Chapter 8


"Been taking it for granted, got the right to speak my mind

I'll overcome the dark, just like the dead,

the lame, the leper,

and the blind man"-Dreams come true, Brandon Flowers


Caleb shot out of sleep with a strangled cry. Sweat poured off his face and trickled a cold trail down his spine. His heartbeat pounded like a drum in his ears and he took in deep breath after deep breath as he scrubbed at his face with his hands.

The nightmare had been unlike any he had experienced before. Though he had believed that nothing could be worse than his childhood nightmare of the massacre that had decimated his tribe, that there would never be an image more horrific than that of his mother's eyes as he was ripped from her dead arms. This had blown all that away!

The dream had begun simply enough, so much so that, for at least a little while, Caleb had been unaware that he was dreaming. For all he knew, he had simply gotten up, exited his tent and walked out to the road, though he had not recalled doing so. Shivering from adrenaline and residual fear, Caleb replayed the dream in his mind, trying to hold onto it despite how much it had terrified him. He had to, he needed to, which was the very definition of insanity.

He remembered how it started, how he was standing on a dirt path, alone, in the middle of the Bayou. He hadn't questioned the isolation at the time, hadn't even looked around of Gray or his Unit. He had simply stood on that small path, staring at a dilapidated shack sitting at the end of it it. He recalled the light shining in the windows, the way it spilled out around the door. He recalled how downtrodden the structure was and the way it looked as though it could fall in on itself at any moment.

Caleb had studied it, unmoving, until his ears began to detect the quiet sound of sobbing coming from within, and though something internal warned against going, he began stepping forward, powerless to stop the forward momentum.

He did not move briskly. His steps were languid, almost lazy, as though he didn't need to go anywhere in a hurry. Once he reached the steps, he could not stop himself from climbing them. His legs carrying him quietly up each creaking, pitted step, only stopping when he was standing before an equally decrepit door.

There was a part of Caleb that knew he should be able to detect the smell of rotten wood, that the moldy scent of old things left to decay in a wet environment should have invaded his nostrils. It was an odor he knew well, he remembered it from his years at the orphanage, but he could not detect it here. How strange, he would think later, that there were no night noises, no breeze. It was as though he were trapped in a very realistic painting where everything looked real but there was no substance to any of it.

Again, Caleb registered the sound of sobbing. It was coming from inside the shack, where someone was speaking in a musical 'other' language that he didn't understand. His hand reached up to touch the dried wood of the door. He barely noted any sense of roughness beneath his fingers as he pushed it inward. It opened with no hint of sound. He remembered clearly the sensation of his foot taking a step forward and that was when he saw...her.

There had been a girl, kneeling on the floor of the shack, shaking the shoulder of a woman who lay sprawled out by the fireplace. Caleb had had a sudden flash of his own dead mother, heard his own babyish cries as rough arms ripped him from her forever. Part of him wanted to weep beside the girl, wanted to collapse next to her and brush those dark, auburn tinted curls over her shoulder. He wanted her hold her tightly. Why, he wondered, would he feel the desire to do such a thing for someone he didn't even know?

The girl had yet to notice him. She continued to plead with the woman to...get up? To be alive? He didn't know. Strangely, he felt as though he could listen to that language of hers for hours. Even through the crying and pleading it was beautiful to his ears. He wanted her to speak to him with that voice, he wanted to hear his name on her lips. Caleb felt a sudden longing for her to look at him.

His silent wish was granted. He must have made a noise, some small sound, because suddenly she wheeled about to stare at him with wide, golden eyes. It was her eyes in particular that drew him in. They were the color of honey or light amber, they glowed in the flickering light as though they were full of stars. They captured him and froze him to the spot more firmly than whatever forces had propelled him into the shack in the first place.

She gasped to see him there, those full lips falling open in a slight O of surprise. Caleb couldn't tell if she was shocked by his sudden appearance or merely just by him. She stared at him as he stared at her, stunned and enraptured all at the same time. Caleb felt the strangest pull in his chest to go to her. To wrap his arms around her and never ever let her go again. It made no sense and yet made all the sense in the world. This girl was his.

The spell only lasted a heart beat or two longer before the girl visibly shook herself. He watched those perfect lips preparing to move, possibly preparing to demand an explanation for his presence. She never had a chance to get out even a syllable because, in that moment, the woman next to her moved. Her hand shot out and grasped the girl's wrist firmly. She screamed, trying to pull away as the woman rose up on snapping, cracking limbs.

