Dreamweaver: Avec Plus Que Les Yeux *Chapter 2*
Chapter Two-Questions
LEE
I looked over at Spider and saw the surprised look on his face. “What the hell is this?” He asked.
I peeped over his shoulder to see what caused my usually wordy friend to be speechless (five words; I’m sure my eyes doubled in size. “Food.” I whispered unable to believe what I was seeing. There were four buffet tables crammed with food. It smelled amazing; I walked toward the platters and reached for the nearest turkey.
Spider spanked my hand away from the food. “Are you crazy? Someone may have planted this.”
I shoved him away and attacked the turkey. It tasted too good to be true, the meat was so tender that it melted in my mouth, the glaze mixed with the meat and it was like perfect poultry soup. I moaned with pleasure and took another mouthful of turkey. From the corner of my eyes I could see Spider contemplating whether he should join me or wait a few hours for me to keel. The feeling of the warm food sliding down my throat and filling the void inside my stomach was pure bliss; I couldn’t help but whimper like a happy puppy. This was too much for Spider; he too went at the food.
Once my stomach was full my eyelids became heavy. I sat down on the couch and watched Spider eat for a while. Soon my eyes were covered and I began to doze.
*****
“Are you going to cooperate with us Ming Lee Blake?” A male voice roared at me. I looked for him but couldn’t find him. I was surrounded by darkness; my sense of direction was gone. I tried to move forward, water swished when I lifted my leg. I realized that I was standing in water up to my knees. Every time I moved the water seemed to get thicker and thicker until it felt like I was standing in tar. Suddenly I couldn’t move and I was sinking.
“He doesn’t know anything.” A female voice echoed around me.
“He has too.” The male voice called back.
“Well he doesn’t.” The female snapped.
The tar was at my chest now and still consuming me.
“He is hiding it.” The bass in the male’s voice vibrated in my chest, these vibrations worked their way through my body, and the movement caused me to sink further.
“Just let him go.” Another female voice said sternly. I felt the male presence flatter but not for long.
“If I let him go he will destroy us.”
“Can you hurry this along?” Another male voice spoke. “I’m bored and hungry.”
“Do shut up.” The first female voice chuckled.
The tar was beginning to work its way over my head now; I’d be dead all too soon.
“He is untrained my sisters, a young mind that is free to be molded and with his level of power, if that mind is molded wrong it can obliterate us all.”
The first female voice came again. It was serious now. “You will not harm him Avant. I won’t let you. He is not your father, he is not out to destroy the world. He is not like my father either, he will not make silly mistakes.”
“You sound so sure.”
“I will keep an eye on him. The first time he displays any hint of evil I will destroy him.” The second female promised.
There was silence, the tar started to disappear. The darkness was consumed by light and I could see a face, it was stern. “I gave my word; if you make one mistake Ming Lee you’re dead. I will have to kill you.”
I sat up panting, I felt exhausted, as if I were truly fighting. But it was only a dream, it couldn’t be anything more. I tried to order my thoughts, I felt sick when I finally did. I remembered meeting the four strangers, the two women and two men. One was gray and void of any emotion but anger. He was very bitter and I was afraid of him. I remember their fangs and the female whose eyes went blood red when she got angry at the gray one.
They were real and they wanted to kill me. They asked me about something, some kind of keep and I was unable to answer. The gray one and the female whose eyes remained normal, they searched my mind and were unable to find what they were looking for. The gray one wanted to kill me on the spot, in his eyes I would be a cause of great pain. The women were able to talk him out of it.
The other male seemed completely uninterested in what was happening. He just wanted to get away from there; it was even as if he were afraid. I could not understand how I could have forgotten the encounter, that wasn’t exactly something that one would forget.
I paced around the house; Spider snored lightly on the other side of the curtain that we put up as a room divider. I looked at the now empty platters, I was certain that my new friends didn’t deliver the food, but where did they come from? I sat back on the couch to think. There was something else that the four weird people wanted, what was it? Something about a gift…my gift.
KAREME
I sat in front of the computer spinning idly. Sunny hovered over me; I tried to ignore her eagerness. I finally found Yumi’s journal, I hadn’t slept. I was up all night looking for it. If I weren’t so hyped I would be exhausted right now but the big secret about my wife’s family was finally going to be revealed. I caressed the cover of the book lovingly, now maybe I could figure out what to do to make Chewy come home.
