Contents
TITLE PAGE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
End Notes
Acknowledgements
About the Author
More from Brooke De Lira
Credits
Wake Up
Brooke De Lira
CHAPTER ONE
I gasped for air as I broke through the water’s surface, paddling toward the shoreline until my feet finally touched bottom.
Shivering, I trudged through the icy water toward the beach. That same pebbled beach where they dragged my brother's body out of the lake three summers ago. The off-tune siren of Shy Harbor’s ambulance still rang in my mind. The look of horror on the face of every local and sunburned tourist as they gathered on the shoreline. The paramedic shouting “Clear” while his machine sent shocks through Aiden’s lifeless chest, cold as ruthless Lake Superior itself.
He’d fallen, they said, bouldering along the red rock cliff just like he’d done every day. But he’d never fallen before.
I should know how he ended up in the water. I was there. But no matter how hard I tried to remember, it was all black.
When my sneakers met dry land, I wrung little waterfalls from my sage army jacket with one hand. The other clenched the precious object I’d just retrieved from the bottom of the lake.
My body trembled, teeth chattering like one of those infuriating wind-up toys. Even now, as I walked through my dreams, my body still asleep in my warm bed, I couldn’t escape the icy grip of this damned lake.
“Hey!”
The shout came from over by the marina.
Ignore him, Madelyn. Don’t get distracted.
Turning my back to the docks, I opened my fist to see my treasure. This was it. The Key. Something I’d lost in the waking world, just like C said it would be. A polished Lake Superior agate on a silver chain. The one Aiden had given me on my thirteenth birthday, just months before his fall. My sixteenth birthday has now come and gone, but the necklace still looked the same. Frozen in time.
I couldn’t help but grin. Ever since I’d learned how to lucid dream, to be conscious in my nocturnal dreams and take control of them, I’d searched for this gemstone every single night. Finally, I could unlock—
“Hey you, crazy chick with the pink hair!”
I rolled my eyes, finally locking gaze with the teen on the dock. I ran a hand through the drenched locks of my pixie cut. He set down his old fishing rod, and a blast of icy September wind flipped back the hood of his gray Badgers sweatshirt, revealing a handsome, dark-skinned face and close-cropped black curls.
He stumbled off the dock and jogged over to where I stood dripping, a smile teasing his lips. “Did you fall out of a boat or something?” He laughed. “No, wait. Let me guess. Maybe you’re one of those Polar Plunge psychos? God, you must be freezing.”
I stuffed the necklace in my pocket, winking as I stepped toward the boardwalk that skirted the beach. “Nothing like a refreshing dip, huh?”
“Wait. Just hold up, would you?” He lunged forward, blocking my path.
I stopped, fidgeting with my eyebrow piercing. “If you’re worried, don’t be. I’m fine.”
He smiled, unzipping his hooded sweatshirt and shrugging it off his shoulders. “I don’t doubt it, but like I said, you must be freezing.”
Reluctantly, I took the sweatshirt from his outstretched hand. I couldn’t help but return his smile. “Do you always give your clothes away to strangers?”
“Hey, we might not know each other, but it’s a small town. We’ve gotta have each other’s backs, right?”
I bit my cheek as I draped the sweatshirt over my soaked shoulders.
He was wrong. I did know him. His name was Luke. The only black guy in a town packed to the brim with white people and other Native Americans like me. Of all the Shy Harbor residents that populated my dreams, he was the only one I’d never met in the waking world. Yet he was always here. Every single time. In any other dream, I’d stick around to fall into conversation, forget about my personal quest for a while.
But today was different. I finally had the Key to my unconscious, that dark place in my mind that hid my repressed memory. The moments leading up to Aiden’s death. No, I didn’t have time to chat.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“Hold on. How about we get out of this cold-ass weather and grab a couple of hot chocolates at Connie’s? I bet that’ll warm you right up.”
I sighed. “Now is seriously not a good time. But I’ll take a rain check.”
Leaving a disappointed Luke behind, I made my way up the boardwalk, ignoring the baffled stares of local fishermen who were wrapped up in their thrift store jackets and black stocking caps.
The rotting boardwalk stretched from the marina to the beach and all the way to Connie’s Cafe at the end of the town’s official waterfront. From there, a gravel road ascended through red pines and oak forest to the ragged cliff above, where campsites and summer homes waited for their owners’ annual return.
My parents’ vacation home was one of the closest to the overlook, and you can bet Aiden and I had explored every square inch of that steep rock face and the surrounding woods.
I walked past Connie’s, the only year-round restaurant in all of Shy Harbor. The feral town cats glared at me from their perches on the cafe’s seasonal balcony, and the aroma of fried fish and apple pie warmed the sharp chill in the air. My version was a near-perfect replica of the real Shy Harbor, a true masterpiece of dream-crafting. Not to brag.
