River of Dreams

by Jan Nash

  “So this sorcerer is trying to control the dream world?”

  “If that River isn’t the definition of chaos, I don’t know what is.”

  Jed was a big fan of the villain. In his mind, they didn’t get enough credit. Without Darth Vader, he’d once told her, Star Wars was just a boring movie about a cynical pilot and Bigfoot. Because without Vader, there’s no Luke, no Leia, and no personification of the darker aspects of the Force.

  “You said he had ‘flaming sores’?” Jed asked.

  “Yep.”

  “It’s the darkness within oozing out.”

  “There was a lot of oozing. And … his weapon. It was a stick covered in Lochrans. A bunch of Lochrans.”

  Jed looked at the printout of the Sorcerer. “How old did you say this cave painting was?”

  “Fifteen thousand years.”

  “What if he’s one of the first Dreamwalkers, or the first? He’s on that wall because people knew he had magic. He cured them of the terrors that came in the night.”

  “Say I buy it. He’d be fifteen thousand years old now,” Finn pointed out.

  “Very dead.”

  They walked in silence for a half block. Then Finn stopped. Jed took a step or two before he realized she wasn’t next to him. He turned around.

  “You were right before,” Finn told him. “About the philosopher’s stone. This guy is dead in our world. But he’s alive in the dream world … because of the Lochrans. What if the glowing spikes are Lochrans he’s stolen from other Dreamwalkers because he needs their energy to stay alive?”

  “The hero must die for him to be immortal.”

  “Noah’s not dead!” she snapped, startling Jed and causing him to take an involuntary step away from her. But it took him only a second to recover.

  “Of course not, Finn. I know that. I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I meant.” He bent his head toward her forehead. “I’m really sorry.”

  A tear slid down Finn’s cheek. The wet trail stiffened as it froze against her skin. She concentrated on the warmth of Jed’s head on hers until she was finally calm. “Noah doesn’t have his Lochran. The Sorcerer laid a trap, and Noah fell into it. That’s why he can’t get home.”

  Jed kissed her gently on the forehead. “Which is why we are going to go get him.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Finn had been thinking about her plan for days. Well, not so much “thinking about,” more realizing that she didn’t have a lot of good ideas about how to proceed. She kept hoping for a flash of inspiration, and all she got were small flickers of the obvious. Tonight, having come up with nothing new, she was relieved when Nana called down the hall to say dinner was ready.

  When Finn came into the kitchen, she saw her mother in with Noah. Julia was checking a bag on his IV stand. It was a new one: small, filled with a clear liquid.

  “What’s the IV for?”

  “The nurse came by today.” Nana paused, as though she was weighing what to say, or whether to say it. After a beat, she continued. “She listened to his lungs, thought he had a bronchial infection.”

  “At the hospital, they said that could lead to pneumonia.”

  “Yes, but you and I, we got onto it very quickly. The doctor ordered antibiotics. I think … it’ll be fine.”

  Finn knew Nana wanted her not to worry about it. But how could she not? It was clear that Noah was getting sicker every day. She slid into her seat. Nana pulled a casserole dish out of the oven. Cheese bubbled on the top of it. Lasagna. “I made your favorite,” she said with a smile.

  “Lasagna’s not my favorite.”

  “I meant chocolate cake with cream-cheese icing.” She gestured with her head to a platter on the counter. The cake was beautiful: three layers, a thick wave of frosting rippling across the top of it.

  “How are the three of us going to eat that giant cake?”

  Nana set the lasagna in the middle of the table. “Jed can have some.”

  “He’s allergic to chocolate.”

  “Didn’t know that.” Nana sat down. “Then I’ll just have to freeze a few pieces for your brother.” She put a hand on Finn’s arm and squeezed it. “Would that be okay?”

  Finn smiled. “That’d be great.”

