Dreamweaver Training Begins

Chapter 6 - The Weaver Awakes

Welcome, new readers and subscribers! If you’re just catching up, I’ve posted the links to the first five chapters below.

Chapter 1 - The Silver Feather
Chapter 2 - Lucien’s Visit
Chapter 3 - Callie
Chapter 4 - Oscar
Chapter 5 - Shades of Crimson and White

Lucien

Lucien watched Penny pick her way through the gravestones and stop from time to time to consider them. She ran her fingers across the scarred stone. Her hand passed over the name, dates, and epitaph, as if she could speak to someone long dead through the stone. He smiled as he remembered a walk they’d taken when she was about seven years old. He’d pointed not to the dates, but at the dash between them.

“The story isn’t in the beginning and the end, Penelope. The story is in the dash between. Their life story. And from when you begin to when you end, there’s promise in the dash.”

She froze in front of a gravestone.

It can’t be her dream state, he reasoned. He knew those tells. Sarah and Callie had the buzzing and the timbre of church bells for theirs. Surely, Penny’s tells were the same. But he couldn’t help wondering if hers might be different. She was breaking tradition. The Council had shown him what had happened on that dark day when Callie trapped their mother between worlds.

As he cleared the image from his mind, Penelope turned toward him. He hid a smile. She was a far cry from the toddler who’d once clamped herself to his leg when he’d said good-bye.

How could he have made her understand by not being around he was protecting her? Callie, too, and Sarah. I should have put a protection spell on them, but Sarah said no. He’d never asked her why. Admittedly, he’d failed to protect them so far, but he would make things right.

He didn’t see eye to eye with The Council on some of the decisions that had been made, but even they knew the Alexander women must be brought back together to help right the world. The biggest question The Council seemed to care about was, who would be Priestess, now that Callie was out of favor. Penelope was the obvious choice. He fought the urge to roll his eyes. That was something one of his daughters might do, but he envied the satisfaction it brought him just thinking about it.

It was time to train Penelope. He didn’t relish the thought. Lucien had tried to pair her with Callie when they were young, and both had been reluctant. Callie because she thought she was invincible, and Penelope because she wanted no part. When they were paired, he could bind them with protective magic while they worked. He’d hoped the few pairings he’d been able to do would bring them close. If he could show them they were two halves of a whole, they’d have a stronger force within them. Through his magic, he could keep the shadows at bay. It had worked. Then.

“That time is ended,” he said to himself, his voice heavy with years of regret. Yet he was determined to see the wrongs of the past righted and the rift between the worlds repaired.

Something slammed into him, and he spun, intent on incapacitation, but found Penelope on her bum, camera askew. He reached down and helped her up.

“Is it salvageable?” he asked.

“Is what salvageable?”

Lucien gestured to a bit of glass from the bulb and the cracked lens cap. “Your camera. Can it be fixed?”

“It had better be. My life is the camera,” Penny said, then rolled her eyes at him. “You!” She sputtered and struggled to gather her camera and get up, Lucien’s assisting hand untouched. “Are you following me? What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Lucien countered. It was peaceful, and it was nearly a world of its own. Quiet. Green. Trees standing guard over their charges both residents and visitors to their space. The tranquility emulated Lucien’s world. This would be the best place for him to begin.

“It’s a peaceful shortcut and stop avoiding my questions.” Penelope shook her head. “And stop following me. We don’t see you in what … two decades, and suddenly you’re everywhere? I do not have time to get to know you. Sorry.” Lucien felt a pang of guilt that he hadn’t been around. But he’d explained why, hadn’t he? His absence couldn’t be helped. Penelope didn’t know what was at stake. He stepped back to give her space. She wiped her face with her hands and hiked the camera bag tighter on her shoulder. She met his gaze. “What do you want Lucien? I didn’t get much sleep last night, and I just wanted to get some landscape shots in the cemetery.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s peaceful here. I can think. Focus.” Lucien’s face brightened. This would be a good training ground then. He cocked his head to one side and studied his daughter. She was stronger than anyone gave her credit for, including herself. She had fortitude. Strength of will. Prudence. She was the balance to Callie’s pride.

“I know I can’t make up for lost time, Penny. And you may never understand or forgive me, and that’s okay. But I know this cemetery, too. All too well.” The mark beneath his shirt burned as Penny raised her eyebrows at his words. “Good. She was intrigued,” he thought. He turned, beckoning her to follow. “I want to show you something.” Penny didn’t move.

“What is it?”

“Follow me and see,” Lucien said, his long index finger up and crooked forward. He smiled as he heard the crunch of leaves behind him.

Trees stood on either side of the path like soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder with swords crossed.

