Chapter 2: Faint Reality

         The sun reflected brightly off of the blade of the dagger as I held it high, defensively above my head.  With a sudden bright flash of light and a whir of air being stirred against the wind, I swung the blade through it with a force I would never have known I could muster and I was now on my knees.  A loud scream filled the air and it took me some time to realize that it was my own, though the blood I was covered in was not.  I looked down and now saw clearly what had just happened.  As his gorgeous green eyes stared wide directly into mine, my throat went dry.  I wanted to scream again, but I was unable.

         I woke up sweating as I checked my hands for the dagger that was nowhere to be found.  No blood.  I leapt out of bed in a sudden panic as I remembered the perfect image of his dead body before me in my dream, his brown hair matted with the blood that had, in one instant, seemed to stain the whole world around us.  My body shaking uncontrollably, breathing heavy, still in my bedclothes, I walked to Kael’s house.  I had to make sure!  It was so real!  So surreal.  Kael’s father answered the door, angry as he often was.  “What the hell are you doing here?  Dressed like that at this indecent hour?!”  I was in such bad shock after the dream I’d had that I hadn’t even noticed the time.  It was two in the morning, what was I doing?  I said the only thing that sounded the least bit sane to me at the time.  “Is Kael home?”  I asked meekly.  His father seemed so surprised by the innocence of the question, as if I were eight years old again and coming over at some normal time to play, that he just gave me a strange look and opened the door to allow me inside.  “What’s so important that you’d come and wake him up at this hour?” I was inside now and Mr. Green was putting the tea kettle on the stove, talking to me over his shoulder.  “I just need to see Kael.  It’s really important.  I just…please just trust me.”  This time he turned around entirely, staring at me with a mixed expression of worry and suspicion on his face.  “What’s wrong, Cara?  Are you getting cold feet?”
         “No, it’s not that.”  I was suddenly so certain about this wedding, it almost frightened me.  “I, this is going to sound stupid.”
         “Well there aren’t many other logical reasons to show up unannounced at such an hour,” he reminded me, ignoring the now whistling teapot with a newly indecipherable expression on his face.
         “I…well, I had a bad dream.”
         “Is that all?” He almost laughed.
         “I killed Kael.  Slit his throat.”  I wasn’t even sure how I’d managed to choke those words out, “I’m sorry I came here like this.  I was just in a panic and the dream felt so real and I remember his eyes looking up---”
         “---enough,” I didn’t expect Kael’s voice, “That’s enough.  I’m perfectly fine, you couldn’t kill me if you tried, darling.”  I blushed as he swiftly descended the stairs and had me in his arms even before I had time to react to his abrupt appearance.  “We have a very long day ahead of us,” he said softly as he leaned in to my ear to whisper his next words, “and a much longer life to follow.”  This made me smile in a way that I never knew I could.  “I’ll walk her home, she shouldn’t be out alone like this at such an hour.”
         “I agree.” was all his father could really say.  Confused by now, he just gave up and finally tended to the teapot, pouring himself a glass and then walking toward the stairs to go to bed.

         The walk home with Kael was silent.  He would say nothing more on the subject of my dream and when I tried to speak to tell him what had happened, he merely placed a finger over my lips and said “You can’t kill me.  You love me.  Even if you don’t know it yet.” He was right, of course.  I knew he was right too and when we finally got to my door, he looked me directly in the eyes as he held my chin up to match his level and said in the sincerest of voices, “I love you.  We’ll be together forever.  I promise.”  I wanted to kiss him, I could have kissed him!  But alas, my denial kept me waiting until the wedding ceremony.  He thought I just wanted it to be perfect…truly I was an evil, selfish creature.

