All That We See or Seem Who: Nathaniel & Juliet What: The former lovers find each other in a dream. Where: Chernobog’s kingdom. When: Two weeks following (this).
Nathaniel dreamt he was in a dark castle. Everything was in shadow and the air was cold as he stood in the middle of what appeared to be a library in his pajama pants and white under shirt. He had put his prescription pad to good use since leaving his practice and was stocked up with enough sleeping pills that he shouldn’t be dreaming and yet this dream was strong enough to break through the pill haze and shake his brain.
Blinking, Nathaniel looked about himself. It was quiet and still, no air moving and there was no sound of nature’s nightlife. He stepped towards what appeared to be a window but only saw a dark sprawling landscape as if lit by the dimmest moonlight. Then there was a click that caught his attention and he turned to see the door for the library slowly opening. Nathaniel sucked in his breath and waited for the form to emerge from the darkness.
After getting home from a long day of classes and work, she had come home only to drop her bag by the door and head directly for her bedroom. Juliet was doing her best to keep up appearances, but she had already dropped two classes to lighten her workload in favor of sleeping. She came home to eat, and then to sleep; homework, reading, and any other pleasantries she had filled her time with were now left by the wayside in favor of the pure blackness of sleep. And now she found herself still within that blackness, but it had shape; it wasn’t just a void, there were...walls. She was inside of a great building, like the castles of England or some other far off land that she had yet to visit (though of course England came to mind first due to the thought of her trip with Nate, and she brushed that allusion away with some annoyance). The walls, though black and seemingly inky to the touch, were exact replicas of stone masonry, and when she pressed her fingers tentatively to them, they even felt as such.
This was obviously a more bizarre dream than anything her mind had yet to throw at her, though she still managed to thank her lucky stars that it was away from the cold terror of the forest that she usually saw in her dreamscapes. Slowly she began to make her way down the hall (wooden floors covered with lush rugs, which she could feel under her bare feet, clad as she was only in her pajamas) and came to the first door on her right. Curiosity won out, and she turned the knob (it felt hard and cold under her hand, as though it were metal), pushing it forward to reveal....
A library, but something far more expansive than the one she currently toiled away at for her paycheck. Juliet inadvertently sucked in a breath at the sight, excited for a moment at the thought of so many books. The sheer mystery of why her mind was showing her all of this made her curiouser still, up until she realized there was another person there in the room with her, and she laid eyes on Nathaniel. She froze in the doorway, half in and half out, unsure if she should progress further into the room, or leave and pull the door closed behind her. She watched him for a careful moment, studying his features and noting his fright - if she were imagining him in her dreams, why would he be scared? Perhaps it was her mind’s way of showing his penance, attempting to prove to her that she should pity and forgive him. An iron bar found its way up her spine, unwilling to bend to the idea that she should simply accept what he had done without any consequence.
Feeling bold, she stepped further into the library, though she left the door open in case she should feel the need to escape. Even if she was being brave, that didn’t mean she had to be stupid. Crossing her arms over her chest, Juliet fixed a level stare on Nathaniel, unsure how to handle this departure from her usual nocturnal wanderings. Maybe now was a good time to get what she wanted from him.
“Don’t you have something to say to me?”
Nathaniel’s jaw dropped and creases appeared in his forehead. He brought his hand to his brow, rubbing the skin there and squeezing his eyes closed temporarily but when he opened his eyes she was still there. “Juliet,” he breathed, dropping his hands to his sides. He let out a short breath and shook his head. “Some dream this is.”
He turned to look out the window again, completely unbelieving of the nightmare that this was developing into. “I thought I took enough pills to not dream but of course I dream about you, the one thing I’m trying not to think of.” He shook his head, smiling bitterly as he gazed out the window then glanced at Juliet over his shoulder. “I can’t escape you. When I’m awake I only think of you and when I sleep, now I dream about you. If it isn’t thoughts of you you that flood my mind, darling, it’s the shadows. The shadows have returned and I can’t seem to escape them. That’s why I had to leave you.” He looked back out the window and slipped his hands into the pockets of his pajama pants and with the low light causing his reflection to be seen in what appeared to be glass his face was one of sorrow. Quietly, he added on, “I didn’t want the shadows to swallow you whole.”
