Title: Many Roads
Author: Lily Ann
Contact: saywardluckett2000@yahoo.com
Many Roads
by Lily Ann
Chapter 2: Normal Again
I've been talking in my sleep
Pretty soon they'll come to get me
Yeah, they're taking me away—Matchbox 20
She had two good years before the dreams started.
Years filled with new friends and new experiences. Years of making up for lost time. She took many steps forward, away from the mystery of her awakening. Onto more solid ground, or so it seemed. She earned a G.E.D during that lull. Got her driver's licence, found a job. Borrowed money for a tiny apartment. Had her first lover.
And put her habitual restlessness down to nerves. Just...nerves.
When she sat up late at night, a cigarette between her fingers, she blamed simple insomnia. After so many years of inactivity, of course her body would reject rest. If she opened a door and felt time rushing toward her, it was just residual loopy vibes. Burnt-on, stuck-on craziness from the institution years, bleeding into her days and nights now that she was normal again. Her mother said she'd raved about portholes, in her madness. How to open them, where they led.
Seized by irrational fear, she spent a week trying to avoid doors entirely. Which was impossible, of course, and attracted a lot of attention.
"Going for a world record," she told everyone who raised an eyebrow. "Most windows crawled through in a single day."
Joyce Summers wasn't easily fooled, though. "Are you sure you're alright, honey?" She asked this often, a worry line forming between her brows.
And Buffy would turn a bright face to the question. Shimmy around the issue. "Just fine, Mom. Don't call the paddy wagon yet. Okay?"
If they knew, they'd send her back. And that terrified her more than anything, the idea of living behind walls, buried alive in a white-washed room. Life had taken her down strange avenues before. She could deal with the strangeness gripping her life, was dealing quite well.
And then the dreams started.
Wildly colorful, surreal, occasionally dark as pitch, they were dominated by the most unbearable sense of loss. She'd wake up twisted in the sheets, her face wet, unable to remember exactly what had troubled her so, yet filled with a teary ache that didn't recede for hours. Other times, she'd surface warm and throbbing with desire, haunted by the slide of vanished hands, candle wax and copper. This, she didn't understand. Her one sexual experience had been less than memorable, fumbling and awkward. No man had ever made stars fall behind her eyes. Yet, in sleep, her body remembered passion, arched into a shadow lover's hands, gripped him between her thighs as easily as she breathed or sang.
And, always, there was that tower, her high place. Amaranth lights and a bitter rose dawn. Departing, forever, into dream and silence. Occasionally, a face swam up out of the murky depths, flashed by like grainy old film footage. Usually, it was a young girl, dark and elfin-faced. Wholly unlike Buffy herself.
In May, Buffy dreamed of falling.
Just before Labor day, she followed a ghost for fifteen blocks.
She had just left the library, lugging a bag full of books on psychology and mental illness, texts that might explain her to herself. Slogging along, shoulders already aching, she happened to glance across the teeming street. Perhaps, it was the girl's bright hair that caught her attention. It was redder than apples, aflame in the late afternoon sun. Or her manner, as bright and uncultivated as a wildflower. For whatever reason, she drew Buffy's eye. Standing in a crowd, waiting to cross, she was dwarfed by the other pedestrians, Businessmen, mostly, heading home. None of them paid her the least bit of attention.
Which was fine. The redhead's nose was buried deep in a book, oblivious to the chaos of downtown.
Buffy couldn't look away. That pose tugged at her consciousness, pulled her forward when the small crowd moved on. Set her on the trail of a complete stranger for no other reason than she knew it, knew her, from somewhere, but couldn't quite push the memory into place.
Block after block passed, with Buffy dodging and weaving to keep up. The shadows lengthened. Evening fell. The girl never turned to check behind. Not once. Which was fine, too. Buffy didn't need a stalking charge added to her colorful mental history. Subject: Buffy Summers. Status: Readmitted to booby hatch after following random red-haired person like a nutty Nancy Drew. Prognosis: Disturbing.
