Page 26 of Challenged

“I did not speak to you before because I could not,” he says, and there’s an earnestness to his words. The roguish glint to his eyes is gone, an almost boyish sincerity replacing it. I don’t trust it for a second.

“What, one tug on your tail and you forget a whole language for a few minutes?”

He laughs, and at least he doesn’t seem pissed that I attacked him. Judging by the yelp he made, it must have hurt when I pulled his tail.

“I am certain there are ways you could pull on my tail that would make me forget a great many things.” The flirtatious version of him rises to the surface once more, but he shakes his head, returning to the earnest version before he speaks again. “But I could not speak your words because I do not know them. I do not speak them now, you are just hearing it that way.”

“Right,” I say. “Is this some alien thing? Have you done something to me?” Panic surges. “What have you done to me?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Well, I caught you as you fell. Then set you down in the drying pelts and immediately went to fetch your sisters. Beyond that, nothing.”

His voice is firm, serious. Like he needs me to believe this. I glance over at the ‘drying pelts’ - a folded pile of animal furs that’s on one of the nearby benches. Definitely not lying in them. Does he really think he can gaslight me into remembering something that so obviously didn’t happen?

“I don’t have any sisters,” I say.

“I mean your tribe sisters. Liv, Lorna. Brooks was already to her bed.”

“So you put me in the pelts and went to fetch Liv and Lorna. And yet I woke up lying in the middle of the floor and they’re nowhere to be seen.”

Yellow Eyes nods, then leans forwards in his seat, any trace of teasing flirtation or the boyish sincerity vanished from his eyes, his expression. A seriousness settles there instead, and I wonder who this guy actually is. Which of the many shifting personalities is the truth.

“This is not going to be easy for you to hear, linasha. I do not like to have to tell it to you so soon after you have had to hear other difficult things.”

A flicker of fear ignites in my chest. I’m already having to deal with being on an alien planet, nineteen years in the future. What other difficult thing can there be left for me to hear?

Perhaps Yellow Eyes senses my panic, because his next words are as gentle as any I’ve ever heard, despite the growl that textures his voice.

“You have not yet awoken,” he says. “You are still asleep.”

This is so ludicrous I’m rendered speechless for a long moment.

“I’m awake,” I say once my tongue starts working again. “I’m obviously awake. What the fuck are you on about?”

His expression doesn’t shift, and neither does his tone.

“This is the dreamspace, my Angie. We are in dreams together. After you fainted, I caught you, rested you in the pelts, then got your sisters. They bid me carry you up to the room you have chosen for yourself, which I did. When I left, they were taking off your wet clothes so that you might sleep more comfortably. Your body remains there now. It is your headspace only that comes here.”

My brain reels. Headspace? Dreamspace? And did he just call me ‘my Angie’?

“I’m awake,” I say again, my voice squeaking out of me once more.

“Look at your clothing,” Yellow Eyes says, gesturing at me.

I look down, realising even before I do that I’m not cold, I’m not uncomfortable. I should be - the water of the shower soaked through my outer layer and into my skin. The jumpsuit should be clinging to me, the water drawing out my body heat until I’m shivering. But I’m not. I can’t even feel water dripping down my neck from my hair. I expect to see I’m wearing the same sort of handmade clothing that Liv and Lorna had, but my eyes catch on ruffles, pink checkered fabric.

The dress I was wearing for my first Screening.

My heart jolts. I paw at the dress as if I could rip it off my body. Or perhaps as if touching it would change it. The fabric is every bit as coarse and stiff as I recall, the ruffles scratchy against my arms, my shins.

How could they know? How could they have found an adult version of the dress I wore to my first Screening? A dress I wouldn’t even remember well if I hadn’t just dreamed about it.

“What the fuck?” I say, my voice hoarse now.

Yellow Eyes is suddenly beside me. I didn’t hear him move, his feet silent against the tiled floor. He holds his hands up in careful submission, his eyes full of concern.

“You do not need to be afraid,” he says, tone still achingly gentle. “The dreamspace conjures things from our memories. It has brought us here, I suspect, because it is the last place you recall being. It has conjured you familiar clothes also. But this is not the waking world. We are in dreams.”

Dreams. I dreamed about this dress, and now it’s here. Because I’m still dreaming? A different dream. A shared dream?

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