by M. Kircher
I get up off the sofa and walk over the screen door separating the sunroom from the blinding world of sand outside. I give it a push, and the door creaks open.
"Come on." I gesture to Evan and step out into the light.
"Holy mackerel, it's hot," he chokes as he shuffles up behind me, and I hear the screen door slam shut. He wipes beads of sweat off his forehead, and I can feel wet rivers running down my own back. "Hot" doesn't even begin to describe the intense wall of heat we've just walked into.
I close my eyes for a moment, concentrating. When I open them again, we're both dressed in white linen. I'm wearing a short summer dress and Evan has on a thin shirt and loosely fitting pants. There are white sandals on both of our feet.
He glances down, startled. "How did you do that?" he exclaims.
"It's a dream, dude. Relax," I tell him. "There's a lot you can't control, but clothes are one of the things you can. Except for dreams where you're giving a speech stark naked." I shudder. "No amount of wishful thinking gets you clothes in those."
Evan runs his hands over his new apparel. "Uh, yes well, thank you, Emily. I feel much better now."
"You're welcome," I tell him and gaze out over the dunes. There is a sudden, intense desire to see the ocean welling in my chest. I step out over the hot sand, and Evan follows. We trudge over the rolling mounds, the heat from the sand burning through the soles of our sandals and the hot sun toasting our shoulders. My dark hair soaks up the sunlight like a sponge. I hope the water isn't too far.
And then there it is. I've only been to the ocean a couple of times in my life. All when I was younger, and all when Dad was still alive. We used to go together when Mom and Dad were both home from assignments. My parents were journalists; Dad was a political writer and Mom was a photographer. They were hardly ever home at the same time, but when they were, we'd celebrate. It's been a long time, but the water is just like I remember, a vast horizon of glittering blue and rolling waves.
"Beautiful," breathes Evan beside me, and I nod my head in agreement, all my worries about Mom gone for the moment. The ocean centers me.
And then I notice the TVs.
There are about twenty of them, bobbing merrily along in the waves. The old kind of television screens, the ones that needed to be plugged in, not attached to a wrist screen or embedded in a wall.
"What the…?" exclaims Evan, and then we both jump as a brightly colored ball crashes through the screen of one of the television sets, shattering the glass into a million pieces.
I gaze down at the beach and see a group of about ten wrinkled old men in incredibly bright, and incredibly tiny, bathing suits. Their white skin gleams in the sun. They're playing cricket, I think, or some game like it. But instead of hitting the multi-colored balls gathered at their feet through stakes planted in the ground, each elderly man takes a turn yelling "Four!" at the top of his lungs and then uses a wooden mallet to hit one of the balls high into the air. Each ball crashes through a television set as all the old men clap loudly and smack the batter on the back to congratulate him, their bald heads and sad little tufts of white hair, bouncing merrily over the sand.
It's bizarre. But trust me, I've seen much weirder.
"What are they doing?" Evan asks, a perplexed expression on his face. He's squinting hard behind his spectacles.
"Who knows?" I answer. "Haven't you ever had a dream that made no sense?"
"I suppose so." Evan stares at the little game playing out before us. He flinches as another ball soars into a TV screen and smashes it to smithereens. "I don't remember my dreams much."
"You're lucky," I tell him.
"Perhaps it's time to go back to the real world," he suggests nervously, and I couldn't agree more.
It's good timing too, because this dream is about to shift. Everything has slowed down, just a little bit, and I know that soon it will stop moving altogether. If I wait too long to wake us up now, we'll have to go through another dream. It's super annoying.
"You believe me now?" I ask, wanting to make sure before I take him back. "You understand why it's so important to keep this a secret?"
Evan nods. "I'll keep my word," he assures me. "And I'll keep this to myself. Besides, if I did tell anyone—" he gestures around, "—who would believe me? Now let's go, please. I'd much rather be back in my own mind."
