Dream Forever

by Kit Alloway

  “After I was exiled, she married a man, a plumber.” Feodor pronounced the word laden with distain. “They moved to Springfield and had four children. She worked as an emergency room doctor for thirty years. Now she lives with her daughter and grandchildren.”

  Feodor hated that, all of it. Josh knew. He largely despised domestic life, and he abhorred the thought that someone as intelligent as Alice had married a blue-collar worker. But Josh secretly felt happy for Alice, happy that after a decade with Feodor, she had been able to walk away and find real happiness.

  “Not to change the subject, but what Trembuline said about Peregrine switching bodies with Snitch, that isn’t possible, is it?” Will asked.

  Yes, Josh thought, but she didn’t say it because she could tell by the speed of his speech that Will was anxious.

  “No,” Feodor said. “I’m the only one who knows how to do so. Besides Miss Joshlyn, I suppose.”

  Josh did remember Feodor’s protocols for transferring souls between bodies, which was why she was concerned that Peregrine might just pull it off. “If Snitch can tell Peregrine exactly what you did to him, he might be able to put the pieces together.”

  “Unlikely,” Feodor pronounced. “I treated the magnets and crystals out of Kapu—er, Snitch’s sight. Peregrine has no way of knowing how I treated them.”

  “Josh?” Will asked hopefully.

  “That’s true,” she said, even though to her, the treatment of the magnets and crystals seemed so obvious that she couldn’t imagine Peregrine struggling to figure it out. She hoped that the protocol only seemed obvious to her and Feodor. “Feodor’s right that it would probably be impossible for Peregrine to sort it out on his own.”

  “That’s good,” Will said, and he sank back into the passenger seat.

  Not long after, Feodor fell asleep. Philo had given him some pain meds to take. Josh had never seen Feodor sleep, and seeing him so vulnerable felt strange.

  “I keep thinking he’s faking,” Will whispered to her.

  “He probably is,” Josh whispered back.

  She could feel Will staring at her. “Can we talk?” he asked, his voice still low.

  “Um, yeah.” She shifted uncomfortably against her seat belt, which suddenly felt like the straps of an electric chair.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were returning souls?” Will asked.

  “Like you said, we haven’t been talking much lately.”

  “Yeah, but … That’s where you’ve been all the time? You could have told me that.”

  “Yeah,” Josh said, “but I don’t have to. I told Mirren and Dad. That was enough.”

  Will fell quiet. When he spoke again, his voice was sad. “I guess you didn’t have to tell me. And I’d like to say that I would have helped, but we both know that’s not true.”

  After they’d gotten back from the Hidden Kingdom, Will had refused to help bring Haley back from Death. He’d correctly pointed out that they didn’t need him, but it had still stung Josh, the feeling that he couldn’t stand to be around her even when she was doing something good.

  He picked at a spot on his jeans. “You’re right that I bailed on you. I did. I even tried to go back to the county home.”

  “You did?” Josh looked away from the road to see the rueful smile on his face. “What happened?”

  “Your dad beat me to it. He called them and said I was going through some emotional stuff and not to listen to me if I called. Then he sat me down and told me that he didn’t care if I ever set foot in the Dream again, that I was his son now and that was the end of it.”

  Josh wished her father was there so she could hug him.

  “He also said it would be helpful if you and I could get along, but that he’d understand if we couldn’t. And I guess that was when I decided to be as nice to you as I could—not to hurt you, but because, if your dad could be that good to me when I was being so ungrateful, I wanted to live up to his example. It never occurred to me that you’d think I was doing it to hurt you.”

  Josh felt vaguely embarrassed that she’d made such an assumption. “I thought you hated me.”

  “Josh, I’ve told you before, I never hated you.”

  She hadn’t said much until then, but she felt all the thoughts and questions and things she’d wanted to say to him since they broke up pushing to get out. Releasing them felt dangerous, though, the same way tapping into a dreamer’s fear felt dangerous. She could lose herself.

  “You might not hate me,” she said, “but I’m not the girl you want anymore. I’m not … the girl you fell in love with.”

