The nightmare shifted towards us, and watched Wadji and I circle around. He took a step closer.
My ears rang. My shoulders twitched. My scalp tingled. I was going to throw up. I kicked the dragon’s hide, urging him to fly faster. All I wanted to do was to get out of there.
Look deeper.
I didn’t want to. Pod after pod, the bleak exteriors shifted, revealing dreamers and their nightmares. Most of the dreamers ran—from screaming girls, from talking cars, or clowns, or angels, or snakes. In each pod, a nightmare stood guard as the dreamer fled in torment.
But the nightmares weren’t inflicting pain or suffering in pleasure. Each nightmare knew their dreamer intimately. Knew their fears, their aspirations, and the things that held them back.
Each nightmare cared.
I swallowed the rising bile down, sinking into the wedge Wadji’s neck and shoulders formed.
The pods parted, and the iridescent string that tied all the pods together revealed itself. A web. I reached out with the part of me that understood Place as the sparkling strands hummed. They vibrated all the way through the dark depths of the Nightmare Realm, and all through the glowing dreamplanes towering above us like a reflection on a pool of water.
“Why are you showing me this, Wadji?”
Because of what I’m about to show you next. His wings pushed with a whuff-whuff of sound.
The dreampods fell away. The towering dreamplanes were all around us except for directly in front. A gaping wound filled the sky, as if someone with a huge fist had reached down and torn a chunk away from the sprawling cityscape.
At first, I thought I saw jagged edges, like a piece of material that had been ripped. As we drew closer, I realized, those strings of light were drifting dreamplanes. They pulsed like dying fireflies. One was red. Another a pale green. Another purple. One was huge. Another small. One was oval.
“What happened?”
Wadji kept flying, heading toward one plane that was darker than the rest. It was charred. Dreams aren’t the only things being killed, River. Someone’s murdering the planes, too.
THE SEA OF DREAMS did not touch these planes.
Eerie silence met my ears.
Wadji landed, all four of his padded feet touching down separately. The fur in my fisted hands became hair as he morphed into a half-man.
I slid off. Ash danced in the air around my feet. The burned remains of trees were frozen in the act of fleeing. Above, there was no light. I saw stars, and the tilted remains of the other dead dreamplanes. “Wadji, what did this? Who?”
A breeze I didn’t feel made his wispy blue and white hair flutter. He narrowed his lightning-lit eyes at me, and then looked away. “I don’t know. I have never been able to step foot on one of the dreamplanes before.”
I swallowed. “Why did you think you would today?”
“I was hopeful.”
“But why? What was it you saw in my eyes that made you think you should show me all of this? Who else have you shown? How many more of me are there?”
“So many questions.” He walked on his four, short legs, his massive tail leaving a snake-like trail behind him.
“I’d like some answers.”
He ignored me as he continued to walk.
His movements reminded me of an elephant, slow and graceful.
I rubbed my eyes and followed. “Wadji, wait.”
“River, I have waited for over a year to get onto one of these planes.”
“Is that when you discovered them?”
“The great willow spoke to me and asked for my assistance, yes.”
I looked up at his face, but only got an eyeful of hulking arm and shoulder. “Why did you think I could help you?”
“Because I saw Dreamland in your eyes.”
I raked my teeth along my lip. “What do your eyes mean? I see lightning. We don’t have lightning in Dreamland.”
“Not anymore, but we used to. We used to.”
Ash rose like a cloud around us. I pulled my scarf from around my neck and put it over my nose and mouth, blinking the grit out of my eyes.
“Dreamland rebuilds, reforms. When her elders grow too old, then it becomes time to destroy what once was and to build anew.”
What happened to all the people? I knew thousands of Dreamlanders, not to mention all the dustmen and nightmares I saw. Where did they all go? “What does that have to do with me?”
“I was once like you, a man born of dreams. The sea gave birth to me as she did you.”
“The sea? What does that mean?”
“When I was born, my job was to breathe new life into the dreams, to spark them, keep them alive as Dreamland transitioned. It was my job to ensure they came back, that their hope survived. Now, my soul is the sea’s seed as she creates new dream people.”
“More. People like me. More like—” I stopped, staring at his furry legs. “—us.”
Wadji nodded.
“Wait. Your seed? So, you’re like, what, my father?”
“I am not the only one, River. It is possible I fathered you. It’s also possible someone else did.”
I rubbed my eyebrow with the butt of my hand. “Sweet, so what exactly does that mean? I’m supposed to go breathe life? What? Where?”
“You were awakened too early. The elders have not yet gone into their seclusion. They have disappeared instead. I fear they are planning something.”
“Like what?”
“They seek Dreamlanders with rogue gifts, people who were born to the wrong families—people whose gifts are the strongest of all Dreamlanders.”
I’d been hiding from the elders and their runners since I watched my friend—a runner born to a family of cleaners—taken from the Burb just outside the protection of the caravan. No one knew what the elders did with these people. All we knew was that they disappeared into the Clink, Dreamland’s jail. Once there, they were never heard from again.
