if we made some physical contact. My hand would cradle your cheek as you drifted off to sleep, or you’d hook your slender finger around one of mine.
In the dream realm you showed me “Mater’s house,” which I recognized as our family’s ancestral home. A sprawling vineyard in the Campania region of Italy, bordered in the west by the Mediterranean Sea and situated in the coastal plains around Mount Vesuvius where the soil is rich and black from volcanic ash. My islands were there as well, gifted to me by Lena as a reward for a military promotion.
In my youth, we’d usually arrive at the vineyard when the apricots were just beginning to ripen and depart after the grape harvest concluded in late fall. My father was a chieftain of a Germanic tribe, but Lena claimed the Etruscans as her chosen people and had settled in the southern reaches of their civilization long before I was born. To this day, she had an ensemble of fate demons who maintained its upkeep, though I tended to avoid it when I visited, preferring to sojourn directly to my islands.
The details of the landscape weren’t crisp due to your limited abilities at conjuring dreamscapes, and my memories of my homeland were distant enough that I couldn’t add much context. On a few occasions, the blurred scenery would narrow into sharp focus so that every pointed ridge of the grape leaves could be distinguished. The frames supporting the grapevines bowed like old men’s backs with the weight of plump fruit, and dew glittered like jewels on the waxy grape skin. I could almost smell the cloyingly sweet air, pungent with the ripening harvest. During those moments, I knew Lena was nearby, monitoring the two of us but refusing to interact.
Such a maddening creature.
I toured the dreamscape with you. You showed me your “room,” an open-air gazebo adorned with bougainvillea, which was not native to the region but had become a favorite ornamental plant of the locals. The white marble floor was layered with furs and sheepskin rugs. Lena must have expended quite a lot of energy in making their textures so tactile, repeating the ritual often enough that you’d be able to conjure the sensation in her absence.
In addition to those creature comforts, there were platters of fruit and nuts grown on the property, but only those that were in season. I wondered if Lena was mimicking the harvest cycle so that she’d have the ability to track the passage of time from within her Shade Vale prison. She was nothing if not clever.
On one such platter was a sampling of our native grapes—Aglianico—along with figs, dates, and goat cheese threaded with basil.
“Can you taste those?” I asked.
You popped a date into your mouth and chewed for a bit before spitting out the pit. “Like candy but better.”
Was your description the result of your experiences in the material world, or had she become so advanced in her oneiric abilities that you could taste it? And if so, was there some nefarious reason for dedicating the time and energy to this pursuit, or had she simply wanted you to experience the palate of our homeland?
You showed me your texts as well. They appeared as bound leather books, their titles gilded in gold across their covers and along their spines—Hungry, Hungry Medusa; Ten Terrific Punishments by the Gods; Shade Vales and Where to Find Them... The titles mimicked contemporary works of children’s fiction. These were names you’d assigned to the stories, a reference to draw upon when you wanted Mater to provide a refresher.
She’d been engineering this elysian dreamscape since your birth—perhaps even before—and though I harbored an enduring resentment towards her, I had to admit this was a labor of love.
Or desperation.
“Where is Mater?” you asked me with some impatience during one of our dream shares. “The grapes are going to spoil. Why won’t she come?”
You’d just showed me a complicated sequence of hand gestures, something Mater had taught you and told you to practice, but for which you didn’t yet know the purpose—mudra seductions, which compelled people to react physically to the caster’s hand gestures, like puppets. I’d never had the patience to learn the technique, which was quite intricate and required an abundance of grace—I generally preferred using my fists and swords. I assumed, similar to teaching you Latin, she was making sure your wrists and finger joints were well acquainted with the movements so that you might call upon them when necessary.