Dream On

by M. Kircher

  "Mom," I yell into her face. "Mooooommmmm!" She doesn't bat an eyelash.

  "Well, now what're we gonna do?" I cry, my heart crumbling. I'm completely at a loss. I'm beyond relieved she's alive, but I don't know what to do with her in this state.

  Gabe stands up and tries to wipe some of the red gunk off of the legs of his jeans. We're all covered in the stuff. "We were kind of hoping you would have some idea," he suggests tentatively.

  I remember Dad using that tone with Mom when he was trying his best not to upset her. Warmth runs through my body when I realize Gabe's being gentle with me. Even after I've just acted like a complete lunatic in front of him.

  I slap my hands on my thighs and push myself to my feet. "Beats me," I tell him. "I'm not in control — she is. And if she's an unresponsive lump, then I have no idea about the state of her mind. Or what will happen in her dreams. Maybe they won't shift, or maybe it's about to get a whole lot crazier in here. I just don't know."

  I glance at Gabe, and then I notice two red marks trailing down his right cheek. I feel an embarrassed heat flood my face. I can't believe I hurt him. "I'm sorry about your face," I apologize. "And for all the rest of it." I remember his words back in the castle about not trusting people. He saved my life. The gashes send twinges of guilt and shame running through me. Gabe was right; I need to trust people more. "I should never have brought you and Evan in here. It was a stupid, dangerous thing to do."

  "Don't say that, Em," Gabe protests. "We didn't give you a choice. This isn't your fault."

  "Yeah, but I didn't have to go all nuts on you."

  "It makes sense you did," Gabe assures me. "I would have been the same way if it had been my mom."

  "Uh, kids," Evan pipes up from the ground, and we both turn to look down at him. "Something's happening," he declares as he peers deep into Mom's eyes.

  "What? What is it?" I exclaim and lean over her.

  Then I see what he's talking about. Mom's pupils have disappeared and so have her irises. Both of her eyeballs have become a disgusting milky shade of white. What in the blazes?

  Suddenly she jerks upright out of Evan's arms, like a puppet on strings, her limbs hanging awkwardly by her sides. Her sightless eyes stare straight ahead. She pops to her feet, and the three of us step back, our mouths hanging open in shock.

  The back of Mom's goo-splattered shirt rips open, and two giant red wings sprout out of her back. The wings must be ten feet across from tip to tip, and they beat steadily behind Mom's back, the red feathers fluttering rapidly through the air. She doesn't look at us; she doesn't look at her freaky new appendages. She just stares and stares. The wings start to beat faster, and then before I realize what's happening, Mom's entire body lifts into the air, and her wings start to carry her up into the colorless sky.

  "No!" I cry and try to grab her ankle. But I'm too late. She's already risen higher than I can reach. Up and up she goes, straight into the ivory sky.

  And then she rams herself right into it, head first.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The white sky cracks like a frozen pond on the first warm day of spring when Mom crashes into it. She and her blood-red wings burst right through the dream barrier and into the darkness beyond.

  "The dream is changing," whispers Gabe.

  With a sinking feeling, I realize he's right. But this isn't the way it happens. Things should be slowing down, but they're not. I should have known this was coming, but I missed it. And now Mom is gone, the dream is shifting, and who knows where we'll all end up next? I should wake us all up, but if I do, I might never see my mother again. Her mind is so fractured, she could disappear from her own dreams altogether — or worse — refuse to let me find her inside of them. No, now is our best chance. I have to get to her before she totally loses it.

  Gabe, Evan, and I cover our heads as splinters of sky rain down upon us like shards of glass. Something sharp rakes over my skin, and I cry out. Beside me, Gabe and Evan yell too. The sky pieces are slicing through our clothes and ripping into our skin; I gasp at the pain.

  "Em! Over here!" Gabe yells, and I run over to his side. He holds his ruined, goo-splattered leather jacket over his head, and I duck under. Evan curls into a ball on the ground. We're out in the open field where we first landed in this dream, with the forest too far away to be of any help. There's literally nowhere to hide.

  Gabe's arm is bleeding, and he winces when another shard grazes his leg, ripping right through his dark jeans. I see the edges of the tear start to stain red.

  "This isn't real, right?" he asks, clenching his teeth through the pain.

  I wipe blood out of my eyes and push closer in beside him. Together we kneel on the ground beside Evan.

  "No, we're still in a dream," I answer. "But I don't know what's happening."

  "Great, so this is nothing you've ever experienced before?"

  "No. Ow! This is all new." I'm trying hard to ignore the slivers of sky stabbing into my back through Gabe's jacket, but the pain is becoming unbearable.

  Poof! Gabe disappears. He just dematerializes right before my eyes, along with the leather jacket he's been holding over our heads. What the—?

  Poof! Evan's gone too. I'm suddenly completely alone in a field of red, shards of white sky whizzing down all around me.

  The shattered sky fades from white to black, and the world is plunged into darkness. The blood-colored ground beneath me disappears, and I am falling.

  This, I am used to.

  I try to control the sensations rushing through me — the feeling of my stomach jumping up into my mouth and my heart beating a million times a minute. I know I'm not actually falling, but it always feels as if I am.

