Death by Dreaming - 11. Chapter 11

Marcus woke early the next morning, with the sun shining in his eyes. Briefly he cursed the phantom curtain opener and then he turned his head and looked into Angel’s sleeping face. The sunlight made his hair burn, like pure spun gold and the long lashes that lay trembling on his cheeks were sparkling.

Smiling Marcus couldn’t help but touch the locks that curled around his face, twirling them in his fingers, brushing the soft skin beneath with his finger tips. He was almost preternaturally beautiful and this morning he was glad that the sun was shining in and illuminating him. This morning the sun was his friend.

Angel sighed and stirred but didn’t wake although his lips curved into a smile. Marcus gently stroked them with his finger and they parted. Feeling playful he slipped his finger inside and Angel opened his mouth to let him in. Wondering if Angel was awake or asleep he slipped in deeper and the lips closed around him and the tongue caressed the tip of his finger.

Slowly Marcus’ finger moved in and out and the lips, closed tight around it, grinning broadly. Marcus grinned and his other hand moved slowly down Angel’s body until Angel released his finger with a gasp.

“Good morning.”

“I... ugh...” he gasped again as Marcus curled his hand around him and stroked him gently. He groaned and raised his hips thrusting into the hand.

“Easy tiger.” Marcus raised his hand to stroke Angel’s face and he groaned.

“Noooo. You can’t wake me up like that and then stop.”

“Who says I’m stopping?”

Angel chuckled and grabbing Marcus’ face pulled it down into a long, hot kiss.

Some time later they took a shower together and they were in there for quite a while. There is something about kissing in a shower that is more erotic than kissing anywhere else. When it is coupled with soap and young lithe bodies and an underlying sense of desperation there is only one possible outcome.

***

After breakfast, which they ate in the conservatory, they piled into Marcus’ car and headed for Glastonbury. The weather was fine again and they drove with the top down. Angel’s hair was loose and blew about his face making him laugh aloud.

Everyone was in high spirits and they sang loudly to accompany the CD that Marcus put into the player. All of them were off key and off beat but that only made them laugh even louder.

When they finally pulled into the car park behind the main street they tumbled out of the car still laughing helplessly. Angel leaned against the bonnet of the car and tilted his head back, shaking his hair. Marcus couldn’t resist and he pulled Angel into his arms and kissed him right there in the middle of the car park with visitors gawping and pulling their children away.

“Hey you two. Remember I’m here?”

“We could never forget it Charlie... you won’t let us.”

Giggling Charlie inveigled herself between the two of them and, hand in hand, they made their way towards the main street.

As soon as they hit the shops Angel dragged them into one. He was enchanted by the glitter of the crystals, the smell of the incense, the shine of the swords which hung from the walls and had been known to be lost for hours in the books.

This time his attention was caught by a display of books dealing with dreams and he quickly got lost in one about precognitive dreams. Marcus didn’t notice because Charlie had dragged him off to look at the crystal jewelry at the back of the shop.

When he noticed that Angel was not with them Marcus extricated himself from Charlie’s hold and went in search. He was still standing in front of the exhibit pouring over a book. Marcus groaned inwardly when he noted the subject.

“Angel?”

At first he did not answer, absorbed in the book, then when he noted Marcus’ presence he looked up, his eyes shadowed and slightly dazed.

“Marc... this book says that dreams with a recurring theme, especially ones that come true could be ‘a warning of a looming disaster’. Listen to this. ‘..The theme builds towards the climax of the series of events, providing clues to the ultimate cataclysm in an attempt to provide the dreamer with sufficient information to enable them to divert the disaster before it becomes unavoidable’.”

Angel raised his eyes from the book and they were wide and frightened. “That’s what happening. The dreams are trying to warn me that something bad is going to happen. I know it. I feel it.” Angel shivered and glanced around nervously. Marcus touched his hand.

“Don’t be daft. This is all nonsense. Nothing bad is going to happen. The dreams are a product of whatever is disturbing your brain, causing the seizures... not the other way around. It’s stress and forgetting your meds and tiredness and overworking. You have to relax. The more you relax the sooner you’ll get over this. If you get stressed out it is going to make it worse.”

Angel stared at him, his eyes still shrouded, still haunted. He shook his head. “This is not what it seems. It doesn’t feel right. It isn’t right. It isn’t natural. I can’t explain it but it's not... right.”

