Chapter 20. Maria of the Dream
After all the exhaustion accumulated throughout the day, sleep brought strange dreams for the visitors in the guest flesch:
Sirocco was once again a ginger kitten hunting butterflies alongside Boo, who had turned, in her turn, into a darling little kitty, ready to acquire from her new friend what it was like to learn more and more with each passing day, in the courtyard of the house of winds on Ether Drive.
Mistral had become a super-tomcat capable of "reading" the menus of every restaurant in Dublin with his senses, and he was explaining to Arr the importance of a siesta after a sophisticated dinner.
Aeolus was having a nightmare. In his dream, he was being chased with pitchforks and shovels by the residents of Ether Drive, and each pursuer had an athletic cat by their side, with whiskers as long as antennae. He had hidden beneath a large plantain leaf, but Gogo the pigeon was screaming at the top of his lungs:
"Get him! He is right there, under the plantain leaf!"
Anemo was in the middle of a rambling, nonsensically elucubrant speech, but not in front of his acquaintances, but before the dwellers of the Celtic fort. He was terribly embarrassed by what was coming out of his mouth and causing microphone feedback, while from the crowd, the Archdruid pointed a finger at him and shouted:
"He is an impostor, not a bard! Let us sacrifice him to Morrigan!"
And Morrigan-Remi was laughing at him from ear to ear.
In Remi’s dream, the mysterious woman had appeared once more, wearing her traditional Austrian costume with the elegance of a queen. She stood in front of their flesch, next to a huge cauldron from which billowed steam smelling of chamomile.
"Do I know you?" Remi asked her. "I am sure I know you, but I can no longer remember who you are. You want to help me, don't you?"
The woman nodded and pulled an oak gall out of her apron pocket.
"To save Boo, you need to smear royal blue blood upon their banner, my dear," she said. "I am Maria; you have read about me and about the remedies from God’s pharmacy. I have been your muse, Remi. Now watch and learn!"
The steam rising from the massive cauldron suddenly took shape, and Remi watched, mute with amazement, a veritable tutorial on how to make a decoction from oak galls to coat her palm, and how she needed to sprinkle iron sulphate, known locally as the salt of the earth, onto Ri’s anthropomorphic dagger.
"Do not forget, my dear!" Maria added, and vanished into the chamomile-scented steam.
Remi woke up abruptly and leapt straight to her feet.
"Now I know!" she whispered. "I studied the life of Maria Treben for my book!"
She stepped through the dim light of the room with absolute confidence and placed a hand on the shoulder of Anemo, who, in his dream, was just preparing to deliver a response in verse to the Archdruid.
"Anemo! Anemo, wake up! We must go to Ri’s house right this moment... there is no time to waste."
***
Ri and his wife looked as though they were expecting them. They were awake, dressed, and ready for battle, but their faces betrayed deep worry. In the entire house, only the children were still asleep. The adults—which, according to local custom, meant everyone over the age of fourteen—were waiting in a silent, tense anticipation.
Remi bowed her head in respect and asked for permission to speak first with Eithne, the young mother who was holding her three-month-old infant to her chest.
Ri nodded silently, while gesturing with his hand for Anemo to come closer, so they could talk man to man.
They needed strategies, tactics, and solidarity, for the danger that Arr had scented in the night was drawing closer, and they, the inhabitants of the fort, had to find the inner strength to fight, even in the depths of the spring famine.
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