In the hospital - Prom night
Heather tossed a little and groaned. Moving was bad. She felt heavy, like something was laying on top of her, and vaguely tried to remember where she was. Something special was supposed to be happening--opening night? She was missing the play, but she couldn't seem to get her eyes open and something was holding her down. It had hit the car, and now it was smothering her.
She wrenched her eyes open, and stared into a bright light--several of them, actually. She could hear the echo of footsteps on wood and she realized she hadn't missed it, she was on stage. Lying on a sofa, a prop, she supposed. But why couldn't she get off of it? There wasn't anything on top of her, after all. And why were the other props piled willy-nilly around her, where was the stage crew?
Billy blinked, thrown as always by his entry into the dream, quickly looking around to take in his surroundings. A stage - that much was clear. He was stood in the shadows, in the wings at the side of the stage, looking out onto the brightly lit stage, where Ms Vargas was lying on a sofa, surrounded by a plethora of random items. He frowned as he watched, wondering at the seemingly random nature of some Dreamer's dreams.
It was pissing Heather off that she couldn't just get up and go find someone to get the stage in order for the performance. And now several of the performers were wandering through the mess of props, and even though she was telling them to move them out of the way, they were just ignoring her. The pain in her chest and ribs was worse, like whatever was on her was
bearing down harder.
He wandered through the shadows, circling the edge of the stage, keeping to the darkness, away from the bright spotlights. He moved carefully, knowing that now was his weakest time, knowing that if he was spotted before he had an opportunity of properly analyising the dream things could be bad for him.
He circled round to the front of the stage, passing momentarily into the light as he jumped lightly down to the floor in front of the stage, oping that his figure would be taken by the Dreamer as being merely another one of the throng of students who seemed to surround her. He couldn't understand why she was simply lying on the couch, why she didn't rise - she looked as if she wanted to, but for some reason couldn't get up.
The lights seemed to be getting brighter, shining in her eyes and making her head pound a little. Shadows moved around her but she couldn't see who or what they were. Heather gave a sudden jerk and managed to roll off the couch or bed or whatever it was, but now she was on the floor and her legs were tangled up in something. And her ribs hurt worse than ever. Stupid ghosts, making her trip and giving her all those bruises.
The light softened a little, seemed now to be the soft glow of candles off across the room. Heather could hear someone behind her, moving quietly. She smiled. "Is that you, Stef?" she asked in a playful tone. "No fair hiding." The props were gone, but for some reason she was on the floor in her living room, wedged between the sofa and coffee table. There were crystals and things scattered on the floor as if she'd been in mid-spell. She frowned. The spell had been completed, hadn't it?
The props were gone, but for some reason she was on the floor in her living room, wedged between the sofa and coffee table. There were crystals and things scattered on the floor as if she'd been in mid-spell. She frowned.
The spell had been completed, hadn't it? Billy's head span as the dream shifted, an experience that he always found disorientating. He looked around - the scenery and props, stage lighting and auditorium had simply disappeared, to be replaced by what looked to be her living room, or, at least, somebody's living room. Worse, he was standing right in the centre of it. He looked round frantically, but the room was fairly small, nowhere to hide. He tried to think things through, the stage, now crystals - two different dreams, but they seemed to have a common theme. Could her mind be playing games, trying to confuse him? Had the key remained the same, the crystals, what was it that Maddie had told him about her?
Heather looked up and saw him. The boy from the school corridor who'd been asking all those inane questions. She frowned, and tried to gather up the crystals, but she couldn't quite reach them. Dammit, she had to hide them away, no one was supposed to see them. Not that this kid would know what they were for...she glanced over at the dinette table, anxious, but it was bare. "What are you doing here?" she asked the boy, annoyed. He shouldn't be in her apartment, she had wards. She didn't expect him to hear her, the stage hands hadn't.
He missed her question at first as he frantically looked round the room, trying to subdue the old panic at being caught by the Dreamer before he'd found the key. She was a witch, that's what Maddie'd said. The play, now this new thing. He scrabbled in his mind for the details.
Then the words filtered through and his head jerked up. She'd seen him, noticed he wasn't part of the dream. Had they still been in the auditorium, he would have simply wandered off with the other students there, but here there was no such chance. "I don't know," he said, hoping that the vague answer would confuse her.
"You heard me," Heather said, surprised. "That's new and different." She glanced again at the dinette table, but apparently she'd tucked away the box with the rock and the herbs. That gave her some relief, but she didn't like that she still couldn't seem to get up. He was a student, he shouldn't see her lolling around on the floor like this, it wasn't dignified. It still seemed like maybe there was another presence in the room, but the
ghost couldn't be here, right? At least she was already on the floor. Or could it be one of Taffy's guys? She felt a strange pang of conscience about them. "Really wasn't intending to have them both over," she murmured, seeming to have forgotten the boy.