"Alice…" A dusty, raspy voice emanated from that frozen mouth, "Aliiiiiiiiiceeeeee…"

"Hey!" Caleb barked out in a sudden burst of worried anger.

"No, No, I'm not Alice!" The girl screamed back.

Caleb tried to rush forward, knowing he had to help her in some way, but before he could even take a step, arms shot around him from behind, holding him firmly in place. He looked down, startled, to discover a pair of muscular arms wrapped up under his armpits. They gripped his shoulders, keeping him still. They were covered in a kind of intricate, dark tattoo that rose like triangles from the bend of the elbow, all the way to the wrist. The skin was darker than his own, a deep mahogany brown.

"Let me go" He demanded, struggling to no avail.

"Must come out now, Alice," the woman croaked horribly, "must wake up…"

"You can't help her here." A deep voice grunted in Caleb's ear.

Whoever held him was of a taller, leaner build than Caleb himself. He was all hard lines and sinew and his grip was like steel. Caleb watched in horror as the woman began clawing her way up the girl's chest. She put her frozen and visibly rotting face right in front of his girls.

"Lovers and children and copper and tin…" The corpse sang in a horrible sing song drawl before reaching out to grab the girl's face with her claw-like fingers.

No, he thought wildly, No! Lahollo!

The term that came so quickly to his mind was a Choctaw word, more specifically an endearment. It had no easy translation in English but if he had to choose one the closest would have been beloved.

"Poor lamb," the corpse crooned, "Poor little soul. She's coming you know… the other one"

"Who?" the girl asked in a sharp whisper, as though the very act of speaking were difficult.

"You know," the corpse drawled teasingly, "Or you will…"

"Tenpri, Manman," the golden eyed girl sobbingly pled, "Please, this isn't you!"

"Let her go!" Caleb shouted as he fought against the arms once again. He kicked, he struggled but nothing he did was breaking the strangers hold. All he could do was watch as the corpse flicked her dead eyes up to his before letting loose a childish giggle. Then she leaned in close to the girl.

"Time to wake up now." she commanded quietly. The girl stared back mutely, trembling.

" WAKE UP!" The woman screeched in an ear splitting scream.

Caleb remembered clapping his hands over his ears, bowling over with pain as the arms of steel suddenly released him. He pressed his face into his knees as the ear splitting shriek went on and on and then suddenly...suddenly... it was over.

That was when he had woken up.

Caleb looked around the tent, his chest heaving as he tried to convince himself that he was back in the waking world, that the golden eyed girl and the dead woman were not real. He pressed a hand over his chest where his heart threatened to beat out of it and tried, unsuccessfully, to get himself under control.

"Just a dream, just a dream," he whispered to himself like a mantra, "just a really, really, shitty dream!"

Even as he told himself this, there was a part of him that didn't believe it. Specifically, the part of him that wanted to rush to the mystery girls aid. He had no reason to assume that she was anything more than a side character in the narrative his sleep deprived brain had created but a part of him still feared for her safety. It was insane, utterly ridiculous, that he was ready to race into the woods and search for some girl he wasn't even sure existed.

Running his hands back through his damp hair, Caleb leaned forward to cradle his head in his hands. Degree by degree, his system was righting itself from the onslaught of adrenaline. Each heartbeat that slowed down, allowed him to think that much more clearly, though did little to decrease his need for flight.

Outside, the sun was coming up. The faraway call of a rooster heralded the start of a new day. Soon it would be time for breakfast and patrolling. Soon it would be back to the grind of scrimmages and the cleaning of rifles and then yet another patrol. The proverbial snake eating its own tail. Caleb could only hope that by then he would have better control over his shaking hands, that by then he would no longer be a trembling mess obsessed with rescuing a dream girl. Even as he thought it, he knew he would not be free of her. Though he was awake, and the sun was high in the sky, the girl would still haunt him.

She was with him when he closed his eyes and he feared for her, his Lahollo, his star eyed girl. Somehow, Caleb was going to have to find her. He knew there would be no peace for him until he did. Unfortunately, he didn't even know where to begin looking.


By lunchtime, he was calmer, but that undercurrent of fear was still niggling at the back of his mind. It felt like the dirty fingernail of god, digging, digging, scratching a permanent place in his brain. He felt like he was only half there, going through the motions without actually experiencing anything, which was very dangerous should a combat situation arise. It must have been obvious that he was not firing on all cylinders. Even Gray was staring at him as though he could see the thoughts playing out over his friends features.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Gray finally demanded as they were patrolling the area out by the levee. "You've been locked up in your own head all morning."

