Dreamer School

Which meant Molly could keep everything she wanted stored within the pages of her journal and summon whatever she needed, when she was done she could then unread the thing and make it disappear.

For example, she kept a dresser full of clothes that floated on a small giggling cloud in her journal and summoned it when she felt like changing her outfit. Within the one drawer of the hovering dresser, was another set of drawers she could pull up vertically, one by one, and each of those contained a set of deep drawers with clothes in it. So this one drawer floating dresser was actually filled with drawers containing entire dressers of drawers.

Molly sensed she was starting to get the knack of it. She slowly started to feel like a young goddess. She began to notice her limits in working with the book, writing more than a couple pages a day really drained her, and she found herself lazing about on her bed too tired to think. It seemed writing new things took energy, but reading them into the world didn't.

She laid on the silk sheets of her canopy bed in just a pair of red silk panties with flames stitched out of lace at the top of the waistband. She stroked her black, purring cat and watched a small floating, shiny yellow, thick plastic, tube TV with miniature, white, flapping angel wings at the end of her bed.

Molly was experimenting with the TV, she noticed the shows were like dreams of other shows she had watched when she was alive, kind of all mixed in with each other. Watching it made her feel like she was high on some psychedelic.

Everything seem amplified on The Astral Plane. Watching the TV, Molly noticed it encompassed a large chunk of her attention. It felt to Molly, the yellow, angelic TV was reaching out directly to her thoughts and playing exactly what she wanted. It was tripping her out. She found what was on the screen was also leaking out and filling the room around her.

It was something like a mix of a sitcom and old cartoon she was watching. The technicolor rabbit was running all around her bed. The trees around her became cell-shaded paintings and the soundtrack of the cartoon filled the air around her like a thick staticky chorus. Soon the whole thing was shifting into a vocal trance music video and she was falling like a pinball with the zebra colored rabbit down the tube of a giant swirling eye into a sex dungeon containing a giant green wasp with a stinger dripping cream the flavor of screams. Molly swallowed.

She found herself hypnotized by the entire experience but she wanted to save the ending for later when she could enjoy it. She turned off the TV and unread it. It disappeared before she looked up from the book. Her room was back to normal with the forest around her. She found the TV a decent distraction for when she was trying to recover her energy between writing.

Her cat meowed, and Molly ran a finger along her delicate ears to quiet her down.

Molly dropped her head back on her pillows and let out a wonderful sigh. She was in heaven. Everything she could ever need or want was right here at her fingertips.

Well... almost everything.

She bit her lip, there was one thing she wanted that she couldn't make up. Sea.

What was it about him that pulled her to him? She could make anything in this room of hers any time she wanted, but she couldn't stop thinking about this man she barely knew.

A flashing LED butterfly landed on her left breast with a tickle and Molly picked it up with her finger and examined it up close. The detail was incredible, realer than real. Molly saw the "M" she built into each glassy pixel-infused wing as her little signature.

It was time for class. She had made the butterfly so it would land on her and flash its wings when it was fifteen minutes before class. At first, she kept a clock floating around her with the time and before nine everyday she would get dressed and walk to the classroom to see if there was class. This is when she discovered that class wasn't on a set schedule, but no one told her that. Molly felt like she was missing some kind of introduction to the school that told her all these important details. The floating time was starting to annoy Molly, so she had an idea.

She wasn't sure if it would work, but she wrote that a tiny butterfly alarm would come to her whenever class was about to start. To her surprise it actually worked and now she could stay in her room without having to leave in the morning to check if there was class or not everyday. She wondered how the other students knew when class was about to start. Maybe she would ask Rebecca, if she ever saw her again.

Molly's focus returned to the butterfly flashing its wings on her dainty branch of a finger, it was so gentle and wonderful, she always hated the aggressiveness of alarms when she was alive.

She summoned her dresser and it popped into space before her, hovering on a ticklish cloud leaking swirling tendrils of mist across her lap. She pulled open the one black drawer by the silver crescent handle and it slid open easily. Molly peered into the nine wide drawers, each marked with a different silver shape as the handle, and pulled up the first drawer marked with a fish. This drawer contained nine more drawers stacked on top of each other inside the first drawer, like a shallow dresser. She opened each drawer one by one hunting for a dress she wanted to wear.

