Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

"Nothing."

"Something is amusing you."

She tried for a straight face and failed, using the duvet to hide her grin.

I did my best to ignore her, hanging my clothes over the chair. To be honest I was unsettled. She was unlike any woman I had ever encountered.

"Are you coming to bed?" she asked.

I walked around to the free side of the bed, lifting the edge of the duvet and the sheet beneath it to sit on the edge of the bed, so I could slide in next to her and slip the towel aside.

"Is there something you've forgotten?"

I twisted around to look at her,

"Lights?" she prompted.

I grabbed the towel again, wrapping it back around my waist, and padded around to the light switch next to the door and back again in the dark, trying to avoid tripping over random pieces of furniture in the unfamiliar room.

I slipped into bed beside her accompanied by her suppressed mirth.

"Do you always laugh at men you're about to sleep with?" I lay on my back while she moved the additional pillow onto the floor and lay back beside me.

"Only the ones that amuse me."

"And I amuse you?"

"You come across as so rugged and then you're so demure."

I didn't have an answer to that, so I lay in the dark looking up at the ceiling where the dim light from the night sky showed around the edges of the blinds drawn over the angled loft-windows. After a moment she moved across and nudged my arm so I would lift it and she could duck her head under and lay alongside me, her head resting on my shoulder and the naked warmth of her along my right side. Her hand draped across my chest. She hugged me around the middle then relaxed.

"Don't be hurt," she whispered.

"I'm not." I stroked down her arm, feeling the minute imperfections in her skin. She gave a long sigh and relaxed into me, her breath ruffling the hair on my chest.

"Niall."

"What? What is it?"

"You were snoring."

"Was I? I'm so sorry. I'm just so tired and-"

She lifted herself up and leaned over me, pressing her soft lips to mine. My body stirred in answer, but she drew away.

"Sleep, Niall. You need to rest. We have time."

She kissed my forehead and then untangled herself from my arm and settled down beside me under the quilt. I murmured something that was meant to be "Good night, Blackbird" and sank back into sleep, exhaustion finally claiming me.

Sleep was like a black well holding me inert and for a long while that was all I knew. It was only later that I began to dream.

I was walking down a path, my bare feet brushing through grass stiff with frost. Dark evergreens enclosed my way. As I walked, the path opened out into a circular glade, the sky speckled with stars that didn't sparkle; cold, hard shards of light against the blue-black sky. The clearing was about twenty yards across and at first it was unoccupied. I moved to the centre and turned around, trying to find a familiar constellation and orientate myself. As I turned, I saw the figure at the edge.

She was tall, her hair falling in long waves down over her shoulders and over the bust of her gown. It shadowed her face, leaving only the tip of her nose and the sensual curve of her mouth un-shadowed. She was grey, or maybe that was the starlight, because everything about her, even her face, caught the sallow pallor from the pale light.

"You came," she told me.

Her voice was soft and intimate with a satisfied smugness in its tone. I didn't answer; I wasn't even sure I could speak.

"They told me I had dreamed you, so dream you I have," she smiled.

I looked around for the path where I had entered the clearing but, in the way of dreams, it had gone. I turned back and she was a few steps closer.

"What do you want?" I found my voice.

"They told me I was getting old and that my wits aren't what they used to be, but you're here."

"Where is here? Who are you?"

"Do you not know me, little brother? Are we not of the same flesh, you and I?"

"I don't have a sister." I looked around desperately for an exit, backing away from her. The word "brother" triggered a memory and I looked back at her to find her a step closer.

"The question is, little brother, who are you? Where are you that you have become so lost?"

"I'm not lost."

"Are you not? Then where are you, little brother? Where do I find you?"

"You're a dream," I accused her. "You can't hurt me."

"Why should I hurt you? I just want you to come home." Her voice was quiet, close, gentle.

"I don't want to come with you. I have a home."

"And where's that, lost brother? Who have you been telling our secrets to?"

I didn't answer, just twisted around, finding all behind me a tangle of snag-thorn brambles, eager to catch and tear. When I looked back she was two steps closer.

"I don't have to tell you anything."

"But you have been telling, haven't you, lost brother? Come, little lost one, tell your sister what you've been doing? Tell me where you are."

"I'm not telling you anything. Leave me alone!" I was getting desperate. I could hear my own heartbeat thumping in my chest.

"Do you not have a kiss for your long-lost sister? Am I not welcome in your arms?"

She lifted her arms in welcome, holding them out to me imploringly. At first I thought it was a trick of the shadows, but her hands slowly started to dissolve, floating on an infinitesimal breeze towards me. Her forearms slowly expanded into specks of dust, spreading gently outwards to either side of me, forming a crescent with her at the centre.

She appeared to grow and fade at the same time, becoming translucent, even in that dim light.

I began to hyperventilate as my heart raced to find an escape. A cold welled up though the soles of my feet and leeched up my ankles, a cold that ached and pierced, stilling any feeling but bone-chilling numbness.

"Come," she said, drifting slowly towards me. "Embrace me, brother."

"Rabbit! Wake up! Wake up, damn you!"

Blackbird was shaking me by the shoulders, but it was like trying to climb out of the dark well of dream that had claimed me. I was so cold, my teeth were chattering and my whole body was shaking with it. My breath was coming in short gasps. I couldn't breathe. My eyes were open, but everything was clouded in misty grey.

"You think you've won," I heard her say through gritted teeth, "but I haven't even started."

She threw back the duvet and tore the white sheet back from the bed. Sliding across my legs, she straddled me, hip to hip, skin to skin. She took a deep breath, lifting her right arm high, her fingers stretched wide. Warm light filled her palm, spreading down the veins in her arm like molten gold.

Then she slammed the palm of her hand hard onto my chest.

"He's mine!" she shouted to the ceiling.

Heat poured into my chest like opening a furnace door. The tightness binding my ribs relaxed and I pulled a huge breath into my lungs. My body flooded with tidal warmth. I felt the cold shrink and recede until it nestled like a tiny shard of ice in the stone which still hung around my neck.

Her hand slipped under the thong and grasped the stone, giving it a sharp tug, so it came away in her hand. She held it up, above and between us, an expression of regret in her eyes. Her eyes closed, her hand opened and dust fell from it, drifting down onto my bare skin.

At that moment, dawn broke, bathing her in soft pink. Copper curls haloed around her head, catching the first light of day. Her breasts were pale, full and perfect, nipples dark and erect. The curve of her waist only emphasised the swell of her hips. As the light turned slowly golden, she slid her hands down onto my shoulders and leant over me. Her eyes had a corona of emerald around the black of her pupils, giving them a luminous quality. She had an unearthly beauty.