Chapter 17 Phantoms

The sun was about to set and with it came anxiety, Angela was pacing in her room nervous of what she was planning to do. She had spent the better part of the afternoon with Mizpah and after learning that the beast could speak, a lot more of what she deemed outrageous started to make a lot of sense to her now. The reality of not being on the same realm as the one she had grown up in was starting to set in at an alarming speed and with it came panic. She could not ask questions, nobody could be trusted. Zander seemed like a trustworthy person but the way he treated her made her feel like she could not hold a decent conversation with him. He was always acting macho with her and had not time to listen to her, which was what she was in need of at the time, Greta also seemed like she could be trusted but Mizpah had warned her against sharing any of the secrets she now knew with her until she could prove that she was trustworthy.

She continued to pace, her mind in turmoil wondering whether she should go looking for Zander no matter how annoying he was, but her pride would not let her.

"Arrrrrgghhhhh….." she pulled her hair frustrated.

she was afraid of what she was about to do, there was a possibility of being stuck in there. Even though Mizpah had made it sound so easy, Angela was sure that he left some details. He had just thought of warning her the last minute after she had promised that she would do it tonight.

"What if something goes wrong and I am stuck in there forever?"

She continued to pace thinking of the dangers that awaited her, she missed her other so much because in such a in she would know what to do. After pacing for what seemed like an eternity, she stopped and stared out the window. Mizpah was still in the same position as he was dozing without a care in the world. She felt jealous of how carefree he looked and wanted to share the anguish and turmoil she was going through with him just so he could feel what she felt.

* Believe me princess, I feel your anguish and wish you would stop and try to calm down a bit

"Ah, stay out of my head" she said startled to her a voice in her head. She realized that she had forgotten to block her thoughts from her familiar as she had been taught. She felt embarrassed because that meant he heard everything she was thinking. A blush crept up her cheeks giving them a beautiful red tinge when she remembered what she had been thinking about when thinking of Zander. She had envisioned him naked, his bronze physique that looked like that of a Greek god shining as he approached her. Here heart had picked a pace when she imagined his size; she had had to constrict her thighs to keep her throbbing core from driving her insane with the unfamiliar need. As if on cue, a warm feeling flooded her tummy causing her a feeling of butterflies. Immediately she started feeling warm all the way to her core where juices flowed unrestricted.

"Get a grip on yourself princess, I don't think this is the time to be fantasizing about him”

"I said, stay out of my head! Which part of that don't you understand?" she asked her eyes wide as she realized that yet again, she had forgotten to put up a shield and Mizpah could hear everything.

"Why don't you tell him how you feel about him and save yourself the trouble of not knowing whether he feels the same?" Mizpah suggested.

"I feel nothing for him, not now, not ever,” she said as she pulled the windows closed to block Mizpah from her sight.

"Yeah, you feel nothing Princess,” Mizpah, sneered back feeling offended by the way Angela treated him. He let out a loud growl to show his disapproval of her behavior and left heading into the darkness.

Angela felt Mizpah's disappointment and immediately regretted how she had treated him; she was the one to blame for leaving her mind channel open. She was not used to having someone else in her head and so she was not used to shielding her thoughts, she slumped on the bed and lay down her face looking towards the ceiling where intricate designs of gods and goddesses of the old were portrayed. She was attracted to one particular image of Zeus, who looked almost exactly like Zander. He was naked but covered at the waist with a loose fabric, his hand reaching out to goddess Athena who had amber flowing hair that went all the way down to her thighs. The image held her attention for a while, their momentary tiff with Mizpah forgotten.

Angela was pulled in by the image on the ceiling as if by magic, she could not help but feel relaxed as she envisioned herself in the place of goddess Athena and Zander as Zeus. She did not realize it but in minutes, she was back in that dark place. She felt a presence but could not see anything because of the darkness.

"Who is there," she called out.

"Hello, hellooo," she kept calling but only her voice would echo back at her.

A door opened at the other end and she could see some light. She took long strides to reach the light before the door closed but just as she was about to get close, it closed leaving her in darkness.

"Hello, please somebody help me," she kept calling out.

*Kharisi" a voice called out, it was the voice of a woman, but she could not recognize it.

Angela listened trying to point out where the voice was coming from, it seemed to be coming from below from where she was but when she kept listening as the voice kept calling, she realized it was calling from the left side of where she was standing.

