Katya Borozova and the Dreamer Eternal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqgOl8Sxjq4

Katya Borozova and the Dreamer Eternal

Part I

When Simon Dewitt jerked up in bed during the wee hours just after midnight, he was drenched in a cold sweat. When one awakens from a dream such as this, one will often come back to one’s self, rationalize one’s experience, and try to fall back into more pleasant dreams. If one is particularly rattled, they may possibly read a book or acquire a warm beverage to calm one’s nerves.

Simon did none of these things. Instead, he threw the damp covers off, meandered in a half-conscious daze out of the bedroom, and in an almost morbid panic, grabbed his paints and brushes and threw himself in front of a half-finished canvas.

A half-an-hour later he was breathing just as hard as when he’d started, and was now covered in paint. But the canvas was complete. What was on it made him shudder, but it was complete.

He paced back and forth for a few minutes, trying to decide just what to do with it. Because the truth was that he had no idea what he’d just created. The thought crossed his mind to grab a lighter and simply burn the damn thing.

And yet, a few minutes after that he was throwing on his coat, and, protecting it under his arm, was running out into the somewhat foggy night.

But this was not a mad dash to nowhere. Simon knew exactly where he was going. Athain College. It was, of course, still the middle of the night, but maybe, just maybe, the person he was looking for might still be there.

It was only a five minute walk to the campus from his apartment, but it felt like longer. He was still in a haze from the night’s happening, and so the streets of Loeilham twisted and coiled around him, everything shimmering unnaturally from the mild condensation.

Finally, his feet met the comforting squish of the green. He looked upwards, and was delighted to see a light on in the window he was looking for.

This particular building was very dark, and his footsteps echoed hollowly as he dashed down the halls. He paid it no mind, far too intent on not getting lost or falling over. He almost failed both of these goals on several occasions. Yet in the end, panting, he found himself in front of the door he’d been looking for. The plaque screwed into the dark wood read: “Gerhart Angell, Professor of Archaeology.”

He knocked, maybe a little more desperately than he intended, and started for the doorknob even before he heard the grunt on the other side.

Stumbling in, the interior was small and cluttered. There were so many books and charts that they spewed from the shelves and rested on every surface imaginable. That made it a little difficult to discern in the dim light just who it was behind the large desk. But one thing was clear: it wasn’t the professor.

Simon wheeled back towards the door, but no, he had entered the right room.

“Can I help you?” the person behind the desk glanced up blearily. Now that she was looking directly at him, it was easier to tell that she was a petite woman with mousy brown hair, which she blew out of her eyes as she tried to get a better look at him.

Sheepishly, Simon took a step into the room. “I’m looking for Professor Angell…”

Her expression turned a touch pitying as she saw the confusion that marred his face. “Sorry,” she said. “You missed him by about this much. He just left for a dig in Egypt.”

“Oh… oh, that’s...”

“I may be of some help,” she offered. “I am his assistant, after all.”

He was having trouble placing her accent, which was not helping. Simon shook his head. “No, it’s not about a class or… or anything… the last seminar of his I took was about, uh… three s-semesters ago…”

She was clearly beginning to notice how out of sorts he was, for she sat up straighter, pity turning to worry. “Then what did you need?”

“Help,” he stated simply, “with this.”

He nearly threw the painting onto the desk. It was making his skin crawl just holding it. The woman looked down at it for a moment, then turned her gaze back to him, frowning. “Sir, this paint is still wet.”

“I know. I just painted it.”

“And you know this is the archaeology department, da?”

“I’m from the art history department,” he tried to explain, “but I know that no one’s there this late, so I came here.”

Her frown deepened. “I do not think you are understanding. I don’t usually work with things newer than about a thousand years old.”

She tried to slide the painting back to him, but he stopped her. “Please, I… I just painted what I saw in a dream.”

He cringed, knowing that there was no way these words would change her mind. But when he opened his eyes, it was only to see her staring down at the painting again.

“What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t. It’s Simon. Uh, Simon Dewitt.”

