Chapter 2: Dream Dice

Holly had expected to feel nothing when she was asleep. She had expected that she'd have simply a black void and wake up, seemingly seconds later, (to her,) after her wisdom teeth had been extracted successfully. However, the next thing Holly knew after the cold sensation spreading up her arm was being in a curiously beautiful garden. In truth, it was so beautiful, that Holly nearly forgot to breathe for a moment or two. Her feeling of awe was cut short, however, by the arrival of another personage, a middle-aged, nice looking man wearing a strawberry red suit. The man waved at her from across the garden, and Holly, thinking to herself that it was, after all, only a dream, waved back.

"Hi there!" She called to him as he approached.

"Why, hello yourself!" the man said in a deep, sonorous English accent. "Do you happen to know where we are?" He asked.

"Um, not really." Holly replied honestly.

"Well, it is your head. You must have some idea. I certainly didn't come up with this." The stranger said kindly.

"Now that I think about it, this garden kind of reminds me of a description of a magic garden I read about in a book, once. Charmed Life, I think it was called. But if you'll excuse me, sir, I have no idea who you are." Holly said shyly.

"Light my lamp, young lady, pardon me! I say, pardon me! Forgive my rudeness, but I am Nimrod Plantagenet Godwin, John and Philippa's uncle! I must say, it is nice to finally meet you. You must be Miss Holly Coomes, are you not?" Nimrod introduced himself, not without some pomp. He took her hand and shook it enthusiastically, looking around the strange garden with admiration. "And I must say, even if you didn't come up with this lovely garden all on your own, your imagination must be wonderful! The detail is magnificent!"

Holly looked at Nimrod carefully. He did look an awful lot like John, being tall and dark of hair. Holly decided that, for the purposes of her dream, that she supposed her mind could have done a lot worse envisioning an uncle for John and Philippa.

"Er... thank you. But call me Holly, please. I can't stand having anyone calling me 'Miss Coomes.' The Imam at Mosque calls me that, and it's really irritating. And as for this place... well, I guess I just read a lot of chapter books." There was something else about Nimrod, someone else that he reminded her of that she couldn't quite place. This bothered her, that she couldn't remember, but Holly reminded herself that it was only a dream.

"Very well then, Holly. May I invite you to play some tesserae?" Nimrod asked her as they came to a low, rectangular stone by an apple tree, with strange poufs with floral patterns set on either side of it.

"What?" Holly asked, confused. She had no idea what tesserae was.

"Dice, Holly, dice. The only rule is to be lucky. Which we are soon to find out if you are or not." Nimrod sat down on one of the poufs and produced five six-sided dice and a small cup with which to roll them with from one of his pockets. He rolled the dice, and Holly noticed that he got three sixes before Nimrod scooped them back into the cup and handed it over to Holly, who, by now had seated herself on the other pouf.

"So I just toss them?" She asked, and Nimrod nodded. "Like this?" Holly shook the cup for a few seconds and allowed the dice to fall onto the stone block, to reveal five sixes. Holly stared for a moment, taken aback by her own luck. "Wow," she said, her eyes nearly bugging out, "I know this is my dream and all, but wow. I've never thrown five sixes before in a game of Yahtzee. This is really amazing!"

"Indeed," Nimrod agreed thoughtfully. "Awe-inspiring, one might say. The odds of having such a throw, well, they're astronomical. I won't bore you by going into the mathematics of it all, but you are certainly one lucky kid, Holly."

"Really? 'Cause I haven't noticed it before." Holly said, rather curious now. Lucky people didn't have to clean up the broken glass on the lawn from their window being shattered.

"Oh, you will." Nimrod chuckled. "You will."

It was then that Holly felt a sudden and intense pain coming from her jaw. She jumped up and held her jawbone at the shock of it.

"Ow!" she yelled, loud enough to make a few birds take flight from the nearby trees. "Ow! Ow! OW!"

"Oh, dear. It seems that your wisdom teeth are deep in there, Holly. It happens sometimes. If I remember correctly- and I always do- my own wisdom teeth had roots so deep that my dentist at the time had to employ the help of a circus strongman who just so happened to be in the waiting room. Needless to say, I loathe all my dentist appointments with true chagrin. They're probably giving you more anesthetic as we speak, so the pain ought to go away in a moment. There."

Holly stood up, still rubbing her sore jaw, and finding that the pain was subsiding, at least for now. "So you hate the dentist, too?" she asked, by way of making conversation.

