The Last Dream Keeper

by Amber Benson

  The ground was still buckling underneath her as she reached up and touched her face.

  Everything was intact.

  No wound.

  No blood.

  There were strange rules in this dream.

  Lizbeth felt her body rolling to the side, heading straight for the side of the Dragon’s head. She tried to grab hold of something to stop herself from going over the edge, but her fingers slid across the dirt. They dug into the rock, grasping in desperation, but caught nothing. Another shake, another forceful wave of motion, and she was sailing into empty air, arms and legs flailing as she fell.

  She hit the ground hard, her left side taking most of the brunt of the fall. She expected her body to start screaming, but after a few seconds, when there was no pain, she flipped onto her belly and raised her torso.

  There was nothing to speak of in the way of hurting. Only a sense of lightness that served to remind her she was still in a dream and that the rules of Earth physics didn’t seem to apply to this part of the dreamlands.

  Thank God, Lizbeth thought—because she’d been in other dreams where things like gravity did apply and it hadn’t been pretty. Once she’d even broken her wrist in a dream (and it had stayed broken in real life), but that had been in the days “before.” When she was in the institution and no one believed anything she said . . . and then she’d stopped talking.

  And that had been the end of that.

  The horrors of the institution had robbed her of her voice, rendering her mute and almost catatonic. Then Weir had rescued her from a fate worse than death and her whole life had changed. Only she’d realized—with dawning horror—that no matter how safe she felt in Echo Park, her voice would not come back. It had been swallowed up in the darkness of her lost life—

  “Do you DARE to wake me!?”

  The voice wasn’t a pleasant one, and Lizbeth craned her neck to see whom, exactly, the voice belonged to. At first, she couldn’t get a bead on the owner, but then the voice came again, and she quickly realized what she was dealing with: the Dragon.

  “You crawl upon my back and stomp across my nose! You have no decency or respect whatsoever—”

  Only in her dream, he wasn’t made of stone anymore. He was flesh and blood. Other than that little detail, he looked exactly as he did in waking life. His gray scales were covered in gang tags and graffiti and lovers’ initials wreathed in rough-hewn hearts. Even his eyes were the same: dark teal pupils and white eyeballs encircled in electric-blue paint.

  She opened her mouth to speak, to apologize to the Dragon for treading on its head, but the words wouldn’t—couldn’t—come. They sat like hard glass marbles taking up real estate in her mouth. She wanted to spit them out, but it wasn’t an option. Instead, she stood up and took a deep bow. Her hope was the beast would accept this as a polite response to his tirade.

  “Do not bow at me,” the Dragon roared, slithering down from the cliff like a snake, its body long and lean and sinewy.

  In her fear, Lizbeth took a step backward and tripped over an exposed tree root that ran across the ground behind her. She lost her balance and fell hard against an old pine tree. Luckily, she was able to grab hold of the tree’s massive trunk and stay on her feet—but in the process she’d made a pretty good fool of herself in front of the Dragon.

  She heard laughter coming from behind her, and she spun around to face the creature. Coiled like a garden hose in the yard, his serpentine body glittered with silvery light despite the fact the sky was dark with thunderheads. The creature was shining from the inside out, as if he were powered by a tiny sun instead of a heart.

  Maybe he was.

  “Cat got your tongue?” the Dragon asked after he finished laughing at her—not that she minded. Better to be laughed at than roasted alive, even in a dream.

  While she tried to find a way to communicate with him, the beast continued to stare at her. Up close, he was very beautiful, his huge eyes fringed in thick black lashes.

  “Aha!” the Dragon said, head rising up from the coil and looming over her. “Maybe this will be better for you, mute. I’ll just put my voice inside your head.”

  —Can you hear me?

  Lizbeth started, unsettled. The feeling of having someone speaking directly to her brain was surreal.

  —Well?

  She nodded.

  —You can speak back, silly mute.

  Oh, Lizbeth thought. This is strange.

  The Dragon let out a long guffaw, revealing nubby herbivore’s teeth. Which made Lizbeth relax a little. Obviously the Dragon wasn’t a meat eater—unless he torched his prey into soft, overcooked meat kabobs first. And if that was the case, then all bets were off.

  “I can hear everything you’re thinking,” the Dragon said as he slithered over to her, unwinding himself to his full length.

  For the first time, Lizbeth could really appreciate the monstrous size of the beast. His head was as big as a golf cart, but much more shapely, and his scaled body was probably fifty feet long. Lizbeth tried to remember if the Dragon was this big in waking life, but it was hard to remember back to the real world when you were inside a dream. It was also hard to think clearly when something so large and imposing was freaking you out by reading your mind.

  “I can still hear you,” the Dragon said out loud, looking displeased that Lizbeth couldn’t rein in her thoughts. “Although, it is a lot more fun to watch you squirm, so thank you for that.”

  Sorry, Lizbeth thought. I’m not used to anyone being able to hear me. Even though I’m talking to you with my head and not my mouth, it’s . . . just . . . an odd sensation. Being understood.

  The Dragon nodded. He really did seem to understand.