  * * *

  Finn ate two pieces of cake. Not huge pieces, but two pieces nonetheless. It was delicious. When she’d eaten as many crumbs as she could pick up with her fork, she stood and carried her plate to the dishwasher.

  Her mom stopped her. “I’ll do the dishes, Finn.”

  Finn put her plate on the counter and turned around. She leaned back. She was really full. And oddly content.

  “What’d you put in the cake, Nana?”

  “Are you accusing me of spiking it?”

  “I’m wondering.”

  “Love.” Her mother smiled.

  “Lemon bacopa, which actually tastes more like lime,” Nana added when Finn didn’t move. “And love.”

  “Lime-flavored lemon bacopa. What’s it do?”

  “Balances the heaviness of the chocolate.” Finn raised an eyebrow. “And it’s good for focus.”

  Finn looked between the two of them and smiled. As hard as all this was for her, it must be so much worse for them. At least she got to do something. All Nana could do was add lime-flavored herbs to cakes. Her mom could do even less.

  “Remember your pages from the monastery, Mom?”

  Julia nodded.

  “I think…” Her mom and Nana both leaned forward. “I think Malum is important. There is something dark and old at the root of all this.” Her mom opened her mouth to speak, and Finn rushed into the silence. “The good news is I’ve seen it, and I think I know what it wants. And, even though he’s got home-field advantage, he’s alone. I’m not. I have you guys, and I have lemon bacopa.”

  Telling them about Jed would raise too many questions, she’d decided, including one she’d already asked herself, like how she could let him get involved in something so dangerous. And, worse, her mom might want to come with Finn, too. When Finn said no—because she would definitely say no—there’d be a fight. Better to skip that and give them fewer things to object to.

  She thought they might still try to stop her. It was, after all, their job to protect her, make sure she got to adulthood safely. It was what they had been doing since the day she was born. She’d seen the pictures from the hospital. Her mom and dad tired and beaming, holding her close to their hearts. Nana kissing her forehead, the only part of Finn not wrapped in blankets or covered in a knit cap. She was theirs to love and protect. They had wiped her tears and her butt, knowing that the day would come when Finn would go off on her own and make her way in the world. They wanted her to be ready. They did everything they could to get her ready.

  They just hadn’t known that that day would come so soon.

  Finn waited, prepared to let them say whatever they needed to say, but they stood, silent, for the longest time. The only sound was Eddie breathing loudly in Noah’s room.

  Finally, Finn’s mom crossed to Finn and wrapped her arms around her. She pulled Finn as tight as she could. She was holding on so tight it hurt a little. And then, she let go and leaned back and looked Finn in the eye.

  “There is nothing you can’t do, Finn,” her mom said. “You have spent too much of your life hiding your light, but anyone who was really looking could see it. Now maybe … you do, too.” Her mom let go of her shoulders, and Finn realized Nana was standing next to them. She was holding a small plate with another piece of cake on it.

  “In case you get hungry,” she said. Finn took the plate, and Nana stood on tiptoe to kiss Finn on the cheek.

  Nana smiled. Finn took her cake and headed down the hall to her room.

  * * *

  When Finn picked up her phone, there were ten messages from Jed, all with attachments or links to the Internet. All of it was about the Sorcerer, shamans in general, or about shamans gone wrong. He had highlighted an article about how shamans do what they do a
nd triple-underlined a passage about how the forces of good will never let a shaman do bad. It was practically an honors-thesis amount of research.

  You know, Finn typed, if you put this much work into school …

  She had barely pushed Send when his reply appeared. Get an A in third-year Spanish = save the world? I don’t think so. And then a moment later, C U later. xo.

  Finn stared at the “xo.” They’d typed that a thousand times at the end of texts. It started as a joke, after Jed had wondered aloud if the size of the letters indicated some variation in the amount of affection. Small hugs and kisses. Sometimes, one of them would type a hundred of them, with one capitalized in the middle. Sometimes just an x, sometimes just an o. Jed went through a phase where he tried to send Morse code messages using the x’s and o’s as dots and dashes, but when he realized Finn wasn’t going to learn Morse code just to know what he was saying, he stopped.

