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Caitlyn Rose Lee - Toreador
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Nightmares and Dreamscapes
“I’m living in a dream, and no one hears me scream
I’m breaking at the seams of life but I’m holding on”
Saliva - Holdin On
“Morgana, how are you feeling?” I let my eyes settle on her aura as she answered.
Her smile grew wider. “Better,” she admitted. “Glad to see you. How are you, my dear?”
From her aura I could see that she was human, tired, calm, and happy. There were no sparkles in her aura as there had been earlier, which meant no one was using magic on her, at least, not at the moment.
“Better, now that you’re awake,” I said, honestly relieved. She’d been out of it for days, ever since she tried to help me block out a man who had been invading my mind. I’d recovered the next morning, but Morgana had slept for three days. “I was worried about you,” I confessed as I crossed to the bed and took her hand. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, holding my hand tightly. “I will be fine,” she assured me. “Better just seeing you, thank you for coming.”
I scented the air, hoping that I wouldn’t smell the telltale aroma that had been a sign my attacker was nearby. I could smell it, but it was faint, as if he was pulling away. To Morgana, I said, “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I will be fine.” She looked over at Duke Rutger, the doctor who had looked over both of us after the attack. He was writing on her charts but we both knew he was listening to our conversation. “I will be better when someone lets me get out of this bed.”
“One more night will not hurt you,” he told her without looking up.
“No lasting effects then?” I asked him.
“Once I was awake I was able to heal myself,” Morgana answered.
Morgana was a mage, a woman from my own reality who could use magic. When it had become clear that I did not belong in the world of Ramadan, she had come to me in an effort to find out why I had appeared one afternoon in a field near the sea. We hadn’t had much luck finding out why I was here, or how to get me home.
“Once she awoke she became a bigger pain in my backside,” Rutger countered with a good-natured grin.
I looked back at Morgana. “Do you know what happened?”
She sobered instantly. “I got in over my head.”
I remembered the afternoon we had succumbed, the voice in my head that had overwhelmed every thought. Morgana had joined with me, had tried to block out my attacker, but in the end he had proved too powerful for us both. “Do you have any idea who was doing it?”
She shook her head. “Whoever it was, they are powerful. Totally short-circuited me.”
I glanced toward the doorway where the wizard Gomi stood. He was famous in Ramadan, a magic user of great renown, and yet even he could not send me home. “I think we talked to him earlier today,” I told her.
“You did?” she asked, kind of excited. “What was he like?”
“Crazy,” I said softly. “He kept insisting that I was Greta and he was my husband.” For a moment that smell seemed to intensify, filling the room with the scent of the man who had brought me here, who refused to let me return to my own world. After a moment, the scent fades away.
“Did he say anything else,” she asked breathlessly.
Another look at her aura showed that she was excited and anxious, but again there were no sparkles surrounding her, no sign that anyone was using magic. “What’s wrong?” I asked softly. “You sound breathless.”
She smiled. “Sorry. I did not mean to scare you. I am just happy that you have a lead, that is all.”
“It’s a lead,” I admitted wryly, “but I’m not sure how good it is.”
She tugged on my hand to bring me down in the chair beside her bed. “It will all work out, I am sure.”
“I hope so. My family is frantic.” Earlier when Gomi had tried to send me home, I’d heard my lover, Simon, calling out for me. I’d been missing for weeks now, and he worried that I was gone forever. I knew that my sire Sabrina and my brother Ducky would be just as worried as Simon was. “I need to get home.”
“You need to rest,” Rutger told Morgana while looking at the rest of us pointedly. “You can come visit her again in the morning.”
I patted her hand and stood up. “He’s right. You rest, okay?”
She gave him a pouting look. “Couldn’t Caitlyn stay until I fall asleep? All I can remember is worrying about her when I was out.”
Rutger studied her face for a long moment, then looked at me. I could tell he was waiting for me to say whether or not I wanted to stay, and of course I did. I knew there was something going on with the man who’d brought me to this world, and I hoped that if I stayed I would learn something.
“I promise I won’t disturb her,” I told him.
He nodded, putting the chart away and giving Morgana a stern look. “Sleep,” he ordered.
She nodded obediently and settled herself back on the pillows with a smile.
I turned to the doorway where Gomi and Daniel, another man who’d been of great help to me, stood waiting. “I’ll come back to the study when she’s sleeping.”
“I am really glad you are okay,” Morgana said when we were alone.
“It’s hard to hurt me,” I reminded her. Morgana was the only one besides Rutger who knew what I really was. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
She squeezed my hand and closed her eyes. “Better now...” she mumbled as she drifted slowly off to sleep.
