by Bryan Davis
The golden glow in her eyes dimmed, and her voice lowered. “As you interact with the dreamscape, keep the flame close at hand. It is your anchor. The images here are figments — fabricated manifestations that display the fears of the faithless as well as the hopes of those who eagerly await the dawn. Whether for good or evil, they will draw you in. They will reach for your hearts, even reading your thoughts to see by what means they might capture your compassion.” She gazed into each pair of eyes, her voice growing even more somber. “If you give in to their siren call, you could be trapped here forever.”
Nathan stared at his candle’s flame, conical and unwavering, a steady beacon, like a lighthouse signaling safe haven. If not for Cerulean, he would still be trapped in the world of dreams.
With the flame’s image firmly seated in his mind, Nathan scanned the area, a playground in the middle of a park. Two swing sets, one with a tire swing, lined the right side. Sliced and shredded, the tire wobbled, dangling under rusted chains. Three broken seats hung by frayed ropes in the other set.
On the left side of the park, a wooden carousel spun lazily in the stiffening wind. Skeleton oaks stood here and there, the low-hanging branches dipping toward small tombstones that dotted a meadow of lush green grass.
Nathan shuddered. This wasn’t a playground at all. It was a portrait of perdition — a child’s worst nightmare. “I don’t see anyone. Is there a way to find out whose dream this is?”
“Very odd.” Amber looked through the candle’s flame, blinking as she turned in a full circle. “This is not one of the usual blended dreams. It seems that at least two minds have created this children’s cemetery and playground, and its borders are indistinct.” She lowered the candle. “A new breed of blended dreams could be a very dangerous place.”
Daryl hugged herself and shivered. “Well, if you think it’s dangerous, then I’m ready to push the panic button.”
“What do you think?” Kelly asked, touching Amber’s hand. “Should we turn back?”
“Well, I think — ”
“No.” Nathan searched again for any sign of life. But even if he did see someone, how could he tell if he or she might be Cerulean’s gifted ward? “We’re here for an important reason, so we should stick it out. Besides, I don’t see anything to be scared of yet.”
“Nathan is correct.” Amber’s smile wilted, and her eyes grew dim. “I, too, am a sojourner in the world of dreams. I always learn something new, so this revelation of a blended dream is not shocking . . . Unsettling, to be sure, but not shocking.” She lifted her candle. “As long as we hold to our anchors, we will be safe.”
“What are you doing here?” a gruff voice called.
Nathan pivoted toward the sound. At a nearby sandbox, a small boy pushed a plastic shovel into the dark sand. Dressed in a miniature business suit, complete with a button-down shirt and a tie, he seemed half man and half child. He poured the scoop into a black bucket and glared at them, his short, curly black hair tossed by a foul-smelling breeze.
Setting a finger to her lips, Amber whispered, “Just you and me, Nathan. The others should wait here. We want to avoid too much sensory input.”
Walking a little ahead of Nathan, Amber stepped into the sand with her bare feet and sat on the corner board of the sandbox. “What is your name, little boy?”
He scowled at her. “Who wants to know?”
“My name is Amber.” She reached out to pat his hand, but he jerked it back. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” she asked.
Still scowling, the boy raised a pair of fingers. “You already asked two. How many more questions do you have?”
As Nathan edged closer, a stench drifted into his nostrils. He knelt and pinched the brown sand. He raised the sample to his nose. Dried manure? Surely this boy couldn’t be the new gifted one, could he?
Amber laughed gently. “A few more questions. I will not weary you.”
“Then out with them.” The boy pushed the shovel in for another scoop. “I’m busy.”
“I can see that.” She touched a finger to her chin. “Again, what is your name?”
He kept his eyes down and answered with a sharp, “Frederick.”
“May I call you Fred, or perhaps Freddy?”
His scowl deepened with each punctuated word. “My name is Frederick.”
“Very well, Frederick. Have you seen a man you don’t recognize, tall and broad shouldered?” She pointed at Nathan. “He looks like this young man, only older, with thicker arms.”
