Year One: Dreamers

by Cara Wylde

  “What’s going on?” Hayley whispered, still a bit out of breath after her performance with the NDC. “I can’t believe Seth and Davien ditched everyone! Seth’s father is furious!”

  I smiled. “Maybe they wanted to be rebels.”

  “Rebels? Professor Wyvern will murder their worth scores!”

  “Wyvern doesn’t give a shit about the scythe demonstration. Relax. I’m going to get ready.”

  I left Corri in my place and tiptoed toward the stage. I got my scythe, and one by one, the rest of the MDC joined me.

  “Where the hell is Valac?” Silene was freaking out. “Have you guys seen him?”

  I shrugged. A brown-haired girl next to me showed her concern, but there was nothing anyone could do about Valac. He wasn’t there, and that was that.

  “I can’t believe it,” Silene said. “He’s such an asshole.”

  “We’re going to do great without him,” I tried to calm her down.

  “Yes, sure. Whatever.” She looked at me, and her eyes lit up all of a sudden, as if she’d just remembered who she was talking to. “We have you. No one cares about Valac. He can go to Hell!”

  “You’re practically sending him home,” I chuckled.

  “Yeah! He can go the fuck home to his mommy. You, Yolanda, are all the Merciful Death Cabal needs.”

  I nodded. You know what? It feels good to be wanted. Even if it’s because of something I did two hundred years ago. I’ll take it.

  The RDC cleared the stage as the audience applauded scarcely and unenthusiastically. Without Huriel and Phoebus, they’d done a poor job. As I saw it, it was Scarlett’s fault. She’d acted as the choreographer, and she’d put her trust into two scumbags. Served her right. The MDC stepped on the stage, girls first and guys last. I took my own place, hidden behind a curtain. Near the end, I was supposed to come out, like the cherry on top. And in my blood red dress, I did look like a juicy cherry.

  My MDC colleagues did their dance, then separated into two rows and held their scythes up, the blades meeting in the center to form an arch. I emerged from behind the curtain, holding my own scythe close to my chest as I spun gracefully, making the skirt of my gown float above my ankles. I stopped at the edge of the stage, held my scythe up to cue the live band, and waited for them to change the tune. When Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun started, the female lead singer giving her soul to imitate Cyndi’s unique voice, I began spinning my scythe above my head. It was quite a feat, because it was heavy. My fingers moved expertly, making it spin faster and faster. I swayed my hips from side to side, a wicked grin playing on my lips. No one had expected this. The other three cabals had done serious numbers on classical music, and Silene had been the only one to come up with the fun idea of dancing with our scythes to ‘80s pop music. It was a blast, and it was easy to tell. Parents and professors stood up, clapping and dancing. The Neutral Death Cabal joined in, singing at the top of their lungs. I set my scythe down, took a couple of steps back, and met Silene in the middle. We danced around each other, shaking our shoulders, then swinging our scythe at each other. The blades clinked as they met. We did that a couple of times, while the others pretended their scythes were microphones. At the end, Silene and I faced the audience, holding our scythes in front of us like mics, and screaming one last: “Oh girls just wanna have fun!”. The music stopped, and the applause thundered. We’d nailed it. People applauded for minutes, and we took our time bowing and hogging the stage, since we were the last cabal to perform. We’d given the best scythe demonstration, and it was so obvious that it hurt. The VDC guys were fuming. They’d taken a hit, and a painful one at that. They were used to being the best. They were also the only all-boys cabal, and their parents had high expectations from them. The RDC looked more disappointed than angry, and Domina was still freaking out over Davien’s mysterious disappearance. The NDC didn’t give a crap about the whole drama. They were satisfied with what they’d done. Since they’d never had any desire to be at the top, they were more than fine with the MDC taking the spotlight for, possibly, the first time in the history of Grim Reaper Academy.