  I’m here, in this place, because a friend left something for me, Lizbeth thought. Maybe you can help me find it—

  The Dragon physically recoiled from Lizbeth, swaying his head far away from her.

  “But you’re still just a child!” he cried, almost spitting the words at her. “Not even full grown. I can smell childish things on you.”

  He blinked so rapidly Lizbeth could tell he was actually upset and not just teasing her.

  I’m not a child, Lizbeth thought, trying to protest, but the Dragon rose high above her head, shadowing her with his body.

  “You are, too!” the Dragon said, his voice rising an octave in annoyance. “Hold up a moment. I need to change form. This is all too much for this body to handle.”

  Lizbeth blinked and the Dragon was gone. In his place stood a beanpole of a man with pale gray eyes and a shock of pitch-black hair shaped into an impressive mohawk.

  Whoa, Lizbeth thought, unprepared for the transformation—and, if she was being honest, for the fact that this man was the handsomest thing she’d ever laid eyes on.

  “Mwahahaha!” the Dragon-man crowed, dancing in a circle in front of her, his long arms and legs swinging like a whirling dervish as the long, green leather coat he wore flapped around him. “Tell me what you really think? Handsomest thing ever, eh?”

  Lizbeth felt her cheeks flush pink. She had to remember this thing/creature/man could read her thoughts. Otherwise she was just going to keep embarrassing herself.

  “You’re not so bad for a half-caste mute yourself,” the man said, arching one black brow in a charming—and very flirtatious—manner.

  Half-caste? Lizbeth thought, not understanding. What does that mean?

  The man stopped shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet and clasped both hands behind his back.

  “Ah,” he said, nodding thoughtfully. “I forget so many of you don’t know a thing about your heritage.”

  Our heritage? Lizbeth echoed in her thoughts.

  “You call yourselves Dream Walkers/Dream Keepers . . . or something just as silly. That’s humans for ya.”

  Lizbeth was feeling even more conf
used now.

  I don’t understand, Lizbeth thought.

  The man unclasped his hands so he could scratch the tip of his Roman nose, and Lizbeth saw very long and delicate fingers, the kind one often found on a musician—

  “Magician, actually,” the man said and grinned down at her. Always the tallest person in a room—except for Weir, whose height made her look demure—Lizbeth was unused to someone towering over her. “And the name is Temistocles—sounds like Tim.”

  Temistocles offered her his hand, which was so huge it eclipsed her own.

  I’m Lizbeth, Lizbeth thought. And explain what you meant before. What’s a half-caste?

  Temistocles looked up at the sky and frowned. Above them the dark clouds bunched together into a thick mass, their fluffy bodies braided so tightly the sky was almost impossible to see. Lizbeth felt a cold chill start at the nape of her neck and travel down the length of her spine. She decided it had more to do with the malevolent look of the clouds and sky than the actual temperature.

  “You can’t stay much longer,” Temistocles said, a thread of worry woven through his words. Then he changed his tone and grinned at her: “Half-caste means one of your parents was a normal Earth human and the other . . . well, the other is like me. A creature from another dimension—”

  Are we in another dimension now? Lizbeth thought, the idea popping into her head without warning. Is that what dreams are? Other dimensions?

  Temistocles smiled at her, seemingly pleased by the way her brain worked.

  “You are a clever one, indeed. Dreams are their own dimension,” Temistocles said, eyes still clocking the trajectory of the clouds above them. “Anyone can enter the dreamlands, but the majority of visitors don’t remember their time here. Just a little quirk in their wiring, I guess.”

  Where do you come from? Lizbeth thought, curious to discover more about the strange man.

  “That’s for another conversation. But, suffice it to say, I didn’t possess a mastery over the dreamlands—”

  A mastery? she thought. Over what?

  “What I mean is that I didn’t have the ability to manipulate things here in the dreamlands until I was dead.”

  Lizbeth’s heart caught in her throat.

  You’re dead? But . . . you seem so alive! she thought.

  With an abrupt snort, Temistocles turned away from her, green coat swinging. He was already on the move before Lizbeth realized he was going. When she didn’t immediately follow him, he turned around and rolled his eyes at her.

  “Come on,” he said, gesturing with a long finger. “I have to give you your present before they get here.”

  They? Lizbeth asked, but Temistocles was even farther away from her now. Afraid to lose him inside the thicket of trees bordering the space where the Dragon rock had once stood, she began to jog after him.

  “Pick up the pace!” Temistocles called over his shoulder, his eyes searching out her own. There was a darkness there, in the hollows of his face and behind his pale gray eyes—and all Lizbeth wanted to do was reach out and soothe his worries away.

  “Stop trying to mentally mother me, mute child,” Temistocles yelled back at her, but there was an amused tone in his voice.

  Lizbeth caught up to him but was now too mortified to look him in the eye. Instead, they traipsed through the darkening woods together, Lizbeth hyperaware of her new friend’s nearness but trying desperately to pretend he wasn’t there—she didn’t need to embarrass herself further.