She felt a little of her anger drain away.
“What are you talking about? Nate, you don’t make any sense.” Juliet no longer expected her dreams to make sense, or for the people in them to be controllable by her means. Her arms loosened from around her chest, laying against her stomach lightly in a stance of protection rather than offense.
Nathaniel turned to Juliet and smiled sadly. At least in this dream world he had a little bit more control over the situations at hand than he did in the waking world. Slowly, he approached Juliet, stopping a few feet away from her and frowning. “I never wanted to hurt you, darling,” He withdrew his hands from his pockets, moving them slightly as he spoke. “Didn’t I tell you about the shadows I saw as a child? I went to psychologists for them, that’s how I realized I wanted to be one. The shadows disappeared when I was a teen but now... since Elinor came they began to come back worse than ever. They speak to me and tell me horrible things. I was frightened, I am frightened, for myself and for you. Waking up in your bed... I don’t recall even getting there. I don’t recall what I did and that’s terrifying. I should just move home to England. Make my leave permanent from my practice.” He sighed and turned to look out the window again. Everything was so still that it made a shiver crawl up Nathaniel’s spine. It was as if he had known this place before, dreamt of it, but had only just returned to it after many years.
Part of her wanted to reassure him that there was nothing wrong with him, while the other part raged against this idea. He didn’t deserve her sympathy, he didn’t deserve any kind words. But Juliet had never been a cold-hearted person; at the very least, she didn’t flinch back from his approach, had stood firm in her spot with her arms wrapped loosely around her body. She was quickly beginning to understand that this wasn’t just any dream - it was as though their minds had fused together, allowing them to share a dreamscape. Why it had to happen now Juliet had no idea, especially since it was quite frankly the last place she wanted to be. She let out a soft sigh.
“Is this what you meant? That because of the shadows, you put me in danger?” She felt like she was being redundant, but she was desperately scraping for some sense of clarity amid Nate’s confusing words and explanations. An inkling in the back of her mind started to make connections, but she wasn’t going to blurt out theories without more confirmation. “Why...they’re just shadows, Nate. Shadows can’t hurt people.” One hand rose, spreading out in a gesture of disbelief.
“Darling,” Nathaniel began and frowned. He could call her by his pet name within the dream, that was all right, wasn’t it? He looked her over in her pajamas and his frown softened. He missed her so much. “The shadows take shapes and move about like a living entity. They speak to me, they play with my emotions, and they shut out the light. That’s not... that’s not healthy, Juliet. But yes, this is what I meant. The shadows are in my mind, they’re making me think horrible things and I don’t trust them. I think they drive me to do things that I would never do in my right mind. All of that aside from what Elinor did... I would rather you hate me than be physically hurt.”
His hands dropped to his side with a sense of defeat. He didn’t remove his gaze from Juliet, trying to feast his eyes upon her while he could because he knew he wouldn’t be seeing her in his waking world.
Her mouth frowned, dissatisfied by his response as well as his use of the pet name. Shadows becoming living entities? He truly sounded like he needed help: like he needed a psychologist. Certainly like he was much worse off than her, if his mental state was so quickly withering away, but Juliet steeled herself against the thoughts that would eventually drive her to help him. His idea of help thus far had only hurt her, so what did she owe him? But those thoughts made her feel uncomfortable, and she shifted in place, eventually leaving it to walk to a nearby case of books. The tomes, like the stone wall outside, were meticulously carved of whatever the substance was that created this area. The bindings looked like leather, and her fingers agreed with this assessment when she carefully stroked one spine. Juliet had turned her back to Nate, needing a moment to think, unsure of what to do or if she was even responsible for dealing with all of this.
Keeping her arms crossed, unwilling to put down her defenses, Juliet turned her head to glare at him. “No, it’s not healthy. Maybe you do need help. But what you did was callous, Nathaniel; why couldn’t you have talked to me about this? Why did pushing me away seem like a better idea?”
