Dreamer (The Dream World Chronicles Book 1)

by Camille Peters

  Even though I’d wanted to sneak into Mother’s study ever since I’d discovered it was locked, part of me was afraid of what we’d find. What would Mother keep hidden from me? “What if we get caught?”

  Stardust’s eyes gleamed. “That possibility is what makes investigations so exciting.”

  We waited until the dead of night, a time Mother usually spent in her gardens.

  “You must be absolutely quiet,” I whispered, my hand on the trapdoor’s latch. “Mother doesn’t sleep, so even the slightest sound will alert her.”

  Stardust opened her mouth—probably to offer her usual know-it-all conclusion as to why Mother didn’t sleep—but she snapped it shut at my warning glare.

  I inched the trapdoor open, pausing at each creak that pierced the silence. Although Mother was used to my sneaking outside at the crack of dawn, she’d be suspicious hearing the trapdoor squeak in the dead of night. After it was opened, I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and cautiously stepped onto the top rung of the ladder, pausing to ensure my descent hadn’t made any noise.

  Stardust wriggled impatiently beside me. “This is taking too long.” She descended gracefully and bounced against my dangling feet. “Let me carry you.”

  I hesitated. She was so transparent. I tentatively poked her with my toe. She seemed solid enough. Carefully, I stepped onto her and sank several inches, her frothy body absorbing me like I was submerged in a dry bubble bath. She floated down the ladder, glided through the kitchen, and paused at the end of the hallway.

  “Which door is her study?” she whispered, rather loudly.

  “Last door on the left, right across from Mother’s room.” I stilled. The glow from Mother’s lantern peeked through the sliver of her door; she wasn’t outside after all. The last thing I wanted was for her to catch me poking around somewhere so forbidden, but it was too late now.

  Stardust glided down the hallway and set me gently beside the door. With a small pop! she morphed into thin vapor and slipped effortlessly through the crack between the door and the floorboards. I barely had time to be impressed before the click of the lock pierced the darkness. I tensed. Surely Mother had heard that.

  Footsteps. I quickly slipped inside Mother’s study and closed the door. I cocked my ear to the keyhole and listened intently; Stardust, now shaped as a cloud key, squashed against me to listen, too. Mother’s door opened and we heard her pause just outside the study door.

  We waited with bated breath. Mother jiggled the knob. The door had relocked. After a tense moment she stepped away, shut her door, and all was still.

  After another minute of cautionary silence, Stardust reinserted herself into the keyhole to peek through. “She’s gone.”

  I let my breath out slowly. “That was close. No more talking.”

  Stardust morphed back into herself and made the motion of sewing her mouth shut. I tested my weight on the floorboards, which hinted at squeaks and creaks and lots of noise. Stardust slipped beneath me again to carry me soundlessly across the study.

  I didn’t dare strike a match, so we silently explored by the thin sliver of moonlight drifting in through the slit in the curtains. This couldn’t possibly be my obsessively neat Mother’s study. A towering mahogany bookshelf sank beneath the weight of haphazardly stacked books that looked ready to tumble, bottles of unusual plants were scattered across the floor, and leather notebooks were arranged in disarray on every shelf.

  Stardust floated us towards the desk, which was covered by a tablecloth of papers, bottles of different-colored ink, and scattered quills. The papers contained drawings of an assortment of strange plants, all labeled, with notes scrawled with a hurried and untidy hand that didn’t match Mother’s usual careful penmanship.

  Stardust’s eyes widened in recognition. “These are sketches of flowers grown in the Dream World for Weavers to use in their dreams. Your mother must also be a Cultivator.” Her eyes narrowed as she leaned closer to study the drawings more closely. “Wait, these are unlike any cultivating plants I’ve ever seen. I don’t recognize any; the only place I’ve seen them is in your mother’s garden.” Her eyes gleamed, as if she’d just discovered an important clue. “Let’s check the drawers; I’m sure we’ll find dream dust stashed away.”

