XVI: Cleansing

Alyxa frowned at the pile of dirty clothes that lay unceremoniously scattered all over her laundry floor in her laundry floor. This was not what she had had in mind for her Sunday afternoon. She wanted to study her Craft books, she wanted to be out in the herb garden, she wanted –

“Oh hell,” she grumbled, and set about making some sort of sense of the laundry.
She must have been at it for a couple of minutes when she noticed that Morpheus was standing in the door, looking at her with those bright eyes.

“What are you doing?” he asked her, voice loaded with curiosity.

“Laundry,” she replied shortly, “cleaning clothes.”

“And…you do this by putting them into the machine and then…?”

“The machine spins them around and makes them clean,” Alyxa explained, demonstrating by putting the clothes into the washing machine and tipping in some detergent.

They watched it go for a couple of minutes. Then…

“Have you seen Bast today?”

Morpheus completely ignored the question, his eyes fixed on the washing machine.

“Have you ever considered doing this?”

Suddenly the washing machine gurgled and bleeped several times.

“What did you do?” Alyxa asked, a touch of worry flooding into her like boiling water seeping through a teabag.

“Made it easier.”

“What what easier?”

Alyxa edged away from the washing machine as it stuttered and then returned to its normal cycle with renewed fervor.

“Your ‘laundry’, it will now do itself.”

“It sounds like a helicopter trying to take off…” Alyxa murmured.

“Come, witchling, let us go and see what the child is doing.”

“Morpheus…I’m not sure abo- ”

He brushed a strand of hair back from her face.

“It will be well,” he said quietly, “see?”

Alyxa glanced at the washing machine. It smiled back at her.

XV: Nocturnal

Alyxa found it severely unnerving to watch Morpheus and Bast; the one would look at the other, and yet their eyes never met. Bast had taken to sitting on the windowsill in the front room, looking out into the world, and Morpheus would then stand in the arched doorway at the other end of the room, just watching her. Sometimes, Alyxa wondered if they spoke to each other at all, and if they did if those conversations would ever be audible or if they would remain restricted to the eerie ESP that she suspected was going on.

Nights were different of course; Bast had taken to sleeping on Amy’s bed for the majority of the night, only to be completely untraceable in the morning. Amy took it all for granted, in that innocent childlike way, but Alyxa suspected that there was more than the regular feline nocturnal activities going on Bast’s excursions.

“But where does she go?” she asked Morpheus one morning, waking to find him gently licking blood off her fingers.

“Have you ever tried to ask a cat where she goes?”

“Well...I’ve never had to put up with a cat that could talk, now have I?” Alyxa countered.

“Have you not?” Morpheus queried.

Alyxa stared at him, confusion pouring into her mind, she was distracted by the gentle kiss of his lips against her wrist as he drew more blood from her.

“No...” she murmured, “no, I haven’t. Mortal...cats don’t talk.”

“Of course they do, my love,” Morpheus chided, his voice strangely thick with humanity, “you simply do not know how to listen yet.”

She smiled, drowsy once more.

“Do you think...you could teach me?”

“To listen?”

Alyxa nodded, she could feel Réveille pulling at her from just beyond the veil.

“You and I can do anything...anything.”

XIV: Origins

Morpheus had a father of sorts; popular mythology reads that he was born of Sleep, Sonus. This was not entirely wrong: Sleep comes before dreaming after all, so in many ways, the latter is sprung from the former. However, since he had no actual feelings about his ephemeral progenitor, he found it quite fascinating to hear Amy speak of her ‘Daddy’.

They were sitting on the carpeted floor in Amy’s bedroom, a meticulous picnic spread before them, complete with actual cakes and actual tea; the teddy bears, par Alyxa’s command, were unanimated, and there were no fairies.

“Daddy used to play picnic with me all the time before he married that woman,” Amy was saying, “when he married that woman, he stopped being fun.”

“Why?” Morpheus asked.

Amy looked at him, her eyebrows pursing together as though trying to merge into one line above her nose.

“Because that woman wanted him all for herself,” she said imperiously, and then, seeing Morpheus’ expression, blank and transparent all at once, she added, shyly, “what is your daddy like?”