She pulled out a black one piece dress with long sleeves and white cuffs, the chest from the white collar to the puffy shoulders was a see-through, black mesh made of lacy hearts. It would have cost a fortune for that kind of detail. She pushed the moon drawer down and pulled up the drawer marked with a mouse handle. The drawers in this dresser overflowed with pantyhose of every style and color. She pulled out a pair of fishnet stockings where all the holes were the shapes of eyes. She threw them on the bed with the dress and closed the drawer and opened another filled with shoes. She opened them one by one looking for a pair she liked when she found a pair of thick, chunky, short black boots with red combat treads the shapes of hearts, to match her dress. It had little cat skull key-chains the size of marbles dipped in fire engine red dangling from the zippers on the sides. The last item Molly pulled out of her drawers of dressers was the fiery ruby bra that matched her panties. She knew it would show under the mesh top of the dress.

The week with her journal left Molly feeling much more confident. She felt like she could do anything, and she could in a way. She looked at herself in her mirror and read a line from her journal. A smoky eye shadow laced with red was on her eyes along with some perfectly formed wings. Molly smiled, turning her head and looking at each eye in the mirror behind her glasses. At first she had tried doing her makeup, but it was taking forever and she was never really good at it. She realized it was way easier to just write it down and read it from her journal. She could do the same with her clothes too if she wanted, but she enjoyed the process of picking something out. However, she kept a half dozen or so outfits written down for various occasions just in case.

Molly grabbed her journal and dashed out her room. She didn't really care for class, she didn't learn much that helped her, though it was fun to hear what other people were struggling with and Sea was there. Though he hadn't asked any more questions since the one a week or so ago.

On the way down the hall, she saw the others walking to class as well and it made her realize Rebecca was still nowhere to be found, she hadn't seen her since the last time she asked her to go into the woods with her. Did she go alone? Whenever she asked about Rebecca they always said she was probably in the library. Molly decided to check out the library one of these days, but she hated leaving her room.

Molly took her usual seat and waited for Sea to enter. It was her favorite part of class. He came in as usual and briefly glanced towards Molly and took in her outfit. Her heart was in a bath of warm water with foamy suds and lush soaps. The two of them were the only one's that wore black in the class. It made Molly feel connected to him.

Patricia popped out of her book after nine and looked at Sea as well. She had been slightly awkward around him since that time Molly had overheard them in the office a week back.

"Okay class, today is a surprise field trip," Patricia said, "get up, let's go. Chop chop."

The class stood up slowly, puzzled.

"Where are we going?" All the Andreas asked one after the other.

"You'll see soon," Patricia said, "Dram, wake up, let's go, field trip." Patricia was poking and prodding the old man with the white beard awake.

"Whaa, what, class is over?" The old man said in a kind of wheezy yawn.

"No it's just started, we're all going on a field trip, let's go," Patricia said.

The old man stood and grabbed his journal which looked more like a bundle of papers stitched between two thick boards. He was surprisingly spry and alert as he followed the class in line and out the door.

Molly grabbed her journal and fell into the rear of the ambling line of students. She looked for Sea, but he was far in the front of the line and Patricia was talking to him seriously about something.

They all pooled out into the courtyard on the first floor and Patricia led them up to a tarnished silver gate built into one of the walls. They swung open with a chime like a large harp and Patricia stepped outside the walls. No one moved.

"I thought you said we can't leave these walls, is this some kind of test?" The young man with the "this sucks!" shirt asked.

"I said, you shouldn't go beyond the walls until you have a better grasp on your abilities," Patricia said, "I never said you should never go beyond the walls. I am here with you, so it will be fine. We are just going to walk down to the beach, I want to introduce you all to some other inhabitants that live around us."

"Oh my god, mermaids?!" Andrea said, she huddled with two other reflections of herself and they all giggled excitedly.

Patricia rolled her eyes, "yes, mermaids, now let's go, we don't have a lot of time before they leave."