"Bottle me, yes. Not that I hate the person themselves, -indeed, I've known many dentists who are wonderful people- it's that my visits to the dentist are always pervaded by my own trepidation at what they'll find wrong with my teeth."

"Do they find things often, then?" Holly asked.

"Never, besides my wisdom teeth. But that was bad enough. You've got the anesthetic, at least, and I didn't."

"Ooh. Must have been really painful."

"Oh, believe me, it was. But we're getting off of the subject here, Holly. I've come to visit you- you'll excuse the subterfuge, I hope- to introduce myself so that when Philippa- or John, really it could be either of them- asks you and your friend Castiel Malone to come with them on holiday to London, you'll have an idea of what to expect." Nimrod explained.

"London?" Holly asked, quizzically. "My Uncle Bob lives in London. I remember he came to visit us once, back when I was just a kid. When my dad married my stepmom. I haven't seen him since then, though."

"Really? How very coincidental. And we all know that coincidence is just a scientist's term for luck. Oh, dear me, it appears that you're waking up now, Holly. Dream-time is so inconvenient to operate by. You never know how much time you'll actually have. Be sure to keep your wisdom teeth, and make sure to ask John and Philippa about me! Goodbye, I'll see you in London!"

Holly wanted to ask Nimrod more, ask him why on earth he thought she would ask her friends about their uncle that she had only dreamed up, and why, of all things, he had told her to hang onto her wisdom teeth, but all too soon she was awake. The first thing Holly became aware of was the excruciating yet dull, throbbing pain from her mouth. She rubbed her jaw and winced. As she became more aware of herself, Holly found that her jaw didn't exactly hurt as much as she couldn't feel it at all. Which felt weird, and so her mind seemed to translate the sensation into that of pain.

"Ow," she muttered. Dr. Calcifate, rather annoyingly, smiled broadly in a way that only dentists can.

"I don't envy you the pain, Holly. Those teeth of yours were deep in there. It took me the better part of five hours to get all four out! Here, have a look at them." He shoved a strange-looking kidney shaped dish towards Holly. She looked at the four bloody bits of bone with faint revulsion, but, heeding Nimrod's advice, Holly knew that she ought to keep them.

"May I keep them?" She asked Dr. Calcifate. She had to really work her jaws in order to speak at all, and her tongue and teeth did not seem to want to cooperate. However, Dr. Calcifate seemed to know what she meant, and he nodded, delighted for some reason, while Mark snorted derisively. Holly ignored her brother, for that is one of the things that younger sisters can do best when their older brothers are acting ridiculously.

"Sure, Holly! Here, I'll put 'em in a little box for you!" Dr. Calcifate turned around to wrap up the disgusting teeth in something, and Holly turned to speak to Mark.

"Cell phone?" she queried, using as few words as possible.

"I still got it, don't worry." He replied.

Holly held out her hand expectantly, and made little grabby motions with her fingers, hoping that Mark would get the message. Everything seemed to swim before her eyes, and Holly felt dizzy, but grateful that she was lying down.

"Cas can wait. We're leaving in just a minute."

Holly sulked.

"Here you are, your teeth." Dr. Calcifate said, oblivious to the siblings' disagreement, and handed Holly a tiny cardboard box, full of cotton cushioning the wisdom teeth. "Now, Holly, I gave your brother your pain medication and explained what it all does- he'll tell you later, when you're not so dizzy, as I'm sure you are now. Here's a load of gauze to put in your mouth until the bleeding stops, and no solid food for a few days. Okay? Good. Have a good evening, you two. And give your parents my regards!" Mark nodded at him.

"We will. Come on, kiddo. You can have your cell back when we get outside."

Mark led Holly back down the ten flights of stairs and back out into the parking lot. It being 5:00 p.m., Holly felt quite hungry, especially since she hadn't eaten lunch. Holly decided, after reclaiming her smartPhone, that she would have to talk to the Gaunts in person about her strange dream- or was it a hallucination brought on by the anesthetic? Whatever it was, Holly had promised to text Cas when she was done. Cas being at the top of her recently messaged list, Holly selected him and followed Mark to his red pickup truck. When she sat in the passenger seat, still feeling dizzy, she pulled up the touchscreen keyboard and typed carefully.

Holly: Yo

Cas: Hey

Holly smiled tiredly. Or, at the very least, thought a tired smile. Her face still wasn't quite behaving itself.

