*Isla*
I am underwater.
How I got here, I don’t understand, but that’s where I am.
It’s odd, though. It’s like I can breathe just fine under the water, like I have shifted, but not into the wolf I’m meant to have. No, I have shifted into something aquatic, like a fish.
I can’t see my own form as I press along underneath this rapidly moving body of water. Rather, I am only aware of what is around me—the green algae growing up from the rocky muddy depths beneath my feet, the large rocks that lay in piles strewn all around me, the occasional fish that shoots by in front of me.
Water—lots and lots of murky greenish-brown water.
“Where am I?” I ask, but not aloud. If I open my mouth, this dirty water will fill my up until I am sputtering. No, it is an internal question. I don’t know the answer, but I don’t think this is the ocean.
I think it must be a river of some sort because of how quickly the current is moving and how it is flowing from right to left in a nearly straight line like it is being carried by gravity and not the wind.
I also don’t think I am too far from the shore because the water doesn’t appear to be too high over my head. When I tip my head up to look, I can see the reflection of lights on the waving surface, and beyond that, the sky.
And bubbles. Lots of bubbles. Why are there so many tiny bubbles directly above me?
I don’t have any idea, but I know I need to hurry before I run out of air, so I rush forward looking for… something.
What is it? I have no idea, but I move anyway.
And then… in front of me, I see what looks like a circular entryway cut into the ground at an odd angle. Quickly, I walk around it so that I am facing back the way I came, and I see that it has a grate over the top of it, like a door. I reach behind me and grab something from somewhere, some kind of tool, and then I take the grate off, tossing it aside. A cloud of debris flies up around it, momentarily prohibiting me from seeing what lies in front of me.
When it dissipates, I see that this is a tube of some sort. A pipe, perhaps? A few words are written in faded white paint on the side of it. My eyes don’t linger there as I make sure this is my objective. And even though I am terrified to do so, I begin to move inside of it, flowing along with the current, pushing off the sides with my hands as I glide further and further through the narrow space.
I have no idea how long I will even fit in this tube, but I keep moving forward because I am compelled to do so. I have to. I’ve been commanded to. Beyond that, I would do anything for her. I love her so much.
“Who?” I ask myself, but I don’t know the answer to that question.
Nor do I have any idea what I am doing or why I feel so out of touch with my own body, but the further I go through the pipe, the more I begin to panic.
What if they turn it on? What if I can’t get out? What if this goes wrong?
It doesn’t seem like a foolproof plan, now that I am here, and for a moment, I consider turning around and going back the other direction.
But I don’t. Even if I die, I’ve done it for her.
A loud whirring noise sounds, all around me, and suddenly, my heart begins to pound. “No!” I shout, moving my lips this time. She promised she wouldn’t let this happen! I am being sucked forward now at an impossible rate. Everything around me blurs, and then, all that remains is unbearable, all-consuming pain….
I jolt upright in bed, a scream leaving my lips as the ripples of pain wash through me, the energy leaving me as soon as I realize that I am in bed—that it was just a dream.
But it wasn’t just a dream, was it?
Have I ever had such a lucid dream before?
I reach for the lamp to turn it on just as Poppy comes flying into the room, her hair a mess, and her nightgown crooked. “Miss Isla?” she calls. “Are you all right?”
I can’t answer her at first because I’m out of breath from the nightmare and the screaming, but I nod to her.
She reaches for the bottle of water she gave me earlier and takes the lid off for me, handing it to me, and I thank her with a nod before a sip of the lukewarm water refreshes me.
Poppy drops down next to me on the bed, her hip by my knee. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, laying her hand on my leg.
I put the lid back on the water and set the bottle on my nightstand. “It was a strange dream,” I tell her. “I’ve never dreamed anything like it before.” I am still shaken, and she can see that, so she gives me a few moments before she asks me anything else.
Eventually, Poppy asks, “Was it about the kidnapping?”
I shake my head. “No, it wasn’t.” I take a deep breath, my mind running back over the dream. “I was underwater,” I begin. “In a river or something. And I didn’t want to be there, but I knew I had to be. I had a job I had to do.”
“What sort of job?” Poppy asks, her eyes knitting together as she studies my face. It is as if she thinks there might be some sort of mystery to unravel in my dream.
“It was just a silly dream,” I say with a shrug.
“You never know,” she tells me. “Princesses might have fancy dreams.”
I roll my eyes at her. “We don’t know that I’m a princess.” In fact, Mystica telling me she thinks I am a princess seems less real than the dream I’ve just had.
“So you were underwater?” Poppy repeats, and I nod. “What were you doing?”
Flashes of what I’d seen in my dream came back to me. “I had to go in this pipe,” I explain. “Underwater. I had… something I had to do. I just remember thinking that this woman I loved had asked me to do it, and even though I was really scared to do it, I did it anyway. For her.”
“Was it your mother or something?” she asked me.
Shaking my head, I say, “No, I don’t think so. It didn’t seem like that sort of love.”
“Hmmm,” Poppy says. “Well, how long were you under there? Did you drown? Is that why you screamed?”
“I don’t know how long I was down there, but it was a few minutes. I didn’t drown. Somehow… I was able to breathe. But….” The memory of what had happened at the end of the dream comes back to me, and for a moment I remember the intense pain I felt being sucked through the pipe and colliding with whatever was at the other end—another grid or a door or a propeller or something…. I didn’t last long enough to know for sure. “It sucked me in, the pipe. And then, everything hurt… and I woke up.”
Poppy studies my face for a long moment before she says, “Thank goodness it was just a dream and you’re safe in bed.” She pats my knee again.
I agree. I am very thankful that it was just a dream. Still, I have to wonder, when I lay back down and close my eyes, will I end up right back in that same dream.
I can’t think about that. Instead, I ask her, “Do you know if King Maddox has found Zabrina or the others yet?”
“Let me see,” she says, and for a moment she is quiet while she uses her mind-link. Poppy shakes her head. “Not yet. They’ve chased her to Crescent City, though. My friend Wynn who works as a maid in the military department is trying to keep on top of everything.”
“Crescent City?” I repeat. I have never been there before, but it seems like an odd place for her to go to. “Why would Zabrina go there?”
“Who the hell knows. She’s nuts. Maybe she has allies there or something?” Poppy guesses.
“Maybe so,” I say. “But it’s nowhere near her pack.”
“No, you’re right, it’s not.” Offhandedly, she says, “Maybe they’ll trap her against Great Wolf.”
“Yeah, maybe so.” I reach for my water as Poppy begins to head back to her room. But when I see the label, I stop. “Great Wolf?” I repeat.
“Yeah, you know,” she says. “The river?”
“No, I know,” I tell her. “The river… Poppy. In my dream, I was in a river.” I lift the bottle again, but this time, I’m not removing the lid. I’m looking at the label. “Wolf Springs! Where do they get their water from?”
“I don’t know, but I hope it’s not the river.” She makes a face.
“Is the river spring-fed?” Could it be that the pipe I saw in the ground in the riverbed actually draws the water up from the spring, before it gets to the river?
Poppy studies my face for a moment and then asks, “You think Zabrina went through a pipe in the river to poison the bottled water?”
“No,” I tell her, and I watch her relax and laugh for a second at the silly notion before I say, “I think Private Wylie did.”