The Dreamwalker's Path

1/Ybor City, Florida

“Two words, crazy lady: Get bent.”

Lia jabbed the eject button on her CD player harder in the hopes that it would make the CD eject faster, and she could escape before things got ugly. Unfortunately, life never did seem to work out the way she hoped it would. She turned to the sandy blond woman who stood behind her looking hopefully up at her with large brown eyes.

“Please, Lia,” she said. “It would be a kindness to me if you did. It would be a kindness to him. And you already have the power to walk between Linear Time and Sanctuary. You may as well use it to help people.”

Lia pursed her lips and glared down at Time, feeling all the hatred in the world build up inside of her. “Don’t you mention him, Time. I could lecture you for days on what you could have done as a kindness for him--And how the hell is being your servant helpful to anyone?”

She hoped that the words cut Time deeper than the woman-figure’s expression showed. She hoped that Time choked on them.

“What’s done is done,” the figure said with a wave of her hand, her form changing into a slightly more mature woman. Straight sandy hair turned pale gold and plaited itself into a braid with baby’s breath wrapped in the fine strands. “But you could help keep Sanctuary safe the way he did. All you have to do is accept my offer.”

The CD tray cranked slowly out of the player and Lia snatched the CD before the tray could decide to sneak back into hiding. “That’s a pretty thought, lady, but I’m still not buying. I don’t even know what to do with my powers; I certainly don’t want to add to the list of responsibilities that I have because of them. Also, I don’t think you understand how much I hate your guts.”

There was a brief moment of contemplative silence. “I don’t have guts,” Time said finally.

Of course she didn’t. Somehow, Lia refrained from rolling her eyes. “Well, that’s great, but I’m still not going to be your Twelfth Hour.”

Lia hoisted her dance bag on her shoulder and headed toward the door. To Time’s credit, the figure of the woman was gone by the time she turned around.

“Crazy bitch,” Lia muttered, shuffling out of the studio, letting her feet fall heavily to express her grump. She was so intent on expressing her grump, in fact, that she almost walked right passed her sister as Camille rounded the bend.

“Whoa, hey there, soul sister!” Camille caught Lia by the arm to slow her down, and then turned and fell into step with her. “I went by your house and you weren’t there. Got a little worried.”

Lia pursed her lips. Despite Mr. Jaeger’s—no, she reminded herself, Cavan’s—insistence that that he’d wiped his sister’s mind of the “scary” things that had happened back in February, Camille still got a little bit jumpy when she couldn’t get a hold of Lia right away. Of course it was entirely possible that Camille had always been a bit of a worrier and that Lia was only noticing it more.

“I’ve been here all day.”

“Well, you need a new cellphone,” Camille noted. “One of those new-fangled phones that talk back at you, that way your phone can give you as much sass and lip as you give it.”

Lia laughed. “Maybe. I don’t know, my phones never seem to last.”

“Ah, well, your birthday is coming up.”

It wasn’t, but she didn’t correct Camille. Even if she had wanted to, there was no time. Her sister had already bounced to another subject.

“So why were you at the studio all day? Are you avoiding someone? Don’t tell me: your not-creep, not-boyfriend annoyed you and now you’re hiding from him.”

“Camille, how much Sprite have you had today? You sound like you’re part jitter bug.”

“I haven’t had any, thank you. Are you going to answer my question?”

Lia shook her head slightly and sighed. “The school year is starting up soon, so I’ve been going to the studio on my days off to help set up the new schedule and make up some new routines. They’ve got me teaching the advanced girls this year, so I need to rework some of my choreography.”

“Oh! Well that must be nice; are you excited? I think you should be excited.”

Sometimes, Camille thought that everyone should be everything at once, so the statement itself wasn’t what made Lia’s attention perk so much as the tone in which she said them. “Camille, what are you really here for?”

“I wanted to chat with you.” She tugged Lia down the road to Sherry’s coffee shop. “You’ve been avoiding the rest of the family lately and we haven’t had much time to chat and do sister things. You know, drink coffee, go shopping, celebrate May Day, see a movie...”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Cam,” Lia muttered the words under her breath and Camille groaned loudly.

“Ophe-lee-a, do not be so difficult about this! May Day is a family Sabbat. It’s important to the rest of us and you’ve no reason not to come now.”

Fucking Cavan and his stupid philosophies. Sure it sounded all right to let Camille and the rest of the family know that she finally figured out her Gift, but she really wasn’t sure she liked the prospect of jumping into her witchy destiny head first. She’d have been much happier if she could have eased into the whole ordeal on her own time. Somehow she didn’t think that Camille agreed with her. In fact, she was pretty certain that if she didn’t jump, Camille would be more than happy to push her.

“Camille, I don’t want to go to a Sabbat. Don’t get me wrong, I love the family, but I just don’t think that the official celebrating thing is for me.”

“Oh, bunk, Lia. Eight days out of the year—eight days out of three hundred and sixty-five days-you completely avoid everything about being a witch. You sit in your little house and watch re-runs of I Love Lucy and eat microwave dinners. You’ve done it since you were fifteen when you realized that you still didn’t have a power like the rest of us, and you used your lack of a Gift as an excuse to say that you weren’t a witch and the Sabbats aren’t for you. Well, now you’ve got a power and you don’t have an excuse not to show up. You, Miss Priss, are without excuse.”

Lia couldn’t decide if she had nothing to say in response, or too much to say, but as she opened her mouth to find out, a siren shrieked the next block over and, judging by the quickly mounting decibels, was heading in their direction.

The sisters looked around for the source of the noise in time to see an ambulance rocket around the corner and down the road.

“Jeepers creepers,” Camille murmured as they watched the ambulance stop at a house at the end of the road. For a few minutes, both women stood transfixed as they watched the flurry of activity that followed.

“You’re telling me,” Lia started walking again, pulling Camille toward Sherry Magnucci’s Coffee Shop. “I wonder what all that’s about.” She didn’t, to be honest, but she couldn’t bear continuing their conversation about the upcoming Sabbat.

Luckily, Camille had always been a speculative sort of woman, and she launched into several theories at once, all the while hoping that everyone was okay. The conversation wouldn’t distract Camille for long, but if Lia was lucky, it would keep her at bay long enough for her to decide on her answer.