"Have who over?" Billy asked, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them. He took a small step backwards, away from her, wondering why she didn't get up. She seemed strange, dopey even. Then he remembered where she was - in the hospital. They'd probably given her something to help her sleep, but he had never realised that that could affect the dream. "Always learning," he muttered to himself.
"None of your business!" Heather snapped. She still couldn't figure out how the boy had gotten into her home. Had he followed her? The student in sunglasses who'd pushed her or something--was that him? She glanced at the table, and just for an instant the box was there, then gone. She had to go, outside, make sure it was still buried. Or dig it up; the spell hadn't gone at all the way she'd expected. "They weren't supposed to change like that, become so different," she murmured.
Billy's eyes were drawn to the flickering on the table and he glimpsed some sort of box, but it was gone before he could properly see what it was. "The students. In the play." He said it out loud, half to himself, half to her. "What was meant to happen?" he asked tentatively, hoping she thought him part of her dream.
Heather frowned. Why was he talking about the play? It was Stef and Jordan she had changed. "The play would have been wonderful, it's a damn shame they had to cancel it. Poor Eric..." She sighed. "I don't know where they got real weapons. I did the harmony spell, why didn't it work?"
Billy took a step forward, forcing himself to be bold. He had to discover the key, it was the only way; she was medicated, drugged. She wasn’t going to wake up naturally any time soon and it meant that he had no way out of the Dream unless Maddie woke him up which she wasn’t going to do before morning unless he showed any signs of being in trouble. At the moment, the threat to him seemed to be low maybe because of the drugs, maybe because she hadn’t worked out he was a potential threat yet, he wasn’t sure. Getting more involved was a risk, but one he had to take if he was going to gain control, control he needed to keep himself safe.
Why did you spell them at all? he asked her, frowning slightly.
"The students? Or Taffy's boys?" Heather asked, confused. The boy in her dreams was a new thing, usually it was just her, not being able to get what she wanted, not being heard. But the boy could hear. "I never meant to hurt the students, I just wanted a fine production. But Stef...Jordan...I didn't expect it to go like that. They were only supposed to forget. Not to change into someone else." She felt unaccountably bad about that.
She glanced again at the table, and the box is there. "Dammit," she muttered. "It's supposed to be buried." She muttered a few words in latin and waved, but it wouldn't come to her. Why did it surprise her? "Damn, what happened to my magic? Everything is out of reach."
In a flash, she was there, the grassy area beyond the parking lot. She could see the torn earth, but it hadn't been disturbed. "I don't understand, how did it get out?" She pushed at the ground, trying to see if the box was still there. "I buried it, it's still there, why can't I get to it?" Heather clawed violently at the earth, trying to find the box.
He started, then stared at her as the dream changed again, this time to just outside the house.
"Do you always have to control everything?" he said, an offhand comment. Then he felt it. Control. That's exactly what it was - she needed to control and that need had given it all to him. It was the key. He smiled as he felt the dream shift, almost imperceptibly.
Stepping back, away from her, he concentrated, making the hole she was forming deeper, giving her a need to keep digging.
Heather pulled up the earth. She knew it was there, knew it, but the box didn't appear. "Dammit, I know this is where I put it!" She turned and glared at Billy. "Did you take it?" she accused. "And yes, dammit, I should be able to control my own life! Shouldn't everyone?"
Billy didn't reply, instead, he focused, deepening and widening the hole, removing the earth from under her so she fell, landing hard in the bottom of the grave. He walked to the edge and looked down, waiting silently to see her reaction, the coffin beneath her new and not yet rotting, yet still sealed.
Heather looked down in growing panic as he fell, the impact sending a jolt through her already aching ribs and chest. She felt the smooth wood beneath her, but it was far too large. "That's not the right box!" she cried, before it fully registered that it was a coffin. She looked up, but she was too deep to see the boy anymore and her ribs and chest began to ache again. "You took it the spell box, didn't you?" she snarled up at him. "You're thething that's been following me, aren't you? The spirit."
If he had the box, he could break the spell, and she couldn't let that happen. "If he breaks it, everyone will know," she gasped, and tried to climb the crumbling earth walls to get to him, but she seemed to only sink deeper, until she finally collapsed back onto the coffin lid. Her hand flew out and hit something small and hard. A moment later sounds that made no sense broke in--a door swinging open, voices. She groggily tried to open her eyes.