  Will fussed with the hole he’d torn in his jeans, and Josh resettled her hands uneasily on the wheel.

  “You know,” he said, “you’ve changed so much since we met. Finding out you’re the True Dream Walker, inheriting Feodor’s memories, trying to save Winsor … You’re always surprising me. Sometimes I feel like I can’t keep up. When we met you had no confidence in anything except your dream walking. Then you inherited Feodor’s memories and—honestly—a little of his arrogance with it. And now I have no idea what’s going on with you. You’re friends with people I’ve never even heard of. You’re working on secret projects. I barely see you.” He held up a hand when Josh started to speak. “No, wait. Let me finish. It’s as much my fault as it is yours. Like you said—I bailed on you. I freaked out, and I ran, and I kept telling myself that I didn’t miss you because I thought it would keep me safe from getting hurt again. And it wasn’t until I didn’t know anything about you anymore that I realized how much I hated not having you in my life.”

  The words loosened something in Josh’s chest, like the cork in her stone walls, and a wordless pain flooded through her.

  Will continued. “I’m not saying I should have done it differently, because I don’t think I could have. I was in a really bad place. But I know that I hurt you, and I’m sorry for that. I’m truly sorry.”

  Josh watched the speedometer fall. She couldn’t keep driving. She couldn’t watch the road. She pulled the car onto the shoulder, turned off the engine, and just sat there.

  She was going to tell him how she felt, but she only wanted to do it once. Once—and right. She wanted to be an adult about it.

  “I should have told you about the nightmares from the start. And the devices, and all of it. Partly I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d want me to stop, but mostly I was just afraid you wouldn’t love me anymore.”

  Will put his hand over hers. “And then when you did tell me, I broke up with you.”

  “Yeah. And I didn’t—I still don’t get it. I thought you understood what it meant to commit to something, to someone, and I thought you knew how hard it was for me to let you in—”

  “I knew. I’m sorry.”

  “I was an idiot. But I need to know that I can be an idiot and you’ll still love me, because I’ve spent so many years trying to be a perfect dream walker and I’ve never pulled it off. If you’re another person who needs me to be perfect, I just can’t do it.”

  “I don’t need you to be perfect,” Will said, unbuckling his seat belt. “If you can forgive me for not being perfect.”

  “Yeah, of course,” she said, and then they were hugging, the center console wedged between them. Josh didn’t think she’d ever felt anything as comforting as Will’s arms around her; she didn’t realize how much she had missed his touch.

  If Feodor was watching them from the backseat Josh didn’t care—let it be a lesson to him about how normal people handled their pain.

  “I want to get to know you again,” Will told her, but the idea made her freeze up.

  “What if you don’t like this me? What if I’m too Feodor for you?”

  “Josh, you’ve spent the last three months working around the clock to save Haley. You’ve wrangled Feodor, you’ve made new friends, you’ve revolutionized Veil tear repair, and you just let yourself be vulnerable with a guy who broke your heart. Whoever you turn out to be, I’m pretty sure I�
��m going to love her.”

  Josh was afraid of believing that, and despite all the longing that hug had awoken, she wasn’t ready to rush back to him. That surprised her, and at the same time relieved her.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said. When Will winced, she started to apologize, but he stopped her.

  “It’s okay. I want you to be sure. I know I’m asking a lot.” He gave her a smile that was both forced and sad, but still a smile. “Take your time. I’ll be right here, waiting.”

  She nodded, although suddenly asking for time seemed like a stupid decision. What was she going to do—consider the matter carefully and then tell him he wasn’t worth the risk?

  No. Josh had always been a risk-taking kind of girl.

  She restarted the car. “Do you want to stop somewhere for food? I’m starving.”

  Will peeked into the backseat. “Feodor is snoring.”

  “It’s probably for our benefit.”

  “Probably.” He reached out to twist a strand of her hair around his finger. “You know you’re the only girl I’ve ever loved.”

  She caught his hand and held it. “Well, don’t stop now.”