  Sure enough, the bottom drawer contained a silver locket different than the one Mother always wore, coiled on top of a stack of notebooks. I picked it up. The hourglass pendant—carved with an intricate design of moon and stars—twisted in the air, the dust glistening in the moonlight.

  “So she’s a Weaver after all,” Stardust whispered.

  While I’d started to accept that my mother might be a Weaver, even with this confirming evidence I still didn’t want to believe it. Mother couldn’t possibly possess a locket from another world and have a jar of that world’s power hidden away in her drawers, not when she’d spent my entire life abhorring the mere mention of magic.

  “Mother can’t be a Weaver,” I murmured. “She just can’t be.” Though in my heart I knew it was true.

  “The evidence suggests otherwise,” Stardust said. “Like I said before: only Weavers have dream lockets.”

  I frantically tried to assemble these pieces together in my mind, but they refused to fit together. “But this locket isn’t even hers; it’s different from the one she always wears.”

  Stardust jolted, nearly sending me toppling off. “You mean she has two? That’s impossible. Weavers receive their locket upon birth, and only one.”

  A sense of ownership settled over me as I grazed my thumb across the locket. After a moment’s hesitation, I put it on and tucked it under my dress for safekeeping. If I really was a Dreamer, then this locket belonged to me.

  She flew closer and squinted at the papers strewn across Mother’s desk, as if they possessed an overlooked clue that would allow us to decipher the riddles surrounding us. When that yielded no results, she flipped through the top notebook from a rather large stack. I lay on my stomach on Stardust and leaned down for a closer look at Mother’s drawings, some of which I now recognized as plants Mother grew in her garden.

  Stardust jostled beneath me, and I looked down in time to see her tuck something away. “Let’s check out that bookshelf,” she said.

  The selection of volumes was massive. Every magic book I could think of as possibly existing was crammed inside Mother’s bookcase, stacked at haphazard angles and weighing down the shelves so much they looked about to collapse. I caressed the spine of Developing Your Dream Weaving Abilities, traced the gold embossed letters of Enhance Your Weaving in Ten Easy Steps, and flipped through Cultivating Chronicles. I’d spent my entire life trying to track down even a sliver of information about magic, and this entire time Mother had a vast magical library concealed in her study.

  “Look at these.” Stardust flew us to the top shelf to goggle at Growing Vivid Senses and Hybrids: The Complete Guide to Cultivating New Flower Breeds. “This settles it: your mother is definitely a Cultivator from the Dream World.”

  Lightheaded, I tightened my hold on Stardust. I stared unseeing at the same spot in the bookshelf and noticed something odd. Snuggled between Incinerating Insomnia: Captivating Techniques to Keep Your Mortal Asleep and Weaving for Wusses was a thick, black book, whose title had worn off its breaking spine; I didn’t need Stardust’s detective skills to conclude Mother consulted it frequently. I tugged it from the shelf and flipped it over to read the nearly-faded title written in curly silver scrawl: The Power of Nightmares.

  I started and almost dropped the book, as if the title itself burned me. What was a book like this doing amongst Mother’s volumes about cultivating and weaving? I started to return it to its shelf, but some unseen force made me pause. I wasn’t planning on opening it, but I was drawn to its pages by a burning curiosity that filled me with an unquenchable need to discover answers to questions I didn’t know I had.

  I hypnotically traced the title, my unnatural curiosity about anything nightmare-related eclipsing my earlier abho
rrence. Just what sorts of powers did nightmares possess? Were they more powerful than dreams? What secrets did this book contain, and what was Mother’s interest?

  I slowly eased the book open in my lap, the cracking of its already broken spine slicing the silence as it fell naturally to Chapter 14, “Harnessing Nightmares’ Powers.” I just had time to notice a piece of yellowing parchment bearing Mother’s scribbles bookmarking the page when Stardust’s sharp gasp caused me to hastily shut the book.

  “Unicorns!” She zipped towards the top of the bookcase, sending me and the book tumbling to the ground with a painful thud.

  “Stardust, don’t,” I hissed, but it was too late. Deaf to my pleas, she yanked The Magical Properties of Unicorn Thread from the bottom of a teetering stack.