Some of the young men looked at each other wide-eyed and a little nervous. Molly heard them whisper, "mermaids?"

They all followed Patricia out across a field and then down a path for about a mile. The stone path turned sandy after a while and they found themselves on the edge of a small seaweed infested beach. The twilight light show above made the entire journey extraordinary.

The foamy waves crashed on the beach under a rainbow shimmer. The stars were bright and numerous in the purple-blue sky. The moon was waning towards a new moon and cast a sliver of orange-pink light down on the beach. There were figures silhouetted against the bright colorful sky sitting and lounging on top of rocks that jutted out of the sea.

Patricia led them all down onto the beach. Molly was happy with her shoe choice since it helped her navigate the wet sand. Some of the other students seemed to have trouble. Molly caught a couple of them reading out different outfits for the beach, or unreading their shoes so they were barefoot.

A warm, salty wind blew along the beach as Patricia yelled out to the class over the crashing waves. Figures dove off the rocks and came swimming up onto the wet sand of the beach.

There were a dozen or so mermaids. Everyone gasped. After Patricia beckoned, the whole class came forward and the mermaids found themselves surrounded by a small group of students each.

Molly saw Dram furiously taking notes in his ancient looking journal, the ginger mermaid with golden-orange scales attached to him was rolling around on the sand so he could see everything of her. She reached out a dainty white hand and the old man bent over and kissed it tenderly, thanking her. She ran her hands over his head and through his beard, giggling.

Molly noticed Patricia taking Sea over to a mermaid who had a kind of crown made from pearls with a silver disk that reflected the crimson glow of the moon on top of her head.

Patricia was pointing to the shadow around Sea and talking with the mermaid about it. The royal mermaid looked up at Sea and studied him for a minute before shaking her head. Patricia crossed her arms over her book and talked with the mermaid. Molly saw the mermaid look past Patricia and at her directly.

"You like him don't you?" A voice with an accent that sounded like a conch shell echo at the top of every vowel said next to Molly.

She looked down to see a young, pale mermaid with long platinum hair that stuck across her dripping skin like wet roots. There were finger long slits of rose-pink gills hidden under the delicate lines of her jaw. Her lips were blue and shivering. Her eyes sharp and sad. They were like two stormy crystal balls framed in white lashes that curved out like frothy waves. Tears were dripping from them and turning to pearls before they hit the sand, creating something like the sound of rain pouring all around her. Tiny crabs the color of lilac growing in a pumpkin patch and the size of jean buttons clung to her earlobes like living jewellery.

"He's haunted by a higher power than anything on this plane," the mermaid said, a tear falling from the corner of her eye and turning into a silver pearl before rolling off her chin and into the sand.

Molly looked at her, "what is it, exactly? That darkness swirling around him? I'm Molly by the way, what's your name?"

"I'm called Zella," the mermaid said, slapping her strong fishy tail against the sand, "he is being pulled towards a great force. A dark divinity, far from here on the cosmic spiral, is fast-tracking him towards her."

"You can see all of that?" Molly asked, her big eyes widening.

"We are all in tune with the undertows of deep love," Zella said, gesturing to the other mermaids with a washed out hand.

"Is that the same thing she's telling them over there?" Molly asked pointing towards the mermaid with the crown talking to Patricia and Sea.

"She won't tell them anything," Zella said, "you on the other hand," Zella smiled and the toy crabs on her ears stuck out their minuscule claws in unison and blew out a patch of foamy bubbles that decorated the mermaid's ear wonderfully in rainbow lace.

The wind was blowing Molly's hair all over the place, so she tied it up with her scarlet scrunchie and tried to concentrate on Zella.

"This Goddess that's laid claim to Sea," Molly began, licking her lips, "is there a way to undo her hold on him?"

"No," Zella said.

Molly's heart sank.

Zella slapped her vermilion-quicksilver tail and Molly watched as she undulated the scales on her fishy half in such a way that Molly began to see things inside it.

She peered deeply into the moonlight reflecting and rippling across the flashing scales the size of half dollars and it took over her mind.

