by Kit Alloway
Feodor smiled, gleefully almost. “Nevertheless, it worked, no?”
Josh didn’t have a response to that, and Feodor gloated all the way home.
* * *
Later, though, she wondered if he was right. What if she needed to be so in touch with a nightmare that she had to lose herself to the dreamer’s fear? Was it really crazy, or was it the best way to help? If she had let herself get completely lost in the nightmare about Tlazolteotl, would she have been able to help that dreamer let go of her innocence?
Or had it just felt that good to grieve over Will?
She’d let herself mourn for exactly one night, sobbing in Deloise’s arms and waking up the next morning with a stuffy head and sore eyes. While still sitting in Deloise’s bed, she’d written out a list on her sister’s lilac stationery:
Restore Winsor’s soul.
Return souls/Save Haley.
Send Feodor back.
Find Peregrine.
Become the True Dream Walker.
Those were her priorities, in order. Ten weeks later, and she’d only crossed off one item. Granted, it was a pretty big one, but she’d thought after her early success that the others would come more quickly.
Those were the things she worked on, thought about, obsessed over, to keep from feeling Will’s loss. And that had been a good plan, until tonight, until the heartbreak nightmare had brought all the heartache back.
Suddenly, she wanted quite desperately to talk to Will. Not even to beg him to take her back, just to tell him how hurt she was and how much she missed him and how alone she felt. He would understand, he would let her talk, he knew how to listen.
But she sensed that if she let herself pour her heart out to him, she’d walk away feeling his loss more than ever. She’d done such a good job of not moping over him, of focusing on the work. She didn’t want to get sucked into sadness now.
So she turned the lamp on, and got dressed, and went out.
Nine
As with so many other doors, Josh’s name unlocked Aurek Trembuline’s with ease. As soon as Will mentioned her, Trembuline was delighted to set up an interview.
Will read a lot of Trembuline’s writing before the meeting, and he tried to explain the man’s philosophy to Whim as they drove toward Trembuline’s office.
“Trembuline’s big theory is that everyone should be following their hearts. He believes that each dream walker has an innate sense of purpose, and that nothing—no limitations, no government intervention, no moral qualms—should stop them from fulfilling their vision for their lives.”
“Okay, we should all follow our dreams,” Whim said.
“Yeah. Except, if your heart tells you to go murder a bunch of people, he thinks you should do it. That’s why he called what Feodor did at Maplefax ‘courageous.’ He thinks Feodor was following his heart.”
“I think Feodor was following the voices in his head.”
“I agree. Trembuline’s theory doesn’t make any sense to me, especially not the part where he says that if we all follow our instincts, no matter how extreme, the three universes will naturally fall into balance.”
“What? Just … why? Why would he think that?”
“I don’t know. I’m hoping that if I ask him, it will open up some conversation.”
Trembuline had an office; Will wasn’t exactly sure why. The plate on the door read AUREK TREMBULINE, NATURAL PHILOSOPHER. He knocked.
The man who answered the door was not at all what Will had expected—no glasses, no sweater with elbow patches, no pipe. In fact, he looked nothing like an academic. He wore jeans and a faded T-shirt for a band called Gangster Fun. He was balding, but wore the hair he had left in a long ponytail, and he was barefoot.
“Come in, come in,” he said, smiling.
The walls of Trembuline’s office were covered with framed photographs of smiling children. They varied in age and race, but Trembuline was at the center of every picture, his arms wrapped around the kids.
A leather sofa sat against one wall, a writing desk beside it, and on the other side of the room was a small wooden altar with a round meditation cushion in front of it. A goddess Will couldn’t identify sat on the altar.
“Wow,” Whim said, looking at the pictures. “Do you do some kind of charity work with kids?”
“Oh, no,” Trembuline said as he plunked down in a papasan chair. “They’re mine.”
Whim did a double take. “All of them?”
“Yup. All twenty-two.”
“You have twenty-two children?” Will repeated.