The smell came back stronger then ever, enveloping me like a warm blanket, making me sleepy. I was torn between fighting it and letting it overtake me. If I gave in, I could learn something. So far fighting hadn’t really helped when the man wanted to contact me, so I decided to let the smell take me. I fell back in the chair and let my eyes close.
I was laying on something soft and warm. Gentle fingers ran over my forehead and temples, massaging away my worries and cares. I could hear a soft whispering in my ear, but I couldn’t really make out the words. I knew only that the voice was male.
Warm lips pressed against my forehead. I opened heavy eyes to see that the room was dimly lit. A man’s hand settled on the top of my head, caressing me gently.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” his voice crooned.
A familiar smell enveloped me, the scent of the man I loved.
“Simon?” I whispered, looking up at the man sitting next to me.
“Morning,” he said with a smile. “We’re late. Get up. Sabrina expected us an hour ago.”
Wait, this couldn’t be right. I couldn’t be home, could I? “Simon, are you really here?”
“Of course I’m here,” he laughed. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could see that it really was him. “Where else would I be?” He bent to place a soft kiss on my lips, and I put my arms around him.
“I-I don’t know, I thought—” I stopped myself from saying more. Maybe everything I remembered about Ramadan, Morgana and my attacker was all a dream. Maybe the dread I felt was simply a remnant of the nightmare that would soon fade.
Letting him go, I looked around and saw that I was in fact home, in the bedroom of the house I shared with Simon. The nightgown I had on was a familiar one, as were the shorts Simon was wearing.
“Weird dreams?” he asked, touching the side of my face in a familiar motion.
“Yes, I think so,” I murmured, struggling to break free from the last vestiges of the nightmare that even now was fading away. “What time is it?”
“Almost eight,” he replied. “Sabrina just called and bitched me out because we aren’t over there yet.”
I put a hand to my temple, trying to concentrate on the here and now, not on the remnants of the nightmare that tried to tell me this was all a lie. “Why did I sleep so long?”
He pulled me into his arms. “Don’t know. I tried to wake you earlier but you told me to go away. I figured someone was cranky.”
I held onto him tightly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he chuckled, “but we better go before she calls again.”
“All right.” As he moved away, I was suddenly struck by a need to look at my hair. In the nightmare, it had been blonde, but as I held a strand up I could see that it was black, the way it was supposed to be.
“Cait, what are you doing?” Simon asked.
I hid my sigh of relief. “Just… making sure.” I got up and together we got dressed and ready to go to my sire’s home. He behaved normally, saying and doing the things I knew that Simon would do, but still I couldn’t quite bring myself to relax and shake the nightmare of being trapped in an alternate dimension from my mind.
Once in the car, I noticed a bag on the floor behind Simon’s seat that I’d never seen before. I’d opened my mouth to ask when he reached over and took my hand.
“You okay?” he asked softly. “You seem off.”
“It was that dream,” I told him. “What’s in the bag?”
He frowned and glanced over at me, concerned. “Tell me about it. What happened?”
“It just threw me, that’s all,” I assured him. “No big deal. What’s in the bag?”
“What bag?” He glanced around as if looking for a bag in the front seat.
“The one in the back seat,” I told him, turning in the seat to look at it.
“That black one?” He asked. “That’s the overnight bag we got last week to keep in the car. In case we decided to spend the night at Sabrina’s we had stuff with us. Don’t you remember?”
“Yeah, sure,” I replied quickly, trying to play off the fact that I really didn’t remember buying the bag. “I guess I’m just still out of it a bit.”
He stopped at a light and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Why don’t you tell me about the dream and maybe you won’t be so out of it.”
“Nah, it’ll be all right.” I reached behind his seat for the bag, trying to pull it up and onto my lap, but it was very heavy and wedged in place. “What’d you pack in here?”
“The usual,” he replied, “clothes, toiletries.”
“Looks like there’s lots in there,” I murmured, reaching for the zipper. “Did you pack the kitchen sink?” He didn’t answer, but in the dim light from the passing street lights I could see clothing on the top of the bag. Not wanting to feel even more stupid than I already did, I dropped the subject. “What are we doing tonight again?”
He shrugged. “Hanging out, we haven’t seen them in a while.”
I nodded. “Did Ducky get movies?”
“Probably,” he replied with a laugh as he pulled up Sabrina’s driveway. “Although I hope he did a better job than last time.”
“We’re talking about Ducky here,” I reminded him with a grin. “No way he did better.”
Turning off the car, he smiled over at me. “I don’t know. Sabrina bitched him out pretty good last time.”
As we got out of the car and walked toward the house, I realized that the night air in the desert was quite chilly. I even had goose bumps on my arms. As soon as I realized the way the cold was affecting me, I froze.
“Simon?” I asked softly, suddenly very afraid. “Why am I cold?”