From time to time, Lucien looked over his shoulder. Penelope was surprisingly quiet, peering upward toward the tops of the trees. The tree guards fell away to reveal a low rock, a natural bench long and flat, in the center of a clearing. They passed the clearing and entered another. At last, he stopped near a bench, a twin to the one they’d left, but the area around it was more open. “We’re here.”

“We’re where?”

“At the beginning.” Lucien was being cryptic, , but as much as he wished it, there was really no other way. They were at the beginning—the beginning of the end, if truth be told—but Penelope didn’t need to know that. She did, however, need to understand the role she would be required to adopt. Whether it was her desire or not. She’d have to accept who she was and seize the power within. Eventually, he’d have to tell her the whole truth, but for now, he just needed to accept and begin. Sundari, his elder in the Council, friend, and mentor, had warned him Penny might be more difficult to convince than he thought.

Time was running out.

“Of what?” Penelope asked as her gaze roamed over the clearing. He followed her gaze from the smooth stone of the bench, up to the canopy, and back to the bench, its concave depressions of embrace belying the dark marks and scars etched into its grey face. A breeze in the trees tossed shadows across its surface, and Penny stood, held fast by something he could not see.

“Training,” he said, shrugging. “There is much to cover and not a lot of time. Though you are not the Dreamscape Priestess as your sister, you are still of the Alexander line, and should know what to do when dreams become nightmares.” He stepped back at the ferocity of her look.

“No. I didn’t want it when I was a child. I don’t want it now. Isn’t it my choice?” Her fists clenched, knuckles white against her hips. The camera bag loomed like a mallet at her side.

Lucien put his hands on her shoulders. “Few are born to the purpose and must find it. You. Your sister. Your mother. Each of you were born into a role set forth a millennia ago.” Her eyes flashed, though she said nothing. “There are choices to be made. Yes. But whether to be what you were born to be? This is not a choice that can be made.”

Thunder snapped overhead and they looked up. “We don’t have much time,” Penelope said. Lucien sighed inwardly. She was right but not about the weather. She had to understand what was at stake. Why she needed to begin training. It was imperative to the success of his mission. Sarah had trained Callie, as had he in her earliest days, but Penelope had always been uninterested. Did she remember anything from those days? Lucien studied her, “I know. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. The time to watch the world is over. Now it’s time to become a part of it. You are a part of the dream world whether you wish it or not.”

“I’ve seen what can happen, and I want no part of it. I have enough on my plate and have neither the time nor the inclination to add something new. Callie is the fighter. Figure out what’s wrong with her and bring her back into your fold.”

Lucien quirked his mouth. This was going to be difficult. Penelope was an Alexander. Stubborn. Determined. She was exasperating, and he almost laughed out loud. Both girls were their mother’s daughter.

“Come. Sit with me. I want to show you something.” He had to prove to her how important she was to the survival of her world, but he didn’t want to scare her. She was strong, but also balanced on a knife’s edge with the stresses that had been mounting since Sarah became trapped and Callie had begun to lose her way.

She took a deep breath, glanced at the clouds again, and sat. She was willing to listen, , or rather, to see what he had to show her. He took training off the table. For now. Lucien took an item from his pocket. “Do you recognize this?” he asked, watching her reaction.

Her jaw twitched, but otherwise she remained impassive. He’d have to work on that jaw twitch. It was an obvious tell, and she’d have to remain completely still to not give anything away to those who would use her emotions against her. She looked at him and nodded. “I have. There were more. Weren’t there?”

“Yes. Once upon a time there were more.” He lowered his voice. “This is the last.” There was no one in the clearing with them, but something felt off. He would have to report this little section of the cemetery to The Council. It was compromised. Penelope’s voice broke through his wandering mind. “What about Callie?” he asked. Penelope did not show offense to him not listening. She was mastering her cool quickly.

“I said, I’m not Callie. You’re trying to make me be more like her. Take over her …. I can’t be the Dreamscape Priestess if that’s where your mind is. You, of all people, should know that. I may be acting as the oldest right now. But I’m younger by two minutes.”

“No, you are not your sister. And I’m not trying to make you be her. But you are two sides of the same coin.” He held up the object in his hands. “This coin.”

©Lisa Rogers. This story has been written from my head by my hand for more years than I care to count. In other words, human-authored. Completed December 2024. All Rights Reserved.

I have gone back-and-forth ad nauseum about whether or not to serialize this book and have decided to rip off the Band-Aid(tm) or plaster, if you prefer.

Disclaimer: it’s not going to be perfect, but it has been story coached, developmental, and line-edited, any typos or similar issues are mine and mine alone.