Leeka seems as frightened about being aboard the Dragon as I was. If the girl’s culture does not wear garments, the ship-issued jumpsuits won’t be as comfortable as my regal gowns. Gowns are not practical for me anymore. Michelle removes a light-colored dress meant for a spring picnic. It was designed for movement, stain resistance for launching in the grass and maybe playing a tossing spear sport. Cutting off the lower part leaves behind a practical, non-revealing outfit. A better choice to welcome Leeka to the crew and prepare her for wearing clothes than a jumpsuit that bunches and pinches.
She lays the dress on the unmade bed. I need to learn how to properly prepare the sheets. Again, another skill I was deprived of in my palace nurturing. How was folding sheets beneath my station? The soft fibers of silk would never damage the delicate skin of my royal fingers. Not like the scissors I must allocate to alter the dress.
A Sandman screams toward Michelle. The canyon grooved into the mask prevents the swimming figures from crossing to each other. Each humanoid figure claws at the inside surface of the mask, attempting to escape.
The monster’s skeletal hand caresses the hair at the back of Michelle’s skull. Everything tells her to shriek, but as her jaw extends to its fullest distension, the monster slips into her mind.
Michelle collapses to the bed.
Resisting the urge to feed on an innocent mind, the creature sifts through memory after memory. It uncovers no corruption to exploit. It weaves into the synapses until the next best exploitable thoughts surface—childhood torments.
••••••
THUNDERCLOUDS DARKEN MICHELLE’S dreamscape.
Barefooted, Michelle races down the murky hallways of her palace home. The echoing footfalls reveal her position, perpetuating her to run. She races faster down the endless hallway to escape.
No matter how far she reaches, the exit never moves closer. She whips her head around. The dark pursuer slogs forward.
Michelle closes her eyes. The echoing of her footfalls drowns all other noises. Squinting tight always made the monsters go away. Children on Aurora were told that if they misbehaved then the Strzyga would steal children in the night and render them as food for the undead. The vampire-like monster seeps into Michelle’s dreams still when she considers not performing as a princess should behave in public.
I must escape the Strzyga. Her little feet patter toward the door—exit—safety. Not an exit. Mother’s chamber. The arms of the woman designated to protect her. Michelle bursts into the room. The much taller, weary-faced clone of herself scoops the little girl into her arms.
Safe.
Mother’s love.
Safe—
She tosses Michelle back into the hall. “A lady faces her demons.” She swings the oaken door shut.
Flickering candlelight barely illuminates the central coffin, the centerpiece of the stone chamber. Michelle’s toes find gooey wetness with each step toward the catafalque. From the dark stains on the coffin, she deduces she treads in blood.
The elongated bluish fingers of a man reach out. The lid drops off the coffin, and a humanoid man levitates toward her.
Michelle screams for Amye. She promised to protect her.
The shriveled man bears his teeth as he reaches for her throat.
Help! she panics.
His icy grip shivers Michelle’s spine. Powerless to resist, he pulls back her hair and places his mouth over her neck. Two canine teeth grow, puncturing Michelle’s delicate skin. She faints as the two sharp stabs pierce her jugular vein. Blood soaks her nightgown.
THE DREAM CATCHER, outside Reynard’s quarters loses a bead from the leather strings and then another—two more feathers fall, and the puddle of black sludge grows.
THE RAPID BEATING heart throbs in her ears—
JC shifts her thoughts toward the princess’s quarters. It takes all her concentration to push past the drumming heart. Pumped by terror, it feeds the Sandman.
JC summons a mental blast to shatter the Sandman’s grip. A barrier protects the monster, absorbing the mental blast. In a non-corporeal state, she loses the magnification advantage the blue opal in her headband gives her telepathic powers.
Reynard.
She reaches out to him as he lies curled on his couch. She touches his thoughts, needing him to destroy the Sandman attacking Michelle.
THE DANGLING LEATHER strings drip into the elongated pool of black sludge. The bottom of the wooden hoop dribbles into the sludge.
SHIFTING HIS BOOT on the carpet jingles his spurs. I haven’t sported the silver breaking spurs since…Earth—the Iphigenian invasion.
The elevator doors ding.
He throws back his duster overcoat behind his holster, allowing his right hand free access to his modified magnum.
The elevator shudders in its tracks as it grinds to a halt. Rickety cables make the doors rattle and catch as they retract. The dimming lights strobe.
Reynard crouches, his hand cocked, ready to draw. His reluctance to unholster his weapon stems from not fully remembering why he chose the elevator.
Shifting to the balls of his feet, he springs from the contraption once the doors open enough for his shoulders to clear.
Moonlight streams through dirty glass panes, providing the corridor with more lurking shadows. Nothing resonates as a threat, but why? Why this corridor?
Mushy, rotten carpet gives way to the clop-clip of stone under his boots. The spurs’ rattle resounds. Each step moves him farther into the encroaching darkness. At the last edge of moonlight, Reynard makes out the door. Stretching out his fingers to touch moist rotten wood. His shove forward on the material sputters gears to life. Steam hisses through clay pipes, turning the ancient mechanism.
The pitch-black inner chamber whirls to life as heated steam pumps through clanking metal bars against sandpaper plates. Sparks jump from the square pads, igniting vapor spilling from statues of dragons. The fire-breathing creatures illuminate the chamber.
Once filled with bubbling fountains marking a grand entranceway, nothing but broken pools