There was a hallway with a vast number of doors, it seemed to go on forever. And then she saw herself with Sea, but also Patricia was there. Rebecca was running around and the Goddess with the black eyes was chasing them from door to door. They were like a big family in a game of alternating tag, Molly felt a great glee between them all as they ran from door to door making love and sharing in each other's essence under one eternal roof.

"Go to the courtyard under the darkness of the new moon," Zella said with a twist of her tail against beach, that sent her fin flat into the sand and coated the scene in her scales with a curtain of sand.

"Molly! Let's go," Patricia called out across the beach.

Molly blinked, she felt like she had lived a week in that mermaid's scales, she had so many questions about what she had seen.

Zella grabbed Molly's hand and gave it a cold, salty kiss before making her way back into the waves of the ocean. She looked back at Molly, and she saw Zella's big eyes reflecting in the night like a wild animal before she jumped back under the rainbow painted waves of the dark ocean.

Molly looked at her hand where the mermaid had kissed with her cold, wet lips and saw a ring made entirely of black pearl. She held it up before her eyes and twirled it around. She noticed the pearl at its center was in the same stage as the moon in the sky. How odd, she thought.

"Molly come on, you too Dram, let's go!" Patricia called out and Molly turned away from the ocean and ran up the sandy hill towards the rest of the class with Dram bringing up the rear filled with a glazed look of love.

She played with the ring on her finger as she trekked in behind the class back to the school.

~~~

It was three days later, and the night of the new moon was here. She looked at her finger where the ring had been, the center pearl was all but gone now. It had been slowly dissolving as the night of the new moon approached. Molly's heart was aflutter ever since the beautiful mermaid put such wonderful thoughts in her head.

During most of those three days, Molly fretted over what she was going to wear. She settled on a velvet black dress with a tall lacy collar and white cuffs. Molly found herself coming back to the same motif over and over. She looked in the mirror, her dark smokey look with wings was startlingly beautiful. It scared Molly to see herself look so good. She did a twirl in the mirror.

The only thing that bugged her were her goofy glasses. It was the one item she seemed unable to change. Any physical modifications that weren't just cosmetic seemed to take so long to manifest in her form, that it practically didn't work. So her eyesight was always going to be bad and she was afraid to tweak too much about her actual body.

But her hair, she could change easily, she modified it into a long, sharp bob that cut down at a steep angle from the back of her head. It took a couple tries to find the exact angle that accentuated her face and long, skinny neck, but she found the perfect cut eventually. Molly pushed up her smudgy glasses and smiled.

Tonight was her chance, she could feel it. But the chance to do what? She was so unsure what exactly waited for her in the courtyard tonight. She wished the mermaid had given her more detail, the wait was torturing her.

Molly grabbed her journal, stepped into her flats, left her room, and drifted off towards the courtyard with the help of the colony of butterflies in her stomach. She had wondered if she should have worn heels or jewellery, but she didn't want to make it seem too obvious. She felt like she was going on a date where she couldn't let her partner know it was a first date.

As she walked towards the stairwell, she looked out the windows of the hallway that overlooked the courtyard. She didn't see anyone in the rippling twilight of the night. The moon was dark and the rusty pink glow was absent tonight.

Molly's heart collapsed and all the butterflies in her stomach wilted when she didn't see anyone in the courtyard. Maybe she had it all wrong? Maybe the mermaid was talking about something else? She sighed and continued down into the stairwell on her way to the first floor.

She stepped out into the grassy courtyard and felt the night air tickle the back of her neck with a kiss and run breezy hands up her dress like the creep it always was. She closed her eyes and absorbed it in. She had cooped herself up in her room for the past few days, and it was too small a space to bring in the wild taste of the outdoors.

She opened her eyes and he was there, lying on a pale stone bench under the night shade of a tree, his book rising and falling on his chest. Molly realized there was no way she would've been able to see him from above when she looked out over the courtyard.

She clutched her journal against her breasts in a failed attempt to silence her heart as she crept silently towards him across the quiet courtyard.Molly instantly noticed the shadow that usually swept around him was gone. She took a chance and stepped up right next to him on the bench. Nothing jumped out at her. He was all hers.