Bridge Between the Worlds

by R. B. L. Gillmore

  “Is there another way to cook? Food must always be prepared the way that is necessary to achieve the intended flavour. If I didn’t cook like this then I wouldn’t have made this exact meal.”

  Again, his eloquent phrasing stood in stark contrast to his strange, rustic accent.

  “That’s not what I meant. I meant… oh never mind!”

  The smell was intoxicating and she had the feeling he was actually just provoking her with his comment. Besides, there was no opportunity for talk once they started eating. Doing so would have delayed the process of consuming the food and though Amy had no idea what this meal was supposed to be, she had never eaten anything so good before. She knew something about Snipping now. He could definitely cook. However, she quickly went from impressed to terrified as he began what appeared to be a disorganised juggling act with the plates and utensils.

  He was flicking plates and pots across the bench or directly into the sink with considerable force and Amy cringed in anticipation, waiting for something to break. It didn’t. In just a few short minutes, everything was sparkling clean and packed away where it had come from. He knew what he was doing. Snipping folded his hands behind his back and grinned at Amy.

  “Now, what exactly are we going to do about living arrangements?”

  Amy hadn’t forgotten her talks with Martay. In fact, she had been thinking about him all morning, wondering how she could explain this turn of events to him. That was how she got the idea.

  “Well, I don’t think you can stay here because my parents live across the hall from me and would find out pretty quickly. I think a friend of mine has space at his place where you could stay. His mum is almost never home and if his siblings saw you it wouldn’t matter too much because they’re so young they don’t know that you aren’t supposed to exist and no one would believe them if they talked about you. My friend would probably appreciate a bit of help around the place too. You could help yourself to the food as repayment for the accommodation. They have heaps of it all the time.”

  Snipping’s response was positively dripping with disdain.

  “So ya suggest wisely that I shouldn’t get seen, then tell me I should go and stay with a friend of yours in a house full of children. I think I spoke too soon when I said ya weren’t an idiot.”

  “No, you don’t understand! Martay is different, you’d be safe with him, we can trust him!”

  “Ohhh, I see. He’s ya lover and as a result ya think that makes him trustworthy?”

  “No, no, he’s not my lover, he’s just… a really good friend and I know I can trust him.” Amy blushed indignantly.

  “Yeaaahhh, o’ course he is. Just a friend. I see.” Snipping smirked.

  “Never mind that part, look, I’ll get him to come over first and we can discuss it.”

  It took a surprisingly short amount of time for Martay to arrive. She had not told him everything, only that she had something she wanted to talk to him about urgently. He passed through the doorway, hanging up his coat as he came in. He was smiling at Amy in a questioning way. He wasn’t sure yet whether something exciting had happened or if something was wrong. Amy hadn’t given much away in her message.

  They were still in the entry hall and had only exchanged friendly greetings when Martay asked his most burning question.

  “So, what’s up? Did you crea…”

  Amy cut across him straight away. She didn’t want Snipping to know about her ability just yet and Martay was about to give it away unknowingly.

  “There’s someone here I’d like you to meet. He arrived this morning!”

  She raised an eyebrow ever so slightly at Martay, who at least took the hint to mean something very odd was going on and that he should be careful what he said. Nevertheless, he was stumped as to who could have come to Amy’s house that she would want him to meet urgently. He chose his response with care as he tried to figure out what could possibly be going on. Dark thoughts crossed it. What if someone had found out about Amy and she was in danger? Maybe there was a policeman here asking awkward questions?

  Before his thoughts could run away with him any further, Snipping stepped out of the kitchen and into the hall.

  Martay's jaw dropped and his eyes locked unwaveringly onto the imp.

  “No way!” he exclaimed.

  Snipping was faster to reply than Amy.

  “No way what ya block head? No way I’m real? I’m standin’ right here. So clearly, contrary to yer moronic remark, there MUST be a way!”

  Amy decided it was time to interject with something, “Martay, this is Snipping Ratchet.”

  “I’m not stayin’ with him.” said Snipping snappily. “Look at the moron! He looks like he’s goin’ to faint. God knows what would happen if I was in his home permanently.”

  Martay was admittedly still staring unblinkingly at the imp with his mouth wide open. Who could blame him? He had many questions for Amy but thought better of asking them just now.

  “Snipping needs somewhere to stay hidden. I don’t think he can stay here. My mum and dad would find out about him too easily. I figured the kids would be too young to understand what he really was, so it’d be safe for him at your place since your mum’s never home.”

  “Umm…” was all Martay could manage. After hesitating he slowly carried on in Hungarian, but before he could get very far, Snipping cut across him, answering his question before Amy had even translated it in her own head.

  “She knows I’m not dangerous because she’s still alive. Besides, I need ‘er to try and work out how to get me out of ‘ere and I doubt she will help me if I did anything… nasty… to one o’ ‘er friends” Snipping said in English, clearly having understood the Hungarian.

  “He speaks Hungarian too?” Martay was stumped, though he also managed to relax a little. What Snipping had said did make sense. Whatever had happened, it was clear the imp needed them. Furthermore, Amy clearly wasn’t scared of him. The imp continued to talk.

