Briannas Prophecy (13 page)

She looked around. Yes, she was in her room. There were no beautiful fields filled with flowers or rivers with pure water. No imaginary people talking in her head or reading her mind.

Brianna shook her head. It was coming back to her. “Whoo boy! What a dream
that
was, a very realistic, strange, and fantastic dream.” Of course, it couldn’t be anything but a dream. Everyone in it was a figment of her overactive imagination.

Well, poop!
“Like I’m really the great, great, something granddaughter of Merlin. Yeah, right, in my dreams!” She snorted, stumbling toward the bathroom, stripped off her nightshirt along the way, and dropped it in the hamper as she shuffled past.

“I’m just not a morning person. That’s all there is to it.” She yawned. “Why don’t I just find myself a nice night job? Then my stupid alarm wouldn’t be set for this gawd-awful time of morning.” And she most likely wouldn’t be talking to herself at this gawdawful time of the morning either.

She padded to the shower. It was the fastest way she could think of to clear her head. Pushing the shower curtain aside, she reached in to turn on the water and waited a moment for the water to get hot before she stepped in. She shrieked. The water was ice cold!

“Well, you wanted to wake up,” she said, teeth chattering. Turning off the water, she stepped out of the stall, shivering, and dried off with a fluffy towel. Donning a robe, she padded out to the garage with Killer at her heels. Brianna inspected the hot water heater, checked that the pilot light was on and that the thermostat was set at medium. Medium was a good temperature yesterday, nice and hot. So what was wrong with it today? She looked around for something to hit it with. Finding nothing more than her gardening shoes and an old push broom, Brianna left the garage, giving the water heater a look of contempt.

Brianna leaned against the kitchen counter with a sigh. “Who do you call to check out a water heater anyway, a plumber or an appliance repairman?” She asked aloud, uncaring that she was alone, and there was no one to talk to. Sighing, she decided not to think about it until after breakfast. Nothing seemed truly important before her first cup of coffee. Looking down, she noticed Killer hopping around her feet. “Do you want outside, boy? You’re such a good boy, for telling me you have to go outside.”

He jumped around frantically and whimpered occasionally for effect.

“You just want to see if you can find more mice in the backyard, don’t you?” She bent and patted him on the head. “You little stinker.” Picking him up, she carried him to the door. Sliding it open, she set him on the ground. As usual, Killer hit the ground barking, his little legs moving as fast as they could, propelling him across the yard like a miniature brown and gold rocket.

Brianna hated for him to be outside barking this early in the morning, but he hadn’t been the first one out there making a racket. She left the door open, hoping for a nice breeze to cool down the house. She checked her watch. At least she had time to have breakfast at a decent hour. Well, decent for breakfast anyway.

“Not decent for me,” she groused. The coffee was brewing, oatmeal was cooking in the microwave, and Killer was out terrorizing the wild life. “It’s Brianna time.” She sat down, put her feet up on the chair across from her, and the phone rang. “It figures.” She put her hand to her head, and, in her best gypsy fortune-teller voice, predicted, “Eet ees a tele-marketeer.” She picked up the phone on the second ring. “Hello.”

“Hey, girlfriend, you’re up early. I half expected to hear the phone hit the floor.” Amber sounded perky, her voice filled with energy as usual.

Brianna pushed the hair out of her face, tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear, and reached up to take her oatmeal from the microwave. She set it on the counter, licked the oatmeal off her thumb, and reached into a drawer for a spoon. “Yeah I know, tell me about it. I accidentally set the alarm and couldn’t go back to sleep because I had this really bizarre dream.”

She sloshed a generous portion of milk into her bowl, then put the milk away in exchange for brown sugar.
And the kids were noisy. Some inconsiderate boob let their barking dog out… Oops, I suppose I’m an inconsiderate boob now, too.

“Did it have your new friend in it?” Amber was so excited, that the
it
came out more of a squeak than a word.

“No, as a matter of fact, it didn’t. You know, Amber, I can almost hear the matchmaking gears in your head spinning. You should oil them. They’re beginning to squeak. Just leave us alone. If there is something there, we’ll find it.”

Amber chuckled. “Girlfriend, I think you’ve already found it. My question is, what are you going to do with it?”

Brianna sighed. “When will I ever learn not to tell you about any of the guys I happen to meet?” She knew Amber was a hopeless romantic. Rolling her eyes, she shook her head as she spooned a generous amount of brown sugar onto her oatmeal.

“Don’t give me that heavy breathing and those long suffering sighs. And stop shaking your head,” Amber said laughing.

Brianna dropped the spoon into her bowl and covered her mouth. How did she do that? “Did you want anything in particular?” She didn’t mean to snap. She felt like road kill, and her lids felt like sandpaper against her tired eyes. Why did she feel like she hadn’t slept at all?

“I just called to talk with my best friend. I didn’t know I needed to have a reason.” Now she sounded hurt.

Some days it just didn’t pay to get out of bed, damn it. Brianna closed her eyes, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean for it to sound like that. I haven’t been sleeping too well lately and I’ve had some really strange dreams.”

“What kind of dreams?”

“Recurrent dreams mostly. At first, the dreams were of a faceless man. Now…” She shrugged. “Niklas is in them. It’s the same dream as before, but instead of it being an unknown man, it’s Niklas. You remember him. The guy I told you about the other night. You know, the one you were just teasing me about. What’s strange about the whole thing is that I haven’t even talked to him since.”

“Hmmm…”

“What do you mean, hmmm?” Brianna spooned some oatmeal into her mouth and chewed.

“Tell me more while I think about it.”

Brianna rolled her eyes and shrugged, in for a penny in for a pound. She swallowed and set her breakfast aside. She’d microwave it again later. “For the last few months I’ve been dreaming about a man who needs me desperately.”

