Free The Dreamer Stones by Elaina J Davidson Page B

was the act of confrontation. Some
things were not to be spoken of, and he realised how right she was
to say to keep the struggle to himself.
    Cold. Perhaps
she did know.
    “We shall not
speak of it,” he said and almost believed it.
    She closed her
eyes.
    Torrullin
moved then, feeling, in fact, hounded. He was, therefore, in the
perfect frame of mind. Walking further into the desert, he faced
the way they came, marked by two sets of clear footprints in the
dust. Drawing breath, he engaged his mind … and knew it had
begun.
    On the
mattress, in the shade, Lowen held her breath. Now she would
witness the hell that was his past, and nothing would be the same
again. She would share in the things he kept hidden, and thus would
commence the process of understanding and she was mortally afraid
of it.
    This was her
journey also.

Chapter
Eight
     
    I dreamed a
dream and saw it come to pass.
    Unknown
     
     
    The first
person he confronted was his mother. Millanu.
    The boy
Torrullin separated from the man to stand before him, part of him,
yet beyond reach now. A blond boy with large, clear grey eyes, a
child upon whom was bestowed great beauty. Five years old and
quiet, a child who dwelt largely in his mind. Behind him, his face
ashen, stood the man he was to become, looking down on the fair
head.
    Then man and
boy together looked up.
    Millanu.
    She was
extraordinarily beautiful. Long golden hair, wide eyes with a
tragic air, tall, slender, graceful and unaware of her beauty.
    The place was
Tetwan on the shores of Ren Lake and it began to drizzle. The
friendly gloom of an overcast sky hung over everything.
    She walked in
the surf of the grey lake, water swirling around her ankles and
when she reached the young Torrullin, she knelt, peering into his
face. “Why are you sad, my little Torrullin?”
    Lowen, the
witness, saw the man’s fingers curl into white fists.
    “I want my
father.”
    Millanu’s
smile left. “I’ve told you about your father.”
    Earnest and
stubborn then, the child shook his head. “All the boys on the
streets know who their fathers are and some even have them to go
home to. I know nothing, not even his name.” The early elocution of
the man to come, old before his time.
    Millanu knelt
deeper in the water and took his small hands in her own.
“Torrullin, your father is a great man and would love you as much
as I do were he with us. He has duties to the universe, which keeps
him away, I’m very proud of him, and you will one day be, too. Is
that not enough?”
    The silent man
watching shook his head first, and then the boy. “It’s not
enough.”
    Millanu sighed
and the blue of her eyes shone bright. The colour of sadness.
    Lowen
understood something. Torrullin was ever drawn to her blue eyes,
often looking at them simply for the sake of looking. She did not
remind him of his mother, but it certainly struck a chord
within.
    Millanu rose
and appeared older for a time. Holding onto his hands, she bent to
her son. “Fine, my brave Torrullin, then I shall tell you. I shall
tell you all of it. Come.”
    She opened her
arms to him and he climbed up to her, a frightened little smile
playing on his lips over her shoulder where she did not see, but
the man did.
    The lake and
rain vanished. Hot, thirsty desert returned.
    The man stood
as if bereft.
    Then, “Did you
see?”
    “Yes.”
    Shoulders
slumped. She would know too much soon. “This is not hidden, Lowen.
I told my father about this.”
    “Your father
is dead.”
    “That, too, is
not something I sought to forget.”
    “I meant only
you alone knew of those moments with your mother.”
    “What am I to
learn from this?”
    “Why did it
come first? Admit the truth to someone, in this case, me.”
    “An adult
moment? A child beginning to think for himself?”
    “I don’t think
it’s that.”
    “This is
nonsense.”
    He faced back
the way they came. The same scene began again. Millanu walked the
lakeshore …
    “I’ll do it,
for pity’s