Back in the dream I was actually having, the taller of the girls took a step back when the two of them reached the Stone. She put her hands on the younger’s shoulders, and then she turned her head and looked straight at me again.
“Hey, can you see me?” I asked.
She tilted her head ever so slightly, so I knew she’d heard me. There was hesitation there, but then she shook her head, bent forward, and whispered something in the other girl’s ear.
All of this felt like it was really happening. Normal dreams didn’t have this level of realism to them. This was…unsettling, to say the least.
The smaller girl reached out with both hands to touch the Stone, a lot like I had done before the shooting had happened. Her palms connected, and she leaned forward toward the Stone as if she were waiting for something. Except nothing happened. The Stone didn’t sing for her.
The taller girl sighed and bowed her head in resignation.
Over the pelting rain, the panting and hoofbeats of horses echoed, and just a moment after I’d heard it, the girls looked up. Their green eyes went wide, and they bolted, running in the opposite direction at full speed.
I had no idea what the point was of me being here, or if there even was one. This already felt uncomfortably like the damn commune, where all the girls had been afraid most of the time. I didn’t want to be reminded of that. I didn’t want it to happen, not to anyone, and I didn't want the anger and helplessness that came with knowing it did. I was so effing aware of how privileged that way of thinking was, so I wasn’t even going to try to excuse it.
I ran with the girls. Maybe I could help them, distract the horses or something. Maybe I’d died while I was asleep on Inkiri and I was a ghost now. I hoped not, and it wouldn’t explain why the place looked older, felt older, but I was going to at least try all the ghost things I knew about from the movies.
As I ran, I watched two of the horses close in on the smaller girl. Everything happened so fast, and I was so slow. One of the riders bent low and picked her up out of her run. She started kicking and screaming. I did too until a flash of auburn hair from my other side caught my eye.
The taller girl was still running, and she took a sharp left and dropped to the ground, then rolled into a thicket of branches and thorns.
I slowed. The riders were screaming. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. The language was nothing I’d ever heard before, but there was something familiar about it, something in the cadence that made me think I could almost understand the words, just not quite.
The girl the rider had picked up was like a wild raccoon, and the rider who had her on his horse was hissing. She didn’t give a flying fuck and kicked him, hopefully where it hurt.
I jogged to where I’d seen the taller girl fall. The riders were circling. Looking, too. The one holding the smaller girl was trying to get her restrained, and she was fighting him tooth and nail. She was losing, but she fought anyway. She didn’t give up, kicking, hissing, trying to get him in the face.
The horse was getting agitated, and the rider was cursing, and then he pulled his hand back and hit her. I yelped, then covered my mouth. The rider’s fist had descended so hard that the poor girl went limp and still, only groaning as he tied her hands and legs.
“Shit, motherfucking motherfucker,” I said, taking a step in that direction.
Something caught my attention before I could help the girl. I saw a flash of skin from under a bush, then made out green eyes even as the rain picked up and I heard the riders doing some cursing of their own, judging by the tone of their voices.
The taller girl had somehow crept under a bush and several branches, and she was nearly invisible there, her sodden hair streaking over her face and acting like camouflage. I snuck up to her, and her eyes were tracking me. She was on her side, looking at me, but watching the horses whenever they came close to where she was.
The rain fell harder, and the riders got more and more frustrated. The smaller girl, now tied to the horse, was getting some of her strength back. She tried kicking the horse, which was none too happy about the situation, going by how it was prancing around.
After a little while longer, one of the riders said something. I didn’t catch the words, but he sounded pissed, all right. All three of them were pissed. They had no right to be, seeing as how they were fucking assholes abducting and hurting people.
They rode off a few minutes later, heads swiveling as if they were hoping to catch sight of the other girl, the one who was still looking back and forth between me and them. Her expression was furious. Instead of being scared like I would have been in her situation, she appeared determined, her jaw set, the muscles there working.
She spent several long minutes under that bush, even after the riders had gone.
“I think you can come out now,” I said and beckoned to her. I walked to where they had ridden off to. If I was a ghost after all, I was apparently haunting this girl, and I might as well do a good job of being a supportive specter.
The underbrush rustled, but she was almost silent as she came back out and stood up. Her cloak was muddy—even muddier—and soaked completely through, as was the rest of her. She wore fantasy movie clothing, by which I mean old clothing.
Or, no—old-timey clothing. It was neatly woven and tidy, or had been, before her ordeal, but the cut was simple, and there was no metal on her clothes that I could see. No zippers, no shiny buttons, no buckles or traces of bright dyes. She did, however, have a dagger in a sheath tied to her leather and buckle-less belt. That reminded me a lot of my guys, since they were the only people I knew to carry around pointy weapons. Well, them and the cola asshats.
“Hey, do you know if I’m haunting you?” I asked as I jogged back toward her.
She looked at me, then shook her head.
“Hey.” I jumped in front of her.
She sighed and stopped, then walked around me. At a minimum, she could see me.
“Hey, wait.” I hurried after her.