  It was always a joke.

  Or so she thought. But now …

  C U soon. xo, she typed. It wasn’t too few if you meant it.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Finn got into bed fully dressed. If the Sorcerer surprised her when she arrived in the River, she didn’t want to be wearing pajama bottoms and a tank top. She’d also tucked the printout of the cave painting into her jeans pocket, but as she waited for sleep to come, her mind kept spinning. What else did she need? It was like packing for a trip when you didn’t know where you were going and were pretty sure your bags weren’t going to arrive even if you did.

  She sat up and opened the drawer of her nightstand. It was mostly full of crap: pencils, scraps of paper, change from her pocket. But there were a few useful items. She pulled out the headlamp Nana had put in for emergencies. Jed wouldn’t be able to create his own light, but maybe this would work for him. She grabbed her Swiss Army knife so she could give him that, too. She felt more prepared with just those two things, so she started to close the drawer. She heard something rattle against the side. She pulled it open again and saw the rosary that Sharon Lewis, a classmate, had given her, resting on top of her favorite picture of her and Noah.

  They were young, dressed like cowboys. Or at least he was. He’d gotten a Woody costume for his birthday. Finn was wearing a baseball cap and had a dish towel wrapped around her waist, a gun-shaped stick tucked into it. If the size of their smiles were any indication, though, neither of them cared about the lameness of her costume.

  And it hadn’t gotten in the way of their mission: “Making the world safe for small birds and rodents,” her mom said. Because all they did was run around the neighborhood, saving birds and squirrels from Herman, a neighbor’s cat.

  Finn grabbed the picture and put it in her breast pocket. When she turned back to close the drawer, Saint Patrick was staring at her.

  She remembered when she’d gotten the rosary. Sharon—who might be the shiest person at school—had walked up to her in the cafeteria a couple of weeks after Noah went into the coma and handed it over with a quick “I’ll be praying for you.” Finn had been so surprised she’d forgotten to say thank you. But it had been one of those acts of kindness that had moved Finn during those dark days. She’d looped the rosary through a strap on her backpack and carried it around for a couple of weeks, until she started to feel like people were staring at it and wondering if she’d undergone some kind of religious conversion to save her brother. No one ever said anything, but she felt judged. Normally, Finn didn’t care what people thought. But with the rosary, for some reason, she had. She’d removed it from her bag and thrown it inside the drawer, and she hadn’t thought about it since.

  She picked up the rosary and wrapped it around her wrist. Saint Patrick. Former slave, not even Irish, never canonized so he wasn’t really a saint.

  Give me all you’ve got, Saint Pat. Give me all you’ve got.

  Finn lay down on top of the covers and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  The River crashed into her harder than it ever had before: an explosion of sights, sounds, and emotions that almost knocked her off her feet. It was like standing at the edge of the beach when a hurricane approached, or at least the way it looked on the news, since Finn had never been to the beach or seen a hurricane up close.

  She steadied herself. Why was the River more out of control than usual?

  Finn reached out and grabbed a dream and found herself—

  * * *

  At the airport. Travelers scurried back and forth, moving quickly toward their gates. Except for …

  One man on the moving sidewalk. He was walking the wrong way, pulling a suitcase that was as big as he was. Late for your plane: an ordinary anxiety dream. Except … there was something else. Finn stood still. What was it? A sound. Finn filtered out the sounds of the travelers and the announcements and was left with …

  A buzzing. No. More a crackling, like an electrical short. She could hear it and, weirdly, feel it. She raised her arm. The hairs on it stood up, like they were full of static electricity.

  She looked at the man on the moving sidewalk. His belongings were bursting from the suitcase and wrapping around his legs, slowing him down even more. He looked more than anxious. He looked terrified.