“You and me both, honey, along with about ninety-nine point nine percent of all the healthy heterosexual females on this rock.” Amber added dryly.

“I’m serious. In the dream, he’s always looking for me, but he can never seem to find me.”

“It would be interesting to know if he has had any similar dreams himself.”

“Why? What would that mean?” Brianna walked around the counter and sat down at the table.

“Because, silly, if you’re both having similar dreams, it could mean a couple of things.” Encouraged by Brianna’s silence, she continued. “One, you both could have been involved in a past life together. Two, he could be your soul mate. Three, one of you has what the other needs to continue your journey to enlightenment.”

“You’re reading a lot into a dream, aren’t you?” Brianna fiddled with the phone cord.

“How can you even call yourself a Witch? You disbelieve or make fun of half of the things a true Witch would believe in or would just take for granted to be true,” Amber admonished. She really sounded upset this time.

Brianna felt ashamed. Amber, an adept, had taken her under her wing and had helped her whenever she needed it, and she was right. Every time something didn’t fall within the realm of left-brained possibility, Brianna faltered in her beliefs. She had yet to make herself fully believe that all things are possible. She just had to believe hard enough and work toward that goal. Maybe that was why her spells never worked. Maybe they failed because she didn’t truly believe they would work.

Amber became the teacher again. “You should know as well as I do. Recurrent dreams are either a reminder of a past life, a warning, or a premonition. This one doesn’t seem much like a warning because right now I don’t feel that you are in danger. If you were in danger, I believe I would feel it, like I did at the ball. And right now, all I feel is an itch for an ice cream sundae.”

“Don’t even tell me you see a sundae in my future.” Brianna laughed. Her sense of foreboding dissipated.

“No, but I see one in mine. I’m headed out to the Dairy Queen. Wanna come?”

* * * *

Niklas wandered through the newly repaired house. The walls were freshly painted a creamy eggshell, and the wooden floors gleamed a newly stained golden brown. The hard work his people had done to make this house livable while he searched for The One hadn’t distracted him a bit. His thoughts were still on his
real
home and his family. Would he ever find The One? There were so many worlds and so many people. This had become a time consuming search he wanted to end. He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck with a sigh.

Looking out over the yard, he wondered if he’d ever be able to rest again. After these last months of searching nonstop, it was easy to wonder if it would ever be over. How many worlds had they searched? How many more would they investigate? Where would they be when he finally ran out of time? These questions plagued him night and day.

He leaned against the window frame. His head rested against the cool glass as he took in the beauty of the world on the other side of the window. It was too beautiful to unleash evil upon it. There was no doubt in his mind, if the evil prevailed, this world and others like it would be defenseless against it.

There had to be a way to stop the upcoming wars without the woman. What if they never found her? What if Morwyyn had been mistaken, and she didn’t really exist? The doubts lingered. It just didn’t make sense that a woman from off world would be the one to save his entire planet.

A movement outside caught his eye. Any distraction from his worries was a welcome thing. Not sure what he saw, Niklas waited for it to come again. He saw it again near the fence, the area toward the house owned by the woman whom he’d met his first night here. He tried to shake off the feelings that always accompanied any thought of her.

Once his thoughts rested upon her, Niklas couldn’t think of anything else. He could still see her beautiful blue eyes sparkling up at him and they way her perfect nose tilted up at the end just a bit. Despite all that, he shouldn’t have found her attractive. She’d been missing teeth and had that horrible hairy growth on her face. But damn! He just couldn’t forget her. And his body ached every time he thought about her. There was something about the way her hips swayed as she walked and her scent… The movement came again and he watched, curious. A tuft of hair mixed with flying dirt burrowed under the fence.

Niklas left the house and became very still. All of his senses went on alert when he heard the growling behind him. Growing still as death, Niklas took a deep breath then turned very slowly. It sounded like a beast ready to attack. He must have wandered too close to its lair. Strangely, it stopped growling as he approached. A bit surprised to see it wore a collar, Niklas carefully reached down, wanting to see if it would allow him to touch it. His mother would have been appalled. Niklas took too many unnecessary risks. He shrugged. The animal was small enough that he knew if he had to, he could snap its neck.

Making soft noises, he approached the animal. He remembered the discs he’d listened to told about animals like these. They were called dogs. Most of them were domesticated, which was the reason he didn’t feel apprehensive about approaching the little beast.

He held out his hand, making small nonsense noises that the animals on
Terrna
seemed to enjoy. Still suspicious, it stopped growling but still wouldn’t make friends with him. The little beast didn’t seem happy to share his secret place. After a moment of staring at each other, the dog sat down and looked at him with its tongue hanging out and its head tilted to the side.

What in the world did that mean? It was hard enough trying to figure out the people on these worlds without having to deal with their animals, too. Beasts were unpredictable. As a rule, Niklas didn’t have anything to do with any of them, unless he was eating or riding them. Finally coming a decision, he knelt down and reached toward the animal, waiting for it to decide what to do.

The hairy thing licked his hand and wagged its tail. Well, what it had of a tail. No longer nervous, he reached out, scooped it into his arms and went into the house with a very evil look on his face. Once inside, he set the dog on the floor and let it wander around. Investigating the new scents inside, it didn’t take long before it latched onto a smell it didn’t recognize and took off growling. Niklas followed close behind, his evil smile still firmly in place.

When the animal found her, Minra was on her hands and knees crawling under a table to plug in a new lamp. The perfectly rounded rump waving in the air might have distracted another man, but Niklas was more concerned with the results of his prank.

Minra heard the growl, froze for a split second, then sat straight up. She slammed her head into the bottom of the table, nearly dislodging the lamp.