Raising the Stakes

Lyda found less sleep as the nights passed. Eventually, there was no sleep at all. Lyda was sitting on her bed in the cellar, never even undoing the blanket. She had lost all natural urge to sleep, as if something was forcing her to stay awake. Instead, she sat on the bed and stared blankly into the dark corners of the cellar, her own little alcove lit by a single candle on her bedside table.

Mere weeks had gone by since the incident while camping, and many a thought had gone through her head ever since. She hoped to learn more, anything she could, by inflicting that nightmare upon herself, but she got much more than she had bargained for with the most horrifying experience of her life, and what did she gain from it? It had been a complicated road. She had not felt like herself since then, until Iris had inadvertently given her the courage to think about what it was she really wanted.

At first, her obsession with the Spirits was purely academic. They fascinated her and she wanted to learn all she could about them. Now, however, her motives were divided. On one hand, much of her heard what Iris had to say; Lyda once promised that she would do whatever it took to help her little sister in her time of need, and she did. Now, she felt that it would be her obligation to use her knowledge, her wisdom, and all that she might yet gain for the good of others. On the other hand, this also fueled her selfish desires to put the Mistresses who sought to hold her back in their places. She would rise above them in every way and show them for the frauds they really were. That was a long-term dream. Right now, she had other dreams to worry about.

There was no hiding it, even from herself, that she was scared to think about forcing another nightmare upon herself. Last time, something happened that prevented her from waking herself and it took an incredible amount of will to pull out of it. What if the next time she didn't come out at all? She was so scared that she did not know what to make of the incident. Horrifying thoughts continued to rush through her head. Was it possible to die in one's dreams? And if so, what would happen out here if one died in there?

Lyda shuddered in discomfort at such thoughts. Perhaps the answer to these questions was obvious. Four years ago, she and Adea found themselves initiating an otherwise dark ritual from ancient days merely for the ability to control their dreams. Who knew what else could be accomplished with such a ritual? The more Lyda thought about it, she believed it was not a coincidence that this very night marked four years to the day since their trip to the Crossing. Did that have something to do with why her nightmare had gotten the best of her? Perhaps the effects of what they achieved at the ritual site could wear off. Perhaps the ritual was not permanent.

"What must I do?" Lyda mumbled to herself. New thoughts were beginning to enter her mind. These ones did not seem like her own.

Do it again, her mind's voice spoke to her.

Perform the ritual, she thought, the same as last time.

No, raise the stakes.

Offer a bigger heart.

Go further. Unlock greater secrets hoarded by the people of her ancestors. Yes, that was it. If she started the ritual all over again, maybe then she would be able to successfully navigate her nightmares. The ones she elected to have, that is.

It has to be done tonight, her mind's voice echoed again, it must be performed the exact night as when it was initiated. But she could not hope to do it alone. She made Adea a part of it, and she would have to be again.

"No," Lyda blurted out to no one. Her voice sounded deafening in the confines of the cellar. "Adea is innocent. I don't want her to be a part of it anymore."

"But she doesn't have a choice." Lyda flinched at the sound of those words. It wasn't what was spoken that surprised her, rather it was that they came from her own mouth.

Lyda shook her head. "It's my choice. I want to do it alone from now on," she responded to herself, playing along with whatever was going through her head right now.

"If you do," she transitioned again, "then she'll suffer all over again."

"Her nightmares will return?"

"Worse than before. Worse than anything she can imagine. She's much weaker than you."

"No, she's not!"

"Yes, she is! How long would survive nightmares like the one you inflicted upon herself?"

Lyda stared blankly at the floor as she fought with herself. She felt goosebumps sweeping over her arms while she sat in deep thought. The last thing she truly wanted was to include her sister further in her dabbling. She could not deny what she was telling herself; Adea was a weak, frail-minded child, and she was sickened by the thought that experience dreams like hers could possibly be her death. Her senses were on edge. Her eyes darted to the side, and for a fraction of a second, she thought she could see the outline of a pitch black figure standing mere inches from the foot of her bed.

Lyda jolted, letting out a gasp of shock as she jumped back along her bed. In the split second that she blinked, she could have sworn she saw a pair of piercing yellow eyes glowering down at her, but as quickly as they appeared, they were gone, as was the hallucinatory figure. Lyda was backed against the cellar wall, catching her breath as she realized that she was alone. She refused to believe any of this was all in her head. The Spirits were real, she knew it in her heart, and she knew what had to be done. She was just anxious about doing it.

