Dreamfire

by Kit Alloway

  “Wait, back up.” Somehow, even after what he’d seen the night before, Will found this hard to accept. “You’re saying that if dream walkers don’t keep ending nightmares, the World will end?”

  “Ultimately, yeah.” Josh said this with disturbing calm, but something about this question made her pause, and her smile faded. She seemed to be considering something—not just the question; he felt her considering him as well. “Are you sure you want to know all this? Because you’re actually under no obligation to become a dream walker.”

  He had thought about the situation as he rode from her house to the county home. He thought about how everything had changed when he left his mother to live with the state, and how everything would change again if he accepted this mysterious job offer.

  And he thought about the fact that he really had nothing to lose.

  “I’m in,” he said. “I might as well help save the World, right?”

  “No, Will.” Josh shook her head, clearly frustrated. The lines around her eyes that had vanished returned. “Look, forget about saving the World. People die dream walking, a lot of people. It’s dangerous. It’s scary. The things inside people’s heads are ugly and they’re hard to look at, and sometimes when you come out of that archway you feel dirty. And being a dream walker is—you’d be part of a whole other world, with rules and traditions and politics. Lots of politics. Some of the people in it aren’t very nice.” Her voice softened. “Even the nice ones are still just people.”

  Josh ducked her head, her expression becoming self-conscious again, and finished, “I just don’t want you to think that your life will be better than it is now if you become a dream walker.” Her green eyes, pale as seawater trapped in cupped hands, met his as if for emphasis. “Sometimes it’s better not to know how the Universe works.”

  He wondered what had happened to make her contemplate such an idea. Despite his dad bailing and his mom drinking anything in liquid form, he’d never stopped being curious or wanting to investigate the world around him. On the contrary, he’d developed an insatiable desire to understand people and how they worked inside.

  “Would you be the one teaching me?” he asked, and she nodded.

  He was sitting in a dream with her, awake and aware in this phantasmagorical landscape where he had spent so many agonizing nights. She had walked in and with her mere presence ended the terror. He knew there would be danger, that he was putting his life in her hands. He didn’t know what to make of this community she had spoken of, and he didn’t really understand what knowing “how the Universe works” might mean.

  But she was the first one to ever offer him an unlocked door in this hallway, in the endless hallway that his life seemed to be. She was the first to give him an out. And he knew that if he didn’t take her offer, the mystery would haunt him for the rest of his life.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Josh didn’t look happy. He wasn’t even sure he saw surprise in her face. She just nodded and said, “All right then. You’re officially my apprentice.”

  They were both quiet for a moment, which was why Will was able to hear the sizzling behind him. He turned his head and saw that the cobra venom had melted the flooring under the door to Room Five, and the snakes were close to escaping. One had gotten far enough that he could see its tongue tasting the hallway air.

  He and Josh jumped up at the same moment. “Talk’s over,” Josh said. She pulled a Zippo lighter and a compact out of her pocket. “Can you open that door?” she asked, gesturing to Room Six.

  “It’s locked,” Will told her, but tried anyway. The knob turned easily in his hand, revealing an empty patient room.

  Josh flipped the compact open, flicked the Zippo, and reflected the flame off the mirror and into the doorway. A shimmering film appeared.

  “That’s the Veil,” she said. “Step through and you’ll wake up. This is what we do with people when we can’t resolve a nightmare. We end it.”

  Will paused before going through. Some gesture of appreciation was in order, some indication that he was glad to be part of this. Or that he at least thought he might not regret it later. But in the end he knew that the time wasn’t right and that someday, when they could talk more easily to each other, he’d tell her.

  So he just said, “You want to meet at school on Monday?”

  One of the cobras shot out from under the door. “Don’t worry—I’ll find you,” Josh said, grabbing Will and pulling him through the Veil.

  He grinned, and then he fell and fell and landed on his back in bed.

  Seven

  The idea of Will as Josh’s apprentice changed from distant fear to inevitable reality Monday afternoon when he rode home with her from school.

  “You’re too nervous,” Deloise whispered to Josh as they climbed out of the car.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  Josh had never felt so pressured. Everyone in the dream-walker community knew by now that she had an apprentice—they’d been calling all weekend like she’d just had a baby. Granted, it wasn’t every day that an apprentice joined the dream-walker community, but did Josh’s grandfather really need daily updates on Will’s training?

  As awkward as this was for her, it was probably worse for Will, although he was playing it pretty cool so far.

  “It’s not a date,” Deloise whispered to her as they entered the house through the back door. “Just show him around. Explain how the Dream works.”

  “I’ve spent seventeen years trying to figure that out myself.”

  “Then you should have plenty to fill an afternoon with,” Winsor remarked with a snort.

  Kerstel was in the kitchen reading from her laptop and listening to Vivaldi. “Hey,” she said as the kids walked in. She leaned over to turn down the music. “Nice to see you again, Will.”

  “Thank you,” Will said politely.

  Winsor went to the living room to do homework. Deloise immediately got a phone call and wandered up to her room.

  Josh and Will stood awkwardly and stared at each other.

