The Land of Dreams

by Kira Moericke

  “Nybbas?” I frowned. This was not how I expected the head demon of nightmares to look like. I had imagined him exactly how the internet had showed; giant, dark, with evil red eyes, not someone who looked like they just stepped off a Paris runway.

  “In the flesh.” He flashed a smile at me, and if I didn’t know he was an evil demon, I would have fell for that smile.

  “And you must be Jaqueline Morris,” Nybbas said, raising an amused eyebrow at me. “You’re a lot smarter then you look.”

  I glared at him.

  “Sorry, sir, I almost had her.” In a blink of an eye, Reve appeared beside Nybbas in the form I had given him the first time I had visited the Land of Dreams. I hadn’t realized how tall Nybbas was until Reve stood beside him. He was a good half a head taller than Reve who was over six feet. “If it wasn’t for him.” He turned and glared at Alec.

  “You were trying to kill her!” Alec roared, starting toward Reve. Dharma rushed forward and grabbed his arm with her free hand, holding him back. In the crook of her other arm, she still carried the crystal ball that we had stolen from Madame Alvina, which was now clear of any image.

  “I give you one job,” Nybbas said, frowning down at Reve. Raising a hand, he brought all his fingers to his inner palm, and just like that, Reve turned into glittering amethyst-colored ash that drifted lazily onto the Persian rug. Nybbas shook his head as if in dismay. “What a disappointment.”

  “What did you do to him?” I asked, even though I knew I shouldn’t care. Reve had tried to kill me! And yet, I remembered all the times he and I had talked, and the one magical night where we reenacted the Homecoming dance the way I wished it would have been.

  “He failed me, so his service was no longer needed,” the head demon replied.

  “So you killed him?” I couldn’t believe that the guy was such a monster.

  “Would it be considered killing if technically he was never really alive?” An amused smile tugged on Nybbas’s full lips. Shadows casted by the candles haunted his face.

  “I… Uh…” I didn’t know what to say.

  “You have to stop this,” Dharma interrupted, cutting to the chase. She took a few steps toward Nybbas. “You have to stop hurting people.”

  Nybbas slowly turned his head to look at Dharma, his smile dropping from his face. “Miss Trouster it’s a pleasure to meet you. Have you been enjoying yourself?”

  Dharma frowned. “This place is a nightmare.”

  Nybbas tilted his head back and laughed. “How very kind of you to say so.”

  Dharma’s frown deepened.

  “Cut the crap,” I snapped. I had to get this done before I fell for his devious charm. Seriously, I could see why so many people fell into the powers of Hell. If all the demons were like this; damn. “If you won’t stop hurting people willingly, we’ll stop you ourselves.”

  Nybbas laughed again as if my threat was funny. “Two mortals and a trapped soul? You’re funny, Miss Morris. I like you.”

  I glared at him. “I’m serious.”

  “And I am serious when I say that there is no way my kingdom will fall.” Nybbas frowned at me.

  “Oh yeah?” I started toward him, not caring that he was the all-powerful demon of dreams. I walked with confidence, knowing if I showed anything less, I would be taken as a joke. And frankly, I was not a fan of jokes.

  “J.J., what are you doing?” I heard Alec ask from where he was still being obtained by Dharma.

  I ignored him and kept my eyes on Nybbas, which was a big mistake. My foot caught hold of the edge of the Persian rug, and I fell forward, dropping the pretty snow globe that I carried in my hands. I fell to the ground, landing hard on my side, the snow globe smashed against the floor, shattering into hundreds of sharp little pieces. As soon as the glass ball broke, the image inside of it vanished and a rumble sounded all around us, shaking the room like a number five earthquake. I could feel the ground underneath me quiver for a moment before it settled.

  “What was that?” Dharma asked, a hint of fear in her voice.

  “Nothing,” Nybbas snapped quickly. Too quickly. I could tell he was lying.

  I groaned as I got back to my feet and looked at Nybbas. “You’re lying.”

  “Lying?” The demon frowned. “I am not.”

  “You are.” I tilted my head up to meet Nybbas’s eyes with my own. “Breaking that snow globe did something, didn’t it?”

  Nybbas clenched his jaw shut and raised up his chin in defiance.