“Mr. Dewitt, how familiar are you with occultism?”

He shook his head. “I have a passing acquaintance, I suppose, but not much more.”

“Interesting,” she muttered. “These symbols here… and the colors… green and purple…”

Her head shot back up suddenly, her expression entirely altered. With twinkling eyes, she grinned up at him. “My name is Katya Borozova,” she said. “I believe I may be able to help you.”

~ o ~

When Simon next awoke, the sun streaming through the half-broken blinds, he wondered if the whole of last night hadn’t simply been some extension of the same long, convoluted dream. Then he sat up and nearly toppled back over again. His head throbbed. It was in that very specific, sharp way that occurs when one acquires very little sleep.

Blinking in the harsh sunlight, Simon fought against the knife repeatedly stabbing through his brain, and tried to remember when and how he’d gotten back home. The entire series of events rested in such a haze that it was proving quite impossible to ascertain any sort of logical sense from them. He wasn’t even quite sure who he’d spoken to. It hadn’t been the Professor, but beyond that…

Simon stumbled out of the bedroom, hoping that maybe getting something into his slightly queasy stomach might help him remember. As it turned out, breakfast was not needed, as just beyond the door lied an undeniable reminder.

In the middle of the old wooden floor, a young woman was squatting in front of a large assortment of books, papers, and canvasses, in the center of which sat of course his half-an-hour nightmare piece.

She didn’t notice him for several seconds, before reaching to the side for her cup of coffee. Her gaze paused on his feet for just a second, then traveled slowly all the up to his face. “Oh, you’re awake,” she said before turning immediately back to the sprawl. “I met your rat. Or at least, I assumed he was supposed to be here.”

“Sort of,” was all Simon could really mutter, as he wracked his brain trying to remember why she was here.

“He was very sweet. What is his name?”

“Uh… Bastard.”

The girl gasped, looking up at him. “Why would you name him that way?” she asked. “He really is the sweetest rat. He let me kiss his little head.”

“What? How?” Simon frowned. “All he ever does is bite me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Then maybe it is you who is bastard?”

“I—” Simon felt his cheeks turning red for reasons he could not quite determine. “We’re getting off track,” he frowned.

“Oh, I suppose you want to know what I’ve been doing since you passed out on me.”

“Well, yes, but before that,” he gulped, running a hand through his already tangled hair, “I’m going to be honest with you, uh…”

“Katya.”

“Yes, Katya. I… last night was, uh, a bit of a panicked haze and, uh, what exactly happened?”

The other corner of her mouth raised as her smile grew a little more concerned. “Ah, right. I would be a little more worried, but last night you did look very not good.”

“Thanks. I remember going to the Professor’s office…” he prompted.

“Well, I looked it over, the painting, I mean, and I asked if there were any more like it…”

“And I told you I had more at home.”

“So I followed a complete stranger back to his apartment in the middle of the night,” she giggled. “Thank you for helping to carry the books, by the way. You are more able than you appear.”

He wanted to make some sort of comment, but she was clearly foreign. Maybe she didn’t realize she was sort of insulting him. Plus, she was all the help he had.

“We worked for a little while, but you practically fell asleep on the floor so I told you to go to bed. And you have been asleep for the last…” she craned her neck around to look at the clock by the door, “… four hours?”

Simon was horrified. “I left you alone for four hours?” He’d be besides himself with anyone, but it was even worse that she was a young lady.

But Katya just shrugged. “I didn’t really notice. This has all been so interesting…”

“Uh, right. All of this…”

Katya scooted to the side, and he sat down next to her. “I’m going to ask again while you are more coherent,” Katya stared at him with almost caramel-colored eyes. “You are sure you have no experience with occultism, or ancient mythologies…”

“I mean, I am in the art history department,” he shrugged. “I probably know a little more than the average person, but I usually study Enlightenment-era pieces.”

“Hmm…” Katya frowned down at the spread of materials. “Then this is very strange.”

