Jeremy, already out of breath, glanced over at Sal. “I brought them here. I’m sorry.”
“What do you think they’ll do?” I asked him.
“Take us back. You’ll compute. I’ll dig ditches.” He tried to smile.
“It’s not funny,” I said.
Jeremy turned to Sal. “Leave us here. You can get away. We’ll tell them we found the cave and built the fire.”
Sal grinned, then realized Jeremy was serious. Jeremy really thought the fixers would believe him. Maybe they would.
“No,” said the tall girl. “We’ll stay together.”
Jeremy and I looked at her in surprise. We hadn’t known she was listening. Studying her, I realized that the tall girl was always listening.
I started to object, but Sal stopped me. “Save your energy,” he said. “You’ll need it.”
He was right. Already we were slowing down. The boy with one leg had trouble keeping up. Jeremy and I were getting tired.
I watched as Sal looked for places to hide. There was a boulder, but it wasn’t big enough. Mostly, there were trees.
Sal told us his idea. His friends picked out some trees and scrambled up, quickly and easily, even the one-legged boy. Noticing that we needed help, Sal clasped his hands and offered them to me. I stepped on hesitantly and struggled to a low branch. Jeremy followed, skinning his elbows and knees. Finally we found a place on the branch to stand. Our legs were quivering. Jeremy’s face, red a moment before, was pale. Sal shinnied up behind us just in time.
The boy called Leif led the group. There were four other fixers, men and women dressed in the same odd clothes Jeremy wore. They pounded along beneath the trees, looking right and left, forward and back. It was obvious they didn’t live in the woods. If they had, they would have known to look up too.
Leif stopped and studied the ground. When the others hurried off, he yelled to them, “I’m coming. Wait for me!”
A moment later he was gone. To be safe, we stayed in the trees a long time. Then we climbed down, with Sal helping Jeremy and me. We gathered beneath a tree.
“Now what?” Jeremy asked Sal.
“We could go back to the cave,” said Deb.
Sal shook his head. “They might be watching it.”
“We can’t just run,” said Jeremy. “We need somewhere to go.”
I watched Sal. He hesitated, thinking. For a second he looked worried. Then he seemed to make a decision.
“Let’s go to the Music Place,” he said.
I gaped at him. “It’s real? It’s not just a story?”
He showed a hint of a smile. “You’ll see.”
19
Jeremy
As we hurried through the woods, my mind ran ahead of me.
What was I doing? I had wanted to meet the singer, and I had done it. Since then, I’d been going on instinct, running blind. I was used to living in my head, watching pictures, and suddenly there were arms and legs, hands and feet. Lips.
I glanced at Callie moving along beside me, a computer who wanted to be a singer.
Maybe she was a singer. Maybe I was an outlaw. I knew what Leif thought and had a pretty good idea how he was feeling. Leif had a temper. He didn’t like to lose at anything. When he was given a job, he did it. Now I was the job.
“Are you okay?” asked Callie.
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
“We’ll be fine, Jeremy. You’ll see.”
We. I had noticed the word when Callie had used it before. That time, she had meant the two of us. Now she was talking about Sal and his friends. Who was we? I used to think we were the dreambenders, and they were the City people. Then I learned there were people in Between.
Were they a we? Was I part of it? I thought of all the people I’d seen since leaving the Meadow, and I wondered if somehow all of them might be one big we—me, Callie, Sal and his friends, Leif, the dreambenders, the crowds of strangers in the City. If they were we, who was I? Where did I fit in? Where would I go?
To the Music Place, Sal had said.
Callie had asked if the Music Place was real. I wondered about that. I wondered about a lot of things—Callie, dreambenders, Between, and now Sal and his friends. I didn’t think they would mislead us, but did that mean they knew where they were going? Were we crazy to follow?
We were living a story, chasing a legend. I thought of Dorothy and Arthur. I knew what they would say. We were fools. We were dangerous to ourselves and others.
Sal led the way, with Callie at his side. The rest of us followed. Behind us, silent, out of sight, lurked the girl with the skinny dog, keeping watch.
I wish I could say which direction Sal headed, but it all looked the same to me. As far as I could tell, there was no trail. But Sal seemed to know exactly where he was going.
Whatever direction it was, we were surrounded by trees. I began to wish I had never seen one. They were everywhere, thousands of them, hemming us in, reaching for us, rustling in the breeze. I didn’t like the tall buildings and walls in the City, but at least they didn’t move. They weren’t alive and growing.
I found myself longing for the Meadow, with its open spaces and high clouds. I remembered the approach of evening, the way the sun would settle on the horizon and slowly dissolve, like butter in a dish. The sky would turn orange and pink and red, then a deep purple.
Darkness would come, and dreams would start. It seemed so beautiful and so far away.
I realized that the woods were getting darker. Somewhere behind the trees, the sky was changing colors.
“Shouldn’t we stop for the night?” I asked.
Callie shook her head. “Let’s keep going.”
