Triple Moon

My most recent story, in the visionary fiction genre. It's about magic, the occult, paganism, gods and goddesses and demons.

Triple Moon

by Candy Ray

Dedicated to my High Priest

The Photograph

Trevor walked past his desk, with the framed caption hanging above it.

“I realised I hadn’t locked the door on the way out, because I dematerialised.”

One of his clients had genuinely said that- not that he didn’t believe him.

TREVOR MYSTICO-: PSYCHIC COUNSELLOR, HEALER AND EXORCIST. I WILL TRAVEL BY ASTRAL PROJECTION TO THE SITE OF YOUR PROBLEM, AND FIX IT FOR YOU. REASONABLE RATES.

He had no compunction about using spiritual skills in a commercial setting. So many psychics and magicians did that, and advertised online. If he found that he had walked into a delicate situation, from a religious point of view, he dealt with it in a brisk, businesslike way using symbols like the pentagram and the cross, and basic psychology to understand what was going on with the client.

He filled the kettle for his tea break. Being self-employed, he had the freedom to choose his own hours and breaks, and impromptu holidays for such eventualities as festivals or a spell of sunny weather.

In many ways, pursuing this job was a solitary existence. But of course, he met some interesting people online, and his site featured a chat box where his clients could describe their problem to him in more intimate detail, and receive his preliminary comments before he started working for them.

As he drank his tea and ate a slice of lemon drizzle cake, fresh from a nearby bakery, he thought about this morning’s intriguing customer, Miss Berry as she called herself.

“I’ve been going through my old spiritual diaries, from way back. I always said I would read them again one day, and I’ve got time now, because I’ve just gone part-time. A few years ago, I could have retired, but now they’ve upped the retirement age.

Anyway, the diary from 1983 has really upset me.

I was young then, only 27, and I was a student. I’d gone away to college after working for a while. A man from my home town kept trying to make me join his group for worshipping Astaroth. I never joined, but I kept meeting Astaroth and his followers in dreams, and being tormented by demons.

The dreams I recorded in my journal were so lurid and disturbing. I can’t get them out of my mind. I feel haunted by them, and depressed. Can you help me?”

This was a tricky one. At the side of the computer screen, Trevor’s practised eye spotted a synchronicity with Astaroth popping up. He was undoubtedly observing the conversation.

The popularity of the goetic demons has exploded like a supernova hitting the Earth. Astaroth, who loves to be female and is frequently encountered in his Ishtar or Astarte persona, has been one of the better-known demons of Hell since earlier times, and now shares in their contemporary fame.

His connection with the client Berry might go back for millennia, and she was no doubt in denial about that and about establishing a new working relationship with him. On the other hand, she had a right to leave him, and it would be typical of him to be vengeful about her leaving. That was what Trevor would have to sort out, although he would have to be cautious while dealing with such a powerful demon.

He typed a reply.

“I’m sure I can help, Miss Berry, but please could you give me a few more details? Did you ask anyone to help you in 1983, when these dreams were occurring?”

“Call me Berry, it’s my first name. No, I didn’t ask anyone, or tell anyone about it. That’s my trouble. I’m a person who never asks for help, even when I really need to. I try to deal with everything myself.”

“I see. You just need to make peace with the past. I will do what I advertise, project myself to the source of the problem and put in my two cents, to help you find peace.”

“Thank you.” Unexpectedly, a blurry-edged photograph appeared in the chat box. “That was me in 1983- I hope it helps.”

She was standing in a garden: a pretty, sweet-smiling girl, wearing a fitted flared dress. Trevor concluded the deal and logged out, but not before feeling an overpowering emotional attraction to the photograph.

Had he ever known a Berry? A Beryl, perhaps? Someone who wore that dress? She was a total stranger, yet familiar, and nothing sparked in his memory.

The following evening found Trevor starting his preparations to carry out the assignment.

When you do astral projection for a living, you’re good at it, and fast. However, Trevor always felt that it would be foolish to rush, without spending a while attuning to the necessary state of mind and consciousness.

