BAD GRACE - quantum witch © 2005
see Prologue for warnings, rating, and summary
In which Adam has a slightly more grownup dream than he's accustomed to.
3:01 – A CHANGE OF PACE
AFTER DINNER, ADAM YOUNG went to his bedroom to ostensibly doing his homework. It would eventually get done. But right now he was lying on his stomach, sprawled across his bed, watching a rerun of an old cartoon and absently scratching Dog behind the ears.
It was December and the weather was getting quite cold, and as his parents had consented to Dog becoming a member of the family, they had to admit it was too cold for him to stay outdoors. So he was allowed a special bed, a bowl, and the privilege of waking people when he needed to use the facilities, i.e. not the kitchen floor, thank you very much, or there would soon be a doghouse outdoors with his name on it. Dog had learned quickly to control bladder functions until one of the humans responded to let him out, with the knowledge they would let him back in again. It was worth the concession. Former hellhounds weren't that fond of sleeping in the cold.
But Dog hung out fairly often in his Master's room anyway. When he could find a place to burrow under the copious piles of crap, that is. Sometimes it was easier just to stay in the laundry room where his own stuff was kept. If he brought any of his own toys into the room, they seemed to vanish into a black hole. He still hadn't located that chewy rubber bone and he'd spent quite a while digging. Even underneath Adam's bed. He was fearsome, but not enough to brave that again.
Dog rolled onto his back, legs comically curled in the air, and was rewarded with a tummy scratch. Ah, life was good.
Adam smiled at his fearsome beast from Hell. All of the world and everything in it was his. But everything was already just fine the way it was. No need to go changing stuff.
Especially since Christmas was just weeks away.
He was looking forward to vacation and presents. He idly flicked through the channels on his television and marveled at the newest, coolest toys being advertised, as well as the items being marketed toward adults. His own parents didn't usually indulge in such things as expensive and trendy colognes or glittery diamond tennis braceletsº. He'd only ever seen his dad get things like a new tie or a pair of hedge clippers, and his mum something like a waffle iron. And the older his sister got, the more she received nothing more interesting than a fluffy looking jumper. He couldn't really understand why they bothered giving each other things they could just go and buy any old day down at the shops. Especially jumpers, geez.
But toys and electronic games and new bikes and sporting gear… those were things he instinctively knew were true Christmas gifts. They were things you didn't run out and buy every old boring day. Firstly because they were too expensive for casually plonking down that much cash, which mum and dad weren't made of, you know, as he was often told. And secondly because you got to spend all year gazing worshipfully at them in the stores or on television, coveting them will all your heart, hinting at your parents for months, leaving out catalog pages, and finally begging rather pathetically to do extra chores for eternity, or at least until Christmas, to get them. It was worth the effort to see what you wanted arrive almost magically on Christmas and feel as though your anticipation, all your wishing and hoping and pleading, had paid off.
He knew that two of his friends still believed in Santa Claus, even though they denied it a bit. Wensley was too educated for that sort of silliness. And Adam… well… he knew Santa didn't actually exist, not in the real world at is was. And he also knew that if he wanted Santa to exist, that he would. But that would just be too complicated in too many ways, so he allowed for continued non-existence. Better for everyone that way. It was simpler believing in one's reliable old parents to come through once more.
Adam was whiling away his homework time by reading an old comic he hadn't read for a few months, listening to the television in the background, and contemplating what he wanted for Christmas this year. He was fond of a particular game that featured ninjas battling pirates. Ninjas were a fairly new concept for Adam and he vowed that, come spring break, he and his cohorts would be playing a lot of them outdoors. The idea of being able to sneak up on anyone, totally unseen until you struck your deadly blow, was an appealing one. Not that he actually would do that, even though he could. Wasn't polite, really.
He yawned slightly, and realized he'd better get to his homework before turning in. He rolled off his bed and sat at his desk for half an hour, actually working.
