Pilot: Chapter 29

Chapter 29

As Elena walked home, fat flakes of snow began to drift down. She smiled as she stopped and tilted her head up to watch them spin lazily to the earth. The flakes caught in her hair and brushed against her face, melting as they came into contact with her skin. She stuck her tongue out and caught one, letting lit melt down her throat. She pulled her tongue back in and closed her mouth. She smiled, turned to look at the street in front of her and continued walking home.

The first snow of the season was magical to her. It was the fifth and sixth snows of the season that wore on everyone. As she neared home, the flakes began to fall faster. Gone were the lazy spirals as snow fell in thick waves making the world seem like a television screen full of static. The world felt muffled by the snowfall, like a bell boxed in cotton. Elena shivered as cold drops of melted snow trickled sown her scalp. She hurried her steps, wishing she had thought to wear a hat.

Once inside, she shook off the wet and went up to her apartment. She draped her damp coat over one of the kitchen chairs and decided to change into an old t-shirt and yoga pants. Pleased that she had no plans to go out that evening, she decided to make some hot cocoa and curl up with a book while the snow fell.

She pulled her favorite reading chair towards one of the windows. The chair was close enough to see the snow falling but not close enough to feel one of those sneaky cold drafts that snaked around the cracks. Elena set her mug of cocoa on the flat arm of the chair and wrapped a heavy lap blanked around her curled up legs. She settled into the chair with a smile, and sipped her cocoa while reading and occasionally taking glances out of the window. Somewhere along the way she fell asleep.

The dreams once again took her from a world of bright to the dark of space. Again she rode the storm chaser and saw the ripples of heat where there should be none. She remembered her lesson from the previous dream and instead of turning away, Elena studied the spot.

Vague images, such as she would get at the beginning of any channel passed through her mind. These were a little different however as if they were muffled behind a curtain. Elena took a deep breath and mentally ran through the old piloting lessons that had been her among her first. She could hear Deana Lang’s voice in her head. She repeated the words to herself.

“Never ride a channel blind. Always look down the path first. See not only what is on the other side but the nature of the channel. Any fool can see what is on the other side and get greedy enough to chase it. Only the smart ones come back.”

Elena decided if she was getting images as if it were a channel, perhaps she should check it’s nature as if it really were a channel. She shifted her inner sight not to follow the path of the channel but to see specifically the channel itself. It was nearly the same as when she took one of her ocean’s channels into space. Just as the open channels whispered to her, so did this one and what she learned told her it would be a one way channel. She shook her head.

“I can’t take one-way channels,” her dream self said. I don’t know the system connecting them back to my space. I need a two way.” Her ship continued to sail and she focused on a different shimmer of heat. She repeated the process and this time found a two way channel. Elena stared at it a moment.

“At least it would be a two way channel if I knew how to open it.” Elena frowned in thought. She pushed the fact that logic said she couldn’t open a channel away. “After all,” she said aloud. “This is my dream.” The dream began to fade, as if acknowledging it as such stripped it of its power. A thud started her from sleep and Elena blinked her eyes blearily open. She looked around and saw her book on the floor.

“Must have slipped,” she muttered. Luckily the cocoa had been finished before she fell asleep and the mug was already placed on the floor. Elena stretched, shivering when her limbs peeked out of the warm cocoon of air beneath her blanket. She wrapped the blanket around her and stood up. Elena glanced out of the window and saw the world wrapped in a thick blanket of white. It looked as though several inches had stuck already and the snow was still falling.

“Good thing I don’t have to go out tomorrow,” she muttered as she shuffled towards the bedroom. “No matter how many years they have lived with snow, people always forget how to drive on it the first time out.” She brushed away the visions of car wrecks that she figured would feature on tomorrow’s evening news.

She glanced at the leather notebook and briefly thought about writing down her dream, but decided it could wait until morning. She shrugged off her blanket and crawled into bed. She curled up and let herself relax. As she was drifting off, a thought occurred to her.

“I didn’t get a headache that time.” Elena smiled and drifted into a deep dreamless sleep.