  “Fine. Not going to answer me?” Without warning, I snatched a small paperweight from the desk, and spun around, chucking it at the giant shelf where I had gotten the one snow globe that I had broken, shattering several of the colorful, glowing globes. This time, the rumble was louder, and the whole room shook more violently then the first time. I had to grasp onto the edge of the desk just so I wouldn’t fall over.

  After the room was done shaking, Alec spoke up. “What was that?”

  “It was nothing!” Nybbas roared, swinging his angry gaze at Alec.

  “It was the realms,” Dharma said in sudden recognition. Her eyes sparkled like blue topaz and a small smile formed across her face.

  “Shut it, Dharma,” Nybbas growled. He took a couple of steps toward her. “Just shut it.”

  “Each snow globe holds a realm,” Dharma said, ignoring Nybbas.

  “Shut up!” Nybbas demanded, his voice rising. His midnight blue eyes lit up in anger.

  “Jaqueline, the snow globes are realms!” Dharma continued, her voice rising to be heard over Nybbas. “You have to break the snow globes to destroy the realms!”

  “I said SHUT UP!” Nybbas marched over to Dharma and back-handed her, sending her sprawling to the floor in a heap, the crystal ball falling onto the floor with a heavy thunk.

  “Hey!” Alec pulled back his arm, ready to swing a punch at Nybbas, but before he could, Nybbas threw out his hand, shoving Alec back with an invisible force that sent him flying into a shelf, knocking a few snow globes to the ground.

  The room shook angrily.

  “Alec!” Panic rushed through me. I wanted to rush up to Nybbas and beat the living snot out of him, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to get five feet of him without him throwing me back, too. So instead, I rushed over to one of the shelves and swiped my arms across it, knocking down several globes.

  “No! What are you doing?!” Nybbas shouted as the room around us began to shake even more violently. The large tremors shook the shelves, knocking over some more snow globes.

  Using one hand to shield my face, I used the other hand to continue knocking over the snow globes, smashing other peoples’ dream worlds. I only felt slightly bad, but I knew I was saving a majority from making the same mistake I almost had.

  “Stop!” As I knocked more snow globes off from their shelves, Nybbas followed closely behind, using his magic to rebuild the snow globes, which now were empty of someone’s dreams. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  “I know exactly what I’m doing,” I said, finished with the first shelf and was now moving on to the second. From the corner of my vision, I could see Alec collect himself off the floor and move to a different shelf in the room.

  The tremors worsened as more and more snow globes started falling from the shelves. My bare feet crunched on shattered glass, so I closed my eyes in the midst of chaos and imagined a pair of shoes on them.

  “Stop!” Nybbas roared again. His eyes flashed a wicked shade of blue. He had only fixed about a quarter of the snow globes that we had broken and was struggling to keep up.

  “In your dreams!” I shouted back. Between the tremors from Alec and I, nearly all the snow globes were shattered besides the ones that Nybbas fixed with his magic and the ones on the higher shelves.

  “J.J.!” Alec shouted from across the room. “We’re never going to be able to break them all.”

  I stopped smashing and spun around to face him, realizing he was right. As long as Nybbas was alive, he was
just going to rebuild his collection of dreams.

  “Unless we destroy the realm and everything in it.” The truth dawned on me like a slap in the face. “Look for the snow globe that shows this realm!” I shouted to Alec. We both swiveled our heads around, looking for the snow globe with this realm of Hell.

  Behind me, Nybbas laughed coldly, sending a chill to rush through me.

  “You really think I would hold this realm with all of the others?” he asked, his voice light with a hint of venom.

  “No, you’d keep it in a locked drawer in your desk.”

  Me, Alec, and Nybbas all whipped our heads in the direction of Dharma, who stood behind Nybbas’s desk with a snow globe in one hand and a small, pointed object in the other, which she had probably used to jimmy the lock. The crystal ball that we had stolen from Madame Alvina sat in the middle of the desk, showing a view of the inside of a desk drawer.

  “How did you…?” Nybbas started, then trailed off, seeing the crystal ball.

