Skeleton Keys (on hold)

Chapter Sixteen

It was a beautiful night and I was standing in a garden next to some exotic flowers. They were a vibrant dark red, like freshly drawn blood. In the distance, a tall mansion stood with its windows lit against the evening air. Everything had a soft glow to it, a hue too bright to have come from the lights of the house though. When I looked up expecting to see the full moon, I saw in fact two moons hanging in the sky above me. This was a dream. It had to be, right?

As if to answer my question, I heard steps and the soft whispering of fabric on stone. I turned to see Apollo, with his hair long again like it was in the photo with my grandfather as a child. With him was a woman in a full ball gown that was a deep, midnight blue. Her skin was as white as porcelain and her hair was pulled back with strands of pearls to fall loose down her back.

They walked passed without noticing me and continued down the stone path to where a large fountain splashed. He held her hand, steadying her as she sat on one of the stone benches that faced the towering stone work, but their eyes drifted up to the moons. I moved closer, curious to hear what they were saying.

Apollo murmured something and bent down on one knee before her, taking one of her white, silken hands in his. He kissed it, and I was finally close enough to hear what he saying.

"Stay with me, Lily. Become my mate and live with me for eternity."

The girl's face transformed in a breath of an instant, from a pleasant smile to the bright surprise that reminded me of Max and Corey's faces on Christmas morning.

"Yes-"

"Oh my," a voice said softly by my ear.

I jumped, gasping as I tried to back away into a bush.

Hypnos stood beside me in his white suit just like last time. He was staring at Apollo and the girl he had called Lily. "Look at what you've found. I definitely would not tell him you saw this."

The scene warped, and we were both standing in the white space again, like last night. Before us hung a painting of the scene from the garden. Apollo knelt before the Lily, her hand in his as she smiled at him.

"Who is she?" I asked Hypnos, not able to take my eyes off the picture, and the softness I could see in Apollo face.

"It is not my place to say," he said. "But, I think you can see that he truly loves her. The moons were placed high above them, in the upper corner by the frame. "Was this what he was dreaming of tonight?"

Hypnos gave me a tiny frown. "No, this wasn't a dream. You where able to go a little deeper this time, into his memories." He turned to me, giving me a look that was calculating.

"What?"

"This was something," he started slowly, "only the most very powerful Dreamwalkers could do. And even then, only after a few years of training. Mary, you must promise me that you won't go looking for another's memories."

The sudden seriousness of his tone caught me off guard, and I wasn't afraid to admit that it scared me. "Why not?"

"It can disturb that person and unhinge their sanity if you are not careful. That you were able to do this so easily, without even knowing you were doing so, worries me. I believe we may need to work with your abilities a little faster than I anticipated." He glanced back at the painting, then gently guided me away. Another frame appeared, but the canvas in this one was blank. The soft cream colored linen stood out starkly against the white walls. "Come, show me one of your memories, because those are more than safe to you."

I looked back at Apollo, briefly entertaining the thought of watching the first time I'd seen him. But that probably wasn't such a great idea. For some reason, I was already too close to Apollo's memories and - I just couldn't bare the thought of seeing Grandpa's funeral again.

Hypnos waited quietly beside me, watching me with no sense of rush.

"My Grandfather," I started slowly, "he would tell me bedtime stories. What about the first night he told me one of my favorites?"

"What was the story?" Hypnos asked.

I hesitated, but started softly, remembering the words that Grandpa had used. I looked at the blank canvas, watching as my memory painted the scene of a seven year old me climbing into the old bed with the handmade quilt at the cabin, my grandfather close by with a glass of water.

"It was about a princess and a prince. They were happily in love and were to be married, but the princess' younger sister was also in love with the prince, and jealous of their love for each other. She plotted to kill her sister and to take her place at the prince's side."

"That's not really a children's tale, now is it?" Hypnos said, taking a step closer to the picture, inspecting it.

I shrugged. "Grandpa would go on to tell me that the prince rode in on his white horse and rescued the princess just in time from her wicked sister, and that together, they banished the evil sister to a far away land."

Hypnos stared at the painting for a long moment, the silence stretching between us like a cavern. "Your grandfather was a very wise man. Maybe more so than most of our acquaintances would care to admit."

I tore my eyes from the gold framed painting trying to find anything else to look at, but the empty white space left nothing else for my eyes to rest on. I settled on closing them, shutting them tightly against the tears I couldn't hold back.

"My dear, what's wrong?" Hypnos asked softly.

I shook my head, but the words tumbled from my mouth anyway. "I miss him. I miss him so much. Everything is so different now, I don't even know what to think or do. I just, I feel so lost without him here."

Hypnos wrapped his arms around me gently, offering a comfort I hadn't realized I craved. I cried harder, releasing all the emotions and anger that had built up in me the past few weeks. I cried until nothing was left.

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Thanks for reading! Things have been more than a little crazy here for me. I hope to have Chapter 17 up by June 3rd, so please check back then. And as always, I'd love to hear your comments!

<3 JD