Josh 4

I walked into the house, it had been a long day at work and I hadn't had a chance to talk to Abby all day. My day started late after being awakened by Abby's tossing and turning throughout the night. I could only assume after hearing her talk in her sleep that Laylan had made her return. In my disappointment that my brilliant scheme to help her out with the normal intrusion of Laylan in her dreams not working, I drug myself to work. Being a Thursday meant that it was going to be a pretty uneventful day which left plenty of time for me to think of other ideas. I had hoped for an improvement but instead of being four or five months between her dreams, as it usually was, we had actually shortened it to a little over two months.

At lunch, I had sat down with Mitchell and tried to confide in him about any ideas that he may have for me to approach this problem. He seemed to understand what I was saying a lot better than I thought he would have. He mentioned Veda having an alter ego that surfaced from time to time, but he didn't go into detail. His suggestion today was for her to continue writing out her dream and maybe it would iron itself out.

After lunch, the day seemed to drag on forever as I found myself watching the clock wanting to go home and see Abby. I wanted to know how she was. I knew that she was always in her own little world on her 'Laylan Days,' as she called them when she had explained to me when we had discussed it two months ago.

Now I was finally home and as I walked into the house, I closed the door behind me and noticed that it was quiet. “Abby?”

“I'm in the kitchen, Sweetie,” I heard her call back.

I walked toward the kitchen, hanging my coat on the coat rack in the hallway. I rounded the corner to the kitchen and I could see her sitting at the table. She had a few papers strewed around her as she was writing. I walked up to her and kissed her cheek gently. I saw a quick glimpse of the name Laylan on one of the sheets. “What are you writing?” I asked already knowing the answer.

“Um…” she paused looking up at me with those beautiful blue eyes. Then she finished, “You know how it's been a couple of months since I had my mysterious dream?”

I pretended to think about it as I thought about how Abby had revised the first copy of her dream about half a million times. “Yeah, did you have it again?” Of course, I already knew the answer.

“Well,” she began and paused looking as if she were confused about something. “Not exactly,” she finished.

I had begun to sit down when she had said this and looked up at her confused. “What do you mean, 'Not exactly'?” I asked.

“Well, it wasn't the dream I always had. This was different!” she began. I could see that this new dream had her a bit confused and a little jittery. “Well, I actually saw Laylan create a fairy!”

“What…Wow?” was all I could spit out, at that.

“Yeah,” she began with a deep breath and I knew that this might take a minute so I focused on her words. “Yeah, Lucassius, or Luke, gave her the pendants that she wears around her neck and ankle. She loved them so much that she cried and when her tears hit the ground, a rose grew. Inside of it was a little fairy, Ivy, her first.”

“Wait.” I interrupted. “Who is Lucassius?”

“Oh, he's Greagan's son,” she said in response. I sat there letting it all absorb in and then my mind went blank. I could only think about what it all could mean but I couldn't come up with a single answer to all of my own questions in my head. I looked up from my hands and looked into her eyes that were filled with concern.

“Are you okay, Josh? Or did I overload you with that?” she asked alarmed. My eyes wandered passed her as I tried to imagine it all in my mind. She touched my arm gingerly and snapped me back to the kitchen.

My eyes snapped back to hers and I muttered, “Oh, yeah.” Then my mind went blank again and I had lost it all. “What?” I asked to try to remember what we had been talking about.

“Are you okay? Maybe I should slow down the next time I start talking about my dreams,” she giggled and bit her lip.

“Oh, no, I'm fine. It just took me a minute for everything to finally sink in to where I could actually talk without sounding like an idiot,” I smiled at her with a laugh in my voice. “So now you're seeing other things? I thought it was always the same?”

A disconcerting look crossed her face as she looked down at her fidgety fingers. “Well, they always were but now there is more.”

I reached across the table and lifted her face to look into her eyes. “I think it's cool,” I smiled at her trying to get her to smile back and succeeded. Her bright smile lit my eyes and I felt confident to finish what I was thinking. “Is your imagination going crazy or something?” I asked as playfully as I could.

She shrugged her shoulders as she spoke. “I don't know, but it is weird. I mean, I have always known of Laylan. I have always seen Laylan in my dreams but it's always been the same. I've never seen Laylan doing anything but standing at the cliff. And I've never seen Lucassius!” She finished as she fidgeted with the pages that she had written.

“Well, then how is it you know about him?”

“Well,” she paused for a second then with a confused look on her face she continued, “I just… knew who he was. I don't know how I knew; I just did.” A nervous giggle escaped her lips as the realization of her own knowledge seemed to occur to her.

“Okay, so he just walked up and you already knew who he was?” I asked astounded by this information. How could she already know who this man was without an introduction?

“Well, actually yeah.” She was answering my question, so I brought my mind back to her. “He spoke and Laylan knew exactly who he was. I knew his name and who he was exactly.” Abby paused. “But to think about it, the first time I ever saw Laylan and Greagan and Artimous and Ivy, I already knew who they were, too. Hmm,” she finished with a look of contemplation on her beautiful face.

“So, the very first time you ever saw Laylan and the rest of them, you already knew who they were? Wow!” I was asking and stating aloud for myself.

Abby gathered up her papers, shut her notebook and stood up abruptly. “Come on let's go get something to eat. Go watch a movie. Go do something, anything, please. My head is beginning to hurt from all of this thinking today. Get me out of this house, please!” She was pleading, almost demanding.

I sat for a second not wanting to stop talking about this.

“Ok, look, I'll make a deal with you,” she was looking at me with an adorable pleading look.

“Ok, I'm listening.”

“If you take me out of this house, I will tell you about Dru, an immortal woman who is a champion of the Gods.”

I looked at her quizzically as this struck my interest. “Ok, you have my attention.” I stood and extended my elbow to her, “Shall I whisk you away, M’lady?”

She looked up at me with a victorious smile, knowing she had won. She always did.