The Talker Of Dreams.

By: Katie Knothe

Inspired by: Joseph Delaney's Last Apprentice series.

"Thomas J. Ward, I hear you are coming to the emerald isle. Am I correct? If I am, I also know it's a bad idea. You know its not. But then again, not going would be rather daft as well, wouldn't it? Considering the state of the county and the very easily predicted future of the island Mona. That is were your staying isn't it? But know this Tom, people here don't take to well to spooks or there apprentices. In fact they don't take well to the forces of the light well at all really. And here the dark forces even in there simplest form can be extremely dangerous! I know you are not very knowledgeable about these dangers, and that's what I can help you with….."

"TOM!" Someone was screaming my name. "TOM WAKE UP!" It was Alice. Slowly I got up from the hard floor. My best friend Alice was sitting next to me.

"Why wouldn't you wake up?" she asked

"What is it lad? You look as though you're confused about something."

I looked up to see the spook looming over me. "Just a strange dream," I said. Alice got a worried look on her face and asked if it was about the fiend. "I don't think so, and the weirdest part is it didn't even feel like a dream." I said. "Just somebody talking to me, a girl, Irish I think. And it didn't even feel like a dream, it felt… wierd"

The spook thought for a moment before saying,

"It could have been a witch, however I don't think a witch could actually talk to you in your mind, at least not from as far as Ireland." Still worried, Alice looked at me.

"What she say to ya, Tom?"

"Nothing important" I said

"Everything's important information these days, lad," said the spook. He had a point.

"Said something about Ireland being very dangerous, and how we didn't have enough knowledge of the dark forces there." Then I shivered thinking of my encounter with the "banshee witch" of Ireland. The emerald isle was a mysterious place and what I knew already scared me enough.

"Aye, who or whatever it was is right" said the spook, and then he frowned. He looked at Alice who was looking a lot less worried now.

"If you know anything of use girl, say it now."

Alice just looked down. "Ireland's a mysterious country, you said so yourself," I said to the spook. Then, to my surprise, Alice looked up and said,

"Only one thing I know could be kinda useful." Me and the spook both stared at her.

"Go on," he said.

"Terrible creatures, there is, called banshees. Got a scream that'll make you faint, an' …. "The spook cut her off, saying, "We know all about banshees, girl, and their very simple to take care of, mind you. As long as you don't listen to their screams, mind you." Alice glared at him. "I know that too," she said, "what I also know is some banshees live among the faries and some even with a terrible nature can be very helpful to both the dark and the light."

"How's that?" I said which must have been a really stupid thing to say because they both just looked at me for a moment before Alice continued.

"Faries and pixies like to tell people's secrets, no matter whose they are, dark or light." The spook chuckled and said,

"I myself do not believe in such nonsense as faries, but if you think this could be helpful to us…."

Alice turned red and glared at him.

"They could hear something about the fiend. They could point out people who are truly against him, like we are. That would be helpful, wouldn't it?"

The spook looked at her before saying,

"Well, if there's any kind of help like that, it would be very useful. But remember this, girl, if they tell someone else's secrets to you, what make you thinks they wont tell your secrets to someone else?"

I thought about this, and then decided it best not to seek out any help from people like that, because we all had secrets that would be deadly in anyone's hands other than our own, much less an enemy. Then I thought of something,

"My dream talker. Could she be something we've never even thought of, even heard of?"

The spook and Alice gave me a worried looks. Then with a grim face, the spook looked at me and said,

"That's probably exactly what she is, lad."

Then I remembered something, "But I think she said she could help us. But someone could be tricking me, couldn't they?" It had happened a lot in the past.

"Aye" said the spook. "At this point it's hard to trust anyone these days. Especially someone you don't know much about and who can talk to you in your mind, for that matter."

"It could have been the fiend tricking you," Alice pointed out. The fiend had talked to me in my mind many times before, but never in the voice of a girl. But he probably could, and would, if he wanted to.

The spook looked at Alice.

"Speaking of the fiend, have you had any recent contact with the witch-assassin?" He asked. The witch-assassin, Grimalickan, was going to help us destroy the fiend.

"Not since two months ago, when you asked me to," said Alice.

"We fear something has happened to her," I added.

"She is probably just having trouble sneaking onto the island," said the spook. "Since Lizzy got in, the locals are even more cautious. " This was true. Bony Lizzy, a powerful dark witch, took over the island after sneaking over from the county, the same place we came from. Luckily, we had brought her down before anything too terrible had happened. But the islanders were still very cautious about letting anyone in, no matter where they were from.

"Well, we're leaving for Ireland in two days, whether she comes with us or not. Its too risky staying here," said the spook. Me and Alice both knew there was truth in what he was saying, but that didn't mean we were any more happy to hear it. The spook looked at Alice, "You may use the mirror to try to contact her again tonight. If she's still not with us when we leave, try again in Ireland."