Nathaniel’s lips parted, his brows rising slightly to give him the wrinkle in his forehead that he always had when surprised. It was a good question, why hadn’t he just talked to Juliet? He had become so wrapped up in what was going on, so scared of everything, that he had jumped to the first possible solution which he thought was the best. “I... I’m sorry, Juliet.” He looked away, feeling ashamed in his own actions. “I know that saying sorry certainly isn’t enough. I love you, I still do, I would have spent the rest of my life with you but I was frightened and I made a rash decision. I was frightened to tell you, frightened that you wouldn’t believe me or look at me like so many others have. Like I’m insane. I felt it would be better to just run away and it wasn’t, I realize that now, and I am so sorry.”
Then he thought of her drowning and the emotions that had risen to see her sinking underneath the gentle waves of the pool. “I had worse thoughts,” he continued, his voice dropping in tone as he saw in his mind’s eye the scene of the crime all over again. “When you fell into the pool and I saw you sinking beneath the water. I thought... I thought you were drowning and I was so frightened. I didn’t want to lose you and then... aside from those thoughts there was this voice. This voice that was giddy to see you drowning. This voice that was greedy to have you back. Happy to see you returning home and I don’t know where that voice came from. It’s the same voice, I’ve realized, as the shadows. But to feel that momentary glee to see you hurt frightened me more than anything.” His eyes flicked at Juliet’s and he realized they had filled with tears. Shaking his head, he took a few steps back to place more distance between himself and Juliet. He didn’t want to dream this, didn’t want to dream of hurting her, none of it, and he wished he would just wake up already.
That explanation made her eyes go wide; not, as he had said before, staring at him as though he were insane, but that the idea of what had gone through his mind scared her. Or at least the part that was Juliet anyway - she had to admit to herself that, after the event had transpired, she too had felt disappointed about the results. She had never known herself to have a death wish, but there was a small piece of her - that little voice, the little awareness in the back of her mind - that had wanted the water to envelope her and...as Nathaniel had put it, “take her home.” With those words, Juliet knew she could attempt to reassure Nathaniel’s fears, but she needed to convince herself to.
Her mouth opened, throat working, but no sound emerged. She readjusted her arms, settling them over her stomach in a tighter embrace, letting her eyes fall to the floor. In an absolutely twisted sense, she actually found Nathaniel’s dark condition, his words, to be...romantic. Admitting that to herself made her feel dirty, the sane part of her mind screaming at her, questioning whatever it was that coaxed her to accept Nate’s insane explanations. “Nate, you...”
Would now be the time to explain the book she had found? The theories her mind had concocted? His mind was so convoluted with these thoughts that Juliet believed that there was no way he could even attempt to disabuse her of the ideas she had come up with. Surely he’d cling to whatever explanation she could offer. Juliet pulled her gaze up from the floor with a determination. “Nathaniel, I think...I think I know what is going on between us. What’s going on with you. The shadows...the dreams I was having growing up...do you know the names Czernobog, or Marzanna?”
Nathaniel slowly looked up at Juliet again, tears still standing in his eyes to make them glitter in the low light. What a funny pair they made in this strange dream, both in their pajamas in this dark castle as they both discussed their relationship problems. He slowly shook his head. “I’ve never heard of Czernobog although Marzanna... my family took a trip to central and eastern Europe when I was younger. There was an effigy of Marzanna that they drowned in the spring. But that’s all I know. But... you... you don’t find what I thought to be strange?” The very idea that someone could be accepting of his insanity was beyond Nathaniel. Even as a child his parents had forced him to go through a slew of psychiatric evaluations because they couldn’t handle the thought of their son being able to see and correspond with ghosts. Or, as it turned out, shadows.
After a beat, Juliet shook her head. She’d be lying if she called him insane, or at least a hypocrite. After all, she’d grown up with terrible dreams and a baseless fear of water; who was she to throw stones at him?
“No,” she replied quietly. “I don’t. You saw shadows, I dreamt of freezing to death. Who’s to say we aren’t both crazy?” Traces of a smile worked over her face, but it disappeared to leave behind an apathetic visage that was more concerned with finding out why this was happening to them, this dream within the black castle, rather than reassuring his fears.
“Marzanna...she’s a goddess of death. She rules over winter, and like you said, she drowns before spring. Czernobog...he’s the black god, kind of like...I don’t know, Hades from Greek mythology. He controls shadows.” Saying all of it outloud made it seem even more crazy. How could she believe what she was thinking? “Sound familiar at all?”
