The Waking Dreamer

by J. E. Alexander

  The Old One struggled under the weight of the light, stepping back from the cone of brightness enshrouding it and seemingly willing the fog to cover and protect it. The Attendant, barely moving on the ground, grabbed onto whatever body it hid in the mists. She somehow held tightly to him as the silvery light burned through him.

  Emmett felt The Grinning Man’s scream reach far into his mind, far beyond any point that he knew existed. It ravaged the corners of his memory and bade distant echoes of memories he did not recognize. He felt as if his heart might explode in his chest, the scream peaking like a wail that could never end unless it consumed all in its wake.

  The scream reached a cacophonous, painful pitch, and The Grinning Man burst in a violent explosion of dark nothingness that seemed to stun the entire forest. Emmett felt himself rocked backward before a searing wave of heat passed over him. The wave’s force cleared the unnatural fog, and with a single breeze all cleared away and disappeared into the night.

  Fading a moment later, the beam of light disappeared, plunging the valley back into darkness. The Grinning Man and the Archivist’s Attendant were gone. The empty cabin overlooking the lake was aglow with the low flames that continued to burn from the smoldering wreckage.

  Emmett coughed against the smoke, his body aching from the explosion. He felt Amala stirring beside him, heard her forced breathing as she hissed against the pain of hundreds of small wounds all along the length of her body. Oliver and Rhiannon were unmoving and grievously wounded. Keiran was immobile, too.

  Part of him wanted to give in to the pain and permit him the ease of unconsciousness.

  Let someone else rouse the others.

  Let someone else drag the wounded from this place.

  Let someone else be the hero.

  It was a distant voice that Emmett never heard again. Emmett stood with shaky, uncertain knees like a newly birthed foal and permitted himself a moment’s pause for assurance of his footing before checking if his friends were still alive.

  CHAPTER 29

  Emmett quickly checked each of the four and was thankful they all were breathing, though Oliver only barely. Seeing that Amala was already struggling to rouse herself, he focused on tending to her first.

  Kneeling beside her crumpled body, Emmett could not reconcile the image of her battered form amid the wreckage surrounding him. In the dreams of his youth and when he had finally met her in the Blackwater River State Forest, she had possessed a physical grace and uncompromising poise. She had touched him while he lay on the ground with the same care she had held him with moments after his birth.

  Now she lay in his arms, damaged and injured in ways he could not imagine, and Emmett noted the symmetry of the moment as he now comforted her in a dark, cold forest many miles from his home. There was a time once when he would have understood the moment’s meaning within the context of some movie. The former Emmett. The child Emmett.

  Lifting her head slightly, he cradled her neck underneath his arm as he looked down into her face, searching it for some hope of recovery. She had seemed to exert her last strength to remind him of the words in his mother’s painting. He did not move her, afraid that he might injure her more, and seeing that no wounds were severely bleeding, understood that it was all he could do to wait. The others lay immobile, and Emmett could only pace his own racing pulse by timing his breathing to hers, as if he could almost breathe for her.

  “Amala,” Emmett whispered as she continued to struggle opening her eyes. “It’s me. It’s Emmett. I need you to wake up. Please. I need your help.”

  She swallowed hard and pushed her eyes completely open, and for a moment they sparkled in the darkness as if they had been closed for years. Her hand grabbed on to Emmett’s arm firmly, and she inhaled deeply as she tried to sit up.

  “Whoa, hey now. Take it easy,” Emmett cooed as he continued to support her body with his own. Amala shook her head and blinked her eyes several times before pushing herself up on her own knees.

  “Is he gone?” she all but whispered through several gasping coughs. “You banished him?”

  Still kneeling beside her, Emmett kept a watchful arm just behind her back in case she lost consciousness or fell backward. “He’s gone.”

  She turned around slightly and put one hand on the ground as if to steady herself, her head hanging low as she closed her eyes and coughed several more times.

  “The others?”

  “Breathing but barely. I need your help.”