Marcus squeezed his arm and gently took the book out of his hand. At first he resisted but then, with a sigh he released the book and turned towards the door.

“Angel... Angel look at this. They’re amazing. Look at the colour it’s almost the same colour as your eyes. It’s awesome.” Charlie came bubbling up holding a bracelet made of crystals that were, indeed the same shade of startling blue as Angel’s eyes.

Angel smiled politely but was not really interested. Marcus smiled too and took the bracelet out of Charlie’s hand.

“It is awesome isn’t it? This colour is really beautiful. I’m going to get it. Whenever I wear it I will think of you, your eyes.”

Angel smiled slowly and shyly and delicately picked the bracelet from Marcus’ fingers. Still smiling he went to the counter and paid for it then brought it back and slipped it onto Marcus’ wrist. His fingers lingered and Marcus captured them, lifting them to his lips to kiss them, keeping his eyes locked with Angel’s the whole time.

“Oh for heaven’s sake... come on.” Charlie dragged them out of the shop, huffing and rolling her eyes. She towed them over to her favourite shop which was in a cavelike arcade, called the Glastonbury Experience, on the other side of the street. The passageway into the courtyard was lined with book stalls on one side and a shop whose window was filled with swords on the other.

Marcus was immediately attracted by the swords and Angel by the books. He wandered along the stall running his fingers over the covers, picking them up at random and putting them back down again after flicking through a few pages. The sun was hot and his head had begun to ache. The things he had read in the book about dreaming were playing on his mind and a deep abiding fear gnawed at his guts.

Reaching the end of the stall Angel emerged into the courtyard. On his left the doors of his favourite cafe tempted him with the enticing smells of coffee and cinnamon. He almost walked towards it but, with a sigh followed a bouncing chattering Charlie across the courtyard through another archway and into the shop beyond. It was crammed with ‘things’. Brightly coloured puppets hung like broken bodies from the beams over shelves crammed with everything from woven friendship bracelets to jade Buddhas and carved wooden boxes fragrant with incense.

Charlie moved from shelf to shelf exclaiming over this and that and Angel followed, distracted. A glass case on the far wall contained crystals of all descriptions and silver jewelry set with semi precious stones.

Angel scanned them for a while, the glitter of the crystals drawing him in and making him forget the fear for a while. He was lost in the colours, the sparkle, the shine and he raised his hand to touch the glass. His eyes felt heavy, the lids wanting to close and he leaned his forehead against the cool glass.

He was startled when a hand touched his shoulder and looked up into Marcus’ worried face.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah I... I feel...” He frowned as he realised that he was shivering despite the fact that it was hot and stuffy. Glancing up he noticed that the shop was packed with people and they were all looking at him. Feeling suddenly exposed and slightly panicky he shook off Marcus’ hand and headed for the door a certain desperation growing as he pushed though the tightly packed bodies.

Outside he found no relief from the stifling heat and, if anything it was worse. The sun pounded into his head making his eyes burn and feel gritty and sore.

Ducking back through the arch into the main courtyard he stumbled and his outflung hand touched cool, smooth stone. He looked up blinking to find that his hand was laid against a statue. It was the statue of a woman in a long dress and flowing cloak, her face upturned to the sky. He was gripped by it, enchanted, utterly focussed on the serene face against the azure blue of the sky over her head.

Mirroring the woman he raised his face to the sky feeling suddenly light headed and dizzy. Realising he was about to fall backwards he grabbed for something but found nothing. In that split second he panicked before he felt a warm body pressed against his back, a strong arm around his shoulders.

“You okay babe?”

“I... I don’t feel... right.”

“Okay... let’s go and have a coffee while we wait for Charlie. She could be in there for some time.”

Stumbling Angel allowed himself to be led to one of the tables, shaded by an umbrella and an overhanging plant.

“Sit down and chill for a while. I’ll get you a drink. Stay there ok?”

Angel nodded leaning back against the cool stone wall behind him, closing his eyes. He still felt light headed and suddenly very tired. When Marcus came back he was dozing and he did not rouse until Marcus pressed a cold glass of elderflower cordial into his hand.

Opening his eyes, startled and disoriented, Angel’s hand shook and spilled the cordial before Marcus closed his fingers around it to steady it.

