{"id":707,"date":"2011-09-23T00:00:26","date_gmt":"2011-09-23T04:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=707"},"modified":"2011-09-10T21:59:51","modified_gmt":"2011-09-11T01:59:51","slug":"day-15-chapter-10-marin-08","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=707","title":{"rendered":"Day 15 – Chapter 10 – Marin – 08"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He met me near the ward-lines about ten minutes later, shrugging into his battered leather jacket, the one without the spikes that he\u2019d only started wearing late last winter.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not that chilly,\u201d I said quietly, watching him as he walked toward me.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 J.T. shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cIt is to me, but I\u2019m not so sure that\u2019s not psychosomatic.\u00a0 C\u2019mon.\u00a0 Sooner we\u2019re out of earshot, sooner I can stop being paranoid about someone overhearing us.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Shit, he\u2019s really rattled.<\/em>\u00a0 I frowned, jogging a few steps to catch up with him as he breezed past me, heading down toward the ruins of some of the suite-style dorms.\u00a0 We passed where they were trying to dig wells, past where they were starting to dig shallow trenches for whatever heating system Thom had engineered.\u00a0 Matt waved to me as we passed and I waved back, then picked up my pace to keep up with J.T.\u00a0 The midmorning sun peaked through ragged clouds, giving us glimpses of blue sky tinted with other, stranger colors since the stone rain more than two weeks before.
\n\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s been more than two weeks.\u00a0 God, it seems like forever and yet\u2026<\/em>\u00a0 I suppressed a shiver and followed J.T. down toward what had been a sledding hill, one upon a time, heading down toward the ravines and the river.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t say a word until we were at the bottom of that hill and had hiked through some of the trees and over to one of the clear-running streamlets that emptied out into the Grand River.\u00a0 He sat heavily on a rock and I joined him on another nearby, brows knitting.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve been having the dreams since I was a kid, but I didn\u2019t completely understand them until\u2026recently,\u201d he said, staring at the water rushing by.\u00a0 \u201cI didn\u2019t realize I was dreaming about the long-dead.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oh holy hell.<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He glanced at me sidelong and smiled weakly.\u00a0 \u201cYeah, I know.\u00a0 Sounds crazy, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I swallowed the bile that had suddenly risen in my throat.\u00a0 Yeah, crazy.\u00a0 Dreaming about ghosts.\u00a0 Not just any ghosts, either.\u00a0 Ghosts of people who died\u2026who knows how long ago?<\/em>\u00a0 I put a hand on his knee and squeezed.\u00a0 He laid his hand over mine.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt looked like the tarn near my nan\u2019s cottage in Scotland, but I knew that wasn\u2019t the place.\u00a0 The huts were wrong\u2014all stone with bark and thatched roofs, no glass for their windows. \u00a0And the people\u2026all in cloth and hides and soft leather.\u00a0 Not like us.\u201d\u00a0 His lips barely moved as he spoke, fingers tight around mine as he stared at the trees.\u00a0 \u201cI keep seeing this woman\u2014old, long white hair, wearing a torc around her neck and some kind of circlet.\u00a0 Beaten silver, both of them.\u00a0 She looks old, but she doesn\u2019t move like she\u2019s old.\u00a0 She comes out of one of the cottages as the sun\u2019s going down and walks to the edge of the tarn, then she looks at me like she knows I\u2019m there, watching her, even though I\u2019m dreaming.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201c \u2018Don\u2019t worry,\u2019 she says.\u00a0 \u2018Don\u2019t worry, my dear boy, you\u2019ll see me again.\u2019\u00a0 Then she just\u2026falls face-first into the tarn.\u00a0 She sinks and she doesn\u2019t try to swim, and I can see her spirit rise out of her body\u00a0 and she smiles\u2026and then disappears on the wind.\u201d\u00a0 He was white-knuckling my hand, now, voice barely a whisper.\u00a0 \u201cI see it over and over, every time I sleep\u2014at least once a night, usually more than once.\u00a0 Then last night, there was another dream, after the first one.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt was in the same village\u2014that much I could tell, I was sure of.\u00a0 We were carrying a body on a bier out to a cairn.\u00a0 I knew it was the woman from the other dream.\u00a0 There were so many people crying, weeping\u2014keening, Mar.\u00a0 Whoever she was, she must\u2019ve been really important to them.\u201d\u00a0 He went his lips, then continued.\u00a0 \u201cThere was a stranger by the cairn, a red-haired man in a black cloak with a half-mask.\u00a0 For some reason, I remembered thinking that he shouldn\u2019t have been there, that they\u2019d all gone away forever, and why the hell was he here now instead of days ago, when she was throwing herself into the tarn?\u00a0 He smiled<\/em> at me when we got there, but it was a sad smile.\u00a0 Then he said, \u2018He loved her well and truly, loves her still, and will love her again in some tomorrow yet to come.\u00a0 He loves you and yours and hopes someday he can forgive himself as she forgave him.\u2019\u00a0 I remember setting the bier down, and that stranger came to me and put something in my hand.\u00a0 \u2018I will see you again someday,\u2019 he said to me, then he just walked away.\u00a0 And I keep waking up before I can see what it is he\u2019s given me.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He tore his gaze away from the trees and looked at me.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know what they mean, Marin.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what they mean and that\u2019s got me scared shitless.\u00a0 I keep trying to convince myself that they\u2019re just weird dreams, but somewhere, deep down, I know they\u2019re not.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHow do you know?\u201d\u00a0 I whispered.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 J.T. laughed a bitter, almost hysterical laugh, shaking his head.\u00a0 \u201cHow do you know your visions are real?\u00a0 My gut tells me so, Mar.\u00a0 That\u2019s not the worst of it, though.\u201d\u00a0 A muscle in his jaw twitched.\u00a0 \u201cThe woman, the one who I keep watching commit suicide\u2026I know who she is.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI thought you didn\u2019t\u2014\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He shook his head quickly.\u00a0 \u201cNot who she was<\/em>.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got no idea who she was or why she did that.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve got this weird feeling I know who she is now<\/em>.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Who she is now?\u00a0 What, reincarnation or something?\u00a0 I didn\u2019t think he believed in that.\u00a0 Hell, I\u2019d only half convinced myself that <\/em>I believed in that.<\/em>\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m almost afraid to ask who.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Smiling a humorless smile, he shook his head again.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not much better for me, I promise.\u00a0 But I think it\u2019s Kira.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Kira\u2026do I know a\u2026oh!<\/em>\u00a0 \u201cWait\u2026\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He nodded grimly.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u00a0 Thom\u2019s cousin.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He met me near the ward-lines about ten minutes later, shrugging into his battered leather jacket, the one without the spikes that he\u2019d only started wearing late last winter. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not that chilly,\u201d I said quietly, watching him … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-10","category-day-15"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-bp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=707"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":712,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions\/712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}