  Emmett steadied her as she moved between them, first to Keiran, and then to Rhiannon, and finally to Oliver, whom she agreed appeared to be in the worst condition.

  Despite her injuries, Amala helped Emmett carry the three down toward the lake’s edge, using the fresh water to wash away the glass from their wounds and comfort each of them until they awoke. It was silent, focused work.

  Kneeling on the ground, Amala cradled Keiran’s head in her hands as she brushed his blond hair away from his closed eyes. Emmett knelt beside Rhiannon and Oliver, occupying himself by continuing to wash or remove glass from their exposed skin. He watched Amala’s careful movements of her hands over Keiran’s body, checking and rechecking for open wounds, and all the while staring at him with an expression that silently articulated the most intimate, private emotions the Companions shared.

  With all that had transpired, Emmett felt that familiar pang in his heart. The Archivist’s words, though, echoed in his mind. He could not know how their journeys were intertwined, yet he needed only to remember Amala holding him in her arms to know that she cared intimately for Emmett, too.

  Amala touched her forehead to Keiran’s. In the silent winter twilight and above the soft sound of the lake’s ripples along the pebble shoreline, Emmett heard her whispering delicate words into Keiran’s ear. Emmett could not discern the words she spoke, yet when she finished she lifted her head up and held one hand to his jaw.

  Keiran awoke quickly only moments later, his eyes opening as he groaned. Lifting his hand to touch Amala’s, he managed a strained smile as his eyes continued to flutter, and Amala brushed her hand through his hair again as he inhaled deeply.

  “And I, you,” he said. Amala only nodded, and then she looked to Emmett who was still standing a respectful, emotional distance away.

  “Emmett, join us, please,” Amala said quietly, and Emmett stepped over Rhiannon and Oliver to kneel alongside Keiran opposite Amala.

  “All right?” Keiran managed to say with a croak in his voice, the color slowly returning to his pale cheeks.

  He looked dangerously frail to Emmett, more than at any other point in their long journey already. This was his sentinel—his brother—and never before did Emmett recognize how very human he was, how easily he, too, could succumb to death in the defense of Emmett’s life.

  Emmett felt the words lost in his throat, and he could not bring himself to say everything that he needed to say. Emmett began to understand the Archivist’s words: You may not realize your impact until you see another person give their life for you.

  “You look crackin’, mate.” Keiran grinned, and Emmett’s insides buoyed with relief upon seeing joy once again returning to his face.

  “You look horrible,” Emmett said. “If you don’t get up, I’m going to take a picture and upload it to every site I can find.”

  “You bloody won’t,” Keiran laughed with several rasping coughs.

  “Let’s help Keiran up, Emmett, so he can tend to himself and the others.”

  Keiran felt unstable in their arms as he shuddered under his own sweet melodies, healing himself only enough to stand properly and focus on rousing Oliver and then Rhiannon to a semblance of awareness. Emmett was certain that their internal injuries must have been severe, the external bruising on various places of their bodies already turning dark purple on their skin.

  Oliver awoke next. Emmett assumed that because his injuries were so severe and Keiran’s strength was so greatly weakened that Keiran had only enough energy left
to tend superficially to their wounds. Oliver said nothing when his eyes opened and, seeing Rhiannon lying with hastily applied bandages and the other three in states of injury, too, seemed to understand immediately the moment’s triage and struggled to rise and assist Keiran.

  Another fifteen minutes passed as Keiran’s songs were joined with Oliver’s, strained and muted though they were. Rhiannon rose finally, her waterfall of red curls matted to her porcelain skin with sweat, dried blood, and debris still tangled in her hair. Her green eyes had lost much of the Druidic sparkle. She watched with a satisfied expression as her Wisdom swooped down from a tree and nudged the side of her cheek.

  With Rhiannon now awake and both Keiran and Oliver seeming to finish their ministrations, Amala stepped into their circle and spoke. “The Archivist’s Attendant gave her life, banishing The Grinning Man. Now that Emmett is healed, we will leave here.”