“Here... take a drink. It will cool you off. You look hot.”

“I’m... alright.”

Marcus brushed the hair out of his eyes. “You don’t look alright. Do you want to go home?”

“No. I’m fine... really. It was just those crystals... they were... they glittered and the sun...” he took a long drink of the cordial and sighed with pleasure, feeling better. “I’m alright now.”

Marcus smiled, still looking concerned.

“I worry about you.”

“I know. I worry about myself sometimes too. But I’m okay now.”

They sat in companionable silence while Angel sipped his cordial and regained his equilibrium. By the time Charlie returned, laden with bags, he was back to normal and joined with Marcus to chide her for her extravagance.

“I am not going to help you carry those bags. You bought that stuff you can carry it.”

“Oh and a perfect gentleman you are.”

“I never claimed to be a gentleman.”

“Huh. What’s next?”

“Do you want to go to the Abbey? Or Chalice Well? Or do you want to go straight to the Tor?”

“I don’t know.” Charlie looked at Angel critically. “Are you up to the Tor today Angel?”

“Of course I am. That’s why I came. Come on, let’s go to the Tor. We can get some snacks on the way and have a picnic at the top.”

“I can’t carry snacks.”

“Then you can take those bags back to the car before we start.”

“Definitely no gentleman.”

Marcus and Angel browsed in the shops while waiting for Charlie and then they wandered along the main street, calling into the supermarket for crusty bread, cheese, fruit, crisps and local cider which they shared out equally in bags to carry up to the Tor.

Glastonbury Tor is truly a wonder. Once an island in the fens, reached only by a narrow peninsular at low tide it now rises out of the Somerset Flats its skirts dotted with trees and its summit commanding an impressive view over the low lying land in all directions. The hill rises in a series of seven terraces to a flat top where the lone finger of St Michael’s tower points at the sky.

Long associated with local myth and legend it is rumoured to be the last resting place of the Holy Grail, hidden in a never found secret chamber deep in the bowels of the hill. Its association with the legends of King Arthur were compounded with the alleged discovery of a grave at the nearby Abbey in 1191AD which contained an oak coffin bearing the remains of a man and a woman surmounted by a stone bearing the inscription Hic jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arthurus in insula Avalonia (Here lies buried the famous King Arthur on the Isle of Avalon).

Angel had always loved the Tor, ever since his father had first taken him there when he was seven or eight years old and told him the stories. How it was said to be the Isle of Avalon which exists in two worlds at once, the one we walk on and the one that is hidden behind the veil of mists. The small boy shivered with excitement as he stood side by side with his father and heard stories of how the boats would cross the fens and the island would appear out of the mists. Depending on whether the boatmen knew the right magic they would either land on the tor or on the Isle of Avalon.

It was here that the dying King Arthur was brought by his sister Morgan Le Fey and Vivienne, the Lady of the Lake to heal after receiving a fatal wound in his last battle against his son Mordred.

The Arthurian legends had been his favourite stories and he still shivered with excitement whenever he came here, thrilling with the possibility that today might be the day when the mists came down and when they lifted he would be in another world.

Climbing the steep path towards the summit always made him think of his father and he could almost see him, his long legs striding ahead, his strong shoulders encased in a polo shirt, or a woollen jumper, eating the distance as if he was strolling along a flat promenade. It had always been a matter of pride to Angel that he never, ever paused to rest, never stopped until he reached the top.

Today as the climbed the sound of music came to them, floating down on the still air. Drums, guitars and voices blended in and eerie accompaniment to their climb. As another kind of accompaniment the clouds that had floated overhead all day began to draw together and became tinged with grey. Charlie frowned at them, willing them to go away. It just wasn’t fair.

Angel didn’t notice. For the first time in years he was struggling with the climb. By the time they reached the last terrace before that last sharp slope to the summit he was out of breath, his chest was burning and his legs felt like lead. He growled, frustrated with himself, and increased his pace, striding for the summit, determination overcoming the pain. Marcus hurried after him his own heart pounding, although not with fatigue.

At the top Angel paused, exhausted but triumphant. He hadn’t realised he was so out of condition. He was going to have to do something about that. Closing his eyes he leaned against the side of the tower waiting for his racing heart to still.

