The Dream Leaper

by Cory Barclay

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “No, thank you,” he replied.

  She was already stalking into the trees.

  “Wait,” Steve started to say, but his throat cracked. The last thing he saw was her white buttocks as he murmured to himself, “ . . . you never even told me your name.”

  DAWN CAME. STEVE HAD hidden next to the road, in the trees, for the rest of the night.

  He’d tried to think where he would go. He didn’t know where Geddon or Selestria were, and he obviously couldn’t go back to the Reynolds’ estate.

  Something else came to his attention, something Annabel had said when he’d met her by the pond.

  “While my parents sleep during the day, I basically have free rein to do as I please . . .”

  How has that not occurred to me before? he wondered.

  The sun was rising. He could waltz right into Annabel’s house since her parents would be sleeping.

  But am I crazy enough to get that close to people who want me dead?

  He had to at least try. He couldn’t stay in this area much longer, but he couldn’t leave Annabel. He had to convince her to go with him, wherever he might end up going.

  He also needed a better mode of transportation. Francesca the Third was presumably still at the Lees’ household.

  He started walking down the road as the sky got brighter and brighter.

  When he saw Annabel’s house in the distance, he clenched and unclenched his fists in nervous preparation. He ran his hand across the handle of the butcher knife.

  He stopped at the end of their long driveway, watching the road for any suspicious movement.

  Then he marched to the front door and raised his knuckle to rap against it, but stopped an inch away. He decided not to knock. Instead, he went around to the side of the house, hoping he might be able to see Annabel in her second-story window.

  The black curtain was pulled over the window, though, so he went back to the front.

  And let himself in. The door wasn’t even locked.

  He stepped into the Lee household, his heart hammering in his chest. He thought someone would hear him.

  He tiptoed through the foyer and into the large living room. The house was a large Victorian with many hallways and high-ceilinged rooms. Much like the Reynolds’ house, a lavish stairway led up to the second level. That was where Annabel’s room was located. He also knew Constantin and Mariana stayed there, which scared him.

  He continued perusing the first level of the ghostly estate. The only sound he could hear was that of a ticking grandfather clock, which came from the library near the stairway.

  A hissing voice called out in a harsh whisper: “What in sweet Mythicus are you doing here, foolish wafer-man?”

  Steve spun around. It was Lig. He’d popped out of a cranny and was shuffling toward him.

  “If my masters find you here they’ll have your heart on a platter!”

  “Are they not asleep?” Steve asked.

  “As of thirty minutes ago.”

  Steve smiled. “Then they won’t find me. And Fueda?”

  “What about her?”

  “When I left the Reynolds’ . . .”

  Lig waved him off. “She’s fine. I spoke with her during the night, as I do almost every night. She informed me of your situation. She did not put herself in danger on your behalf—”

  “Thank God.”

  “But she is not happy about what you did. You’re lucky the Lees are not searching for you, they—”

  “I can’t let Annabel marry that heathen Tiberius,” Steve interjected.

  Lig’s mouth was left slightly ajar. He sighed. “What can you do about it?” It was clear the brownie wasn’t too fond of the Reynolds family, either.

  For an instant, Lig’s face lost its color.

  “What is it?” Steve asked, not sure what part of what he’d said would elicit such a reaction from the little man.

  Lig waved Steve off, bowing his head.

  “Mister Steve?” a voice called from the stairway.

  Steve’s heart leaped and he ran around the stairwell until he was in front of it. He stared up at Annabel, who looked beautiful and tired in her customary white dress. It seemed she had a white dress for every occasion, and this one was the one she slept in. Her hair was tousled in an alluring way.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, confused but not angry.

  “I came to get you, my dear,” Steve said. He felt more and more like Romeo talking to Juliet as he took a step up the stairs.

  When he reached the top, they embraced in a long kiss. He held her face and tipped her chin, as he often did, and smiled at her.

  She took his hand and led him into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  Steve sat on the covers of her dark bed and realized with a crunch that he’d sat on something. He pushed a long piece of crumpled parchment away from him. He stared at the piece of paper for a moment, then took Annabel’s hands in his.

  “You aren’t safe here, my dear,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve learned what your father and mother wish to do with your marriage—how they wish to use you—”

  “How did you learn that?” she interrupted, clearly agitated.

  Steve sighed. She had no idea he knew who her groom-to-be was—that he had lived with the bratty sack of shit.

  So, he told her. He couldn’t keep anything from Annabel. Once his story started, it poured out. He noticed he had left out quite a bit during their conversation two days before, at the pond. He hadn’t even told her the name of the family he was staying with at the time, because he didn’t see the relevance.

  “I’ve since learned that Tiberius Reynolds is this . . . Amethyst character you speak of,” he finished, spitting out the man’s title.

  Annabel sat next to him on the bed. She put a hand on his knee. “The lords and ladies of the Brethren of Soreltris traditionally have royal titles. For whatever reason, they’re named after gemstones. Tiberius Reynolds is Lord Amethyst. His father, Jareth, is Lord Onyx. His mother, Dosira, is Lady Opal, and Emilene, his sister, is Lady Pearl.”