  Emmett watched each of them, in turn, look from Amala to Emmett. Though Keiran looked on him with an expression of profound appreciation, and Rhiannon’s was one of contemplation, Oliver’s countenance was as guarded and cautious as anything Emmett had ever experienced before. He did not make direct eye contact with Emmett, nor did his posture denote anything he might be thinking.

  “We will remove any evidence from the van. Then we’ll hike back toward the main highway and find a ride out of the mountains and to an airport. We are in agreement?” Amala said more than asked.

  Keiran and Rhiannon both said yes, and Oliver merely nodded once without comment. Emmett knew by their expressions that Amala was avoiding the most critical issue: an Old One had come for Emmett.

  As the moonlight danced along the water, the van’s glowing embers began to die. The natural world displayed its usual resiliency as the forest slowly returned to its winter chorus as if nothing had disturbed it. With the first sounds of hooting owls, the expressions on the four Children subtlety shifted to comfort. Emmett imagined how they must experience it, Bards with their ears and Druids with their eyes. It was the night’s songs, nature’s songs. The Song of Creation.

  Amala explained to Emmett when they began their long walk back out of the mountains that the cabin had been abandoned for many years and no one lived for many miles to have witnessed what happened. She never explained how she knew or what her connection to the area was, but it was a sign of Emmett’s true fatigue that he did not ask.

  The walk down the mountain was blessedly silent. Even Keiran was quiet as he walked just behind Emmett with Amala leading. Even now, after Emmett was finally healed, the pair still guarded him. Oliver and Rhiannon maintained a noticeable distance from each other. Emmett would notice Rhiannon watching Oliver, and when he would follow her eyes to Oliver, he would notice that Oliver had been staring cautiously at him.

  There was no question in Emmett’s mind that Oliver was already now recounting everything that Emmett had ever said or done in his presence, reconsidering Keiran’s actions in light of everything that had happened.

  Then there was Omar Hazrat. He had all but implied his own suspicions when he had questioned Emmett. News would soon reach him from Oliver that Emmett had been attacked by The Grinning Man, if he did not know already through his visions of the Mara or had not known all along.

  When they finally reached the main highway just before dawn, Emmett began to see cars that they could flag down. Keiran was approaching the shoulder to wave at a passing motorist just as Oliver turned to Emmett specifically and confirmed everything Emmett had been expecting.

  “Emmett, what did the Hag say to you when you met her outside the train?” Oliver pointedly asked, drawing a confused look from Rhiannon as she looked to Keiran for silent explanation. Emmett saw Keiran turning around from the highway shoulder to look from Amala to him, and Emmett did not need to look into his eyes to know what he was thinking. “We already knew an Old One was present at the train attack.”

  Emmett knew that there was no point in lying to Oliver, so he spoke plainly. “Nonsense, mostly. Isn’t that the way of beings like that?”

  “And now The Grinning Man. What did he say into your mind?”

  Emmett saw Keiran take a step away from the road and toward Emmett, perhaps to physically come between them in an effort to shield him.

  Oliver had his back to the three of them, so he could not see that Amala held her hand up to stop Keiran, shaking her head briefly without looking back at Emmett. Rhiannon, too, was watching the interplay between them as she absently stroked the copper-headed hawk perched on her shoulder.

  “Does it matter? Does evil need a motive to be evil?” Emmett asked rhetorically.

  Oliver’s eyes narrowed. Emmett saw the suspicion, and the mistrust.

  “So why would something so old come for you? Twice now, you have encountered the Old Ones. Who, exactly, are you? Why are the Old Ones so interested in Emmett Brennan?”

  As one they all turned to stare at Emmett.

  Emmett searched himself for a peace that could quell the uneasiness that comes from the emotional vacuum left by unanswered questions. In searching, Emmett’s mind spread out before him a verdant plain of tall, waving grasses; a mighty tree that offered shade from the hot sun overhead; a proud lion that watched over gorillas, antelope, elephants, and infants that suckled from their mothers; and whispers from an ageless, genderless presence that sat among them.

  Her words came unbidden to his mind once again: It has already begun, and it begins tonight.

