This girl was in her late twenties. She was the daughter of a very rich, eccentric man; she had no mother; and she lived on a cheerful tropical island.
This girl discovered that her father had eaten her mother in a mysterious fit of cannibalism. This horrified her. She went to the time machine in the big city to see what circumstances changing would do.
She found them all in an escape pod room. The pod's engine was in a fit of instability and ready to explode... She inspired her father to add kerosene to it, and everything came out all right...
...and back in the present again, she realizes that both her father and her mother are now dead, and circumstances are coming after her as well... she rushes back in time to undo her change.
Now there are people trying to block her progress.. she hurtles through the big city in the past, hiding from her pursuers, and finally makes her way to the escape pod room. The pod explodes as expected...
...and back in the present again, she's playing a
live-action card game with many of her friends. They're all running around, flashing cards at each other--if it's a number card, they have to take it, if it's an action card, they have to do it. All the action cards seem to be taken up with the kitchen; there are supposed to be more in the game than that...
This is when the girl gets her first loss of spirit flash. Her vision turns sometimes red, and she becomes afraid, and people begin to act hostile towards her. It wears off shortly when she reasserts herself.
The game is over by now. I--I appear in the dream now--I go down with the girl to the ophthalmologist's, where someone told me they hid all the other action cards. The place is deserted (which makes sense, it being evening twilight and all). It stands near the beach.
She suddenly realizes that the present is not currently okay... What happened? I forget--I think it had something to do with her father's fortunes, and her father coming after her; the cannibalism again.
I try and cast a time spell. Open wide the gates of time / and ride the ancient sands... I know there are two other verses to the spell, but I don't know what they are, and I make them up as I go along. Naturally, the spell doesn't work. Luckily a red mage friend nearby knew it enough to correct me--but the correction wouldn't stick in my head, and she had to do it. I don't seem to have the talent for magic. (Darn.)
We're on the other side of town from the escape pod room and can't get to it in time. In the taxicab we're in, we have the driver make a cell phone call to the girl's father, and tell him to put applesauce in the engine instead of kerosene.
...and back in the present again, I find we're on top of some kind of Statue of Liberty replica located on the island. There is no wind, and most of the ledges we are sitting on (behind the neck of the lady) have ledges under them so we can't fall too far, but it is still very frightening to be on. Heights are scary.
The girl has another flash of loss of spirit. She has a harder time shaking it off, and is acting funny. I forget how we get off the statue, but we do...
...and we are next to some kind of altar where two people have just died. As they die, two very large black books appear next to them. They are very obviously dangerous texts of magic. I look through them and try to find something to cure the girl's condition. I find the text--it is written in Latin or possibly Etruscan or ancient Greek--I think I could translate it in the dream, but I forget the translation now. It ended with
ENF.
I found the spell. We set up all the paraphernalia and I got ready to cast it... and nothing happened. I forgot I have no talent for magic. Luckily there was a white mage here who was able to cast it. The girl recovered when she (the mage) cast the spell. Thank heavens.
I studied the spell and the effect. It looks like what was happening to the girl was that evil spirits were taking the shape of some of us and were putting curses on her when they got near. Terrifying, really, to think they can do that.
(I did some flipping through the spellbook. It came with a host of warnings, along with bits about how failure to finish a spell, or to pronounce incorrectly, can lead to the gruesome death of the caster... I gather that is what happened to the two corpses the books were found by.)
The girl went back in time again... it seems, her father had come back normal, but her mother still had not made it into the timeline, and she wasn't ready to give up.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to see what she did in the past this time, and I still don't know whether it worked or not....
...and back in the present again, I realize her spirit protection spell against curses has worn off. She is hiding behind some box barrier, wisely not letting anyone come near, but I think it is already too late and she has been cursed again. The white mage cast the restorative spell again, and she came to her senses.
Everyone remaining piled into the station wagons and headed for the docks to get off the island as quickly as possible.
There were a lot of details I forgot in this dream. It starts where it starts, and it ends where it ends, but I know I've left some bits out of the middle. I'm sure you understand.