“If you know about this and you’re a dream man or whatever, why aren’t you doing something about it?”
“Like what?”
I had no idea.
“Me either, but the elders aren’t the only ones after something powerful. Someone is destroying these dreamplanes.”
“Do you know who? Why?”
“I’ve never been able to catch them in the act.”
“Could it be the elders?”
The dragon man said nothing as he walked up a slight hill. A huge tree, wider than an eighteen-wheeler was long, sat at the top, her hollowed and burned limbs twisted.
“Grandmother Willow?”
Wadji nodded.
I touched her bark. It flaked off and fell to the ground. Half of her face remained, her mouth wide and open, her one remaining eye clamped shut.
A gaping hole stared at me like a hungry chasm where her roots should have been. I saw stars through it, but more than that, it called to me, tugging at my soul.
I took a step back, reaching for Wadji. The hair on the back of my neck rose. “What is that?”
“The aether.”
“What’s that?”
“The space between. It contains all the things we need to build a dreamplane out of nothing more than hopes and dreams.”
Why did it want to eat me? “Who could do this?”
“I do not know, but I can say that I do not sense the presence of an elder here.”
“How would you know?”
He held out a large hand, but did not touch the tree. “An elder’s presence leaves a mark, like a footprint in sand, or a fingerprint on glass.”
“If not them, then who?”
“It is my hope, young River, that you can help me find out.”
A sudden thought hit me. “Why haven’t you seen this before? Why aren’t there more planes in this . . . graveyard?”
“Graveyard. That’s a very apt description.”
And that wasn’t an answer. “Dustmen die all the time. Well, not that regularly, but they do. Why aren’t—”
“Okay fine.” I jogged to catch up. For all that his legs were short, they were still longer than I was tall. “Why haven’t you been here before?”
“I haven’t been able to gain passage onto one of the dead dreamplanes before. I’ve always been blocked.”
I swallowed. “Then we’re here because of me.”
“Indeed.”
River, Bess said, her voice small. There’s something wrong.
Wadji turned his head and looked at the net on my back.
I’d completely forgotten it was even there.
“Who was that?” he asked.
“Bess. She’s the dream trapped inside the net.” I reached for it and opened it. A series of bright, blue bubbles swirled in the small space. “It’s a dead plane, Bess. Of course, there’s something wrong.”
No. It’s more than that. There’s a child here, and she’s dead. They’re dead.
I frowned up at Wadji.
He raised his head, his nostrils flaring. “Where, dreamer?”
The line of bubbles formed an arrow to the left. My feet moved before I’d decided to check it out. A group of twisted trees stood in a group, their limbs raised, their branches clawed. Faces jutted out from their bark, dark and angry.
It appeared as though they’d been attacking whoever was trapped between them.
A pile of ash formed a small hill at the foot of their trunks.
I squeezed between them. They didn’t twitch, didn’t flinch. They were truly dead. I knelt down and brushed the ash away, closing my eyes to mere slits. I tightened the gap between my nose and scarf.
Two small skulls appeared, their skeletal hands clenched tight together. I stumbled backward in a crouch and fell into one of the trees. It disintegrated into a cloud of ruin.
Bess let out a shriek.
Wadji’s jaw dropped, his eyes filling with sorrow. The lightning show in his eyes was so intense, they were nearly a constant blue.
I put my hand over my scarf-covered mouth. “Who would do this, Wadji? Why? Why kill a plane while there were still dreamers on it? Why couldn’t their dustman get them out? Why didn’t they wake up, safe and in bed?”
The dragon man didn’t answer me. His eyes were glued to the two small skeletons I’d uncovered.
I raised my face to the sky, staring at all the other dreamplanes floating like dimly glowing space trash. “They’ve all survived and are in the graveyard because they have dreamers.”
Wadji’s gaze shifted to mine, his entire torso impossibly still.
I closed the net. “Bess, it’s time to hold on.”
She was silent and no ghost hands appeared.
“Bess, I can’t hold you. Come on.”
They’re dead, River.
I was aware of that. I clenched my free hand in a useless fist and cleared my throat.
Dreamland is a safe place. It’s supposed to be a safe place.
“I know.”
No, you don’t. You’ve never been to the same Dreamland I have. This place is the only reason I survived my childhood. It’s the only good thing I was able to give to my daughters. They come here, River! What if I’ve only endangered them further? Everyone was right. I’m a horrible mother. I only mess things up for them. I—
“Bess, stop it!” I ran my hand through my hair. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my dreamer, but I couldn’t have her freaking out over something she nor I had any control over. “We’ll figure out what’s going on here. We’ll figure out how to stop it, and we’ll keep your girls safe.”
Wadji frowned at us. He removed a pouch from his the belt around his torso. I hadn’t see it because of all his hair. He handed it to me and it shrank in size. “You can put the net in there.”
I took it from him and stared at the net. “Unless this is a Hermione bag—”
“Mary Poppins had it first.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but shut it. Instead, I opened the pouch and worked the net inside. “Hermione made it cool.”
Wadji rolled his eyes and turned.
