“Katie?” Her name came out as a crackling whisper and I forced myself to inhale. Then exhale. Inhale again. My hand shook as I twisted the knob.
I eased the door inward. Without a barrier between us, the sound cut through me like a knife. I slapped a palm against the wall, hitting the light switch, and flinched at the sudden brightness. At what it might reveal.
Katie lay flat on her back, her eyes shut tight, with the sheets snarled in a ball at the end of the bed. Sweat poured down her face, plastering her pink hair to her skin. The wild scream continued, unrelenting, her jaw stretched wide, her neck muscles protruding. But everything else was in its rightful place. Nothing was broken. The lock on the window hugged its latch.
I stepped into the room and spun, bumping into the dresser. My pulse thrashed; it mimicked Katie’s scream in pendulum beats. Loud then muffled then loud again. “Katie?” My voice felt tight. I knelt on the mattress and shook my sister’s broad shoulders. “Wake up.”
The scream cracked. Katie sucked in air as if she were drowning and began again, just as terrified. I used the back of my wrist to wipe the moisture from my forehead. My nails dug into her shoulders, and I shook her rigid body with every ounce of strength I had. The more I yelled her name, the more desperate, more savage, my voice became. Black spots danced in my vision. Nightmares were one thing, but this was something else. Something beyond that. I shook the dizzying fear away and darted into the bathroom across the hall.
I returned with a Dixie cup of cold water and leapt onto the bed. The water hit Katie’s face with a splash. “Come on,” I shouted to no avail.
I fumbled for Katie’s cell phone on the nightstand. If our mother didn’t know what to do, she could send someone who did. My thumb hovered over the direct number to my mother’s unit when a quick, metallic burst of air whooshed in from the hallway. A shiver ravaged my spine, and Katie’s pitch reached new heights. I slipped from the bed, my hip smashing into the floor. The phone fell from my hand, seemingly in slow motion. I lunged for the door, and slammed it shut, leaning my back against the wood.
I couldn’t think.
Couldn’t... I couldn’t...
The walls seemed to shrink, boxing me in. Trapping me.
Above the screech, a deep chuckle rumbled in the hall. My heart rose to my throat, and I dove for the phone where it had landed on the rug. I managed to dial nine before Katie’s scream cut off. Palpable silence penetrated the room. My rapid breathing mixed with my sister’s, and I edged up onto shaking knees. Katie rolled onto her side with a twitch.
“Katie?” My voice came out as a squeak.
She snuggled into the pillow, and her breathing returned to normal. Okay. She was okay. I turned my attention to the space at the bottom of the door. There was probably no one out there anyway. My sister’s screams threw me off after a confusing night, that’s all. I was merely tired and scared and was likely imagining the whole thing.
But before I called anyone, I had to be sure.
With the phone clutched in my hand, I crawled across the room to where the bright yellow handle of Katie’s tennis racket leaned against the wall. I gripped the hard foam and held it to my shoulder. I didn’t want to leave Katie alone but what choice did I have? I couldn’t call for help if no one was out there. My mother would have a field day.
Clenching my jaw shut to keep my teeth from chattering, I dialed two one’s before opening the door. If anyone was on the other side, it would only take a single touch to call for help.
I eased out, holding the racket in front of me, and flicked on the hallway light. The stillness slammed into me like a brick wall. “Okay, okay, okay,” I chanted under my breath. This was stupid. And yet… at five-foot-three and a hundred and ten pounds, an intruder wouldn’t necessarily need to be armed to overpower me.
My nerves exploded with a burst of adrenaline, and I leapt from room to room until each light bulb on the second floor glowed. I checked every closet, under every bed. The racket shook in my hand. There was nothing. No one. An irrational spike of anger zipped through me at the possibility of my brain’s betrayal.
My body moved on its own accord, taking me downstairs one tentative step at a time. One million potential fates I might encounter, if there was someone lying in wait, coursed through my thoughts. The joints in my fingers locked around the phone with my thumb still over the green call button. My tongue was sandpaper against the roof of my mouth, and I crept through the living room.
