So it wasn't a dream.
So that feeling wasn't just all in her head.
She had wanted to greet him, welcome him back from his trip, with not a wave, a handshake, or a hug... but with a kiss.
As she flew toward him, feeling her dress billow behind her, the sun's heat seemed to fade and turn to nothing. She heard the peoples' cacophony of voices more like the buzzing of a fly, even as she got closer to the crowd that gathered around him.
Feeling strange as she was caught—and stopped—by the wall of bodies before her, she found that she couldn't at all look away from him.
'Doon.'
'Doon,' she said in her mind again.
'Doon Harrow,' again, for good measure.
Lina had missed him so much it shocked her now. She stopped and let the bodies move her.
In the seconds before she was brought in front him, Lina Mayfleet frantically ran through again the days and weeks between his leaving and now his short return.
Lina spent her time at the doctor's house, ate there, slept there, did small favours for her housemates; at the greenhouses, just to greet Clary (and perhaps Maddie) as she always used to; at the Pioneer, where she would be warmly received by her old and new Emberite friends and where, if she was so lucky, she would be stranded because of another summer storm; and particularly nowhere, exchanging messages between the people of Sparks and seeing who and what there was to see.
Lina knew where Doon had been... No one didn't.
Lina wanted to know what he had done with his fellows, north... Like everyone else.
Yet what Lina cared for the most was that he was here, in her sights... And she was not even overjoyed. She was not ecstatic, either.
She was in raptures by the sight of him.
No one else was, not a one! And as she was aware of this mortifying fact, the young lady was disturbed, too.
She was so surprised, concerned, confused, and generally taken aback that she could only stumble as the crowd followed him back to the quarters constructed for the Emberites in Sparks (the people were working almost feverishly for the expansion of their town, the effect of the mayors' declaration that the hundreds of newcomers that had troubled them so were proper citizens now) in which they would find his house ready to welcome him. Lina had not even responded to the young man's quiet "I'm back" a few moments before.
'A dream.'
Now came the sunset, and only now was Lina's head clear. It acknowledged that although the last day had actually been spent sitting and hearing the stories of his trip, this one dream from which she now woke was very, very pleasant. (It had indeed known its owner to be so passionate before... Still, how unfounded a desire!)
Failing to tune out the dull thudding of her heart, Lina's eyelids lifted open. She sat on the riverside a stonethrow away from the doctor's home.
She called back to mind his exact words.
"But we're still not done. There's still more to find. To tell the truth..."
He had paused. The few listeners that were left, including the people he had traveled with, urged him on with their looks.
"Aright.
"I don't regret finding a way, an easy one, to more information. Not at all. But... I do want not to have to leave so quickly after getting back.
Boisterous voices telling him not to be so melancholy, gentler ones suggesting that he stay, and continued conversation on the experiences that come with such journeys as theirs and of the homesickness that generally appears in a person who is not usually so nomadic followed.
He remained silent through all of it, maybe feeling like his contribution had been made.
The sun was at its highest then, a contrast to its low place when their caravan came rolling back to the plaza.
It had been he who first climbed down and headed away from his party, most of them much too busy with their spoils.
'They'll be having dinner soon.'
He had walked into the Pioneer's square so nonchalant, but the sight of him after so many months was extraordinary...
'Stop thinking, you!'
What more had he done in his absence? More than she had watched proceeding in Sparks, where facility after facility was finally started up for use?
'Want to know...'
That one meeting was not enough. They were—
'Together again.'
The beat of her importunate heart finally slowed as she imagined—
'Lovers...'
The sun sank on her lone figure.
. . . . . . . . . .
I...
Didn't know what it was I was in.
A closed space? A compartment, a car?
A trap.
A floor, all smooth but for one dent.
Dust. Absolutely everywhere, there was dust.
Metal poles.
Tables where people sat down.
Doorframes (and no doors).
Concave walls.
I keep running down it but there's no end to it, nothing to crash into.
I weave my way through. See every detail.
Yet I see nothing else but this place.
I am perfectly blind.
There's no visibility beyond the fog. The fog ahead and behind me. It is impossibly dense.
Blurring colours. A wall.
A lens.
But at what was I looking?
Doon awoke with every one of his muscles shot with fright. The scream seemed still to be echoing in his head. As he looked around, blearily, his comprehension expanded minutely, exposing the fact that it had been a girl's voice.
His throat caught.
Not his.
Hers.
Whose?
Where could he find her?
He needed to get to her.
'Get to her!' he felt the urge with all his being.
It was some minutes later that Doon finally slumped back down.
The caravan was still moving slowly along its pencil-thin road, he had found. He finally dared to breathe.
It had been a dream, and though he knew people sometimes were lucid inside them, what he'd heard...
The sound had been a wail, so distinct...
It was scary.
Without the strength even to shake his head, he asked himself,
'What was wrong with me?'
And laid his head down once again, rearranging the blanket over his body, quivering still.
The moon watches over them all.