Holly: So guess what. My wisdoms are finally out. It took the dentist like five hours to work them free.

Cas: Five hours! What the heck!

Holly: Yeah, but that's not what's got me vaguely worried. When I was hit with the knock-out stuff, I had this really weird dream...

Cas: Really? Do tell.

Holly related the events of her dream/hallucination to Cas, who waited an unusually long time before replying.

Cas: So...

He replied, finally, long after Holly had finished typing out the long story.

Cas: what you're saying is that this Nimrod- someone you dreamed up- wants you to tell J&P about having this dream with him in it? Is that about right?

Holly: Yeah, pretty much.

Holly blushed at the sheer absurdity of her story. Mark shot her a weird look from the corner of his eye.

Cas: Well, let's try them! It can't hurt, can it? I mean, we already talk about a ton of weird stuff at the lunch table, anyway. What can a simple weird dream do? I mean besides destroy your credibility and possibly make them think you're clinically insane.

Holly: You're right, as usual Cas. But I don't think I'll be coming to school tomorrow. I can't even talk. MY FACE IS NUMB. It's awful.

Cas: Hey, me too! The whole numb face thing, I mean. I flatter myself to think that I'm not awful unless I intend to be. Tho my wisdoms didn't take five hours. Punk nerd.

Holly: Weirdo.

Cas: Crazy girl.

Holly: Loony boy.

Cas: Hahaha... you've got my number!

Holly: Well yeah, how else would I be texting you?

Cas: Ooh, she's clever too... speaking of which, have you studied for the bio final next week?

Holly: Ack! No... I guess that's what I'll be up to while I'm stuck at home. If I don't take copious amounts of naps, that is.

Cas: lol. well, good luck with that. I could use a nap myself. Have fun with your last minute cramming, Hol.

"You're not supposed to stay up past midnight, you know." Mark remarked, glancing sidelong at Holly's most recent string of messages. Holly scowled at him.

"And who's going to turn me in?" she asked him.

"No one I know. But be careful. They might be home." Mark pulled his pickup truck into their driveway. "Just do well on your finals, okay kiddo?"

"I can only try." Holly said dryly. She was finding that with time and little jaw exercises, she was beginning to be able to form more coherent words again.

"You know," Mark said as he got out of the truck and slammed the door behind him, "sometimes I really wish that you were just naturally smart and didn't need to study so hard. Then I wouldn't get in so much hot water all the time for letting you stay up." Holly, who had by now also exited the truck, was about to retort hotly when the strangest feeling overtook her. Holly felt really sorry for her hard working brother. Their father and stepmother were hardly ever home, and Mark was really her only caretaker. He didn't deserve so much punishment on Holly's behalf. At the same time as Holly was thinking all of this, she felt something... leave her. As if she had just screamed herself hoarse. Holly stumbled a little, and Mark raised an eyebrow.

"I'll try not to stay up too late," she told him.

"How hungry are you?" He asked, then shook his head. "I'll make you some pasta with that sauce you like. What is it? Paul Newman's tomato and basil? Wait a sec, you can't have that. Too solid. How about some tomato soup instead? I think we have a can of Campbell's somewhere in the cupboard."

Holly nodded. She enjoyed soup well enough, though tomato soup she liked better accompanying a grilled cheese sandwich. However, Mark always added just enough extra spices to whatever he was cooking to make it taste completely different, though usually in a good way. Soup was no exception.

Dinner was quiet at the Coomes household that night. Holly didn't feel much like talking, her mouth still being sore from getting her teeth removed, hurting no matter how carefully she sipped her soup, and Mark was pensive, a mood which rarely overtook him. After dinner, Holly grabbed her backpack with all of her studying materials in it, and mounted the stairs to her bedroom.

Upon reviewing the contents of her biology textbook, Holly found that, mysteriously, she actually knew everything on the study guide. Even beyond that, Holly seemed to know the entire book by heart. And yet, she couldn't remember even opening the book before then. By some blessed miracle, Mark's wish that Holly would be naturally smart had been granted. Shaking her head in disbelief, Holly reviewed all of her other subjects, and found that she knew each class without even faltering in her thoughts. Holly looked over to the light brown plywood that had taken the place of the now broken window. Was her sudden brilliance yet another inexplicable event in the series of strange phenomena that seemed to follow Holly around like a faithful dog? Perhaps. Holly decided to wait until morning and see if she was still just as smart then.

She and Cas had a lot to discuss when they got back to school.