by Lori Wilde
His gaze brushed over me, from messy hair to muddy shoes.
“I have been waiting for this day,” he began. “I was beginning to believe it would not come.”
I swallowed. We were only a foot apart. My arm lifted, and I saw my hand reach for him. I had to touch him. Feel that he was real.
“You have no idea how long—”
“Nora.” Someone hollered my name. The sound bounced off the trees, breaking the connection between us. He glanced uneasily behind me.
“Wait here,” I whispered. “Don’t go yet.” I was a tornado of emotions. Ranging from pure fury that he’d hurt me, to wonder at how he was here at all…to the feelings I’d had for him for years.
Gravel crunched behind us.
“I cannot stay. Not yet,” he said, suddenly on guard. His blue eyes were scanning the woods behind me.
“Nora,” the voice called out again. Kenzie’s voice.
I glanced toward the path behind me, then immediately turned back to him. “Wait, I need to know—” I reached out, but my hand met only thick white fog. I stepped into it, searching wildly. Nothing. He was gone.
Seconds later Kenzie emerged behind me. She looked at me with the same baffled gaze she often looked at me with. Then she noticed the freshly washed white laundry lying in the mud. Her expression shifted.
“Uhh, should I ask?”
I shook my head, still completely disoriented. “Wh— What are you doing up so early?” I scanned her dark wet hair, neon tank top, and electric-blue shorts.
“Nora, it’s nine a.m., babe. Everyone’s up.”
I frowned. That was impossible. I’d only been here a short time. No way could three hours have passed by.
Kenzie scooped up the clothes and shoved them back into my limp arms. “Never mind the time. Troy is looking for you. There’s some massive news he has for you puppet people, and when you were a no-show, he got worried.”
“You coming?” Her brows knit as she watched me, expecting me to rush off. When I didn’t, she frowned.
“Hey, you look kind of pale. Everything okay? And OMG, what is with the shiner?”
Nothing was okay, and nothing would ever be okay again. Either I was losing my mind, or Grace and her insane theories were true.
My hand drifted to my sore cheek. “I fell. Tell Troy I’ll catch up later. And get someone to cover me this morning. I have to take care of something.” I dropped the muddy laundry, half landing in the basket, half back on the ground, and left it there as I ran off toward Grace’s office.
“Hey, head case, you forgot something,” Kenzie called after me, but my feet kept running, pummeling the path toward the main office building. I had massive news too, only this wasn’t the kind of news I could tell Troy. Last night’s dream was one thing, but this...was something else entirely.
Chapter Twenty
Before her office had even opened at nine thirty a.m., I was waiting for Grace on the front steps. She didn’t greet me. In fact, she didn’t even look surprised to see me. We weren’t scheduled to have our next session for another two days. Yet she calmly unlocked the door and opened it to let me in. It wasn’t until she’d turned on the lights, hung up her sweater, and sat at her desk that she took a good look at me. A cloud passed over her eyes, the kind of fear you’d expect to see in a mother’s eyes. One filled with worry and regret and panic. Then it passed.
I perched on the edge of the oak chair and gripped the armrests. With a glance at my white knuckle hold, she offered a rare understanding smile. She didn’t even look disappointed in me. And she always looked disappointed in me.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Why do I feel like you already know?”
“I have an inkling, but I’d like to hear it from you.”
I leaned back and washed my hands over my face, wincing as I brushed over the bruise. This whole camp experience was starting to mess with my sanity. First I’m hired to teach puppetry at Hogwarts camp for mystical rich kids, then I find out I’m just like them, and now...the guy I’d been dreaming about since my freshman year suddenly appears in front of me. While I’m awake. There was no amount of therapy on the planet that could undo that kind of trauma. Words completely failed me.
She pushed back her chair after my lengthy silence, headed for the table under the window, and turned on her kettle. “Tea?” She held up a hand-painted pot.
I nodded absently.
Only once she’d returned and handed me a steaming cup of what smelled like chamomile did I finally look up at her.
“He’s here,” I said, my voice sounding gravelly and thick with emotion. I felt the loss of him as painfully as I felt it in my dreams. Like a hole had been ripped into my chest, a cavity no amount of counseling or distraction could possibly hope to fill.
“Darcy,” she nodded. “Where did you see him?”
It struck me that she wasn’t fazed by my revelation. But then why would she be? She was the one who’d told me it would happen. She’d insisted he was real all along, while I’d insisted she was crazy. Apparently, I was the crazy one for believing that dream guys were supposed to stay in your dreams, not stroll out into your waking world.
