Chapter 11

The dreams. Why can’t I have one night without dreaming about the jungle? As Mykella’s feet tread over the earth, she smiled at the thought that she had, in fact, dreamt of something different last night when she saved her mother by killing the Dreamkiller.

She had never gotten emotionally attached to the woman who tried to kill them. She was supposedly her Aunt Xan, but she never knew her. There was no conflict when she severed the Dreamkillers head.

Maybe this isn’t such a bad place after all, she thought. She looked up and noticed a bird flying above the tall trees, a white bird looking as if nothing could touch it.

“I wish I could be you,” she whispered as she followed the flight path without taking notice of doing so. Where the bird was going, she didn’t know, nor did she care. This was her dream, wasn’t it?

She walked along the stream, every now and then feeling the cold water playing with her feet. She looked into the water and saw something she had never seen before: fish swimming past her feet. She only knew what they were from the stories her father told her.

Mykella bent down in an attempt to touch one, but they were too fast for her reflexes.

She smiled and stood back up. This dream is changing, she mused. Never before now had she seen the animals that she had heard in her mind. When her father would tell her of some animals, she would make up her own sounds that she thought they would make.

She followed the stream more quickly than she had in the past, hopeful to catch sight of another animal.

What she saw, on the horizon, was no animal. It was a large castle. At first, Mykella thought it was Orion’s home, but she felt no terror as she drew closer. The memories she had read from Ben Krieger described, not in such great detail – he claimed never to have actually seen it – the castle belonging to Queen Nanaac, Orion’s mother and enemy.

But why would I be dreaming of this?

“Mykella,” whispered a woman’s voice from within the trees.

Now she felt afraid. Like the animals, she had never heard any voices in the jungle. She was only recently remembering fragments of dreams she had had with her father and this jungle. But nothing ever became of those dreams.

She looked around and could not find the source of the soft voice, and when she turned completely around, back where she had come from, her path had been blocked by tall trees which towered over her and showed no passage through.

Whatever force had been calling her here, they weren’t going to let her go. But why hadn’t I dreamt of this place before?

“Mykella,”

She turned back around and registered that this wasn’t the same voice of the woman; it was her father’s voice calling to her from the other side of dreams.

* * *

Vince smiled as he watched Mykella’s eyes open.

She looked over at the window and saw that it was still dark outside. “Dad,” she said and sat up. “What’s going on?”

“I need to go out for a little while. Karl and Chris are going with me. Do you think you could keep Agnes company while we’re gone?”

She had never heard him request anything of her and she smiled. At least I don’t feel trapped, she thought. “Yeah, Dad,” she said. She glanced over and saw Agnes sitting at the table reading.

“Thank you,” he replied, feeling the twenty years of guilt – guilt for keeping her isolated from everything – lessen. “We need to see if there’s anything left of the Barrens and then try to get word through the Network about our goal.”

She stood up and stretched. “Isn’t that dangerous? Doesn’t Orion monitor the Network?”

“Probably. That’s why we’re going at night. Maybe everything’s asleep now.”

Mykella walked over to Agnes and looked down. She saw that Agnes had been reading Krieger’s notebook. She looked back at her father. “We’ll be fine.”

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He went over to her and embraced her. “I’m sorry for everything. I really am.”

“I know,” she said and gently pushed him away. “You’d better go. We don’t know how long the Network can be trusted.”

He tried to read what was really going on in her mind by the smile she gave him, but it was no use. He was no more a mind reader than he was the savior of mankind. He had to take her look, literally, at face value.

Vince nodded and turned. “We’ll be back before daybreak,” he said to her and then went to the door and met Karl and Chris out in the hall.

As the door closed, Mykella sighed. “I thought he’d never leave.”

Agnes smiled as she looked up from the notebook. “I’ve got this feeling you wish to talk.”

Mykella sat down next to her and glanced at the page Agnes was reading. “My dreams,” she said and then looked up at Agnes. “I’ve been trying to understand them for a long time, but I can’t.”

Agnes sat back, placed her reading glasses on the notebook, and looked at Mykella with a new sparkle in her eye Mykella had never seen before. Agnes had been predestined to keep watch over Mykella – as Catherine had done with Tracy Kingston, and Helen watched over Vincent. But Agnes had decided to change the rules governed by the Sisterhood. She would help Mykella instead of just keeping a watchful eye on her. She didn’t give a damn if the prophecy was fulfilled or not.