Billy plucked the scene from her memory, something that she probably didn't even recall. Eric, asking her about the flowers. He twisted it and suddenly Eric became Mercutio, the stab wound bleeding freely as he stood calmly in front of her, asking whether she liked them, a smile on his rapidly paling face.
Heather wrenched her eyes open, only to find herself in a darkened hospital room. Eric was smiling at her from the side of the bed, dressed oddly and bleeding. "You're the spirit?" she whispered in confusion. Exacting revenge for his death? She could put wards on her apartment, but she couldn't keep him out here. "Leave me alone, I didn't mean for that to happen," she said, putting her hands out as though to push him away.
"Did you settle in to your new school?" the Eric-Mercutio-thing asked, it's voice sounding rough from lack of use. It stepped forward into Heather's hands, its chest caving in at her touch, rotting away beneath her fingers. "Did you shape it to your liking? Were we not good enough for you? Is that why you killed me?" It carried on walking forward, it's body disintegrating around her until it collapsed on top of her, still asking an endless stream of questions and accusing her of Eric's murder.
Billy suddenly decided that enough was enough and concentrated, taking another memory from her mind. The Eric-Mercutio-thing disappeared, to be replaced by a small box sitting on the canopy of the bed. He had no idea what it was, but her mind seemed to think it was important and he thought maybe he could use it.
Heather cringed away from the rotting corpse, and the accusatory words. "I didn't plan it like that, you don't understand!" she screeched. "No one was supposed to die!" She hid her head in the pillow, in abject terror, praying that the thing would go away, leave her alone. When it got quiet, she gradually opened her eyes, and saw the box, just sitting there. She glanced around, and the room seemed to be empty. She reached out an arm to grab for it.
Without moving a muscle, something that was no longer necessary - now he had control Billy was part of the very fabric of the dream, no longer noticeable unless he wished to be - the box faded slightly so that Heather's arm passed right through it.
It was almost as if she knew it would happen...the box wasn't really there, or it was just out of reach. It was always like that, she finally realized--she was in a dream. The spirit, whatever it was, was taunting her through her dream. She wondered if she could fight back, but she was so tired, so very tired and sore....
Heather woke briefly when the night nurse came in and flipped on the light. "My, you're restless tonight," she said. "Here's another dose so you stop thrashing around, you'll make your ribs worse." Heather swallowed the sedative and fell back into blackness.
She wrenched her eyes open, and stared into a bright light--several of them, actually. She could hear the echo of footsteps on wood and she realized she hadn't missed it, she was on stage. Lying on a sofa, a prop, she supposed. But why couldn't she get off of it? There wasn't anything on top of her, after all. And why were the other props piled willy-nilly around her, where was the stage crew?
Billy blinked, thrown as always by his entry into the dream, quickly looking around to take in his surroundings. A stage - that much was clear. He was stood in the shadows, in the wings at the side of the stage, looking out onto the brightly lit stage, where Ms Vargas was lying on a sofa, surrounded by a plethora of random items. He frowned as he watched, wondering at the seemingly random nature of some Dreamer's dreams.
It was pissing Heather off that she couldn't just get up and go find someone to get the stage in order for the performance. And now several of the performers were wandering through the mess of props, and even though she was telling them to move them out of the way, they were just ignoring her. The pain in her chest and ribs was worse, like whatever was on her was
bearing down harder.
He wandered through the shadows, circling the edge of the stage, keeping to the darkness, away from the bright spotlights. He moved carefully, knowing that now was his weakest time, knowing that if he was spotted before he had an opportunity of properly analyising the dream things could be bad for him.
He circled round to the front of the stage, passing momentarily into the light as he jumped lightly down to the floor in front of the stage, oping that his figure would be taken by the Dreamer as being merely another one of the throng of students who seemed to surround her. He couldn't understand why she was simply lying on the couch, why she didn't rise - she looked as if she wanted to, but for some reason couldn't get up.
The lights seemed to be getting brighter, shining in her eyes and making her head pound a little. Shadows moved around her but she couldn't see who or what they were. Heather gave a sudden jerk and managed to roll off the couch or bed or whatever it was, but now she was on the floor and her legs were tangled up in something. And her ribs hurt worse than ever. Stupid ghosts, making her trip and giving her all those bruises.
The light softened a little, seemed now to be the soft glow of candles off across the room. Heather could hear someone behind her, moving quietly. She smiled. "Is that you, Stef?" she asked in a playful tone. "No fair hiding." The props were gone, but for some reason she was on the floor in her living room, wedged between the sofa and coffee table. There were crystals and things scattered on the floor as if she'd been in mid-spell. She frowned. The spell had been completed, hadn't it?