It was wholly appropriate to be thinking about his client, in fact it was essential, so that he could tune in to her with the required degree of clarity.

She had been 27 when all that had happened. So, she was 60 now, an elderly lady. It would only be possible to understand the situation by looking back to a bygone time, before the days of internet groups. A time when all spiritual and occult gatherings took place face to face, in person. To refuse to attend, as she had done, would bar her from contact with the group who were seeking to recruit her, except for letters, telephone calls and of course, the dreams.

Nowadays it went like this: a pop-up appears on the screen.

Oh, maybe I’ll take part after all. No, I won’t. switch it off.

But another invitation will follow, unless you stop to change memberships and settings.

Trevor didn’t officially have an age, nor a surname. He was known simply as Trevor, for his privacy online, and his protection. Although there were some who claimed that they could find out these details in a moment, should they really want to. Like the man who had tried to recruit Berry, perhaps? Where was he now?

Trevor finished his preparatory rituals, and thoughts, and lay down on his bed.

However, for the first time, he did something different from usual. It was an impulse, a hunch, but he trusted it; he knew it was possible, because he had friends who had done it successfully. Instead of travelling to his client in the present day, he launched himself into the past and went back to 1983.

The Statue

Trevor felt himself whirling, through a rotating tunnel that fixed a location at the end like a telescope. It was exhilarating, and overwhelming. After several minutes he began to slow down, and so did the tunnel, until it ejected him through the telescopic end into an anonymous street. He felt like he should be sprawling, but instead found himself standing.

Imagine how it feels when a whole world of interlocking archetypes is suddenly sabotaged, either by design or unintentionally. Like a sign board which has always said Milano, and now suddenly reads Melena. Now imagine the same thing in reverse. This was what happened to Trevor.

All that had been undone was now erected once again, and as solid as a house wall. Because Trevor solved problems for a living, that impacted on him, for it unravelled his work.

“Come on, get a grip,” Trevor affirmed. “My present concern is just one situation that is back the way it was before. Ignore all others. Focus on Berry alone.”

Concentrating on Berry made him move, away from the neutral street and into a large city square with what looked like a town hall in the centre, flanked by two statues of horses.

The square was crowded, but he quickly saw Berry. She looked even more beautiful in person, thin and slight with wispy, golden-brown hair falling around her ears in an elfin style. She was wearing a brown ethnic woollen dress, Peruvian style. However, he knew it wasn’t her earthly body; this was her astral body, a copy of the earthly one, and he was in her dream. It made sense-Berry’s problem was with past dreams, and he had come to fix it from within the dreams themselves.

She wasn’t alone, there was a young man with her, and they were hurrying around the outside of the square, looking anxiously from side to side.

“We must be nearly home by now,” Berry muttered. “Why is it taking so long?”

“No, we’re not home,” said the young man. “We’re back at the square again, where we started.”

Trevor was immediately alert. They were in a repeating loop, a famed device in nightmares. Something was not letting them leave.

“How can we be back? We were on one of the roads that leads away from the square. There it is- Centre Street. We’ll have to try again.”

They began to run, but Trevor could see they were still skirting around the border of the square. They pulled up suddenly as they reached a statue, which Trevor sensed had been erected hastily on one side of the square, and wasn’t usually there. It was a golden statue of Astaroth.

There was a qualitative difference between this one and the horses, which he realised were a permanent part of an area from Berry’s daily life which she had recreated in her dream.

Gathered around the statue was a small group of people in everyday clothes, and sitting at its feet on the ground was an elderly man wearing a dull coat and a cloth cap.

The elderly man inclined his head. “Thank you so much,” he said, “for allowing me to come and sit under the statue and receive the blessing of our god.”

At that moment he statue briefly came alive. It shook itself and moved from side to side, and then went back to standing still. Then the demon himself materialised next to it, in an identical form to the statue. He stood there as if flaunting the duplication.

Berry visibly flinched. “What’s he doing?” she exclaimed. “I hope he isn’t hurting that old man.”