"Kharisi, Kharisi" the voice kept calling.

"What do you want with me, where am I?

"Listen, we don't have much time. Do you remember the room you visited the last time you were here in the dreamscape?" a woman's voice asked.

"I'm in the dreamscape?" Angela asked surprised. She could not remember doing what Mizpah had told her to do to be able to access the dreamscape.

"Have you seen any door open?" the voice asked.

"Yes, a door opened a while back and when I tried reaching it, it just closed," she said sounding frustrated.

"Then you can consider yourself lucky, very soon the doors will start opening and if you are not out of there, you may get lost."

"What do you mean get lost?" she asked afraid of what she was just about to experience, She could not imagine being lost in this darkness, it already felt dreary to be here.

"Focus on the room, remember the room?" the voice of the woman asked. It sounded frightened and almost on the edge of hysteria.

"Yes, I remember"

"Great, think about the room now," she told her.

Angela closed her eyes and tried to think of the room where she had met the woman who had claimed to be her mother but try as she might, she could not conjure the image in her head. Instead, all she saw was darkness all around her.

"I can't, I can't," Angela was sobbing.

"Please, try. If another door opens while you are, there it will bring phantoms that will arrest your soul and hold it captive in the darkness. You need to leave now, "there was a hint of urgency in the voice.

Angela could not let herself to be captured by whatever those things were; she was in panic and not thinking rationally. Just as she was trying to remember how the room looked like, another door opened and she saw a grey silhouette. Her knees felt weak, she knew this was the moment that she was going to be captured, and no one will ever know what happened to her. They would only find her body sleeping peacefully on her bed but she would never wake up until the moment she died in captivity. Only then would her body die on this other realm. Her palms felt sweaty, her mouth dry and her heartbeat were in overdrive.

The silhouette was floating towards her followed by three more, she had no place to run to and the only thing left to do was giving up and be captured. As the phantoms neared her, they made shrieking sounds that made it more frightening. Angela closed her eyes and gave up trying to remember the room but immediately she closed her eyes, she saw the room and the woman. In a flash, she was standing in the middle of the same room she had been in last time she visited, the phantoms missing her by an inch.

The woman with the platinum hair stood up from where she was sitting and quickly went to Angela encompassing her in an embrace. She did not mind how unfamiliar they were with each other to question why she was hugging her but the relief she felt at being safe made her cling to the woman. She was sobbing, she had been so afraid of getting lost in the void forever that the feeling of safety she was feeling at that moment felt stolen as if it did not belong to her.

"Shhhhhh, little one …. sshhhhhh," the woman with the platinum hair consoled her.

"I was so afraid, I am afraid even now," she continued to sob on the woman's shoulder.

"It's okay to be afraid, even I was afraid but it is over now, you are safe," she said as she rubbed her back.

"How am I safe when I have to use the same mode of travel from this place?"

"Shhhh, it's alright, it is over, and you will never have to experience what you just did.

Every person that attempts to venture into the dreamscape has to go through the phantoms but if you are pure of heart, they can never touch you."

"Really, It still feels scary though," Angela said trying to sound brave.

"Really, you will never again hear or see phantoms as you cross to the dreamscape back and forth. And actually, I think you are just a natural, no one has ever managed to come to the dreamscape without the help of a witch and not just a witch, a powerful witch not just a witch, a powerful witch."

"I think I had help," Angela said thinking of the murals she had been admiring as she slept on her bed at the palace.

"Who helped you?" the woman asked.

Angela did not reply immediately, she was not sure how this woman was going to react to what she was about to tell her. She extricated herself from her embrace but felt empty, she was feeling safe and secure in the woman's arms. She started to pace, a habit that seemed to have grown on her these past few weeks since she arrived in - who knows -where she was.

She was fumbling with the sleeves of her blouse when the woman that was with her let out a chuckle.

"You don't need to tell me, you will when you are more comfortable you are so much like your mother, she did the same thing with her sleeves whenever she was nervous," said the woman.

Instantly that made Angela feel as though she was insinuating that she was offended for not trusting her but she pushed the feeling away and focused on what had brought her here.

"Why did you call me here?" Angela asked.

"I called you because you are my daughter and you are the only person who can rescue me from the tower where my physical body is hidden."

"Why me, you can have others come rescue you"

"Because you are my daughter"