  I felt good about the demonstration. I felt good about myself and about my plan. As I sat at my table with Hayley, Corri, and Silene, I realized that locking up the five jerks who’d placed a bet on sleeping with me had been genius! Not because they deserved it, but because I deserved one night without having them around, one night of being myself and enjoying myself without having to watch my back and avoid them because it was so uncomfortable to look them in the eye and pretend I was clueless about the awful thing they had going on.

  I felt so good that I ate, drank, laughed, and even danced a bit. Jace Merlin got the dance Seth had stolen from him. And when five furious guys stepped into the ballroom only to flush with embarrassment the second their families were all over them, I bid my friends goodnight and teleported out of there. Corri stayed behind to assess the damage.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I decided to spend the winter vacation at the Academy. My only other option was to go back to New York, but I had everything I needed here, so it didn’t make any sense. All the other students left, and most of the professors. Headmaster Colin had a huge apartment in the main wing. He never felt Grim Reaper Academy. It was like he was married to the institution. Hayley went home too, not before stopping by to tell me the craziest news: the Academy from our dimension had been discussing a student exchange program with the Academy from a parallel dimension, and they’d come to an agreement. Hayley was the first student in the whole history of Grim Reaper Academy to participate in a student exchange program. Since the two dimensions were in the same timeline, it made sense. To the two headmasters, not to me. Or Hayley, or anyone else for that matter.

  “I’m nervous,” she was almost in tears when she told me the news. “One semester away from my home dimension? It’s crazy. It’s not… like I’m going to Europe. I’m going to a parallel universe, and I’m going to live – actually live! – in the body of my counterpart there. I will be her, and she will be me. And we will look the same, but we won’t be the same!” She was practically pulling her hair out. “I should’ve said no. I should’ve said no.”

  “Hey. Hey, it’s going to be fine. You’ve got this. I won’t pretend that I understand how this will work or how it will be beneficial to either of you, but it’s quite… monumental, right? This has never happened before! It was virtually impossible, since Grim Reaper Academy is the only institution of its kind in the world. But now, the borders to other dimensions are open. Maybe it’s a good thing to explore all the possibilities?”

  Two parallel dimensions that existed on the same timeline was something extremely rare. And even so, there could still be significant differences between them, sometimes so small that they were invisible at a glance. For instance, it was highly probable that Hayley Clarke from the other dimension was an entirely different person from the Hayley Clarke I’d come to know and like. It was going to be a mind-fuck. And not just for them, but for everyone they came in contact with. Now, Hayley had to spend her winter vacation with her parents and try to explain to them how this student exchange program worked and what it might mean for them. It was only for a semester, and the girls were supposed to return to their own dimension for spring break. So, if everything went well, the parents wouldn’t even be involved. Which was better for everyone’s sanity.

  Hayley left, burdened by what was to come. I sent Corri away too, as I soon noticed she was getting bored at the Academy. I tasked her with taking care of the apartment in New York and making sure my ex-boyfriend who was a neurosurgeon saved all the lives he could save. She liked being around him, I could tell. Well, Brad had, in truth, been the best guy I’d ever dated. A bit plain, maybe, but he knew what he wanted, and he was dedicated to his career. He would’ve been dedicated to a family too, if I’d accepted to build one with him. But I hadn’t. I didn’t feel like a family was in the stars for me. Not now, and maybe n
ot ever. As things were, I was starting to doubt that love was in the stars for me… The supernatural world seemed to be flooded with jerks and bad boys.

  That’s probably one and the same thing.

  I stocked up on books, since I preferred reading in my room instead of the library. The girls working in the kitchen were nice enough to make sure I always had what I needed. Every morning, they brought in fresh fruits and vegetables, and they even treated me to cinnamon rolls and cheesecake from time to time. During winter break, the Academy had a minimal staff, but the ones who did stay, worked normal hours. They had to provide for the headmaster and the professors who’d skipped on seeing their families. I had the feeling that some of them didn’t have any family left. Professor Lovecraft, for instance. Professor Wyvern had left right after the Yule Ball. If he was going to spend Christmas at the Unseelie Court, that made things easier for me. I felt like I needed space to breathe. I hadn’t given Davien, nor Seth the chance to confront me before their disappointed parents dragged them home. I’d heard Davien lived in the Second Circle of Hell, as was fitting for a lust demon, and Seth lived – surprise, surprise! – in Egypt. Good. They were far enough for me to enjoy two whole weeks of peace and quiet.

