Filaria - Brent Hayward [90]
The moderately unpleasant sensation of caterpillars upon her flesh, when compared to the horrid emotions she’d experienced in the dreams preceding this one, were relatively benign. In other, nastier dreams, there had been blood, pain, and death.
A shudder passed through her.
Soon she would wake up. The carpet of caterpillars would vanish; the suns would come on; her beloved kin would be together, in Elegia. Like they were after any nightmare.
The first thing she would do upon waking would be embrace her father — who had surely just rushed into her bedchamber, after hearing her cries — and, maybe at breakfast, she would take the time to go around the table and kiss each of her sisters on the cheek, even if Miranda protested the unwarranted embrace and the older two scoffed and tried to turn away.
Imagining this in the dream, Deidre smiled again. Honestly, how could she have ever believed that the Orchard Keeper would send his family into exile? Or that a hole in the roof could open? That she alone, of all people, would be carried up out of it? By an angel, no less!
Absurd.
To blame for this disturbing series must have been the spicy stew Lady had prepared for dinner, and the reason for this particular sequence was that she had asked Sam about making Lunas, and the larger Sphinxes, and had thought, just before the gram’s strange appearance, about metamorphic cycles. For everything there is a reason. Action, and reaction. Cause and effect.
Memories of her cozy canopy bed gave her the assurance she needed to wait patiently for this intrusion of caterpillars to filter out of her mind. After all, dreams cannot hurt you.
Then a voice, quite like her father’s, said something she did not catch.
“Pardon me?” Deidre’s own words did not come out as clearly as she would have liked; more like a moan than anything intelligible; she felt her dry lips move.
“You’re conscious. Good. And you can hear me? You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” Deidre said, twitching, because the caterpillar nuzzling her left nipple had begun to do something almost painful. Goodness, her mouth was very dry. “Is there a war coming, father? Please, is there another war coming?”
“Um.” After a long moment — Deidre might have slipped back into sleep, if she was ever awake — the voice said, “I’m afraid I’m not your father . . . But I got the language right, and on the second attempt. Pretty good, eh? Of all the ancient tongues!”
Deidre was growing confused. But her smile slowly returned. This was more dream nonsense. Soon she would be awake for real. There would be sense and order. She felt herself rising up, right now, toward sanity, toward morning, toward her diurnal life and family. Again, this certainty gave her the confidence and ability to playfully indulge the dream voice. “If you’re not my dad,” she said, “then who are you?”
“That isn’t important. An amalgam, a custodian. What’s your name?”
“Deidre.”
“That’s a pretty name, Deidre. Exotic. Ancient. Listen, Deidre, I want to stress something to you. You’re going to be all right.”
“I know. I’m waking up.” She licked her lips but her tongue caught on the hot skin.
“Yes. That’s true . . . Though you were wounded in the retrieval operation. My little friends have almost finished their job. No permanent damage. And, like you said, you’re almost awake. I’m most relieved.”
Deidre became slightly concerned by these comments; the voice had referred to her being wounded, which had occurred in the exceedingly horrid first dream, the dream of angels, of Mingh straw’s death.
Now the unpleasantness of what the larvae were doing to her became harder to ignore. She squirmed. Pinch yourself, Deidre thought, but the masses of caterpillars weighed down heavily upon her arms. Now the pain at her shoulder — where the angel’s talons had gripped — was tremendous.
A scream bubbled up through