Dream On

by M. Kircher

  Gabe clenches his jaw, and together we manage to haul his leg out of the gap. He collapses back onto the swaying bridge, wheezing in pain.

  "Em, check it," he begs me. "Is it broken?"

  I scoot over to his side and gingerly push up the leg of his tight jeans. I wince when I see how swollen and purple his ankle has become in just a matter of moments.

  "Yeeeaahh, it's pretty broken," I tell him. "Or badly sprained. Can you stand on it?" I know he shouldn't try it, but I'm terrified to think about leaving him here. What if I leave him to go find Mom and then come back and he's disappeared? I can't risk it.

  Gabe hooks his left arm over my shoulder, and I help him rise unsteadily to his feet.

  "Aw man, it hurts so bad." He sucks in gasps of air through his teeth. He tries to touch his left foot to the planks but immediately pulls it back up, his face a greenish color. "I can't walk on it," he tells me. "But I know we both have to go. If you can handle my weight, I think I might be able to hop."

  I examine at all six feet of him. "Sure, no problem," I quip, my tone light to belie the dread settling in my chest. If Gabe can't walk, then how are we going to find Mom and Evan?

  "Em, you could leave me—"

  "And what good would leaving you do?" I argue, trying not to panic. "We all need to be together when I wake us up. I can't leave you, or you'll die."

  Gabe sighs. "I figured you'd say something like that."

  "All right, then. Start hopping."

  We somehow manage to get down off the bridge and onto the opposite bank of the river, but even after just a few minutes of this, I'm already winded and breathing hard. I don't know how long I can shoulder half of Gabe's weight.

  But then the dream universe throws us a bone for once. As we slowly hop-walk away from the diamond river, a gigantic mountain literally materializes right in front of where we've paused for a quick break. The mountain rises high into the black night sky, and the moonlight glints off the silvery stone. It's not craggy like mountains usually are, but it's one smooth, unbroken surface — like a giant, rounded pebble.

  We both crane our necks up and stare at the thing, our arms wrapped around each other. Then, right in front of our eyes, a large stone door materializes out of the mountainside. The door is taller than Gabe, maybe ten feet high, and curved into a wide arch. A single seam runs down the middle, but when I press my free hand against it and push, the door remains closed, the seam stuck fast together.

  "This door is in the story," I remember excitedly. We must be going the right way. "But how do we get in?" I let go of Gabe for a moment and move my hands all over the stone around the door, feeling for some kind of latch or lever.

  "Here. Let me try." Gabe hops up to the doorway. He braces both hands on the stone and pushes as best he can with one good leg. The door doesn't budge. "Just a second," he mutters and then grunts, bracing his shoulder against the door and using the weight of his body to push. "Ugh," he exclaims. "Open, you stupid thing!"

  "Gabe…"

  "Just hold on a second. I've almost got it."

  "No, Gabe, look. Look at your hand." I point to where his right hand rests on the stone door. Gabe stops pushing and glances at it. And then he does a double take.

  "It's happening," I whisper, and I can't keep the fear out of my voice.

  "Um," he says, his voice small and his eyes as round as saucers. "This is not good, right?"

  I gulp and nod. Gabe's hand is almost completely transparent, like a ghost. The rest of his arm seems as solid as ever, but the skin on his fingers and palm flicker and fade. He holds his hand up in front of his face, and I can see right through it.

  "No, not good at all," I affirm.

  He reaches out and tries to grab my shoulder, but his hand passes right through.

  "I have to wake us up right now. It's too dangerous to wait any longer." Inside, my heart is crumbling. I don't want to lose Gabe, but how can I turn my back on Mom now? I have no idea if she's capable of waking herself up, and we don't know where Evan is, either. Whose life do I choose? Why, oh why did I get all of us into this mess?

  "No," Gabe tells me gravely, and he gazes into my eyes. "I'm serious, Em. We need to find Evan and your Mom first. It'll be okay. It's just my hand."