Nathaniel stared at Juliet, trying to gauge if she was performing a cruel joke, but doubted that she had changed that much. Licking his lips Nathaniel glanced out the window again before looking at the dark haired woman before him. “If deities were to exist... why... why would we have afflictions caused by them? There are medical conditions where people will adopt the lifestyle and beliefs of a work of fiction or religious beliefs but if neither of us knew of these deities why would we suffer from creations done by them? Why would we both be affected from childhood and no less find one another?”
He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head. “Don’t take this as disbelief, Juliet, I’m only trying to understand. Czernobog controls the shadows... and Marzanna drowns before spring... are they connected?”
Juliet did her best to keep from taking his remarks offensively, though she noted that he was willing to take her suggestions with a grain of salt while believing his own wholeheartedly. But then again, perhaps she was being unfair. She sighed, and lifted a hand to her face, rubbing at her temple.
“They were consorts. Or rather, Marzanna was Czernobog’s consort; he made her into a goddess. She had to drown for it to happen, or he drowned her, or she slipped... There are a dozen different accounts,” Juliet explained, continuing to watch Nate’s face as her hand dropped back down to her side. “It just...I found this book at the library, and it was all so familiar. Like stories I’d been told as a child coming back into memory, except I know my mother never would have read something like that to me or my sister.” A small tongue passed over her lips, trying to decide what to say next. She finally ended up shrugging.
“I have no idea how or why this connects to us, but you have to admit, it’s strangely familiar. It’s like...it’s almost like we’re acting out what happened. Sort of. With...with Elinor pushing me into the pool, and you...well, your thoughts,” she ended, feeling like she was grasping at straws.
The briefest of smiles appeared on Nathaniel’s face, flashing and gone. He sighed, appearing to have a weight lifted from his shoulders. He nodded and the ghost of a smile was returning again, just the corners of his lips curling ever so slightly. “It does, just like this dream feels like something that I’ve dreamt before. The pool, your falling in, it seemed all so... normal. Like we’ve done that a hundred times before.” He bit his bottom lip again and shrugged. “The black god and his consort.” It brought a small smile to his face and he looked at Juliet. “So we were destined to meet if all of this is true. Maybe we’re possessed by them or something.” He let out a faint laugh that wasn’t truly laughter, just a breath and then another sigh.
Destiny. That was a sweet thought, though Juliet would have scoffed at it now. A bittersweet smile colored her face, tinging her expression with annoyance.. Before they had seemed to be a perfect match, but Juliet felt much too wary to be convinced that such a thing were true. She turned back around to study the books, the furniture, the walls.
“So this...this is another memory, then. That or we just happened to have the same dream, because the last thing I remember is going to sleep in my bed,” the sentence ended with a hardness, but she quickly moved past it, “in my apartment, and certainly not here. I’m guessing, if my theory is correct, this is your castle.” She glanced up toward the rafters, seeing a wide expanse of space that bent toward the middle for balance and support. It was all so medieval, from the tapestries that hung from the walls to the architecture carved into the stone. Juliet lifted a hand to rest against one shelf of books, stabilizing herself as looking up made her dizzy.
Then she pulled her gaze back down, walking further away from Nate to examine the bookcases. There were no labels for any of the tomes, but they all seemed familiar to her as though she’d been in this place a dozen times before.
Nathaniel turned around, looking over the room. “My castle? I wonder what a god would need a castle for. Although, I guess Zeus had his own kingdom so I suppose it makes sense. But I never really thought a god would need a library.” He stepped closer to what appeared to be a desk, dark wood, clear of anything on it, and sat gently on its corner. “I’ve been probably taking more sleeping pills than I should be so most of my dreams... well if I have them, I don’t remember them. When I do dream, the few times I do, it’s of you. I keep dreaming of our child... if we had one. I keep seeing you and me when we were together, before I destroyed everything...” Nathaniel paused, turning his gaze to the arched ceilings and keeping it there. “I didn’t hurt you that night we woke up in your bed, did I?” Hurt was the closest he could get to the word. He didn’t want to say rape because then it made the possibility more real. But since everything had happened and Juliet had not reached out to him he wondered, had he? Had he impregnated her, and, if he did, did she terminate the pregnancy?
