Goddess of the Rose (Goddess Summoning #4)(4)

"I could have seen his face, Nelly. It was there, right beside my own face the whole time, and I knew that even though the pit was foggy, there was enough light for me to be able to see him. I could even feel him staring at me, but I refused to open my eyes. I didn't want to see what he was." Silently, she acknowledged that she had lost her nerve. After she'd felt the horns, she'd been afraid to see him. She hadn't wanted the fantasy to be shattered by the reality of what he might be.

"Was that because even though you were excited, there was a part of you that was afraid, too?"

Mikki took her time answering Nelly, wondering if she was talking to her friend or the psychiatrist. "Maybe. But I don't know whether my fear was because of what I might have seen, or because if I saw him the spell might be broken and I would never dream about him again," she admitted.

"The spell?"

Mikki shrugged her shoulders and smiled sheepishly. "What would you call it? What's happening feels more like magic than psychosis. Or at least it does to me."

Nelly returned her smile. "You know my attitude about that kind of stuff. I think there are many magical things about the human brain, but they all have causes rooted in science."

"Now you do sound like a shrink."

"Stop, you flatterer." Nelly's eyes shifted to her watch. "Oh, crap! I have to get going soon."

"Scary freak coming in to unload his problems on you?"

"Of course. It's my favorite part of my job." Nelly dunked her biscotti in the remaining cappuccino. "Wait, didn't you say something earlier about the dreams becoming more realistic and the world around you seeming less real? Did something weird happen?"

"I thought you had to get going."

"Soon, but not this instant. I still have biscotti to devour. So give up the rest of it."

Mikki sighed. "You never forget anything, do you?"

"It's all part of my very expensive training." She waved the soggy biscotti at Mikki. "Continue, please."

"Okay, okay. It happened yesterday. I was crossing Twenty-first Street, going from Woodward Park to my apartment. Thursdays are the evenings I volunteer at the Rose Gardens, remember?"

"Yep."

"Well, it was a little after dusk. I got finished later than usual - there's just so much to do to get the roses ready for winter, and with the pain-in-the-ass construction in the third tier, well, we're way behind. Anyway, I was crossing the street, and I heard something weird behind me."

Mikki paused and squinted her eyes in reflection.

"Something weird?"

"I know it sounds crazy." Mikki gave a nervous laugh. "But who better to tell crazy stuff to than my shrink girlfriend?" Nelly narrowed her eyes at her. With a little unconscious gesture of defiance, Mikki tossed back her hair before she continued. "Okay, I heard this . . . this . . . noise coming from behind me. At first I thought it had something to do with the play they're rehearsing in the park."

"Oh, yeah. Performance in the Park runs the first week of November. I'd almost forgotten. What is it they're putting on this year?"

"Medea," Mikki said, slanting a grin at her.

"So a weird sound coming from that play wouldn't have seemed too surprising."

"Exactly, except I heard a roar, and even though I haven't read the play since high school, I don't think there are any wild animals in Medea."

"You heard a lion?"

"I don't know . . . It sounded a little like a lion . . . only different."

Mikki paused again. She knew very well how the roar had differed from any normal zoo beast. It had sounded lonely - heart-wrenchingly, totally, horribly, lonely. And somehow human, too. But there was no way she was going to admit that to her friend. She wasn't that crazy - at least not yet. Instead, she hurried on with the rest of her explanation.

"Yes, I realize the zoo is way over on the other side of town, and even if the lions or whatever animals were roaring their heads off, there's no way I could hear them at Woodward Park. But I swear to you I heard a roar. As you can imagine, it surprised me, so as soon as I reached the sidewalk I turned around. The park was hard to see because the air was filled with waves or thermals or . . . I don't know what the hell to call them. You know, like currents of air rising from a hot black-top road in the middle of summer. I thought something was wrong with my eyes, so I blinked and rubbed at them. And when I opened them again, the park was gone."

Nelly's eyebrows drew together. "What do you mean, it was gone?"

"Just that." She shrugged one shoulder. "Gone. Disappeared. Absent. No longer there. Instead, there was a huge forest of trees."

"Well . . . Woodward Park has trees," Nelly said, as if that was explanation enough.

Mikki made a scoffing sound through her nose. "Oh, please. I don't mean some attractive, well-manicured trees conveniently spaced around man-made waterfalls and azalea hedges. This was a real forest. The oaks were huge, and it was dense and dark." She shivered. "If I had walked into it, I would have been swallowed."

"Did you hear the roar again?"

Mikki shook her head. "No, everything was very silent. Weirdly silent now that I think about it."

"Did you experience any other sensory impressions during the hallucination?"