He came around the car to stand next to me. “Probably because you forgot your sweater,” he chided, putting his arm around me and guiding me toward the front door.
His answer might have been enough for a mortal woman, but I wasn’t mortal. Vampires can feel the cold but unless the temperature is very extreme, it doesn’t affect them. I usually tried to grab a sweater in the cooler winter months when we leave the house, but I hadn’t had goose bumps since the night Sabrina had embraced me.
As we approached the door, we could hear a lot of yelling and screaming inside. It took only a moment to realize that someone was having a lot of fun, more fun than I’d ever heard at Sabrina’s unless she and I ganged up on the guys.
Simon muttered something about Ducky getting someone revved up again, but I didn’t quite catch what he’d said.
“What’s going on, Simon?” I asked.
“Your brother is prob—”
He was interrupted when the door flew open and suddenly I had a small child’s arms wrapped around my waist, while another child latched onto Simon.
“Daddy!” the little boy cried as Simon scooped him up and threw him into the air.
“Mommy, Uncle Ducky wants to play ‘Spook House’ again!” the girl yelled against my stomach.
I stood there with my hands on the girl’s shoulders, absolutely stunned. I didn’t have kids. I couldn’t have kids. I’d never even been around kids that much, not since I’d left the orphanage to come to America. Yet there they were, a pair of what looked like three year old children, calling us mommy and daddy, and Simon acting as if everything was right in the world. Ducky stood in the doorway, trying not to look guilty.
The boy in Simon’s arms looked at my brother, and said loudly, “No spook house, Uncle Ducky.”
“But mommy,” the little girl pleaded, looking up at me. “Spook house is fun. You’ll play, too, right?”
“No.” It was too much. Feeling as if I’d stepped into some sort of nightmare fairy tale, I struggled to hold it together, to not freak out in front of these children who couldn’t possibly be real. I cleared my throat, fighting for control. “Not tonight, baby,” I told the beautiful child who had my eyes. I looked up at Ducky. “Where’s Sabrina?”
He pointed. “Like you need to ask.”
Looking at him I realized that he didn’t feel like a vampire to me. He felt normal, like a mortal, and for that matter, so did I.
“I need to go talk to her.” Carefully I extricated myself from the little girl and excused myself.
“I want to go too, mommy,” the girl cried, latching onto my hand.
“Um, honey,” I soothed, “why don’t you help daddy explain to Uncle Ducky why we don’t play ‘Spook House’, okay? I’ll be right back down.”
She started to pout, but Simon said, “Come here, sweetie. Let mommy go say ‘hi’ to Auntie Sabrina.”
“Thank you, Simon.” Still fighting to stay calm, I headed for the stairs, looking around to see if there were any differences between the house I could see and the one I remembered from real life. Everything seemed the same, everything but the people I loved.
Once I got to the stairs I ran up them, two and three at a time. I had to get to Sabrina because she’d know what was wrong, she’d know how to fix it, she’d tell me I wasn’t crazy.
From the doorway of Sabrina’s studio I could see her and Jeff locked in an embraced and kissing madly. My sire’s back was to me, but they had heard me coming and they both looked at me over one of Sabrina’s shoulders.
“Where the hell have you guys been?” she will asked, sounding slightly miffed, though I could tell she was more teasing than actually angry. She turned in Jeff’s arms to reveal a very pregnant belly. His hands settled on it, smoothing down her shirt to emphasize the bulge.
“No,” I muttered. “My god!” I leaned against the doorway and bent at the waist, trying to make some sort of sense of what had happened. I closed my eyes tightly and fought once more for control.
I remembered being in Morgana’s room, remember smelling something familiar, remembered falling asleep. I had to be dreaming, had to be in a nightmare that I needed desperately to escape. As nice as this fantasy might have been it wasn’t my life, and I didn’t want to be here. I had to wake up.
I felt Sabrina come to my side. “Caitlyn?” she asked, worried. “Honey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Ignoring her, I wracked my brain for a way to make myself wake up. I focused only on that thought, hoping against hope that I’d be able to break free from the nightmare.
Suddenly Simon was next to me. “Cait?” he asked softly. “Honey, what is it?”
“Damn it!” I rocked against the doorway, screwing my eyes tighter and trying even harder to break free.
I felt Simon lift me into his. “Baby, talk to me.”
“This isn’t right, it isn’t real.” I kept repeating the mantra, hoping it would somehow break the spell.
“What’s happening?” Sabrina demanded frantically.
“I don’t know.” Simon dropped to his knees, holding me cradled against his chest. “Caitlyn? Honey, please, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Should I call an ambulance?” Jeff asked from nearby.
“This isn’t real! Stop it!” I screamed at the unseen man I knew had to be lurking in some corner of my mind. “You’re only making things worse!”