The crowd of people looked through Astaroth, seemingly unable to see him, and so did the young man who was with Berry. Only Berry saw him, and glanced from the real demon to the statue in terror.

The demon approached Berry with measured steps, and she grabbed hold of her companion. “Mick, help me! We have to get away now!”

He put his arm around her waist protectively. “It’s all right, Berry, we’ll soon be home. Let’s go.”

As they began to walk away from the square, the demon ran forward and jumped in front of Berry. “Oh, come on,” he said. “It’s your turn now. Aren’t you going to sit under the statue to receive my blessing? Say, I am ill, and I’m very grateful to be allowed to sit under the statue so I can be healed.”

“No. You would make me worse, not heal me.”

Astaroth leaned forward and tried to grab Berry’s arm, but he was unable to touch her. As Trevor watched, Astaroth slowed down the fabric of Berry’s dream to a lower vibration. Then he slapped her arm and shouted, “You b***h!”

Berry screamed and ran, and as she jerked her arm away, Trevor glimpsed the engagement ring on her finger. Her fiancé Mick was in her dream, but he couldn’t help, couldn’t even see her assailant.

Trevor was aware again of the compulsive attraction he felt for Berry. He longed to intervene, to be the gallant knight who rescued her instead of Mick, and yet that would be very unprofessional.

Instead, he closed his eyes in concentration and recited a magic formula which he hoped would break the repeating loop, so that they could both escape.

The couple fled along Centre Street. “Nearly home,” said Mick. “If we just climb down here, it will only be a bit further, because that’s the Town Hall Square.”

“But Mick. We just came from the Town Hall Square.” The railing which they were climbing down revealed itself to be an ornate shelter over the statue of Astaroth.

Berry screamed again. “Please, Astaroth, let us go!”

No response. Like Trevor she closed her eyes, though for a different purpose. She began praying to God to save them.

The demon had been gliding smoothly towards her, but at this he stopped abruptly and fell flat on his back. He lay there like an upended tortoise, while Berry and Mick raced away along the street. The respite was brief, and then he was on his feet again, and on Trevor’s case.

“Trev! Fancy seeing you here!”

“No-one calls me Trev.”

It was a stupid answer. Desperately, Trevor tried to get a hold of himself.

“No, I know, it’s Trevor Mystico,” said Astaroth. “What a terrible name. It sounds like a cheap fortune teller. Don't worry about your precious Berry. She didn’t marry Mick, the black magician split them up. She did get married later though, and had children. How do YOU know Berry?”

“I feel like I’ve known her for a thousand years.”

That answer was even worse. It wasn’t what he had meant to say. It was unprofessional, she was a client….

Astaroth vanished, leaving Trevor alone in the square from Berry’s dream of 1983.

The Icon

So, decision time. Should he go home and return another day, better prepared, to this year and these dreamscapes? It might still be early in the night, which would mean that Berry would be moving on to further dreams. It was worth staying to see what happened in the next one, and whether he could start helping her.

Trevor focussed is mind strongly on Berry, and desired to find her. The streets and people around him blurred to a dark grey, and faded. But the new surroundings that appeared were also dark. He found himself in a small cinema with people milling around the room, and a film playing on a compact screen at the front. There were no rows of seats.

Everyone in the room was wearing a silver cross on a chain. Of course! Berry had been praying, and now she had been drawn to a Christian place. After a moment Trevor spotted her. She was wandering around the room with the others, although she wasn’t wearing a cross. Trevor couldn’t help being pleased that Mick was no longer with her.

A scene came up on the film screen of a lady wearing flowing robes and a pentagram. She went over to a mirror and lit a candle, and then she simply sat staring into the mirror, doing nothing.

The Christians looked at the screen, and all of them laughed loudly.

One man turned to Berry and said, “I hear that you are a student of the occult. Maybe you could show us something like that next. What do YOU do?”

Berry looked hurt. “I could show you something, but not what you think.”