“In what way?”

“In many ways!” She pointed to one of the smaller canvasses. This one was mostly a splattering of letter-like symbols scrawled in his untidy hand. “Do you have any idea what this script is?”

Simon shook his head.

“It’s Enochian,” she grinned, then, when he looked confused: “It’s apparently the language of the angels, but I’m pretty sure some alchemist just made it up.”

She pointed to another canvas. “This one has what looks like hieroglyphics, and I think these dots might be constellations. These images here I have no idea whether they’re writing or just images. But the most striking one of all are the circles.”

“The circles?”

“They’re all magic circles. All of your canvases feature them. And I’ve managed to find an origin for nearly every one, most from medieval manuscripts.”

She flipped through one of the old books laid out open on the ground, and shoved it in his face. And indeed, there was a striking resemblance between the diagram in the leather tome and his hastily-scrawled brush strokes.

“But that’s not all they have in common,” she beamed up at him. “They’re not just any old magic circles. They’re all summoning circles.”

“Summoning circles?” Simon heard his own voice hitch a little. “For summoning what?”

“Oh, all sorts of things, it looks like. We have everything from demons to angels to elementals. There’s only one exception.”

“What’s that?”

She pointed to the middle of the pile, his canvas from last night. “This one. You see this shape here?” she traced a circular pattern towards the center. “This seems to be it, but it’s, well… irregular.” Upon seeing his expression, she explained. “Most summoning circles are largely symmetrical. But this one has some… odd shapes on the top…” And indeed, the jagged lines towards the top seemed to break the circle. “There’s a few discrepancies in the rest as well, but nothing as bad as this one.”

“I probably just painted them imperfectly. They’re from dreams, after all.”

Katya’s eyes widened. “I wanted to ask about that. I never got a chance to last night. You said you painted all of these after having bad dreams. That’s why I took an interest. Before he left for his expedition, Professor Angell had been… studying others dreams. He had me take notes on a lot of them, but I have no idea why. Do you remember yours?”

He had to think about that one for a second. “I… hmm. I think it’s usually very dark. Kind of suffocating. I think I’m deep underground. And there’s a voice with me. It’s different every time, but its always saying the same thing.”

“Which is?” Katya prompted, after he fell silent.

“W… th… a… sorry, I… I can’t quite wrap my head around it, if I’m honest. It mostly sounds like gibberish to me. I know there’s more to them than that. A lot more, I think. But I… I can’t seem to recall it…”

“A voice…” Katya thought. “You think someone’s there underground with you?”

“Or something.”

“Something like this?” she asked, pointed once again to his most recent canvas. It was hidden beneath several layers of lettering, circles, and paint splatter. But now that he squinted, it seemed as if there was almost some sort of shape, or shadow, lurking behind those lines. He wasn’t even quite sure it was made of paint at all. The sight made him shiver.

He checked the other canvasses, and although some were fainter than others, each one had what seemed like this same shape emerging from behind everything else he’d done. It, for some reason, felt very familiar to him.

“Yes,” he muttered, an odd ringing beginning in his ears. “Just like that.”

~ o ~

They worked, there on the floor, for several more hours, only taking a break to run back to Angell’s office to retrieve some of his aforementioned dream documents. Simon held the book for Katya as she translated the Enochian and hieroglyphics, but it all mostly came out as gibberish. Still, she held onto the several sheets of paper they filled, just in case, she said.

She was a very odd girl. Simon noted that right away, but there was almost something… charming about her forwardness. It was calming, in a way. Girls usually made him so nervous. Maybe he was just finding it easier because they had something between them and weren’t just trying to create conversation in a vacuum.

However, as the sun began to dip a little in the sky, casting a nearly eerie orange pall over the city, they found themselves frustrated. After all their work, they had nearly nothing to show for it.

“Well, I’m sorry I wasted your time,” he sighed, but Katya just shrugged.

