“You snake!”
“And I can give you a tour of some of the Chakra you have never seen,” he finished, seemingly unperturbed by my name calling.
With Pleasure
“And this is my room.” Alex brushed cookie crumbs from his mouth. He remained in the doorway while I walked around, taking in my new sleeping arrangements for who knows how long.
“Small,” I commented.
“Us non-magical types are low man on the totem pole around here. At least I’m not forced to have a roommate like most the others. Well, not until now anyway.” He cleared his throat. “But I’ve always wanted a bunk bed. Now, thanks to you, I get one!” He took a running start and made a massive leap to land on the top bed. “I get top bunk!”
“Glad I’m not a total inconvenience.” I snorted at the apparently ten-year-old man I was going to be spending my nights with. My eyes scanned the rest of the room. It was a little messy but no more than mine, and no foul odors crept in from the dark corners. It would do. I walked over to his shelves, eyeing bits and pieces of radio parts. “Bringing your work home with you?”
“Eh.” He shrugged his shoulders from his perch. “I like tinkering around with communications equipment. I was a radio-man in the military you know.”
“You were in the—” my line of questioning was interrupted by the most beautiful sight I had encountered in a long time. “A Nikon D3X!? You’ve been holding out on me.” I picked up the top of the line camera carefully, treating it like gold. It practically was. The camera alone ran around $8,000, not counting the array of lenses, flashes, and filters he had laid out next to it.
“You know your cameras.” He jumped down from the bed, taking a renewed interest in me.
“Well, yeah. I’m a photographer, or was anyway. I’m partial to Cannons, mainly because of price, but any digital SLR will do.”
“Oh, Katie - this isn’t just any SLR. It is 138 megabytes of 14 bit image files with a 24.5—”
“Megapixel format,” I finished his sentence for him. “Like I said, I am a photographer. I know the industry equipment.”
“Then you know it’s not the cost of the equipment that counts, but how you use it.” He slipped the camera strap around my neck.
“Are you serious?”
“You got something better to do?”
“I guess the rest of the tour could wait…” I stared at the camera.
“Then it’s settled. Come on – there’s nature out there that needs to be photographed.”
We spent the rest of the day in the gardens, Alex giving me complete use of what I thought should be his most prized possession. I loved seeing the world through the cameras lens. It distanced me, somehow. Made me feel like I was merely a witness, instead of deeply involved – a nice change. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it. I clicked away, able to capture all the beauty and magic nature had to offer in one mystical moment – to be halted for all time. When we got hungry, and had exhausted our cookie supply, I was too reluctant to leave my long lost passion behind so we satisfied ourselves with offerings from the fruit trees and continued on our, or my, photographic journey. I only forced myself indoors once twilight approached and the camera’s battery was running low. Over dinner, in between awkward silences when other workers of the Chakra came in and then quickly left the kitchen after seeing me, I couldn’t stop babbling about the day.
Alex seemed just as delighted to have someone to share his hobby with. “Tomorrow, I’ll show you my darkroom.”
“Get out! You have a darkroom?”
He pulled a hard pelican case out from under the bunk bed. It was full of older film cameras, just as much fun to work with as digital cameras.
“I can’t exactly run to a photo center down the block to print my images. Once I became a more permanent part of the family here Cato gave me a lot of space for what I said was necessary for my work. It is one advantage of being a techie, no one knows exactly what you need; they just go along with it.”
The day had gone by faster than the Nikon’s high-tech flash. Alex was one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and the brother I never had. I yawned and looked out the window, the corners of my mouth turning down as I realized it had grown pitch black. Days without Micah might be bearable, but sleep would still be hell when nightmares plagued me.
“What’s the matter?” Alex asked.
“It’s been a fun day with you, Alex. It’s just that I have trouble when I sleep. I have nightmares. Micah can help me avoid them, but now that he is gone…” I let my words trail off, letting Alex coming to his own conclusions.
“What are you going to do? You can’t just not sleep.”
“Can’t I?”
He paused, thinking. “What about the notebook Susan gave you?”
It was still sitting on the kitchen counter, where I left it. “I haven’t had a chance to read it.”
“There is no time like the present.”
“Fine.” I don’t know why I was so hesitant. I supposed I preferred Micah’s help instead of finding my own solution. I flipped through the book while Alex hunted down dessert, as if we hadn’t been eating cookies all day. There were some notes in Susan’s handwriting but the notebook also contained mailed letters from her friend and printed e-mails or cut outs of various magazine and newspaper articles. There were dream protection spells, instructions on how to make magical dream catchers and dream pillows, as well as spells for peaceful sleep.