If he had especially boring work, such as math, he still used just a tiny part of his powers to enhance things. The teensiest tweak of the universe to have bits of the hardest problems drop into his head, and then he worked out the rest of the it by himself. He didn't entirely cheat, and he never used the ability while at school or taking tests. Unless one of his two friends who weren't so in love with school they'd studied for everything in a previous lifetime (i.e. Wensleydale) were in danger of totally failing a class, sometimes he would nudge enough of an answer into their heads to get them through. Because failing would mean being grounded and thus not being available for anything fun, and Adam wanted his friends to have fun. That was all he did. Just the littlest, itty bit nudge. Nothing to feel awfully guilty about.
Tonight it was only a bit of geography and history, easy enough. The first subject never changed unless someone decided to rename a whole country again, like they did in Western Europe a lot. The other subject never changed at all and therefore was incredibly boring but pretty easy to remember if you really wanted to bother. Names and dates. It was 'written'. He probably could have found a way to go back in time and change things that didn't suit him… but the thought was a little overwhelming, even to him. so he declared it off-limits entirely. Let the world get on with living and making new history. Safer.
When homework was finished, he killed another hour doodling ideas for his own comic book. He'd been drawing again since August, a lot more than before. It was an outlet for all the things he thought about but wouldn't let himself do. The newest comic featured ninjas and pirates. It also included little bits of what everyone had experienced four months prior and couldn't recall. He didn't think he'd be showing it to anyone for a long time. Didn't want to jog any memories that might actually be able to remember.
Adam hated that he had to play it so safe. But he also knew it was necessary. Maybe some day he could fully be himself again... No time soon, that was certain.
He yawned once more, hugely, and gave up drawing for the night. He turned out his light and crawled into bed, still thinking of Christmas vacation and presents. And decorating the house. Decorating was one of the 'chores' he actually enjoyed. He made cut-out snowflakes and glued cotton balls onto construction papers as snow or a beard for Santa-shaped figures. And he helped his mum decorate the tree with lights and coloured balls, and handfuls of crinkly silver stuff nominally called icicles ºº. Last year had been the first time he'd been allowed to climb the ladder to place the angel on top.
Hm. Christmas. Angel. That was something he needed to take care of, and soon.
He got out of bed again and opened the door. "Dog, go on, you better leave the room," he whispered so his parents wouldn't hear. "Dunno if you're gonna be comfortable with what I'm 'bout to do, being what you sorta still are…"
Obediently, Dog jumped off the bed and walked out. He was lucky to have such a thoughtful Master. And he was looking forward to some alone time for gnawing on his favourite rawhide anyway.
Adam went back and sat on his bed, cross-legged. He breathed deeply, the way Anathema's books on meditation said to do, and worked on centering himself. But as he was always perfectly centered anyway, he just skipped over that and went on to the humming, which also didn't make much sense.
He gave up, opened his eyes and looked straight upward.
His mind's eye looked a very long way past his bedroom ceiling. And his mind's voice spoke a tiny and exceedingly polite request quite softly.
An infinitesimal line, impossible for Anyone to notice that wasn't meant to notice, opened in the aether. And a message of Biblical proportions flew faster than light to another realm beyond the world. And an answering Smile was sent back.
Adam smiled too, with a sort of gentle satisfaction. All would be well.
The last thing he did before going to sleep was construct the mental bubble he'd been putting around his bed since late August. After seeing what his dreaming mind could do, bringing his entire imagination to life, he'd decided it really was best to seal himself away. He drew a circle in the air with his hand, creating a sphere that hissed and sizzled in the unseen aether for a moment, then sighed. It really was quite sad to have to do this. He loved the world though, and wasn't willing to have dinosaurs and aliens and other things the average person couldn't handle going around scaring them.
Tonight, when Adam dreamed, it was a very good thing he had kept it locked inside.
HE WAS WALKING THROUGH A FOREST. The scent was something like the woods around Lower Tadfield, but the sounds were very different. Bird calls he'd never heard before. Small animals running the brush that he'd only glimpsed in books and couldn't remember the names for. And, he realised, trees that didn't really look familiar either.