  “Alec!” Dharma threw the snow globe with the image of Nybbas’s office over toward Alec, since Nybbas stood in front of me. My heart was fluttering around wildly inside my chest like a bird stuck in a cage as I watched Alec catch it with just a little fumble. Nybbas rushed to him in a speed faster than humanly possible, but Alec saw it coming and threw the snow globe to me.

  I stared at it, watching as it twirled through the air, glinting with the flickering light from the candles. Deep within it, I saw a smaller version of me, Alec, Dharma, and Nybbas playing a dangerous game of monkey-in-the-middle.

  I didn’t expect the snow globe to be so heavy when I caught it, but I didn’t let it slip. I caught it by hugging it to my stomach, before raising my gaze toward the other occupants in the room. All three of them had their eyes wide like saucers, their mouth parted in anticipation.

  “NO!” Nybbas snapped out of the slight daze he was in and came toward me in a speed inhumanly possible.

  Knowing this was my only chance, I raised the snow globe high above my head, then chucked it toward the floor, watching as it shattered into hundreds of little glittering pieces.

  The room around us started to shake furiously, breaking any of the snow globes that Nybbas had conjured after we had smashed the first ones and the ones that Alec and I had yet to break. The windows behind his desk shook then exploded, sending up a spray of glass. I threw my arms up to shield my face and sucked in a deep breath when I felt some slivers of glass lodge themselves into my skin.

  “J.J.!”

  I peered over my arms and saw Alec stumbling over toward me. I hurried over to him and fell against his chest.

  “Are you okay?!” he asked over the sound of wood snapping and glass shattering and Nybbas’s howling. He wrapped his arms around me, protectively.

  “Yes.” I nodded. “Where’s Dharma?” Using an arm to shield my face again, I looked around the room in search for our colorful friend.

  A cry of pain sounded close by. Shifting our eyes, Alec and I saw Nybbas staring down at himself as dark lines raced across his skin, looking like cracks in porcelain. When he looked up at us, I gasped, holding back a scream when I saw that his midnight-blue eyes were now white and demonic. He howled and screamed as more and more lines raced over his skin, before his whole body was covered in lines. With a final howl, he exploded in a porcelain cloud.

  “We did it!”

  Alec and I turned our heads and saw Dharma standing nearby, dark lines racing across her pale skin like Nybbas. The only thing that was different was that her eyes were still their pretty faded blue color.

  “Dharma, what’s happening to you?” I asked as a hunk of plaster rained down from above us. Alec tightened his arms around me as the roof started to come down.

  “You destroyed the Land of Dreams,” she replied smiling, even though I could tell that she was in pain as more lines formed across her body. “My soul is now free and I can move on. And because of you guys, no one else has to suffer the same fate as I had.”

  “So you’re going to… Heaven?” I asked tentatively. “Will I ever see you again?”

  Dharma took a few steps back, a smile still on her face. “I’ll come visit you,” she replied. “But only in your dreams.” Her body started to reverberate with the need to explode.

  I turned my head away, burying my face in Alec’s chest as he burrowed his face in the hollow of my neck, just as Dharma exploded, raining porcelain onto us.

  Still clutching each other as the world around us crumbled, Alec and I dropped to our knees.

  “What’s going to happen to us?” I shouted into his chest, hoping to be heard over the chaos.

  “I don’t know,” Alec replied honestly. “But whatever happens, I’ll be here. I won’t let you go, J.J.”

  And I won’t let go of you, I thought, just as a loud explosion of noise erupted around us.

  Then everything went black.

  Chapter 27

  It was still dark out when I gasped awake. I bolted into a sitting position and looked around me. I nearly melted with relief when I saw myself safe in my room instead of in the Great Beyond. I touched my head, then my chest, then my legs, making sure that I was alright. Feeling that I was okay and wasn’t missing any body parts, I let out a breath of relief, and looked around my dark room until I found my alarm clock. Five o’four it read.

  Scrambling up from my bed, I started for the bathroom, wanting to wash away the events from my dream, even though I knew it would continue to haunt me for a while.

