Sweet Dreams

[OrangeblossomTook]

Sweet Dreams

In the old city sunk between river and lake, there was a woman named Irene who only had bad dreams. Every night her sleep was troubled by visions of horrors and she knew no rest for the nightmares woke her in the small hours with wet cheeks and a trembling mouth.

On a black night that had no moon or stars, only fog rolling off the lake to enshroud the city, she dreamt she was a young man spurned by his beloved and killed in a duel by his rival for her affections. The Beloved sneered as Irene died bleeding at her feet.

On another night, the moon was molten silver and shone through the light haze. The very air seemed to boil it was so hot. Irene dreamt she was a young girl chained in a dark attic by everyone she knew to be devoured by a hideous monster. They left her with many a jeer and taunt to await her fate in the dark. She woke up with sweat-soaked sheets to the frogs screaming for rain and the moon casting shadows in the garden.

The night before Irene went to the Court of the Three Sisters, she dreamt she was gut-shot and no one would come to her aid. She did not plead with the passerby for help but lay down out of their way to expire quietly.

Seasons had passed since she slept through the night and, since she could find no rest or escape from the drudgery of this world even in dreams, Irene decided to seek the aid of the Sisters. It was a bright day on the approach of winter and, in the old city, the orange globes of citrus fruit filled the market stalls for this city was near the southern sea and south of the Land of Three Rivers. The winters were mild and the groves between the city and the sea bore fruit in the eleventh month.

Irene went past the market, with its produce and curiosities on her way to the heart of the city and the Sisters. The Court of the Three Sisters was a tea shop but they also sold bottles of essential oils and bunches of dried herbs. It was whispered that they also sold foul-smelling potions that could snare a lover and dolls with the hair of your enemy sewn in them.

A bell rang when Irene opened the door of the shop, which was a narrow, two-storied building in the alley on the side of the old cathedral. The walls were lined with books and bottles. There were three women behind the counter. The eldest was large and dark with milk chocolate skin. There were lines around her coffee-bean eyes and grey in her black hair. She asked Irene why she was there and Irene told her.

She turned Irene’s hand palm up and traced its lines with a long, dusky finger before she said, “Child, there is a way to have sweet dreams but it will not be easy…”

“You may have to give up much,” said the second sister. She was of middling height, her skin was café au lait, and her eyes were hazel. Her hair was the color of an autumn afternoon.

“The entire waking world,” said the youngest sister. She had skin the color of heavy cream and as smooth. Her eyes were as gold as sunlit honey.

“I would give up everything,” said Irene, “if my dreams could be sweet.”

“Very well,” said the oldest sister, “In the forest of Three Rivers there is a spring and, around that spring, there are white roses.”

“They bloom,” said the middle sister, “only when the longest night of the year coincides with a full moon.”

“If you eat the petals,” said the youngest sister, “you will dream forever and your dreams will be as sweet as candied rose petals but you will never wake again.”

“If it freezes,” said the oldest sister, “there will be no roses this year.”

“But it will be a full moon,” said the middle sister.

“Unless it is cloudy or rains,” said the youngest.

Irene gave the sisters her great-grandmother’s gold locket and suffered through the few weeks remaining until the longest night. Tincture of poppy, purchased from the sisters, keep her asleep during the night but did nothing for her dreams.

When the longest night approached, the temperature had not yet dropped below freezing. Irene took a ferry across the lake and purchased a horse with which to explore the woods of stately pines. The air was cold enough to bite at one raised by the southern sea but not freezing and the moon shone like a newly-minted coin.

Deep in the woods by one of the three rivers, there is an old abbey. Irene used that as her reference point but soon became lost in her search for the spring and its roses. The moon was starting to sink into the west when Irene saw a glow that did not come from the moon.

There, in a clearing, was a spring surrounded by soft green moss, despite the season, and,glowing with a gentle luminescence, were white roses blooming on vines that snaked among the grass and twined up the trees. The whole moonlit glade was filled with their scent which was heady and sweet and very much rose but also reminesicient of the violet candies Irene’s grandmother had been fond of.

She let the horse go free and it trotted off in the direction of the abbey. Irene moved toward the roses and pulled a bunch of petals. They lit up her cupped hands. She bent her head to them and inhaled deeply before eating them.

She lay down on the moss, which was softer than her mattress, and closed her eyes. She was flying over fields of buttercups and crimson clover with a lavender moon overhead. Fairies flew and danced with her.

In the small hours of the next morning, the wind turned north and it froze. The sleeping woman had a thin, crystalline coating of hoar frost sparkling in the light of the moon and covering her but she did not wake up and, for all I know, she is dreaming there still.

[Alfirin]

very well-written, pulled me right through til the end! Nice imagery, too.

[DoctorGamgee]

Nice one. It made me wonder why she chose as she did. Well written.

Dr.G

[OrangeblossomTook]

Thank you so much, Al and Dr. G!