She ignored him for a moment, her teeth digging unconsciously into her bottom lip. She’d worked very hard, so hard to pretend that night hadn’t happened. She hadn’t told anyone, and to hear him speak of it again was like ripping a wound open again. Fingering one of the books, she pulled it loose, turning it over in her hands as she inspected it - feeling like she’d done it before. Why would the gods need a place like this? Did they mimic mortals, out of some kind of envy? Juliet felt that wasn’t it. There was something different about this room, as though it had been created out of love. That was the most she was gaining from simply looking around - everything done with such care and detail, and the books were cared for but worn, obviously well used. Whoever was in this room spent copious amounts of time here.
“Aside from scaring me half to death, no, I suppose not.” Her words were slow, chosen carefully and delivered with caution so that she could get herself through the conversation; there was no heed for him or his feelings. Juliet turned a page of the book she was holding. “I went to the doctor, even after taking a pregnancy test. I wasn’t,” she added, like a footnote. “The doctor...he said it was consensual, but that doesn’t mean...” She bit her tongue. Even though she was angry with him, dreadfully angry, she wasn’t willing to go so far as to say that the first man she fell in love with abused her like that. The fantasy had been shattered already; what point was there in stomping on the left over pieces? “I don’t remember anything from that night, and quite frankly, I never want to. I just...I just want to move on.”
Falling into silence, she turned another page, canting her head as a black tendril of hair moved across her vision. Using one hand to balance the book, she swept the hair aside and behind one ear, furrowing her brow as she attempted to make sense of the words on the page, but they weren’t in a language she could understand.
Nathaniel made slow, tired steps towards Juliet. He was beginning to feel sluggish and even a little sleepy. Was that possible for a dream? Maybe there were rooms in this castles with beds and somehow, just wondering if such a thing existed, Nathaniel knew it did. He drew the closest to Juliet that he had come during the night. Standing behind her and peering over her shoulder, his breath on her neck. “Are the words in English? Maybe we’ll understand them, they could be familiar like everything else is here.” He wanted to brush his hand through her hair, wanted to kiss her neck, and he wished for it to happen. Sometimes, if you thought of something you wanted to happen in a dream, it did. But this dream didn’t work that way. “Darling, I wish we didn’t want to move on. I wish that we could be together. If... if what you say is true and I’m not insane, or if we are insane together, would you ever forgive me? What I did to you was horrible, I know this, and I know I do not deserve your forgiveness but I must ask.”
She jumped, the book slapping closed in her hands, and quickly Juliet took a step away from him. The book was held tight to her chest, arms wrapped around the huge volume, as she glared at him. Taking a moment to compose herself, she brushed another strand of hair out of her face, straightening her back.
“I don’t know,” she replied simply. Which was true - the entire situation had become so sticky, so convoluted that it would just be easier to walk away from it all and move on with her life, as she’d stated before. “Stop calling me that. I stopped being your darling the moment you took yourself out of my life.” The words snapped out viciously, leaving her mouth without any lack of confidence. Turning her eyes back to the bookshelf, she found a place for the tome in her hands and carefully shelved it amid its siblings. What he’d said before - talking of children - reminded her of when she’d had such thoughts in her mind. How she’d been doing everything except calling up the caterer because they were obviously going to be together forever. And though she knew she still harbored feelings for him, intense feelings, she wasn’t sure she wanted him. Because the theory of the deities provoked another question.
“Do you think...that if we’re who I think we are...were we really even in love? Who’s to say it wasn’t just them?” She glanced back at Nathaniel, watching his face. “Who’s to say any of it was real?”