Frederick glared at Nathan, patting down the manure in his bucket with hefty slaps. “Ask the others. No one ever stops to play with me, so I wouldn’t know.”
Amber cast a glance at Nathan, then turned back to Frederick. “Where may I find these others?”
He flipped over his bucket and pulled it up, leaving behind a castle of packed manure. “Hard to say.” Keeping his head low, he gave his shoulders a casual shrug, though he glanced at her every few seconds. “Stick around. They’ll come by eventually. They always do.”
“From which direction?” Amber asked. “The little tombstones?”
He squinted at her. “What tombstones?”
For a moment Amber just stared at him, but she soon gave him a knowing nod. “I see.”
“I thought you said no one plays with you,” Nathan said. Z“What do the others do when they see you?”
Frederick lifted his head, but this time his expression softened. “They spit on me.”
“Spit on you? Why?”
“I can’t understand it.” Frederick reached into a back pocket and pulled out a fat wallet. “No matter how much money I offer, no one will be my friend.”
“Money cannot purchase friends,” Amber said. “Only sycophants and flatterers would respond to such a call.”
He scooped another shovelful of manure and muttered, “Another do-gooder.”
Amber rose. “I have no further questions.”
Nathan helped her step out of the sandbox, whispering, “What’s the deal with the tombstones?”
“It’s the blended dream. I believe Frederick is one of the sleepers, but the tombstones are not part of his dream. Someone else has conjured the cemetery.”
“But no one else is around. Could he or she — ”
Kelly’s voice stretched out in the breeze. “Naaathan. You’d better come and see this.”
Nathan spun around. Backing toward him, the four others stared at a group of tombstones, six or seven ashen pillars arrayed in a broken circle. Gray mist rose from each, human-shaped, though warped and stunted.
Kelly clutched his arm. “What are they?”
As the mists gathered into small, deformed bodies, Daryl gulped. “Dead children?”
“Well,” Frederick said with a snort, “they might remind you of children, but I’d keep my distance if I were you.”
The bodies congealed, clarifying their features. A boy, his body bent and his limbs crooked, stood in front of the largest tombstone. Gathering around him in a semicircle, several others solidified — a girl, tall and slender, with deep cuts marring the underside of her forearms; another girl, this one gripping a crutch on one side that supported her one-legged frame; two other boys, apparently twins, each with pale skin and barely a wisp of hair blown about by the breeze; and two other girls in the back, one with a tattered shawl over her head and shoulders that covered a ratty mop of gray hair, and the other with a long scar that ran across the bridge of her nose. Wearing dark glasses and carrying a walking stick, she grabbed the fringe of the shawl of the girl next to her and shivered.
Nathan’s throat tightened. These children were handicapped; they were —
“They’re zombies,” Daryl whispered. “Somebody’s dreaming about zombies.”
“Stay behind me.” Tony spread out his arms. “If they’re just kids, maybe I can scare them off.”
Frederick snorted again. “Good luck.”
A smile spread across the face of the lead boy. Circlin
g around Tony, he limped toward Nathan, his arms flopping at his sides. “Excuse me, good sir. Would you please help us?”
Nathan glanced at Kelly and Amber, then at Frederick, who stood in his sandbox, gripping his shovel and pail as if they were weapons.
“Help you?” Nathan replied. “What do you need?”
The girl with the slashed arms joined them, wringing her hands. “Tell him nothing, Thibault,” she said with a heavy Irish accent. “He is one of the ghosts.”
Thibault nodded. “He’s a ghost, all right, but he looks like the man who saved us from the pale one. What was his name?”
“He did not say,” the girl said. “He was a snob, to be sure.”
“Liar!” The girl with dark glasses hobbled forward, tapping her walking stick on the ground. She stopped in front of Nathan, sniffing the air through her blood-tinged nostrils. “Your voice carries Solomon’s melody, and you bear his scent as well.”
“Solomon?” Nathan reached for the girl but hesitated. “Do you know where he is?”
The girl, barefoot and smiling, groped for his hand and, finding it, latched on. “I am Felicity. Come with me. I will help you find Solomon.”