Meanwhile, in the comfort of her own bed, Adea was fast asleep, lost in pleasant dreams of soaring over the vast mountaintops and swimming in the lakes of the valleys throughout. She was at peace while she was asleep, more than ever when she was awake. Her tranquility was interrupted suddenly when she felt a hand grab her by the shoulder. Adea let out a cry of astonishment until another hand planted against her mouth. In the midst of her dream, she found herself staring into a pair of familiar yellow eyes. Adea felt the overwhelming urge to scream as she tried to force herself awake.

"Adea!" Lyda called in a loud whisper. "It's me!"

Adea's eyes shot open, wide with shock until they fell upon her sister standing over her. Lyda removed her hand from her mouth when she let out a sigh of relief.

"What are you doing up here?" Adea asked, a little annoyed about being woken in the middle of the night. "What time is it?"

"Not yet midnight," Lyda replied. She sounded as though she was out of breath.

"Are you alright, Lyda?"

"Not exactly," Lyda said rather sheepishly. "I really need your help, Adi."

Adea sat up in her bed. "With what?"

Lyda hesitated for a moment. She tiptoed over to the bedroom door to make sure that it was shut before returning to Adea's bedside. "I know I haven't been myself lately," she began. "After what happened while we were camping, I've been giving a great deal of thought about the things Iris told me, about who I'm meant to be."

"Well, why would that bother you?" Adea asked kindly.

"You know how Mother and Father are about the Spirits."

Adea stared at her sister intently. She had a feeling the conversation might come to this. "Yes I do, and I don't think they're wrong."

Lyda opened her mouth to respond, but for a second, she was not sure what to say. "Adea, how can you still say that?"

"As I breathe," Adea responded in a condescending tone. "It still gives me the creeps to think about what we did."

"Don't think about that," Lyda said as she climbed up on the bed to sit in front of her sister. "Think about all the good it did for you!"

"What good?"

"You know what!" Lyda was getting frustrated. "I helped you to put a stop to your nightmares. I did it because it was the right thing to do. Iris told me that I should be using my wisdom for the good of others as well."

"Wait," Adea interrupted. "You told Iris what we did?"

"No, of course not! I told you, not a soul knows the truth. But I've been thinking back to everything we did that night. I wondered if there was more that could possibly be achieved."

"Lyda, what are you saying?"

Lyda glanced down briefly before looking her sister in the eyes with a warm smile. "I think we should do it again."

"What?" Adea gasped in disbelief. "No."

"Yes!" Lyda persisted. "Tonight! Let's go now while we still have time and we could be back before dawn. Nobody will have known we'd gone!"

"No!" Adea made futile attempts to back further against the wall. "I won't do that again. You helped me in my time of need, and I'll be forever grateful, but had I known what we're going to do-" Her voice trailed off as she gave an anxious swallow. "I'm sorry. The answer is no."

"But this isn't about dreams!" Lyda cried. "That was one thing. We discovered something truly amazing, haven't you ever thought about that? I think about it all the time! Why should we stop now? We can do things that nobody else in the Valley or the mountains can. Who knows what else we could discover? So let's go! You and me, together. We can do this as sisters!" She reached out to take Adea's hand in her own, but Adea quickly pulled it away.

"Aren't you listening to yourself?" Adea said with disgust. "What has gotten into you, Lyda? Don't you see? This is why our parents don't want you messing around with things you don't understand. I don't want any of this, Lyda. I just want to be me!"

Lyda was taken aback by her sister's reaction. She was not sure what she was expecting, but still it filled her with disappointment. Even so, she was not ready to give up yet.

"Don't you love me, Adi?"

The question caught Adea off guard. "What?"

"Because I love you more than anything. You're my little sister, and I'd do anything to protect you."

"You already have," Adea fired back. "Who is this really about? Me or you?"

Lyda let out a sigh of defeat. "Alright," she mumbled, "the truth is I haven't told you everything."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you know what tonight is?"

"No? Should I?"

"It's been four years to the day since we performed the ritual last."

Adea swallowed nervously again. "That's not comforting."

"I know it's not," Lyda tried her best to sympathize with her, "and I truly wouldn't be asking this of you if I had any other choice. I'd go myself if I could."

"I don't want you to do that either," Adea pressed on.

"But I don't have a choice, don't you understand?" Lyda was getting heated. "Neither do you. Listen to me. I've been having nightmares again."

"What?" Adea felt a cold wave sweep over her body. "How is that possible?"