Nathaniel looked hurt at first and then he furrowed his brow, thinking over what Juliet had said. “No... no, it was real. It is real still, at least for me. Just because I ended things doesn’t mean that I stopped loving you, dar-” Nathaniel cleared her throat. “Juliet. I’ve never felt this way about anyone else. Just waking in the morning with the prospect that I would see you later that day would bring a smile to my face. I loved to spend moments with you, loved to watch you sleep and even those silly shows on the telly you enjoy. Everything with you made me feel full and alive. I don’t believe gods and goddesses know what it is to be alive because they have never lived. They’re immortal, they exist. They do not have to suffer loss like we do, they don’t know what it is to try and enjoy the moment because it may be gone a little while later.” His voice had been reduced to a near whisper. They were living that now, weren’t they? Though he had caused their separation, he still stood by why he did it. Those thoughts, that enjoyment of seeing her drowning, it still frightened him.
Letting her arm fall away from the bookcase, she settled both limbs over her chest once more, her body facing the leather bound spines. Nate seemed so strong in his convictions, but Juliet wasn’t as sure. She had met him and fallen into dating him in such a short amount of time - was that really love? The films she’d watched all professed that such a thing existed, but her surety had been broken.
“No, they probably don’t. I don’t know. You wanted space, so now I’m giving it to you. Now I need it, I need to think about things. Everything is...all fucked up,” she continued, the expletive dropping from her mouth without a moment’s hesitance. Turning, she fully faced him, her expression one of judgment. “You ran away when I needed you the most, and then...” Her hand spun in the air to indicate what had occurred two weeks ago. “I don’t even know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t do that again. That scares me, that I...was stupid enough to just rush into this. I need room to breathe. I can’t even do that, because I don’t know if you’ll show up in my apartment again, I don’t know if you have another crazy ex who’s going to show up out of nowhere and try to kill me, or...whatever other skeletons you’ve got hidden on your closet.” She tried to not make the words sting, but all of it was honest to the bone. And it felt good to get all of it off of her chest.
But the words did sting and Nathaniel visibly flinched from what she said. He deserved this but it still hurt. “That’s it exactly, Juliet. This is why I wanted to push you away - look what happened! And to be watching you drown and feeling a sense of enjoyment. How would you have reacted if, upon waking in your hospital bed, I told you that part of me wished you had drowned? I don’t know what this is, all of this around us and these gods that you speak of. I don’t understand what tie it has to us, but here we are. Elinor was the only other person I have ever dated other than yourself. I see spirits, I see shadows, they move and they talk to me and they make me feel things that I shouldn’t be feeling. I... I want to promise you that I would never hurt you, that I would never walk into your apartment and force myself on you.
“And the person who dreams of this right now? Myself? The person who is talking to you right now wouldn’t do such a thing. But I don’t know who that person was who had found his way into your apartment and woke in your bed. I don’t remember a thing of that night. That’s why I should be away from you, that’s why we can’t be together, although I never wanted to leave you to begin with. Do you know how many times I nearly backed out of it? But I couldn’t allow myself near you, not when I enjoyed watching you in the water. But... I haven’t any other skeletons. You know everything about me, Juliet, and if you asked me anything else I would answer honestly.” His face looked ready to crumble into tears and he rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand as if trying to remove something that may be trapped there. This dream could end any time now, he thought to himself; he was ready to return to a drug induced sleep. “This is a horrible dream.”
“It is.” She didn’t know what else to say; there were no other questions to ask. It seemed like they were both in agreement: this was the end. This dream was showing her that it was over. Her shoulders slumped, and though he had said everything he could to convince her that he still wanted to be with her, something in her mind just didn’t believe him. She opened her mouth to respond, though what she was going to say, she had no idea. And she wouldn’t find out, for at that moment the bookcase she’d been standing next to tipped forward, moving in the same slow manner as any terror did. She threw up her hands, moving backward to get out of the way...
And woke up gasping in bed. Hair covered her face, and she sucked in air like a drowning person, slapping the strands of black out of her face as she struggled for oxygen, like so many other times when she’d woken from a nightmare. If that was what that counted as, well, it wasn’t what she had been expecting, but the pain in her chest was certainly enough to remember it by.
All the while, Nathaniel was left in the castle, the drugs keeping him from departing for however much longer, Nathaniel did not know. He had moved forward, trying to catch Juliet and pull her out of the way as the bookshelf had tumbled forward. But the fell to the ground with a loud bang and lay there flattened with no Juliet underneath. She had vanished and with panic welling in his chest, Nathaniel turned and left the library to find whom he would always consider to be his darling.