"You and me both," I mutter and grab his hand. But just as I do, everything in the dream grinds to a halt. The old men on the beach stop moving, and a green ball that's just been hit into the air is suspended over the ocean like a freeze-frame in a movie. Even the waves stop their rolling and gleam cold and hard, like blue glass.
Crap! The dream is shifting, and I've missed my window. The sand underneath our feet begins to rumble, and Evan grabs my arm to steady himself. A loud crack sounds in both of our ears.
"Ah!" I yell, startled by the loud noise. And at the exact same time Evan lets out an unmanly bellow of surprise.
"What was that?" he asks, panic evident in his voice.
Before I can tell him I have no idea, another loud cracking sound rings out over the eerily, still water. We watch, wide-eyed, as the ocean literally splits into two pieces in front of us. The crack in the glass-water races up the beach toward us, and in its wake, I can see a deep chasm forming. The sand underneath our feet begins to tilt, and then it starts to slide en mass into the chasm. Evan yelps and jumps away from the widening abyss.
But I grab a hold of his hand and grip tight. "It's the dream changing!" I shout, because the air around us is filled with the cracking sounds of the landscape breaking apart. Evan looks terrified. "Hold onto me, and you'll be fine."
Evan's fingers tighten in a death grip around mine. The crack widens, and now the entire beach is being sucked down into its bottomless depths. Even though I know we'll be okay, I still squeeze my eyes shut. I feel the sand beneath my feet fall away, and Evan and I plummet down into the darkness below.
* * * *
We land softly, hand in hand, as our shoes gently touch the ground. I open my eyes and groan. Evan and I are standing in a long, white hallway, wearing our normal clothes again.
"Are we dead? Did we die?" Evan grips me even tighter.
I pry my fingers away from his. "No we're not dead, just in another dream. One I kind of hate, as a matter of fact."
"A different dream?" Evan asks, cracking open an eyelid. When he sees that he's standing in a normal-looking hallway — the boring, sterile kind they have in hospitals and government buildings — he lets out a long whoosh of air. "Oh, " he sighs. "Okay. This is okay."
I flinch and run my hands through my tangled hair. "Yeah, about that…" But before I can finish my sentence, the walls start to move. I knew it was coming, but it still makes me feel sick. This is what you call a reoccurring nightmare. My gaze bounces upward, and I can see that the white ceiling overhead has already started to descend down upon us. Why does it always seem to happen so fast?
"The walls are moving!" Evan exclaims and scrambles to try to push them back into place. This, of course, does nothing. His fancy leather loafers simply slide along the white linoleum floor as the walls push us closer together. "They're closing in on us! The ceiling too," he adds, panicked, when he notices the direction of my gaze.
"The ceiling is far from the worst part," I murmur and try to control my breathing. I'm not a fan of tight spaces, and this hallway is about to get pretty tight.
"Uh, Emily, can you get us out of here now?" Evan croaks, and I can hear the tremor in his voice again.
I squint down the hallway, and sure enough, thick black smoke has begun to pour into the shrinking space, rising up around our shins.
I hate the smoke most of all.
"We have to wait it out," I tell Evan and try not to have a panic attack. The wall on my right bumps into my arm.
"This is ridiculous!" he squeaks in high-pitched voice that is just not right coming from a man.
He bumps into me, and I slam my eyes shut, trying desper
ately not to hyperventilate. I peek an eye back open. The black smoke is now up to our chests and pouring into the shrinking hallway faster and faster.
"Can we run down the hallway? When does it end?" Evan cries.
"No and soon."
"How soon?"
The ceiling is pressing onto the tops of our heads now, and we're forced to our knees, going right down into the swirling smoke. I can't see a thing. My breathing becomes fast, and my heart is nearly beating out of my chest. My fingers grope around on the floor in the dark until I find Evan's hand, and I grab it tightly in my own. I've just begun to feel the steady movement of the walls and ceiling begin to slow, and I don't want to miss our chance this time.