I stopped on the short section that clumped together information about dream catchers. They were Native American in theory, but if I combined that by blessing the dream catcher with spells it just might work. “I’m going to need some things.”
“Like what?”
“Thread, a metal ring, beads, and feathers.”
“Easy enough. Except maybe the feathers.”
“What about that owl’s nest we saw today? There might be some feathers around the ground by that.”
“You’re not going to make me walk all the way back out there, are you?” Alex whined.
“No. I’m going to make you get me a flashlight so I can walk out there. You don’t have to come.” The more I thought about it the more appropriate the owl feathers seemed to be. An article about the dream catchers said you should use material that was personal or meant something to you. During my saining, it was an owl Cato pointed out as the sign of acceptance.
Alex groaned again. “Micah would kill us both if I let you go traipsing around in the dark. I’ll go get the flashlights.”
Fifteen minutes later we were just below the owls nest. I could hear hooting in the distance. We found four feathers on the ground without too much trouble. I had my pick of those that were particularly ornate. On our way back, we passed the trail to the large boulder and I had an idea.
“Follow me,” I called over my shoulder to Alex. He let out another grunt of disproval. Entering the cleared circle, I tried suppressing any bad memories and concentrated on my task. I got on my hands and knees, scanning the ground for bits of the lightening-shattered boulder to use instead of beads in my dream catcher. I wasn’t finding any.
My knees stung. I hissed, “Who broke a bunch of glass here?”
Alex bent down to examine the ground next to me. “That’s what happens when lightning hits rock – it melts and fuses the grains of the rock together. Fuller… fulg… fulgurite is what it’s called.”
I picked one up and examined it. It was less like a bead, looking more like a root, hollow in places. Perfect for stringing them together. I grabbed a handful and we made our way back to the building, Alex thoroughly annoyed. He collected the rest of the supplies I needed while I retrieved some personal belongings from my room. I was about to pile my large comforter and more pillows in my arms until I thought better of it and stopped by Micah’s room for them instead. No matter how angry I was with him I’d still find peace enveloped by his scent.
Alex set up a reading lamp for each bunk. In my cove, surrounded by Micah’s blankets and pillows I weaved the dream catcher together while above Alex flipped through Susan’s book. I felt oddly at home and safe, which gave me all the more reason for concern. From experience, it was in those moments that the worst could happen.
Once the dream catcher was put together, complete with owl feathers and lightning rocks, I studied it and let out a dissatisfied sigh.
“What is it?” Alex hung his head over the side of the bed.
“Well doesn’t it say it needs a charm or something in the middle? Something to act as the final filter?”
His head retreated and I heard him flipping through the pages. “Not exactly a physical charm, per say.” He read the notes verbatim, “
As a final touch to your dream catcher, adorn it with a keepsake-like entity, either physical or spiritual in form
.”
My hand immediately went to my neck, wishing I still had the butterfly necklace. Alex peered over the side once again, helping me think. “What about the baby?”
“Huh?” I didn’t make the connection.
“It’s always with you and I can’t think of a better, or more reliable, lucky charm.”
Realization dawned and my face brightened. “You know, for a non-magical type you’re pretty good with this stuff.” I thought about his suggestion further and decided I somehow needed to create a mystical connection between the dream catcher and the baby. I came up with a spell I remembered from the book, ad-libbing a little along the way:
During the mercy of the shadowcast
My eyes will close but remain open inside
Fear and danger surpassed
Enemy’s intentions denied
To the Goddess of dreams, I pray that you
Bind my baby to my spirit and this catcher of dreams
And protect my soul while I slumber.
I rested the dream catcher against my belly as I said the chant two more times. I opened my eyes to find Alex staring at me, a wide grin on his face.
“What? Cheesier spells have worked for me in the past.” I felt foolish practicing magic in front of someone who didn’t quite understand it. I hung the dream catcher up above my head and rolled over with the blanket over my head, sufficiently out of eyesight of his teasing stare. When I didn’t hear him settle in, I tried changing the subject, “Are you going to spend all night reading that notebook?”
Finally, I heard him roll over and turn off his light. “I don’t mind holding on to it; it smells like Susan.” I heard the loud slap of his hand covering his mouth.
I shot up, nearly hitting my head on the top bunk. “You like her!”
“I wouldn’t say it like
that
.”
“You looove her!”
“Let’s just say we’ve had our moments. Besides, it’s not like there is a whole lot of choice around here.”
“Oh, please. You get out often enough.”
Alex didn’t respond.
“Alex and Susan, sitting in a tree…”
“Kaitlyn…”
“K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” I sang very softly.
“Kaitlyn!”
“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.”
He leaned his whole torso far enough over the edge to rub my belly. “Not always exactly in that order. Buddha, Buddha, Buddha!”