Chapter Five-- Galatea

Tonight, I sit before the fire in my little two bedroom home, barely aware of the torrential rain falling outside. I am breathing hard, my head pounding, my heart racing. My joints ache and my veins throb fire. Images flare through my consciousness, unbidden and unwanted, and it feels as though some wall inside my mind is crumbling into dust.

I see myself-- feel myself-- pulled down, down, down into a dark place, cramped and constrained and bound, panicking, suffocating, my immaterial form slamming against invisible barriers again and again to no avail. Somewhere close to me, a voice speaks in a language that I should not recognize and understand, but do. Do not resist, it says. You will soon forget. I see a vessel, an elegant and ornate blue bottle that looks as though it was made to hold perfume. I know with a sudden certainty that it was, in fact, meant to hold me.

I am in my Traveling form, my form as Siabhra, then, but that is not the name I call myself. And it is not a hate them.

projected form, but my physical body. I thrash and struggle and scream wordlessly, furiously, my arms chained. I know no language, only fury and fear. Figures surround me, observing me silently and dispassionately, and I want to claw their eyes from their skulls. I

They own me. They own me, and I still hate them. They wield me like a weapon, like a tool, and call me Galatea, as if they have any right to Name me. They call themselves my Wardens, as though they have tasked themselves with my well being. I know words now, have learned, have studied the world I have been bound to, its customs and languages and traditions and religions.

I see a familiar face, then. The high cheekbones and dark hair and intense blue eyes, the sardonic smile. But I do more than see him-- I feel him, in my mind, in my essence. We work in tandem, and he... he does not wield me. We wield each other. But he is there, there in my mind, laughing and seductive, and I feel nothing but adoration for him. It terrifies me, for he has a greater power over me than any of them ever did.

“You are not Galatea,” he purrs in my ear, his hands sliding slowly up my body, stroking and teasing. “You are not their marble lady. You are not their creation. You are mine. Only mine.” He closes his mouth over mine, tongue probing deep, and I can no longer tell if these images are in my mind or if they are happening, now, here, on my sofa before the hissing and crackling fire. I can feel his touch as it ghosts over my skin in molten patterns, breathe in his scent of cloves and honey. He seeps into my mind like perfumed wind, tickling the furthest reaches of it, parts of my consciousness that I never knew existed.

I open my eyes, and for an instant, a fraction of an eternal second, I see him, gazing at me with those jewel-like eyes. Then he is gone, and it is as if I have woken from a dream. I sit up quickly; the aches in my body have gone, but another ache has taken their place. I take a deep, shuddering breath.

I stand on shaky legs and pad barefoot across the carpet to the elegantly carved wooden trunk that I keep the mementos of my Travels in. Carefully lifting the heavy lid, I gaze down into it. The perfume bottle Trick gave me the other day rests in one corner, wrapped in a blue silk scarf. I carefully unwind the scarf, letting it fall away, and gaze at the bottle. Of course, I knew this while I was in the midst of the-- vision? Dream? I knew it was the same bottle. I had just wanted to be sure. And yes, here it is.

I slowly, uneasily pull out the stopper, and a draft of whispering wind brushes past my hands. I lift the bottle and look inside; somehow a trick of the light causes it to look expansive, endless. A sound like wind through the trees echoes from within, and I feel, ever so slightly, a pull towards that wind. I hurriedly replace the stopper, re-wrap the bottle, and set it back into the trunk.

The phone rings, and I nearly fall over.

I jump to my feet and snatch the cordless receiver off the table beside the couch after glancing at the caller I.D.

“Hey, Alice.”

“Evelyn. How are you?” There is a note in her voice, some sense of worry, and I wonder at that.

“I'm... I'm fine,” I lie. “Just relaxing.”

“I thought perhaps you would like to watch some movies,” she says. “It's been a very long time since we've had a movie night. We're both always so busy...” There was a hint of wistfulness in her voice.

I sigh. I really don't feel like having company tonight. “It's a bit late, Alice. Maybe another time?”

She is silent for a moment, and then says very softly, “Evelyn...” She falls silent.

“Yes?” I prompt gently.

“Evie. Would... would you tell me if you... if something happened in your life? Something drastic? Would you confide in me?”

“Of course I would.”