  “I can speak every language frequently used in this area o’ earth.”

  Martay decided to direct some of his questions at the imp rather than trying to ask Amy anything just now.

  “So, you must live somewhere nearby then I take it? If you’re so familiar with the area, why do you need help getting out of here?”

  Snipping grinned broadly at the questions, clearly amused by the turn of the conversation.

  “Very good!” he said, “Very good indeed. My apologies. Not a total imbecile after all. Well I’m glad there’s at least a little logic tickin’ away in that brain o’ yours. Ya already know I don’t belong here and in fact I think ya both have some idea as to ‘ow I got ‘ere in the first place. So,” Snipping clapped his hands together in a very business-like manner. He had opened his mouth to continue speaking but at that exact moment the front door swung open.

  Snipping’s hearing had either let him down or else he hadn’t been paying enough attention to the sounds coming from outside. Amy’s parents had returned much sooner than expected and were now taking in the bizarre sight in front of them.

  Everybody was frozen in place. Amy and Martay were looking apprehensively from Snipping to Amy’s parents. Her parents were looking from one face to another with calm, relaxed demeanours. They were the only people in the hall with this characteristic. Snipping’s expression had changed dramatically. His cool, condescending persona was gone and was instead replaced with a look of absolute reverence. Amy had only known him for a few hours but that was enough to feel that this new expression was in no way fitting to his attitude. She was more worried about what was about to happen to her anyway. She wasn’t sure if she was about to get in huge trouble or if her parents were about to burst out laughing.

  “I… we…” Amy stuttered but knew she had no hope of making up a suitable excuse for this, “you know, actually, there really ISN’T a simple explanation for this.”

  Amy’s parents looked at each other and to Amy’s sweeping relief, they smiled. Not that this reli
ef brought her any greater understanding. If she had just walked in on this situation as an outsider she certainly wouldn’t have been able to smile.

  Snipping on the other hand took a few steps forward to stand directly in front of Laszlo and Amriel. Then he did something that sent Amy and Martay's already confused heads into a cyclone of incomprehension. He bowed so low that he was practically bent in half and his head nearly bounced off the floor.

  “It is such an honour! Such an honour!”

  Amy’s mother answered in a bizarre language which Amy and Martay could not understand. Snipping clearly understood.

  “Please stand my good man. We would prefer not to be treated by the outside world as being anything unique or special, much like yourself. Now, could you please explain how it is that you came to be here? It should not have been possible.”

  Amy had never heard her mother sound like this before. She sounded, older somehow, and commanding, albeit impossible for Amy to understand the meaning of what was said. She didn’t recognise the language at all, let alone any of the words but she had heard her mother and father using the language before. Many things, however, were now clear. Snipping knew her parents and they were not at all surprised to see a live imp. Martay also had enough wits to notice that the parents and the imp all spoke the same language that he had heard them use before in the lounge room.

  Snipping was now responding rapidly to the question Amy’s mother had asked. Amy and Martay could only stand by and watch, though Martay swore that he caught the odd word that had some semblance of Hungarian about it.

  “I don’t know miss. I was doing my regular work in this sector when I passed into this girl’s dream.” Snipping waved his hand in Amy’s direction.

  “It all seemed like a normal dream state but then something odd happened. It was like the girl knew I wasn’t a part of her dream. It was almost as if she…”

  Snipping ground to a slow halt and turned to face Amy again.

  She looked back at him in confusion. She hadn’t understood what had been said and realised that everyone in the room was now staring at her. For the first time since his appearance, Snipping was struggling for words.

  “She… you… a daughter?” his head swiveled back to Amy’s mother at an alarming pace. He was speaking English again.

  “How can tha’ be? The order knew nothin’ abou’ it. Surely the arbiters must a’ known?”

  “They do not and we would like to keep it that way, though I suppose that our secrecy won’t last much longer,” replied Laszlo. He was now looking at Amy with a concerned expression.

  “Even so,” said Snipping, “it shouldn’t be possible for me to be ‘ere. ‘Ow?”

  Amy’s parents looked at each other again and then back at Amy, who had now well and truly lost all semblance of patience.

  “Would someone please explain what the hell is going on?”

  “Yes,” said her mother calmly, “it is clear that you are ready to know everything. You have come a long way and for you to continue using your skills without guidance would be dangerous.

  But this is not a conversation to be had standing awkwardly in the hall. I believe everyone present will need to be involved in a rather lengthy and complex discussion. Perhaps we should make ourselves more comfortable.”

  She beckoned everyone into the lounge room and without any direction or request to do so, Snipping ducked into the kitchen before appearing again shortly after laden with tea for everyone.

  As he started to serve them, Amy’s mother started addressing them.

  “Darling, have you begun, at all, to question where your… ability came from?”

  “Well, yeah of course I have but I had no idea. I’ve spent most of my time trying to work out how I… wait a minute! How do you know about it?”

  Although she had asked, Amy was already rapidly coming to the correct conclusion. Her mother smiled gently.

