Ancient tales be told....old ring of gold...

The room was dark but for a single beam of moonlight. It lit upon the ring like a beacon lured by an ancient talisman, which it was. The fine gold of the band had been painstakingly carved with glyphs, their meaning foreign to the wearer. The store clerk had spoken of a legend and claimed the glyphs depicted dream walkers. He told a tale of time travel while in a dream state. The legend was laughed off by the purchaser but tonight it wove around the sleeping bearer.

Dreams laced with intrigue fluttered her lashes and pulled her under.

Serena felt the gossamer nightgown move against her as she walked across a room that was not her own. The gown, the room and the garden beyond the balcony were nothing she’d ever seen before. The only object she knew as her's was the ring upon her finger; it winked at her from shadow to moonbeams and back. The tall canopy bed and mirrored armoire spoke of another time, another century, certainly not her own. She accepted it because dreams are ruled by different laws than wakefulness and she was in a dream. Not an ordinary dream because it was so lucid, she could feel the breeze from the open garden door across her skin. She could smell the night blooms from the garden beyond.

“Serena?” 

A deep male voice called to her and she froze listening harder. Had she imagined it? Was it the wind? She turned back into the room; a soft knock on her bedroom door accompanied the voice calling her name again.

The voice was not familiar to her and with curiosity and some sense of destiny she walked to the door.

“It’s just a dream,” she told herself and shrugged as her hand reached for the doorknob but the door flew open and she screamed trying to push it closed.

"Serena." the voice called to her and a hand reached around the door and grabbed her wrist.

She screamed and was jolted awake.  

Serena’s eyes flew open. Her hand was before her on her pillow. She stared at the ring upon her finger. The ring she knew she had left upon her nightstand when she went to bed. Her heart pounded and she sat up. She was in her bed, in her room but could that crazy legend be true? Had she just dream walked to another time? Or had she just mistaken the events tonight and hadn’t taken the ring off, and it was just a bad dream?

The clock next to her bed showed the time and she’d only been asleep an hour. She must have forgotten to take it off.  

Carefully she took off the ring and placed it next to the clock. It sat benignly there and she shook her head. "I must have imagined taking it off before."

She turned back into her pillow and sighed deeply letting herself fall back to sleep. In minutes her deep breathing filled the room.

The moonlight snaked into the room and shone again upon her hand illuminating the ring upon her finger……..