She is silent for a moment. “Evelyn, I know you took the book.”

I swallow hard, and she quickly adds, “I... am not angry. I'm only concerned. I want to talk to you, Evelyn. Soon.”

“I'm sure you do,” I say, a bite in my voice. I sigh, and add, more gently, “What is it about that book that makes it so important to you, Alice?”

She takes a breath, and I can just about feel her mind working as she tries to figure out how to answer me. “It... is an heirloom. It's a very precious possession of my family.”

“Seems to tell a story. You know, given the illustrations.”

“It does.”

“What story?”

She sighs again. “Evelyn, this book is a very personal thing. It's not something we really share with people who aren't family.”

“I was under the impression that you and I were family.”

“We are. We are. But not blood family. Blood is different.”

I practically growl, “Yes, it is. Blood family thinks they can do anything they want to you and get away with it because they're blood. No bond is that strong. No bond should be.”

A tinge of ice creeps into her voice. “You have always been quite adept at making broad assumptions.”

“Alice, has it occurred to you that I had good reason to take the book?”

“And what reason was that?”

I shake my head. “Hey, you've got your secrets apparently, so let's just say I have mine. Sounds like a nice, healthy arrangement, dontcha think? Secrets, secrets everywhere.”

“Evelyn. You will give this book back to me. I will not permit you to keep it. It does not belong to you.”

“Fine. I'll bring it with me in the morning,” I snap, and push the “End Call” button on the phone.

A moment later, I'm standing over the book, lying open on my coffee table, snapping pictures of each page with my digital camera.

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Chapter Four-- A Study in Contradictions

It is starting to drizzle lightly as I pull my old, dented Chrysler into the narrow parking spot before the antique book store. I fumble around beneath the passenger seat, looking for an umbrella, more out of fear of rain damage to the fragile item in my bag than for my own use. I then slide out of the car and step through the door of the shop, inhaling the musty scent of old paper and ink.

“Anton?” I call, peering around the labyrinthine shelves, trying to see the checkout desk. There is only one other customer in the store, a tall, slender man in a blue velvet suit with an almost Victorian cut, and a matching bowler hat. I can't see his face, as his back is to me. He is pouring over a yellowed, dusty volume. As I walk towards the desk, I glance his way again; his face is still hidden in the shadow of his hat, but I see his head tilt slightly and his lips upturn in what I can only call a sardonic smirk.

“I believe Anton is in the back... imbibing,” the man says in a clipped, Irish-sounding accent. I glance his way without responding, striding over to the counter and ringing the bell. “Anton?” I call. “You back there?”

I hear a shuffling and a harrumph, and a hawk-faced old man with shoulder-length white hair steps out of the back room. He sees me, and raises one eyebrow in mock outrage before breaking into a broad grin. “Evelyn! And for what purpose do you grace me with your presence today?”

“How are ya, Anton?” I say while pulling the book out of my bag. Anton pulls a pair of spectacles out of his pocket and puts them on, staring at the book in instantaneous rapt attention. This man loves old books, loves everything about them. He is also a cunning linguist, and has been a tremendous help to me as an information source when I am doing research for my books.

“I got my hands on this earlier today,” I say, carefully opening the book. “I was wondering if you could tell me what language it's written in.” I glance down at the writing and give a haphazard and somewhat joking guess. “It looks a bit like Arabic meets Tolkien Elvish.”

He chuckles. “It's not Arabic, though I suppose I could see the aesthetic similarity. And it isn't one of Tolkien's languages.” He glances at me over his spectacles. “And you just carry it around in your bag? You realize this book could be priceless? I do hope you're being careful with it.”

“I am,” I assure him. “I just picked it up at work and haven't gotten it home yet. I just wanted to see what you thought.”

He nods. “Picked it up at work. I see.” He harrumphs, and I chew my lower lip, wondering if he suspects I stole it. He studies the writing for a moment, then says, “Evelyn, I can honestly say that I have no idea what language this is written in. Would you consider sending it to the university for analysis?” Anton teaches a couple of classes over there in addition to running his bookstore, more because he enjoys it than because he needs to do so for the money. He was once a full time, tenured linguistics professor over there, but retired to the more leisurely business of bookselling.

