Into the Gray

by Geanna Culbertson

  I looked down and noticed that the surface of the moon had large, unnaturally straight lines carved into it. I pivoted around and gazed at them.

  Hmm.

  On a hunch, I shoved my wand in my boot and climbed a nearby hill. From that height, I could see what the lines were. They were letters that spelled out the word: ALONE.

  I flashed back to my time in Chance’s library. According to the dossier Sandman had given us, “Alone” was the heart of the Wanderers’ Void. This place really lived up to the name. I should have been able to see planets, or stars, or the sun. But there was nothing out there, and it was the most eerily silent place I’d ever been in my life. Things got way worse a second later when the gravity turned off.

  I flailed and grabbed at the air as I floated off the surface of the rock, but I just drifted faster away and deeper into the clutches of blackness. Though I tried to scream, I couldn’t hear it. My drift speed accelerated—the moon growing smaller and smaller until it was out of sight completely.

  Everything was pure black for a while. Eventually a hazy, azure glow illuminated me like a spotlight. The air thickened and it felt like I was floating in water. With several kicks and strokes, I propelled myself toward the spotlight. Shards of mirror floated by me the closer I got to the light, reflecting an image of a friend or family member within each piece.

  I reached the place where the spotlight originated. The light was coming through a hole punched in an infinite mirror that extended above me like a ceiling. My reflection looked back at me as I touched its surface. I felt a shiver go up my spine and tore my eyes away from my reflection. Hoping it was an exit, I raised my hands through the hole then grasped the edges. With the assistance of some kicking, I pulled myself up into the world beyond and was met by . . . me. Another Crisanta Knight was crouched just in front of me. Her eyes were at my eye level. She blinked, then roughly jutted out her hand and shoved my forehead—pushing me back into the void.

  I dropped in free fall; the liquid thickness that had previously characterized this environment had gone and my scream was now audible as I plummeted through nothingness. Thankfully, my body jolted to a stop a few moments later and I found myself floating in the same black void as before. Only this time . . . I spotted a way out. There was a crack in the void—a fissure in space that emanated silver light.

  “Crisa! Crisa!” Blue, Jason, and Daniel were calling to me. Their voices seemed to be coming from the crack. That must’ve been the way back to the mountain I’d left behind.

  I started to float toward their voices, but as I moved closer to the crack, I saw something else in the distance. Someone else. My eyes widened so much they may have stretched out my face.

  “Alex!”

  My unconscious brother was floating through the black. I drifted toward him, as if my voice pulled me toward his body like a magnet. I came to a stall in front of him.

  Thin coils of fog encircled Alex’s body, wrapping around him like a long, vaporous snake. The fog shifted periodically to spell out the word “Alone.”

  I studied him carefully. Dreamland had already tricked me with so many hallucinations; I figured this could simply be another one of them. Though, as I stared at my older brother’s ghostly pale face, I felt a deep tug inside my gut. It was him. I was certain.

  I reached for my brother but got cut off. The end of the fog rapidly uncoiled, thickening and elongating until it loomed over me—actually becoming an enormous snake made of fog.

  “Thisss one cannot leave,” the vapor snake hissed. “He issss truly alone.”

  The snake wasn’t wrong. Alex had no friends or family from his old life. Once I ejected the Shadow from him and Tara got spit out of Mauvrey, I wasn’t sure if he’d rejoined the antagonists. Probably not. After they were done using him to attack Midveil, mess with me, and claim Excalibur, my enemies likely had no further use for him. And if that was the case, he had no place where he belonged—no archetype or team to call his own.

  I gazed at my older brother and felt that tug in my stomach again.

  “I’m not leaving him here,” I told the snake firmly.

  The snake was frightening, but I held my metaphorical ground. I may not have owed my brother anything, or cared about him even a tenth of what I once did, but I was curious about what had happened since we’d parted ways. More importantly, he may have valuable intel about the antagonists from his time with them that we could use. Getting him out of here was a strategic move first and foremost.