He came through the woods to a beautiful wide meadow. Four brilliantly coloured figures, too bright to see any features, were hovering above the meadow, one at each corner, slowly floating across it and away into the distance above the treetops. The sun shone, bright but not overly hot, on strange plants and strange animals. He was surprised to see so many varieties in one place. There were common animals like dogs and squirrels and cows, but they were right alongside antelope and penguins and tigers. There were animals he didn't have names for. It was a zoo without any cages and nothing was eating anything else. At least not that he could see.
When he saw a pack of wolves – which he knew perfectly as being carnivores from watching nature shows – were eating grass amongst a flock of perfectly delectable sheep instead of regarding them as the buffet they obviously were, then he knew something was amiss. Well, not exactly amiss. In fact, it seemed oddly normal.
One of the sheep stepped away from the flock and came toward him. It looked up and he patted its soft white wooly head. Then it changed shape beneath his hand, unfolding into a girl with soft dark curly hair. The girl stood upright and it became instantly clear she was not a girl but a woman. Taller than Adam by nearly a head.
And, he noticed with sudden heated embarrassment, totally naked. Even though her nearly black hair was very long and covering virtually everything really important, he still blushed furiously and turned his head.
He'd never had this sort of dream before. It was disconcerting. But in a somehow appealing way.
The woman reached out her hand and took his chin in her fingertips, turning his face back. She smiled the most beautiful smile, her eyes warm and understanding, but somehow innocent. They were beautiful eyes too, a shade of bluish grey that held a shade of violet when the light hit them just right.
Then she spoke, and her voice was like music.
"Adam. You have come back to me. I have come back to you. Will you not hold me again? Kiss me?"
He shivered but he wasn't the least cold. He knew he was too young to be thinking about such a thing, especially with someone clearly about twice his age.
But she was perfect. She was his, truly a part of him.
When he reached out his arms, he saw they were changed. Larger, more muscular. Older. In the way of dreams, he saw his entire self and it was grown-up. He had gained two feet of height. His hair was longer but still blond and curly. He had a beard. And he, too, was naked.
This time, it didn't embarrass him, not even when he noticed a certain outstanding feature below the waist that he'd read about but never witnessed before.
He stepped into the woman's arms and when they enfolded one another, it felt as if the entire world sighed along with them. Nothing could possibly be wrong about this feeling, because nothing had ever felt so perfect. The world was theirs. They were the world. It held secrets they hadn't yet discovered, because it was so new and not everything had been named yet, but they had time. All the time in the world…
As they were falling gently onto the grass, just as he was about to discover what other secrets could be discovered, just as he was whispering her name against her lips…
… There came a hideous cacophony of words and music in his ear that shattered the perfect world. His alarm clock blared in his ear, announcing it was morning and he was back in the more familiar world. For a fraction of a second he thought he could see the woman, just beyond the edge of this reality, watching him… but she faded with the glare of cold sunlight and the warbling of the latest pop diva on the radio.
He slapped the clock fiercely. He was grumpy, truly grumpy, for the first time ever. He felt it deep inside, too. Somehow, he'd lost his perfect center between last night and this morning.
This was not a good development.
As he kicked off the covers, he noticed another development. He was sporting the same outstanding feature as in his dream.
He blushed furiously again, and began to hyperventilate just a bit. No wonder he felt off-balance. This signaled something he knew he couldn't avoid any longer. Or what he could have avoided entirely if he'd thought about never letting it happen, never changing.
Puberty had marked him. It had trekked into his body, carrying its knapsack of hormones, and would soon build a campfire and roast marshmallows over his fevered brain.
Damn. He was growing up.
º Why anyone would wear such a thing while playing sports, he couldn't fathom. One of the mysteries outside of his personal universe.
ºº He figured he ought to keep Dog away from the icicles, because he'd heard a story from one of the boys at school who also had a dog. The animal had eaten a few of them and it came out the other end in a rather unpleasant way, stringing together a set of decorations his mum was very unhappy to see beneath the tree on Christmas morning. The dog wasn't very happy about it either.