“I do not know.”

“How can’t you know? Don’t you know your daddy?” she hesitated, “Is he dead like mine?”

The Dream God smiled a little at the question.

“I do not think my ‘daddy’ was ever truly alive.”

Amy thought about this for a moment, and then filed it away in her mind; Morpheus could almost see the cabinets of her brain sorting the information. The thought was there and gone in an instance as both he and Amy heard Alyxa’s car pull up into the driveway downstairs.

“Alyxa’s home!” Amy exclaimed, rushing from the room with all the excitement of a baby elephant on rollerblades.

“And not alone…” Morpheus murmured, sinking through the floor to avoid the stairs, “welcome to reality, Bast.”

XIII: Enchained

“Alright, I’ve decided…” Alyxa said, raising her head and looking at the other eight members of the Coven.

“And?” Maye, the Coven-Queen, asked her impatiently.

“Of all that want to come through, only Bast has any real knowledge of our world, and unless one of you wants to volunteer to babysit Ares or Thor, or put up with Isis’ tears for the rest of your lives, I suggest we bring Bast through.”

“Can we trust her?” one of the others asked, a touch of nerves in her voice.

“They are gods, Delia, they do not deal in human concepts of ‘trust’, they are what they are,” Maye chided.

Delia hung her head.

“Shall we begin then?” Alyxa queried, she was eager to get this over with and return home, hopefully to find that Amy and Morpheus had not turned the place into a fairy’s castle or a teapot; the last five nights since Amy’s arrival had been fraught with unexpected occurrences: fairies serving tea to teddy bears, a candy castle appearing in the backyard, and a complete overhaul of Alyxa’s wardrobe.

“We will make the preparations toni- ”

“No need, kittens, I’m here.”

The Coven went still – apart from Delia, who fainted dead into Maye’s arms – as a very impressive looking cat wandered into their midst; sleek, silver-blue, but with eyes of an eerie gold, and they looked through you as though you weren’t there at all.

“But we – we haven’t do –” one of the girls stuttered.

“The Dreamer’s decision was enough, she is after all the gateway, and I’m hardly in need of full ceremony the way the others are,” the Cat-Goddess informed them, “so I saved you the trouble of incense and candles, and in return,” she seemed to smile, “I ask only that you love me.”

XII: Choices

Réveille means ‘awaken’, in French, and it is what Dreamers have called the Realm of the Dead Gods since they first learned how to step from regular dreaming to waking dreams. Centuries ago, only the shamans of tribes could accomplish the feat, using herbs to encourage their soul to leave their body and wander. Generations slip by, and now it is a hereditary talent, rare and sought after by witches and their covens. Like her father before her, Alyxa held the only position of the Dream Witch in the coven.

To dream, for Dreamers, is to live.

“Which one of us, child, have you chosen?” Isis asks her, her voice already lamenting some loss she felt.

“Have you chosen me, little girl?” Ares demands, the swords in his hands flickering in and out of view as he dances over the courtyard floor.

Alyxa shifts in the large silver throne that they have set up for her, a sign of their flattery. She had long learned to ignore the offerings of dainty foods that were presented to her.

“You should choose me,” Thor shouts, drowning out Ares’ presence with the solidity of his form.

“I should be the one to join Morpheus on the other side of the Veil, Réveille holds nothing for me, and I could do much good in the world,” Ishtar murmurs, materializing before the silver throne.

Alyxa presses a hand to her forehead. Back in her bed, her body tosses and turns under Morpheus’ silent eyes.

“We have not yet decided,” Alyxa whispers, “I have not yet made up my mind.”

“You should do it soon, dear child,” Isis whispers, “we are all very interested in your world.”

“I will try to decide soon,” Alyxa assures the gathering.

Alone, silent, Bast sits, and waits. She knows already.

XI: Comforts

The child was interested in only the most basic of things that they found in the house she had inhabited with the woman she called the ‘Bad Lady’. Alyxa eventually decided that it had been her stepmother and that her father had died the year before; it was difficult to be sure, since Amy did not seem to have much of a sense of time.