         I laid in bed for hours that morning, tossing and turning.  I never did get back to sleep.  Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that face staring back at me, eyes bloodshot, face shocked forever.  Evermore hurt and taken aback by what I had done, frozen in his merciless suffering.  And if not him, then Timothy Shrew.  The thought of his face as such a perfect image in my mind was eerie.  He had been missing for over 6 years now, how could I think of him?  In my attempts to force Kael’s face out of my thoughts and drift away to sleep, Timothy would invade my head, slowly transforming from the baby faced teen he had once been into a monster.  First the hair would grow where a beard would logically be and then it would spread until---I got up.

No more attempts at sleep.

         This was to be the longest day of my life.  I fidgeted and paced back and forth sitting down on the bed and standing again multiple times as the morning dawned, cleaning, organizing the knick knacks on my shelves and folding and unfolding my clothes just so that I could meticulously reorganize them in their corresponding drawers.  By 5:30 am, I was color-coding the dresses in my closet for the seventh time.  By six, I found that I had involuntarily curled myself into the fetal position and begun sobbing into my pillow.

         “What on earth are you still doing in here?!  The wedding is in three hours, we must get you ready!” had I fallen asleep?  How could I have not known that it was already 9 o’ clock?  “Mom three hours is plenty of time---”
         “Hurry, darling!”  My mother shouted, excited to the point of obnoxiousness, “hair and nails don’t get themselves done!”
         “What are you talking about?  My hair is fine!  And so are my nails.”  I was groggy and my eyes were still swollen from the panic-ridden tears in which I’d drowned myself the night before, I was in no mood for my mother’s nettlesome cheerfulness.  I always found it strange how my mother’s optimism was so very contagious to everyone except myself.  It was as if I were immune.
         “Honey, you want to get married with that rat’s nest on your head?  Trust me, if you want to look your best, we must start getting ready now!  This is no time to dilly dally!”  With that, my dear, eccentric mother dragged me out of my room and into the den where she had her gang waiting to ambush me.  All this before I could even process the fact that she had just burst into my room unannounced in the first place.  Every last woman in our village was here to decide for me how I should wear my hair and what accessories would match best with my dress and how my nails should be manicured.  This was hell.  I had died and gone to hell and this was my punishment for having that damned dream.  Had they not the time to do this last night at the rehearsal dinner?  All of these enormously frivolous things could have been discussed over food and they could have all come to their conclusions then!  That would have cut the time it would take to get me ready for this wedding in half the time, and without all of the nonsensical banter.  Stupid, silly women.

         I guess I couldn’t really blame them for being so excited, I was a little giddy myself for reasons unbeknownst to myself.  I wanted this day to happen and I couldn’t explain why!  Was it what Kael had said to me last night?  We had our whole lives together ahead of us and he loved me.  Why did he love me when I could not return those feelings?  What was wrong with him?  What had gone wrong in that delusional little boy’s head?!  I couldn’t wait for the wedding, I wanted to wear my dress.  I wanted it on now!  But I didn’t.  All at the same time, I just wanted to burn that stupid dress and the altar I was to stand on wearing it.  I loved that dress and I helped decorate the altar; they were so beautiful.  My panic from the night before came back as my mother and her friends were finally set to manicuring my nails.  They were painting them a light pink color…I think pearl.  I wasn’t entirely sure, as my vision had begun to blur and my body went limp.  I had passed out.

         By the time they were able to revive me, my nails and hair had been long since finished and I was to be rushed to my room where they would piece together my elaborate dress onto my body whether or not I was conscious for it.  It was nice to know how concerned they were for my wellbeing.  My mother seemed so unnecessarily excited to see me married, it was as if she were the one being forced into a wedding dress as she tightened my corset (I immediately regretted my decisions regarding the design of the dress) so that I could scarcely breathe.  I wondered if I would pass out again, it was a good thing that it was such a cool day.  In late February, the snow wasn’t very thick anymore as springtime crept its way into view.  The days became warmer and the snow melted away for the most part, the foxes began to grow back their red-brown fur and the wolves howled less and less in the distance to a cold, dead moon.  Winter was being chased away, only leaving behind some cold winds to hold its voice and remind us that it would return again.  It was these last traces of winter that would hold me steady on my feet for the ceremony.

