Title: Completing the Circle in Rain
Author: Carol A. Clarke
Email: Carol.Clarke@mail.state.ky.us

Rain! Rain is nothing, if not emotion in action. The tears of mother earth. The foreshadowing of life. My English teachers loved to talk about foreshadowing. How the lightning in King Lear signaled the coming of some big bad. Frankly, I never got it. I really never wanted to. But Will got it. Not only got it, but loved it. When she didn't have her nose stuck in the computer she had it a book. And Will remembers everything she reads. Yep! She's definitely knowledge girl, me, I never remember anything.

Ok, so let's get to the point. The are a lot of things to know about slayers. You want facts ask my watcher. He loves to give out those kinds of details. Just let him finish the One girl in all the world speech otherwise he gets real cranky. And a cranky watcher soon makes an unhappy slayer.

The point! I am getting there, chill. The only thing you need to know about slayers, is that we have these weird dreams. Sure we have prophecy dreams. They are way like, no fun at all. And we do this whole dream-sharing thing. Giles calls it dreamwalking. That can be pretty embarrassing. Once I was having this kick ass dream about my boyfriend Angel only it was in his dream! We did stuff. It felt so good and so real, only then we both figured out we were dreaming together and it got weird from there. So I can tell you dreamwalking on a whole is not the big happy you might think it is. Try sharing a dream with evil slayer girl, also known as Faith. An experience of the bad I can tell you.

Then there are the other kinds of dreams. Dreams about the past. My past. Not my past in this life. No twentieth century, or is that 21st, TV, cars and air conditioner world dreams. Nope! There is me as a slave in Virginia, me a maid in a bar, me the kings daughter. Castles are really cold. And no toilets! Eww!

I normally don't talk much about these kinds of dreams. I mostly just blow them off. Then the rain starts. And I remember all those dreams. The dreams with rain. The dreams with rain and Will.

It was raining, I remember the being soaked to the born and so very cold standing in the field. And she stopped for me. She had made the coach driver stop. Unheard heard of in that time. She made me come inside the coach with her. She had her man put the vegetables I was gathering on top of the coach. She was so beautiful. All red hair in a silk dress. She had a reputation for kindness. The whole village talked about her kindness and I was in love with her. So very in love with her.

She was the lady of the manor. Wife of the Lord. She was so far above my station I could never even speak with her. It didn't stop me from loving her though. I would catch her looking at me sometimes in church. I lived for her smile. And I died thinking of nothing else. And never in the 17 years of my life, That life, did we once speak. I died with her holding my hand. The blood draining from my throat and I just want to tell her I loved her but I couldn't say the words. Not because of the wound in my throat from the vampire but because I was so afraid to form the words.

Then there was another dream. Another place. Another time it was raining. It was someplace in Asia, China I think. She was a great sorceress. I was a slayer. Like I have ever been anything other then a slayer. My watcher wanted her dead. And I killed her. Then I killed myself. I sent her to her death without a single word from my lips.

There were other lives. Other rainstorms. Most not nearly as eventful. And I loved her in each and every one of those lives. And in each and every one of those lives I never told her. Not one time. Even now I blow those dreams off. Rationalize them as fantasy. But I know the truth. So I sit here by my window in our dorm room and watch the rainfall against the glass waiting for her to come home. Hoping this time I will have the courage to tell her how much I love her. Have been in love with her. Will always be in love with her until the end of time. This time I will tell her.