“Nathan.” Amber’s call bore a warning tone. “She is a phantasm, a figment who will vanish with the dawn. Do not be taken in. Focus on the light of reality.”
He lifted his candle and looked at Amber through the flame. Already she seemed less solid than before. “But maybe she’s seen my father in her dreams. Shouldn’t we at least find out what she knows?”
Frederick pointed at Felicity. “Don’t trust her. She’s the worst of all, a beggar with the bite of a serpent.”
“Oh, Freddy,” Thibault said, limping toward him, “you are such a pathetic soul.”
Frederick stepped back into the sandbox, tightening his grip on his shovel. “Don’t you dare!”
“Or else, what?” Thibault set a foot in the manure. “You should be used to this by now.” The boy spat, sending a dark wad, black and bloody, shooting from his lips. It landed on Frederick’s hair and spread across his scalp like reddish-black tar.
While Felicity hung on to Nathan’s hand, the other children joined Thibault, spitting viciously. Wads of various colors flew toward Frederick. He flung his pail and shovel at them, then covered his head with his arms. “Get away, you monsters!” he cried pitifully. “Get away!”
“Leave him alone!” Nathan shouted. He took a step forward, but Amber pulled him back.
“Do not let his cries sway your resolve. You must stay anchored with me.”
Nathan stared at Amber’s glowing eyes. They passed back and forth between a pair of blurry orbs and her normal, crystal clear gems. “This feeling,” he said, now wobbling in place. “It’s . . . it’s something I can’t seem to control.”
“Your instincts are strong.” Amber pushed his wrist, lifting his candle closer to his eyes. “You have been taught to help the suffering and the downtrodden, but you must realize that Frederick is a victim of his own fears. He is punishing himself.”
With Felicity still quietly clutching his hand, Nathan looked back at the others. Kelly’s mouth hung partially open, apparently in a hypnotic state, but she seemed far more solid than Amber.
As the cries grew louder, Nathan cringed. Tony, now fading into a ghostly blur, walked closer. He grasped Nathan from behind and propped him up. “Shake it off. The kid’s a creep, some kind of money-obsessed adult who never grew up. He’s not worth it.”
Amber caressed Nathan’s cheek. “On the contrary, my kindhearted friend, Frederick is worth your sympathy. But have no fear. He will likely wake up soon, and his demons will crumble to ashes.”
Felicity tugged on Nathan’s hand. “I’m real.”
He looked down at her. With dark glasses covering her girlish face, and a cane propped against her narrow chest, she seemed so vulnerable, so lost and helpless. Was she the one he was looking for? But if she was just part of a dream, she couldn’t really be Cerulean’s new charge.
“You’ll stay with me, right?” She sniffed, and her voice rattled. “Please don’t go away like all the others.”
“Don’t listen to her, Nathan!” Amber’s voice seemed distant, foreign. “She has seized your heart and will soon wring it like a sponge!”
Holding the candle with a shaking hand, Nathan concentrated on the flame. He had to fight this pull. All his life his father had taught him to be strong, to stay in control of his emotions, but his father had also taught him compassion, that every suffering person was worth sacrificing for — even wretched, overgrown children like the little brat in the manure pile, and especially a little blind girl who begged for rescue from a lonely cemetery.
Suddenly, Frederick screamed. Nathan jerked around but stayed put. The dark sand under the dreaming boy crumbled away, and he and Thibault fell into the void. Air swept into the hole, creating a cyclone that slurped the surroundings into its swirling grip. The swing sets tore from their moorings and flew toward them.
“Hit the deck!” Tony yelled.
Everyone dropped to the ground. Nathan pulled Felicity into his arms and crouched over her, still holding his candle as its undisturbed flame stood tall in the center of his vision.
As debris flew overhead, Daryl called out, “Shades of Twister!”
An oak tree flew past, then the carousel and several tombstones. One by one, five other children fell into the sweeping wind and disappeared in the dark vortex.
