Tonight, Victoria is Queen again, and young. And so am I: Rose, an English girl, pale, frail, blonde-curled. My family lives in a rural county; but no ignorant rustic I, nor mine; our line scholarly, rooted, renowned (well, locally). But Pappa taught me all; Mamma died young. By nature I am shy; but three years ago, my father much encouraging me, I took the post of Land-Protector. 'Twas not easy facing gypsies, place-spirits, haunts, bogles, beggars, imps, but now I've learned at least authority to feign. And a vigorous guardian has been sore needed here; we have a gang of good-for- nothing Wildings troubling our farms.	Long was I patient with these Lost Boys' petty thefts and pranks; but got no thanks. No repentance. Enough! They think me a shy English Rose; their crimes have slowly grown. Past time to show Ann's ragged runaways my Land-Protective thorns. Therefore I don my stoutest mudding-boots and long blue frock (the hue of power) and cross that broad flat field--new-scythed, our harvest just in--surrounding their Hideout Tree. To the careless eye, a great writhing common oak; but these miscreants it shelters go sheer as glass while in its branches, or their badgery lair a-tween those crook'd ensorceled roots like some troll-mum's knotted arms.
So I raise my chin and chant to the tortuous Oak-- and unseen vap'rous flock of child-ghosts, crows truant and unschooled as curling candle smoke: "As County Protector, I curse Ann Sowanseaux, in the Name of the Light. Leave our County! After your last crime, Ann Sowanseaux, I'll duel you on sight!" I'm shocked at my own severity. 'Twas all unplanned; the spell burst forth, white, unstoppable as a typhoon-swell. Such cry is binding. If I do spy Ann I must attack! Not merely to retain authority as a girl of my word; compelled by my own spell. For song, in this pale Realm of Souls Invisible is but full-focused Will. Well--'tis done. For good or ill.
A couple of Ann's riper minions drop out of their oak, acorns loose with rot. A girl lands afore me; over her head a grubby hood. She moves as if to doff-- I snap "You had better not be Sowanseaux! 'Tis all-out war between us." She bares her sooty face defiant--do ruffians e'er bathe?--but I face only a crony's sneer. Inhale relief. For I'm yet unprepared to face that Ann. Spoke as spirit urged, but now I ebb as then I surged. But will I ever fully ready be?	The tree fades out as deeper doubts halo my head like a horde of gnats. For I'm a wretched judge of faces! What if I mistake, see Ann in some innocent? Could my sworn curse burn a girl I never meant? Near as dire: what if I fail to recognize Lost Ann unveiled? Will will alone her wicked soul detect? What good is a Protector who dare not full-ferociously Protect?

• Ann Sowanseaux: or was it Ann Ennivan, Ann Whisitt, Ann Dunnough, Ann Salmon O'Ruther? A pun hinting it was just an alias. So my curse may be ill-aimed!
• Rural England, female criminals: I just saw a BBC mystery set in the Lake Country. Farmers smirked at fussy little Hercule Poirot till he caught two women stealing antiques.
• Gang of vandals: I've been getting mysterious recurring fevers. Health-theft!
• Protector: 1: my immune system, fighting illness. 2: Beatrix Potter protected historic Lake Country farms. 3: On the Victorian-era BBC series Candleford, the postmistress ran for county council to keep rents down. Dream-me was younger & shyer, but I had her voice.
• Invisible in the tree: the cause of my illness hides in my circulatory, lymph, or nervous system. An organism, or a rebellious attitude?
• Tree-lair: echoes Peter Pan and Wendy--the lair of the Lost Boys! To them, I'm the enemy--Captain Hook? Are they orphans, underdogs I should help not curse?
• Oak: a pun on OK? 1: The times when I'm okay, asymptomatic. 2: A nod to the best-known cowboy gunbattle: the Showdown at the OK Corral.
• Shocked at my severity: Today my sister abruptly asked me to chauffeur her to Santa Cruz, an all-day errand. I said no, then felt selfish and guilty... but didn't back down.
• My chant: 1: I'll fight my illness all-out, even when it's asymptomatic. 2: I'll fight excessive family demands. Both encouraging, even if I soon doubt myself again!
• This is Dreamverse #56. The Dreamverse Project is a poem-cycle treating dreams as real--as life experience. Next Dreamverse: Sky and Prester John.

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