I prepared to open the book; my tongue probed my lips as if I could taste this big secret. In final preparation I took a deep breath and released it than parted the cover, my heartbeat pounded in my ears.
“What the eff!” I exclaimed when I looked down. “It’s in Chinese Sunny! Chinese!” I was well prepared to rant. “Can you read this?” I asked.
Sunny shook her head. I never really learned how to read much English and you want me to read this?
I was at my wit’s end. It’s so annoying when something is so close yet so far away. I held the answers to all my problems right in my hands and yet I couldn’t read the flippin’ thing!
I released an exasperated sigh and tried to think clearly. “Wait! I don’t have to try and read this Sunny. Duh! I’ve got a Kadeem right upstairs.”
Sunny raised and eyebrow, I ignored her curious look and shouted for my son. He came downstairs looking thoroughly annoyed; apparently last night’s near heart attack-stroke-mistake was not forgotten. “Do dear old dad a favor?” I ask and shove the book at him. “Read this to me?”
Kadeem takes the book and inspected the cover. “Can’t you read it yourself?”
“It’s in Chinese.” I sighed, partly because my son was so pathetically trying to get in touch with his mother’s and grandmother’s culture that he tried to learn Chinese. Now I must admit that I’m glad he did.
“What is this anyway?” He asked me.
“If I tell you, you won’t read it. Now, why don’t we go into the living room and have a sit down huh?” I did not miss his eyes rolling at me. The nerve of that boy, I assisted in giving him life.
Myself, my son and his aunt’s ghost headed to the living room. I sat down and patted the seat beside me; he raised an eyebrow and chose another seat.
“Don’t push it Daddy.” He ordered. I shrugged. Sunny took the seat I was offering to him.
Kadeem grumbled something to himself as he opened the book. “Dad this is a diary.” He said.
“No? Is it?”
“No need to be so sarcastic. Whose diary is this?”
“You’ll soon find out. Just start reading m’kay.”
“I am not breaking into somebody’s personal life to fuel your curiosity.”
I was this close to snapping, I just had to know what happened, and this little butt headed boy was toying with me. “Look you, I spent the entire night looking for that thing and if you don’t start reading right now…”
“Keep your shorts on Father-of-mine.” He smirked and began to read, he took a deep breath, his mouth seemed to open in slow motion. “Are…you…serious…”
“Huh?” I ask confused. “Yes I’m serious. I need to know what happened.”
“Dad, you had better tell me whose words I’m reading.”
“Fine, fine, Yumi, fine.”
“Grandmother?” He blinked. “I can’t do this.” He tossed the book onto the coffee table and retreated back upstairs to his room.”
What do you think he does up there? Sunny asked me.
“Wish I knew. Ever since this whole…situation, with his brother he started locking himself away. He thinks that I love Ming Lee more. In truth I don’t prefer one of my sons any more than the other, I’m just sympathetic towards Lee, I mean come on, the boy saw ghosts, he’s walking around with a guilty conscience because he killed his little sister, and now you’re telling me that he’s endowed with supernatural powers that can change the course of life in the world as we know it and we will all die if he does not recognize his power before the soul owner finds him and corrupts him.”
I don’t remember saying all that.
I sighed. “Why can’t things just be normal for me?”
Interesting question. That is my fault. If I hadn’t befriended your mother, she would have never met my father and if she hadn’t met him, she would have been able to be happy with you and her aunt even if your father was not around.
I gazed at Sunny and wanted to hug her. I did not want her to blame herself, although there was some degree of truth in what she said. She was a little kid, she wanted a female figure in her life who was not a nanny who didn’t care or a psychopath mother (I question Yumi’s sanity, she’s clearly a nutcase).
“You know Sunny, I’m glad my mother met Ashjio. He was the one thing besides my married father who made her happy. I love the extended family, with or without the catches. If we were normal we’d be perfect.”
But we’re not normal, and we are far from perfection. In fact we are closer to cursed than anything else. We are stuck in quicksand, the more we fight the more stuck we become, and when we do not struggle, we sink.