"Emily, is that you?" Evan calls out through the smoke.
"It's me." The words barely choke out of my throat. "Close your eyes. I'm getting us out of here." I will myself to forget about the squeezing walls and the blinding smoke and slowly try to steady my breathing. Concentrate, Emily. Concentrate. In and out. In and out. Evan's elbow bores into my ribs, and he's definitely hyperventilating at this point. The black smoke is everywhere, and I can't see a thing. The walls and ceiling press us like sardines in a can.
It's time to go. I clutch Evan's sweaty palm and feel my mind and body connect. And then the dark, smoky hallway is replaced by blazing light.
Chapter Fourteen
"Time to wake up, sleepyheads!" a voice proclaims loudly. My eyes fly open and there is Gabe leaning over me, his perfectly shaped lips grinning as he holds a beeping alarm clock next to my ear.
"Ugh! Get that thing out of my face," I sputter and push him away. Gabe just laughs and puts the alarm clock back on the coffee table, shutting off the sound. I sit up on the couch and tuck my hair behind my ears. Beside me Evan is blinking rapidly and rubbing his forehead. I stretch and feel my vertebrae crack as I arch the stiffness out of my back.
"What time is it?" I ask and yawn.
"Around three a.m.," Gabe answers. I notice he has dark circles under his eyes. "I stayed awake for as long as I could, but around two forty-five, I just couldn't keep my eyes open anymore." His gaze shoots to Evan. "And Mr. Editor here was starting to twitch." Then he focuses on me again. "So what happened?"
"What happened?" Evan springs off the couch and begins to pace in front of the fireplace.
He pushes his glass hard against his nose and throws his hands wildly in the air. I want to giggle, but I'm worried about what he thinks about all of this. Is he going to turn us in?
"I'll tell you what happened," Evan exclaims. "Something unexplainable. Something amazing. Something downright terrifying." He points a knobby finger at me. "You!"
"Me?" I point to my chest.
"Yes, you." Evan's eyes narrow behind his glasses. "You promised it was safe. You said you could wake up whenever you wanted. You lied!"
I glance at Gabe, and he seems amused. "Stop grinning, will you?" I snap, and then I turn my attention back to Evan. These two are starting to get on my nerves.
"I didn't lie," I try to explain. "I can wake up when I want…usually. But it has to be at the end of a dream, and I missed my chance the first time."
"Usually?" Evan roars. "This little detail might have been good to know before we were being choked by smoke and squeezed to death!"
"Calm down, Evan. The only danger you were ever in was the danger out here, in the real world. That's the only way dreams can hurt you. It's only a problem if you don't wake up in enough time. I got us out of the second dream no problem, and we had Gabe out here to make sure everything went okay. You're fine, I swear." My tone is confident, but inside, I'm trembling. Now two people know Mom and I are dreamwalkers. Will they keep our secret? I feel so out of control.
I notice Gabe's expression has changed. Now he looks intrigued. He scratches his chin and looks at me questioningly. "Squeezed to death? Smoke? You were having a nightmare then?" he inquires.
I nod yes. "It's one I've had before. No big deal."
"Huh." He sounds puzzled.
"Huh what?" I cross my arms across my chest.
Gabe flicks his gaze back and forth between Evan and me. "Well, it's weird. You're in the middle of a reoccurring nightmare, something which obviously terrifies you…" He looks at me to clarify.
"Claustrophobia and darkness," I mumble.
Gabe nods. "So you'd think that you'd be the one moaning and groaning. Instead, it's Evan who's having spasms in his sleep. You were a stone-cold statue. Not a twitch. Not a sound."
"So, what's your point?" I reply and push up off the couch, stretching my legs. "That's just how dreamwalkers are. We don't move while we're sleeping, at least Mom never has. And I'm always in the exact same position when I wake up as I was when I went to sleep. Besides, how little dreamwalkers move is hardly our most important problem right now." I move away from the couch and walk over to Evan. "You're going to keep our secret, right?" I narrow my eyes at him. "I kept my end of the bargain, and now you have to keep yours."
