Dream snip: College paying for 6 months of room and board in a quaint Italian village? Woohoo! Have to take another student along with me. Her and I get along well. Sandra is an eclectic Wiccan, and I’m… well… me. What’s the worst that could happen?
Pretty youth in village. Baby face pretty. Would have been made a courtier’s boytoy in another age kind of pretty. Sandra (fellow student) won’t shut up about how pretty he is. Every time she sees him, she exclaims about his beauty. “Enough to make angels jealous”, she says. And blows off when other villagers point out an imperfection, or throws away the compliment.
“Keri! Look how pretty he is!” Bah, he’s nothing. “What the fuck! He’s adorable!” Just another village boy, with crooked teeth. Nothing spectacular. “I should hit you, you haven’t even looked at him!” No, and I’m not going to look at him, because you’ve put the mother of all malocchios on him and I don’t want to make it worse. “What’s a mello-chick?” We’re here to study local Italian folklore, and you don’t know what a malocchio is? We’re so fucked.
The locals, while claiming not to understand English, are measuring every word we’ve spoken. That night at dinner, there are roses on my plate. Sandra’s plate has her fork and knife crossed. She complains about the place setter being lazy. Either she is playing it cool, or she’s really that clueless.
Ouch, got bit by a spider. That’s a big ass spider. Oh, I don’t feel too good. Oh hey, hallucinations brought on from sucker-punch venom! Who’s playing that music? And who the hell am I dancing with. More dancing.
I said…
MOAR DANCING!
~collapse from exhaustion~
Wake up, ask for water. Surprised to see half the village in my room, cheering that I’m coherent. Turns out, I’ve only been in and out of consciousness for a few weeks.
“So, who’s all these other people?” “What other people?”
“Well, there’s you, and Sandra, and a dozen others.” The dozen others start laughing.
“Keri, it’s just you, me, and Sandra in here.” Well, fuck. “I think you need to rest more.”
[various scenes involving the Envious Dead, spirit riding, one of Keri’s fears faced headon, and Sandra getting her comeuppance after the forces she claimed mastery over bitchslaps her]
I’m sitting alone with the cunning women. There are sheets and blankets on the windows, covering them and darkening the room. A bowl of incense smolders on the floor. Me and the four women sit on the floor in a circle, facing the bowl. One of the women takes her head cloth off her head, and wraps it around my head and shoulders.
She speaks to me as she does so, in her native tongue. My ears do not understand Italian, but somehow I know what she’s saying. “You are not of us, but you are one of us. Your ways are not our ways. You have your own path to follow. But you are one of us.”
I’m exhausted. They cover the incense bowl, and take the coverings off the windows. I’m led back to my room and stripped for bed. As I lay down, there is a commotion. Another spider, same kind as what bit me, is on the pillow. It quickly moves to perch on my face. I’m not bothered by it. I tell them to leave it alone. If it wanted to bite me, there is nothing they can do about it.
I go to sleep in the dream.
~~~
I wake up in my room. My neck itches. I feel like I’m covered in spiders, but there is not a single one on me, on my bed, or in my room. That I can see.
I have stuff to think about.