The new moon is like any other night. Ramshackle and Kilney are disappointed. They were expecting the night to feel more momentous. Was it too much to ask for unseasonal rain? A windy night? A spooky atmosphere?
The area where the house is currently located is at the edge of a forest. The trees are large, green and ancient. Ramshackle can feel their magic and spends many evenings and mornings walking among them. Kilney, a stickler for making notes, checking and rechecking them, and making more notes, spends that time discussing the flow of the ritual with the house. He wants to make certain he gets the details right.
But more importantly, he wants to ensure the boundaries are understood: they must retain their memories as they go through the changes.
It’s the night before the new moon when the house finally ejects Kilney out. They’re tired of going through the plan for the billionth time and Kilney is making them nervous, a feat they didn’t realize they were capable of.
Kilney finds Ramshackle at the foot of a banyan tree. It has so many trunks he doesn’t know which is the original one. There is a sense of heavy peace beneath its boughs, like lying under a weighted blanket.
He sits next to Ramshackle. “The house kicked me out.”
Ramshackle chuckles. She’s back to being a woman today. As a woman, she feels more connected to the trees and she wants to soak in that feeling of being deeply held by the Earth before she uproots herself and essentially dies.
“It’ll be fine.”
“You hope.”
“If I forget, I have my journals to remind me of my story. If you forget, you have me and the house. Stop worrying.”
Kilney picks up a rock and throws it. He had spoken to Lunar this morning. They were upset but they had demanded Kilney meet them once everything was over. It was an easy request to say yes to.
“I think what is tripping me is we’ll be taking the same route that your clients have taken before you. Only this time, we’ll be using your updated contract.”
“It makes the most sense. This way, we’ll get to experience what our clients will experience and we’ll get to test our new contract.”
Kilney rolls his eyes. He does not have a problem with the logic of it. He knows it is sound. He just can’t believe he is doing what Gimble had done not seven months ago. And not to make too fine a point on it but he will die. It doesn’t matter that he’ll be reborn. But the fact he will die is…strange.
He is startled out of his thoughts when he feels Ramshackle holding his hand. He is still not used to seeing her in this form. But he knows she likes to be able to choose her own forms. The house has informed him he can continue to look, sound and dress like Kilney if he so chooses. That gives him something to hold onto as he overturns everything else.
“We’re in this together,” says Ramshackle. “Don’t forget that. Whatever the fates have in store for us, ours are tied.”
That finally untangles the knot in his stomach and for the rest of time, he is calm, until he finds himself in front of a door that will take him to his heart’s desire.
He looks at Ramshackle before entering his reality, and says, “See you on the other side.” He doesn’t waste time after that.
Once he is inside, he is seven years old and his parents are arguing about something in front of him. Their loud noises and angry faces scare him and he asks them to stop but they ignore him. He breaks his mother’s favourite vase but she is too focussed on his father to react. He kicks his father’s shin, something he has been asked never to repeat, but the father only pushes him away.
He feels helpless, voiceless and desperate.
The time inside feels at once long and too short. Before he can fathom what is happening, Kilney is back in the drawing room, where he spent countless hours hashing the ritual. He feels no different.
“Is it done?” he asks the house.
Yes.
“That cannot be right. I wasn’t asked to make a choice. I didn’t even see my deepest desire. I just saw my parents fighting which isn’t even novel. It happens all the time.”
He doesn’t know what he’ll do if the house asks him to figure it out himself. Thankfully, the house has more compassion than Ramshackle for it says:
You have already made your choice. You never wanted to feel helpless, voiceless or desperate ever again. So, you became a lawyer. And now, you’re a dream maker.
Kilney is stunned. “You’re saying all this time, I was living my dream?”
Yes.
It feels too vast a truth to acknowledge. To distract himself, he asks, “Where is Ramshackle?”
Not doing that great.
25 of 26 of an ongoing series The Dream Maker. You can read all posts here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z.
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tales of Suchita 
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