  Steve winced at the mention of Emilene and he looked away. He knew it was a cowardly move. Annabel locked her eyes on Steve, as if she could read what he was avoiding telling her by the look on his face alone.

  But she didn’t mention the girl again.

  “And your parents?” Steve asked.

  “They haven’t been made full-fledged members of the Brethren yet, so they lack proper titles. But, in less than two weeks when I wed Amethyst . . .”

  “Don’t say it!” Steve exclaimed. He leaned back on the bed so his head rested on the pillow. He still needed sleep. “They plan to overthrow this Overseer Malachite person, I believe, when your parents have votes on the Coun—”

  Steve heard another crunch underneath him. He’d laid down on the piece of parchment, again. He pulled the paper out from under him and looked at it. It was old paper—very old—and was handwritten in block paragraphs.

  “What is this?” Steve asked.

  “Just a poem I enjoy. I like to read it every once in a while to remind myself of happier—of different times.” She stretched out and rested her head on Steve’s chest as he brought the paper higher.

  It read ANNABEL LEE at the top, in big, cursive letters. The words under it were hard to make out because there wasn’t much light in the room.

  Still, he could make out the first couple lines:

  It was many and many a year ago,

  In a kingdom by the sea,

  That a maiden there lived whom I know,

  By the name of Annabel Lee;

  Steve’s eyes grew larger as he read the poem. He inspected the edges, the bottom, but saw it was unmarked.

  “T-This is . . .”

  “A poem written by my Edgar, many, many years ago.”

  Steve’s head whirled. He squinted and held the paper away from his eyes, trying to think.r />
  Annabel told me when I first met her that her family had a strange sense of humor for naming her after a poem . . .

  After this poem.

  But that didn’t seem quite right now, staring at this rendition of the poem in his hand. If he’d stopped and thought for a second, it shouldn’t have made sense back then, either, once he learned how old Annabel really was.

  “You were born . . . sometime in the late 1700s, yes?” Steve asked.

  Annabel nodded against his chest.

  “But this poem—and the poet who wrote it—was from the 19th century.”

  Annabel gazed at him but said nothing, a strange, rueful expression on her face.

  “This poem was written after you were born,” Steve said, mainly to himself. “You couldn’t have been named after it . . . so it was named after you!”

  “Shh!” Annabel snapped, putting a hand on his chest. “Be quieter.”

  “Sorry. But I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Annabel lifted her head from his shoulder. She rested her head on her palm and looked down at him, then nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “Edgar Allan Poe wrote this poem about you, then. You . . . knew each other. He . . .” Steve’s eyes widened and he looked at her. It all seemed to click into place in one fell swoop.

  The truth—whatever that was worth.

  “He was your lover,” Steve said in a hard whisper. “He’s the man you were talking about—the one who was scorned by your parents.”

  Annabel nodded. “Quite the detective you are, darling. Edgar would be proud. But that was a long, long time ago . . .”

  “Still,” Steve said, “why have you never told me any of that?”

  Annabel shrugged. “I didn’t find the need to bring up past relationships. It didn’t seem relevant.”

  “Even when I asked if you’d ever loved someone before?”

  “I love you, Steve Remington. Not Edgar.”

  A silence fell over them. Steve didn’t want to press the issue too hard—he believed Annabel loved him.

  “Then why won’t you come with me?” he asked.

  “Because my parents will hunt us until we’re found. They’ll kill you. I can’t let that happen. I can’t run forever—remember what happened in your dreams when I first came to Terrus? When you met with my parents?”

  Steve remembered vividly when he first came across Annabel’s parents, in his dreams. At the end of every dream, they would kill him in some gruesome way, waking him up.

  “Now imagine the end of those dreams . . . only in real life,” she said.

  “I understand,” he answered morosely.

  Another silence fell over them. She put her head back on his chest, caressing his arms with her fingernails.

  He closed his eyes. He was tired.

  “How did it happen?” he asked out of the blue.

  “What?”

  “How did your parents get rid of Edgar? What do I have to look forward to?”

  Annabel groaned, clearly not wanting to get into the details. But Pandora’s box was open. “Edgar came here much like how I came to Terrus: by accident. We had a fling—it was very hush-hush—and my parents found out. They didn’t approve of Edgar. They thought he drank too much and was too gruff and gloomy. So, they had him Seared back to Terrus without me knowing. I came home one day and this poem was resting here. I later learned he wrote nine other copies of this poem—each slightly different than the last—perhaps trying to return here. But he never could. He was lost to Mythicus and lost to himself. This was the last poem he wrote and he died less than five months later, destitute and maddened. I think he missed me too much—and I missed him, too. Trying to get back here drove him to, well, there are many theories about the cause of his death. I believe it was heartbreak. First for his Virginia, then for me. I’ve had a hundred-twenty years to grieve, and the pain has lessened considerably. Then I met you . . .”

  She bent down and kissed his forehead.