Trevor shook his head. They weren’t being compassionate, the way their religion taught. That’s if they were real people. They might be thought forms created by Berry’s mind, out of guilt. He contemplated asking them if they were real, which usually destroys thought forms. He was about to do this, when his attention was caught by a distinctive figure standing at the other end of the room, in the shadows. A Madonna figure- the Virgin Mary.

She looked up, the blue cloak falling away from her face, and Trevor was sure from the atmosphere which surrounded her that she genuinely was Mary. Her features and clothes were classic, reproduced from multiple sacred paintings and figures.

Mary walked towards Trevor, completely ignoring the other people in the room. This suggested to him that they were indeed thought forms, and that Mary had a message for the two real people, himself and Berry. He fixed his eyes on the ground, hoping that he looked reverent and respectful.

“I am revered as a mother,” Mary said. “When Berry had these dreams, she was quite young and was not yet a mother herself. She needs to find a guardian who matches her stage of womanhood. It could be a maiden, as she was then, or perhaps an older woman, as she is now.”

“Are you talking about the maiden, the mother and the crone?” Trevor asked. “As in Wicca?”

“I am the one who dissolves all the enchantments of witchcraft,” Mary replied. “If you think the enchantment is evil, you can ask me, and I will dissolve it. Yet I would never interfere when a woman is close to a Pagan goddess, and not I but that goddess is her protector.”

“Who is Berry’s protector?” Trevor asked.

“You must seek her. That is your mission. As Berry is paying you, that is your job. The goddess will have gifts for you as well.”

“I’ll find her! Either by the end of this night, or the end of the assignment.”

Mary smiled, and vanished.

The figurine

1983. Trevor was a teenager on a motorcycle, cruising nearer to the place where he used to buy his esoteric books. Not merely a bookshop, this was more; it had a café, and rooms at the back where classes were held, in subjects such as astrology.

He recalled sitting at the back of the tarot class, putting up his hand. “Should we do this as a business, or for our own spiritual growth?”

“It’s up to you,” replied the attractive girl tutor, giving him a warm glance. “But you can do both, of course.”

Trevor hoped that was what he was doing at this moment, especially after meeting Mary.

Time can be singularly strange in dreams. A visit to an astral region, whether it is a real place or a fantasy, can cover many days, weeks or months, and yet you wake the next morning after only one night’s adventures.

Trevor concentrated again on following Berry, and finding where she had gone after leaving the cinema.

He found her sitting on the long edge of a single bed, with a wooden bedside table beside it on which stood a television set. It was typical of the 1980’s televisions: a square box with a glazed pale green screen, although Trevor noticed that it didn’t have any control knobs or buttons on it.

Berry looked up as he approached. “I need to rest,” she said. “I’ve had too much stress. But first I want to watch a film.”

She picked up a peculiar kind of winder which must have been lying next to her on the bed, resting against her leg, and began to turn it as though she was winding a clunky tape on a spool.

A picture came up on the TV screen of a restaurant kitchen where several girls were working, getting out cutlery from drawers and adding spices to simmering pots on stoves.

Berry started. “Oh! It’s the horror film about Astaroth. He’s going to put me in it- again. Quickly! I must wind it through to the end before he can do it.”

She moved the winder frantically, but the film only speeded up slightly.

” I mustn’t concentrate on the story, but I can’t help it. I know every scene so well.”

As she spoke, Berry was pulled off the bed and into the screen. At once Trevor dived in after her.

As he landed in the kitchen, one girl threw a white overall and cap at him. “Put on your uniform!” she ordered. He noticed that Berry was already wearing hers.

Berry looked around her in a panic. “I’ve got to get away. The figurine of Astaroth- it’s in the restaurant, on the counter. As soon as I go out there, it will kill me.”

Trevor confronted her. “Berry! Come with me. Forget about the film. I’ll take you somewhere safe.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”

“I’m a friend of…. the goddess!” he improvised. “You know who I mean- that goddess who protects you. I’ll take you to her.”

“I don’t know exactly who you mean. They have different names for The Goddess. It might be Diana; I’ve heard that a lot.”