The props were gone, but for some reason she was on the floor in her living room, wedged between the sofa and coffee table. There were crystals and things scattered on the floor as if she'd been in mid-spell. She frowned.
The spell had been completed, hadn't it? Billy's head span as the dream shifted, an experience that he always found disorientating. He looked around - the scenery and props, stage lighting and auditorium had simply disappeared, to be replaced by what looked to be her living room, or, at least, somebody's living room. Worse, he was standing right in the centre of it. He looked round frantically, but the room was fairly small, nowhere to hide. He tried to think things through, the stage, now crystals - two different dreams, but they seemed to have a common theme. Could her mind be playing games, trying to confuse him? Had the key remained the same, the crystals, what was it that Maddie had told him about her?
Heather looked up and saw him. The boy from the school corridor who'd been asking all those inane questions. She frowned, and tried to gather up the crystals, but she couldn't quite reach them. Dammit, she had to hide them away, no one was supposed to see them. Not that this kid would know what they were for...she glanced over at the dinette table, anxious, but it was bare. "What are you doing here?" she asked the boy, annoyed. He shouldn't be in her apartment, she had wards. She didn't expect him to hear her, the stage hands hadn't.
He missed her question at first as he frantically looked round the room, trying to subdue the old panic at being caught by the Dreamer before he'd found the key. She was a witch, that's what Maddie'd said. The play, now this new thing. He scrabbled in his mind for the details.
Then the words filtered through and his head jerked up. She'd seen him, noticed he wasn't part of the dream. Had they still been in the auditorium, he would have simply wandered off with the other students there, but here there was no such chance. "I don't know," he said, hoping that the vague answer would confuse her.
"You heard me," Heather said, surprised. "That's new and different." She glanced again at the dinette table, but apparently she'd tucked away the box with the rock and the herbs. That gave her some relief, but she didn't like that she still couldn't seem to get up. He was a student, he shouldn't see her lolling around on the floor like this, it wasn't dignified. It still seemed like maybe there was another presence in the room, but the
ghost couldn't be here, right? At least she was already on the floor. Or could it be one of Taffy's guys? She felt a strange pang of conscience about them. "Really wasn't intending to have them both over," she murmured, seeming to have forgotten the boy.
"Have who over?" Billy asked, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them. He took a small step backwards, away from her, wondering why she didn't get up. She seemed strange, dopey even. Then he remembered where she was - in the hospital. They'd probably given her something to help her sleep, but he had never realised that that could affect the dream. "Always learning," he muttered to himself.
"None of your business!" Heather snapped. She still couldn't figure out how the boy had gotten into her home. Had he followed her? The student in sunglasses who'd pushed her or something--was that him? She glanced at the table, and just for an instant the box was there, then gone. She had to go, outside, make sure it was still buried. Or dig it up; the spell hadn't gone at all the way she'd expected. "They weren't supposed to change like that, become so different," she murmured.
Billy's eyes were drawn to the flickering on the table and he glimpsed some sort of box, but it was gone before he could properly see what it was. "The students. In the play." He said it out loud, half to himself, half to her. "What was meant to happen?" he asked tentatively, hoping she thought him part of her dream.
Heather frowned. Why was he talking about the play? It was Stef and Jordan she had changed. "The play would have been wonderful, it's a damn shame they had to cancel it. Poor Eric..." She sighed. "I don't know where they got real weapons. I did the harmony spell, why didn't it work?"
Billy took a step forward, forcing himself to be bold. He had to discover the key, it was the only way; she was medicated, drugged. She wasn’t going to wake up naturally any time soon and it meant that he had no way out of the Dream unless Maddie woke him up which she wasn’t going to do before morning unless he showed any signs of being in trouble. At the moment, the threat to him seemed to be low maybe because of the drugs, maybe because she hadn’t worked out he was a potential threat yet, he wasn’t sure. Getting more involved was a risk, but one he had to take if he was going to gain control, control he needed to keep himself safe.
Why did you spell them at all? he asked her, frowning slightly.
"The students? Or Taffy's boys?" Heather asked, confused. The boy in her dreams was a new thing, usually it was just her, not being able to get what she wanted, not being heard. But the boy could hear. "I never meant to hurt the students, I just wanted a fine production. But Stef...Jordan...I didn't expect it to go like that. They were only supposed to forget. Not to change into someone else." She felt unaccountably bad about that.