I sidestepped to dodge his tail and the burned trees as I worked the net into the bag. It did fit, but it was a process to get it in there. “Are you okay in there, Bess?”
She paused before she answered, her voice strained, Yes. The bag is fine.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Why would the plane attack the dreamers?” There was no denying it. Those two dreamers had been hiding from the trees who had intended to harm them.
Wadji let out a long sigh. “I don’t know.”
We walked past the burned husk of Grandmother Willow to the edge of the crumbling plane. “We have more questions than answers.”
“But at least now, we know what questions to ask.”
Maybe he did. “That’s so very, very comforting. Not.”
He lowered his eyelids, his eyebrows going flat as he quirked his lips. Obviously, he didn’t appreciate my sarcasm.
I took in a deep breath as we stood on the edge of the world, overlooking the starry sky, the graveyard and all of sparkling Dreamland. “Where to next?”
He lowered his gaze. “My library. I have a few texts I want to reference before we make another foray into the wilds of this place.”
I wanted to search the other planes to see if there were other dreamers, but the remaining planes were lit. Perhaps, those dreamers were safe. Perhaps their dreamplane hadn’t turned on them.
Perhaps.
I looked at the floating planes with that part of me that understood Place and saw something. The sea touched some of the dreamplanes.
I blinked and turned to Wadji, thinking very, very softly. I could bring Bo here, show him what was going on. I could enlist his help. We could save these dreamers together.
Wadji shook his head as if he hadn’t heard me.
One thing was apparent. The rules of the graveyard were different than the rest of Dreamland. “Let’s not take too long. Okeydokey?”
Wadji shifted into a full dragon and waited for me to climb on board. Okeydokey.
HE FLEW INTO the darkness of the sky. My gut tugged with a homing signal. In a flash of light, the stars disappeared and the ocean’s rolling surface loomed straight ahead. He tucked in his wings and I braced for impact.
Only there wasn’t one. Not really. The dreams parted for us with barely a splash
I had to move out of the way of his wings as he tucked them in, using his body to swim like an eel instead. The streams of light from the sky fell away to the darkness that resided at the bottom. He took us to a cave entrance. It was wide enough for two dragons of his size to enter through.
“Where are we?” It still felt weird to speak normally under water.
You see the ocean for what it truly is, River. That is why you can interact with it in this way.
That was awesome, but didn’t answer my question.
He sighed. We are at the base of Folger’s Peak.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
You would not have. It is one of the few remaining places in Dreamland that survived the last evolution.
“An original location?”
Who can say if it is original or not? It has been here longer than I have. That is all I know. He landed on the soft sand inside the cave.
I slid off as he morphed. “Have you always been a dragon?”
He looked down at me as he lumbered deeper into the cave. “I can take whatever shape I choose.”
“Does that mean no, then?”
He chuckled, ducking his head to clear a low-hanging rock. “That means no.”
The tunnel we entered was smaller. I had to walk behind him, mindful not to get knocked over by his tail. The walls glowed with green phosphorescent algae. I was used to this. The tunnel-system Rulak’s caravan used to move from one Dreamlander burb to the next used this same lighting.
“What made you
decide to be a dragon?”
He stepped into a wide cavern and moved to the right. “It was a good idea at the time. Everyone believed in magic in those days. My sole purpose was to breathe life into their dreams. What better way to do so than as a dragon?”
I raised my eyebrows and entered the room. Rows and rows and rows of books and scrolls filled the space. It appeared a little like “Warehouse 13”, only a bit more chaotic and a lot more scholarly. The shelving units went all the way up to the ceiling high above. Wadji could stand on his hind legs and barely reach it.
Books weren’t the only thing on the shelves though. I stepped closer to them, careful not to touch anything. I saw bits of broken things—a pair of old glasses, a telescope, an old map, a bit of cloth, a corncob toy. I stopped and peered at a model of a solar system. It was done in metal and twisted upward from the base. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t a solar system I recognized.
“What are we doing here?”
I heard him drop something with a dull thump. “We are searching for any reference on why someone might be after dreamers.”
“You’re trying to tell me that information might be in a book someplace?”
He stood at a tall desk, a pair of reading glasses perched low on his nose. He tipped his head. “Do these appear to be normal books to you?”
I shrugged. They really did.
“You should take a closer look.”
I sighed and walked up to the nearest shelf. I couldn’t think of a more boring thing to do in my life.
He set his hand on the book in front of him. “I may be turning this over to you, River. This could very well be your legacy.”
I stopped with my hand on some random book on some random shelf. I’d spent my entire existence being a no one in a sea of someone’s, never belonging, never being a part of anything. Since taking to the sea, I’d been offered more than I’d ever thought possible.
“How do you know I’m the one you should be handing this off to? Maybe it should be to one of those people the sea hasn’t given birth to yet. Maybe I’m just some dumb accident that should never have happened.”
“Dreamland doesn’t make accidents, River.”
“No one can know everything all the time.”
Dream Killers - Complete Season 1 (The Dream Killers Book 3) Page 6