  They were no longer in the dreamlands version of Elysian Park. Somewhere they’d taken an unexpected turn and ended up in a much more wicked place. The trees, tall white birches with peeling gray bark, shot straight up to the heavens. There, they came together in a massive canopy that blocked out any sunlight stupid enough to try and reach the forest floor. The smell of the place was rich and loamy, but with an undertone of decay that tickled the back of Lizbeth’s throat.

  She’d experienced lots of strange things and places when she was dreaming, but Temistocles and this odd forest were the creepiest of them, by far. Plus, realizing that dreams existed in an alternate universe . . . well, that was a bit creepy, too.

  I’m not scared, Lizbeth thought, her long legs carrying her deeper into the spooky environs of the birch forest.

  “You should be,” Temistocles whispered, and then he reached out and took her hand.

  She had all of two seconds to register she was being touched—and by whom—before Temistocles threw her to the ground with enough force that she had no option but to comply. She cried out in pain as her ankle twisted beneath her, but Temistocles was already on top of her, covering her mouth with his hand, shushing her. Fear wrapped around Lizbeth like a blanket, smothering her. Her breath, what little of it she could catch with Temistocles’s hand over her mouth and his body pressing against her, came in shallow staccato bursts that made her light-headed.

  —They’re coming. Be bloody quiet.

  Temistocles was in her head again, but instead of it feeling like a violation, it was strangely intimate. Like he was bypassing her skull and whispering into the folds of her brain. She shivered, but the heat and nearness of Temistocles’s body was a good antidote to the terror she was feeling.

  Who are “they”? she thought.

  —The Flood. The bad guys, as you humans like to say. Always looking to put things in perfect little black-and-white boxes.

  There was a tremendous crash above them, and then the rush of running water filled Lizbeth’s ears.

  What the—Lizbeth started to think, but then Temistocles removed his hand from her mouth and leaned down, pressing his lips to her ear.

  “You’ll wake up with the book in your hands. Hold on to it tightly, my little half-caste love,” he whispered before covering her mouth with his lips.

  The rush of water, metric tons of the freezing stuff, hit them both at once—that and the kiss taking Lizbeth’s breath away.

  Temistocles?! she thought frantically.

  —We will meet again. I promise you that.

  Lizbeth opened her eyes to find she was underwater. She could see nothing for the moment . . . but then something bone white caught her attention and she screamed, water filling her mouth and lungs.

  She was holding on to a skeleton. One clothed in a long, green leather coat.

  * * *

  Lizbeth woke from the nightmare feeling trapped, her mind spinning faster and faster as it tried to come up with a way to escape the lockdown her body had begun in its sleep.

  I will not have an episode, she thought, anger shooting through her.

  It was as if there were two parts of her, both acting of their own accord. Her brain was cognizant of everything and wanted to stay engaged in the real world—save me from the dreamlands, where poor Temistocles is only a skeleton—while at the first sign of trouble, her body battened down the hatches and went into survival mode.

  This problem had started when she was a small child. Not long after her mother died. Now just thinking about the time “before,” when her beautiful young mother had loved and protected her, made her shut down. It was hard to believe, but somehow the good memories were more difficult to handle than the bad ones.

  No, you can’t hide the past away anymore, Lizbeth thought. If you want to stop all of this and break the cycle, then you have to remember. You have to embrace the good times. Own them and break the spell they hold over you.

  Remembering was so painful she could hardly stand it. But to remember her mother, and the good life she’d had before the institution, was the most important thing—

  This was when reality intruded, and she felt Daniela’s bare hand hovering inches above her face.

  Arrabelle

  Arrabelle woke late, dark dreams dogging her sleep. She felt unrested, her brain lost in a fog, eyes bleary. The last few weeks had been painful for her. So
hard to process that she found her dreams doing the bulk of the lifting. Because when it came to rebalancing her emotional state, she just couldn’t bear to deal with it in her waking hours.

  All her life she’d prided herself on being immune to emotions. Not that she didn’t feel them—she did—she just didn’t let them control her life or influence how she saw the world. But ever since Eleanora’s death, her ability to remain calm in any situation had begun to unravel.

  It started with small things. Like burning her hand on her espresso maker and knocking its aluminum pot over in anger, or dropping a carton of milk onto the tiled floor, or stubbing her toe on the leg of the kitchen table and crumpling to the ground in tears.

  It was adolescent angst behavior. Not at all appropriate for an adult woman. But she found she couldn’t help herself. She was a pot boiling over on the stove, a totally out-of-control emotional wreck—and the poor sleep she was getting didn’t help things.

  Still groggy, she pushed the thick brown duvet away from her body and climbed out of the king-sized teak bed. She slid her feet into a pair of soft slippers then pulled on her powder-blue chenille bathrobe, letting the plush fabric enfold her in its warmth. She walked over to the vanity and sat down to stare at her face.

  She looked awful. Hungover even. Her usually handsome features were drawn, the ebony skin too taut over the razor-sharp cheekbones she’d inherited from her mother—who was now only a faded memory, having died when Arrabelle was four. Leaving the curious little girl behind so she had been raised by a loving, yet eccentric, physician father and a revolving door of nannies.

  “Who are you?” Arrabelle asked the image in the mirror, but if she expected a reply, she was disappointed. The tired-looking woman in the glass did not answer.