“It gave me something interesting to do. I learned how to translate Enochian, which I’m sure will be very useful in the future. And the Professor will be happy to have more data for his dream project. I will check on that, by the way,” she glanced over at the box of papers that they still hadn’t touched, which was sitting in the corner of the room. “But after all that, I could sure use a drink.”

“What do you—? Right, you’re foreign.”

“Foreign? What does…?” her eyes widened. “I forgot, no alcohol in this hellscape of a country. The tightwad police allows no fun to be had.”

Simon shrugged. “Well, the people in power right now think that, at least. But if you’re really desperate, I might know a place.”

A small, mischievous smile broke out across her face. “I did not take you as the type to ‘know a place.’”

“What? Why not?”

“Because you are a little… dorky,” she finally decided.

“I may be a dork, but I’m also an artist,” he insisted. “I think ‘knowing a place’ is sort of a qualification for artistic deviancy.”

Her smile grew slightly lopsided. “Are you trying to impress me?” she asked. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

He was developing a pretty bad headache, most likely from the stress and lack of sleep, but she wasn’t wrong.

So they headed down the stairs and out of the rather old building. The East Bank streets were already growing quiet at this time of the evening, and so it made for a rather peaceful walk. Here, closer to the river, the culture clash between the two halves of the city was a little less extreme, and the old buildings were lop-sided and crumbling, even though all of them were less than a hundred years old. Many of the college’s students resided in this neighborhood, as rent was cheaper and within walking distance of the campus. That also meant it was the most likely place this side of the city to find some fun.

Although even Simon had to admit that from the outside, Ms. O’Reilly’s Tea Shop did not look all that “fun.” It was the sort of place old ladies occupied to trade the latest gossip. Unassuming outside, kitsch inside. But that made it the perfect place to hide booze, didn’t it? Plus, Ms. O’Reilly was a member of the IRA, so she had more to hide than just some booze anyway.

“Hullo there, Simon, love,” she gave a little, furtive smile at him as they entered. “The usual, I take it?”

He nodded, and Katya looks impressed when stooped, shawled Ms. O’Reilly didn’t even blink at her presence. She didn’t know that the old Irishwoman just made it a policy to not ask questions.

She led them to a door behind the counter and shut it gently behind them.

Beyond, the atmosphere was very different. The lights were low, and a thin haze of smoke pooled up towards the ceiling. Scratchy jazz played from a record somewhere, which was more than enough to fill the small space. Besides the two booths shoved in the corner, the bar was the main piece of furniture, and dominated the room. The wood of the counter was dark, almost black in the dim light.

The man at the bar looked up as they entered, slightly silhouetted by the lights illuminating the liquor display behind him. “Welcome to the Smiling Goat,” he grinned pleasantly, his round spectacles shining in the dark.

“Heya, Cowell,” Simon waved and sat down at the bar. Katya followed suit. She didn’t want to look like she’d never been in a bar before.

“Oh, this is Katya,” Simon gestured to her as the bartender, Cowell, looked over quizzically. “She’s at Athain too, over in the archaeology department. She’s been helping me with a… project.”

“Charmed.” There was something about Cowell’s grin that rubbed her the wrong way. “I ‘own the joint’ as you American’s might say.”

“Don’t lump me in with them,” Katya grumbled.

“Ah, forgive me. Didn’t realize you were also from across the pond. Hmm, Russia, maybe?”

“That’s right.” She was a little surprised. Most didn’t clock it immediately.

“Well, I s’pose you’ll want vodka then, or is that rude of me?”

Katya rolled her eyes. At herself, not him. “No, you nailed it on the head. The cheap stuff, please. I need a good burn.”

“I’ll just have a beer, thanks,” Simon added when Cowell glanced back over to him. “You still got that good stuff from Chicago?”

“Nearly out, but there’s a little left.”

After saluting playfully, Cowell turned back to the bar.

“So, you seem to be a, uh, ‘regular’ here,” Katya observed. Now that there was nothing between them, conversation was proving a little more difficult.

He shrugged. “Sometimes, with friends. You meet a lot of people here that are interested in art. You know, the Bohemian crowd.”