  "But Gabe, it means…"

  Gabe swallows, and I see his Adam's apple bob up and down in his throat. He must be terrified, but I can tell he's trying so hard not to let it show. "I know what it means, and you can't leave your mom. And I'm not leaving without Evan." He gestures to the door. "So let's get going, okay?"

  I nod and move back to the door, my heart beating fast inside my chest. Every moment we waste now could be hours — or days — in the outside world. And Gabe doesn't have time to waste anymore.

  I run my hands over the smooth stone again, desperate for some clue of how to open the thing. There has to be a way in. Why would Mom lead us here, just to thwart us now?

  "How does the story go?" I ask him, hoping he can't tell how scared I am. He's been the strong one up until this point, and now I have to hold it together, for both our sakes.

  Gabe is waving his transparent hand back and forth in front of his face and wiggling his ghost fingers. "This is so flipping weird," he confesses and then tucks the offending appendage into his pocket as if he can hide it there. He squeezes his eyes shut, thinking. "Um, the prince comes down out of the sky riding on a diamond, and he splashes down into the crystal lake. Which we now know is not a lake, but a river of melted diamonds. Then he comes to a stone door, but it just opens for him, if I remember right. He doesn't have to do anything."

  "Crap," I mutter. "You're right." I shove my hands on my hips. I'm so frustrated, I could scream. "Think, Emily. Think!"

  "Chill out. You can do this," Gabe encourages me, and he puts his good hand on my arm. But when he does, he loses his balance, and we almost go tumbling to the ground. "Sorry, Em. I forgot about my foot."

  But I'm not paying attention to him. As we bumbled around, my eyes caught the glistening river again, and I remembered a detail from the story.

  "I think I figured it out!" I leave Gabe leaning on the side of the stone mountain and rush back over to the riverbank. My palms serve as a tiny cup, and I dip them into the warm, glistening water. I scoop a bit of the liquid into my hands and tilt it up toward my mouth, swallowing a large gulp and letting the rest of it splash onto the ground. Then I run back to the door.

  "It worked!" I yell and pump my fist into the air.

  "What worked? Em, you're acting crazy."

  "No, I'm not," I disagree and point up at the curved top of the stone doorframe. "Remember in the book, the prince takes a long drink out of the crystal lake before he finds the stone door? We forgot about that part of the story. And after he drinks, he sees an inscription on the door, pushes it open and walks through."

  "But I don't see any inscription," Gabe counters, tilting his head up and sweeping his eyes over the stone.

  "Yes, but now I do, because I drank the water. It's right up there. 'Know your heart and enter.' I can read it plain as day. Or night, as the case is here."

  "But the inscription doesn't make any sense," he argues, shifting his weight uncomfortably. "How's that supposed to help us?"

  "I don't know," I answer him and shove my hands on my hips. "You're dying, okay?" My voice hitches, and I can feel the hysteria rising in my throat. I push it away. "We have to figure out what this means, or else the door won't open."

  Gabe swallows, and I can see the wheels in his mind spinning. "Know your heart," he says, considering. "In the story, the prince knew he wanted to find the princess. Could that be it? You've got to know why you want the doors to open?"

  "You're a genius!" I declare and leap over so I'm standing directly in front of the door. "Okay," I tell him, taking a deep breath and shutting my eyes. "I can do this." This is going to take concentration. I must know deep in my heart what I want. I think about Mom — and about Gabe and Evan and how, if this door doesn't open,
their lives will be in serious jeopardy. I force waves of calm to flow through my body.

  Gabe bursts into my forced calm. "Em—"

  "Shush," I mutter through my teeth. "I'm trying to know my heart."

  "Yeah, sure," he whispers and then is silent.

  Know my heart. Know my heart. I try to relax, feeling each muscle in my body and willing it to let go. I clear my mind. Thank you, two years of gym class yoga. At least something helpful can come out of all that meditating.