At the far end of the kitchen a door opened, and a figurine of Astaroth a few inches tall peered around it. The figurine must have been floating in midair.

Berry gasped. “It’s too late, he’s here. He kills me first, in the film, then he comes for the other girls.”

Trevor projected a pentagram in the air in front of them. “Diana!” he called. “Goddess Diana, please help us.”

The Deity

1983. Berry was wearing that sundress. Her mum had taken several photographs that day, and Mick was in two of them.

“We look the perfect couple. But he doesn’t share any of my interests, in mystery schools and psychic development. As for those evil influences I’ve come across lately, when they’re around he’s like a paper shield. He looks so happy. Ignorance is bliss.”

After Trevor had called on Diana, they both rose into the air and began to fly away from the kitchen, through dust like dandelion clocks, till they came to rest in vivid countryside, on the lower slopes of a wooded mountain.

Trevor recognised the characteristics of a shift to a higher astral plane, with its accompanying expansion of consciousness. The colours were brighter than usual, there was a feeling of freedom and wide-open spaces, and of greater self-awareness.

Berry was looking right at him confidently, no longer afraid or bewildered, as she had been in the earlier dreams that night.

“This is a dream,” she said. “I’ve had lucid dreams before, quite often, but I wasn’t supposed to have one tonight. It didn’t happen the first time around. You’ve altered time.”

“Yes, to help you.” He put his arm around her shoulders, and it felt right. “You need to make peace with your past. Just let the bad experiences go. Be at peace. You can do that here, on this higher plane.”

“I’ll try…”

She was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a blonde and beautiful goddess who materialised beside them. She was wearing a long multicoloured dress.

“I’m Diana. You called me. What do you wish of me?”

Once again, Trevor lowered his eyes reverently. “Thank you for responding, Diana. Berry needs help from the special goddess who protects her.”

“I see. Well, that isn’t really me. It’s not correct to call all goddesses Diana, although some Pagans do. I protect all women, especially mothers when they give birth to their children, but not Berry in particular.”

“I was told that it might be a maiden.”

“You could certainly call me a maiden, for I am best known as a form of Artemis, the virgin huntress who renounced all romances with men. But there is another goddess who is Berry’s special guide, one who she hasn’t met or heard of yet. You need to look for the goddess who Berry is named after. She is a dark goddess, not a crone in the sense of being old, but in the other sense- earthiness and sensuality, a connection to the underworld, a strong woman who fights.”

“Goddess Beryl? Goddess Berry? I don’t know of anyone like that.”

“It’s a nickname. Search for her- search the world.”

“We had better go. We may have only a few more hours of the night.”

“Oh, no, stay a little while. Time will expand for your quest. Let me show you some of my realm.”

Berry smiled. “Yes, please, Diana. Show us.”

They followed her across the lush mountain slopes, through fields filled with many flowers and herds of deer and grazing sheep. Songbirds swooped past them. Boys and girls carrying bows and arrows walked by and greeted them with friendly shouts. At the horizon, shepherd boys approached playing pan pipes, followed by their flocks.

“Is all this real?” Trevor asked, as reedy music filled the air. “It looks as if it’s copied from paintings of ancient Greece.”

“It looks that way for a reason,” Diana explained. “Realms like this one often appear the way human beings have pictured them over the centuries, in order that those who enter them will recognise where they are and feel at home. When the dead come to such places after jarring experiences, they sorely need the comfort of familiarity.”

The archers and shepherds passed by, and they walked on into an isolated valley of ferns and green sedge.

Trevor was pleased to see Berry looking so relaxed. He was delighted when she held his hand. “Where do I know you from, Berry? I feel like I know you well.”

“I feel the same.”

“You knew one another in a previous life, when you were children,” Diana said. “Your families used to take you both to a beautiful public garden. You formed a bond, but you were separated and sent to different schools, a boys’ school and a girls’ school.”

“When was this?” Trevor asked.

“Around the 1860’s. A hundred and fifty years before this dream.”

“Huh, the Victorians,” said Berry. “They were known for doing that.”