“I know, it’s a lot. Eight different mothers. I guess I’m just afraid of being alone in my old age.” Trembuline laughed.
Well, Will thought, that’s a whole new kind of crazy.
“Don’t worry,” Trembuline said, “you don’t have to pretend you find it normal. I’m not really into pretense. I’d rather you were just honest.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Whim said. “’Cause I can’t even think of anything polite to say.”
Trembuline grinned and opened a minifridge. “You guys like energy drinks?”
“Sure,” Whim said. He and Will each accepted a can of something called Napalm Gorilla + Squirrel.
Trembuline cracked his open and chugged it. After a shrug, Whim did the same. Will took a swig—it tasted like Mountain Dew and gasoline—and then set the can down.
Afterward, Trembuline burped loudly and said, “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
Will was so scattered by the bizarre display that it took him a moment to find the words. “Well, like I said in my e-mail, I’m pretty new to dream walking—”
“Yeah, you’re Josh Weaver’s apprentice.” Trembuline raised his hand. “Up top, man. That’s quite a score.”
Will, feeling decidedly uncomfortable, high-fived the man.
“What’s she like?” Trembuline asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Um, she’s great,” Will said. “She’s … an encyclopedia of dream-walking knowledge.”
“I’m sure she is. I bet it’s no chore sticking your nose in that book.”
What the hell are we talking about here? Will wondered.
He cleared his throat. “So, I was just reading some of your articles, and I—”
“Which ones?”
“Oh, uh, ‘Personal Dream Walker Ethics,’ and ‘The Agreement Framework.’”
“Huh. The Daily Walker called ‘The Agreement Framework’ a theory of Communist karmic bullshit.”
“I thought it was okay,” Will said weakly.
“They hate me over at the Walker.”
Trembuline’s pupils were huge, Will noticed. This guy’s high as a kite, he realized, and not just on energy drinks.
Trying one more time, he said, “I’m curious about—”
“You know what? Instead of talking about it, let’s do it! Right? Let’s really get in up to our elbows. I’ve got some more zafus over here.”
The next thing Will knew, Trembuline was pulling out circular meditation cushions, and they were all sitting on the floor in front of the altar. While Trembuline looked for his lighter, Whim leaned over to Will and whispered, “Dude, my heart’s beating like three hundred times a minute.”
This is going nowhere, Will thought.
Trembuline lit a small lamp with a piece of purple cloth thrown over the shade—Will was pretty sure that was a fire hazard—and turned off the overhead lights, then set fire to a stick of vanilla musk incense.
“Let’s rock out,” he said, taking a seat on his zafu. “This is what it’s all about, boys. The experience. Rub your hands together. Fast! Faster!”
Will rubbed his palms together until he thought they would ignite.
“Hold your hands up.”
Will followed Trembuline’s lead and held his palms about two inches apart.
“Move your hands closer together. Now apart again. Now a little closer. What do you feel?”
“I feel it!” Whim said. “It’s like … like a resis
tance.”
Will hadn’t noticed, but now that Whim pointed it out, he did feel something when he moved his hands together. Almost like something between them was bouncing them back.
“You’ve got it, buddy! Close your eyes.”
Reluctantly, Will closed his eyes.
“Now, imagine something you love. Like, really love. Like, a lot. Imagine it right between your hands, and feel how much you love it.”
Will tried to imagine Josh, but he had too many conflicting emotions. It felt simpler to imagine Kerstel instead, how comforting it was to go home knowing she would be there; that no matter how good the book, she’d put it down if he needed to talk; the way he could count on her to notice if he was upset.
“Open your eyes.”
Will opened his eyes. His hands were a foot apart.
“Whoa,” he said.
“Holy crap,” Whim said. His hands, too, had moved farther apart.
“See how the energy grows when you tap into love?”
Will wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t experienced it for himself. When he pressed his hands in closer, he felt the same resistance as before, only more intense now, as if whatever hung between his palms had grown denser, thicker.