  “So, um,” Josh said, “I guess I’ll show you around.”

  “Okay,” Will said.

  She led him through the first floor—the office/guest room, the library, Kerstel’s office, and Dustine’s bedroom, where she knocked lightly on the oak door.

  “Come in!”

  Dustine was sitting in a plastic deck chair next to the window with the television on. Josh saw her tucking a cardboard folder covered in tinfoil behind the dresser. “Getting your sun, Grandma?”

  “Watch it.” Dustine cackled. “I’ve got to keep up my color during the winter somehow.” Her eyes were sharp as she looked Will over. “I take it you’ve agreed to apprentice. You’re very, very lucky to have Josh as a teacher. I’ve lived eighty-seven years and never seen a more talented dream walker. Just the same, you have a long road ahead of you. If you make it.”

  Will stiffened and Josh felt the need to say, “Take it easy, Gran. He’ll be fine.”

  “He could be the True Dream Walker himself and he wouldn’t be good enough for you.”

  “All right, we just wanted to say hi,” Josh said, deciding to let Will and Dustine get to know each other some other time. “We’d better get back to work.”

  Dustine nodded. “If you look in the top drawer of my dresser, I dug something out of the attic for you.”

  Josh glanced at her, but Dustine didn’t give anything away. Inside the drawer, Josh found a bundle of cloth. “That’s it,” Dustine said. “Lasia used this wall quilt back when I was an apprentice. Give it to Will; he can study it. There’s more there than meets the eye.”

  Josh touched the quilt with care. The fabric felt old and fragile, the stitches loosened by time. “Are you sure you want to give this away?”

  Dustine shrugged. “I can see every detail in my mind. Go on and take it.”

  “Thank you,” Will said as Josh handed him the quilt. “I’ll take good care of it.”

  Dustine nodd
ed, her eyes still on him. “You follow that quilt, and you’ll do fine.”

  They slipped out before she could change her mind and decide that Will was hopeless. “That went well,” he said as they walked up the stairwell.

  “No, you did great. I should have warned you that she’s kind of a grouch.” They passed a landing with two doors. “So this,” Josh said, “is the second floor.” She touched one door. “The Avishes live in this apartment. That’s Winsor and her parents. Winsor has an older brother, but he’s been traveling the world since last summer, so it’s just the three of them now.”

  “Is he planning to come back and dream walk again?”

  “He didn’t say. But probably. Why?” She glanced back at Will.

  “Am I a replacement for him?”

  She hadn’t realized that Will didn’t understand the finality of his role. Maybe she should have waited before introducing him to her grandmother. “No,” she said. “Your apprenticeship has nothing to do with Whim.”

  He grinned. “Whim?”

  “It’s a nickname.”

  “For what?”

  “Whimarian Travarres Nikolaas Avishara.”

  “Whoa,” Will said. “Is that some kind of joke?”

  Now it was Josh’s turn to be amused. “No. Kids around here get a first name of their own, a second name after a mother’s relative, a third name after a role model, and their father’s last name.” It took her a moment to figure out what she wanted to explain to him about the custom. “Knowing someone’s full name is a gesture of respect,” she told him. “Not that you’d ever call Whim by all that, but if you have to ask a person what their full name is, you probably don’t know them that well. Out in the world, nearly all dream walkers shorten their names. It’s not that weird—you do the same thing.”

  “Actually,” Will said behind her, “Will Kansas is my full name.”

  “It’s not William or Wilson or Wilfredo?”

  “Nope. Just Will.”

  “Well.” There were twenty-seven letters in her name and ten in his. She became very aware again that he was a stranger.

  Much to Josh’s relief, Will’s thoughts didn’t appear to have taken the same route as hers. “So if I’m not a replacement for Whim, why did you suddenly decide to get an apprentice?”

  “Long story short, each dream-walker kid gets a prophecy written at their birth, and mine said I would have an apprentice who showed up exactly when you did.”

  After staring at her with the stunned expression of a dead fish, Will sputtered, “But I was just delivering a pizza. I wasn’t even supposed to be there—Louis was.”

  “And Louis wouldn’t have been there if Deloise hadn’t ordered pizza. I thought it was Louis, so she went ahead and arranged for him to show up at the house at the right time…”

  “And I showed up instead,” Will finished. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

  Josh felt guilty. She’d gotten him into this; she didn’t want him to feel unwelcome. “My father keeps telling me that fate doesn’t make mistakes. Maybe Deloise and the pizza and you delivering for Louis was what was meant to happen all along.”

  Will leaned against the wall and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, this is freaking me out a little.”

  “Sorry,” Josh said, wishing she could reassure him, wishing she could reassure herself. Still rubbing his neck, Will looked at her from under his bangs. His blue eyes were wide with anxiety, but he smiled a forced smile. “It’s okay. Did you want to show me your apartment?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Josh started up the stairs, but Will stopped her.

  “Wait,” he said, gesturing to the second door on the landing. “Where does this lead?”

  She had been hoping he wouldn’t ask. “There’s another apartment here. But it’s empty.”