“But we’re together here,” said Trevor. “In this dream, we’re both young, with no ties.”

Then he was kissing Berry, and holding her close.

“Here we go,” sighed Diana. “Why do the Roman and Greek heavens inspire so many love affairs?”

She glided away, while Trevor and Berry lay down and made love, in a beautiful meadow at the foot of the valley, beside a lake.

“I write my dreams down in a diary, “Berry told Trevor, her head resting on his chest. “Perhaps my journal will change and there will be a new dream lover in it.”

Trevor wanted to tell her everything about himself. But he was afraid that if he gave her the name Trevor, and she recorded that in her dream journal, she might be spooked by it in the future, and wouldn’t contact him for help after all.

“My name is Renaldo,” he said. “Write that in your diary.”

“I will. That’s a really romantic name.” Suddenly she sat up, looking guilty. “What about Mick? I have a fiancé, Mick. How could I do this to him?”

Trevor stroked her hair and face. “Think of it this way. On lower planes, we forget about our daily lives completely. We’re not responsible for all the lovers we meet in those dreams. Mick doesn’t know you’ve been tup to this higher plane, where you remembered him.”

That’s true. I never thought of it that way. So, what happens now? You go back to your life in the future, and we forget each other?”

“I won’t forget you, Berry. And we haven’t finished our quest yet; we must find a goddess with the same name as you, who will protect you.”

This dream was proving transformational for Trevor. He habitually utilised symbolism of his clients’ gods and religion; however, this innovative time travel experience had shown him a new approach to deities that was more constructive than before. It was almost devotional but not quite, at a tangent to that, and geared towards healing and reintegration.

The Image

berry was happy to resume the journey. Their astral bodies once again manifested as fully clothed, in the garments of travellers. How long could such blissful dream wandering continue, rapt with the joy of their togetherness? A mass of clover underfoot, their feet skimming through purple and pink petals, surrounded by the scents of other flowers. It felt like physical grass, as if they were on Earth.

As they walked, the landscape gradually became bare and strewn with many rocks. Soon they saw a large volcano up ahead, with lava flowing down and spreading across a vast plain.

Berry pressed his hand. “I feel we have to climb this, to the top.”

“So do I, but the lava will burn our feet, even here in the dream world.”

“We could try this.” Metal shoes appeared on Berry’s feet. Trevor was pleased by her initiative, and he visualised the same on his own feet.

Together they crunched across the volcanic ash which massed in heaps all around, and then began to climb the pitted slope of the volcano.

Before they were halfway up, a vibrant lady in a red dress appeared before them, floating in the air a short way ahead. She was lithe of form with deep brown mischievous eyes and curly chestnut hair.

“Do you have any offerings for me?” she asked cheekily.

“I’m sorry, we don’t,” said Trevor. “We didn’t know we were going to meet you. Which goddess are you?”

“I am Pele,” she replied. “People call me Berry, because that’s my offering. You must offer me berries.”

Trevor knelt down on one knee, as far as he could on the perilous mountainside. “It is you who we are seeking,” he said.

“Oh, is it? Go and find some juicy berries then, and bring them back to me.”

Trevor looked around helplessly at the surrounding crags. “We are not near any trees or bushes here.”

“You can fly to where there are trees, can’t you? You are on a dream quest, and your astral bodies can fly. I tell you what, you wait here, and the little lady can fly back to get the berries. She’s had a lot of flying dreams- especially during this time period.”

“I’ll go,” said Berry. “It will be fun. What would you like, Pele, cherries? Blackberries?”

“Anything will do, as long as it’s a berry.”

Berry launched herself into the air. She looked like a diver taking off from a diving board, except that she went up instead of down.

Trevor sat down on a rock to await her return, while Goddess Pele hovered in the air above.

“Where are you worshipped, Goddess Pele?” Trevor asked.

“In Hawaii,” she replied. “The people there honour me as the Goddess of volcanoes and fire, and as the creator and special protector of their island.”

“I salute you, Goddess Pele, and I hope you can protect my friend Berry from her nightmares.”