He was obviously not happy about the dark magic she was going to have to use. Then he looked at me. "Tom, look through the Bestiary and see if you can find anything that could have talked to you last night." He pulled the Bestiary out of his bag and handed it to me. "I'm going to start a fire. It's getting colder in her by the second." The island of Mona was in the heart of winter and our only source of warmth was either a fire or our cloaks. I had mine wrapped tightly around me, but I was still extremely cold.

I leafed through the Bestiary, stopping at banshees and Celtic witches to refresh my memory of the few Irish terrors I already knew. It obviously wasn't a banshee, but it could have been a Celtic witch talking to me last night. But sadly, it said nothing about them being able to talk to you in your mind. This both scared and shocked me. I saw the Celtic witch Bill Arkwrite killed do some pretty strong magic. I thought it would be pretty likely that one of them could do something pretty simple, like mind talking. But what scared me was that if they could, we didn't know about it, and I wondered what else we didn't know about them.

I told the spook I had found nothing, and this obviously disappointed him. He frowned and thought for a movement before saying, "Sadly, the one person who may have had some information about the Emerald Isle was Bill Arkwrite himself." Bill Arkwrite had been killed in a battle against the dark forces of Greece during the summer. The spook sighed. Then he said, "Get out your notebook, lad. You might as well make note of anything we already know about Ireland."

Then the spook told me about pixies, banshees, fairies, Celtic witches, and worst of all the Lianhanshee, the love fairy. "We must take extra caution with this one," said the spook. "She can destroy men with their own desire." Then he smiled, "But my guess is she'll aim for you so I have nothing to worry about."

I smiled too, but then I turned around to make sure Alice didn't hear him. Hopefully, we wouldn't run into her. If I desired her, Alice might kill me before she did. "But if she's the one who captures your heart, you'll be lucky" the spook said. I looked at him confused. Were Irish women really that bad? "Ever hear of the demon's kiss?" he asked me.

I shook my head no. "The demon bride awaits in the cemetery and waits for the last to leave after a funeral or wedding. And should it be young man, she becomes a beautiful young woman and makes him promise to meet her on a particular day, then she kisses him and he goes stark raving mad and eventually dies." He smiled. "Shouldn't be scared of her though, should we?" I smiled. Being spooks, we weren't allowed in cemeteries or churches dead or alive, literally. The spook's apprentice, or the spook that dies, needs to be buried at least ten feet from the outskirts of a cemetery. So we had no danger from her; at least, I thought so.

That night I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Ireland. So full of darkness and evil. I had heard stories, I think, when I was little, about its rolling green hills and beautiful scenery. What lied within that scenery was another thing altogether. Then I heard her voice:

"I see your master has told you all he knows about my country."

"Yes, he has, and even thought it's not much, everything helps doesn't it?" I was shocked to hear myself reply. I didn't know I could do that.

"That is so," she said. "However, it's only a fraction of what you need to know."

At that moment I heard a creaking on the floorboards near the door downstairs. It startled me, and I realized I had been in a short trance, staring at the ceiling. I got up quietly and made my way downstairs. The reason I got up was not because I had heard the noise. It was because when I heard the noise I got a cold feeling, a feeling only spooks get. It means something from the dark is near. Then I heard her voice again.

"Don't be afraid of me. I'm here to help you not to harm you." Then I realized she wasn't in my head, she was right behind me. I gripped my silver chain and wished I hadn't' left my staff upstairs. She spoke again.

"Let go of the chain, Tom."

"Why?" I asked her.

"One, because I told you I didn't want to hurt you." I turned around.

"And two, silver doesn't hurt onies."

Then a girl thirteen or fourteen walked out of the shadows. She had long dark hair down to her hips. She was wearing a long simple black dress, with silver lacy sleeves that drooped on her arms like a spider web. She was barefoot and when she lifted her head to smile at me, I almost gasped. She had quite an unusual face. She was pretty but not extraordinarily pretty and I was relieved by that because it meant that she probably wasn't using any glamour or fascination spells on me. That is, if she was a witch. But the most spectacular thing about her was her eyes. They were a bright sea green and seemed to glow. After I was finished getting a good look at her, I finally spoke.

"An onie? What's that?" I asked her. For some reason, this seemed to amuse her because, she gave me a strange grin.

"Not many people have heard of me. I'm really mysterious, as the townsfolk like to say."

"I certainly haven't heard of them. Are all onies like that?" I asked her.

She frowned. "I'm the only one," she told me. She motioned for me to sit on the ground and then she sat down next to me. "Let me tell you about myself," she said. "I live among the banshees and faeries, in the woods by a village called Dublin." She sighed. "It's a powerful village. The Conquistador there gets people to start mobs and come after me sometimes."

"Why?" I asked her.

"I have powers that they find dangerous," she told me.

I looked at her. "You have powers?" This worried me. She was the only one of her kind. What had happened to the rest? And were the powers dangerous?

