Floe de Lir

Chapter 7

In four years of dreams, he could never reach the damn gravestone.

Perhaps if he had known which name he was searching for, he would have succeeded.

Two; he usually searched for two.

Two had become four.

He had initially thought one of the graves belonged to his father, until his father had returned unscathed from a seemingly brutal murder.

He had considered that perhaps he had been searching for his late wife's gravestone, though he had been able to track that down with the assistance of the Marchettes' butler, Bruno.

If he sought neither the graves of Toni Marchette-McKay, nor Jack McKay, then why had a graveyard constantly plagued his dreams since the late winter of the last year in the twentieth century?

Had his dreams prophesied to him of the Walshes' deaths all along?

But Brenda wasn't dead, he shouted into the void of his dream. Brandon was. Brenda was just...gone.

Yet, he had seen them both the previous day, so could the graves he sought be theirs when the Brandon and Brenda he knew were still very much planted in the nineties?

He darted through the graveyard, scanning stone after stone for any indication of his Walshes.

There they were.

There their shadows were, at least.

If nothing else, he could follow their shadows, and hear the chatter betwixt them that was currently incoherent.

"Adrian and I broke up," said the voice of what could only be Brenda, or perhaps a memory of the voice he had known Brenda to have.

"I thought things were going well?" asked the voice of Brandon.

They moved quickly, too quickly for Dylan to match their ghostly pace.

"They were," said Brenda. "Were. Keyword."

"What happened?" asked Brandon in an exasperated air.

"He bought me a first-edition of Anne of Green Gables," said Brenda. "Said one of my colleagues told him how often I ask the shopkeepers for it."

"He doesn't know about Annie, Bren. Or of Bertie. You can't hold it against him for getting you a book he thinks you love."

"I do love it, Brandon," said Brenda. "I still love it immensely, and that's the problem. I shouldn't love it. I should loathe it. I took that book out of my house and donated it to a charity shop for a reason. I shouldn't want anything to do with it. I certainly shouldn't search for it enough that my boyfriend thinks I want it back." She hesitated. "Ex-boyfriend."

"Are we still talking about a book?" asked Brandon.

What else could they be talking about, Dylan wondered, and since when did Brenda have such feelings of animosity towards a novel he had once purchased for her himself?

A first-edition she had accepted.

Suck on that, Adrian, he thought.

"Brenda!" he called out. "Brandon! Behind you guys!"

Neither twin turned around.

Dylan tried again, hollering both names until his voice became hoarse.

"They can't hear you."

"What are you two doing here?" Dylan asked the translucent redheads beside him.

"We didn't discuss before you left how your dreams will come into play," said Iris. "How you can use them to communicate with the people of your choice, provided -"