“I am a warrior, a strong and fierce protector to those I choose as mine.” She raised her arm, shaking her sweeping crimson sleeves.

“Would it make sense for you to guard her against Astaroth, when he has an aspect as a dark goddess himself?” Trevor asked.

“You mean Ishtar, the goddess of love and war? Yes, when it’s appropriate I can go up against infernal goddesses as an opponent. Although I would never be considered a celestial goddess myself. My myths are all about my lust, and how I competed with my sister.”

Pele sounded exactly what Berry needed, and Trevor contemplated whether his own role was over. If this was strictly business, he could pull back from the experience now and travel back to his own time. But of course, it was more personal. He couldn’t consider losing any of this precious night, perhaps the only one he would ever get to spend with Berry.

Many minutes passed, and then he looked up and saw Berry flying back, leaning forward on the air with her arms spread out so that this time she looked like a bird. In her hands were four plump red berries. Gracefully she landed on the rock face.

“These were so hard to find!” Berry exclaimed. “I went to the nearest forest, and I looked everywhere-on the ground, on the bushes, on trees and by stones. At last I came to a really tall tree, with berries growing right at the top. But there was a huge bear under the tree, standing up on its hind legs. And that wasn’t all- in the branches there was a ferocious snake. So I couldn’t land by the tree and climb up, and I couldn’t land on top of the tree. I had to whizz in, grab the berries and whizz away again.”

“Fetching berries on the wing,” said Pele. “It was a test, but only an easy one, for someone who has done so much flying before.”

“I offer you these berries, Pele” said Berry, and she reached up to pass them to the goddess.

“You could fly to get away from danger, Berry,” said Trevor. “If that doesn’t work, ask Goddess Pele to help you. You came to me for a solution, you even paid me, and this has been my mission, to provide it. But I’m not leaving yet, because there’s something else. I still love you, from that time when we were separated in the past.”

She rushed over and flung her arms around him. “I still love you, too.”

“We’re not finished yet, lovebirds,” Pele called out. “I have to accept the offering and purify the worshipper.”

They turned to see Pele popping the berries into her mouth one by one. She ate them, and a torrent of red berry juice ran out of her mouth and down her chin. Then the rivulets of juice suddenly turned into something that resembled brown sticky tape with a texture like string. She pulled it off her chin and wound it round Berry, tying her up tightly so that she was bound like a mummy and couldn’t move.

Trevor watched in amazement. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I’m binding her to me.” Pele knotted the ends casually.

“Berry, are you all right?” Trevor asked.

Berry gasped. “It feels as if this tape is slicing right through my body and rearranging it.”

Pele picked her up and flew with her to the top of the volcano. Then she took hold of one end of the tape in each hand and gave a tug, and the whole of Berry’s skin ripped off leaving only a thin, silvery creature at the centre, covered in silver scales. Berry gave a cry of shock, though it didn’t sound like she was in pain. Then Pele picked her up again and stuffed her into the volcano, so that she plummeted down the middle.

When she came out of the bottom she was lying on the plain at the foot of the volcano, burnt completely black.

Trevor was relieved to see her sit up, bewildered but still not appearing to be in pain.

Pele flew down and landed beside Berry. “I have purified you in the fire,” she announced. “Now you are mine. You can resume the form you had before, when you arrived here.”

Berry looked blank. “How do I…” she began, but then she transformed back into herself at the age of 27, as she had originally appeared in this dream.

“Come and see where I live, both of you,” said Pele. “Come and see the volcano.”

She led them up the rocky side through the searing heat, back to the top, then down through the middle to a small circular chamber that was pleasant and cool. “This is the centre where there’s no fire,” Pele explained, “like the still centre of a hurricane. You are welcome to come here at any time, and be safe. I am your guardian and this is your refuge.”

They both thanked her, and closed their eyes in meditation. Their minds grew still, and remained so for a while in complete tranquillity. When they opened their eyes again, they were no longer in the volcano, but in an orange dome, shaped like a segmented tangerine.