It was only the next day that Lina found herself troubled by Lizzie Bisco to accompany her to the baker's for the midday meal. She foolishly had decided that maybe she could spend her time in others' company, rather than drive herself insane with the questions.
It seemed as though her friend was likely to take that upon herself this morning. She felt her jaw clench.
"What's wrong, Lina?
"Lina?"
"I hardly know."
Lizzie looks incredulous at this response.
"What are you thinking about- have been thinking about?"
"What do you mean?"
She suddenly felt wary.
"What's got you looking so lost?"
Oh- Well, that was one way to put it.
"I want to know!"
"So do I."
Lizzie again looks unsatisfied.
"You can tell me."
"What if I don't want to?"
This avoidance did not go unpunished.
"Don't try to kid me, Lina. How long should you know someone before you can trust them with your problems? Besides, Lina, you look like you have more than a problem. When you have a problem you moan about it every now and then, but your face- You just, okay, look... How do you say it? Poppywash?"
"Poppywash."
"I don't know, hog... Something you used once-does it matter?"
"Hogwash."
"It doesn't really-Oh, yeah, right. No, no, not that one. You- You remember, right? Fadgasted or something. Like I mentioned, it doesn't matter."
"Flabbergasted..."
"Anyway. I look concerned, sound- You- I sound very concerned, do I not?"
Slowed down considerably, she now jumped in front of Lina, hands on her hips.
"Yes, Lizzie."
She was at a loss for words.
"So tell me, please, please."
Lina was just relieved for the relative shortness of her plea.
"You want to know badly?"
"Terribly." She said with such an intonation it made Lina snort. The redhead broke into a grin. At this, with a certain stupid daring, Lina moved ahead of her friend, just enough so that she could explain herself without having to look Lizzie in the face.
"It's nothing more than... wanting to change hairstyles."
For a second, Lizzie didn't buy it. She opened her mouth. Shut it.
"Lina, why would you want to?"
"Like I said...
"I hardly know."
They stopped their stroll to feel the gust of wind passing by. Lizzie, without further ado, trilled,
"So let's find OUT!"
As her longtime friend bounded forwards again, Lina wondered if that girl's short-term memory would have mercy on her and blot this out.
Of course, following that Friday and Saturday, Lizzie called on Lina for a sit down.
She simply was much too smart for her own good.
"Oh, I had a feeling I saw something the other day in you, Lina."
"Hm?"
Good- Seem clueless.
"What are you talking about, Lizzie?"
"Lina, who do you think you're talking to? It's me. How could I not pick up on it? What did you think?"
That I could make a clean getaway, Lizzie!
"What is it you're trying to say?
Looking all business, her friend drew herself up in her seat, set her forearms on the table, maybe would have cracked her knuckles.
Feeling quite sick, she could only look on.
"I know. So tell me."
It took her some leaning over, deep breaths, would have also took hand-wringing, but she finally started.
"It was so strange, Lizzie..."
From her peripheral view (she was looking right down), she saw Lizzie Bisco shift.
Courtships and fancies certainly would not be called strange in her view, would they?
She had found quite a character for her first fling. For taking part in his perverse, if not criminal practice she had forgiven her dear Lizzie, but had the boy Looper managed to escape the river's mouth as he tried his coward's escape, Lina was sure she would have a hard time regarding him with less than repulsion.
But then, unfortunate circumstances really had held Lizzie's romantic urges back then, seeing as she fancied the daring type. Although her "friends" still had to have no small amount of extrovertedness (and good looks), unlike then, she could tell if one was much too flaky to be tolerated. Lizzie was smart. And so, in recent years the objects of her affection had indeed not lost their lives or fled the town. In all honesty, her eagerness was hampered for only a bit.
Lina wondered what she'd think of this.
"Hello?"
"Oh!"
Clueless she wasn't, but distracted?
"I'm sorry!"
"Take your time, Lina."
A number of options for her next choice of words now presented themselves:
Great news, I've fallen in love!
Can we do this some other time? Never? I like that idea.
Lina soon contented herself with asking for a different place for their meeting. She wondered where she could possibly find a place to better explain herself, and whether there was a one that would take an especially tediously long time to reach (she knew of Lizzie's patience). However, it came to pass that the two girls encountered a fellow traveler of Doon Harrow's as they entered the city plaza, Lina leisurely walking and Lizzie trodding beside her. The young man told in an agreeable manner of news that was quite the opposite: They and their caravan were to leave again for the north; however, the length of their leave was still undecided.
"Lina...?"
Perhaps Lizzie didn't need to see such a hint with such immediacy.
Perhaps it should not be a shock at all to any reasonable person. Still…
Right now, could she call herself one?
Lizzie understood when Lina stumbled and ran towards the direction of Doon's home.
They left again within a fortnight. It was less that Doon's acquaintances, especially his closest friends, had pushed for a longer rest, than his masters' feelings that they should take care of their caravan's new member.
He was thankful.