I shake my head. “No, I'd rather not. I don't know. We'll see.” I return the book back to my bag. “Thank you for looking at it, Anton. I was just wondering what it might be.”

“You're quite welcome, Evelyn. If you do change your mind, let me know. I would love to look at it further.”

“I'll let you know,” I say. “I really ought to be going, though, before it really starts coming down out there.” He nods and waves me off.

I step onto the front sidewalk under the overhang and wrestle with my old umbrella-- it has indeed started truly raining. Someone steps up beside me; I see a flash of red from the corner of my eye. I turn to see the tall, slender man in the velvet suit and bowler hat, but his suit is now red. He looks at me and grins, flashing white teeth and intensely blue eyes. I stare at him for a moment, convinced I've seen him before, before I recognize him.

“Trick?” I venture.

“Got it in one,” he says, moving subtly towards me, close but not touching. His suit color shifts with him and

the play of light and shadow, blending itself slowly back into blue. His entire being resonates with song, the colors pulsing in my head so intensely that I quickly pull back. He raises an eyebrow at me. “Do I make you uncomfortable?”

“Such a thing as personal space,” I mumble. I've never actually met somebody who came to pay me a visit in my world before.

“Ah. Yes, of course.” He looks at me for a moment. “Evelyn Alvar. You should know that you won't find the language this book is written in. The language doesn't exist.”

“So, what, it's some sort of made up thing?”

“All languages are made up!” he laughs.

I shake my head. “No, I mean, it's a fictional language.

“It's not fictional.”

“But... you said it doesn't exist.”

“That is true.”

I'm getting tired of his cryptic responses. “Okay, then. It's a dead language? Something that was once spoken but no longer?”

“No. This language never existed.”

I sigh in exasperation. “You do like speaking in riddles.”

“Riddles are rather boring. One question, faceted descriptions all alluding to a single, lonely, overly simplistic answer. Carved in stone. So dreadfully dull. I speak in opposites. In contradictions.” He flicks a finger under the lapel of his suit. “You see? My suit is blue. It is also red. It is completely blue and completely red, both, at the same time.” He inclines his head slowly to one side, his eyes on my face. “You don't need a translator, Evelyn.”

And then he steps back and vanishes, but it isn't like a magic trick. It is like he was never there in the first place. My mind struggles to remember, to hold on to the encounter, but it fades until I am half convinced it was a dream I had once.

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Chapter One: Trickster

I don't Travel every night, but I do it more often than I don't. I don't do it deliberately. I don't choose a destination or decide to step through layers of reality on a whim. I'm not sure why or how it happens, and I won't even attempt to give a scientific explanation for it. For a long time, I thought they were dreams, intensely vivid and draining dreams, but still just dreams. When I got a little older, I learned about astral projection, and thought perhaps that was a little bit closer to what I was doing, except for the fact that I often bring back mementos from my journeys. I have a fairly substantial collection of things from the places I've found myself in, from dried leaves or flowers, to small stones, to carvings and baubles that were given to me by the people I interacted with. I've never heard of an astral projector who brought things back to the waking world with them. So, no. I don't understand it. I just know it happens.

Tonight, I am being pulled, beckoned, drawn through prismatically bending color and song, cool liquid wafting around me, tugging at me. I open my eyes, see that I am underwater, and that a pulsing light draws me upward above the surface. I don't panic, for some reason. It is like I am in a dream.

I surface, my silver hair beaded with shimmering liquid diamonds, and turn towards the source of this subliminal call that brought me here. A man, slender and ethereal, disturbingly beautiful with long dark hair and cerulean eyes that glow, sits atop the water. From his shoulders twist and spiral streams of white light, like curling lightning-wings, almost too bright to look at. He shifts deftly on the surface of the lake, as though it were ice (though clearly it is not, as I see it ripple and roll around him), and smiles at me.

“You're here,” he says with a small smile.  He looks completely unsurprised.

I look around, coming more to myself, noticing that we are in the center of a small lake, surrounded by trees. A thick mist rises from the ground and hovers over the water near the shore. I look back at him. I am still floating in the water; it wafts gently around my chest, tugging at my hair. I feel like some sort of lake nymph. “Yes,” I say finally. “And who might you be?”

