Dreamwalker
by C. S. Friedman
Jessica Drake is a normal teenage girl, except for her strange dreams. She tells only her thirteen-year-old kid brother Tommy, a die-hard gamer, about them. He uses them to design game modules for his online buddies. Tommy is also the only one who knows about Jessica's recent paternity test. The results show that Jessica's DNA somehow doesn't match either of her parents, even though the trail from womb to cradle is all accounted for, with no cradle-switches or adoption. Jessica is too shocked to ask her parents, so instead, she and Tommy dig around online - and find an entire community of people in the same predicament. Scientists are even starting to study some of them in secret, with disturbing results. Jessica and Tommy decide to meet two fellow teens in the DNA group, Devon and Rita, who warn Jessica that members of the group have been dying, in apparently unrelated ways. They are worried someone might come after them - especially after the arrival of a stranger, Miriam Seyer, who has a marked interest in Jessica's dreams - but they feel they don't have enough to go to the authorities with. Jessica finally confides in her mom, but that same night, before her parents can help, her house is set on fire. And her brother goes missing. Jessica must save her brother, no matter the cost. That pledge launches her into an new dimension, Terra Prime, where she learns she may be a dreamwalker. According to the legends, dreamwalkers are either doomed to insanity or marked for death in every human world. Are the legends true? Conspiracies, rebellion, magical tech, and alternate universes combine in this compelling adventure about a girl faced with saving two worlds - or risk losing her loved ones on both.