  Emmett watched a car drive by on the lone highway as they stood in the shadow of the forest’s edge. The four awaited his response. In his mind, Emmett could see a dismembered hand floating above his head, pointing to words written on a wall. Only now, though, Emmett knew what the words were and finally understood them.

  “Anyone can be special. Anyone can be the hero that chooses to do great things. After everything I’ve seen, I have to believe that. That makes me a threat to them even on a normal day. And I don’t even know what the hell normal is anymore. That’s why it doesn’t surprise me that evil would come for me. Now that I know what’s out there, I’m coming for it.”

  Keiran and Amala only smiled. Nothing in what he said had changed how they saw him. They already knew Emmett. It was Emmett who had not yet known himself.

  Oliver nodded with a restrained look of circumspection that told Emmett that there would be many conversations between Oliver and Omar Hazrat. The Lighthouse would further investigate who Emmett Brennan truly was.

  “And so it is, brother. I take my leave of you and return home,” Oliver said as he turned to Keiran. He clasped Keiran on the shoulder with a detached, almost formal air. He nodded at Amala, too, before turning and walking away, presumably to some distance from them before attempting to gain a ride from the rare passing motorist. Rhiannon’s expression was an obvious hurt which briefly showed before she regained her composure and smiled.

  “The Archivist was right about you,” Rhiannon said, unexpectedly embracing Emmett. She then touched his cheek and smiled. “You have your mother’s eyes.” Emmett felt the lump in the back of his throat, and he did his best to swallow it.

  “Are you coming with us?” Amala asked.

  Rhiannon released Emmett and stepped back from him. “You don’t need me now that you have your Companion. What an interesting little trio the three of you will make,” she added, looking between them.

  “Would be better with you, Red,” Keiran smiled.

  “My journey lies elsewhere. But I’ll be seeing you soon enough.”

  “Where are you going?” Amala asked.

  “I am not the first Druid to lose her Companion, nor the first to still hear him in her mind at moments of his intense pleasure.” She turned away from them to look at the forest as she spoke. “Our young Emmett was right, sister. We need only quiet ourselves to hear the Song in our hearts and allow it to sustain us. The time will come when I commune and find the peace that I once had. The Archivist has more for me to do. But if you have need of m
e, you need only send a calling. I will always come to you.”

  Rhiannon stepped away and headed for the forest, turning around once to speak to Amala. “I am very proud of you, Amala. Despite all that has happened between us, I am thankful each day for Oliver Gray … for without him, I never would have found you.”

  Before Amala could respond, Rhiannon turned and walked directly into the trees, her hawk turning its head to watch the trio standing together beside a dark, empty highway.

  Amala looked down at the ground, her hair falling into her face. Keiran put a hand on her shoulder, and she reached up to touch it with her own.

  It was Emmett who broke the initial silence. “Once we get to somewhere safe,” he began, motioning with his head in the direction Oliver had walked and presumably could still hear them, “we’ll discuss everything else. Okay?”

  Amala’s answer was a sudden and tight embrace. Emmett felt her soft skin against his as she held to him.

  Emmett saw Keiran staring at him, watching his response. There was no jealousy in his eyes. Emmett allowed himself only a moment’s hesitation before bringing his own arms around her, finally holding the woman of his dreams with nothing between them.

  Keiran smiled and placed his hand on the back of Emmett’s neck, firm and comforting with a brotherly love that did not require words to express or convey. It was all that Emmett could do to fully return Amala’s embrace and turn his head toward Keiran, silently mouthing the words he was certain that Keiran already knew.

  For the first time in his life, Emmett felt complete, connected to this world. He finally understood what joy was—intoxicating and boundless to the expectations and limitations of the mundane world. Overwhelmed by his joy, Emmett did not notice the Hag standing in the distant trees watching them. Or the other Old Ones in the forest—powerful, fearsome beings of eons past whose names had been long since forgotten to myth and legend—who had all come to silently bear witness to The Grinning Man’s eternal banishment at the hands of the apocalyptic Waking Dreamer.