The dream bothered me throughout breakfast. I thought about it as I nibbled on a biscuit smothered with an exotic type of marmalade found only in Crystallia. I thought about it as I made my way to the throne room. I thought about it as I tuned in and out of an argument between the Mistress and a Crystallian who refused to pay his taxes.
Why did that boy look so familiar? I wondered. Where have I seen him before?
“ELLIE!” the Mistress shrieked, wrenching me out of my thoughts.
I jumped. “Yes, Mistress?”
“I’ve called you at least ten times, dear!”
“Sorry,” I said hastily. “I’m just…thinking.”
“About what? What could possibly make you think so deeply that you would ignore my voice?”
I averted my gaze and felt myself flush, feeling ashamed of both my trite thoughts and my disobedience. I didn’t want to admit what I had been thinking of.
“Ellie?” the Mistress said, kinder this time. “Look at me dearest.”
I obeyed and met her eyes that were filled with love. “Tell me what is bothering you.”
I sighed, embarrassed to obey but too scared to disobey. “It’s…a boy.”
“A boy?” she repeated. Her tone was calm but reflected her obvious shock.
“Yes, Mistress,” I agreed, blushing deeper. “There’s a slave boy I saw the other day. I could have sworn I’ve seen him before--he seems so familiar. Then I had a dream about him last night, and I could have sworn I’ve had the same dream in the past.” I looked up. “What does this mean, Mistress? I’m so confused…”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you have seen him before,” she said. “Chances are good that he works in the palace.”
“But I’ve never seen him before in Crystallia--not that I remember, anyway,” I explained. “I could swear that I haven’t only seen him before, but that I actually once knew him!”
“Do these thoughts trouble you?” she asked sweetly.
“They do, Mistress. A lot.”
She rose from her throne. “Then I shall help you overcome these thoughts. Come, Ellie.”
I followed her through a maze of hallways. We finally reached a door, similar to my room’s door, and the Mistress put her three-fingered hand on a device to the right of the door. The thing scanned her hand, and the door opened a second later.
We entered, and it shut behind us.
“Lights,” the Mistress said.
Light obediently flooded the room, revealing that we were in what appeared to be a lab room. There was a big chair in the center of the room, which reminded me vaguely of something from Earth--a chair that was found in a… What do you call it again? The person who takes care of your teeth? Oh, right! A dentist. It looked like a dentist’s chair. I shuddered at the memories of going to the dentist. Fillings, demands that I floss more frequently--and better, the nasty taste of fluoride treatments, in which I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything for a specified time period afterward to rid myself of the taste, and the tooth polish that always tasted disgusting no matter what flavor I asked for.
The Mistress sat me down in the chair and rummaged through cupboards and drawers until she finally found a tube with a suction cup attached at the end. She stuck the other end of the tube onto a valve of a big, slightly scary-looking machine and put the suction-cup side on my forehead.
“This machine will delete the memories of this boy you spoke of, which should help clear your mind and soothe your soul,” she said gently. “It will render you unconscious for a while, but when it has finished its job, you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, as if you took a pleasant nap.”
I was so relieved to hear that she doing this for me that I felt tears well up in my eyes. “Thank you, Mistress,” I choked. “You’re so good to me.”
She smiled. “Sleep well, Ellie.”
She turned a lever, and I was out.