The sound of music was louder now, the drum beat synchronising itself with his heartbeat as it slowed. He opened his eyes and looked around. About 100 yards away, where the summit flattened into a plateau a crowd had gathered. Men and women in brightly coloured clothes had laid out wares on cloths before their crossed knees and about thirty people were standing or sitting around a group of musicians who were playing various instruments including bongos, bodhrans, guitars and a lute. As he watched with interests a slender young woman in a floating green dress got to her feet and began to play a haunting tune on a flute.

Enchanted, Angel began walking towards the music, oblivious to Charlie’s excited chatter and Marcus’ brooding presence at his side.

The music soared and fell, lifting his spirits and for a moment soothing the brooding sense of dread that had taken up permanent residence in the pit of his stomach.

With a dreamy half smile on his face he sank to the ground and let the music transport him to a better place. Feeling Marcus sit behind him and wrap his arms around him he leaned back into the embrace with a happy sigh.

“Feeling better now?” Marcus whispered into his neck.

“I feel wonderful. This is amazing. It’s so beautiful.”

“It's not the only thing that’s beautiful. We’re lucky.”

“I’m lucky. What more could there be to life? Sunshine...” He squinted upwards, “... well kind of, music and the arms of the one I love. Just perfect.” He snuggled closer and Marcus held him tighter.

Letting his head fall back onto Marcus’s shoulder he looked up into his face and smiled. Marcus returned the smile and kissed him gently. Charlie kicked him and flopped onto the grass at their side.

“Less of that. It’s bad enough that I have to be subjected to your constant lovey doveyness without inflicting it on everyone else.”

“Look around Charlie. I don’t think anyone’s complaining.”

Of the 30 or so people in the ‘audience’ more than half were couples and many were sharing intimate moments, whether merely close embraces, kisses or more enthusiastic petting. Charlie made a face.

“Ewww, we’ve got mixed up in a hippie love fest. Well I’m not staying for the orgy.”

“Spoil sport.” Marcus laughed. “What do you think Angel? I reckon she’s spitting sour grape juice because she is as jealous as hell.”

“I think you may be right.”

Charlie made a face, sticking her tongue out at them, then stretched out on her stomach shredding a daisy.

After listening to the music for a while they unpacked their picnic and laid it out on the ground between them. There was loads of food and, when two small children from a nearby family group wandered shyly over, their large eyes alighting on the feast, they gladly shared and ended up in animated conversation not only with the children but with their parents and their friends as well.

As the afternoon wore on Angel grew more and more tired and lay back in the grass looking up at the sky. There were only a few patches of blue now, the rest an ominous grey even though it was still warm. For a while he let his eyes wander over the clouds, following their skittering dance, then he allowed them to close and lost himself in the music.

He was awoken by the rain. It had come from nowhere and fell in sheets soaking him in moments. Marcus and Charlie were already on their feet and he joined them and such of the much depleted crowd as remained, in a headlong dash for the tower, which poor as it was, was the only available shelter.

Pausing to help a young man with long pink dreadlocks bundle up his array of brightly coloured friendship bracelets and knick knacks, he was rewarded with a glowing smile and, as they squeezed themselves into the overcrowded tower among the heaving, steaming mass of laughing and squealing bodies the boy pressed something into his hand, whispering.

“It will bring you luck and give you protection. You need it.”

Angel was startled and turned to speak to the young man but he was gone. Slightly shaken he stood pressed closely against strangers and watched the rain sheet down across the plateau, blocking out everything beyond the lip of the hill and locking them away in their own world.

Someone started to sing and, looking around Angel saw it was the same young woman who had been playing the flute earlier. Her voice was as sweet and true as her instrument and the song just as haunting. He closed his eyes, caught by the unreality of the whole situation. The song, the mist, the close proximity of strangers thrust together and removed from the real world by the weather and the music.

He felt an arm snake around his waist and he turned his head to look up into Marcus’ face.

“You’re shivering.”

“I’m wet and cold, what do you expect?”

“Let me warm you.” Marcus wrapped his arms around him and pressed his body close. Angel melted back against him.

Together they watched the rain, perfectly content with each other, with their surroundings, with the music and the soft chatter of the people around them, until the clouds parted, letting the sun through and people began to drift away.

