8th Fairy Tale § Voice/Action
[at first, the dreams had been fun, if a little strange, the people nearest and dearest to her taking on completely different roles from the ones she knew so well. Archie as a sailor, Buffy as a warrior, Len as…well… a doctor still, but gruffer, somehow. And, oddly enough, Raine’s fiancé Jack Sparrow parading around as a pirate. It had been all kinds of ridiculousness and just the sort of thing that, later, she would joke about with Archie over morning coffee.
And then there had been dreams of the city. Not that she’d ever seen anything like it. There were towering buildings, lights that stayed on day and night, and the constant thrum of machines and people, even after night had fallen. That had been full of people she didn’t know except, while it was happening, it felt beyond real. So real that it took her a minute after she’d woken up to sort out exactly where she was. Once coffee was done, she’d abandoned the prospect of lunch to go to her studio, determined to capture the foreign images on canvas before they were gone forever.
She wasn’t worried when, exhausted after a day’s work at her easel, she’d stumbled back home and fallen asleep in her bed. If anything, she was almost eager to see if she’d return to that strange place again once her dreams caught up with her.
She didn’t.
When her eyes open, the whole room is shrouded in darkness, but it’s a different room. A different bed. The sheets around her are scratchy and stiff from too much starch, a small detail that later will seem oddly clear. It makes her skin itch, along her arms and her ankles where her nightgown doesn’t quite cover, but she doesn’t move. She barely dares to breathe. She needs to be still. Oh so still. Because, if she’s quiet enough, she might be able to will herself out of existence. Away from this house, this room, and him.
Somewhere behind her, the door creaks, and she scrunches her eyes shut as if that might block out the noise, too. There’s the steady thud of footsteps against the floor and the soft growl of words, harsh in the silence, but she doesn’t hear them. Jilly is gone, willed away to somewhere not here. Those words, laced with cruel amusement, are spoken to someone else. When the bed shifts, it’s someone else who shifts with it. And when he touches her, it’s someone else who cries, silent, hot tears that slip into the night with no one to witness their appearance. Because Jilly isn’t there right now.
When morning comes, she doesn’t leave her covers. Curled up, knees to her chest, she cries more silent tears into her pillow. The whole nightmare is sheathed in a fog of half-remembered details, as if her dream self worked so hard to forget that the forgetting has crept into the waking world, but what she does remember is still all too real. It's only the thought of school that forces her from her makeshift shelter to go and get ready.
When she does finally manage to force herself from her room, she can’t fully shake the awful, edgy feeling the dream left behind, even as she works to push the details from her mind. It’s too raw and it seeps into her actions, making her distracted and more solemn than usual as she goes through the motions of teaching her classes.
When school is done, she stops at the play ground, sitting on one of the swings with her journal open in her lap. For a long time, she simply stares at the pages, reading all the other entries popping up about strange dreams. It’s only after sitting there for an hour…maybe more… that she takes her pencil to the page to write a question]
If the dreams are happening all over, this has to be a shift, right?
[please let it be a shift. One that's over very, very soon]
And then there had been dreams of the city. Not that she’d ever seen anything like it. There were towering buildings, lights that stayed on day and night, and the constant thrum of machines and people, even after night had fallen. That had been full of people she didn’t know except, while it was happening, it felt beyond real. So real that it took her a minute after she’d woken up to sort out exactly where she was. Once coffee was done, she’d abandoned the prospect of lunch to go to her studio, determined to capture the foreign images on canvas before they were gone forever.
She wasn’t worried when, exhausted after a day’s work at her easel, she’d stumbled back home and fallen asleep in her bed. If anything, she was almost eager to see if she’d return to that strange place again once her dreams caught up with her.
She didn’t.
When her eyes open, the whole room is shrouded in darkness, but it’s a different room. A different bed. The sheets around her are scratchy and stiff from too much starch, a small detail that later will seem oddly clear. It makes her skin itch, along her arms and her ankles where her nightgown doesn’t quite cover, but she doesn’t move. She barely dares to breathe. She needs to be still. Oh so still. Because, if she’s quiet enough, she might be able to will herself out of existence. Away from this house, this room, and him.
Somewhere behind her, the door creaks, and she scrunches her eyes shut as if that might block out the noise, too. There’s the steady thud of footsteps against the floor and the soft growl of words, harsh in the silence, but she doesn’t hear them. Jilly is gone, willed away to somewhere not here. Those words, laced with cruel amusement, are spoken to someone else. When the bed shifts, it’s someone else who shifts with it. And when he touches her, it’s someone else who cries, silent, hot tears that slip into the night with no one to witness their appearance. Because Jilly isn’t there right now.
When morning comes, she doesn’t leave her covers. Curled up, knees to her chest, she cries more silent tears into her pillow. The whole nightmare is sheathed in a fog of half-remembered details, as if her dream self worked so hard to forget that the forgetting has crept into the waking world, but what she does remember is still all too real. It's only the thought of school that forces her from her makeshift shelter to go and get ready.
When she does finally manage to force herself from her room, she can’t fully shake the awful, edgy feeling the dream left behind, even as she works to push the details from her mind. It’s too raw and it seeps into her actions, making her distracted and more solemn than usual as she goes through the motions of teaching her classes.
When school is done, she stops at the play ground, sitting on one of the swings with her journal open in her lap. For a long time, she simply stares at the pages, reading all the other entries popping up about strange dreams. It’s only after sitting there for an hour…maybe more… that she takes her pencil to the page to write a question]
If the dreams are happening all over, this has to be a shift, right?
[please let it be a shift. One that's over very, very soon]