  I spent the first couple of days reading, sleeping, eating well, and taking long baths. By day four, my body started to complain, and convinced me that a little jogging wouldn’t hurt. Or a nice swim, from time to time, since the Academy had an indoor pool. I woke up on day five and felt like I could take on the world. I had a smoothie bowl for breakfast, then went straight to the gym and sweated for one hour and a half. A shower, another hour of swimming and doing weird yoga poses in the pool – because why not, since I had the whole pool to myself? – and I ate almost everything in my fridge for lunch. This was good. This was amazing! I hadn’t had so much time to myself in ages! When there were no classes and everyone was away, Grim Reaper Academy was like a luxurious resort! The fact that I didn’t have to pay a dime made it a dream come true. Too bad it was in the middle of winter, and everything outside was frozen. But that didn’t stop me from going on a short hike right before I crashed for a long night of blessed sleep. I was exhausted, and it felt incredible. My body was pleasantly sore, and my mind and muscles were in tune as they begged to sink under the warm blankets.

  Except… I didn’t sleep for more than two hours…

  A light tap on the shoulder startled me. I opened my eyes, my whole system panicking for a second. Little by little, I relaxed. As a dream jumper, I’d gotten used to having my sleep interrupted by other dream jumpers. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, the idea was to not reach for the closest heavy thing that could be used as a weapon.

  “Yoli, I’m sorry,” Aunt Katia whispered. “I didn’t scare you, did I?”

  I sat up, wincing as my body protested. Everything hurt, and it wasn’t a pleasant pain anymore. It was the pain of muscles screaming: “Let us recover, idiot!”. I looked at my phone.

  “I know it’s noon where you are, but it’s past midnight here.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I just thought I’d take a quick nap and visit you. You know I can’t do it at night. It freaks Valentine out.”

  “Doesn’t he still dream jump?”

  “Not anymore. He’s developed a sort of phobia to it, so I try to do it when he’s away from home.”

  “You sure this secret-keeping isn’t affecting your marriage?” I drank some water from the bottle I always had on my nightstand.

  “Oh no! I don’t keep it a secret. I always tell him after,” she chuckled.

  “Why not before?”

  “He’d only try to talk me out of it.”

  I smiled. “Anyway, you don’t travel as much as you used to yourself.”

  She nodded. “Only when I have to take care of something important.”

  I stared at her, a new understanding filling my eyes. “Does this mean…”

  She nodded again. She reached toward the stack of papers I’d forgotten on the floor, next to my bed. She pulled a book and a plain sheet of paper onto her lap and looked around for a pen. I hurried to pull my drawer open and produce more than just one pen out of it.

  “I’m giving you the map.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  She pursed her lips and started drawing. She was silent for a few minutes, and I didn’t want to push her. I watched her as she drew lines, points, and wrote down numbers and instructions. She was building a network I’d never seen before.

  “The reason you can’t reach their universe is that you first need to jump to a point of neutrality.”

  “Neutrality?”

  “Yes. Between our network of dimensions and theirs.”

  “They have a network?!” My heart started thundering in my chest. A network meant more universes, all connected by a few constants. We had our own network, and the dimensions belonging to it were, more or less, similar. As in… similar life forms populated them. As much as I hated what I was learning right now, it made sense that the Great Old Ones would have a network of their own.

  “Not what you wanted to hear…”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? All this time, you knew I was struggling with this, trying to understand how it worked, and you didn’t tell me?”