  As I stood under the shower head, letting hot water rush over me, I thought about one of my problems that almost made me do the worst mistake ever: the feud between my parents. Yes, I knew I should be mad at my mom for what she did to Dad, but she was still my mom, and even though I tried not to, I still loved her. I knew that it would mean the world to her if I stood up in her wedding. And I knew if Dad didn’t understand what I just realized, then he would never understand. His head would always be in a dark place when it comes to my mom.

  So when I stepped out of the shower, put on a white T-shirt and a pair of jeans, I felt sort of confident with myself about telling Dad about my decision with the whole wedding thing.

  I found him in the kitchen, reading today’s newspaper and sipping some coffee since it was Saturday, his day off. At the sound of me entering the room, he turned in his chair to look at me.

  “Well hello,” he greeted as I moved to sit across from him at the table. “You’re up early.”

  “Uh… yeah. I had a bad nightmare.” I licked my dry lips, knowing how true that statement was. Sucking in a deep breath to try to calm my racing nerves, I opened my mouth, ready to tell Dad my decision about Mom and the wedding, when he opened his mouth and said something first.

  “I was thinking about you and your mother’s wedding,” he said before I could, “and I understand that you’re old enough to make decisions for yourself without me telling you what you can and cannot do.” He swallowed hard, as if what he was about to say was difficult for him. “If you decide that you want to be a part of your mother’s wedding, I can’t stop you. And if you decide not to, that’s great, but no matter what you choose, I will always love you.”

  “Dad.” I smiled lightly, feeling relieved. I could feel the weight of my worry lift off my shoulders. “Thank you.” Just having him admit that was like a breath of fresh air. I had waited for this moment, the moment when Dad realized that I had to make decisions for myself and not have him make them for me, for a long time. Standing up, I walked over to him and wrapped my arms lightly around his shoulders, careful not to make him spill his coffee that he still had in his hands. “Thank you.”

  Dad smiled lightly, not proud of what he had just said, but accepting what he said as the truth.

  Pulling away from Dad, I went in search for my phone. I found it on my desk in my room, next to my alarm clock. Quickly unlocking it, I went to my mom’s contact and shot her a quick text: I’ll stand up for ur wedding, but I want
2 bring Alec.

  Placing my phone back on my nightstand, I walked through the house, passing Dad, who asked if I wanted anything for breakfast. I passed, saying I wasn’t hungry at the moment, then walked out onto the porch, sitting on the top step. The early morning wind was cool and stirred some of my dark hair in front of my face. I pushed it back behind my ears then wrapped my arms around myself, trying to rid myself from the chill. I should have grabbed a sweatshirt, dang it.

  Just as I was about to rise and snag a long-sleeved shirt from my room, the early morning sun broke out from behind the houses that sat perched together on the horizon, lighting the world with a warm glow. Peach and rose and gold battled the dark night in claim for the sky. I could feel its warmth on my skin like a kiss. Closing my eyes, I tilted my head up into the light and breathed in a deep breath.

  If you’re up there, Dharma, thank you.

  The sound of a vehicle pulling up in my driveway startled me into opening my eyes. I smiled when I saw that it was Alec in his old, powder blue ’64 mustang with the dent in the passenger side. Alec had gotten a job a while back and had saved all his money to buy that car off of Craigslist, and he said, once he had the time and money, he was going to fix ‘er up to her original form.

  “I see that you have Daisy back,” I noted, as Alec slipped out of the car, wearing a dark green hooded sweatshirt that he had gotten from our school store and a pair of comfy gray sweats.

  “Yup.” He beamed and patted the hood of the car affectionately. Then he came over by me and sat down on the step. For a moment, we were both quiet, taking in Daisy’s rust spots before Alec asked, “So what happened last night… Was that real or just a dream?” He looked at me, waiting for an answer.

  I reached down and tugged a piece of crisp, green grass from where it was growing in the crack in the cement walkway. “Honestly, I don’t know. It feels too surreal to have really happened.”

  Alec let out a long breath of air and ran a hand through his clipped dirty-blond hair.

  We sat there for another moment in comfortable silence before I nudged his knee with mine and leaned into him. Alec wrapped an arm around me, in what was supposed to be a gesture of comfort, but instead, made me think of when we had held each other in the Land of Dreams, just before Dharma had exploded into millions of porcelain pieces. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to rid the image from my mind. It didn’t work.