He had had no idea what he would meet on the roads that the visiting group claimed they traveled, and that he was determined to hit along with them... Although determined might be an understatement. The need to join the group seemed to have possessed him, and its effect on his relationships would not be inconsequential.
Looking back on the couple of months since, Doon remembered the words that had allowed him to leave the tangle of close relations and acquaintances that was the society of Sparks.
Let me go.
His father had: Lorris Harrow seemed to know that he was giving consent for a young man's journey, not permission for a boy's trip.
Then the group itself, who he thought would be hardest to convince: Yury was so easy-going that it took only a short assessment of Doon's person to agree that he'd be "fun." His men, though, needed more convincing later in time.
But the people to whom it had actually been hardest to say those words were his friends.
Kenny right now was smiling easy.
No doubt at all, he'd quickly grown into his potential! Perhaps it was that he poked around the woods now as a profession, providing firewood and lumber.
Still, though, the guy had a sparkle in his eye. The same ones had been crackling with energy when he'd first left, but as he explained the things that took place outside the area the boy had known all his life, Kenny looked warmly on.
"That family took some convincing. The doctor-doctors, I keep forgetting-will be happy to know some more about herbal medicines."
"They were apothecaries?"
"That's what they called themselves."
"Do they use salves or maybe something we haven't heard of?"
As Doon explained what had been patiently recounted to him some time ago, the sun's scorching heat grew in intensity. Summer this year would be no different, though the spring had blessed the town with enough water to get by. It was only an occasional gust of wind now, however, that brought relief.
Seeing as apothecaries had little to do with most everyone else, it was fair to say that in Kenny Parsons Doon was sure to find a listener.
Soon the two were laughing at the absurdity of Mrs. Parsons' less traditional culinary endeavours.
The wind continued to blow.
"How did people take it when they all knew I left?"
"Oh! They didn't understand at all."
His junior explained that as the cold spring wore on, there were varying cries made on the manner of Doon's departure; of his leaving being unsuspected, though he was an adventurous sort of man; after a month, of his being treated very well by everyone and what reason there could possibly be for leaving them to their still unimproved inconveniences (with those had Doon previously helped); of whether the climate was possibly nicer north, and why did he want to go there besides that; and of what he'd bring back, because surely he knew some were waiting for him.
The youngest Parsons child, born not too long ago, when Kenny's parents expected no other child but the one, found the two walking the hills and invited Doon to a final dinner at their home, but, unfortunately for him, it had been at the precise moment that Doon opened his mouth to attempt to explain his real inclination.
'Maybe I should stay.'
As Doon reflected on that conversation, the thought tempted him. The night before, farewells had been made at the Parsons' house. It was a surprisingly serene party that had filed out of the house by the evening's end. Even his father had looked resigned as the last day of his son's return came to a close. They hoped only for better gifts upon his next return, or at least that's what they all had let on.
He was thinking hard on what he was setting out for as the sun, rising, continued to change imperceptibly the sky's colour. Sitting on the edge of the slowly crawling truck's bed, the dust the wheels heaved up and his wearing pants made it all the more unbearable.
He was still unsure of what his team did, as a rule, in order to glean "not treasures of material value" but of "artistic and practical heft." (What those were, too, he had been curious about in the first place!)
No.
No matter what, Doon had to know, and for now the way to more led out of dusty, rough, beautiful Sparks, a place he now called home as readily as he once called Ember.
. . . . . . . . . .
The air was still, immobile, suspended in summer heat. The very specks of dirt around her were hot, as wood left in a dying fire, glowing red.
No.
Lina was the only one to get up early enough to see Doon Harrow off, but she made no appearance at the east-facing road leading out of the city. Again, there was no one else but Lina Mayfleet who gazed on him, and no one who watched the group go on and regret it. She hated herself.
Why?
She had been silent. For two whole weeks, even as she contemplated the very reason behind her new passion-she could not bear to call it love-she knew she had to be honest with him. And yet...
She breathed, not with a little difficulty, and from the heave of her chest flowed forth the agonizing thought:
I let him go.
The dream kept returning. The vision of having none had appeared in his subconscious and it did not fade as the days passed and very different things filled his mind.
Once he tried explaining what it made him feel, but his choice of listener, Yury, demonstrated only every thing everyone could possibly have misunderstood. ("Scary how!?")
After this, whenever it happened, Doon could only draw into himself and try hard not to think about the vision's closing sound or about its certain clarity in his mind, for this was what always alarmed him and, thanks to Yury's word of mouth, even the few others that still distrusted Doon.
What bewildered him the most was that every time he would be jolted awake, his reaction was the same:
'Get to her!'
Over time, the number of the dream's occurrences diminished into nothing. Doon seldom thought about his nightmare—how was it scary, though, really?—but when he did, the thought would end with one or another of many questions he could not possibly answer. (More often than not, it was as he had first asked himself: What was wrong with him?) Then, 'Don't let it bother you,' he would tell himself.
And Doon did not.
A/N: Please comment if the formatting hitches up, gave me a hard time.