Page 52 of Collision!
“I was wandering in a garden but every bloom was a star…”
“…a cupcake the size of a castle!”
“…not falling or flying but…I don’t know, I felt…”
“…buck-ass naked!”
“Mariah!”Felicity bustled up, her feelings button flashing all the colors.“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.”
Mariah smiled distractedly, the cruise director’s words echoing painfully with what she’d said to Suvan the night before.She’d told him she was happy to have him back…and then she’d run away, too afraid he’d never remember her.
Or that he would and…then what?
She swiped a mug from the bar.“Where else would I be?”
Felicity waved away the wry question.“You’re the expert on dreams.So tell us, what could this all mean?”
As one, every face swiveled toward them.Mariah gulped.Like she was being tested on stage and she didn’t know her lines.
“Uh, is this a nightmare?”Sometimes acknowledging the strangeness could trigger control of a lucid dream.
Felicity frowned.“What?No, they were all good dreams, I think.”She glanced around at all the gestures of assent.
On the other side of the bar, Remy said, “Mine was a symphony with a chorus.So many voices, I couldn’t hear where one ended and another began.It sounded like…” She glanced down toward the other end of the bar where Ikaryo was concocting a bright pink brunch cocktail.“Like heaven.”
Those words from the sometimes sarcastic redhead made Mariah blink.Everyone else went back to their conversations again, recounting their dreams and possible interpretations.
Mariah shrugged.“Not every dream has meaning.”
Felicity twisted her lips to one side.“But it must mean something that everyone had such vivid experiences last night.”
“I didn’t.”Mariah gulped her coffee while the other two stared at her in disbelief.“Hey, just because I meditate and have a few crystals—”
Remy arched her eyebrows.“When we were stuck in the life pod while an energy monster ran amok, you told me you once drank psychedelic mushroom tea and a llama told you the secrets of the universe.”
Oh,therewas the sarcastic redhead.Mariah huddled defensively behind her mug.“First off, it was an alpaca.And secondly, the secrets of an alpaca’s universe probably aren’t really relevant here.”
“Aren’t they?”Felicity hooked a thumb at the resonark.“We have our very own mystery hanging in your knotwork.”
The three of them swiveled to stare at the anomaly, pulsing innocently.
“Evens believes the resonark is a connecting force,” Remy mused.“Why wouldn’t it be connecting our dreams?”
“Connecting ustoour dreams but in the waking world.”Felicity touched the button shining gold on her silvery uniform.
Though she longed to join in, Mariah couldn’t force any words past the lump in her throat.Probably the terrible coffee.
A sudden silence descended over the brunch.
Following the focus of the crowd, Mariah angled to look around Felicity.
Suvan stood in the salon doorway.
Her heart thudded hard when his gaze swept the room to land on her.
Knowing now how hard it had been for him to leave the ship, she understood why he stayed in the protected engine module.That he’d come to the salon while everyone was there must challenge all his reclusive instincts, grating on every quill-scale.
In the full Earther-favoring illumination of the salon, his pale quartz eyes were narrowed, giving him an especially menacing look.He had his sleeveless uniform on again, hiding the bandage she’d left on his chest, and the dark green quill-scales down his arms were spiked hard.
