Wrap the night around me/Blanket of black on my back...

[damien-dw.livejournal.com]

[Wednesday night October 21st]

I close my eyes and fall into the dark behind my eyelids. I drift for the first little while and then I come to rest on the shores of a beach. Pull myself up onto the glowing white sand and look up at the glowing tree shaped hole in the sky. The thought comes to me that I'm dreaming. So I stand up and test it by causing a huge fish to jump out of the water and tell me it's a dream. The fish looks like a giant bottom fish from the river and its voice is thick and slurred. But it did say what I had told it to.

Now that I know I'm dreaming I have a choice to make, do I stay and play with stuff here or go walking and see what other people are dreamin?.  I play with my dream for a bit, changing the water for beer and playing with the shape of the light source. Finally come to the conclusion that of course other people's dreams are more fun because it's more challenging. Here I can do anything, out there I have to fit in a bit with the dream first before I can make significant changes.

This thought instantly brings up a road in front of me and I set off down it. The road is nothing special, just a dirt track thumping under my boots. I shift the bags on my shoulders and then dismiss them. I don't need baggage for a dreamwalk. I guess I've been on the road so long the physical memory is bleeding into my dreaming.


Reach the barrier of my dreamspace and with the briefest of glances go right through into the nearest dream. Let's see what's out here tonight.

[open to Frances' character]

[Closed]

Comments

[jack-hollow.livejournal.com]

"There isn't one unless they let the surviving candidate take it. The other one was murdered last week. and no they haven't caught the killer yet."

Growl at that, and it sounds like the wind in dead branches again. More comin' from me this time, though. My town, dammit. Remember the odd empty feeling when the old mayor died. "Got a name on either of those?"

"So, when did you leave Excolo? Why haven't you gone back?"

"Never left it," I say, looking around. The air's cold and a little damp. Breeze is blowing. Tavern's the only thing out here, nothing else but ground littered with dead leaves, slow rise and fall. Think there's a kind of flickering light in the dead trees up ahead, and I head that way.

[damien-dw.livejournal.com]

No sooner have told him about the murder then he makes a real spooky sound. Kinda windy and scratchy at the same time, like a haunted wood. Guess he doesn't like what happened. Got a name on either of those?

"Um...Think that Reeves is the name of the dead one. The survivor's a woman. Karin... Bathory?"

We are walking through darkness but this time there's woods and the gentle rise and fall of leaf-covered ground. Light flickers up ahead, I think it's our destination. The only answer to my latest questions is a curt, Never left it.

I want a better view of where we're going so I make the trees bend away from our destination. Means we're now at the edge of a large clearing, and just to make sure we can get a good look I have a full moon rise behind us.

[jack-hollow.livejournal.com]

"...Miss Bathory's runnin' for mayor?" Huh. I turn my head 'round to look at him as I head forward. Feels like I'm snatching up bits and pieces of a newspaper. "She give up the 'Boy, or she still runnin' that too?"

Hell of a time gettin' to where I think I'm going. There's this clearing and it seems like there shouldn't be, but that's not the important thing. Important thing is the tree in the middle, great old twisted thing bare of leaves and all dark brown. Don't think it's dead, though.


Take out the candle and let the glass jar it's inside fall to the grass. An' then I'm just looking at it for a second. It's a cheap little tea light, but I think it'll count. I remember showing someone this, but I can't remember who. Waterkey told me I could, but I don't think it was him. Mab, maybe?


Put it in my mouth and something catches and the light slams out, pouring from eyes and mouth, bouncing off the inside of the orange rind. Hazy smoke all knitting up into something solid, canvas and straw, thread and pumpkin.


That's way better.

[damien-dw.livejournal.com]

Hollow seems surprised at the second name. Has a question of his own, She give up the 'Boy, or she still runnin' that too?

"Don't know. Yet." I flash a grin at him. But he's not paying attention to me it's all for the huge tree in the middle of the clearing. He takes the tea light from the glass and then puts it in his mouth.

Light pours out from eyes and mouth. The smoky shape becomes a huge scarecrow with a blazing jackolantern head. Involuntarily, I take a step back.

I want that smoke real bad again, plus I want to look casual. So I reach into my coat and pull out my cigs, tap one out and have it light up on the way to my lips.

I take a drag, exhale and only then say, "Jumping the gun a bit aren't we? Halloween's not for awhile yet."

[jack-hollow.livejournal.com]

Kid pulls out and lights a coffin nail. Draws on it and it goes out in his mouth, but he's still got a lungful of smoke and pours that out. "Jumping the gun a bit aren't we? Halloween's not for awhile yet."

"Soon enough," I say, and my grin's ear to ear, candle flame leaping merrily inside. Twenty-first of October, and I can feel the night rushing closer. Everything I need to get to's so damn far away, but maybe, maybe...

There's little glimmers of light hanging around the tree. Can't see them but I know they're there, like the people in the Tavern. Touch the bark of the tree and it's warm, good solid feel to it. "G'wan and tell Mab-- Sheriff Devarn that I'm tryin' to come back," I say. "Hermia too." Doin' my best, here. What I was made for.

"And don't smoke out here," I add over my shoulder. "Last thing this place needs is a fire."

[damien-dw.livejournal.com]

Soon enough, The giant jackolantern says through its firey grin. He reaches out to touch the tree. G'wan and tell Mab-- Sheriff Devarn that I'm tryin' to come back,Hermia too. He tells me, a clear dismissal.
And don't smoke out here, he adds over his shoulder. Last thing this place needs is a fire.

As if he hadn't made that clear enough by snuffing my cigarette almost as soon as it was lit. I give him a stiff nod. "Fine. I'll deliver your messages. But you'll owe me a beer an a sandwich in the waking world. Dream well, Deputy."

I raise one hand in farewell and then step back to my road fading away from the clearing and its unsettling occupant.

[jack-hollow.livejournal.com]

Kid wanders off and I stand there, one hand still on the tree. Lookin' up into the branches. There's lights up there, but they're like the people in the Tavern--I can't see 'em. Just know they're there.

Stop closer into the tree and put my hands on either side of my head and lift, and then I'm in the branches, watchin'. Dozens of carved pumpkins in the branches beside me, not like fruit but perched like kids or owls. And the eyes. All the eyes, warm and steady and smilin' in the night.