Ring of Dreams

Just Another Day

Ring of Dreams by Carolyn Lorelle

Photo credit: david adams. /Foter

Chapter 1

Byzantia, the Amethyst Mage, raised her crystal staff above her head. Deep violet lines of power crackled along the tip and she fed it with her personal energies until the very air around her was charged with it. Later, she knew, she would pay dearly for this reckless expenditure. At least this way, there might be a later.

"Fool," hissed her opponent, his red eyes gleaming from the darkness beneath his black silk hood. "Your dragon will never arrive here in time. You have played your final card, and what has it won you? Nothing!"

Scarlet energy pooled in the pale hands the Dark One raised from his sides. Byzantia watched helplessly, sustaining her summons even as it sapped her strength. No spell that she could cast alone would stand a chance - all depended on Helios and the swiftness of her wings. She risked a glance at the sky, hoping against hope to see her companion speeding her way.

Too late, she registered movement from the corner of her eye. The Dark One had taken advantage of her inattention and flung one of his orbs at her. It struck her full along the side and she cried out -

"Miss Brown!" The tone of that call said all too clearly that this was not the first attempt to get her attention.

Jane blinked rapidly, trying desperately to remember where she was and what she was doing. Her eyes flicked to the equations on the whiteboard. Right. Math class. "Yes?"

Ms. Norton sat against the edge of her desk, rolling her red pen between her palms - it clicked every time it passed the line of cheap rings she wore on her bony fingers. She looked annoyed. "Miss Brown, put that book away or I will be forced to confiscate it. If the homework assignment isn't enough to occupy you until the end of class, I can arrange for you to have some more work to do." 

Jane stuffed the book into the top of her backpack, ignoring the muffled laughs from her classmates. Ashley and Olivia turned their best scornful glances on her, pretending shock at her behavior. Yeah right, Jane fumed. Like they've been doing anything this whole time but whispering to each other. She turned away to check the clock. There were fifteen minutes left till she could get out of here. What kind of harpy made their students do homework for the last fifteen minutes before school let out, anyway? 

Still, even the threat of having to take the forty-minute bus ride without her book was enough for Jane to pull out some paper and at least pretend to be working until Ms. Norton turned away. She glared at the page; she'd already finished the measly ten problems that had been assigned. Which was why she had started reading in the first place, she reminded herself. She flicked a quick glance at the teacher. Ms. Norton had shifted her attention to a pair of boys in the back who had started snapping wads of paper at each other with their rulers. Jane rolled her eyes. What, were they in kindergarten? 

Taking full advantage of the distraction, however, she flipped to the back of her notebook where she had a sketch of Helios going. There was something wrong with the angle of the wings, she thought, but otherwise this was possibly the best picture of a dragon she had ever drawn. She got back to work shading the scales, by far the most time-consuming step, and quickly lost herself in the pleasure of the process. 

"Ahem."

Jane jerked upright. How had Ms. Norton managed to sneak up on her like that?! 

"The drawing, please." She extended her hand for it, tapping one pointed shoe impatiently.

Her heart sinking, Jane carefully removed the page from her notebook and handed it to Ms. Norton without a word. Maybe she's just going to put it in her desk, she thought. Maybe I can still get it back. Maybe - but all of the 'maybes' curled up and died as Ms. Norton crumpled the page into a tight ball and tossed it carelessly into the trash. 

The bell rang and Jane tossed her notebook and pencil into her bag, not quite able to swallow past the injustice of what had just happened. She thought briefly of grabbing her drawing out of the trash can before leaving, but Ms. Norton was still staring at her, arms crossed, and Jane could have sworn she still heard the tapping of her shoe over the noise of chairs and conversations suddenly returned to normal volume. It wouldn't be the same all crumpled and smudged anyway, she told herself, and she slipped out of the room without a word. 

On the bus she found her usual seat and sat in it, alone. She always sat in the back - not the very back, those seats were claimed by the odd junior or senior who still rode the bus, whether they were there or not - and you'd better look out if you were sitting there on a day they showed up. No, she sat about three seats up, her head pulled down and knees tucked against the back of the seat in front of her. That way, no one would see her unless they were walking by her seat or sitting right next to her. It was pretty comfortable, too, after sitting in hard plastic chairs all day. One time she had even fallen asleep in that position, and the bus driver had been pissed that he hadn't seen that she had missed her stop until the end of his route. Mom had been pissed too, because she'd gotten home twenty minutes late.

She looked out the window as the bus pulled away from the school, letting the day slip away from her along with it. In her reflection, the afternoon sun painted her boring brown hair a brilliant gold. Not for the first time, she imagined that the glass showed another world, a better world than the one she was trapped in. Heck, she even looked prettier in the bus window than she did in a real mirror. If only she could find some way to slide through to the other side and run away, so fast that no one could catch her and drag her back to geometry and lunch alone and her squabbling, quarreling family. 

The bus stopped at the elementary school to pick up the younger children, and it filled with noise and wild activity. Jane slouched down even further, pulling her beat-up copy of The Amethyst Mage out of her bag. No sense in wasting her half-hour of freedom daydreaming. She could do that at home. It only took a minute to find her place and re-immerse herself in Byzantia's final battle and, unfortunately, it only took about ten minutes to finish the rest of the novel. 

Jane held the book in her hands for a while after she finished it, reluctant to put it away. What an ending! She could still feel her heart racing as she went over it again in her mind. Byzantia's despair, the Dark One's confident gloating, and then! The wings of the golden dragon eclipsing the sun as she dove to rescue her companion. It was  thrilling.

She sighed, looking down at the purple-clad mage on the cover, her face partially obscured by creases. The question now was, should she keep it or trade it in? Since she'd already read every worthwhile fantasy in both the school and the public library, bookstores were her only source of fresh reading material. Unfortunately, that took money. Money that she didn't have. She still had a few quarters left over from her last report card - the only time her parents gave her anything - and if she traded in the paperback that would be enough for her to buy a different used book. 

Jane slipped it back into her backpack. Who knows? she thought. It might be good for a reread. If not, I can always trade it in later. She leaned her head against the window, looking up at the corridor of blue sky visible between the trees that lined the suburban road they drove down. It was easy to imagine Helios flying up there - or better yet, her own dragon companion. She should be bright green, her emerald scales tipped in silver, sparkling in the sun as she wheeled impatiently above the bus, waiting for it to deliver Jane home.

She progressed from that to daydreaming about actually riding on her dragon - her name was Amaranth, she decided -  when she realized that the bus had stopped at her corner. Zipping her bag and slinging it onto her shoulder, Jane followed little Chloe Fuller and the Robinson twins up the aisle and down the steps to the street. 

It was less than a block to her house, but Jane dragged her feet, not quite willing for her time alone to end. The warmth of early fall hadn't yet faded; most of the leaves were still green, and the wind whispered coaxingly of one last adventure. All too soon, she found herself at home, passing the asters and the marigolds and climbing the steps to the old wooden porch. Jane took a deep breath, and then she went inside.