Soon we had no choice. In the dim light, Sal somehow spotted a small clearing, and we made our way there. I plopped down on a fallen tree. It felt good to rest. Callie paced the area, agitated.
“Are we getting close?” she asked Sal.
“You’ll see,” he told her again.
We didn’t build a fire, because the fixers might have seen the smoke. Deb passed out food. We ate in silence, then stretched out on the ground. There was no moon. The woods grew darker by the minute. Faces faded and flickered out, leaving us alone with our fears.
I had too many to count. I feared losing the dreamscape, being cut off from the dreambenders, never again seeing Hannah laugh or Gracie bite her lip. I feared for Callie. I had raised her hopes, and now they were all she had. She had turned her back on the rest—her family, her job, her life. She had followed me, and I had no idea where I was going.
She stopped pacing. I stretched out on the ground, and she lay down next to me.
“Jeremy?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“You,” I said.
I was surprised to feel her snuggle up closer. She was warm and soft.
“What’s going to happen to me?” she asked.
I thought about it some more. “I’m not sure. Whatever it is though, it belongs to you—not your parents, not the dreambenders, not me. Good or bad, it’s yours.”
I couldn’t see her face, but I think she smiled. A few minutes later, she was asleep.
I looked up between the branches at the stars. In the Meadow, the stars had seemed like friends. Earlier in Between, they had been my guide. Now somehow, unsure of where we were going, I saw them as cold and distant. The more I ran, the farther away they seemed.
How long could we run? How many paths could we take? Where could we hide? If we didn’t find the Music Place, what would we do? If we found it, what would we do?
Even if we managed to escape, what would happen to the people in the City? They believed they were free, but they weren’t. I remembered Yolanda, one of Arthur’s watcher friends. She had a pet, a beautiful green bird that she called a parak
eet. I was amazed at the way the bird always stayed with her, perched on Yolanda’s shoulder. Then one day, Arthur told me why. There’s a way that wings can be clipped so the bird looks the same but can’t fly.
The dreambenders had clipped the wings of the City people. We had told ourselves it made the world a better place, but did it?
Was it good to bend dreams? Was it right to block hopes? Was it fair for a small group, no matter how kind or well-meaning, to control the world?
It seemed that all I had was questions. Once, Dorothy had said the questions could get me into trouble but could also help me. I wondered how. They just led to more questions, spiraling into the sky, beautiful but useless.
Unless.
What if the answer to my questions wasn’t words but action? I could do something. If I didn’t like the way the City people were being treated, I could try to change it. Callie was changing. She had risked everything. So could I. But I couldn’t do it in Between.
I could do it in the dreamscape.
The thought clicked into place like the missing piece of a puzzle. The answer had been there all along, waiting for me to see it and take it.
I was a dreambender. The dreamscape was where I lived. I’d been exploring the other world, but it had never seemed as real. In the dreamscape, the feelings were deeper. The pictures were stranger and more vivid. I was banned from going there by the Council. But the Council was wrong.
My problems had started in the dreamscape. To solve them, I needed to go back. There was no other way.
I could return to the dreamscape.
I could confront Dorothy and the watchers.
It was time to stop running.
20
Jeremy
It was there. It had been there all along. All I had to do was close my eyes and go.
The trees went away. So did Callie and the others. The sky glowed, but it wasn’t the sky.
It was a kind of screen. Pictures flickered across it. I watched, as I had since I was a child.
The dreambenders would know I was there, but maybe not right away. They were busy with other things—captivated, as we always were. Watching dreams was like looking into someone’s heart. It was magnificent, and it was awful. How had I lived without it?
While I waited, I roamed from dream to dream. I saw things that were simple and terrifying.
A man drank a cup of coffee. A boa constrictor wrapped around a young girl’s body. Blood rained from the clouds. A woman was trapped in a box and couldn’t get out. Silver balls clicked together steadily, hypnotically. Crowds of people floated into the air and swarmed like gnats. A dog turned into a lily, and the lily into a coin.
A machine shaped like a giant wheel rotated, carrying cars full of people into the air and back down again. I had seen machines in the dreamscape, but this was a new one. Machine dreams had to be bent and, sure enough, I felt a dreambender approach. The scene shifted and the wheel dissolved, leaving a child’s toy. A little boy picked it up, disappointed but not knowing why.
The mind began to drift away, then stopped. The dreambender had noticed me. Before I could blink, there was another and another. They clustered around, their thoughts buzzing. They knew who I was and what I had done. I was banned—how could I return? There was shock, disappointment, anger. In the midst of it, a voice emerged.
“Hello, Jeremy.” It was Dorothy.
“I wondered how long it would take,” I said.
“Why did you do it?” she said.
“Which part?”
“All of it. Running away. Breaking the rules. Meeting the dreamer. Returning to a place where you’re not allowed.”
“I have some questions,” I said.
“You always do.”
“These are important.”
Her voice pulsed sadly. “As important as the group? As the world?”
I said, “How did it get to be like this?”
“Like what?”
“Dreams are wonderful. Why do we use them as weapons?”
