Dreamweaver (Part 2)

Rupert shut the door behind them and held onto Lucy's hand. Lucy found herself in a large cylindrical room. The book-lined walls seemed to rise forever upwards. Warm yellow light shone through the many windows built in no particular order all around the walls. Lucy could see even high up there were windows, which looked like tiny floating specks of light. Stacks of books, parchments and all sorts of weird-looking contraptions were scattered on the circular room floor and there were also armchairs all around the place. Lucy looked at the ground and saw layers and layers of carpets overlapping each other, all of them with different colours and designs.

Lucy spotted movement in one of the armchairs. A man was sitting there. He was quite tall and skinny. Normally tall people are hard to miss. Lucy did not notice him because he was wearing a worn-out brown suit, almost the exact same colour as the chair he was sitting in. The man was reading a rather voluminous book that looked like what someone really smart would read. The man spoke without looking away from his book, "Welcome back, Rupert. Very polite of you to knock before entering."

"Wasn't me. We have a guest," Rupert said.

The man looked up and saw the little girl beside Rupert. He was staring at them wide-eyed. He slammed the book shut and moved with a swift pace towards Lucy to have a closer look at her.

Rupert continued, "Professor, meet Lucy. Lucy, this is the Professor. "

 

Lucy extended her right hand and said, "Nice to meet you Mr. Professor, sir. I...muszz...schrbb... dszshs...u...wndfl..plzsc."

The Professor had pressed the long fingers of his left hand against Lucy's mouth.

"What is this Rupert? How did she get here?" the Professor said.

"She did the You-Know-What that you said would NEVER be done by anyone. AND she can stir the stars. I told you not to..." Rupert began.

The Professor held out his right hand to Rupert for him to be silent with the left hand still pressing against Lucy's mouth. He scrunched his chin and looked away from them, deep in thought. Then he  dropped his arms, backed away from them both and started pacing back and forth, back and forth, stopping right in mid stance several times to stare at Lucy and after a while began to pace again.

Lucy was beginning to panic and thought she had done something wrong. She looked up at Rupert who was still holding her hand. He just gave her a shrug.

The Professor finally stopped pacing. And fell back into his armchair. Lucy and Rupert stood there waiting for a response but the Professor had returned to reading his book again.

Rupert rolled his eyes and let out a loud fake cough. "What should we do about the Lucy?"

The man said, "What? Well yes. I haven't decided. Make her go away. I will think about it later. I 'm in the middle of this book, really have to finish it. Can't put it down now."

Lucy looked at the Professor and saw that he was only perhaps a few pages into the very thick book. Rupert  let out a loud sigh and and shook his head to himself. He began leading Lucy back towards the door which they had came through. Rupert and Lucy was about at the door when the Professor said, "Come back tomorrow night, little girl."

Lucy turned to look at the Professor who had again spoken without looking up. The she looked at Rupert.  He gave Lucy very animated nods. Lucy turned back to the Professor and replied, "Yes, sir. I will. Thank you."

With that, Rupert and Lucy stood right in front of the door and Rupert stamped again three times but this time not as hard. He then opened the door to reveal Lucy's room, but they were seeing it from the ceiling. Lucy looked through and could make out through the invisible veil, herself sprawled on the bed sleeping soundly.

Rupert said, "Tomorrow night.. Just do the You-Know-What and you should get to the starry fields again. I will meet you there. Goodbye."

Before Lucy could ask him a question, Rupert had pushed Lucy and she stumbled through the door. She thought she would fall to the other side and land on flat on her face on top of herself on the other side. So she squeezed her eyes shut. Lucy held it shut for several moments. Then several moments more. But she found there was no great big crash. She opened her eyes and found herself in the big starry field again. But this time there were sheep everywhere! And she had a lovely time playing with all the sheep. She played with the sheep for such a long time. Lucy was very tired but also happy. And then she laid down to stare at the stars, with all the sheep laying by her side. 

She opened her eyes and was snug in bed. Sunlight was shining through the window. It was morning.

To be continued...