Time's Tragedies- The Books Of Beginning [2]

86. Kate's Strength

Kate didn't have much to compare her mind being fully awake and alert while her body was forced into an immobile state to. The closest things that she could think of were having visions connected to the Atlas, in which she was technically sleeping but her mind was in another place and time, or Emma's descriptions of how it had felt when she underwent the bonding ceremony to the Reckoning. For the first days (weeks? months? hours? it was hard to tell the passage of time, something that was distinctly uncomfortable, considering her sense of time was usually very accurate.) she had been trapped inside of her own mind, hearing those she loved talk to her, hearing the blurred voices of the doctors, but being unable to respond. It had been its own kind of hell, being trapped with only her thoughts for company - it reminded her too much of the isolation of her youth, isolation that she had thought had been left behind.

Finally, however, she had managed to break free of the prison she was in. It had been a relief, exiting the caging matter of her brain, the bars that her cranium formed, and finally, finally being able to make her voice heard. She found herself slipping into the dreams of those she loved - she had to have a strong connection to the person who's unconscious mind she was entering, she had learned. Only if her brain recognized them on a truly intimate level did it let her slip between her thoughts and their dreams. Fortunately, Kate's interest lay in communicating with a very specific few - her children, her siblings, and her husband.

The first times she had done it, it had been hard to convince the recipient of her attentions that she was truly there, and not just a part of the job. Michael's dreamscape had shifted and all of a sudden, she was back in her brain as the library around them vanished. Emma had been distracted fighting the imps that preyed upon her brain at night. No, Kate hadn't been able to break through properly until she visited Lili and found the girl's mind swirling with thoughts of time travel and desperate schemes. 

That time, she hadn't fought against the dream. She had let it be as trippy as Lili's brain wanted it to be, and merely ingrained herself in it, dispensing advice in a manor she hoped to be subtle. Fortunately, it had worked, and Kate's children had succeeded at figuring out how to get to the lost pieces of the Scroll (as Abby had eagerly told her one afternoon when she had come to visit).

The second time she had done it, she had gone to Eternity. She had wanted to check up on the girl who was so fragile and hid it so well. Kate had found the girl in the throes of a nightmare, and it hadn't been a choice at all to intervene, to tell her to wake up, to spare her from the pain. That was the time she realized just how weakened and vulnerable to the curse intervening left her, and so she tried not to do it much, unless she felt she had to. She forced herself to be content with just observing.

Then Lili and Eternity had found themselves in nightmares, nightmares that connected, that fed into and on each other. They were suffering, and Kate had to save them, consequences be damned. She had slipped in and warped the setting to her will, same as she had once warped time. It had exhausted her, but then her girls were safe and sitting in the living room with her, out of reach of their own self destructive parts. She had tried to guide them, to advise, them, all while her heart ached at not being with them for real.

Though Kate had grown better at controlling the mindscape, though she had grown stronger when it came to beating back the curse eager to take her life, she still didn't know how to wake herself up. To her eternal frustration, it seemed as though nothing she tried worked. Though Kate wanted to wake up, to join her family, more than anything, there was a barrier between them that couldn't be broken.

It was when she heard Abby and Jake's voices - so tense and so brave all at once - that she got desperate. They were talking about a confrontation and their father worrying, they were talking about Lili and Eternity being in trouble. Kate had never wanted to be there for them so bad, to protect them from all the evils of the world, to kiss their wounds like she had done when they were small.