She glanced again at the table, and the box is there. "Dammit," she muttered. "It's supposed to be buried." She muttered a few words in latin and waved, but it wouldn't come to her. Why did it surprise her? "Damn, what happened to my magic? Everything is out of reach."
In a flash, she was there, the grassy area beyond the parking lot. She could see the torn earth, but it hadn't been disturbed. "I don't understand, how did it get out?" She pushed at the ground, trying to see if the box was still there. "I buried it, it's still there, why can't I get to it?" Heather clawed violently at the earth, trying to find the box.
He started, then stared at her as the dream changed again, this time to just outside the house.
"Do you always have to control everything?" he said, an offhand comment. Then he felt it. Control. That's exactly what it was - she needed to control and that need had given it all to him. It was the key. He smiled as he felt the dream shift, almost imperceptibly.
Stepping back, away from her, he concentrated, making the hole she was forming deeper, giving her a need to keep digging.
Heather pulled up the earth. She knew it was there, knew it, but the box didn't appear. "Dammit, I know this is where I put it!" She turned and glared at Billy. "Did you take it?" she accused. "And yes, dammit, I should be able to control my own life! Shouldn't everyone?"
Billy didn't reply, instead, he focused, deepening and widening the hole, removing the earth from under her so she fell, landing hard in the bottom of the grave. He walked to the edge and looked down, waiting silently to see her reaction, the coffin beneath her new and not yet rotting, yet still sealed.
Heather looked down in growing panic as he fell, the impact sending a jolt through her already aching ribs and chest. She felt the smooth wood beneath her, but it was far too large. "That's not the right box!" she cried, before it fully registered that it was a coffin. She looked up, but she was too deep to see the boy anymore and her ribs and chest began to ache again. "You took it the spell box, didn't you?" she snarled up at him. "You're thething that's been following me, aren't you? The spirit."
If he had the box, he could break the spell, and she couldn't let that happen. "If he breaks it, everyone will know," she gasped, and tried to climb the crumbling earth walls to get to him, but she seemed to only sink deeper, until she finally collapsed back onto the coffin lid. Her hand flew out and hit something small and hard. A moment later sounds that made no sense broke in--a door swinging open, voices. She groggily tried to open her eyes.
Billy plucked the scene from her memory, something that she probably didn't even recall. Eric, asking her about the flowers. He twisted it and suddenly Eric became Mercutio, the stab wound bleeding freely as he stood calmly in front of her, asking whether she liked them, a smile on his rapidly paling face.
Heather wrenched her eyes open, only to find herself in a darkened hospital room. Eric was smiling at her from the side of the bed, dressed oddly and bleeding. "You're the spirit?" she whispered in confusion. Exacting revenge for his death? She could put wards on her apartment, but she couldn't keep him out here. "Leave me alone, I didn't mean for that to happen," she said, putting her hands out as though to push him away.
"Did you settle in to your new school?" the Eric-Mercutio-thing asked, it's voice sounding rough from lack of use. It stepped forward into Heather's hands, its chest caving in at her touch, rotting away beneath her fingers. "Did you shape it to your liking? Were we not good enough for you? Is that why you killed me?" It carried on walking forward, it's body disintegrating around her until it collapsed on top of her, still asking an endless stream of questions and accusing her of Eric's murder.
Billy suddenly decided that enough was enough and concentrated, taking another memory from her mind. The Eric-Mercutio-thing disappeared, to be replaced by a small box sitting on the canopy of the bed. He had no idea what it was, but her mind seemed to think it was important and he thought maybe he could use it.
Heather cringed away from the rotting corpse, and the accusatory words. "I didn't plan it like that, you don't understand!" she screeched. "No one was supposed to die!" She hid her head in the pillow, in abject terror, praying that the thing would go away, leave her alone. When it got quiet, she gradually opened her eyes, and saw the box, just sitting there. She glanced around, and the room seemed to be empty. She reached out an arm to grab for it.
Without moving a muscle, something that was no longer necessary - now he had control Billy was part of the very fabric of the dream, no longer noticeable unless he wished to be - the box faded slightly so that Heather's arm passed right through it.
It was almost as if she knew it would happen...the box wasn't really there, or it was just out of reach. It was always like that, she finally realized--she was in a dream. The spirit, whatever it was, was taunting her through her dream. She wondered if she could fight back, but she was so tired, so very tired and sore....
Heather woke briefly when the night nurse came in and flipped on the light. "My, you're restless tonight," she said. "Here's another dose so you stop thrashing around, you'll make your ribs worse." Heather swallowed the sedative and fell back into blackness.