“Why are we in a tangerine?” Berry asked.

Pele’s voice rang out, from a distance. “It’s one of my palaces, and you are my servants. But you’re free to go. Just open the door at the back, and you can go back to your own place.”

They headed towards the door, Trevor hugging Berry in fear that they would be separated forever when they opened it.

They came out into a room lined with creamy mother of pearl. A full moon winked through a skylight in the roof. In the middle stood a polished silver table with white candles burning at the four corners, each one engraved with a black symbol representing a phase of the moon: a crescent, half-moon, full moon and dark moon. A plaque on one wall proclaimed, ‘The Temple of the Moon.’

They walked around it slowly, holding hands, taking in the symbolism.

“Four phases and three goddesses, “said Trevor. “A maiden, mother and crone. The moon has blessed you tonight and sent you three guardians, Diana, Mary and Pele. It is Pele who fulfils our quest and protects you.”

“So, all I have to do is remember that I’m safe now. Safe in these dreams and this time, whenever I call on Goddess Pele.”

Trevor kissed her cheek. “That’s right. I would love to stay here with you, but now we must both concentrate on waking.”

“I want to stay too,” Berry whispered, fondling his hand in hers. “Ok- wake. Wake now.”

They soon realised it was a false awakening. That’s the technical term for dreaming that you wake up. They walked down a valley, then up onto a plateau and across a meadow filled with red and white carnations. Trevor suddenly said, “this isn’t home. We’re back in Diana’s’ realm.”

“I recognise it…”

Trevor spoke firmly. “It’s beautiful, but we need to go home now. This realm can bind you to it with a strong attachment. There’s the path. Let’s go now.”

They walked for a while, still hand in hand.

“I love this valley,” said Berry. “I’ve seen it somewhere before. It goes right down to a lake.” She frowned. “But isn’t that where we started, just now?”

“We’re in a loop!” Trevor exclaimed. “Like the one in your dream of the square. But there’s no enemy here to cause it. It must be because we would like to be lovers forever.”

“So how do we get out of it? We can’t just un-feel that.”

“I’ll try that formula I used before. It didn’t work on Astaroth, he’s too powerful, but maybe it will work on us.”

As before, Trevor closed his eyes and spoke the formula.

When he opened them, Berry was riding through the sky in circles high above him, in a kind of blue wooden sleigh. She was gripping the left side of the sleigh and looking down fearfully.

“Berry!” he called. “What can you see?”

“Scenes from other dreams, tonight and on earlier nights. They’re all still happening, down below me.”

The left arm of the sleigh broke off and plummeted down to the ground, almost taking Berry as well. With a cry, Berry lurched over to the other side and clutched the right arm.

“Berry! Hold on!”

Suddenly Pele was sitting in the sleigh, resplendent in her crimson dress. In her hand was a piece of searing red-hot metal, as if plucked from a forge. She slotted it into the place where the missing sleigh arm had been, and sat next to it, beside Berry.

“Now you won’t fall out,” she said. “And those old dreams down below won’t get you. Just call on me.”

Berry’s eyes went glazed, and she spoke as if in a trance. “It was Renaldo, my dream lover. He sent me a guide to save me.” Her form disappeared in a flash of energy as she awoke.

Now Trevor felt himself waking as well. It had been a marathon astral projection- he would normally have brought himself back after an hour or two.

Epilogue

Trevor’s website was set up to send the automatic message: ‘Our previous conversations have been deleted for your privacy. Was everything all right? Please leave a review.’

He drank a cup of tea as he perused Berry’s reply. “It was fine-at least, it must have been. I’m wondering now why I bothered you about my old dream diary. It isn’t that scary! Perhaps I was upset about something else. The dreams got a bit hair-raising, but my guide was always there. The Red Lady. Thanks for doing whatever you did.”

Trevor knew he shouldn’t have, but he wrote: “Renaldo sends his love.”

“I didn’t think I told you my Renaldo dream. I’m embarrassed now! Lucky you deleted everything. Thanks again, and goodbye.” And a smiley face emoji.