  I peek open one eye. Nothing. The door hasn't budged.

  "Ugh!" I stamp my foot on the ground, and Gabe hops backward in surprise. "Why is she making this so hard?" I cry out. "Why can't she just act like a mother, for once, and take care of me?"

  And at the exact moment I lose my cool, a mighty crack splits the silent night air. The seam on the stone door suddenly breaks apart, and the doors slowly swing open.

  Gabe and I look at each other. Without a word, I wedge my shoulder underneath his armpit, and he wraps his good hand around my waist. Together we hobble through the doorway and enter the gaping hole in the mountain.

  But what we find inside is no cave. Instead, it's a tiny room with walls the color of blood, and a loud, rhythmic beating pulses through the air.

  "Where in the world are we?" I mutter and clutch Gabe tight.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I gaze around with wide eyes as the thumping sound fills my ears. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. It sounds like thumping of a human heart.

  "I don't understand," I cry, frustrated. I reach out to touch the wall on my left. The surface of the red wall is smooth, but when I press against it, there is a slight give beneath my fingertips. It feels like a warm, pulsing sponge cake. And then I realize the walls themselves are producing the vibrations.

  "We're inside a heart." I turn to Gabe. "We're inside it. Do you remember any of this? Because I don't, and I'm the one who wrote this story down."

  Gabe doesn't answer me; instead he reaches out with his good hand to touch the wall. But as he moves, he loses his balance and stumbles. I go to grab him, but as I do, I see his whole body flicker in and out, like a wall screen with a short.

  "Gabe!" I yell when my straining hands meet only air. But then Gabe flickers back into the dream, and my trembling fingers clamp onto the soft cotton of his T-shirt.

  "Sorry about that," he mutters and rights himself. He's trying to play it cool, but I can see by the expression on his face he's as scared as I am. His real body is giving out, and by the look of things, it's about to shut down completely. Terror grips me. I'm going to be responsible for his death. The first boy I've ever kissed, ever had feelings for, and he's going to die because of me. I'm so torn inside. I desperately want to wake the two of us up now, but then I'll kill Evan for sure and possibly leave my mother stuck in here forever. What do I do?

  "There's got to be a door in here somewhere," Gabe announces and peers around the small room. I can tell he doesn't want to talk about what just happened. Grateful for something to do, I let my eyes scan the red walls as well.

  "There it is," I crow excitedly when my gaze catches on a small rectangle in the wall. It's so small; I wonder how we'll fit through. I help Gabe hop over, and then I grab a tiny red knob that pokes out of the door. When I twist the knob, the door swings right open, and Gabe and I stick our heads inside.

  It's another room, the exact same color and shape as the one we're currently standing in, and there is the exact same thumping sound echoing out of the walls. The only thing different about this second room is it's half the size of the first.

  Gabe takes my hand and grips it hard. I glance down, and his other hand, the transparent one, is hooked behind his back as if he doesn't want me to see.

  "Nothing else has been easy," he says, his voice full of grim determination. There are beads of sweat dotting his forehead. "Why should this be any different?"

  "Don't tell me this is the part that scares you?" I ask, and my heart gives a little squeeze. Gabe hardly bats an eyelash at the prospect of hurtling down a gazillion-foot slide into thin air — he rescues me from an angry Arab man and hauls me through floods of blood and swarms of bees — but tight spaces make him sweat? I want to comfort him, but I don't know how he'd take it.

  Gabe clears his throat. "I might sort of have a thing about small places," he tells me and lets go of my hand. He drags his fingers through his hair and awkwardly ducks his head.

  "It's no big deal," I tell him and give him an around-the-waist hug. It's the only kind I can give without letting him fall over. "But um, now is not the time to give into either one of our fears. We'll go through the door, and then it'll be okay." I'm trying to convince both of us.