The freezer was still open, rattling in an attempt to keep the internal temperature down. I chomped down on my lip and inched my way forward to shut it. The rarely-used alarm system beside the back door taunted me—if only I remembered the code.
It seemed like it took ages to finish searching the house. I looked everywhere from the coat closet to beneath the bathroom sink, but it had only been eleven minutes since I had woken up. No time at all, really. I gripped the back of a dining room chair to stay on my feet.
There was no intruder. Katie had a nightmare, and my mind deceived me.
Again.
Always.
Only this time, it wasn’t part of my subconscious. I wasn’t asleep. Katie had screamed. There was a blast of air. Someone had laughed.
I swallowed the fear rising in my chest.
No one believed they were crazy. I wasn’t sure what it meant if I thought I was unhinged but constantly persuaded myself to believe I wasn’t. Was I? Wasn’t I? Not even the doctors could agree on an answer. My sanity was a double-edged sword, and I was fighting to maintain balance on the tip.
I dashed back to Katie and climbed in bed beside her, nestling close. I tucked the wrinkled sheet around us both and tried to ignore the nausea curdling in my stomach. Katie was older than me, bolder and more confident, but in that moment, she felt as fragile as blown glass. I wrapped an arm around her waist and squeezed my eyes shut. My ears strained to hear the slightest sound that could signal danger, but no one else was in the house.
No one had laughed.
The Sandman wasn’t real.
I balled the back of Katie’s T-shirt in my fist. He was real enough to me, and I needed him. Please, Sandman, I called in a silent plea for the second time tonight—the one only he could hear. Help me sleep.
3
Nora
“Crap,” I grumbled, rummaging through the papers littering my desk. “Crap, crap, crap.”
If I hadn’t hit snooze so many times, waiting for the Sandman to come to the beach, I wouldn’t have been running so late.
“The power is mine.” Ha!
Over the years, I repeated his mantra a million times. The words became such a part of me that I forgot the knowledge existed; they were as natural to me as breathing. The power of the beach was his, I knew, but my dreams—the dreams he claimed I would have if he weren’t there—that was mine. But if it were true that I could control things when the Sandman wasn’t there, he would have appeared. I clenched my jaw, shaking out a book. My name tag had to be here somewhere. I slammed the hardcover down and gripped my rolling stomach.
Idiot.
Heat tingled my cheeks. Relying on him, missing him, needing him... It was ridiculous. He was part of me, and anything that he could give me, I could give myself. My lungs burned, reminding me to inhale, and I sucked in a dry breath. I needed to get my act together, to get to work, and to stop being my own worst enemy.
My name tag fell from between two notebooks and clicked against the desk. I scooped it up, pinned it on my white dress shirt, and tucked the hem into my khakis. I was so late. I flew out of my bedroom, and straight into Paul.
My step-father still wore baby blue scrubs that smelled of rubbing alcohol and latex, his dark hair sticking up at odd angles. “Hey kiddo, what’s the rush?”
“I’m running late for work.” I forced a smile—something I would have to do all day if I didn’t want endless reminders from my boss that a good attitude was ‘an essential part of good customer service.’ Besides, my step-fat
her was a good guy. Better than my biological father, actually. Nice. Involved. There.
Paul made a low “hmm’’ in the back of his throat. “You didn’t drink and drive last night, did you?”
I threw him a scowl. The fact that my mother practically shoved me out the door to go to the party should’ve been a good indicator. “Natalie drove, and she drank soda all night.”
“Had to ask,” he grumbled. “Fatherly duty and what not.”
I rolled my eyes, but a genuine smirk quirked my lips. “Yeah, yeah. Mom asleep? Tell her I’ll do the garbage when I get home.”
“I’ll take it out.” Paul yawned and stepped around me into the bathroom. “Have a good day.”
The bathroom door clicked shut behind him, and I glanced toward Katie’s room. There were only ten minutes left before my shift started, but the screams still echoed in my ears. A raw, frightening thing. I bit my lip and inched forward to peek inside. The hinges creaked a baleful tune as I nudged the door open enough to slip inside, making the hair on my arms rise in anticipation.
