Dream Journal- July 17th, 2017
The young boy woke suddenly as if from a trance. The small room of the inn where he lived and worked his days away was awash in the warm golden light of the setting sun. White curtains billowed inward on the breath of a pleasant breeze. Birds chirped just outside his window, waiting to be fed by their mother. At first the boy couldn’t remember why he had woken, or even when he’d fallen asleep.
But then he felt it.
A savage feeling of nausea clawed at the pit of his stomach, followed by a sharp pain rising in his throat. He felt like he’d taken a handful of nails and swallowed them unsuccessfully. Slicked with a feverish sweat, the boy sat up quickly. His head swam and the nausea worsened. He coughed and gagged. The back of his hand came away wet with blood.
His panic set in. He’d never truly been sick before. The pain he felt in his stomach was unsettling, but the searing sharpness he felt tearing at his throat…
The boy launched himself off the creaking bed and bolted from his room. He shoved past a rotund woman coming up the hallway, causing her to drop her armload of carefully folded cloth and silk. Exclamations of anger chased him down the narrow hallway and down the squeaking steps. An apology immediately sprung to his lips, but he didn’t stop to address the shouting woman directly, and his words were lost to the current of air behind him.
He barely made it to the large metal sink that sat outside the inn. Hands slicked with sweat, he gripped the thick edges and bent double, gagging and gasping. Dark globs of blood came up. His midsection wrenched tight with pain as he heaved into the sink. Somewhere behind him he heard the back door to the inn open, saw the innkeeper’s wife hobble out. He choked on words as more blood came up.
With one final, pained heave that tore at the boy’s throat, out came the cause of his unbearable illness, followed by a scream that was ripped unbidden from him. A bejeweled hilt clattered into the base of the sink. Silver metal shone like moonlight through the dark blood.
A knife.
He’d coughed up a knife.
The boy staggered back. He fell, letting the sink edge drop from his grasp. His world spun, his throat fell raw, and his mouth was thick with the coppery taste of blood. But the pain in his stomach was slowly ebbing away.
“Oh! Oh, heavens. Michael!” The innkeeper’s wife, a kindly old lady named Martha, hurried to his side. “Are you okay!? I heard the most awful noises so I came as quickly as I could. And here I find you… Oh! You look positively ragged. Poor boy.”
She knelt beside him and slide her thin, varicose veined hand under his head. The boy, Michael, raised his head slightly and looked toward the sink. A knife. Had that really happened? Blonde curls tumbled down over his eyes as he heaved himself into a standing position, using the sink edge as support. He plucked the knife from the bottom of the sink.
It was really a beautiful piece of weaponry. Expensive, with jewels the color of rubies inlaid along its hilt. The metal of the blade itself appeared to glow with silvery light. Michael palmed the knife in his hand, feeling the even weight of it settle there like it had been made to fit his grip.
Feeling Martha’s gaze on him, he turned. He held the knife before her to see, the rubies glinting in the evening light. The old woman’s eyes lit up in the dazzle of the gemstones.
“Such excellent craftsmanship,” she breathed. Her withered fingers fluttered over the bloody hilt, but Michael jerked it away before she could touch it.
“Yes,” he agreed. “And I’ve seen it before.” Michael, unsteady on his feet, lurched forward and headed around the side of the inn to where the gardens were located. Just behind that were the wash racks. A girl stood by them, pins lining her mouth as she pulled down fresh clothing and bed linens from the wire. Two hooded figures carried baskets of vegetables from the gardens. All three stopped and turned to Michael as he approached them.
The girl’s round, freckled face lit up at the sight of him. Her smile was like the sun rising and breaking through the clouds. “Michael! I was told you had fallen asleep in your room.”
“I did. Then I woke up and got horribly ill.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry–”
Michael raised a tanned hand to silence her. His throat, raw and bloody feeling from throwing up a goddamned knife, burned as he spoke. “Yes, thank you, Beatrice. But I feel fine now.”
Beatrice nodded, her bonnet slipping down over her blonde hair. It rested between her shoulder blades neatly, a hunch of white against her dark dress.
The taller of the two hooded figures spoke in a voice like creek water. Cool and rushing, it washed over Michael and made him shudder inwardly. It reminded him of a snake. If a snake could speak.
“What do you carry, Michael?” he asked. A pair of sky blue hands shifted their grip on the vegetable basket. “It looks like a knife.”
“A bloody one,” added the shorter of the two, a hint of disgust creeping into his lilting voice. “How wonderful for us all.”
Michael nodded, a fierce grin gracing presence on his lips. “How right you are, Leopold. A very fancy knife. In fact…” He thrust the bloodied knife toward his friends. Beatrice stared at him, open-mouth and green eyes wide. The hooded boys shifted uneasily beneath their grey robes, their faces hidden in shadow.
“No,” Beatrice gaped in wonder. “It can’t be. Where did you get his knife from?”
“We have a warlock to find,” Michael said.
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