Short Story: Lucid Dreamin' (Cadenza)

My clothes were damp and smelled of salt, and I couldn't remember why. I was laying on something hard and lumpy. I dug my hands down into the ground by my sides, and up came cool, packed sand... was this the beach? When did I come here...? The sun was beating down on my shut eyelids, hot with the intensity of the afternoon, and after a point I started to see dots floating around, until finally I blinked and looked up...

"Hey sleepyhead, you wandered off again! Mommy and Daddy were worried!" this, from a little blonde girl who was beaming at me with two missing front teeth. The shadow the huge yellow bow she wore on her head cast on me felt like a giant bird gazing down at me.

I wasn't sure what to say to her. She seemed to know me. But another little kid, a chestnut-haired boy this time, loomed over me now and saved me from having to talk.

"You must really like this beach! You keep comin' here, lady. Come on and come back to the hut with us, it's lunchtime!" he, too, beamed at me, and held out a little sandy hand to help me up.

I took it, and shielding my eyes with a hand from the sun, managed to get up on my feet. I felt a little lightheaded, but my steps found their places evenly in the sand as I followed the girl and who I assumed was her older brother. They took me back towards a small clay hut with a grass-woven roof, surrounded by many huts of the same kind.

"Mommy's makin' shrimp today!" the boy announced to me, as if this was a great treat. "Have you ever eaten shrimp...?"

I shook my head and told him I didn't know. Where shrimp the little wriggly sea creatures with the tails...? Gods only knew. I seemed to vaguely remember asking that question before.

"Smell that tea!" the girl exclaimed as we went in, and I bent low to fit in the small doorway behind her. "I think Mommy's puttin' coconut milk in it...!"

"Sounds nice..." I murmured emptily. To be honest, I couldn't much remember what anything tasted like anymore, but the smell was sort of pleasant.

The boy led me to a stout wooden chair in front of a very herbal-smelling fire. I looked in and saw they were burning large plant leaves among the dry logs. A large tan woman in an apron turned round from cooking over the fire and gave me a warm smile, as if I were someone familiar. "You like the herbs we gathered today, lady...? Smell very good."

It struck me then that the whole time I'd been awake so far, the people had only called me "lady", as if they didn't know my name... I couldn't even think of it myself, but this seemed weird. I asked about it.

"You never told us your name, lady," the boy explained, "you just showed up one day on the shore like that other guy. He was kinda like you, too."

"Who was he...!?" I blurted out suddenly, with urgency. I don't know why the mention of the man clicked with me so strongly, but I desperately felt I wanted to know who he was. Maybe... maybe it'd help explain who I was.

"I dunno," the girl said, chuckling, "just some big man who washed up too. He didn't 'member his name either. We took care of him," she seemed proud of this last bit. She beamed her little open grin at me again.

"We liked him a lot, he played with us all the time, and he was really strong and could push us really fast on the tire swings!" the boy added.

I nodded a little lamely at them and settled back down in my chair. I felt disappointed. They hadn't told me very much. "I want to go home to my family," I found myself saying for some reason. Did I have a family away from here...? It sounded true...

"But we are your family!" the girl protested. "You were gonna be our big sister..."

"Big sister...?" I looked back towards the large woman cooking over the fire. Yes, she had a sort of... matronly way about her, but she didn't look anywhere near old enough to be my mother. I remembered my reflection in the water, a small memory from before... judging from that, the woman might only have been ten years my senior. She had scarcely a wrinkle on her broad, tan face. "I'm too old..."

Both boy and girl giggled at this. "Too old?" the girl chorused, "No way! You're really young! I only said 'big' 'cause you're taller!"

I looked at her blankly at this. The girl... Trisha, I think her name had been. She only looked maybe six years old, possibly seven. Her big brother... Shane, he had told me before... he might have been ten. How on earth was I "young" to these kids...?

"Don't you remember...?" Shane asked me, as if it were something obvious he was about to tell me, "We're hundreds of years old! Trisha's only one-hundred and seven this next month, really, but still. You're a baby compared to us!"

The mother at the hearth nodded to assure me this wasn't just some joke the kids were playing. "Aye," she said, "we all rich in years."

"But I'm young...?"

"Yeah!" Trisha piped up, "You're the first young person to come here in a looong time. The other guy was old, like us. 'Cept he looked young, too."

"Looked young... you all look young... and so... energetic... but I'm just tired." I slumped back in the little chair and tried to take this all in. As my eyes wandered around the room, and the kids took to playing a small chasing game, I noticed the patchwork rug hanging on the wall of the hut, with the name "BROWN" stitched in large, bold letters.

"Is that your name...? Your... last name...?"

"Aye," the woman grunted, bringing over the pan of sizzling shrimp. It smelled delicious and fresh, and the butter was still nice and yellow and melted at the bottom. "All here called Brown. Even man, he thought he was called Brown in another tongue."

"In another language... maybe mine...? Marrone... that could be it..."

The mother looked at me with widened eyes. "You remember language...?"

"I... yeah, I think so... I think I'm... starting to remember. But I still want to go home..."

She studied my face for a moment, as the kids scurried over and picked shrimp from the pan with sticks. Eventually, she gave a sigh, and seemed to reach some sort of tough decision. "Follow river by mountains," she told me plainly, "Should take to town."

"...To town. Yeah... thank you."

Trisha and Shane stopped their nibbling of shrimp and dribbling of warm butter and looked up at this with sad eyes. "You're leaving...?" both cried at once. "But we'll miss you...!"

"No," their mother cut in, "she not one of us, and she must go home. Not right to keep lady here when she want go. We give her food to take. Wish luck."

Trisha's eyes were watering. She rant to a large shiny pot on a table, and crying, thrust her hand deep into it, pulling out a small golden charm. "For strength...!" she told me, running back and clasping it in my hand. "It'll help you get to town! If you ever feel weak, just... just look at it and wish!"

"For strength...?"

"Yeah, for Strength...!"

I looked at the charm gleaming in my hands for a moment. The symbol etched into it seemed familiar, but I wasn't sure why. But somehow, I felt things would get better... only, I felt really tired now. I closed my eyes for a moment, and the smells of the hut seemed to slowly fade away, and along with it, Trisha and Shane's chattering voices, and the mother's terse grunts... there was the lumpiness of the hard, damp sand underneath me, and then... a soft bed.

So I was asleep, and I was home again. And that was a dream. At least, I think so... it had felt so real. I knew who I was again, but then... who was... who was Marrone? Could he really be the Spirit I was looking for...?