  The snake’s body began to grow larger. Soon its foggy face was the size of Daniel’s house. It bore over me, spelling out the word “Alone” in different sizes and fonts across its vapor body. The snake opened its mouth and let out a weird hiss that sounded like static on a lost radio station. Other humans appeared across the void—hundreds, maybe thousands of them. They were floating, pale and lifeless, like Alex. A corpse for every star I felt previously missing from the sky.

  The bodies had vapor twisting around their torsos and limbs like my brother did. Except, unlike Alex, these people were much more translucent and ghostly.

  “Mindssss trapped in loneliness are drawn here,” the snake said. “Thissss one, though, came here in a physssical body. So there isss no waking on hisss own.”

  “How does he get out of here then?” I asked.

  “He isss not strong enough to leave alone. You may take him, but whilssst in this dimension you mussssst not stray away from him for long, or he will be pulled back here. Thisss is the part of Dreamland where all the lonely come.”

  I frowned. That changed things. Getting my brother out of this void to talk with him for a few minutes then ditching him was one thing, but being stuck with him for the rest of this quest was another. My friends were not going to like this. I didn’t like this. We already had enough to deal with. Our time was running short. We still hadn’t found three of our friends. And let’s not forget that Arian, Tara, and some of their henchman were running around Dreamland somewhere.

  Is Alex really worth the hassle and risk?

  For a second I considered leaving him. I mean, why not? His intel may not be worth the danger of bringing him along. Alex was a wild card. He could screw things up for us. It would be easier and wiser to forget him. I should forget him. I shouldn’t care if he rotted. Since living in the gray, I’d been operating under the belief that people who wronged others should be punished and get what’s coming to them. Maybe Alex deserved this.

  Actually, scratch that. He did deserve this. I felt adamant about that. All the fire that surged inside me when I thought about the things he’d done made me sure of it.

  But then I looked at my brother, and I found it amazing and sad and inexplicable how that ruthless part of me cracked.

  I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave him. Even if he did deserve it, abandoning Alex seemed wrong, and I didn’t have the heart to. Part of living in the gray was knowing when to let light in. This was going to be rough and awkward, and it was going to hurt to spend prolonged time with my brother after all he’d done to me. But however difficult it was, the same instinct that knew this was the real Alex, had compelled me to go to him, and had caused me to tell the snake outright that I was not leaving without him—it was speaking up now for a reason. I needed to do this. Only goodness knew—and could understand—why.

  “I’ll stay with him,” I told the snake. “We’ll get through Dreamland together.”

  “As you wissshhhh,” the snake hissed.

  The reptile shrunk, uncoiled from Alex, and vanished. All the other bodies in the void disappeared too. My brother floated before me, bobbing lightly in the weird space. I reached out to him. When my hand grabbed his, bright white light exuded from where our palms connected and propelled us forward. We sped toward the crack in the void as the voices of my friends became more distinct.

  “Crisa! Crisa!”

  FLASH.

  I blinked. Alex and I lay in the middle of a small cavern. The rock ceiling glowed with vib
rant ultramarine moss, illuminating the dark mouths of tunnels in the walls. It was just the two of us here. I sat up; my hands pressed against the cold stone floor as I looked at my brother. The color had returned to his skin, but he looked skinnier, a bit scragglier, and weaker since the last time I’d seen him. A shell of his former self.

  A second later, Alex opened his aqua blue eyes and we stared at each other. He sat up slowly and we continued to sit in silence. I didn’t have the right words; there was a part of me that had been sure I’d never see Alex again. Not to mention the part of me that hadn’t cared to.

  “Last I remember, I was in Dreamland . . .” Alex said eventually, glancing around the cavern.

  “You still are,” I replied.

  He furrowed his eyebrows. “Are you a dream?”

  “No. It’s me,” I replied. “We’re in the Dreamland realm called the Wanderers’ Void. I found you floating in an abyss in this realm’s heart. I pulled you out.”

  Alex’s face was pure confusion. “Why?”

  Foolishness. The moral high ground. Strategy.

  “It seemed like the right thing to do. You would have done the same for me.”