He seems to consider this for a moment. “Names are strange things,” he says. “I have many, though in the end there is just one. Perhaps you've heard of me when I was Coyote, or maybe Raven. Or-- then there's Loki, though I have to say that some of those stories were downright scandalous and not in the least bit true. Disclaimer and all that. Bad PR by Thor. I did not have relations with that bull.”

“You're... Loki.” I cough a little laugh, waving my arms through the water. “And Coyote, and Raven... well, which one?”

“I am all of them,” he replies. “And none of them.” He grins suddenly. “Perhaps you should call me the Trickster! A new name, though it is of course very old. That fits, I think.”

I shrug. “Trickster. Okay. Or maybe Trick. How's that? Since you're obviously not going to tell me your actual name.”

“Trick. I do think I like that. And that is my actual name.”

“But you just gave yourself that name, just now.”

“Ah, but you helped. You were like a mirror! How fascinating. Not surprising, though. The best names are the ones you give yourself, don't you think? You choose who you are that way.”

Trick proceeds then to stand up, still on top of the water, and walk towards me. I stare at him unabashedly. “How are you doing that?”

He looks at me half askance. “You still don't know how to walk on water? How old are you?” Reaching my side, he takes me by the arm and starts pulling me up to the surface. “It's quite simple. You walk on water by...” still holding my arm, he slowly lets me gain my feet, supported by the liquid surface beneath me. “By walking on water.” He gives me that flash-grin again and takes a step forward, guiding me by the arm. “You see?” I take a wobbly step forward, and the water holds me.

Then he lets me go. I hover for a split second, and then the water is closing around my head. I thrash and sputter, unable to find my footing (how deep was this lake?), struggling to seek the surface. I finally break through, coughing, my hair hanging in sodden ropes over my face. “Asshole!” I snap.

He looks shocked and amused. I think he is more amused, and perhaps even... pleased. “I am delightfully fiendish, I know. But you did it wrong! You stopped walking on water. When you stop, of course you'll fall in. It's a simple law of physics. You do have physics in your world, yes?”

“I never learned that stuff,” I mumble. “My education was lacking.”

“So educate yourself. Why should you rely on another to give you the knowledge you seek? ” He studies me for a moment. “Why do you think you sank, Evelyn-Siabhra?”

“I... I don't--” I blink. “Hey. How'd you know my name?”

He laughs. “Perhaps I stole the letters from your eyes. Yes, yes, that's it! Of course, they were all topsy-turvey. I had to re-arrange them, like a... what do you call them? An anagram! You humans do have strange words for things. (Though I'm not certain I would use the word 'human' in relation to you, dear.)  Your name could be so very many possibilities, were the letters arranged in a different fashion. Did you know you could be 'Abrasively-Hen?'” He begins snickering like a schoolboy. “Or... A Blarneys Hive! Or. Aha! Sibyl Nerve. I rather like that one, don't you? It would be a fine thing, to have one's first name be Aha! An exclamation by its very nature. Yes?”

I furrow my brow at him, and he shakes his head. “You are far too serious, Aha! You should laugh more.”

“You are... rather odd,” I answer, but I'm secretly enjoying his incredibly random discourse. Something about him fascinates and mesmerizes me, and tickles my mind with an unrelenting sense of deja vu.

He walks up to me and crouches before me, those eerie blue eyes of his still laughing. “All the best people are, don't you think?” He smiles at me. “I brought you here because I wanted to see if it was truly you. I'm still uncertain, however I have seen the hold she has on you, the strength with which she directs your otherworldly paths. I thought your kind were extinct, Evelyn-Siabhra. And if you are the one I suspect-- and

perhaps want-- you to be, you've once again lost your freedom.” He studies my face for a long moment, suddenly as serious as he accused me of being a moment ago, as though trying to read the letters in my eyes. “You have a story far longer than what you can remember.” He slips his hand in his pocket and pulls out a beautiful perfume bottle the color of his eyes, filigreed and encrusted with what looks like amethyst. It is banded by gold, and looks incredibly fragile.  I wonder how the bottle fit in his pocket, especially without breaking.  “Do you remember this?” he asks. I shake my head, and he presses the bottle into my hands.

Then he reaches out and touches me lightly on my temple, almost a caress, and with a tangible whoosh, I am back home, lying in bed.

They aren't dreams. I am holding the perfume bottle in my hand.

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