  He didn’t push. He doesn’t know there’s anything to find, she reminded herself. She wondered what would happen when he found out about Ian and Haley, and how long she was allowed to not mention them before it was actually keeping a secret.

  After touring the Weavers’ third-floor apartment, they went downstairs to the library, put the quilt Dustine had given them on the table, and unrolled it ever so carefully. Every stitch felt as breakable as the threads of a spider’s web.

  Josh opened the final fold and sucked in a deep breath. Will came around the table to see the quilt right side up, and they stood next to each other in total silence for more than a minute, staring.

  “Someone spent months on this,” Will said.

  “More like years. This is … I can’t believe I’ve never seen this.”

  The quilt was approximately three by four feet. It depicted three circles overlapping, each connected to the other by an archway. In the empty spaces of the corners, the quilt showed the contents of each world. The World: tiny women having tea; lions prowling between high grasses; a glittering fire built inside the smooth, curving walls of an igloo. The Dream: uniformed rats performing ballet; people running upside down as they fled from a manticore; machete-wielding clowns with painted mouths full of sharp metal teeth. Death: faceless human forms made of luminous golden silk who towered over the ash-colored people filing into their world. Every fabric type imaginable had been used, and each fingernail-sized bit of colored cloth looked like the stroke of a paintbrush.

  Josh explained what each circle represented. Will, using a touch suitable for stroking a newborn baby’s face, ran his fingertips reverently over the triangle where all three circles overlapped and said, “What’s this black part?”

  “Nothing. The diagram sort of fails here, because there is no place where all three worlds overlap.” In examining the triangle, however, Josh realized that the fabric wasn’t black but the darkest peacock green, and she understood what the quilt maker had been trying to show her. “I take that back—there are myths that a place where all three worlds overlap used to exist, and dream theorists think it could possibly exist, but no one’s proven it.”

  She shook her head, amazed that the person who had made the quilt had thought to include a theoretical universe, and amazed by the care and complexity that had gone into the quilt’s creation. Her grandmother had been right; the quilt was a beautiful teaching tool. Why hadn’t Dustine ever showed it to Josh before? As far as Josh knew, none of the other dream walkers who had been trained in this house had seen it either.

  And why would Dustine suddenly share it now?

  Setting the thought aside, Josh pulled a blank sheet of paper out of her backpack and drew a Venn diagram of the three universes, explaining as she went. “We can cross from one universe to another if we know how. Sometimes the boundaries are broken, sometimes the worlds spill into each other. Some of the boundaries are broken on purpose when we build archways.” Between the World and the Dream, she drew arrows pointing both ways, but arrows only pointed into Death, never out of it. Will asked about them.

  “You can only go into Death. You can’t come back out.”

  “So you couldn’t go into Death and bring someone back?”

  “You can’t…” She started and had to stop and swallow. Her chest began to ache. “You can’t cross into Death without dying. Nobody comes back.”

  He doesn’t know, Josh, she told herself. Let it go—he doesn’t know anything.

  Will simply nodded, and Josh knew for certain then that his question had been innocent, but that wound was already open, that Ian wound right in the center of her chest that bled with every heartbeat.

  Her fingers walked across the quilt, tracing the passage from the World to Death.

  Nobody comes back.

  Josh reached for the quilt and began folding it, forcing the memories down. So her chest hurt. So what?

  “I asked around about you at school today,” Will said, and Josh’s head shot up.

  “You—?”

  “Yeah. I’d heard about that house fire out in Charle last summer, with the fireworks, but I didn’t connect you to it until today. Somebody told me that
the guy who died was your boyfriend. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, and I know that you’re probably still dealing with it, and if, you know, you ever want to talk or anything, I’m a pretty good listener.”

  His expression was absolutely sincere, even when Josh blurted out, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m not trying to pressure you to,” Will assured her. “Just, in the future, if you ever need to—”

  “No,” Josh said, panicking. “No. I thought you said you were a good listener.”

  Will raised his hands up like he was being held at gunpoint. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

  Josh couldn’t think clearly. She knew she had just been bitchy but she didn’t know how to backtrack without weakening what she felt was a desperately important message: I don’t want to talk about Ian—not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

  “It’s all right,” she said. She lifted her palms from the quilt and then allowed her fingertips to rest there again. “I think that’s enough for today. Kerstel will give you a ride home.”

  She turned and headed for the basement before she had to watch Will’s face fall.

  Through a Veil Darkly

  More weird news. Not only are people going into comas for no reason at all while they sleep, now people are worried about a new pair of villains roaming the Dream. One’s really tall and sort of thin and the other’s wider and shorter, but they both wear giant dark green trench coats and carry silver canisters on their backs. Some people say they’re wearing gas masks, but others say they use the masks to suffocate dreamers. (“Just like the facehugger in Alien!” one girl said.)

  If you’ve seen them, send me an e-mail about it with the subject “TCM.” (That’s Trench-Coat Men, in case you haven’t had your coffee yet today.) Maybe we can figure out what book or movie our new friends are from.