiful face. She definitely did not remember him being so sexy. She looked down at his hands on hers. They were translucent, but she could feel him as if he were as much a human as she was. His touch was warm, gentle, and so soothing that she wanted to curl into his arms and sleep for about a hundred years. “How come I can feel you?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  “The same reason you can see me. The same reason Chad can see me. No one else would be able to feel my touch. Not really, anyway. You feel me because you believe in me.”

  She met his eyes. “But I didn’t even remember you when you saved me this morning. How were you able to do that?”

  “You’d been dreaming about me. That was enough.”

  She shook her head. “How come you look different than before?”

  He smiled. “You grew up. Your thoughts, ideas, and creations changed with you. Before, I was the imagining of a little girl. I appeared how she thought a guardian should look. Strong, powerful, like a father figure or a super hero. You are a woman now. A woman who writes fantasy books and tells tales about dark, mysterious men. Your subconscious adapted me to fit into your world.”

  She shook her head. “None of this makes any kind of sense,” she muttered. “I think I’ve finally gone insane. I’m probably imagining this entire thing.”

  His chuckle was like a low rumble of thunder, and it made heat course throughout her entire body. He reached up to cup her cheek in his palm. “Your imagination is the cause of all this, little
one,” he murmured. “And I thank you for it.” His smile was soft and tender. “You have become a very beautiful woman.”

  She forced out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, well, my subconscious didn’t do half bad on you either.”

  He grinned.

  “Hey,” Chad said. “If Kelly believes in you again and brought you back here, why are you still sorta see-through?”

  He sighed. “The power my people had came from the creative magic of all the girls together. The more that believed in us, the stronger we were. Yes, Kelly believes, and you do as well, but it is not enough to make me what I once was. I am all that is left of the Lucienus, and I’m afraid this is as complete as I will ever be.”

  He started to stand and pull away, but Kelly held onto his hands. “Garren,” she said. He kept his hands in hers and looked down at her. She swallowed hard and ran her thumbs along the back of his hands. She felt his skin, the tendons and veins beneath it, yet she could make out the shape of her fingers underneath. It made her sick inside. “Please, come back home with me.” She chewed on her bottom lip as she met his gaze. “Do you return to the Creative Realm when you are not with me?”

  He nodded. “Until today, that is where I have remained. I only gained enough strength to travel to your world this morning. And it is a good thing I did. I saved your life today.” He fixed Chad with a glower. “Twice.”

  Chad turned a shade of red and averted his eyes.

  She shook her head. “I don’t like the thought of you going back there,” she said. “Not when I had you trapped there for so long. The thought of you going back all alone makes me sick. Please, stay with me tonight.”

  His eyes turned from icy lavender to tranquil and warm as he studied her for a moment. He nodded. “Of course. Your wish has always been my command, little one.”