“What does this even mean?” I asked before taking a sip. My hands trembled slightly as I set down the cup.
Settling into her leather chair, she leaned forward.
I waited all of half a second for her to say something before I started talking again. “I was attacked. By someone in my dream. How is that possible? I know, I know. Everything is possible, but how…why—?” I shook my head. “Why would he do this? He’s not like my father. At least he never was before. Not once.”
I finally stopped my panic-fueled rant to take a breath and realized what I’d just said. I had no memory of my father, and yet, I’d compared Darcy’s violence to his. Suddenly a door to a room that was normally locked tight slipped open. I remembered, just a few instances, the fear I felt around my father. The way he hurt me. Hurt my mother. I pressed my hand to my forehead and closed my eyes briefly, willing it all away.
I opened them to see her mouth drawn into a tight line. “I warned you this was possible. The man in your dreams is not what you think. Not who you see him to be. He’s dangerous. I needed for you see that for yourself, Nora. My daughter used to wake with marks all over her body from their assaults. Before—”
“And she went with them?” My voice pitched higher. “She still chose an eternity of dream abuse after waking up with real bruises?”
Grace gave a soft shrug. “They are skillful like that. They’ll play tricks with your mind. Lure you into believing what they want you to believe. If it suits their purpose. Sometimes though, they slip up. When they feel like your real world is breaking through. Which I suspect is what happened with you. Tell me…” She flipped on her tablet and tapped in the date. “What was different about this dream? Was anyone else there with you this time?”
I closed my eyes, at first not wanting to remember but forcing myself to. “Well, there were flowers, a dozen red roses, which wasn’t so strange. But then we were in a cemetery, which was weird. Standing in front of my parents’ grave.” I shuddered, recalling the dripping blood. “Darcy was looking at me in the way he usually does. And then he wasn’t. And it was—” I looked up at Grace then looked away. “It was someone else.”
She angled her head, her stylus poised midair. “Someone else?”
“Yes, like his face morphed into another person’s.”
Her head nodded. “Someone you know.”
“Yes, someone I know,” I bristled. Not being able to keep anything private anymore was still a sore point.
Grace leaned back. “Alright. That is, in fact, very good, Nora. You’re forming a connection here in the real world. One that is stronger than the one you have in your dream world.”
I nodded blankly, not really understanding a word she was saying. I was tired, so tired. And I just wanted it all to end. What do I have to do to end it? The mem
ories were so painfully clear to me now. Darcy had hit me; he was angry and violent and dangerous. Like my father had been. And this needed to end. I was at his mercy every time I fell asleep. It wasn’t like I could just stay away from him. By doing what exactly? Gobbling uppers and Red Bulls? Eventually I was going to fall asleep. Who knows what would happen when I did. Tears welled up behind my eyes.
“There is more you need to know, Nora. Listen to me carefully. You wake up in your story before the end can reach you.”
“I know exactly how it ends.” My voice escalated. “I’ve dreamed it a thousand agonizing times. It ends with the man I loved—thought I loved—dying in my arms, over and over again.” I couldn’t stop the tears this time—they streamed uncontrollably down my face. Tears for someone I didn’t believe existed.
“No.” Grace stepped toward me but then stopped when she saw me flinch. “That’s where you wake up each night. It ends with you lying dead next to him, in a pool of your own blood.”
I swiped my nose with the back of my hand with a pathetic sniffle. This was too much. “How can you possibly know this?”
“I’ve seen it. Your story. My daughter’s story. And so many others. How do you think we select the candidates we choose to come to this academy? They each have a story, a life from which they need saving.”
“And you are their savior.” I half laughed. I was lashing out, and I didn’t really know why, other than she’d forced me out of my comfortable numbness, and I hated her for it. I hated them all right now.
“You think it was Kenzie’s invitation that brought you here? That you are the first in your family to experience our program?” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re wrong. It was your grandfather’s involvement that led us to you.”
My stomach tightened, and I sucked in a gasp. “My grandfather? How do you know my grandfather?”
The shift in her expression said she’d spoken too hastily. Divulged more info than she’d intended. “It’s a long story better served another time. But your grandfather knew the horrors the dream world held. He experienced them himself, and he was a principal investor in the beginning of our program at Wanderlust Academy. He wanted this for you, Nora. He wants you to be free.”
