<< A sky of velvet darkness hung over head like the son of an unfaithful twilight and an unfamiliar midnight. Cloudless and cool, the air was moist with the scent of morning dew and grass.
I opened my eyes to that sky. Grass fresh and uncut on my sides, laying in a field I had never seen before.
Strangely I wasn't scared, I felt oddly calm and that actually made me feel nervous. I was somewhere I didn't know, I had just woken up to this strange place and I was calm?
Strange, my mind shouted.
Taking a deep breath, I sat up and looked around to get my bearings.
The field lay at the base of a large hill, other than a few scattered trees, there was nothing but open terrain all the way to the horizon. The sun was nowhere in sight even though I felt it was morning and sunrise should have been occurring. Then again the sky looked like nothing I'd seen before, so who knew.
A chill went up my spine as I felt a pair of eyes on me and turned around.
A ways off, across the field near the hill, I saw someone, (a girl?) looking at me. She wore a thin satin dress and headdress with a white and grey veil that reached her hips. How I could see all that was weird, especially with the distance separating us, but I didn't think about it.
I didn't have time to.
The moment I glanced at her, the girl turned around and started running up the hill. Call it the need for directions, help, answers or whatever, but I found myself racing towards the hill too. I had to catch her and that was all, boy my head was being odd.
But still I ran, jumping over rocks, there were a few of those the closer I got to the hill, and when I reached the hill I started to go up. This time I didn't race up it, it was to steep and I would probably trip, fall and break something important on one of the rocks. I was sure that the girl ran up this hill though, which made me very curious, just that, curious.
What was going on? I wondered fleetingly.
Still I climbed up, my hands grasping trees for purchase when it was needed, my feet, bare I realised, feeling the soft grass between each toe. I don't remember last time I'd gone out for exercise other than at the gym or the boxing ring. But each second as I got higher and higher, I felt a rush, not the rush from exercise, but a feeling of something.
The feeling you get when you're getting close to something important or something you want. Yeah, that was the closest feeling I could use to compare with what was going through me. From my toes to the strands of hair on my head, a tingling sensation erupted and I started to chuckle as I finally reached the top.
"Huh?" I looked around in confusion. The girl seemed to be gone but she wasn't in my thoughts right then.
Large blocks of stone stood in the near the centre of the hill, almost as long as two men and as thick as two trees. Nine of these blocks, were stacked in three different spots, each facing the center of the hill, forming a circle. Yeah, like three gates, three stone gates, although Stone hedge might have been more majestic I didn't know.
I walked toward the center of the circle and as soon as I stepped into the center, three women appeared beneath each stone gate and stepped out. The women each wore grey satin cloaks, with silver veils that reached their knees, hiding their faces, and more vivid than the girl I'd seen before.
"Um, hello?" I raised a hand apprehensively, feeling a bit of pressure as the women gazed at me.
Slowly, carefully, the three women lifted their left hands and pointed at me with three sticks. Then as if on cue, they began to dance in the circle together. I wasn't sure if it was dancing though, but it was beautiful that much was true.
They moved in sinc, their bodies swaying to an unseen rhythm as their veils trailed behind them making it very ethereal.
Poised and polished, graceful and gossamer, beautiful and benign were each step, each pose they took, the sticks in their hands always ending up pointing my direction.
The energy in the air picked up as they danced faster, their ritual getting more frenzied yet staying just as elegant as always. Faster, slower, faster, slower, point, slower, slower, faster and faster again, I couldn't move, my presence not important but central to the dance infront of me.
Finally with a graceful step, they each ended up right before me, pointing their sticks right my way. I didn't realise until then that as they moved, they were inching closer to me step by step.
"There is no sun beyond the horizon." one woman said, her voice sounded like thin thread, ready to snap.
"There is light in the shadow." Another woman said, her voice sounded like the kiss on your cheek you get when you're half asleep, unreal yet real.
"There is a star." The last woman said her voice raspy like sandpaper on vocal chords.
Then in unison they all pointed to the sky , their sticks, (no, wands?) aligned above my head.
That's when i saw the sky, stormy and violent overhead.
When had it gotten like that? I wondered, but before I could even ask, it was over.
I was struck by a bolt of lightning. >>
I opened my eyes instantly.
Gone were the women, the stones and the ethereal dances. I lay in my bed, in my room, at my home, in simple Oakwood. There was nothing magical, everything was normal and I was alone.
I closed my eyes and tears, slow and steady, dribbled from my shut eye lids.
I didn't sob, I didn't whimper or quiver.
I just let the tears flow, like I'd done countless times.
So many times.