An Artificial Night

Oleander licked her lips. “I said I wouldn’t go near your daughter. I’ll leave. I’ll say you don’t want to be disturbed.”


“Ah, good.” Amandine released her, looking satisfied. Oleander dropped to her knees, gasping, as Amandine stepped back to her original position. “That was what I hoped you said. Your visit has been most enlightening, Oleander. I trust it won’t be repeated.”

Oleander staggered to her feet, glaring daggers at my mother as she stumbled backward, out of reach. “It won’t. I won’t come here again.”

“Not even if he sends you?”

“There are some things I won’t risk for anyone.” Oleander took another step back, keeping her eyes on Amandine the whole time. “Keep your little half-breed bitch. The two of you can rot for all I care.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” said Amandine. Turning her back on Oleander, she walked into the tower and closed the door.

Oleander stayed where she was for a moment, glaring daggers at my mother’s wake. Then she turned, storming back down the path and out the gate, into the fields beyond the tower grounds.

I turned to Karen. “Why did you show me that?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged helplessly. “I’m still not very good at this. I just sort of do what the dreams tell me I have to. But I didn’t show it to you.”

“What?” I frowned. “Of course you did. I just saw it.”

“No.” She looked past me, into the bower of white-on-white flowers where the dream began. “I didn’t show you. I just reminded you that you knew it.”

It took me a moment to realize what she was saying. Slowly, I turned, and saw myself—my much smaller, much younger self, still new to the Summerlands, still so dazed by the wonders of Faerie that I hadn’t started looking for the dangers—crawling out from underneath the branches.

“See?” said Karen. “You already knew.”

“I . . . I don’t remember this.”

“You do now.” I felt her hand on my arm, as light as the flower petals still drifting in the air around us. “It’s time to wake up, Auntie Birdie.”

So I did.



Late afternoon sun streamed through the bedroom window, hitting me full in the face. I opened my eyes, trying to blink with disorientation and squint against the glare at the same time. Not a good combination. One of the cats was curled on the middle of my chest, purring contentedly.

Sunlight. I’d closed my eyes for just a few minutes before falling into Karen’s dreamscape, and that was about an hour before dawn. Just a few—

“Crap!” I sat bolt upright, sending the cat—Cagney—tumbling to the bed.

“Afternoon, Sleeping Beauty,” said May. I turned toward the sound of her voice. She was standing in the doorway with a coffee mug in one hand, watching me. “Welcome to the land of the living.”

“What time is it?” I demanded, raking my hair back with both hands. It was tangled into hopeless knots, matted stiff with sea salt. Crossing the city on a yarrow broom probably hadn’t helped. “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”

“You didn’t tell me to,” she replied, matter-of-factly. Expression turning solemn, she continued, “Also, you didn’t twitch when I opened your curtains half an hour ago, so I figured you needed the sleep. It’s almost sunset. Marcia’s been calling every two hours. Everything’s pretty much the way it was last night. No change in Lily’s condition.”

“She filled you in?” I let my hands drop to my lap.

May nodded. “Yeah. Now get up, get something into your stomach, and get dressed before we’re late.”

“Late? For what?” Cagney had recovered from her graceless tumble, and strolled down the bed to smack her sister awake. Lacey responded by biting her in the face. I sympathized.

“I repeat, it’s almost sunset. On the first of May. That means what?”