“Close your eyes again,” Trembuline said. His voice was less animated than before, drowsy, hypnotic. “Take that ball of energy between your hands, that ball of love, and pull it into your own heart.”
It’s just the power of suggestion, Will thought, even as he felt a warmth he couldn’t explain suffuse his chest. He realized he was smiling and he didn’t know why. He just felt happy.
“Think of a question. Any question. Even the hardest question in your whole life, the one you’re afraid to ask.”
The question wasn’t hard for Will to find.
Can Josh and I ever be together?
“Feel all the good energy in your heart. Stop listening to your thoughts. You don’t have to stop thinking, just stop paying so much attention to your thoughts. Just wait. Make a space for your heart to give you the answer.”
Will had always known he thought too much, got too wrapped up in his head. He felt relieved that he didn’t have to stop thinking—he doubted he’d pull that off. But it felt nice to detach from the thoughts and just watch them pass by like boats on a river.
He let out a deep breath. That, too, felt good.
Suddenly he saw Josh in his mind. Not the way she’d looked lately, distracted and disheveled, but the way she’d looked after their first encounter with Feodor, during those weeks of recovery when they had done nothing but hang out in the living room, watching movies and talking, both too loaded with pain meds to have nightmares or foreign memories. He’d never seen her look so light, before or since.
And then he knew the answer.
Keeping her at arm’s length won’t keep you safe. It won’t make you happy, either.
He felt a rush of relief at admitting a truth he’d already known.
But how do I start trusting her again? he asked.
The only way to learn to trust her is to trust her.
The answer was so obvious. There was no way around jumping back into the pool.
But it isn’t trusting Josh that’s holding you back. You don’t trust yourself.
I don’t? Will thought, stunned.
You don’t trust yourself to make the right choices.
Yeah, well, I’ve made almost as many bad choices as Josh. I didn’t tell her when I saw her dreaming about Feodor, I did Veil dust and drank, I got us all caught by Bash and nearly killed.
And you learned from all of it, his heart said.
“Dude,” Whim burst out beside him, “I don’t think I deserve Deloise. I’m not good enough for her. I think I blew things up between us so she wouldn’t figure that out!”
Will opened his eyes and saw Trembuline nodding like he knew what Whim was talking about. “Yeah, man. Totally.”
“I’m such a jackass,” Whim marveled. “Maybe I’m not mature enough yet to be with a girl like her.”
“I want to have another baby,” Trembuline said, still nodding. He took Will’s abandoned energy drink and chugged it. “I’m gonna get Ginger pregnant with, like, quadruplets.”
The idea of Trembuline having more babies snapped Will out of his pleasant, hazy revelation. “Yeah,” he said uneasily, “maybe think on that some more.”
But Trembuline and Whim were still nodding at each other. “This was amazing,” Whim said. “I’m gonna read all your books. I think you’re onto something.”
“Awesome. Whatever I can do, buddy. Anytime.”
Then they were standing up and doing some kind of complicated handshake that they must have worked out telepathically beforehand, and Will was saying desperately, “Wait, wait.”
“Gotta go, friend. Gotta get my kids from day care.”
Do you have a tour bus? Will wondered. Aloud, he said, “There’s just one question I have to ask.”
Trembuline shrugged acceptance, even as he nudged them toward the door.
“Did Peregrine Borgenicht ask you to interview Geoff Simbar?”
Suddenly Trembuline appeared a lot less high and a lot less friendly.
“That’s a weird question,” he said. “You said you were here to talk about my work.”
“We did talk about your work. Now I want to talk about Geoff.”
Trembuline shook his head, and this time his nudge toward the door felt more like a bulldozing.
“At least tell me this,” Will begged. “What did you and Geoff talk about?”
Trembuline smiled. “Oh, you know … life.”
Then he shut his office door in Will’s face.
Whim was standing with his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide. In the hollow of his throat, Will could see his hummingbird pulse flicking beneath his skin.
“Let’s go,” Will said.
