Divine Blue [Book One]

Chapter Seven

Taylor sat next to Adrienne on a barstool at their table drinking her second cup of iced coffee. They had been casually talking about school and their friends when the lights dimmed within the cafe. She saw the band clammer onto the small stage at the back of the venue. As the stage lights flooded the once dark room to introduce the band, a memory flooded Taylor.

**A 10-year-old Taylor was sleeping soundly in her bed, albeit tortured by her ongoing nightmare. She was in her third foster home and was sharing a room with her foster sister. She had been battling a recurring vision ever since arriving in this new home.

Taylor always saw a woman clothed in a red, flowing dress. The room they were in was pitch black except for the woman, who was illuminated by a mysterious spotlight. Taylor was looking down in her dream, as if she was standing over a ledge in this dark room and watching the woman in red fall into the great, dark abyss below, her eyes wide with fear and her arms stretched out reaching for Taylor.

Taylor always awoke, her hands clenched and her forehead clammy with sweat, before the woman in red ever reached the bottom. On this particular night, however, the bedroom was lit by the lamp on Taylor's bedside table when her eyes shot open.

Ashton, her foster sister who had also been sleeping, turned over in her bed, her eyes squinting. "What's going on? Why did you turn on your light?"

"I... I... don't know. I'm sorry," Taylor apologized as she quickly flipped the switch on the lamp to turn it back off. Taylor could feel her heart begin to pound as a wave of anxiety washed over her. She hadn't switched on the light. She knew that, on this night, the vision was much more vivid for her. It felt more real than it ever had before. But how had she turned on the lamp? Was she half-asleep, still dreaming, and switched it on without realizing it?

Ashton grunted, turned back over, and Taylor could hear her breathing return to a normal rhythm as she drifted back to sleep.

Taylor decided to lie back down beneath her blanket and try to relax.**

"What planet are you on this time?" Adrienne asked, breaking her from the vision.

Adrienne's face came into focus. "Sorry. Jupiter, I think," Taylor joked.

"Smart ass. Really, though, what goes on in that big brain of yours?" Adrienne inquired.

"I was just thinking about this freaky dream I used to have as a kid. I don't know."

"What kind of freaky dream? Do you think it might have been the same one you had last night?"

"No, last night was different. The dream I was thinking about was one I used to have when I was in my third foster home. There was always this woman falling away from me, down a hole or something."

Taylor heard the band tune their instruments and test the microphones.

"Do you know who the woman was?" Adrienne asked her.

"I have no idea who she was or is. Or why she was even falling and reaching her arms out for me."

"What made you even think of it?"

Taylor pointed to the stage lights. "The lights."

Adrienne looked at Taylor, confused, and shook her head.

"It's going to sound stupid, but I woke up after having that dream for, like, the millionth time, and my lamp was suddenly on. In the middle of the night. I still, to this day, don't remember ever turning it on," Taylor explained.

"That's creepy. What kind of magic juju are you hiding?" Adrienne asked jokingly.

"None that I know of." Possibly another lie.