  I was surprised how natural the words felt, how believable they seemed even in our present situation. Despite everything Alex had done, I actually felt like this was true.

  “But you never betrayed me,” Alex said solemnly. “You never hurt me.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I threw a spear into your leg.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Hey!” Jason’s voice carried through one of the tunnels. “Is anyone out there? Blue? Daniel? Crisa?”

  “Here!” both Blue’s and Daniel’s voices replied from somewhere nearby.

  Footsteps approached and I hastened to my feet. “Come on. Get up,” I said to Alex.

  “Crisa . . .” Alex stood gingerly. “I appreciate the save, but I don’t think this is a good idea. Your friends might not be as forgiving as you.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Alex, I am not so forgiving. Not to you or most people these days. But I promised the dumb dream snake I saved you from that we would stick together while we’re in this dimension. If we are separated for too long, you’ll end up back in that void. So come on.”

  Alex followed me reluctantly and we hurried down the tunnel, trailing the voices of my friends.

  “Guys?” I called out.

  “Crisa!” Jason responded. Footsteps came louder and louder until—oomph. I literally ran into Blue. A moment later, Jason and Daniel entered the same tunnel intersection. For a second we were all relieved to see each other. In the second after that, my friends noticed Alex.

  “What the frack is he doing here?” Blue asked. She drew her hunting knife and pointed it at my brother.

  Alex held up his hands as if in surrender. “Crisa saved me from a dream void. I’m only following her because she told me to.”

  “Why the heck did you do either?” Jason asked.

  “I couldn’t leave him stranded in the creepy heart of a Dreamland realm,” I said. “And the reason I told him to follow me is because apparently the jackwagon is so lost that if he’s left alone for too long in Dreamland he’ll just drift back to the same void. I’m afraid he’s stuck with us for the rest of our mission.”

  “What kind of mission are you on?” Alex asked.

  “We’ll ask the questions,” Daniel said. “How did you end up in Dreamland?”

  Alex turned toward me. His eyes were full of pain and disgrace. He exhaled deeply. “After you purged the Shadow from me in Oz’s North Mountains, I was totally disoriented. I tried to find my way out, but there were avalanches everywhere. By chance a Portalscape Portal opened and I took it. When I got back to Book I tried to reconnect with Mauvrey and Arian. It took me a while to learn what had happened, and about Tara.”

  Blue huffed in cruel amusement. “That must’ve been a doozy.”

  Alex looked down. “So was the two of them capturing me.”

  My lips pursed together. “What?”

  I’d never seen my brother so ashamed. Even when he embraced darkness and betrayed our family, he’d been confident about it. Now he could barely meet my gaze.

  “Mauvrey—or Tara, whoever she was—never cared for me, Crisa. You were right from the beginning about the antagonists using me. When I went back to them, they tossed me in the dungeons of Alderon. The mission they’d recruited me for was over and I didn’t even have a Shadow anymore, so they thought I was useless, but they wanted to keep me as a precaution just in case. On the night of June’s full moon, a black wormhole opened in my cell. The odds are ludicrous, I know, and I couldn’t believe my luck. From my time with the antagonists, I knew the portal would take me to Dreamland, so I used it to escape. Daralek gave me a moonstone and a welcome speech when I arrived here, and I planned to take an exit portal during the next full moon, but I must’ve gotten sucked into that Wanderers’ Void abyss before then. The next thing I remember is waking up next to you.”

  “A far-fetched story if I ever heard one.” Blue crossed her arms with hostility. “Crisa, Arian and Tara are in Dreamland somewhere. Alex could be a trap they left for us, knowing you’re too good to leave him behind. He could be a ploy to sabotage us.”

  Daniel glanced at me. “That’s what I was thinking too. The antagonists know your heart, Knight. They know you’re too good to resist saving your brother no matter what he’s done.”

  The same doubts had already crossed my mind, but my friends were mistaken about one thing.

  I abruptly turned and shoved my brother against the wall. My hand remained forcefully pressed against his chest as my face got close to his. The ice in my voice and the unwavering confidence in my eyes were the only weapons I needed to threaten him with.