“Weapons hurt,” said Dorothy. “We help.”
“We use them to rule the world.”
“You really believe that?”
I smiled. “Now you’re the one asking questions.”
“We don’t rule the world,” said Dorothy. “We shape it. We support it.”
“We bend it,” I said. “The world is bent. It’s crooked, twisted, hunched over.”
“It’s safe.”
I remembered the wild vegetation of Between and the hubbub of the City. “We made a trade. We gave up hope for safety. And it wasn’t ours to give.”
There was a fluttering in the dreamscape, a crush of thoughts and feelings. I could tell that it bothered Dorothy.
“You think all of us should break the rules?” she asked.
Suddenly I was a child again, listening to Dorothy in class. “You know what I mean.”
“We follow the Document,” she said. “It’s a framework. It’s a place to live, like a house.”
“Like a jail,” I said.
I could see Dorothy’s anger flare as surely as if she’d been standing in front of me.
“What is it you want?” she asked.
“We need to change,” I said. “We can’t keep going like this.”
“Everything’s fine. The Warming is over, and it won’t come again. We’ve made sure of that.”
“I met the dreamer. Her name is Callie.”
I heard sounds of shock and fear. Dorothy, as chairman of the Council, had certainly been told by the fixers that I’d met Callie, but the others didn’t know.
“Arthur called her a computer, but she’s not,” I said. “She’s a singer. She’s beautiful.”
“You’ve tinkered with things you don’t understand,” said Dorothy.
“Singing makes her happy. Numbers don’t.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“I told her about us.”
It was one thing to defy the dreambenders; telling a dreamer about them was another thing entirely. I had given away our great secret.
I could feel Dorothy shudder. “Oh, Jeremy.”
“We’ve got to tell them,” I said. “All of them.”
“You would do that?” she asked in a tired voice.
“I’ve met the City people. They think they love freedom, but they don’t know what it is. It’s time for us to tell them. You should do it. But if you won’t, I will.”
Dorothy snapped, “What happened to your questions? I can think of some good ones. What if it all goes wrong? What if it blows up in our faces? Why do we think the world will turn out any different this time? Have we really changed that much? Would there be another Warming? Are you ready to betray everything the dreambenders have worked for—hundreds of them, going back to Carlton Raines? What about them?”
“We betray the City people every day,” I said.
I tried to sound strong, but Dorothy’s questions made me wonder. Was I doing the right thing? What if my idea was a mistake?
“Maybe it’s not too late,” said Dorothy. “You were our shining star, our greatest hope. You still could be.”
“Me?”
“You can be a great leader, Jeremy.”
“I can?”
I had expected punishment, banishment, swift and final. Not this.
“You’re special,” said Dorothy. “You have unique gifts; we’ve always known that. Come home, Jeremy. Come back to the Meadow. Join us. Lead us. Make us strong.”
I imagined myself in the cottage, looking over the Plan, skimming across the water with the watchers, directing them as they gave assignments, helping a young dreambender the way Arthur had helped me.
I imagined Callie singing.
“No,” I said. “It’s too late. Too much has h
appened.”
Dorothy sighed. Her mind closed in on me. The others followed. Since we were in the dreamscape, I wasn’t sure what they could do. Trap me? Catch me? Imprison me? I didn’t know and didn’t want to find out.
So once again, reluctantly, I ran.
How do you run in the dreamscape? I wasn’t sure. I just knew I was moving away, and I hoped it was fast enough to escape. Dreams sped by. I reached out and felt them with my mind, woven strands waiting to be untied. I could adjust them. I could be the greatest dreambender—greater than Arthur, greater than Dorothy. I could be the next Carlton Raines. I flung the thought aside and kept moving.
I became aware of the sound I had imagined just a moment before. It had drawn me in from the beginning, pulling me through the dreamscape, to Between, to the crowds in the City and beyond. It was my beacon and my hope. Callie was singing.
A lake came into view. Callie’s voice floated over the water. I thought of her asleep beneath the trees in Between, and I knew she was having a dream.
I followed her voice. It was coming from the other side of the lake. Behind me, Dorothy called, “Jeremy, where are you? Come back. We can talk.”
I kept going, around the lake and toward Callie. As I ran, the sun broke through, and suddenly there she was, singing beside the lake the way I’d seen her that very first time.
When I reached her, she smiled and paused. “You’re in my dream. How did you get here?”
“Through the dreamscape.”
Callie took my hand. She ran her fingers over my cheek. Then she kissed me. It felt as natural as a warm breeze. She held me. We sat there, strangers in a land that was familiar and new.
“Jeremy, wake up.”
I opened my eyes. The lake was gone. I was in Between, and it was morning. Beyond the tree branches, the sky was turning orange. Callie looked down at me.
“You were in the dreamscape,” she said. “I thought you were banned.”
“I was. But I went back and talked to Dorothy. I tried to convince her the dreambenders were wrong. She didn’t get mad. She didn’t arrest me. Instead, she did something amazing. She asked if I would be their leader.”
Dreambender Page 10
