The Whitechapel Interlude [7]

 

“Brother Abbott, you’ve served our Order faithfully since, well, since I was an acolyte, you know I respect you,” the Reverend Mother strained to smile sincerity, if not warmth, into her words but settled for a compression of lips and a momentary decrease in the intensity of her gaze, “however, the rules prescribing our course of action regarding your…guest, are clear.”

“I’m not questioning the wisdom of the elders,” Brother Abbott knew better than to react to the subtle change in the face of his superior, “There is something not right about this situation, not only the hunter we captured, but the time traveler she was stalking;” taking no pleasure in his superior’s fraying composure, suddenly felt both leg muscles galvanize him into standing position, a delayed reaction to his earlier comments about not getting enough sleep propelling him to the office door.

… appearing at the edge of the woods that surrounded the field through which Sarah and Katherina ran, hand-in-hand, the dark rectangle chilled the laughing joy streaming behind the ten-year-olds; a voice intruded, staining the pure light of a perfect summer afternoon, “Please, if you won’t convince your teacher I’m not a threat, at least talk to me, before they take me out to kill like a deformed foal.”

For most, dreams are nightly diversions by anonymous playwrights, to be enjoyed and forgotten in the commonsense light of day; however, when fatigue becomes excessive, these unconscious stories often adopt more personal themes and, in the hunt for satisfying plot devices, the subconscious author within us mines our deepest memories, harvesting the fields of broken loves and distant relationships.

Sarah heard her closest friend’s voice and, by a strength of will that brought her to the attention of the Order, and, enduring the pain of loss, doubled for the intervening years of loneliness, stepped out of her dream.

Facing the obsidian rectangle of the holding cell, she watched a single tear, ignited by the light of the anteroom, transformed into a falling star and heard, in the near-music of a young girl’s voice, “Make a wish.”