  “I’m not the same person I was when you betrayed me, Alex. And contrary to what my friends think, I am not too good to leave you behind. All I have to do is move away from you for a short time and you’ll get sucked back into that abyss with no cavalry coming to save you. So keep your hands where we can see them, stay out of our way, and if you make a move I don’t like, I’ll put you out of your misery one way or the other. Understand?”

  Alex glared right back. I expected that—despite the power shift in our relationship, it was still his little sister threatening him. But I noted there was also a touch of wariness in his expression. He knew I meant what I said. When he nodded in understanding, I backed away.

  “Good,” I said. “Now let’s get out of this forsaken mountain.”

  Eventually, the five of us made it out of the tunnel system thanks to our Dream Compasses. We told Alex that we were in Dreamland to save two victims of a sleeping curse that resulted from Shadows infesting their minds in Nightmare. We also gave my brother a brief summary of what had been going on in Book, skipping over any important information we didn’t trust him with.

  When our team made it into the open again there were only nine nights left until the Book full moon. The terrain of the Wanderers’ Void had also changed. The sky was now forest green and the ground composed of gray dirt. Yellow lightning cracked overhead, followed by booming thunder. The same mangled ghost faces roamed the skies, but they’d been joined by levitating junk—pages of parchment, watches, wilted flowers, sullied gowns, broken tools, and so much more. The objects flowed by in fluid, moderately tight collections like they were trapped in magic rivers.

  “Dead dreams,” Blue said.

  We turned to her.

  “It was a footnote in Sandman’s dossier,” she explained. “But I read about it a long time ago in the restricted section of our library. This is the part of the dream dimension where dreams that are broken, buried, or forgotten dwell. The floating objects represent lost things of value that haunt our base consciousness.”

  “I recognize this place,” I said, getting excited as I gazed around. “A while ago I had a vision of Chance and Girtha trekking across it. Which means they’re out here together. Maybe
we’ll find them soon.”

  We forged ahead with that hope. Time zigzagged on and the moon continued to change unforgivingly. We were soon down to eight nights, then seven. And then we got lucky.

  It was about dang time.

  “Blue!”

  We all pivoted at the sound of Girtha’s voice. We spotted her and Chance coming toward us. Blue’s cloak had likely stood out like a beacon against this valley of groggy color.

  Our teams dashed toward one another. Girtha hugged Blue and me—she was big enough to wrap an arm around each of us. Chance and I also exchanged a genuine hug. I realized it was our first one.

  On stepping back, I observed that the right sleeve had been torn from the prince’s jacket—the arm that used to hold his Dream Catcher. The device was gone and some of the missing material was wrapped around his bicep like a bandage. Before I could inquire what happened, Girtha and Chance noticed the new member of our group.

  Chance opened his mouth. “Is that—”

  “We’ll explain in a second,” Daniel interrupted. “Have you guys seen Kai?”

  Girtha shook her head. “Sorry, Daniel. After getting separated in the heart of Enigma, Chance and I found each other by a nacho cheese waterfall in Sweet Dreams.”

  “You would have loved it,” Chance said to me. “Unfortunately, so did the counting sheep. They were using it as a watering hole and almost killed me. If Girtha hadn’t shown up, I would’ve been done for.” He lifted his arm. “So much for Sweet Dreams. One of them took a chunk out of my arm and destroyed my Dream Catcher.”

  “Yep, which made us an ideal match after that,” Girtha said. “He led the way with his Dream Compass and I protected us from evil sheep with my Dream Catcher. Now then, seriously . . . care to explain the additional character?” She tilted her chin at Alex.

  “This is my brother Alex,” I explained.

  Girtha put her hands on her hips. “You guys using him for sheep bait? Cuz based on what you’ve said he’s done, I don’t see any other reason for this guy being here.”

  “Short version,” Jason ventured. “Tara and Arian had been keeping him prisoner in Alderon since the Aurora, but he found his way to Dreamland, got trapped in an abyss, and now he has to stick close to Crisa while we’re in this dimension or he’ll get sucked back there again.”