  “I’m . . . sorry,” Steve said, knowing how much the sad story hurt to tell. He helped himself up from the bed, pulling her with him, and sat on the edge, still holding the poem.

  He stood, walked to the nearby nightstand, and gingerly placed the poem there, trying to smooth it out.

  This poem is very dear to her . . .

  He felt like an asshole for accidentally sitting on it. He turned toward the bed—

  Something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.

  He turned back to the nightstand.

  A card was sitting next to the letter. It was his own business card:

  Remington Studios

  1560 Garnet Avenue, San Diego, CA, 92109

  ~The Studio by the Sea~

  It was the same card used as the Conveyor between him and Annabel, while they were Bound together on Terrus.

  “You still have this,” he muttered as he picked up the card and held it like a holy relic.

  “Of course I do, silly.”

  A thought came to Steve—his mind was all over the place. The sudden appearance of his business card brought him back to thoughts of his time on Earth.

  “You’ve spoken of someone you miss dearly. Now it’s my turn. Dale.” He turned to face her.

  Annabel cocked her head. “What about him?”

  “When I dream-leaped to him, he’d nearly forgotten who I was. It breaks my heart.”

  “I know how much you care for Mister Fats.”

  Steve smiled sadly. “Is there any way I can get him to remember me?”

  Annabel crossed her legs on the bed. She thought for a moment, then said, “The only way I can think would be to use what you’re holding in your hand.”

  Steve looked at the card he held. “What do you mean?”

  “If you give Dale something that would definitively remind him of you, that might work. I’ve heard of similar things working.”

  “So, I . . .”

  “If you can get that card into Mister Fats’ hands, somehow, perhaps he’ll start to remember you. It’s the only thing I can think of, my dear.”

  Steve wasn’t sure what to do with that information, but at least it was something.

  It was better than the prospect of losing Dale forever.

  He almost wanted to sever his connection with Geddon and Sear back to Terrus right then, to see Dale and see if he could jog the big idiot’s memory.

  But he had more pressing matters, here.

  First and foremost, Annabel’s safety from her own family.

  “Mind if I take this?” Steve asked.

  Annabel shrugged. “Be my guest. It’s just a memento to me. But if it’ll be some use to you . . .”

  “Who knows?” He buried the card next to the dollar bill and gold coin in his back pocket.

  A light tapping scratched against the single window in the room, drawing both Steve and Annabel’s attention.

  At first it sounded like light rain, but then it happened again, and not with the consistency of rainfall.

  They shared a frightened look.

  Annabel hopped up from the bed and crept toward the window, Steve close by her side.

  In one fluid motion, she grabbed the dark curtains and swung them open.

  A gray-black cat with a white spot on its belly was perched on the other side of the window, clawing at the glass and meowing.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  STEVE GLANCED AT ANNABEL, then opened the window. Soft sunlight poured in, followed by the gray-black cat.

  It was Misty, the smallest member of the Vagrant Kinship.

  The cat jumped from the windowsill to the nightstand, almost knocking Annabel’s precious poem to the ground. She rubbed her soft head against Steve’s arm and purred.

  Steve stroked the kitty behind the ears, smiling. For whatever reason, this cat seemed to like him. She’d jumped on his lap at Geddon’s base near Old Town and now she was nestled against him, purring.

  “You know this cat?” Annabel asked, sitting back on the b
ed.

  Steve nodded, took a seat on a chair next to the nightstand, and brought the cat with him to rest on his lap. “This is Misty.”

  Annabel pointed at her. “Look what’s on her leg.”

  Steve lifted Misty and furrowed his brow. A tiny piece of paper was wrapped around her leg. He unraveled the paper and said, “It’s a note with an address on it.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Misty is Geddon’s cat. She was following his friend, Selestria . . .” he trailed off and sighed. “It’s a long story. It involves a mean, talking painting and a betrayal by one of our own.” He still couldn’t believe Barns had ratted them out. He held the piece of paper up and continued. “I’m guessing this is Geddon’s location. Or Selestria’s.”

  “What will you do?”

  Steve shrugged. “Go there, I guess. Of course, I’d ask you to come, but you’re too worried your parents will kill me if I took you . . .”

  “It’s a valid concern.”

  With a slow nod, Steve dropped Misty from his lap to let the cat roam around the room. He stood up. “I know it is. But I have, what, ten days before the wedding?”

  “What will you do in those ten days?”

  “Try to figure out a way to break it up, of course.”

  Annabel smiled wryly. “My parents might kill you for a different reason altogether, Steve.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  They stopped talking and looked at one another. Steve had a pleading look in his eyes, Annabel seemed sad. Then Annabel hopped up from the bed and meandered toward him. She flung his arms around him and they held each other.

  “I wish I could stay,” Steve whispered in her ear, caressing the back of her neck.

  “No, you don’t, my love,” Annabel whispered back. “You wouldn’t want to be here when my parents wake up.”

  There was no denying that. “True,” he said, then kissed her and held her tighter.

  Misty purred louder, either to cheer them on or to hurry Steve up.

  He knew if they’d sent a messenger kitty to find him, there must be some sort of emergency.