"I... had a nightmare." Caleb offered lamely.

"So," Gray shrugged, "you're always having nightmares. What's so special about this one?"

"I don't know," Caleb groaned, feeling frustrated with himself, "this was darker, more frightening than the Lighthouse one. I can never remember that one anyway and this one was vivid!"

"It's really got you spooked, huh?" Gray commented, stopping their pace to frown at his friend in concern.

"There was this girl in it," Caleb tried to explain, "and she was in trouble and I couldn't...I couldn't get to her or do anything."

"You know her?" Gray asked.

"No," He muttered, frustrated, "I've never seen her before in my life...but I have this lingering sense that she needs me or something. I know it's crazy, just...just forget it, alright!"

He tried to move past him but Gray reached out and grabbed a hold of his upper arm before he could get more than half a step.

"Caleb, I know you." His friend said seriously. "I know that you wouldn't be focusing this hard on something if you thought it was just a dream. What did the girl look like? Maybe we knew her back at the orphanage."

"I don't think so," Caleb responded, scrubbing at his face with his hand, "She was dark skinned, mixed probably, and she spoke that language that we hear the colored people speaking around here."

"So, she's Creole?" Gray supplied, surprised.

"Is that the word for it?" He asked.

"It's the kinder word for it," Gray amended with an ironic smile, "Did you happen to get this Creole girls name?"

"No. We didn't really speak, everything happened too fast."

"Well, my opinion, for what its worth, is that you saw this girl somewhere we were stationed and now you're thinking with the little brain instead of the big one."

"Jesus christ, Gray! Not everything is about sex!" Caleb scoffed and his friend laughed.

"Well, how long has it been since you wet that thing, huh?" Gray joked, punching him in the arm and laughing as though he were hilarious.

"God, you're a piece of work, you know that!" Caleb grumbled, shouldering his weapon and muscling his way around the other man. He was irritated at himself for being stupid enough to confide in Gray in the first place.

"Oh come on, Caleb, it was a joke!" Gray called from behind him. "Why do you always have to be such a god damned girl!"

Caleb whirled around to retort when cannon fire exploded from the sugar cane about twelve yards away. Both men froze, watching in horror as a brigade of Texas Infantry emerged from the field and poured out into the open space. He and Gray raised their rifles and returned withering fire as more of their unit rushed over to try and drive the brigade back into the fields. No sooner did they achieve that when another force appeared on their right flank. They changed front and attempted to drive this new force back but they appeared to rally from both directions.

The air had grown dusty with gun smoke and charred earth. Caleb was alarmed to realize he could no longer see Gray anywhere in the throng of bodies that wrestled and fell all around him. His unit was forced back as the Texas Brigade charged, crowding them over the Levee and out into the road. Looking up, Caleb could barely make out a Cavalry force making it's way out onto the levee. Because of the chaos, he couldn't make out the colors to tell if the cavalry was their own or the enemies.

"GRAY!" Caleb bellowed against the chaos, eyes searching desperately for his friend. Bodies moved and fell around him in a kind of macabre dance.

"GRAY!" He screamed again.

Nothing, no sign of the man. Caleb coughed, covering his mouth with his sleeve and barely managing to pull his pistol out in time to fire it into the face of an approaching enemy. The soldier crumbled before him, falling to the earth with a heavy thump.

"Gray…" he said softly, voice raspy from the smoke. He scanned the sea of writhing bodies, looking for anyone familiar.

He did eventually catch sight of someone but it wasn't Gray. It was one of his unit mates, a kid by the name of John Crawford. The adolescent was desperately trying to hold off a bearded assailant who was both bulkier and taller than he was. Caleb raised his rifle as the Confederate soldier tripped Crawford up and pulled back his rifle to stab him with the bayonet.

Caleb peered down the line of his gun taking a deep breath, focusing. He was about to pull the trigger when something moved behind them that completely interrupted his focus. He froze in the act of firing, eyes lifting up from his rifle, forgetting about Crawford and the Confederate soldier entirely. He even forgot, for a split second, where he was as he gaped at the same dusky skinned, dark haired woman from his dream.

