Dream by Carole Cummings

Author:Carole Cummings [Cummings, Carole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy
ISBN: 978-1-63533-674-0
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2017-10-17T04:00:00+00:00

“THE THING is….” Dallin’s fingers absently traced a crease in the sheet. He hesitated for a moment, thoughtful, before he went on, “The… shape of this thing is a lot simpler than I’ve been thinking. I kept coming at it as though I needed to… well, to use an apt metaphor, needed to find dozens of threads and figure out where they wove into the greater pattern of the mess, then untangle them. Except it’s not really a mess.”

They’d pushed the little cot against the wall, both of them now using the cold stone for a backrest, the blanket and the more or less useless pillow stuffed behind them as buffers. Wil wondered if the relaxed posture of Dallin’s extended form—long legs spilling over the side of the small bed and stretching halfway across the floor—was something new, or if Dallin had looked like this before and Wil just hadn’t allowed himself to see it. Rumpled trousers, beltless and so slung a bit low, shirt loose and mostly open; Wil could just see the top of the linen still wrapped around Dallin’s muscled torso above the stretched V of the opening, a light thatch of curly gold fanning above it. Wil remembered slipping his fingers through that little bit of a ruff, remembered how that wide hand had rested warm on his hip, setting a rhythm that—

That line of thought would do nothing but distract him, so Wil pushed it away. He realized Dallin was staring at him, silent and measuring.

Wil cleared his throat. “Sorry, I’m listening.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to—”

“No. Now.”

Dallin looked down at his hand again, then slowly pulled his gaze back up to meet Wil’s. “Some of it will likely be difficult to hear.”

Wil shrugged. “Isn’t it always?”

This seemed to satisfy Dallin. He nodded, bent one leg up at the knee, and rested his arm loosely atop it.

“It didn’t dawn on me until after you’d slipped out earlier. It was sort of strange—I was lying there, and I wasn’t sure if I was asleep or not, I thought maybe it had all been a dream, and then I heard you curse me, and then I heard you apologize, all murky-like, and then I wondered if you were a dream. Everything just….” Dallin flipped a hand out. “It just tumbled. Clicked. All at once. One moment I didn’t know, and the next it just started to fall into place—everything. Well, all right, nearly everything. I think.” He paused, pensive. “I realized…. Do you remember saying once that you thought it was strange that Aisling means ‘dream’ and not ‘dreamer’?”

Wil nodded slowly, wary now. Something had just curled cold in his gut. “You said I was borrowing trouble.” His words were measured, a faint note of accusation he didn’t think he really meant beneath them, and it was as though he almost knew why, wanted to know why, but wanted to get up and back away just as badly. “You said translations are always getting bollixed.”

“I did.” Dallin’s mouth went a bit tight.

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