  * * *

  After they had stopped for fried chicken—“Chicken in a box?” Feodor had asked with dismay—and milkshakes and biscuits yellow with fake butter, and Will had taken over the driving, they debated how to approach Alice and her family.

  “We could always try the school project angle,” Will said. “We could claim we want to ask her about World War II.”

  “Simply tell her you’re Dustine’s granddaughter,” Feodor said from the backseat.

  “What good would that do?” Josh asked.

  Feodor snorted. “Don’t you recall? Dustine was Alice’s dearest friend.”

  “She was?” Josh said, and then the memories hit her like a head-on collision.

  Alice and Dustine, lounging on the beach. Alice and Dustine, laughing on the screened-in porch. Alice bringing Dustine home late one night, Dustine’s eye blackened. And Feodor getting in the car and driving over to Dustine and Peregrine’s place and—

  “Josh?” The alarm in Will’s voice broke through the memories.

  “Sorry,” Josh said. “Sorry.”

  “You okay?” Will asked.

  “Yeah.” She rubbed her head. “I just … the memories came back all at once. I don’t know how I could have forgotten. Dustine—I mean Grandma, and Alice were so close for so long … Of course she’ll be willing to talk to me.”

  “I want to speak to Alice,” Feodor said from the backseat.

  “She might not even recognize you,” Josh said. “She might have Alzheimer’s or dementia or something.”

  “And if she does recognize you,” Will added, “the shock might kill her.”

  “I want to see her,” Feodor repeated.

  “There’s no rationale for that,” Will said.

  They went back and forth, but Josh already knew that she’d let Feodor see Alice. It would shock the old woman, but Josh knew too well that Alice had been the only person Feodor had loved after the war. In his saner moments, trapped in his own universe, he had missed her. And though Josh couldn’t read his mind today, she had no doubt that he regretted how he had left things between them. That was one regret she didn’t want to carry any longer.

  Alice lived in a picturesque ranch house, set off the road on a few acres of land. They rang the doorbell just after nine in the morning.

  A buff teenage boy answered, wearing blindingly tight bike shorts and a bodybuilder-style tank top. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hi,” Josh said. “Does Alice Connelly live here?”

  “Yeah, she’s my grandma. Can I help you?”

  “Um, I’m actually the granddaughter of a friend of hers. I was hoping to talk to her.”

  “What friend?” the guy asked suspiciously.

  “Dustine Borgen—”

  “Dustine!” he cried. He flung the door open. “Come in. I’m Alex.”

  Josh stepped into a messy living room crammed full of free weights and half-dead potted plants. Will and Feodor followed her. “So, she mentioned Dustine?”

  “They used to talk on the phone every Sunday morning.” He shook his head. “Honestly, Nanna’s been going downhill ever since she heard Dustine died.”

  “Is she unwell?” Feodor asked.

  “No, but nobody lives forever, you know?” Alex said, leading them down a hallway. “She just had breakfast. She’s gonna be so psyched to see you. In here.”

  Turning to Will and Feodor, Josh said, “Give me a couple of minutes alone, all right?”

  “Of course,” Feodor replied politely. They’d agreed on this before. Josh was going to let Feodor see Alice, but not until she’d warned the woman, and not if Alice was too old and hazy to understand.

  “Nanna,” Alex said, “there’s somebody here to see you. This is Dustine’s granddaughter.”

  Alice’s bedroom looked like it might have been a rec room in a past life, and somebody had stuck a wall and a door on it when Alice moved in. The fake wood paneling on the walls was interrupted by a brick fireplace and a sliding glass door that led to the backyard. An impressive flat-screen TV hung above the mantel, tuned to a news network. The bed was partially hidden beneath a yellow and lavender quilt, and the old woman sitting up in it wore a chenille bed jacket over her nightgown. Her thin white hair had been combed off her face.

  “Dustine…” she said in a creaky voice.

  “This is her granddaughter,” Alex repeated.

  “Oh? How delightful.”

  “I’ll give you guys some time,” Alex said, closing the door when he went.

  “Let me turn this off,” Alice said, reaching for the TV remote.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Josh said.