When his body was free of the press and able to move again Angel examined the item that had been pressed into his hand by the hawker. It was a friendship bracelet, intricately woven in blue and black silks. In the centre a crystal had been woven among the thread, a black crystal that glittered darkly as he held it up to the light.

“That’s nice. Where did you get it?”

“That kid with the pink hair gave it to me. I helped him pack up his stuff.”

“I can see I am going to have to keep my eyes on you. Turn my back for a moment and you have cute young strangers giving you presents.”

Smiling Angel raised his wrist for Marcus to tie on the bracelet, which took a while as his fingers were cold and clumsy. When he had done Angel raised his hand to admire the colours and the glittering crystal.

“Where did you get that?”

Angel turned and smiled at Charlie. “Someone I helped out gave it to me. Marcus is jealous.”

“Of course I am. You’re so goddamned beautiful I’m surprised people are not crawling out of the woodwork to give you presents... I just need to make sure that they know they can give you what they want but it won’t do them any good because you’re mine, all mine.”

“You make me sound like a possession.” There was no censure at all, only light banter in Angel’s voice but Marcus frowned deeply at his words and took Angel’s face in his hand.

“You are no one’s possession, my darling. You are strong and independent and free. You belong to no one.”

Angel smiled a slow smile that made Marcus squirm and Charlie roll her eyes again. Angel turned and wrapped Marcus’ arms around himself. Now that most of the people had gone the tower was cold and he was beginning to shiver again. He raised his hand to rub at his temple where an all too familiar pressure was building. It had been there for a while but he had been too distracted to notice.

“Are you okay?”

He turned his head to answer but, as he did so everything seemed to slow down. Sound was distorted and his vision blurred and faded.

The next thing he was aware of was voices, apparently all around, urgent and unfamiliar. Someone was holding his hand, the grip strong and firm. He groaned inwardly thinking. ‘Oh no, not again.’

It took a while for him to realise that he was lying down, on something cold and hard. It was difficult to tell whether he was shivering or shaking, whatever it was he couldn’t stop it and he couldn’t say anything because his jaw was clenched so tightly he couldn’t speak. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked around.

He wasn’t on the floor. He had thought that he was on the floor, because the hard, unyielding surface beneath his back was made of stone. In fact he was lying on one of the stone benches that lined the walls of the tower. It was quite narrow and not at all comfortable. For a moment he stared up at the ceiling trying to make sense of the situation.

There were people around him, that much he could tell and a nagging suspicion that some of them, he knew. But that was about as much clarity as his confused mind was able to supply at that time. He closed his eyes again because his head was hurting and the people seemed to be demanding something of him. It was too hard to think about what it might be just now.

The pressure on his hand increased, someone was rubbing it, someone who wanted something from him and at that moment he really wasn’t ready to give anyone anything and so he groaned and turned his face to the wall. The wall was cool and damp and if it wasn’t for the fact that he was so cold he could have lain here for a long time and just shut away the rest of the world but the world wouldn’t go away and there was a bad feeling in his stomach, as though he had forgotten something that was really important and when he remembered it would be terrible.

The pressure and pain in his head was truly awful and he felt somewhat nauseous every time he moved but the shivering was even more pressing and he groaned again unable to work out what he could do to relieve either.

Strong arms lifted him bodily upwards and then wrapped around him so that he was sitting up enfolded in a warm embrace. Something was draped over his shoulders and gradually the shivering lessened, if the pain didn’t. Sighing he let himself sink into the warmth of the body pressed against his, his cheek resting on a strong shoulder, the scent in his nostrils strangely familiar.

Someone was stroking his hair and, at last the pain that had his head in a vice began to ease, releasing him to relax even further into the gentle embrace.

“Angel? Angel, are you okay?”

Angel? That sounded familiar, as if he should know what they were talking about. With infinite slowness the word sank into his befuddled mind and, even more slowly the realisation dawned that it related to him... that he was Angel.

“Marcus?”

“Sssh. It’s alright. Take it easy now. Just relax until you are feeling better.”

Angel simply nodded, relieved that he would not be expected to do anything just yet. Reality was beginning to seep back into his world and with it the ever present sense of dread, of failure, of embarrassment, of concern that he was worrying his friends. With a grunt he pushed himself away from Marcus and looked around.