         After a half-hour’s worth of effort, my dress was finally intact, wearing tight to my body and choking the breath out of me.  I felt it was a miracle that I could stand, how could this have possibly been such a popular style for so long?  I was in physical pain and the wedding was now only a half-hour away.  The women gathered around my face, making the intake of air just that much more difficult a task, to smother me in makeup.  I felt almost violated at this point.

         My confused mind began to wander as I slipped in and out of consciousness and shock awaiting the wedding I so feared and anticipated impatiently.  He told me he would love me forever.  He promised.  I hoped he would keep that promise, I wanted to make it too.  I wanted to love him forever.  I wanted to kiss his beautiful lips and look deep into those emerald eyes and tell him over and over that I loved him.  I didn’t want it to be a lie, I didn’t want to break that promise.  Damn it, I loved him!  There was nothing I could do about it, why was I trying to resist?!  That stupid dream.  That damned dream!  I couldn’t kill him if I tried.  Firm and strong as he was, he might break the blade attempting to penetrate his skin.

That was a funny thought.  I liked that thought.

         I opened my eyes to a huge vanity mirror.  I wasn’t even aware that I had been sitting down since I‘d had my dress on.  “How do you like it, hun?” my mother was way too delighted by all of this, of course.  How I had managed to keep forgetting she was there was an absolute mystery to me, “You look just absolutely gorgeous!”  I was surrounded by these crazy women on all sides!  “It looks great…you guys did a wonderful job, thank you.”  I didn’t want them to kill me.  I actually didn’t mind the make-up.  I usually hated to wear make-up, though I didn’t mind at all dressing up for special occasions.  I looked like a porcelain doll, though, my face covered with powder and blush while my eyes were shadowed with light pinks and purples which didn’t quite match my bright red lips (they were obviously meant to catch attention).  It wasn’t me that I saw in that mirror, I hoped I would never look like that, I rather enjoyed my natural features with my bronze skin, now invisible under these layers of make-up, and my own naturally pink lips.  I doubted if Kael would find this powder mask the slightest bit appealing.  I felt like a princess caught in a whale-bone trap, pale because I couldn’t breathe (I didn’t need makeup to lighten my complexion, just to make it look like it was supposed to be that way).

         “It’s almost time!  Oh I just can’t wait!” Dearest mother, I rolled my eyes.  Some things never change, though I hated her squirreliness sometimes, I truly hoped that that would be one of those things.  She needed to be chipper, pessimism like mine had no place putting a damper on her mood, “how are you feeling, sweetheart?  You look absolutely beautiful.  I’ll go get your father!”  Most of her questions, no matter how direct, seemed rhetorical.  Of course I was ok, I was getting married.  She didn’t understand the concept of stress.  Honestly, though, I found myself just as excited about this in the very last moments as she.  I was really getting married.  And I really did love Kael.

         It took my mother all of 3 minutes to locate my father and tow him back to me so that he could appraise my new look and wait for the time to go.  We had to move very quickly to the clearing and very carefully so as to avoid hurting my dress and being seen by the groom.  Luckily, we had several trails leading to the clearing and one was just wide enough that there was almost nothing in the way to catch my dress on, and even still, I was being carried Egyptian royalty style.  That was not something I had counted on or planned.  Raven had apparently decided that she hadn’t been involved enough in the wedding plans and wanted to do something more creative that no one else had thought of, and so she did.  As a surprise for me, she and my father and his three brothers got together to plan and build a luxury travel seat just for me (and Kael after the ceremony on the way back to the church for the reception), this way, they could ensure 1.) that I was as comfortable as possible so that maybe my stress levels would decrease on the way to my wedding band and 2.) that my dress wouldn’t get caught on anything or soiled by being dragged on the ground.

I don’t think I’d ever felt so special in all my life.