Yet, she kept on. Followed until the young woman stepped between two passerby and...disappeared, leaving Buffy standing in the middle of the sidewalk, blinking in confusion. She searched behind parked cars, peeked down alleys, and looked in the row of stores that lined the side street where her pursuit came to such an abrupt end. Nothing. No bookish girl with gamine features materialized in the Laundromat or at the newsstand. She wasn't having a slice of pepperoni at Sbarro.
Frustrated, Buffy marched into the last shop in the row and looked around. An occult bookstore. Oh, joy. She avoided spooky places, as a rule. Her life was weirder than anything on the shelves.
"Did a girl just come in here?" She approached the older lady perched behind the counter. Greying and portly, she seemed more concerned with her Solitaire game than selling books.
"Just a minute, hon." She slapped down her last card.
Buffy waited patiently, tried not to tap her feet. Sneezed a couple of times on the dust motes dancing in the air like torn bits of fairy wing. A fine layer of grey covered every surface her gaze alighted on. No wonder. From what she could see, the place was huge and rambling, with shelves more suited to members of the NBA than normal-sized folks. There were ladders, but they looked rather rickety.
"Damn cards." The cashier finally shuffled them into a drawer and focused on Buffy. 'What was it you needed, dearie? Tarot cards? Astrology? Not love spells, I'd wager. Pretty girl like you."
"No, none of that. Just tell me...has anyone but me been through here in, say, the last ten minutes?"
The woman–Ruth, her name tag declared–barked out a laugh. "You're too precious for words. Sweetie, no one has been in here all day." She leaned forward conspiratorially. "I'll tell you a little secret, hon. Mr. Giles doesn't do a booming business in this part of town. His Magic shop, now, that brings a mint. Opened it up in Philly last April, he did." She looked around a little sadly. "Don't know why he keeps this place open. Nostalgia, I guess."
"Mr. Giles? Is he the owner?" Buffy was surprised. It wasn't a name she would have associated with magic and supernatural stuff. It was so librarian.
Ruth nodded. " A good sort of man. His Ms. Jenkins ran the store for awhile, after the two of them parted ways, but she lost interest. Moved on to bigger and better things, I suppose. Ambitious girl, she was. And quite a bit younger."
Buffy smiled politely. It was very dark outside, by then, and the spreading gloom made the cavernous store seem a little chilly and a lot creepy. "That's too bad. Very Passions. I'd love to hear more. We'll get together, have a latte...someday." She turned to the door. "But, right now I have to book. Pun intended."
Fate, though, had other ideas.
Just as she was ready to step out into the night, a clap of thunder rent the sky, releasing a torrent of rain in wide, grey sheets.
"Balls," Buffy muttered.
Ruth chuckled and retrieved her cards. "Might want to wait it out. Feel free to browse." She gestured at the stacks. "We don't close until eight."
That was the last thing Buffy wanted to do, but she didn't want to be rude, either. Dutifully wandering into the rows, she carefully skirted the shadowy sections. Still, her heart leaped when a fat, black cat suddenly crawled out from under the parapsychology shelf. It was all a little too Sabrina for her stressed nerves.
Most of the titles hit a little too close to home: How to Hunt Ghosts, Encyclopedia of Superstition. Unicorns and Other Delusions. There were books on shamanism, mysticism and the dark arts. Mythology, spells and Earth lore. Dreams. Buffy avoided all of these, moved off to a remainder bin full of paperbacks, mostly fiction with lurid covers and corny titles.
Digging through the basket out of boredom, Buffy didn't expect her life to change forever.
She found it at the very bottom, under some secondhand Anne Rice. A medium-thick volume with an ill-painted purple cover that depicted a scene she'd watched many times, in grabs and glimpses. A young girl, dark and fair, framed against a blooming lilac sky. Shot through with green and pink scribbles of light, the canvas of dawn seemed too large for such a tiny person. The tower on which she stood resembled little more than a child's stack of blocks. The people gathered at its base were just painted black dots.
Aurora, Tales of the Key #25: Glory's Daughter.
Heart in her throat, Buffy dug frantically through the bin, but there was just that one book, a strange clue in an unlikely place. She didn't know how or why, but that was her high place, her bitter rose dawn. The sweet-faced girl who was a fixture of her dreamscape.
She bought the book and hurried toward home. Halfway there, she paused before a construction site.