She was very similar to Morpheus in this sense, except that Amy was human and had a vague understanding of age, the way that all seven-year-olds did. Not that Alyxa knew a lot about children, she’d been an only child, and the only dealings she’d had with children had been the occasional visit of a distant cousin.

It wasn’t all that surprising therefore, that Alyxa found herself driving back to her house with a car largely full of the child’s clothes and the twenty-odd teddy bears that had been strewn across the otherwise barren bedroom. They turned back into the driveway and the teddy bears disappeared instantly. Neither Alyxa or Amy blinked, Alyxa because she was too tired and Amy because she took for granted that Morpheus was ‘magic’ and that such things were normal. It was for the same reasons that neither of them were surprised when the house suddenly found itself in possession of a new room, off the end of the hallway, complete with furniture and now outfitted with teddy bears.

“I’m going to bed,” Alyxa declared after she had seen Amy settle down on the new bed.

“I will watch you sleep, witchlet,” Morpheus told her, and he probably meant it reassuringly, but there was just something about today, about the entire day, that seeped all strength from her, and so, she simply nodded and let herself fall into dreamless sleep.

X: Caramel

Amy waited patiently. She stood in the living room and looked at the pictures on the wall: Alyxa with her parents, with eight other women, with a small child. Morpheus had told Amy that Alyxa was a Dreamer, and had explained, as best as he could, that this meant that she could enter the place where the gods live. Amy figured that there was more to it than that, but grown-ups had a way of telling you things in a way that reminded Amy of cooling caramel; they never really got past the part where it was sticky. Children were much more sensible. She thought Morpheus would have understood that, but if he was magic maybe he worked differently.

After several minutes, Alyxa came out into the room. She looked pale, but pretty, there were some red dots on her neck.

“Alright, Amy. Morpheus says you will stay with us for now.”

Morpheus rested a hand on Alyxa’s shoulder and smiled. Amy felt a weight lift off of her. What would she have done if Alyxa had said ‘no’? The Bad Lady was dead now, just like Daddy.

“Do you need anything from where you lived?” Alyxa asked, and Amy wondered why she sounded so sleepy.

Amy thought about it for a while.

“I would like my teddy bears. Daddy gave them to me. Can I have them?”

Morpheus smiled at her, his teeth looked strange.

“Of course, Alyxa will take us there tonight in her vehicle and we will take whatever you want for your new room,” he told her, his voice reminded Amy of a cat’s purr.

“My new room?”

“Morpheus will fix it for you,” Alyxa said softly, “let me find my keys.”

She wandered, unsteadily from the room, and Amy heard the familiar jangle of keys.

IX: Morals

Alyxa stepped into her house, slightly tipsy and buzzing from the night’s work that the small circle of witches had worked. Within a matter of days they would be able to repeat Alyxa’s spell and draw yet another of the gods from Réveille. Of course the question now was who? Of all nine in the circle, only Alyxa was a Dreamer, the others had only caught glimpses of the otherworld. So they’d left it to her to decide which to bring through. Ishtar had been asking, nagging really, and of course Ares was still desperate to come out and play. Isis might be an interesting decision but –

“Who’re you?” Alyxa asked the small child standing in front of her, holding a teddy-bear.

“My name’s Amy. Morpheus brought me here,” the girl told her.

“He…did, did he?” Alyxa murmured, “he here?”

“I am here, Alyxa.”

Alyxa started, losing her balance on her heels and teetering for a split second on one precarious stiletto. Morpheus steadied her, materializing in that irritating way of his, right behind her, until she regained her footing.

“Amy’s step-mother met with an unfortunate accident, we decided to bring her here.”

She could feel the brush of his thumbs along her spine, rushing, coaxing. He wanted to feed.

“Amy…it’s Amy right?”

“Yes.”

“Give me a minute…Morpheus, can I talk to you?”

“You are talking to me, witchlet,” he pointed out.

She took him by the arm then and pulled him into the kitchen.

“What do you think you’re doing? You can’t just bring a child away from an accident! Or from her home and family! That’s kidnapping! You didn’t actually kill her mother did you?”

“Step-mother.”

“Whatever. You didn’t do anything to save her, did you?” Alyxa asked, incredulously, staring up into the emerald eyes.

“Should I have?”