“Tell me about these dreams.”

Mykella felt relieved that someone was listening to her. She knew her father meant well, but there are things she felt more comfortable talking about, like her feelings, to someone other than her Watchers.

“Can you first tell me what happened to the Queen’s castle? Is it still standing?”

“No; Orion leveled the castle right before entering the Forbidden Realms.”

“Can we call it by its Biblical name – Eden? It’s not very forbidden anymore.”

Agnes smiled and nodded. “Fair enough.”

“All my life I keep dreaming about a jungle – I’m always walking alone. Then tonight, I saw an animal; a bird.”

Agnes thought this over, but Mykella continued before she could say anything. “And I saw a castle. I heard a woman’s voice calling my name, too.”

Mykella stopped and Agnes looked down at the page and thought over what she had just heard. A woman’s voice calling Mykella by name. Agnes finally looked up at Mykella.

“The jungle – I don’t seem to understand it either, except that it might be representative of the For – Eden.” She saw that Mykella had smiled. “The castle, on the other hand,” she continued. “Seems to me to be the Grendel castle.”

“Grendel?”

“That was Nanaac’s last name – Nanaac Grendel.”

Mykella nodded. “But I don’t have a direct line with the Queen. Why,”

“Don’t forget, dear, that Nanaac’s sister – Samantha’s – blood flows through your veins. So yes, there is a direct line, over generations, of course.”

“So, do you think the Queen was trying to reach me?” The story was intriguing; no matter what was the truth. To be contacted by the dead was something she had always wanted; that way, she would be able to have friends who wouldn’t fall victim to Orion.

“No,” replied Agnes. She stood up and filled a cup with water and sat back down. “I think Lady Samantha was trying to reach you.” She drank her cup and Mykella waited impatiently for her to continue her thoughts. “It makes perfect sense, don’t you think?”

Mykella thought it over. It made sense that Lady Samantha was trying, but why now? Why not a while ago? “I guess,” she answered. “But why? And why now? If she’s a spirit, couldn’t she’ve come to me, say, when I was fifteen?”

Agnes smiled, which sent a wave of pain through her mouth. She hadn’t smiled this much in her life, and now at her age, it was beginning to hurt her dry skin. “You’ve just now learned who you are. Maybe she tried to make contact by using the jungle as a passage, but you never got that far. And now that you know your destiny, perhaps you’ve opened your mind a little more – enough for her to come through.”

“Maybe. But why does she want to reach me anyway? I mean, what can I do to help her?”

“My, you’re full of questions.” Agnes sighed. “Unfortunately, I can’t answer everything for you. I can only make speculations – which aren’t good enough.”

Mykella turned her head to look out the window. There wasn’t much the naked eye could see in the darkness. She knew Agnes wouldn’t be able to answer all her questions, but now at least she has a pretty good idea where she’s going. She may not understand what Lady Samantha wants of her, but she knows that her destiny ends at Orion’s castle.

She glanced back down at the page Agnes was reading. “Do you really think Ilias was real?”

“Of course I know he was real – he was my Lord.”

Mykella looked up at Agnes with a shocked expression in her green eyes. “What do you mean, Lord?”

Agnes gently closed the notebook. “I come from the Sisterhood of the Tainted Angel. Ilias is the tainted angel; he had his wings torn off by God.”

“What happened?”

“Mykella, you must understand that everything I grew to believe was one-sided. I was tempted by Ilias, we all were.”

“What did Ilias tell you?”

“He told God that he had the ability to travel inside the dreams of mortals, that he wanted to teach other angels. God forbade it and Ilias rebelled by putting his powers inside a mortal man-child. That man-child grew to become Orion. God was furious and tore off his wings and cast him out of heaven forever.”

“Why do you think Ben was obsessed with finding Ilias?”

“Think about it; if you could win Ilias over to your side, you could have his powers, plus give him a chance of redemption into heaven. Who could pass that by?”

Mykella nodded in contemplation. But if that was what Krieger wanted of Ilias, it could have proven suicidal, they didn’t know what kind of angel Ilias was.