The vacuum jerked Felicity from underneath Nathan and dragged her toward the void. She fought back, sliding as she dug in with her toes. She reached toward Nathan with spindly arms and bony fingers. “Help me!”
Nathan lunged and grabbed her arm with his bandaged hand. “Hang on! I’ve got you!”
“Beware!” Amber shouted from her knees. “You can go with her, but I do not know how to bring you back. It is far too dangerous.”
“But she knows where my father is!” Nathan looked into the pitiful girl’s eyes. The wind had torn her dark glasses away, revealing vacant sockets. He swallowed a hard lump. Was she one of Mictar’s victims?
Kelly crawled toward him, ducking her head to avoid flying branches. “She’s just a dream, Nathan!” She held her candle close to his. Both flames burned steadily in the violent gale.
“You have to let her go!”
Ripping pain shot up his arm and into his spine. “If she was just Frederick’s dream,” he grunted, “she wouldn’t have known my father’s name!”
Amber shouted again. “She probably knows something, but if she is one of the dreamers, I cannot explain why the dreamscape is crumbling. Maybe she, too, is waking up. If so, she will be whole in mere moments, and her fears will vanish.”
Nathan gritted his teeth. He had to hold on. He just had to. If Felicity was lucid enough to know his father’s name, she had to be thinking clearly.
He looked back at the others. Tony clutched a metal rod protruding from the ground while holding Francesca in his arms. “Get a grip!” he shouted. “Your father wouldn’t want you to take the risk!”
“To save the world?” Nathan strained to push out each word.
“Maybe he would!”
Nathan, Kelly, and Daryl slid closer to the roaring black tornado. Felicity hung sideways, her feet pointing toward the cyclone and her long dress flapping. “Save yourself!” she called. “Let me go!”
Nathan’s hand cramped. He couldn’t hold on much longer. “Can you take me to my father?” he yelled.
After hesitating for a second, she closed her sockets and cried out, “I’m not sure! But I have met him!” Her voice seemed to pass through Nathan’s body and into his ears. “If you come with me” — her sockets opened again, revealing a glimmer of light within — “I’ll explain everything there.”
Nathan rose to his feet, and, pulling Felicity against his chest, let his body slide toward the void.
Kelly grabbed a fistful of his sleeve and jerked him back. Her eyes flashing, she roar
ed into his ear. “Listen to me! If you can’t fight this dream world, you’ll never find your father.” She pried his bandaged hand away from Felicity’s arm and pushed him toward Tony. The release made her stumble backwards and she fell into the rushing wind.
“Kelly!” Nathan lunged for her, but Tony held him back. As if swimming in a whirlpool, she fought against the cyclone, but it soon sucked her and Felicity into the black hole along with the remains of the dreamscape. Seconds later, everything vanished.
7
PASSION AND PAIN
With only their candles lighting the area, Nathan fell to his seat. He couldn’t say a word. He could barely breathe. What had Kelly done? Why had she let herself be taken? Would she be safe? How would he ever find her again?
He scanned the area — dim, cool, and vague. No sign of anything except his fellow travelers.
A few paces away, Amber stood near Francesca, touching her arm as if checking for injury.
Daryl shook her head and pushed up to her hands and knees. “I think I just did the twist with the Tasmanian Devil!”
Tony set a hand under Nathan’s elbow and helped him rise. “You okay?”
“I think so.” Nathan blinked, trying to focus. His cheeks flamed. His stomach churned. Kelly had sacrificed herself once again, making sure he didn’t get sucked into that sandbox. Pivoting toward Amber, he spread out his arms. “Will she be all right?”
“I cannot be certain.” Amber glided toward him through the dimness, the glow of her candle lighting her way. “Dreams always end,” she said, her voice calm and soothing, “but I have never followed one into the mind of its creator.”
“So Kelly’s trapped in Frederick’s mind?” Nathan asked. “How could that be?”
Amber shook her head. “I suspect that Felicity was the second dreamer, and Kelly went with her, but I know not where. Felicity was a strange phenomenon. We supplicants can easily discern the vague profile that the phantoms carry, but Felicity never displayed it.”