Evan rubs the back of his neck and stares down at the carpet. "How do I explain this to the Agency?" he asks. "What am I supposed to tell them?"
I can't believe what I'm hearing. "You make something up, you great, big doofus." I splutter, my exhaustion and irritation getting the better of me. "Are you, or are you not, an editor at a huge publishing company? I would assume you have the ability to be creative."
"Em, calm down," asserts Gabe, and I feel his hand on my arm. I shake him off angrily.
"I will not calm down!" I fume. Both Evan and Gabe take a step back from me. But I don't care. I've had it. "This is my life. My mother. It's my job to keep us together. And I will not let some interfering punk wannabe or trembling nerdy bookworm, no matter how old or important he thinks he is, get in the way of helping her."
I stalk toward Evan and narrow my eyes. "You promised that if I showed you our crazy little ability, you'd leave us alone. And you will keep that promise." I jab my finger into his chest. "Or I'll figure out a way to have you fired. Do you think they'll believe the word of some junior editor trying to climb his way up the corporate ladder, rather than one of their most successful authors? Huh? Do you?" I'm almost spitting in his face now.
Evan opens his mouth to speak, but before he can say a word, an earsplitting crash sounds from the south wing of the house. It comes from the direction of Mom's bedroom.
Three heads jerk towards the sound, and before I know it, I'm leaping over the couch, the scream, "Mom!" pouring from my lips like a primal roar.
Chapter Fifteen
I race towards Mom's room, and when I get there, I slam open the sliding door. I scan the bed, but she's not in it. Where is she? The lamp on her bedside table has been tipped over, and part of the blue porcelain base is broken, the pieces scattered all over the place. I move over to the side of the bed, my heart in my throat, and find Mom facedown on the carpet. I drop to my knees. She's moaning and thrashing around, but she's still totally asleep, as far as I can tell.
All I care about is that she's alive. Gabe and Evan pound into the room behind me as I gently roll Mom over. I'm horrified to find her face smeared with blood.
"What happened?" I breathe and cover my mouth with my hands.
Gabe kneels down beside me and gently pushes Mom's bangs back, revealing a long gash on her forehead. The cut is huge and gushing bright red blood.
"She must have rolled off the bed and hit her head on the table," Gabe guesses, and he uses the sleeve of his sweatshirt to try to wipe away some of the gore. "Evan, do you think you can get like, a towel, or something?" He places his hand firmly over the wound. "We have to stop the bleeding."
I'm useless, staring at my blood-covered mother in complete shock. What in the world happened to her?
"On it," responds Evan, and within moments he's returned with an armload of creamy white towels from the bathroom. He hands one to Gabe, who uses it to mop the rest of the blood off Mom's face, and then presses it against the cut. I want to ask how he knows
what to do, but it's as if I've been struck dumb, paralyzed with fear. This has never happened before.
"Huh?" asks Gabe. I realize he's staring at me, with his hand still pressing the towel against Mom's forehead.
I blink. "What?"
"What's never happened before?" Gabe asks again, and both he and Evan stare at me.
"Did I just say that out loud?"
"Um, yeah," Gabe answers, and he peers at me, a concerned expression on his handsome face. "Are you okay, Em?"
I gape at Mom. Her face is twitching, along with the rest of her body, and her head is trying to roll back and forth, though Gabe holds it firmly between his two hands. I'm afraid to look at her; I'm afraid to touch her.
"She's never been like this. When she's asleep, I mean," I answer Gabe. My voice is small. "It's not normal." Mom jerks beneath Gabe's hands, and I step away. "We don't move…like that. We lay still, like you noticed before when Evan and I were in the nightmare. Something's wrong. Something's definitely wrong." I can't stop my hands from shaking. I lace my fingers together to keep them still.