* * *
Whim couldn’t shut up the whole drive home. “That was mind-blowing. I totally understand why I screwed things up with Deloise now. My debonair charm, my glittering wit—it’s all just to make up for my own deep-seated feelings of inadequacy. I cheated on Del so she would break up with me before she found out how pathetic I am underneath my unfathomable exterior. That guy is a genius.”
“That guy,” Will said, “thinks Feodor is a genius. And he’s probably in league with Peregrine.”
“No way. He’s just interested in altered states of consciousness. He’s got, like, wisdom. I mean, who would have guessed that my being a terrible boyfriend was actually the result of being such a sensitive, complex person?”
“Oh, brother,” Will said.
“Didn’t you get anything out of it?”
“Yeah,” Will admitted. “I did.” He realized he was smiling again.
“Haaaa!” Whim said, pointing a finger at him. “You thought it was amazing, too!”
“Watch the road.” Will put a steadying hand on the wheel. He felt himself blushing.
“You’re gonna get back with Josh, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, probably,” Will admitted, and Whim let out a whoop!
“See? The guy is a genius!”
“No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. You and I got real insight from whatever it was we did back there, but what if my instinct told me that the best way to get over Josh was to strangle her in her sleep? Trembuline would say that’s what I should do.”
“But see, I don’t think your heart would ever tell you to do that. How can filling your heart with a big ball of love energy lead to it telling you to strangle someone?”
“Apparently it’s led Trembuline to father two dozen children! Don’t you find that weird?”
“Yeah, it’s weird, but it’s not evil. I mean, maybe that’s his destiny.”
Will shook his head. “You’re starting to sound like him.”
“I can’t wait to tell Del everything I saw. She’s gonna be blown away when she sees how much I’ve changed.”
“
Changed? What are you talking about?”
Whim laughed. “You were sitting right next to me, Will. I’m a changed man. Del will get it. We’ll be the power couple of the century.”
“What are you talking about?” Will nearly shouted. “Is it the energy drink, or do you actually think that meditating for five minutes fixed all your relationship problems?”
“Let’s hit that Starbucks up ahead.”
“No. You’ve had enough caffeine to last the next two months.”
They stopped for coffee anyway.
Ten
“There’s no way Josh is the True Dream Walker,” Ian said. “I would have known.”
Haley and Ian walked side by side down a wide dirt road. They’d left the meadows and low hills behind and were now deep in a forest, and only the width of the road allowed enough of a break in the canopy to let sunlight reach them.
Sour green pride rippled through Ian’s aura as he spoke. Haley wondered if Ian was upset because he hadn’t noticed Josh’s gifts, or because he didn’t have them himself.
“Is that why she got an apprentice?” Ian asked. “Because people think she’s the True Dream Walker? She’s not as talented as people think she is, you know.”
“Her scroll predicted—”
“Her scroll,” Ian scoffed. “You’d think after what happened to me, she’d be smart enough not to open her scroll.” He kicked a stone off the road and sent it flying into the forest. “What’s that guy Will’s deal? He’s trying to get with her, isn’t he?”
That wasn’t exactly how Haley would have characterized Josh and Will’s relationship, but he was afraid of angering Ian by arguing, and Ian took his silence as an agreement.
“Jesus. Was she just, like, desperate after I died? She looked awful when I saw her. Her hair was way too long.”
I think I forgot how bad Ian and Josh were for each other, Haley realized.
“Will probably likes long hair. He probably wants to turn her into a sports model or something.” Ian’s shoulders twitched, as if he had an itch or a sore muscle. Little starbursts of red and green peppered his aura. “How’s Winsor?”
Ian was the last person in the three universes that Haley wanted to talk to about Winsor. She had been Haley’s girlfriend, and she’d cheated on him with Ian, sparking the fight that led to Ian’s soul getting ripped out. Haley didn’t like the way Ian had jumped from complaining that Josh was with someone else to asking about Winsor, like he still thought of Winsor only as someone he could use to hurt Josh. As if the fact that Haley had loved her didn’t matter.
