“Shai, what the
heck is with your voice tonight?”
The GVRen meeting was winding down after dissolving into chaos when
business was taken care of. I
ground my teeth together. I
hadn’t been able to lose the strange accent I’d woken up with.
I didn’t know why, but everybody had the common decency not to bring it
up.
Everyone, that is, except Kitty, who continued to speak.
“I mean, faire’s still weeks away, chica, and you’re already almost
hitting fairespeak. Something
wrong?”
Of course Alaina Conrad would bring it up.
Of course. Don’t get
me wrong, Alaina “Kitty” Conrad has been my friend since I met her last
year, but sometimes she doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. I
opened my mouth to speak.
“I think it’s just a little reflexive, Kit,” Craig broke in deftly.
“We went to Holly this past Saturday, so she’s been slipping in and
out all week.”
Bless you, Craig. I
never would’ve thought of using our trip to the Michigan Renaissance Festival
as a cover for the accent. The look
I caught in Craig’s eyes, though, told me that even if he wasn’t going to
let Kitty press it out of me, he would.
I figured I’d save him the trouble, once we were on our way back to the
dorms.
“Shai! Craig!
We’re heading back dorm-side, if you want to come.”
Jude was standing with a couple of our friends near the door out of
Kirkhof.
“We’ll catch up in a few minutes,” I told her, and they left.
I looked at Craig, who’d fallen into what appeared to be a conversation
with Kitty and Jordan about something or another.
I touched his arm. “Craig?”
He glanced at me, then back at them.
“Look, I’ll talk to you guys later, all right? Jor, e-mail me, huh?”
We gathered our things amidst scattered calls of good-bye, then walked
outside. Ahead, I could still hear
the sounds of Jude and our other friends, talking and laughing.
I looked at Craig.
“I suppose you want answers.”
“They’d be nice.”
I nodded, and slowly, haltingly, began to tell him about the dreams.
I told him that I didn’t know what they meant or where they came from,
that they had just begun, that I’d had two and I didn’t know if there would
be more to come or not. He listened to me with a concerned expression on his face,
then put his arm around me and hugged me.
“Who knows? Your
imagination might be overactive. It’s
not like you’ve had much to stimulate it lately, what with the same-old,
same-old around here.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I murmured.
“Besides, dreaming during the day?
You can’t tell me you don’t do that in some of your classes.
Just daydream.”
I smiled. “You’re right,
I do.”
“So then these dreams you’re having aren’t anything to worry about,
are they?”
“No, I guess not.” I
rested my head on his shoulder. “Thanks,
Craig.”
“It’s always a pleasure.” He
gave me a squeeze. “And by the
way, Shai,” he added, “you’ve lost the accent.”
Thank God. As much as
I wanted to believe him, though, believe that the dreams were nothing, the
nagging doubt remained even as we caught up with our friends and continued on
our way home.