There were only a few people around, watching with concerned faces. One of them was the girl with the flute. She smiled at him and he mirrored it without really knowing why.

“Are you warm now? Do you want another blanket?”

Her voice was light and bright, like the flute, like her song. Angel was fascinated by it and wanted her to speak again but didn’t know what to do to precipitate it. He glanced down to see that he was wrapped in a rough woollen blanket. It was damp but warm. If he had thought about it he would have realised that it was one of the blankets the musicians had been sitting on during their impromptu performance... but he didn’t think about it at all.

The girl handed something to him and he took it automatically, then started at it blankly having no idea what it was or what he was expected to do with it. Smiling the girl took his trembling hand between both of hers, which were warm and soft, and raised the cup to his lips. Obediently, without taking his eyes from hers he sipped the warm liquid, then choked.

“Easy... I put some brandy in there. It will help you. Just sip.”

The brandy laced coffee tasted and felt better and better the more he sipped and the more present he became. Within minutes he was smiling at the girl with genuine warmth and gratitude.

“Thank you.”

She smiled brightly. “That’s alright. My brother has fits sometimes. He hates it, hates all the fussing worst. But he always appreciates a warm drink with brandy. My mother... and his doctor tell me off all the time but it has never done him any harm.

“A shaman told him once that his seizures were birthing pangs... that his soul is from another world and has not yet come completely into this one and when it does he will be a great man, a poet and a mystic... he already is. I see in your eyes the same things I see in his.”

Angel was stunned and just stared at her. When she held out her hand for the cup he gave it to her without a word. She smiled, stroked his hair once, and was gone.

After a while he blinked and stared at Marcus with a frown between his brows. “Did that... was she... was she... real?”

Marcus smiled. “I get what you mean dude... yeah she was real. Thank god for her and her blanket. I was kinda worried for a while. You were so cold...”

“Yeah... it happens.”

“So how are you feeling now?”

Angel smiled. “Cold.”

Marcus hugged him closer and he rested his head on his shoulder. The warmth of the coffee and brandy was slowly seeping through him making him feel sleepy again. He knew that he should get up and shake off the mists of sleep but he couldn’t. It was cold and uncomfortable and downright embarrassing with all those people staring at him, but he couldn’t move, he didn’t want to.

“Are you up to walking back down?”

“Right now?”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“Yeah. Give me a minute I’ll be fine.”

“I was hoping so. It was only a little one and I really don’t feel up to carrying you.”

“It doesn’t feel like a little one.”

“Well... you were out for a couple of minutes but it was only a drop fit. You didn’t have convulsions this time... just kind of... switched off.”

“Oh well that’s okay then.”

“You know that’s not what I’m saying Angel... I wasn’t...”

“Hey... It’s okay. Don’t take any notice of me. I’m a bad tempered bugger at the moment. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I have the mother of all headaches and...” He stopped biting his lip.

“And what?”

“Never mind... it’s nothing. I’m freezing... let’s get down to The George. I could eat a steak.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just go straight home?”

Angel pulled away from him, sitting up and gave him an incredulous look. “Come to Glastonbury and not go to The George for a steak? What is the world coming to that you would even suggest it?”

Marcus grinned. “You’re feeling better.”

“I told you so didn’t I?”

He was only slightly unsteady when he got to his feet, although he had to bite his lip against the pain... but there was no point worrying the others about that right now. They were spooked enough as it was. Marcus was frowning, his face dark as if he was in the middle of an argument and Charlie was pale and silent... never a good sign.

Slipping an arm around Marcus’ waist and resting the other across Charlie’s shoulders Angel sighed and squeezed them both.

“You are the best friends ever. The steaks are on me tonight... but you have to buy your own drinks or Marcus will break me.”

Laughing they made their way back down the hill. In the semi darkness of the tower a girl in a green dress and a boy with pink hair folded the blanket and stared after them.

“That one has an air of darkness about him, for all that he is full of light.”

“Something haunts him.”

“I saw... the sickness is not natural... it comes from darkness and it seeks to draw him back there. Someone wishes him ill and will see the end of him if they could.”

“Do you think they know?”

“The big one protects him. There is more to him than meets the eye. He knows but he’s impotent. I will sing for him.”

“I gave him black onyx for protection.”

“I fear it will take more than that but it’s a start. What more can we do?”

“Pray.”