  It's a bit different this time, though. Usually a dream shift is like flying through a dark sky at midnight, without any moon. But now, even though it's pitch black all around me, there are smudges of bright color rushing past. I feel a cool wind tugging at my hair. It's actually sort of a pleasant experience, except for the whole stomach-in-my-throat thing.

  I manage to tuck my head down into my chin and get a glimpse of what's below me as I fall. My eyes widen in shock. The bursts of color continue to hurtle past as I race down toward some sort of globe. Vibrant hues of red, green, purple, and blue swirl around on the surface. The sphere would be kind of beautiful if it weren't for one thing — I'm going to crash right into it!

  So what do I do? I scream, of course. It's the only thing you can do when you're about to be splattered like a bug. The globe grows closer and closer, and I brace myself for a world of pain.

  But just when I'm only a few feet away from becoming an Emily pancake, I suddenly freeze in midair. Something stops me. And instead of a pancake, I'm just a terrified teenager, floating on my stomach over a strange ball the size of small house.

  I stop hyperventilating long enough to notice Evan is standing right below me on the globe, his forehead creased with worry. He reaches up and grabs one of my sneakers, his other hand catching the pocket of my jeans, and he starts tugging me down off the cushion of air.

  "What just happened?" I exclaim. I'm shaking like a leaf. I twist around, trying to get my feet on some kind of solid ground.

  "Quit wiggling, Emily," Evan grunts, and he finally manages to get my feet under me so they hit the hard surface of the globe. I figure out a way to stand up, though my knees threaten to buckle and my legs feel all wobbly.

  I glance down at my arms and legs to make sure I'm all in one piece and realize I'm not bleeding anymore. The deep gouges from the shards of sky are completely healed, and my skin is smooth, as though the cuts never even existed. Which they didn't, not out in the real world. Everything we're experiencing inside this dream is a figment of Mom's imagination. Even so, I'm glad to not be in agony anymore.

  "Where are we?" I ask after taking a moment to gather myself. I feel my eyes widen at the sight before me. I've never seen anything like this before. I'm standing on the top rounded edge of the sphere, and all around me it'
s pitch black, like a night sky with no stars. I spot other globes, just like the one Evan and I are perched on top of, dotted here and there in the black ether. They float around like bubbles in a bowl of ink. I squint and realize each one is a different size. The larger ones seem closer to us, and the smaller ones are definitely much farther away. And each globe is filled with a kaleidoscope of color, as if there are liquid rainbows swirling around inside.

  And then I notice something else.

  "Wait, where's Gabe?" I ask twirling around. Only Evan and I stand here in the middle of the bubbles and black nothingness.

  Evan rubs his forehead. Oh no, not a good sign.

  "I was hoping he'd show up with you," he admits and swallows. "But that doesn't seem to be the case."

  My stomach drops. "He didn't come with you? No, no, no. This can't be happening." I run over to the edge of the globe and peer over the side. There's nothing there but other floating balls and the curved surface I'm standing on, which plunges down below me into the darkness below. Even if Gabe were stuck on one of the other globes, he'd be too far away for us to do anything about it. I change direction and race over to the other edge, but there's nothing there either.

  This is super bad. I run my hands through my hair and pull on the ends.

  "Evan! Where could he be?" I demand, even though I know Evan won't have an answer for me. At least, not an answer I want to hear. "The dream changed. We should all be together here — wherever this is." There's no answer. "Evan, are you even listening to me? This is serious. If Gabe's not with you and me, I can't risk waking us up if the alarms go off. He would be lost inside Mom's mind, and I'd have no way to find him. He could die."

  "I know," Evan answers, but his voice is muffled. I whirl around and see that the bony editor has his face pressed down against the surface of the globe, which seems to be a thick glass or crystal-like substance. His hands are cupped around his eyes, as if he's peering down into the globe itself. "There's an entire room, right below us," he breathes.

  "What?" I gasp, and I immediately kneel down to see. "Well how about that? You're right." I squint through the clear barrier and can just barely make out the interior of a large, dark room. The walls of the room are gray, with random splashes of color dotted here and there. I think I see rows of long seats covering the floor.

  Confused, I sit back on my haunches and stare up at the other globes floating all around us. I scratch the back of my neck while I try to gather my thoughts.

  "What are you thinking, Emily?" Evan asks.

  "Those must be dreams," I whisper and gesture to the globes.

  "What do you mean?" He rolls his head to the side so one eye is still peering down into the globe and the other focuses on me.

  "I think we're outside of a dream." I tap on the cold crystal. "Standing on top of one, if you want to be literal. Each time a dream shifts, it goes black, right?" I point to the gaping void of darkness surrounding us. "Just like this. All these globes could be dreams, and we just haven't entered into the next one. Like we're hanging out in Mom's mind, locked out of her dreams. We're the people version of a dreamcatcher right now. It's just, we don't seem to have the ability to choose which dream to go into." This theory is less than comforting.

  I point down at the shadowy room. "Maybe Gabe's in there. Maybe he and Mom made it to the next dream, but somehow we didn't." I have to believe they're both okay and that somehow Evan and I can get to them. The alternative is too horrifying to consider.