"What are they building, here?" She asked a workman cleaning up.
"Tearing down is what they're doing, miss. A hotel, empty for years."
Buffy reached deep down inside herself, came up with a word. "Is...is it the Hyperion?"
"Why, yes. How do you know about that old place? Young thing like you? Noone's stayed there since the trouble back in ought '50 or so."
"I...I just know. I think I might have known people here."
"Impossible. Nothing but ghosts in the old Hyperion. Ghosts and crumbling walls."
She read Aurora's story that night, devoured it in less than two hours. By turns dark and hopeful, it was a tale of a girl born from mist to open the doors between worlds. Not well written, by any standards, it was still wildly creative, sentimental. Sweet. Words jumped out at Buffy like beacons. Hell Goddess, minion, ritual. End of days.
When she finally fell asleep and dreamed, everything was different, clearer. Like a door in her mind had squeaked opened, just a crack, letting some light into the dark corners.
********************************************************************
She approached the gravestone quietly and knelt between the two silent figures. It was situated on a hill that, in daylight, must have bordered on blue sky and boasted a view of the city. At night, though, there were meteor showers to enjoy, and stars at play, chasing each other across the sky. Constellations moving across time like these men cycled through her life. Made it better, longer, than it ever would have been. How strange to sit with them and mourn a life passed, but not yet lived. She was herself, but not. Looking back in hindsight and ahead to the future, all at once. Taking notes for another life.
BUFFY SUMMERS
1980-2004
JOY SHE HAS FOUND
Twenty-four. Oh, very young.
"I never thought she'd go." The slim, silver man wiped at his eyes.
"I thought it everyday," countered the more stoic, darker one. "It haunted me."
"Shoe polish haunts you. Any excuse to brood, eh, Angelus?"
"Shut up."
"Make me."
Buffy felt strangely at peace with the bickering. Content on this starry hill, situated between these darkly beautiful creatures.
"We shouldn't fight here."
"Why the bloody hell not? We fought at both of her funerals, the burial and the wake. We fought on the way up here. We'll probably fight on the way back. 'Sides, she liked a good dust up."
"She liked kicking your ass."
"Yeah," The pale one smiled fondly. "Good times, yeah. Good times." He swallowed. "Promise me something, eh?"
"Why should I?"
"Cause you owe me, wanker. For all that amulet shit. Your pretty jewelry made me self-barbecue, remember? Would have been with her, but for the whole temporarily dead gig that was your fault."
"Okay, fine. What is it?"
"I imagine Dawn'll want that spot." He nodded to the left. "When it happens for me, bury what you can gather on her right, okay? 'S the only place I ever did any real good."
The solemn, dark man bit his lip, considering. "Flip you for it?"
****************************************************************
Buffy awoke with a jerk, knocking her book and several pillows to the floor. The vivid dream was still with her as she made her way into the bathroom and splashed water on her face. Swallowed pills. Saw how haggard she looked in the harsh bathroom light but couldn't bring herself to care. Making her way back to the bedroom, she noted the time display on her alarm clock. Still night. The witching hour, to be exact.
But there would be no more sleep for her.
Grabbing her sketchbook, Buffy scratched out a few lines that could have been a hill, with gamboling stars above. For once, the images from her dream hadn't immediately slipped from her mind, elusive as the fallen leaves she chased as a little girl. In more innocent times. Her pen began to move faster. She wasn't a good artist, had never had any formal training, but Buffy enjoyed drawing because it was so normal an activity, a center of calm in her chaotic world.
At least, until that midnight.
She finished the sketch of that burial hill, added three figures kneeling in the grass. Tore it loose from the pad and immediately began another. And another, moving on to other fragmented pieces of memory. The tower, the girl. Aurora. Her ghost from the street corner, and another face, glimpsed, just once, in a dream about magic. She sensed they were connected, somehow, and hung the pictures side by side. The red-head and her wheaten friend with the tiny, secret smile.
She drew everything she remembered, and some things she didn't. The large, melancholy man with sad, sad eyes appeared in a snowstorm and candlelight. Dressed up for a party. In chains. A dapper gentleman with glasses and a noble bearing smiled kindly up from her page, like he had a secret to tell, Then the little girl appeared again, in pigtails and overalls, much younger than before.