  Finn stepped out of the dream and—

  * * *

  Back to the River. She grabbed another dream and was—

  * * *

  High above the ground in a cloudless sky. The sun blazed overhead. Finn hovered and listened. She felt more than heard the sound here, too. She looked around for the source and saw a woman flying toward her. No, plummeting toward her. The woman’s hands were pressed against her ears. She was losing altitude, but when she tried to extend her arms to fly, her face contorted in pain. She rushed to put her hands back over her ears. The anxious buzzing was too much.

  Finn zoomed over and grabbed her. The woman looked shocked, scared. Finn held her for a moment and then conjured a giant eagle that flew in and gently grabbed the woman by the back of her shirt. Finn watched the woman and the eagle fly away, and then they disappeared as Finn found herself—

  * * *

  Back in the River.

  She reached for another dream. The same buzzing vibration. She threw it back, grabbed another and another and another. It was there in all of them. Fear, vibrating through the River. She could feel it coursing through her. Her heart pounding.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then another. She concentrated on the rising and falling of her chest. She felt the Lochran grow warm against her skin. The buzzing faded. She felt better. Time to go.

  She focused on the blackness in front of her eyes and thought about … Jed.

  * * *

  The lights were off, but she could see him sitting at a desk, rocking back and forth, tapping a pencil on a piece of paper in front of him. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear what it was. Finn stepped closer.

  “Hi, Jed.”

  He ignored her, just kept rocking and saying, “No, no, no.” His dream was full of anxiety, too.

  She rested a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Jed. I can help.” She pulled the headlamp out of her pocket and pushed the power button. The room filled with light. Finn didn’t have any idea whether it worked because that’s what lamps do or because she had the power to turn it on, but it didn’t matter. She was grateful for the brightness it brought to the room.

  “No, no, no.”

  Finn put the headlamp around his head, holding it in place while she concentrated on filling the room with silence. After a moment, he stopped rocking and stopped mumbling. She tried again. “Hi, Jed.”

  “Hey, Finn.” He reached up and touched the headlamp, like he’d just realized it was there. She rested a hand on his.

  “I’d leave it there. I think it’ll make our trip easier.”

  “It’s cold in here, isn’t it?”

  “It is a little cold.”

  He reached and touched the Lochran around her neck, and she had a sudden vision of the Sorc
erer reaching for it. Without thinking, she pulled away.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “It’s okay. I just didn’t expect it. But you’ve given me an idea.” She reached for the Lochran. Rafe told her he’d ripped his off. The Sorcerer wanted hers. He had a bunch of them. Obviously, it wasn’t permanently stuck around her neck. She wondered … Finn put her hands on the Lochran and pulled, gently. It got a little bit larger, so she pulled a little bit more and then more, until it was big enough to wiggle it over her shoulders and down to her hips. Then she pinched it to make it smaller before she pulled her shirt over it.

  “I can still see it,” Jed told her.

  “Yes, but maybe it’ll be harder to grab with my T-shirt and jacket in the way. How much do you remember, Jed?”

  “About what?”

  “About what we are trying to do?”

  He looked at her, puzzled.

  “You want to help me save Noah.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “That was stupid. Of course you do. I guess I’m just wondering how much you remembered about what we are trying to do.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the Swiss Army knife. She gave it to him. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

  “You say that like I’ll hurt myself.” He smiled. “Which is smart.” He reached over and brushed some hair away from her eyes. “The maze. The bird. Sydney. Guy with the antlers. Good. Evil. Best girlfriend ever.”

  She smiled. It had taken only a few minutes. Dream Jed was like real Jed.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She heard Jed take a sudden step back. “Holy crap,” he said. She opened her eyes. He was staring at her in disbelief and then reached out and touched the sword that now existed in a sheath on her back. “Your knife is better than my knife.”

  “I think we can agree that if you had a bigger knife, you’d only hurt yourself worse.”