  Now Evan rolls completely over. He lays on his back, staring up at the balls of crystal with me. "Fascinating," he whispers.

  "Not fascinating," I contradict him. "Don't you realize that if I'm right, we are so screwed? If you and I are stuck out here, how can we convince Mom to wake up? And what about you and Gabe? The alarms will go off at some point. If the three of us aren't together, Gabe will die. I won't be able to wake him up once we're outside Mom's mind. This is a pretty bad scenario, if you ask me."

  "Well, this is just awesome!"

  I whip my head around and stare at Evan in shock. I've never heard him use such a bitter, sarcastic tone before — even when horrifying monsters were shooting at us, and giant whirlpools of sand were sucking us down into their deadly depths. He must be pretty upset this time.

  "What?" Evan demands angrily. He pushes his glasses up on his nose and scowls at me. "I'd rather not be responsible for Gabe's death, thank you very much," he snaps. "And I absolutely refuse to leave without him. We have to find your mother and Gabe. There's no other option." He sticks his nose close to mine and shoves his hands on his hips. "So, what's your plan?"

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  "I give up." I slam my foot down onto the crystal surface of the globe. "This thing is as hard as a rock. We're never going to break through, especially if all we have to work with are these." I wiggle my fingers up at Evan. "What I wouldn't give for a pickaxe right now."

  "Do you even own a pickaxe?" Evan asks, and he peers down into the globe for like the thousandth time. We've been sitting here for hours and are no closer to coming up with a plan than when we started.

  "No," I answer shortly. "But now I see what a handy thing it might be to have around." I pound my fist onto the globe. "Open up!" I yell. Nothing happens, of course. What am I going to do if we can never get inside the dream and see if Gabe and Mom are there? My heart starts to ache just thinking about it.

  "If we're actually outside a dream," Evan theorizes, "and Lily is inside, then maybe the only way for us to get in is for her to let us."

  "Great!" I explode. "And how are we going to get inside? Do you see a door anywhere? Because I certainly don't. And if she doesn't remember who I am, why would she want me in the dream with her?" I bury my face in my hands. "We don't stand a chance, Evan. Mom and Gabe are lost forever."

  "At least I'm trying to think of a way to get us out of here, Emily," Evan admonishes me, and I feel slightly ashamed at giving him a hard time. His life is on the line here too, after all. I sigh. "What are you doing, anyway?"

  Evan's thin writer's fingers feather over the clear surface of the globe as if he's massaging it.

  "Evan, give it up already. We might as well start facing facts. We're stuck here, Gabe's missing, Mom and her freaky wings have flown off to who knows where, and all of this is just completely, totally horrible." I gulp back the sobs that threaten to burst out of my throat.

  "Don't be so sure," Evan assures me calmly, ignoring my tirade. I watch as his fingers stop moving. "Come here. I think I've found something."

  I scoot over to where Evan's hands rest on the top of the globe.

  "See this?" He points to the globe.

  I bend down to see, narrowing my gaze, trying to focus on the crystal itself, not the colors and images swirling beneath.

  And then I do see it. The tiniest fissure, almost invisible to the naked eye. Evan's fingernail just barely catches on it as he slides his fingertips across the surface.

  "A crack!" I exclaim, but then my excitement fades almost as fast as it appeared. "But how is a little thing like that going to help us? We've been pounding on the globe for hours, Evan. The crystal, or glass, or whatever it's made out of — it's too thick. It'd take years to work such a small crack deep enough to break through."

  "And we don't have that kind of time," Evan agrees.

  "Am I missing something then?" I ask.

  "What seems to happen when a dream shifts, Emily? Besides the fact that things slow down."

  I think for a moment and then snap my fingers. "The sky! It cracks open."

  "Correct," affirms Evan. "I don't think this crack is the result of any of our puny efforts. I think it's the beginning of a dream shift."

  "Evan, you might just be on to something," I exclaim, suddenly excited again. "If we can get down into this dream before it shifts, we might have enough time to find Gabe, and maybe even Mom too. You're a genius!"

  "It's a long shot," he agrees, nodding. I don't know if he means that he
's a genius or the plan is a good one. "But it just might work. That is, if Gabe and Lily are in there." He squints behind his glasses. "How long do you think it will take to get going?"

  "I actually don't think we'll need to worry too much," I announce, holding up a small piece of clear, jagged crystal. "The shift is already starting." In just the few seconds Evan and I have been talking, the crack has widened. Tiny chunks of crystal have started to splinter and fall down through the surface of the globe and into the dream below.

  "Quick," I tell him. "See if we can pull some of the pieces out this way and make a hole big enough for us to jump through."

  "Great idea," Evan says, and both of us fall to our knees. Together, we frantically pull shard after shard out of the rapidly expanding crack. My fingers are bloody where the sharp edges of the disintegrating globe have sliced through my skin, but I'm too excited to care. "It's working!" I exclaim. I can't keep thoughts of Gabe's brown eyes and Mom's haunted face out of my mind. They're going to be inside, Em, I tell myself. You just have to have faith.