  “You already know the answer to that. I was a dreamwalker too once, a long time ago.” She said this as if the term dreamwalker was a perfectly normal phrase to use.

  “Ahh, what exactly is a dreamwalker? Sorry, I’m not quite following.”

  Martay had been listening with intense interest and since overhearing Amy’s parents talking, had suspected she must have inherited her abilities from her parents. He now saw that this was a perfect chance to get many of their questions answered. It had turned from an uncomfortable situation to an exciting moment.

  This time Amy’s father Laszlo answered.

  “In short, a dreamwalker is someone who can control the ability to create physical reality out of their dreams. That is a crude explanation. Furthermore, I suspect that you and Amy have already experienced this facet of a dreamwalker’s abilities, but there is much more to it than that.

  Let as start at a more basic level however. You see all dreamwalker abilities stem from facets of dreams and dreaming which all humans experience… And elves of course,” he added as a side thought. “I am sure that you could think of a number of examples if you knew what you were looking for.”

  “Examples of what?” Martay asked.

  “Examples of the strange powers or effects that dreams have on people” Amy’s father replied. “Everybody experiences them in one way or another, though most do not realise the depth of what they are experiencing. Perhaps the most common would be the sensation of super reality, the kind of dreams people wake up from thinking, ‘it felt so real’. When they feel this, they are actually close to bringing something from that dream into reality. This is just one example, there are many others.”

  “You mean like when people spend all day trying to remember something, or work something out and then it suddenly comes to them while they are sleeping?” Martay’s voice was vibrating with excitement.

  “Yes indeed.” Amy’s father smiled at the boy. “I take it you are well acquainted with that one.”

  Martay nodded.

  “Our minds are not a purely physical in their reality. In fact, it is much closer to a half way split between the physical and the creative imagination. The physical mind, whilst incredibly impressive, cannot work nearly as quickly as the ethereal, creative element in our physique, which we access in our dreams. A person who solves things regularly in their sleep is likely to be a person whose power in the dreamplane is higher than average.”

  “Wait…” said Martay slowly, “so are you saying that… I could dreamwalk too?”

  Amy’s father let out a little laugh. “It is fiendishly difficult for humans to gain control over their abilities. Certainly, I never had the knack of it. However, in answer to your question, yes, you could indeed dreamwalk. That is to say, if you trained your mind carefully to manipulate your dreams with intention. Humans have done it before but it is not easy and of the scattered humans who have achieved it, very few were able to master more advanced techniques. Not everyone can control the art of dreamwalking, but every human has the potential to be a master of it.”

  “Master more advanced techniques? What exactly are the advanced techniques?” Martay asked.

  “Unlike most people, after some training, a dreamwalker can direct their thoughts through the dreamplane as they wish. Would you like to hazard a guess as to what that might mean?”

  Martay sat deep in contemplation. He wasn’t entirely sure what Laszlo meant by a ‘dreamplane’ but if he had to guess what was possible when you could direct your thoughts in dreams he would have said, “That you can choose what you dream about and therefore what you create?”

  “Yes,” replied Laszlo, “but that is still only the tip of the iceberg. Imagine if you will that when you dream, you are seeing a small part of a much larger world. This is rather like what you see in our own world yes? When most people dream, they are confined to one area of this world. In actual fact, it is the area of the world which they have created themselves. However, a dreamwalker is not restricted in this way. They can leave their own created space in the dream plane and go wherever they c
hoose. Now do you think you can guess what might be possible for them to do?”

  Martay thought he was beginning to understand and found the notion somewhat uncomfortable.

  “I suppose it would mean,” he began slowly, “that they could enter other peoples’ dreams.” Amy’s eyes widened and she looked at her father expectantly.

  “Yes indeed. There is more besides this but that can be explained later. What is important to know is that dreamwalkers can command a great deal of power over the minds of others. It is a power which is not to be played with, to be used carelessly or without judgment once a dreamwalker learns how to use their abilities in this way. This is why dreamwalkers need to be trained, and lack of control is why the Arbiters exist, to maintain balance you see.”

  “Arbiters?” Amy cut in with a question before her parents had a chance to continue. She had not picked up on the word while her mother had been talking to Snipping but noticed it now. “What on earth is an Arbiter?”

  “To begin with, they are not something on earth” her mother replied. “They are, I suppose, something like the human concept of angels. But they do not work for good or for God. They are the resulting, necessary force which exists to maintain balance between the worlds, the dreamplane and physical reality. Laszlo mentioned that humans feel strange when they come close to creating something from their dreams. These realities would eventuate in the physical world if it was not for the Arbiters stopping them.”

  “That’s where workers like I step in” said Snipping.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The ‘umans o’ Earth create so prolifically that if all their little realities were allowed to actualize in the physical world it would create imbalances, dangerous contradictions an’ chaos. We filter the creations and remove most o’ the dangerous ones to a safe, alternate reality connected to the Arbiter’s plane.”

  “So, you can tell what is going to become real and what isn’t in people’s dreams? How?”