He appeared from her pen next, all long lines and harsh, compelling angles. The dark prince of the tale, laughing, eyes dark with an unquenchable lust. Unsatisfied, Buffy rooted through her junk drawer for a lump of charcoal and drew him again with bold, strong strokes that suited his darkness. Tracing her finger over that sharp face and soft, cruel mouth, Buffy felt a shiver go up her spine. If the darker man had eyes like a summer rain, this one was thunder passing by.
All night, she worked like a woman possessed. Drawing and re-drawing. Destroying and starting over. Until her fingers cramped and her muscles seized. And still, she drew. In pencil and paint and crayon. In a fever, long past the time when she was supposed to leave for work. The phone shrilled. Buffy ignored it.
Finally, well past noon, she collapsed on the living room floor, surrounded by crumpled paper and discarded writing implements. Her pictures papered the living room, the hall, and parts of the kitchen. There were even a few in the bathroom. They hung on the windows so no light entered, creating eerie, muted shadows on the floor. She crawled into bed and slept for two days. When she woke, she was jobless, having been politely been let go via answering machine.
Buffy knew she was unraveling and couldn't bring herself to care. She spent the next day and a half in her pajamas, watching daytime TV and considering her drawings. They were like chapters in a forgotten story, full of secrets she longed to know. Finally, with her fridge empty and a cupboard populated only by two small cans of corn, she wandered out to the grocery store.
And that was when her mother popped in to use the washer.
Opened the door with her key and walked into the supernatural portrait gallery. Nearly had a heart attack, from what Buffy could gather, and immediately got on the phone with Hank Summers.
Her hysterics hadn't died down much by the time Buffy climbed the stairs, clutching a grocery bag, blithely unaware of the drama in her apartment. Luckily, she had good ears and caught a few, broken phrases before waltzing right into an intervention, Mom-style.
"....don't know what to do....had some kind of relapse...call the doctor..."
That was all Buffy needed to hear. She ducked back into the stairwell and carefully traced her way down. She spent the next two hours on a park bench behind some low-hanging shrubs, forming a plan. She had a little money, a passport. Credit cards. But nowhere to go, no one to help her.
Except...
The person who'd written out her dreams.
She pulled Tales of the Key from her purse and flipped to the back. Read the scant lines of information for the hundredth time in three days. They were suddenly her lifeline. There was no picture of the author, just this:
W. J. Hunt is the author of twenty-five 'Aurora' tales. Mr. Hunt enjoys beer, global warming, and his privacy. He lives in Nutley, England with several mice, a herd of nosy neighbors and two cats he doesn't really want.
Buffy closed the book and tipped her face up to the sun. Nutley, England. How hard could it be to find? England wasn't that big, right?
She gathered her purse and left the park, with its twitter of birdsong, behind. Made her way home and crept up the stairs. Cautiously peeked into her apartment and found it empty. After only a quarter hour of hasty packing, if it could be called that, she scribbled a note and left without a backward glance, pulling the door firmly shut on her way out.
A cab ride to the airport later, she was perusing an atlas in the terminal bookstore, with little success.
Nutley, England. Where the hell was it?
**********************************************************
"It's in the Ashdown Forest." The ticket agent put a manicured finger down on the map. "Right here."
Buffy swallowed. "Excuse me, did you say forest?" Who lived in a forest, anymore? No one except Yeti. "With, like. lions and tigers and bears?"
"Oh, my," The woman finished cheerfully. "More like trees and fauna and woodchucks. It's a lovely area." She handed Buffy her ticket. "Better hurry. They're boarding."
Buffy was still kind of stuck on the whole forest concept. "O...Okay. Thanks a lot."
"You all right?"
"I'm excellent!" Buffy replied, a little too loudly. " Just loving the woodchucks. I totally support them."
"Well, good. Run along now. Or you'll be late and have to catch another flight."
"Oh, no," Buffy protested. "I have to go now or get hauled back to the asylum."
Leaving the clerk's shocked face behind, she turned and ran for the gate.
TBC