  “Nothing but heartbreak on anyway,” Alice insisted, and turned off the TV.

  Josh swallowed. She didn’t realize until then that she had been imagining Alice as she last saw her—young and fashionable and fearless. Now she looked so small and so old, her face hardly recognizable beneath soft and wrinkled skin. Her once proud shoulders were hunched forward, and her gums had retreated, making her teeth look huge.

  But when she smiled, Josh knew her again instantly. Her bright brown eyes hadn’t changed at all.

  “Alice,” Josh said, her voice rough with tears.

  Alice held out a cool, bony hand, and Josh took it.

  “Dustine told me so much about you,” Alice said. After all these years, her English accent was as crisp as ever.

  Feodor’s told me so much about you, Josh almost said. She clasped Alice’s hand between her own, wanting to warm the old woman’s cool skin.

  “Did Josh come as well?” Alice asked.

  “Josh?” She realized then that Alice thought she was Deloise. “No, you mean Deloise. I’m Josh.”

  Alice’s smile faltered, and her eyes narrowed.

  “Joshlyn,” she said, and Josh didn’t understand Alice’s strange tone of voice.

  She leaned forward as if to get a better look, and then she pulled her hand out of Josh’s so she could touch Josh’s cheek, her hair, her shoulder. She had a doctor’s touch—firm, mechanical.

  “I haven’t seen you since you were three years old,” she said. She fell back against her pillows. “Dustine … I’d like to offer my condolences about Dustine. She was my best friend. I would have done anything for her.”

  “I think she felt the same way about you,” Josh said, although she didn’t know that for certain. Only now that Dustine was gone did Josh realize just how tight-lipped her grandmother had been.

  “We used to joke that one of us should have been born a man so we could get married. Would have saved us both a lot of trouble. She made this quilt, did you know that?”

  “No,” Josh said. “It’s beautiful. Grandma Dustine gave my friend a quilt, too, one that—demonstrates the three universes.”

  She’d hesitated for a moment, not sure if sh
e should bring up dream walking or not. But Alice just nodded and said, “She made that quilt.”

  “Really? She told me that Great-Aunt Lasia gave it to her.”

  “No, no. I remember her making it. Lasia hated sewing.”

  Josh began to worry that Alice’s mind was less clear than it had initially appeared. “Alice—”

  “Mrs. Connelly, dear.”

  “Mrs. Connelly, I came to talk to you about someone you used to know. His name is—was, Feodor Kajażkołski.”

  Alice looked at Josh with surprising sharpness, then at the closed bedroom door, as if she could sense him there. “Who told you about Feodor? It wasn’t Dustine.”

  Actually, Dustine had told Josh about Feodor, but not until she had no choice, and even then, she’d lied about knowing him. “This will sound strange. But some friends and I—we went to see him. In his universe.”

  “No, no.” Alice frowned. “That can’t be. Too many years … He never could have survived.”

  “But he did survive,” Josh insisted. “And he … he came back.”

  As if she hadn’t heard, Alice said, “Your eyes … they remind me of his.”

  Josh froze.

  “Not the color. Something in the way you watch me.” She abruptly turned her face toward the window. “Feodor never recovered from the war. Even when he was happy, there was a shadow over him. I couldn’t lift it, and finally it … took him.”

  “Alice,” Josh forced herself to say, “Feodor isn’t dead. He came back from his universe. He’s waiting in the hallway to see you.”

  She decided to skip the part about retrieving Feodor from Death. She was confusing the old woman enough.

  “You must be mistaken. Feodor died a long time ago.”

  “I’m going to bring him in now, all right? He looks younger than you remember. Try not to be shocked.”

  That was the best Josh could do. In retrospect, she probably should have brought Will in and let him explain. But it was too late now, and all she could do was open the door and beckon Feodor inside.

  Josh had never seen him hesitant before, but the steps he took were small, and he swallowed as he entered the room.

  “Hello, Alice,” he said.

  Alice gasped. What little color her pale face had vanished, and she gripped the edges of the quilt in both fists as if she were about to pull it over her head.