Like the true Wisconsin vacation town, it was a place of few choices. Need some instant noodles? There’s one grocery store. Looking for a beach read? You’re in luck. One tiny bookstore occupies a space on the tiny “main street” snaking inland from the beach. One hardware store. One dive bar. One cafe, unless you counted the nearby resort places that opened in the summer. Despite all that, I used to love this place, soak in every summer I spent here. But since that day, it has never been the same.
I stepped off the boardwalk and onto the gravel street. As I trekked uphill toward the vacation homes, my mind drifted to the words my little sister Alice whispered from her bed just before I fell asleep. "Don't leave me, Maddie." It was such a weird thing to say. Alice never understood why we couldn’t just visit the real Shy Harbor. But I knew the waking world couldn’t give me the answers I sought.
In this dream, it was still mid-morning. But the towering woods were growing dim, darker than even the overcast dream sky forever trapped in that stormy day. The haunting atmosphere doubled down on the eerie feeling in my gut. God, it was definitely time to get out of this place for a while.
Normally, the morning light shining through the curtains drew me from my dream world. When it didn’t, the Journey Prayer would do the trick. I made up my mind. Tomo
rrow night, I’d continue my quest.
I slowed my pace, breathing in the cold air. But something caught my attention. A rustle in the brush, somewhere off in the forest. Then, quiet.
I could have sworn I heard a woman humming a soft melody, but the woods were empty. I wrapped Luke’s sweatshirt further over my shoulders. “Who’s there?”
No one answered. The hum grew louder, a melancholy tune that made my scalp prickle. My breath quickened. I had planned to jump out of my dream at our old summer home, but I quickly changed my mind. I couldn’t wait that long.
I glimpsed something deep in the woods. A pale-skinned woman in a white dress stepped from behind a tree, then vanished into the woods. I suppressed a shudder.
These unnerving phantoms were invading my dreams more often every night. In my whole dream realm, they were the only things I couldn’t control. And that scared the hell out of me.
The forest continued to darken, and I could have sworn I saw the shape of a white wolf deeper in the forest—a wolf twice the size of a grizzly bear. I swallowed the lump in my throat, clenching my eyes shut as I reached into my pocket to feel the smooth agate necklace.
This was it. Time to wake up. I began the Journey Prayer in a low whisper: “Great Spirit, guard my soul and guide my feet. Lead me to the truth.” With another breath, I added, “Wake me up.”
I opened my eyes.
But I didn’t see my purple-painted walls, or Alice’s pink bed holding her sleeping body across the room. I saw only Shy Harbor’s pine forest, which was growing darker by the second.
CHAPTER TWO
I tried the prayer again, and again. Nothing. I squeezed my eyes shut and wished myself awake. Nothing. The disturbing tune seemed to be coming from every direction now. In a panic, I bolted up the street toward the summer homes, refusing to look back.
Any second now, my racing heart would wake me up. I’d probably fall out of my bed drenched in sweat, and Alice would stumble out of her bed in alarm, crawling under my covers to comfort me. But with every step I ran, my hopes faded. This wasn’t right.
I stopped at the first wood-sided cabin at the top of the hill, my chest heaving from fear rather than exhaustion. The woods became quiet again, and the silence of the empty neighborhood stood like a blanket of fog over the little house.
Okay, think Madelyn. You’ve prepared for this. What is the first thing you do when you can’t wake up? Reality checks. I had to make sure I was really dreaming. The last thing I remembered was going to bed, saying the Journey Prayer, and opening my eyes to Shy Harbor. Then, I’d swam to the bottom of the lake and found the Key. It sure seemed like an average dream, but I couldn’t throw out the possibility I was actually awake at that very moment.
For the first reality check, I’d need a mirror. I peered through the window of the cabin to make sure it was vacant. The windows were locked, the inside dark.
Wait, who was that in the middle of the room? I pressed my forehead to the window. A woman with pale skin and a white dress stood with fingers intertwined behind her back. Every hair on my body rose. She didn’t move, just stared off at some distant object. Without warning, she turned her head toward me, slowly, an unnaturally wide grin making her appear somehow inhuman. Black holes stared from where her eyes should have been.
I stumbled back, falling onto a floor of dead grass. Picking myself up, I ran toward the cliff-studded shoreline until I reached a ranch-style house with a tattered screen door and peeling blue paint. I instinctively crept to the dirt-filled clay vase at the corner of the house, lifting it to grab the spare key. After a quick glance through the window, I pried open the screen door and unlocked the wooden front door.
A cloud of dust drifted up as the door swung open. The dark room’s rustic wood furniture and Northwoods decor lay just how I remembered it. A stack of plates and drinking glasses still rested on the table, evidence of our hasty departure. Aiden’s music book, Folk Favorites for the Guitar, was still open on the green couch. I bit down on my lip to hold back tears. Moments like these made me wish my dream-crafting wasn’t so damned perfect.