  She bit down on her lip. “I was trying to protect you, Yoli.” She kept drawing, refusing to look me in the eye.

  “Jesus!” I didn’t add anything else. I crossed my arms over my chest and let her do her thing as my mind rushed a hundred miles an hour.

  A whole network of interconnected dimensions, each populated by creatures like the one sleeping and dreaming under the Academy. Monsters like Yig, beings that were never born and never died. A network of parallel dimensions where life and death simply did not exist. It was almost impossible for me to wrap my head around it. For the sake of my own sanity, I had to accept this theory as it was, and not try to understand it. If I tried, I was in danger of losing all my marbles. In my long life on this Earth, I’d lost a few already, and I didn’t want to test what would happen if I lost more.

  Aunt Katia finished her drawing. She added a few more instructions on the margins, then folded the paper and gave it to me. I stared at it – white and seemingly harmless in her hand. I hesitated. This was what I’d worked so hard to get, and when I couldn’t figure it out on my own, I’d begged her to give me. Now, here she was, offering me the map. And I wasn’t sure I wanted it anymore. I stubbornly kept my arms crossed over my chest.

  “What made you change your mind?”

  She sighed. She placed the folded piece of paper on top of my blanket and started playing awkwardly with the pen. Aunt Katia was rarely nervous. It was odd to see her in this state.

  “I saw Mila a couple of days ago. Visited her… She was… somewhere in China.”

  “Yeah, I heard some virus broke out.”

  “We talked about it.” She took a deep breath in and released it slowly. Telling me this was hard for her. “We talked about the possibility of banishing the Great Old One who’d brought her back to life, and she seemed… fine with it.”

  I groaned. “She’s not fine with it, but she doesn’t want to go back to how things were before she became a Reaper, either. She will lose her immunity from death, and then what?”

  “Yes. Then what? That was her question, too. Is… She doesn’t want to do those horrible things she did to preserve her life.”

  “I know. But if I do succeed, we have no clue what the consequences might be then. We have absolutely no idea what will happen to all the revenants Yig created. And if I go even further and banish all the Great Old Ones on this planet, in this dimension, we’re talking about all the revenants, not just Mila, Francis, and their little cult.”

  “That’s why I didn’t want to give you the map when you came to me. Too many unknowns. But I’m exhausted. I… I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to stand in your way. I have no right.”
/>
  I leaned over and took her hands in mine. “Yes, you do. Mila is your daughter.”

  “She’s not who she used to be…”

  “She’s still your daughter. No matter what. I understand why you don’t want me to do this.”

  “You’re right, I don’t. But I must. I had to talk to her first. She put my mind at ease. Even if we don’t know what will happen, it’s going to be okay because we’re doing the right thing. You’re doing the right thing, as you always do, Yolanda.”

  I squeezed her hands. “I try.”

  We stayed like that for another minute, and when the silence became too awkward, I let go and finally reached for the map. I unfolded it and stared at it as I munched on my lower lip. I was familiar with Aunt Katia’s style of mapping, but this was a little too complicated for me.

  “Tell me about this… point of neutrality, as you call it.”

  “It’s an independent space between the two networks. Like an island in the middle of the ocean. There is no time there, just… tranquility, stillness, nothingness, if you wish.”

  “Is this similar to the Blank?”

  “Not quite. This space isn’t darkness. It’s… Ugh!” She blew out her cheeks. “It’s hard to explain, to describe. It’s more like a feeling.”

  “A space that is a feeling…”

  She laughed. “No. I don’t know. Anyway, it’s important to land there first.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because if you don’t, and you get to the dimension of the Great Old Ones without grounding yourself in this point of neutrality first, you will… lose pieces of yourself.”

  “What?!”

  “It’s my guess that Gilgamesh never returned because he never found the point of neutrality. He never knew it existed. He probably reached the dimension by mistake the first time, then he sketched a map, and the second time he jumped, he got lost.”

  “And you never traveled from this network to that network without going through this space in the middle first.”