  Gabe nods once and swallows, and together he and I squeeze through the tiny door. Once we're inside the smaller room, we're both breathing hard and clinging to each other so we don't panic.

  "There's another door," I squeak, trying my hardest to be strong and in control. This next red door is even smaller than the one we just passed through.

  "I think I'm cool with dying," Gabe sputters and backs away from the door. "We should definitely go back now. In fact, I'm sure that's what we should do."

  "Oh no you don't," I tell him and hold tight to the back pocket of his jeans. Gabe totters feebly on his one good leg. I pull him back against me and grit my teeth. "Let's just get this over with."

  I twist open the knob of the door to the third room and push through, with Gabe holding onto my belt and hopping close behind. This room is even smaller than the second, and we both have to stoop over to fit underneath the low ceiling. The walls on either side hem us in.

  Somehow, we make it through two more rooms, and then Gabe and I find ourselves completely trapped. The only way we even fit into this room is to kneel on the floor. The ground pulses underneath us. The ceiling pressing down on my head does the same, and my arms are pinned against my sides by walls that pound, and pound, and pound. I actually do start to feel as though I'm inside the chamber of a heart.

  Poor Gabe. His eyes are shut, and his chest is heaving in and out. I can tell he's trying to calm himself down, but the panic he feels is obviously taking over. I'm not faring much better myself.

  "Is there another door?" Gabe spits out through clenched teeth, and I do my best to look around the cramped space. I don't see a door anywhere, and I don't know how we'd fit through it even if there were.

  "I don't see anything," I tell him and try not to sound freaked out. There's no need to make things any worse for him.

  Gabe gulps in a breath and moves his knees so that's he's facing me, our torsos pressed together like the two halves of a sandwich. Now I'm the one finding it hard to breathe.

  He wiggles his arms against the walls and manages to shove them around me. His body radiates heat and sweat. Despite the circumstances, I'm like a nervous schoolgirl in his arms. Oh wait, I actually am a nervous schoolgirl — just one with a freak genetic code that allows my body to hibernate and trap everyone I care about in a dream world that could kill them.

  Yep, this is as messed up as it gets.

  I gaze up into Gabe's warm brown eyes, and for a moment, we just stare at each other. His breathing becomes much slower, and I can feel his pounding heart beat steadily against mine.

  "What are you doing?" I ask softly. "We have to get out of here."

  And then Gabe's entire body flickers out of the dream. One second he's here, warm and solid, holding me tight. The next second, my head rests against nothing but a cushion of air.

  "No!" I cry out, but before I can say anything else, Gabe flickers back into the dream and takes the opportunity to grab me and crush his lips against mine.

  My eyes pop wide open, and I stare at Gabe's blurry face as he attacks my mouth. It's the most passionate kiss I've ever experienced in all of my seventeen years — which covers a whopping total of two kisses.

  Everything stops. My heart. The pulsing of the room. Everything.

  His hands pre
ss me hard against him, and I can feel the muscles in his arms strain to bring me even closer. His tongue finds mine, and I give a little gasp of pleasure. This has to be both the best — and worst — moment of my life. I've just found love, and now I'm going to lose it.

  I stare at Gabe's dark eyelashes as he devours my lips. But just as I start to let my eyelids fall shut and totally lose myself in this amazing moment, the entire room surrounding us vanishes.

  Poof! It's gone. Just like that. No more thumping, no more being crushed into human balls of jelly. I pull back and detach myself from Gabe. Our lips make a sucking sound as they part, which would normally embarrass me, but now I don't care one bit because I'm so excited.

  "Gabe," I demand, shaking him and forcing his eyes open. "Look where we are. We finally made it — we're in the garden!"

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The hidden garden has always been my favorite part of True North. I loved listening to Mom all those years ago, when she told me the ending to her beautiful dream. And even after she fell asleep again, to escape her depression and despair, I still felt peaceful as I wrote down the imaginary happy ending in our book.