The sheets were pulled up to her shoulders, her mass of bubble gum hair spread across the pillow, exactly how she was when I left sometime near dawn—after jolting awake for a third time.
“You up?” I whispered, creeping toward the bed. Katie’s chest moved up and down in a steady rhythm, but she had to be more than breathing. She needed to be okay. I poked her shoulder. “Hey.”
She growled without opening her eyes, “The house better be on fire.”
“I wanted to check on you before I left.”
Katie rolled over to face the wall. “Shoo.”
I stuck my tongue out at her. Katie was okay, even if her voice sounded a bit hoarse. She was fine, but I wasn’t. Not really. My head felt hollow without the Sandman’s support, my body heavy. “I’m going, I’m go—”
On the maroon pillowcase, completely invisible without the line of sun coming through the window, were flecks of glittering sand. My knees wobbled. I leaned closer and ran a finger through it. The dust was soft, almost a powder, and shone as brightly as a diamond. I stared, unblinking, at the tiny sparkles stuck in the grooves of my fingertip.
These particles… They played such a big role in my life the last few years. Every night I walked on it. Sat on it. Drew in it. At thirteen, I spent six hours trying to make sand castles from the loose particles, but they refused to stick to one another. At fifteen, I made dozens of snow angels across its surface and, with a flick of a certain someone’s wrist, it morphed into actual snow. Heck, last week, I used it to play a game of tic-tac-toe. I would know it anywhere. This was his sand.
What was it doing on Katie’s pillow? The Sandman had ignored my call while I lay awake for hours waiting for sleep to take me. Unless he had come… But then why wasn’t he at the beach?
“Nora.” Katie flung the sheet over her head. The movement kicked the remaining granules into the air. “Go. Away.”
I clutched my hand to my chest and sprinted to the car.
My fingers still trembled as I parked behind Howell’s Furniture and Decor. Twenty-four hours ago, I had everything under control. Dreaming about the Sandman was one thing, but disembodied laughter, sand on Katie’s pillow... I drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly through puckered lips.
What looked like sand could have been Katie’s makeup. She liked glitz and glam. That was it. Eye shadow. I shoved the car keys into my purse and nodded to myself in the rearview mirror.
Since I was seven minutes late, I didn’t need to draw more attention to myself and decided to jog around to the main doors, instead of knocking on the back. I saw my boss through the glass and cringed. She was usually doing paperwork in the office this early.
“Hey, Lisa,” I called over the cowbell clanging against the door. “Sorry I’m late. It won’t happen again.”
“I hadn’t realized.” Lisa, a tall woman with wisps of grey in her hair, glanced up from where she leaned over the desk. She held the phone up to one ear, covering the bottom half as she spoke. “You look... chipper.”
I stifled a groan. If by chipper, she meant like a member of the walking dead, then yes. “Long night.” Strange night. Strange morning.
“Come meet your new coworker.” She sidestepped the desk to reveal a boy no older than myself in a swivel chair. “This is Ben. He’ll be working the sales floor with you this summer.”
Ben glanced up from the paperwork and smiled so warmly it locked me in place. It was a smile of hopes and dreams. Promises. His violet eyes gleamed with a thousand flecks of starlight, and the fluorescent lights that reflected in his pupils stretched into seemingly endless mirrors. A mop of thick, curly ash-brown hair framed high cheekbones, and a narrow nose stopped above the softest looking lips.
I swore his breath caught at the same moment mine did. Looking at him, I felt like I was missing a place I had never been. The way he watched me sent lava racing through my veins. I knew him. Somehow, I knew him. The longing for something I didn’t understand quickly bubbled into panic, and one foot slid back toward the doors.
“Hello,” he said with the sweetest of smiles.
One word, two syllables, and the air evaporated from my lungs. His voice tugged at a vital memory. I nearly stumbled backward into a coffee table but caught myself on a column. I couldn’t place the voice exactly. It wasn’t anyone I knew, but the sound ached deep in my marrow. I wrung my purse straps, the stiff leather digging into my palm, and forced myself to walk toward the desk.
