Deathdream #4

only a short section this time, as Doctor Who is on soon, and i need to make some food first, but at least the swimmer has a name, now...
...
The swimmer was sitting, knees drawn up to her chin, in the middle of the bed. Feeling vulnerable.


The rain had stopped, and the moon had come back out from behind the clouds, and Biffy had wandered outside to continue his vigil over the lake, sitting astride the balustrade, about halfway along the sloping walkway. Purly and 'Nita had fetched her some towels so she could dry herself off. Now she was naked in a strange place with no memory of who she was. The girls were, once again, sitting on the end of the bed, their backs to her. Clutching the towel tight around her, she tentatively asked, “Uh... Purly? When you said it was bad that I didn’t know my name, you never said why...”

Without turning round, 'Nita parroted, in a singsong voice, “To name the thing is to control the thing. To defeat the monster, you must first speak its name. When summoned by the true name, each creature must respond.” And then she was silent, almost as if she’d never spoken.

The swimmer was nonplussed. She tried again. “Purly? Can you explain that to me?”

Purly turned around with the exasperation of the child for the idiot adult. “She means that you need your name to control yourself, and to stop them controlling you. When neither of you know your name, they can control you a bit. If they find out before you do, they can control all of you. But first control goes to you if you know your name. See?”

“...I...I think so....” said the slightly confused swimmer. “...but...who are...they?”

Purly rolled her eyes in exasperation. She made a wide gesture towards the French windows. “Them!”

“The things in the lake?”

“No! Yes! Both. All of them!” Purly turned her back on the swimmer, the set of her shoulders showing her annoyance at the swimmer’s density.

And the swimmer saw, as plainly as if it had been written in white on a black wall in front of her, that there were, out there in the dark, more things to fear than these ‘soul eaters’. She shivered a little, and drew her knees tighter under her chin. Trying to make a solid, impenetrable barrier against all of the fearsome things that may yet be lurking out of, or in, plain sight.

She began to wonder, in earnest, what her name could be.

She tried a few out. Alexandra? No. Natalie? Alicia? Helga? No. Julie? Mary? No. She ground her teeth in frustration.

She looked at Purly’s back. “Purly? What if I named myself? Would that give me any protection?”

Purly turned around. “Dunno.” She said, thoughtfully. Then turned and shouted out of the windows: “Biffy!”

He turned around. “What?”

“Can she name herself? Would that help?”

Biffy swung his leg over the balustrade and walked up to the windows, gazing at the swimmer. She felt uncomfortable, and pulled the towels yet tighter around herself.

“Dunno,” he said. “It might, I suppose. What are you going to name yourself, then?”

“Marina.”

“Why?”

“Because I came from the water.”