She was standing out in the road, with men falling and dying all around her. He took in her simple dress of blue with the white blousey top, the simple leather shoes on her feet. He watched, stunned, as her eyes blazed with indignant anger, her attention focused on something or someone that he couldn't see. She was yelling and gesturing wildly with her hands, completely oblivious to the war zone exploding around her.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Caleb shouted, snapping out of his momentary trance.

He knew that it was unlikely she would be able to hear him over the din and noise. Hell, he could barely hear himself yet he watched her visibly jump and look directly at him. She pierced him with those lovely, honey colored eyes.

He watched as her finely sculpted eyebrows went up in alarm, the way her beautiful, full lips parted slightly as she drew in a sharp breath. He took in her her oval shaped face, framed by tightly curled black hair. He noted how it glowed, slightly auburn, in the dim light and that she wore it free and flowing over her shoulders rather than in the 'pile it all on top' style favored by the gentry. He watched her lips move to form words, the creole falling from them in a rush.

"Ki moun ou ye?"

Somehow he heard her, even from that distance. Caleb didn't understand the words she was speaking but, her voice, it was just like the one he had heard singing the other day. It had the same cadence, the same feeling, like rubbing velvet against one's skin. It was soft and thick and more melodic than he expected.

He was transfixed, his heart catching and subsequently forgetting how to beat in his chest. He knew this woman. He knew her as he knew himself which was impossible because he had never seen her before. They locked eyes from across that space as the world around them slowed to a crawl. Men from both sides froze in the act of falling to the ground or raising a rifle to fire. Caleb barely took note of any on them, his eyes were all for her. He could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, his lungs expanding as he breathed in the smoky air of the battlefield.

Caleb watched as her hands flew to her mouth, muffling a cry of warning. He felt rather than saw the cannon ball collide with the earth as the world sped back up again. He was thrown back and away, sent flying through the air like a rag doll. He came back down, god only knew how far away, skidding and rolling along until he came to a stop in wet, muddy earth. He lay on his back in the swamp, trying to relearn how to breathe as the world spun wildly around him. He tried to get up, tried to make his body obey, but all he managed to do was stare into a smoke filled sky.

Was he dying? Was the girl with the beautiful face and voice an angel sent to carry him into the afterlife? If she was then he could no longer see her. He could no longer see much of anything. Letting out a shaky, hitching breath, Caleb felt the world disappear in a wash of smoke, ash, and death all around him.


Authors note:

Welp, its finally here you guys, the next chapter of Coming Back to You that you've all been so patient about! Sorry it took me so long to pick this up again, the rush of holidays and the election and now house hunting has eaten up the vast majority of my free time. I, unfortunately, did not make much headway in pushing out further chapters while i was on hiatus either. I mean, I have quite a few already written but I hesitate to actively start uploading them until I have a chance to sit on them a bit longer.

That being said I don't know exactly when the next update will be. I'd love to promise it will be this time next week but that all really depends on how I feel about what I have written and whether or not i'll have to change something in it because of later plot. I think we're gonna be playing it by ear for a while on updates until I get a better hold on how I want to do things.

So whats new...well, as I said, the husband and I are house hunting so that's both scary and exciting. I'm getting the offspring ready to go off to kindergarten this year, also scary and exciting. Looking at some trips this year too, one to Iceland and possibly one to Ireland so I'm looking forward to that. All in all. more things to eat into my writing time lol

I don't know that I have a lot to say about this chapter, its pretty much a rehash of Lyrics dream from the last chapter but from Caleb's point of view. Much like Lyric, Caleb recognizes her as his but doesn't really know why he feels that way. This will make transitioning them into a romance a lot less jarring than it was the first time I wrote it. Also we got a brief glimpse of Uncas interfering. I think he just wanted to make his presence known, lest we forget the story is about him. XD

Uncas: *folding arms over his chest* Damn Straight!

Oh, I also imagined the entire battle scene to the music 'Mountains' from the movie interstellar. I actually wrote the scene while listening to it so if you want to really get into the visuals, go listen to that piece of music after you read this. The song for this chapter is Dreams Come True by Brandon Flowers which is strangely upbeat and poppy considering what's happening in the chapter. Still, the lyrics worked well so it made it onto my playlist for this chapter along with Mountains.

Ok, guys, I think that about covers what i wanted to say for this chapter. I hope you all enjoyed it and I will try my damndest to not let another 3 months pass before the next update (no promises though, i don't like to post things i'm no sure of). Again, thanks for reading and staying with me throughout this and I will see you next time.

Happy reading!