“That reminds me,” Katya said, nodding at Cowell as he passed them their drinks. “You are an artist artist. You paint,” she added when he looked confused. “So why are you in art history department?”

“Well, you’ve seen my work,” he sighed. “It’s not very… good.”

Katya frowned. “Who told you that? Odd, maybe, but not bad.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Of course! Just because not everyone understands it doesn’t make it inferior.”

“Well… thank you,” he smiled a little. “I haven’t heard that from a lot of people. So I thought: well, if I can’t make it, I might as well study it.” He rubbed his temples. His headache was getting worse. He hoped the alcohol might help.

Katya frowned, opening her mouth to interject again, but he didn’t let her. His face was growing a little too red the more they talked about him. “And what about you?” he asked instead. “Russia, was it? You’re a long way from home.”

“You’re… not wrong about that,” she smiled, nearly mysteriously. “I didn’t necessarily… get along very well back home. So I came here.”

“Oh, that’s right. I heard things have been kinda loony since the revolution.”

“The Rev…? Oh, right, of course. If I’m honest, I haven’t lived in Russia since before the revolution. But I don’t like to think about that much. What I’ve been doing here is much more interesting!”

“You’ve been working with Professor Angell, right?”

His eyes were beginning to glaze over a bit, but Katya didn’t really notice. “Oh yes,” she said, “I only had a few credits left and, well, I don’t really have anything to do after school, so he offered to make me his assistant and we’ll see where that leads. He’s really studying some very interesting things. That’s why he’s in Egypt right now. There’s been a tomb recently found for one of the founding members of some sort of cult and… Simon, are you alright?”

Clearly, he was not alright. His cheeks, previously bright red, had over the past minute grown exceptionally pale. He’d been blinking repeatedly, and as she closed the distance between them, concerned, he began swaying on his chair.

“I’m just… a little light-headed,” he tried to stand, but much to both Katya and Cowell’s shock, Simon’s head abruptly hit the counter.

Katya’s gaze shot over to Cowell, who looked just as surprised as she was. “Even he’s not that much of a lightweight.”

But before they could so much as blink, Simon started twitching. The twitches near immediately increased in pace, until he was practically convulsing on the counter. Cowell ran around and together, they grabbed him as best they could, if only to try to prevent him from hurting himself. He flopped nearly as much as a caught fish.

“We’ve got to get him to a doctor,” Katya insisted. “I have no idea what’s happening right now.”

“I can call,” Cowell said. “Let’s get him back to his apartment.”

Yet as the two began to drag him towards the door, Katya nearly dropped him.

“Hes osmec, hes osmec,” he mumbled incoherently. “Hes si het isr’ft.”

A sinking feeling began worming its way through her gut. At this very moment, there was no way to be sure, but as he continued mumbling incoherencies, she couldn’t help noticing that the nonsense nearly resembled that gibberish they’d decoded from his paintings just this morning.

~ o ~

“Are you sure there’s no one else we can call?” Katya asked from the door of Simon’s apartment.

“If there is, I certainly don’t know them,” Cowell shrugged. “I’ve only ever seen him with a few casual acquaintances. No family that I know of.”

“And I didn’t find anything to the contrary in the apartment,” she sighed.

Cowell looked sympathetic. “I’ve called a doctor, he should be round in a minute, love.”

Katya didn’t much care for suddenly being put in charge of a bedridden near-stranger, but there wasn’t much else she could do, was there?

Cowell turned back once to give her a little wave, but now that she saw his face in full light, something itched at her.

“Wait!” she called to him. “I… need to ask you a question, Mr. Cowell.”

“Oh, please, just Cowell is fine.”

“Cowell,” she glanced up at his face, suddenly feeling very cold. “We’ve met somewhere before.”

It wasn’t a question, and Cowell didn’t seem to take it as one. He smiled down at her, and then whispered, in perfect Russian: “The weather’s a little warmer here, isn’t it?”