"Yes, I can talk to people in their heads, read minds, hypnotize with my eyes and, if I wish, I can look through your memories, and your past, your feelings, …and your secrets."

I got up from the floor. I had plenty to hide, from her and from many others. I didn't want to let her read me like some kind of book. She looked up at me.

"Please, Tom. Sit down. I shouldn't have said that."

I held my chain tightly in my hand. Then glared at her and hissed,

" What do you know about me."

She was silent for a moment before looking up at me, close to tears. "Tom," she said, "I know who your mam was." She started to sob, "I know your feelings the first time you realized she might be a Lamia witch." I closed my eyes; I was feeling it all over again. The disappointment. Feeling like I was being lied to ,betrayed, by the person that I had cared for the most my whole life.

Then she cried even harder. "I know your feelings when you heard that it was much worse. And when you saw her in her true form. You were forced to stand back and watch her die." I felt myself start to cry, too. It was the first time I had cried in a while. It didn't last long, though, because then I felt a surge of anger.

"You shouldn't know," I said. "Why did you have to read me? Why did you look through my past?"

She was silent for a moment before calming down and looking up at me. "Because, Tom, I had to see if you were the one I was looking for."

"Why were you looking for me?" I asked her.

"I traveled here from Ireland to try to find Thomas Ward, spooks apprentice, son of the old god Lamia, and the biggest threat to the fiend at the moment. To teach him about my country, to make sure he could fight a good fight. Because they think you'll be unprepared but I was going to surprise them when you defeated them."

Hundreds of questions ran through my head. The first one I asked was, "Who are 'they'?"

"They're the witches in my homeland, Tom. They got a scryer to show them any threat that was coming their way. And he saw you. Then I heard one of them talking about how they were planning to surprise you. They know of your limited knowledge of them."

Then I asked her how she got onto Mona.

"Simple. I hypnotized a couple of people, and here I am. It wasn't very hard." It scared me how normal she thought that sounded. She looked at me and then up at the ceiling. "I think someone's awoken," she said. She made a strange face before saying, "It's your master, not Alice, don't worry." She smiled.

I watched as the spook walked down the stairs into the room. He looked at me, and then at her. "And who might this be?" he asked me. I looked at her and realized that I didn't know her name.

"I'm Katherine McCarthy," she said calmly. But then she said something that almost made me pass out. "Daughter of Lianhanshee, Lady of the Banshees and Talker of Dreams." Then she saw the look on my face and looked at the floor. The Lianhanshee? I thought. The Lianhanshee! First she tells me she's here to help me, talks in my head, goes through my past, makes me cry, makes me mad, confuses me, and now this! I sat down and put my head in my hands, because this was too much.

I sat there silently as she explained everything to the spook, only leaving out the part about my mam. Me and her were the only people who knew, and she knew I wanted it to stay that way. When she finished, the spook scratched his chin.

"You think I'm dark," she said. "You think I'm as bad as Alice, possibly worse."

"Aye," he said. "Just as bad as a witch you are. Are you denying it?"

She frowned and then stared at him. "I forgot to mention I looked through your memories."

The spook glared at her, "You have no right…"

"I looked through yours, Alice's and Tom's. "I know the things you hide and the things you want to forget."

Then the spook got angrier than I'd ever seen him.

"Leave now," he growled at her.

She stood up and stared him straight in the eye. "No," she said. "Everyone here has made mistakes, John. So much worse than anything I've ever done. "

The spook tensely held his staff, like he was prepared to kill her at any second. Then she said something that changed everything.

"That's why I should be allowed here. That's why I should teach you. That's why I'd light, not dark. In fact, I'm the lightest one in this room. You know it." Then there was a tense silence.

The spook took out his Bestiary, scribbled something down, and asked her, "Where are you staying?"

"The old cottage you stayed in a couple of months ago," she said. "Send Tom and Alice to me around noon tomorrow for lessons in the dark powers of my homeland." She turned to leave. "And after, I'll help you fill in some blanks in your Bestiary." And then, she was gone.

The spook told me to make an entry on her, and many more tomorrow, in my notebook on what she taught me. As he slowly walked up the stairs, I began to write. Trying to concentrate, but I couldn't stop thinking. She might be right about what she said. And I had some questions to ask her about what she saw in his mind and in Alice's. But those would have to wait until tomorrow.

Onies.

Possibly dark creatures of Ireland that live among the banshees and faeries. Daughters of the Lianhanshee, and they possess strange powers – hypnotism, mind reading, and they can look through your memories and thoughts/feelings. They have big sea green eyes that they use for hypnotism, and at times they can talk to you in your head. Could be very dangerous. Spook thinks they're worse than Alice. Only one in existence at moment. Her name is Katherine McCarthy, and silver will not harm her.

Then I tried to sleep and not think about anything that had happened. I slept. Not well, I might add, but I slept. This time however there was no voice.