It had taken only seconds for everything to change. One moment they had been holding hands, walking together on a beautiful cloudless evening, under the full moon. She had just needed to run in to pick up her prescription. And then he had found himself staring at an abyss where the drugstore had been. The street sign was gone, as well as exactly half of the car on the side nearest to the fire hydrant, as though a giant blade had sliced into the world. Which, in a sense, it had.
He stared down at his empty hands, acutely aware that they were indeed empty. He suddenly felt so useless, so … extraneous. He had known for some time that there were forces here at work, forces that could change everything. He had felt so sure of himself, certain he had read the portents, had followed the signs. He had thought he had been prepared for the maelstrom, had been ready for the moment when the winds of change would once again flow through him, guiding him. But it seemed that these forces were not flowing through him after all, but rather around him, as a stream will flow around a useless rock within its path.
He remembered once again the poem from when he was a boy. It had always been the same poem. He could not remember whether he had learned it or had heard it in a dream. Probably a dream, as if that made any difference now. In any case, there it was again, running through his head. And then he realized it had been running through his head over and over, for the last several minutes, all the while that he had been standing there staring stupidly. He tried to concentrate now, to make out the words. The poem had played in his mind many times down through the years, but it had been so very long since he had really paid attention to the words.
And then she will be gone away
And all will dance, and all will dance
In moonlight, break his supper bread
The song will play within your head
And we will dance again
One day the burning wall be broke
From far away, from far away
So clean the blade, so quick the slice
Then he shall come and circle thrice
And we will dance again
He shivered, and pulled his coat more tightly around his shoulders. It was a stupid child’s rhyme, that’s all. Just a coincidence. That summer by the lake when he was seven. “The summer of the dreams” they had called it. That was when he had caught the fever. He could remember his mother’s haunted eyes looking down at him, while she pressed cold compresses against his forehead, her hands trembling. Soon after that he had first come into his powers. But that couldn’t have anything to do with this. Not with this.