What Is A Dream?

Chapter 20

One room was clearly different from the others. It was in the back of the house and there were no windows. The walls were stark white and there was no furniture save for a table in the center. Oren brought in a bar stool from the kitchen, which looked very out of place.

"Now, Adela, please sit here," he instructed. "And read this passage from this book. I know, it's not English. It's Faerie. Just sound it out."

Adela didn't want to. She knew it was some dark ritual or something that would destroy the world. But she looked at the book nonetheless. She could read it. "This is Faerie?" she asked. Oren nodded.

"There are many different languages, as there are many different varieties of Human, but I simplified it." Adela nodded and looked back at the book.

Spell for the Purification of the Three Realms

Take souls from Heaven, take souls from Hell. Bring them to the center, where Faeries dwell.

Take weapons from Heaven, take weapons from Hell. With them kill a Faerie, to start the spell.

Take an Angel from the Sky, take a Demon from the Pit, take a Human from the Earth, to cease the souls' rebirth.

The Angel you must cloak in Darkness, the Demon bathe in Light. Give the Human his loves in a place where exist, no love might.

If the Angel embraces Hell, if the Demon shows remorse, if the Human survives the trial, then this spell will have force.

Faeries are the middle ground, we have hidden, never found,

Now we will come out of the shadows and be stronger than any Angel, Demon, or Human.

Adela still didn't understand the jist of the the spell. They wanted to be better than angels and demons? What for? It couldn't be for war, could it? A three way war between the most powerful beings on Earth- Adela had to remind herself that it wasn't just Earth- would be catastrophic, to say the least.

"What is it?" Oren asked. Adela looked at him.

"Sorry, what?"

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you having trouble sounding it out? It's in the English characters-"

"It's fine," Adela said quickly. "Is there any ritual I have to do or anything? Crushing hearts or something like that? Because I won't-"

"No, no heart crushing," Oren promised. "Just say the words." Adela's heart raced. She didn't want to say the words. They would bring something terrible. She stalled.

"What does it do?" she asked. "If I'm going to say something, I ought to know what the consequences of my actions will be." Oren sighed.

"Very well. This spell will bring peace to the realms." Adela was shocked for a moment.

"Come again?"

"Light and Dark are constantly warring," Oren said. "If Faeries gain power and set up a barrier, then the universe will even out."

"It is even though," Adela thought out loud. "Isn't it?"

"It is balanced, but in a constant state of unrest," Oren said. "Imagine a scale. If you have equal stacks of coins on both sides, it will eventually be still. But then a coin falls off and the scale tips. When it tips, all of the coins for both sides fall off and you have nothing. But now imagine that you have those stacks of coins, and a great big sack of beans in the very center. One coin falls off one side, and a few beans just move a bit to that side and it's balanced again."