“Randy,” Lisa snapped into the phone. “This isn’t funny. Where are you? Call me back.” She slammed the receiver down.
I shifted between my feet. “Everything okay?”
“Randy ran the deposit to the bank over an hour ago. I swear, if he went back home to sleep...” Lisa picked the phone up again and dialed. “I’ll watch the floor while you give Ben a tour.”
“Tour?” I swallowed hard. Howell’s wasn’t hiring. Someone called at least once a week to ask, and the answer was always no. Maybe if someone was lucky, they needed help with deliveries, but never the sales floor. The walls around my composed facade trembled, threatening my sanity. “What happened to Josh?” I asked.
“He’s moving to afternoons.” She rounded the desk and held the phone out in front of her to speak directly into the receiver. “Randy, if I have to leave one more voicemail, I swear to God...” She slammed the phone down again.
Ben slid his stack of papers across the desk. “I’m done filling these out.”
“Great. Thanks,” Lisa said. She motioned him out of her chair and plopped down in his place. “If you have any questions, Nora can fill you in.”
I glanced sideways, my eyes level with Ben’s shoulders. A spike of nerves shot down the back of my neck, trailing all the way down my spine, and I arched my back against the tingling discomfort. Hints of toned muscle flexed beneath the rolled sleeves of his dress shirt when he reached out to shake my hand. Tattooed specks of navy blue and silver covered his hands, the granules thinning out as they spread up his forearm and disappeared beneath the fabric. It was hard to believe Lisa hired him looking like he did. Crazy contact lenses and tattoos? I wasn’t even allowed to put unnatural color in my hair. I scowled at the mix of emotions warring inside my head—intrigue, comfort, fear. He looked down at me, oozing charm and mystery and everything that would’ve drawn my friends closer. I stepped away.
The familiar sensation prickled again, begging me to move toward him, and I stopped myself mid-wince. Five years spent teaching myself to run as a default setting, to block out the fantasies, and yet ignoring his hand was one of the hardest things I’d done in a long time. I took a deep breath, letting it out through the corner of my mouth while pressing a hand against my diaphragm—a technique one of the doctors said might help if I felt stressed. My mother insisted I try, and usually they were right. Today, however, it did nothing.
“After you,” he said and tucked his arms behind his back.
I fought
against a barrage of crazy ideas—ideas crazier than the one I had when I saw the sand on Katie’s pillow. Were my dreams leaking into reality? No. The Sandman wasn’t real in this world. He wasn’t. The stress was simply getting to me.
Ben smiled again, a shy grin, and my defenses cracked.
Lisa waved a frantic hand toward us while holding the receiver to her ear. I sighed and turned my back on them both. Deep breaths. Deep breaths and a shred of sanity would get me through the day, then tonight I could ask the Sandman directly if there was more to what I was seeing.
Of course, that was assuming he showed up.
Squaring my shoulders, I led Ben through a collection of couches and chairs. “This is where the living room sets are. The customers can order anything they see here. Lamps, rugs, tables.” I flicked a ring of fabric samples tied to the arm of a recliner. “Color swatches and prices are attached to everything, so you don’t need to memorize them.”
“Got it.”
He was close. Too close. His energy curled toward me, and I sidestepped an end table to put space between us. “The dining room sets are in there.” I pointed through a wide doorway to the left. “Most tables come with four chairs unless the ticket says otherwise, but they can order more.”
“All right.”
I picked up the pace, motioning to another room at the back. “Desks, bookcases, cabinets, entertainment centers. Basically, office furniture and miscellaneous things that don’t fit out here.”
“Should I be writing this down?” A hint of a smile laced his voice.
“Maybe,” I snapped, then cringed. He was probably trying to diffuse the tension sparking between us. One of us had to—my shift didn’t end for another eight hours. I stopped at the end of the aisle. “That way,” I murmured, jerking my elbow at the staircase.
Dream Keeper Page 2