The smell was back, and in my mind I heard, My love, is this not what you wanted?
“I want my life back!” I yelled desperately. “This is not my life! I am Caitlyn Rose Lee of the Toreador Clan and I want to go home!”
There was a long silence as Simon continued to rock me in his arms, then suddenly everything went black and I was lying along on a hard surface. Opening my eyes, I heightened my senses in an effort to see where I was, but I could see nothing.
I sat up in the darkness. “I’m sorry your wife died.” When I got no response, I added softly, “I’m not Greta. I’m not even human. Please let me go home.”
“Stop saying that!” his voice boomed, making me cover my ears quickly to block the overwhelming sound.
When my ears stopped ringing, I asked “Why do you think I’m your wife?”
“Shut Up!”
The sheer force of the words pushed me down until I was lying fully on my back. I knew logic wasn’t going to work, not with this man who was so obviously insane with grief over his wife. I couldn’t move, not so much as an inch, but I could still talk.
Softly, very softly, I began to sing a slow ballad that Ducky had written a few years ago. There was no response, but I hoped that the song of love would help soothe the savage beast of my attacker.
When the song was over, I tried to move again, but could only move my head. “It’s very dark here,” I said carefully. “I would like to see where I am.”
Minutes or hours later I felt a man’s fingers on my face. “No,” the stranger whispered into my ear.
“Why not?” I asked softly. “Are you afraid I won’t like what I see?”
“Do not anger me further, my love,” he warned me. “You will not like what happens.”
“Then why can’t I see you?” I hesitated a moment, wondering how well I could pretend, then decided to take a chance. “It’s been so long.”
To my right a spot light came up and in it stood Simon, looking straight ahead. “Who is this, my love?”
“Simon,” I breathed.
“Who is he to you?”
I knew I couldn’t tell the truth, not all of it. “A friend.”
The voice turned cold and scary. “Do not lie to me, my love. Who is he to you?”
“You think you can tell when I speak the truth?”
“Do not side step the question,” he growled. “I want to hear you say it.”
In the spot of light it looked as if Simon was beginning to have a hard time breathing. I held on to the thought that it couldn’t really be Simon and prayed I was right. “I think you just want me to say what you want to hear.”
“You think I cannot touch him, do you not?” A foggy haze formed next to Simon and started to clear. Sabrina’s studio slowly came into focus.
“If I call him a friend, you call me a liar,” I said logically. “If I tell you what you want to hear, how do I know you won’t try to hurt him?”
“You let another man touch you, did you not?” the voice boomed from the darkness. “You promised to love me forever!”
“How can I do that when I cannot see you?” I asked carefully. “Cannot touch you? Would you have me be alone forever?”
Silence hung and I could see Jeff and Simon enter the studio.
“Would you be that cold, that cruel?” I demanded. “You said yourself it has been years since you’ve seen me.”
Jeff seemed to be trying to calm Simon down. There was sunlight in the room and my lover was nearly in tears.
“Have you changed so much,” I asked harshly, “or were you always this cruel?”
Jeff continued to talk and Simon ended up falling into the other man’s chest for comfort, sobbing and clutching onto him tightly.
“Looks like more than a friend,” the voice said bitterly.
“He loves me,” I said simply. “Can you blame him for loving me when you say that you love me too?”
Silence filled the room again for a long moment as I watched Simon continue to fall apart, then I could hear the man crying softly.
“Please,” I breathed. “Let me see you.”
The crying continued softly, but I could move again. I stood up.
“Why won’t you let me see you?”
“I’m not the man I once was my love,” he sobbed.
“But I thought you wanted us to be together,” I reminded him softly. “How can we do that if I can’t see you?”
Abruptly the sobbing stopped. “It isn’t time yet, my love.”
“When will it be time?” I asked, trying not to push it too far. “Haven’t we waited long enough?”
“We have to wait,” he insisted. “The time is close, worry not.” After a moment, he added, “It is time for you to go back.”
“At least tell me where you are,” I pleaded.
“I’m with you, my love,” he told me, and it sounded much like a vow. “Always with you.”
In Sabrina’s studio, I could see that Simon was starting to get a little violent and that Jeff was trying to restrain him. My heart ached as I longed to be there, to stop him from tearing Sabrina’s house apart, but I knew there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t even beg to go home, because my captor would go postal again. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I stood there, helplessly watching my lover lose control.
“Close your eyes,” Greta’s husband told me.
I did as he said, only to have silence wrap me in its cold embrace. The next thing I knew I was sitting in the chair next to Morgana’s bed. She was still sleeping comfortably, not the least bit aware of the anguish I was going through.
Silent tears streamed down my face as I sat in the darkened room, longing for home.