  Crash! Books toppled on top of me, bruising me like pelting hail. The noise was deafening, as was the taut silence that followed.

  Mother’s footsteps pounded as she came running towards the study. The lock clicked menacingly and the door swung open to reveal Mother glaring at me from the doorway.

  Chapter 8

  Time seemed to have stopped as Mother and I stared at one another before she slowly surveyed her study, her mouth agape. Desk drawers hung half-open, the tumbled books lay in a heap, and I crouched in the middle of the paper-carpeted floor, surrounded by her exposed secrets. Dread filled my heart for the impending confrontation. Stardust had disappeared, abandoning ship at the first sign of trouble. Traitor.

  “What are you doing here?” Mother hissed through clenched teeth. “How did you get past the lock? It had a powerful…” She trailed off and pressed her hands against her hips. “Well?”

  A cloud-shaped bumblebee darted briefly from behind the bookcase, an assurance Stardust hadn’t completely abandoned me to Mother’s wrath after all. Her presence strengthened my resolve.

  “Do you have an explanation for these magic books?”

  Mother pursed her lips. “That’s none of your concern.”

  “Of course it’s my concern. You’ve spent my entire life claiming magic doesn’t exist, when all this time—” I blinked back tears. “I deserve to know the truth: do you have magic?”

  Mother fidgeted for a moment before, ever so slightly, she nodded. Betrayal, sharp and prickling, washed over me. After all these years of trying to hide my own powers, the fact Mother had them too…

  My lip trembled. “How could you keep it from me?”

  She sighed. “It was necessary, but please believe that it pained me to do it.” Her tone was calmer and her eyes had lost their sizzle. “The truth is complicated. There’s much more going on than you realize; unfortunately there are some things which can’t be shared.”

  “But I’m your daughter!”

  “I was planning on telling you when you were eighteen, or sooner if you had shown any signs of having inherited my gift; I even had a locket filled with magic, ready to give you when you were ready. However, after observing you carefully over the years, I was convinced you didn’t possess any magic of your own. It wasn’t until last night when you declared with such certainty that I didn’t dream that I began to wonder…”

  Unbelievable. For a moment I was rendered speechless. Mother monitored my expression, her own twisted in distress.

  “I didn’t want you getting hurt.” She stepped closer, hand outstretched to stroke my hair the way she usually did, but I flinched away.

  “Hurt? Do you have any idea what the villagers whisper about me, or the torment I’ve felt keeping my powers concealed?”

  Her eyes widened. “What powers?”

  My secret had finally tumbled out, unable to be kept hidden any longer. I extended my hand, palm facing up. My magic came instantly at my command. Mother’s hands fluttered to her mouth. For a moment she simply stared, transfixed, at the shimmery lilac swirls cupped within my palm.

  “Who taught you to do that?” she whispered. “Magic that rehearsed—I had no idea; you hid it so well.”

  I pulled the magic away. “I taught myself. There was no one I could ask, especially not you.”

  “Oh Eden, I’m so sorry. If only I’d known—” She reached for me, but I ducked out of her grasp. “Eden?”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Please, just let me explain—”

  I didn’t want her apology or her explanations, not tonight. It was too late for that. I headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out.” I kicked the door open and stomped from the room, the Stardust bumblebee close behind.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  I ignored Mother’s frantic shouts and Stardust’s prodding as I ran, glancing back only once. Mother slumped in the front doorway, her look defeated, but it couldn’t wash away the hot anger pounding through me. I fumbled with the garden gate and didn’t stop running until I reached my tree. There I collapsed and leaned against the trunk, where all the years of emotions—the loneliness from never fitting in and the pain of Mother’s betrayal—tumbled out.

  Stardust snuggled against me. “Don’t cry.”

  It was only then that I realized my tears had spilled over, all the events and emotions from the past forty-eight hours suddenly too much to bear. I buried my face in her frothy body. “I don’t know who I am.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head and Stardust curled up beside me. We sat in silence for several hours until the night slipped away and the sky brightened with dawn. From beyond the village wall came low murmurs extending sleepy good mornings and the clambering of the market being set up.

