Something way beyond any therapist she’d ever spoken to.
“You are, for the moment, awake. What a beauty you are. And you’ve lived here all your life. I wonder…where is your mother?”
The Oneiroi leader was in her head, gathering every scrap of emotion and thought, scrutinizing every memory. For a moment, it made her feel uncomfortably vulnerable. He spoke again.
“Ah, I see. Don’t worry. I can’t touch you, and I fear the repercussions if I play too much. But I can certainly show you things. Do you want to see?”
Amanda wasn’t sure if she did. At any rate, she could neither speak nor move.
“Of course you do. Watch me.”
And he began to change. His olive features shifted to a paler complexion. His hair was no longer black but a very short-cropped light brown. Yet even in the dark, she could see his natural colors were burned by a harsh sun. He was straight-backed, strong.
A soldier’s stance.
Only her eyes could move. In the moonlight, she saw where his shoulder met his neck. Her gaze looked to his palms. She knew their texture. The precise pressure of his touch. The scent of his skin. She knew those things, yet now could not sense them.
It’s him! Oh my goodness, it’s him…
Morpheus’ voice even changed when he spoke again.
“It’s me, darlin’. I wish we could have met. You’re so gorgeous.” His words were full of wonder. He sounded local. What got her the most, however, was that his voice was the correct tone.
She ached to have him closer. When he sat down, still staring at her, Amanda’s heart rate and breathing stayed the same. Unable to move, it was like being barred from any excitement.
Yet he held her in his spell. Everything was falling into place. There was nothing unnatural about him being here in her bedroom.
He ate her with his eyes. Then he lifted one hand up and reached back to the side of his neck. He’s touching where his neck meets his shoulder.
Soon as his hand touched his own skin, his eyes appeared to shine. As though he wanted to weep. As though he’d just been struck or pushed away. Denied something.
He removed his hand and faced his palms towards her. Anticipating his touch, powerless to react, Amanda watched his hands move closer and closer to her face.
The details of his skin and the lines crossing his fingers were so familiar. His gaze looked to her and then looked to the top of his arm. There, she could make out a faded gold smear. Some strange mark. He smiled at her.
If this is a dream, I’ll take it. Anything to be united with him. I can see him, I can finally see him!
Then his hands stopped millimeters away from her face. His fingertips lingered over her forehead. Her vision was obscured by the top of his palms. Breathing was slow, she wanted to inhale deeply and acquaint herself with his smell.
Yet only the chilled air of her room, already known to her senses, met her nostrils.
His hands moved. There was no feeling, no fragrance. Only the tormented sight of him. His brows furrowed and lids closed. He turned as though she’d spurned him.
How can I react to you? I can’t bloody move.
Then the expression shifted, and the corners of his mouth curved up. His eyes, in their ceaseless intensity, confounded her. Amanda wasn’t sure whether he was being playful or dangerous.
Now, the lighting began to toy with his skin tone. It marred the way he looked. He didn’t appear tangible. Natural sunburned flesh gave way to a gauzy grey. His features dulled.
Now her heart ached with his absence, even though he was still before her eyes.
He gazed in her direction, but it was like he couldn’t see her. Like he was trapped behind a veil.
And she was trapped on the other side.
Then Amanda sat up. Control over her own breath and blood flow returned. She looked around the room, finding nothing and no one there.
Unease remained with her. Like she wasn’t alone. It appeared that both her house and heart were haunted.
It was times like these Amanda wished she had her mother. Someone who understood her nature and who could reveal the secrets behind her dreams.
Nyx stalked through the city. Ever ready for specific attention, ever seeking worship. She’d felt the pull of the woman’s attention. It was heady and focused.
No ordinary woman, but a demigoddess. Yet completely unaware who she belonged to. THAT Goddess’s daughter? Lonely?
But then, powerful Nyx knew too well love and desire’s fickle nature. She knew of loneliness. The one she’d desired did not return her affections with the necessary intensity. He wouldn’t bow to her.
Great Poseidon.
The bastard.
She moved further to the city centre, taking a mortal form, and moved into the area known as St. Ann’s Square.
Her opaque eyes spotted the church in the distance. The sound of her fingernails scraping on the stone of an old shop met the murky air.
This was a shade. The ghost of a fallen mortal. He sat upon a wooden bench, staring at the church. Nyx approached slowly. So transfixed was the shade in his prayer, he did not notice her.
Will you speak with me?
She moved closer. Approaching the courtyard where the benches were, Nyx stepped off of the cobbled road and onto the pavement surrounding the church. Her boots clicked on the old stone slates.
Two trees rustled in front of the church, though there was no midsummer breeze. They were acknowledging the presence of an ancient deity.
The shade’s grey face turned in her direction. Despite the curved wooden back of the bench, the shade sat straight up. The ghost faced the church. His hands folded in prayer, willing the powers that be to make his life what it once was. So that it could be more.
Mental connections tethered him to this earthly place like a stubborn piece of thread. But the Fates had cut his life’s thread some time ago.
Nyx addressed the shade aloud, “You were young, when you departed. Injured in a battle far from here.”
His voice sounded like an echo when he responded.
“I want to be here. She’ll come. It will all be fine. You can’t make me go anywhere.”
Nyx reached out and laid a hand on his arm. His eyes became the deep blue they once were in life, and they widened as the shade felt touch for the first time in years.
“Who are you?” he asked, his body jerking back, unaccustomed to being solid. The novelty of his own voice in his ears made him gasp.
Nyx paused, looking behind her at the old church with a raised eyebrow. She turned back to him.
“Let’s just say, you likely did not come here to speak with me. But how lucky you are that I found you.”
The man furrowed his brows. His mouth began to form a smile, yet the sensation was so strange, so foreign. It was as though the muscles of his face couldn’t recall the procedure.
Nyx crossed her arms and scanned him with her black gaze. His eyes were familiar. In life, they had turned up to her in gratitude. Then, just on the side of his arm, she saw something glowing behind his clothing. A golden smear. Not a tattoo but something gifted to him without his knowledge.
He’d been marked by another goddess.
In life, he was marked by the mother of comely Amanda, who now lays in the arms of Morpheus.