"That's just it. I don't think the effects of the ritual were permanent," Lyda replied somberly. "I've been hearing whispers in my dreams lately. The same happened that night at the campsite. I didn't realize it until now, but we have to start the ritual all over again. Both of us have to do it because we both initiated it before, and if we don't do it on the exact same night, this night, then the dreams will only become worse than we can imagine, and we'll never be able to make them stop."

Lyda could tell she had hit Adea's soft spot. Her eyes widened as she was gripped by fear. "What? No! Please don't say that!"

"I didn't want to scare you," Lyda replied. "Do you understand now? We don't have a choice. We have to perform the ritual again tonight or we'll be tormented for the rest of our lives."

Adea was trembling at such a horrific sentiment. Much of her wanted to believe that it couldn't be true. How would Lyda even know this? Perhaps she was making it all up to trick her into going back to that place. That did not seem to add up either. It wasn't in Lyda to play with her worst fears like that. As crazy as she could be sometimes, Adea believed every word when Lyda said she would do anything to protect her, but a question remained that itched in the depths of her mind: how far would she be willing to go to protect her?

None of it mattered. Adea shook her head in an erratic manner. "No," she rasped. "I'm sorry, Lyda. I just can't do it. I wanna move on from it."

Lyda was dumbfounded that she could still find the nerve to refuse her like that. "You can't be serious!" she cried. "If you don't do this with me, you'll pay for it forever!"

"I'll take my chances," Adea responded sternly. "Now please leave so I can get back to sleep, or else I'll call for Father."

Lyda was on the verge of freaking out. Adea could tell by her breathing. "Adi, I-"

"Lyda," Adea cut her off. "I mean it."

So that was it, Lyda thought. She could think of nothing else to say. She didn't know what she was feeling; disappointment, anger, helplessness, who could tell? Without another word, Lyda slipped off the bed and lumbered out of the room.

She spent the next half hour pacing around the cellar, much more anxious than before. Her breathing was out of control and she clutched at her head in a state of panic. "What am I gonna do?" she muttered in a quivering voice. "What am I gonna do? Why can't I just do it without her?"

"You both have to do it," she answered herself again. "There's no other way."

"But why her?" She was beginning to feel a heated rush of resentment welling up inside. "Adea's weak. She doesn't have the skin for this. I can do it myself!"

"If you do, then she'll suffer. She'll never sleep in peace again."

Amidst her growing stress, Lyda dragged her hands down her face, leaving scratch marks along her forehead. "Then how do I convince her? I did everything I could!"

"Give her a reason to believe you. Make her remember."

At the sound of her own words, Lyda froze. She knew exactly what she was thinking, having admittedly contemplated trying it before, if only to see if it would work. Perhaps now there was no better time. The only thing holding her back was whether or not she could live with herself after doing this to her own sister. That she would have to worry about later. There was no time to waste.

Lyda rushed to work. She retrieved the last pages of Aunt Mara's book from under her mattress, tossing them aside until she found the one she was looking for. The hardened black substance on the parchment revealed a drawing consisting of a circle with a series of lines running inside it to form a six-sided star, the vertices of which pointed to six smaller circles around the edge of the large one. This was it. She remembered studying it briefly before Aunt Mara's book was destroyed, but now was the time to put her knowledge to the test.

Lyda scrambled to gather the materials necessary to create the circle on the cellar floor. She first grabbed a bucket of lime that her father kept on a high shelf against the opposite wall. She scooped up the white, powdery chemical by the handful and sprinkled around the floor to form the circle shape. She then proceeded to fill in the star shape and the six smaller circles, making sure that each shape was accurate down to the decimal.

Though not explicitly visible on the page, she knew what she still needed. Lyda grabbed the candle from her bedside table and placed directly in the center of the star. She then hurried up to the kitchen to collect six more candles and matches from the cupboard. With her hands full, she rushed back down to the cellar, locking the door behind her, and set each candle within the small circles and lit them. There was only one thing left to do. Lyda grabbed the page and sat down in front of the center candle. On the opposite side of the page was a paragraph of words written in the old language of her ancestors. An incantation of some sort. She read it in her head at first before repeating it aloud several times to make sure she could recite it flawlessly. Once she was certain she had it memorized, she tossed the parchment aside. She took several deep breaths and closed her eyes, focusing on what she desired and nothing more, and began to speak the obscure incantation with as much conviction as she could muster.

When it was done, Lyda's eyes shot open. This was not like the ritual at the Crossing. Nothing felt any different, but she guessed that was to be expected, for she did not perform this meager ritual for herself.

Sensing that there was no going back from what she had just done, Lyda managed a rather mischievous smile. Now she need only wait.

"Sweet dreams, Adea."