  The fight, still fresh and festering, lingered even now, hours later. Mother was a Dreamer. How could she have lied to me? I traced the hourglass pendant I’d taken from her study, where the magic it contained glistened in the early light. “How could she hide so much from me?”

  Stardust stirred beside me. “Weavers aren’t allowed to share themselves with Mortals.”

  “But I’m not Mortal; they don’t have magic, but there’s a part of me that allows me to see others’ dreams.” I sighed. “I don’t know who or what I am.” Though a possibility niggled at my thoughts—could I be half Mortal? But I dismissed the possibility almost the moment it occurred to me. Mortals couldn’t see Weavers, which would make it impossible for such a union between Mother and a Mortal to have taken place.

  “I’m not entirely sure how your mother ended up on Earth—though I do have a suspicion—but if she’s a Dreamer then that would make you one, too.” Stardust’s rainbow eyes brightened. “I have a great idea: how about I take you to the Dream World? You’ll love it up there; it’s better than anything here on Earth. And perhaps there we’ll be able to uncover more about you and your unique powers.”

  I straightened, enchanted by the suggestion. “Would I really be able to go?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Only beings with magical abilities can see it, and you have magic. You’ll fit right in. We’ll go to all of my favorite places and eat loads of delicious treats.”

  It was all so alluring. I imagined myself within the fantastic world of clouds, sunbeams, and rainbows, filled with other magical beings like me, a place where no one would give me weird stares or whisper rumors when I passed. Perhaps in that mystical world I’d finally discover where I truly belonged.

  But my fight with Mother still simmered in my thoughts and chased away my fantasies. The responsible thing to do would be to apologize or at least tell her where I was going, but I couldn’t face her so soon. Maybe if I was only gone for a little while…

  The clamors from beyond the wall grew louder as more of the village awakened. Stardust glanced longingly towards the gate. “I’ve always wanted to examine a Mortal village. I’ve only ever seen them from a distance.”

  “You can explore after we visit the Dream World,” I said impatiently, for the more I fantasized about the place, the more eager I was to leave.

  But Stardust had already drifted over t
o peer through the latticed bars. “Ooh, it looks fascinating. I’m getting a closer look.” And she was gone.

  “Stardust!” I chased after her, my mind swirling with all sorts of possibilities of the horrible trouble an unsupervised, hyperactive cloud could get into. Luckily, she still hovered in the entrance, doe-eyed as she hungrily took in all the sights. I heaved a reluctant sigh. “Fine, we’ll take a quick look around.” Not that I had any choice in the matter. “At least have the decency not to speak to me; I don’t want any of the villagers thinking I talk to myself.”

  The market was a bustle of activity as vendors arranged their stalls, their dreams hovering over their heads, but for once they didn’t tempt me to try and capture them—not only did Stardust’s warning still ring in my ears, but I had my hands full trying to keep an eye on her.

  I wove through the crowds and stalls with my head held high, ignoring the heated and suspicious stares of the villagers I passed.

  The market was already set up in the village square. We wove around the cramped wooden stalls, weighed down with fresh produce, hanks of smoked meat, crates of chickens and rabbits, and healing elixirs. The yeasty scent of bread drifted from the bakery on the brisk breeze and foreign spices tickled my nose. Around us, villagers haggled and gossiped, not even sparing me a glance as we pushed our way through the jostling crowds; Stardust giggled as she flew right through several people.

  “What a fascinating place.” She wandered over to a merchant selling jewelry and bolts of silk and nuzzled her nose against the cloth. “Ooh, it’s so slippery. Will you buy it for me?”

  I half expected the merchant to notice Stardust floating a mere few inches away, but he stared straight ahead, completely unaware. I sauntered over and subtly tugged Stardust away. “We’re only here so you can have a quick look around, not to buy souvenirs,” I murmured from the side of my mouth. “Besides, I could never afford something so expensive.”