I ignored the flood of bittersweet memories the room triggered, making my way to the antler-framed mirror on the living room wall. I held my breath for what I might see.
The reflection looking back at me was like a Picasso painting, my dark eyes blown out of proportion, lying crooked on my face. My chubby cheeks were stretched like pizza dough, my nose somehow resting below my mouth. I let out a sigh.
I guess I should explain. You see, the mind has trouble recreating certain things you see in everyday life, so if you look into a mirror in your dream, your reflection can seem more like a fun-house mirror than an accurate portrait.
Not satisfied with only one reality check, I concentrated on the music book on the couch and wished it to close. It did. For a third and final check, I wished myself to levitate. After a few seconds, my body felt lighter as my feet lifted several inches off the ground.
That settled it. I really was dreaming. That meant one thing: it was time to use more extreme methods to get back.
***
I stood on the sidewalk and faced the interstate that hugged the shoreline. Aside from a few hiking trails, it was the only source of traffic passing through the otherwise quiet town. Cars zipped by every few seconds, shaking the asphalt that was tinted red from the iron-rich rocks quarried along the massive lake. I stepped to the edge of the asphalt, inhaling a breath of courage. What I was about to do would be considered suicide in the real world, but in my dream world, it might be the only chance to find my way home.
When I’d first started lucid dreaming, I created a code of three rules that I must never break, both to help me find my unconscious, and to protect me from the unknown dangers of exploring my own head.
1. Be an observer, not a changer.
2. Don’t let your awareness slip away.
3. Never (ever) go too deep.
I didn’t refer to rule number two often anymore. As I’d become better at lucid dreaming, staying conscious and aware while I slept had become second nature. On the other hand, rule number one was critical. In my dreams, I could move things with my mind, make items appear out of thin air, and control my environment. But the more I did that, the more unstable the dream became. Controlling dream people—same thing. If I truly wanted to learn from my subconscious, dream figures needed their free will, and I needed to use my dream powers as little as possible.
In a way, each rule played its part. But rule number three was the most important of all.
My guess? I broke that rule the moment I swam to the bottom of the lake to retrieve the Key. C had warned me about the danger of venturing too deep into the recesses of my mind, but I’d been getting impatient. I wasn’t going to hold off on finally grasping the Key to my unconscious. No. Friggin’. Way.
A blue pickup truck rounded a light curve at about fifty miles per hour. That was the one. As the rumble grew louder, I gathered my courage, ready to move. Just five more seconds. Four. Three. Two.
“Little Maddie! I thought that was you!”
I sighed, turning around just as the pickup buzzed past. A short, white-haired woman with rimless glasses and a pink visor cap gave a little wave and hustled toward me. She straightened her bird-print sweatshirt as she smiled, grabbing one of my hands tightly in hers.
“Oh, heavens! How you’ve changed. I barely recognized you without your beautiful long hair. I was just enjoying a little walk, you know. My doctor said I need to start moving around more. Oh dear, but you look so confused! Don’t you remember me? No? I used to visit your folks once in a while, even brought over my meatball hotdish one summer.”
I vaguely remembered. “Oh, of course I remember! Sorry, it’s just that… it’s been a few years.”
The woman, whose name I couldn’t recall, lifted her brow in a look of pity. “We all hoped you’d come back, you know, after the accident. I always used to tell my neighbor, Mr. Red Feather, that…”
With a quick wish of intent, I sent the woman’s visor flying off with the wind.
“Oh, good gracious! I’ll be right back dear.”
As she scampered off to catch her cap, I stole another glance at the man in the white suit. He was now glaring at me with black skull holes for eyes. I put my quick reflexes to work, sprinting away from both of my new acquaintances. Shrubbery and asphalt flew past me as I ran, listening for the rumble of another oncoming vehicle.
It didn’t take long. A hulking semi-truck came into view, and I jumped in front of it. I closed my eyes and listened to the blare of the horn.
Wham.
The impact hit me, knocking the air from my lungs.
But it didn’t strike me head-on. It came from the side, launching me onto the cold sidewalk pavement. The sound of the horn whizzed past, fading into the distance.
I opened my eyes to see Luke staring back at me through wide eyes, panting heavily.
“I’d say you are definitely not fine.”
CHAPTER THREE
My slice of coffee cake and I enjoyed a staring contest while I tried to ignore the awkward silence between my valiant rescuer and me. Luke just sipped on his steaming drink, eyes downcast. In most dreams, we never lacked things to talk about. But somehow, this was different. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, then seemed to think better of it, letting out a weighted sigh.
After helping me off the interstate, Luke had made sure we had a proper introduction, and I’d finally accepted that hot chocolate offer. He’d kept his hand on my shoulder all the way to Connie’s, probably afraid I was looking for another speeding car so I could finish the job I started. Not going to lie—I kind of was.
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