My head was spinning. I didn’t know how to process this new information. My grandfather knew about this? Why had he never said anything about it? The answer that came was one I knew was there before asking. For the same reasons he’d never mentioned my father. All this time I’d thought I was the one trying to save him. And he’d been the one saving me. More than once.
I turned to stare at the morning light streaming in from the windows. So cheery. So safe. It was a brilliant sunny lie of omission, masking the dangers in the unseen. It was all a lie.
“Nora. You’re scared.” Grace put her hand on mine. “You’re overwhelmed, and you’re angry. I understand that—but even with your grandfather’s wishes, you could not have come to us unless some small part of you was asking for help.”
I pulled my hand away. “I don’t need your help.” I did. Of course I did, but I just couldn’t process everything.
“Yes, you do. And you will continue to need it until one of two things occur.” She held up two fingers, her expression darkening. “You end your dream life, or it ends yours. There are no other outcomes here. I am offering you the first, if you’ll allow it.”
I stared at her for a breath. Then I said, “I’m not really here at Wanderlust Academy by chance, am I?”
“Is anyone?”
“Answer me, Grace.”
“No, it wasn’t entirely by chance. We believed that you might not have shown any interest if we had approached you directly, and that you might if the invitation came from Kenzie.”
I frowned. “Okay, not cool using my best friend like that.”
“She doesn’t seem to mind.” Grace shrugged without a shred of remorse. I sighed. She wasn’t wrong; Kenzie was having the summer of her life here. Like she said, we did weird well. I was the one who was struggling.
I sniffled in a breath. The tears had stopped, and I wiped both eyes with my palms, drying my hands on my thighs. I didn’t believe any of it...didn’t want to believe. But I also didn’t want to die. Reflecting back, I’d woken up with unexplainable bruises and wounds too, just like Celeste. Injuries I now know were caused by my dreams. Darcy was there in all of them. He wore a top hat and tails. He brought me flowers, wrote me sonnets, and serenaded me under windows. And now he was trying to kill me? It made no sense. “How?” I whispered. “How can you save me?”
“As I said before, I have only the answers I’ve been given. My task—our task is to make sure you are safe. I wonder if you’d be willing to consider hypnosis; it could help. You mentioned your father. There are more memories locked inside you, Nora. Releasing them just might free you from your dreams. And from this nightmare.”
Hypnosis. Something I’d mocked mercilessly was now something I was seriously considering. I blinked at Grace, letting a numbing calm pour over me. “Why does my life matter so much?”
“Every life matters, Nora. Yours happens to matter a great deal to many others.”
I squinted at her, trying to decipher the meaning coded between her words; what she wasn’t saying said more than what she was. “You mean my grandfather.”
“Among others, yes. Let’s just say we all have a vested interest in seeing you survive.”
A knot formed in my throat. She also meant Troy. But why, when we’d only known each other a short time? How could he possibly be that vested in what happened to me?
Grace almost smiled and responded to words I hadn’t spoken out loud. “Sometimes it’s the seemingly random encounters that entangle us the most.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Are you certain you’re ready, Nora? Ready to let this go?” Grace asked.
“I’m ready. I don’t care what’s in store for my future. As long as it doesn’t involve anything from my past.” I leaned forward, every inch of my body buzzing unanimously with my decision. “I need this to be over. Now. Tell me what I have to do to end this nightmare. Forever. When do we start hypnosis?”
“Dreamwalking hypnosis isn’t a process I can facilitate myself, but I do know of a very skilled Shaman who can assist us. It’s unconventional, but…” Her voice trailed off for a moment. “This didn’t just happen to you. The lives you remember, the dreams you’ve had with him, you may have lived many lifetimes with this man. He’s been your soulmate for centuries, and you both have the gift of dreamwalking.”
Not sure gift was the right term. More like a curse.
“But things always end the same way in your relationship. In death and despair because in the past, you always chose your dream life with him over reality. You have a connection that is so strong it defies logic, reason, and even love. Some call it purgatory; I call it hell. My daughter saw it as heaven, through her blood-stained glasses. I don’t want that to happen to you.”
I stood up and paced to the window and back. The early morning sun streamed in, reminding me of the day I was missing outside. But I wasn’t ready to go back, not until I had some answers.
I sat back down and leaned in. “You know, you’ve never told me how you knew this was happening to me?”
“I have a gift. A sort of psychic connection to certain individuals,” she said. “I can see into their dreams and help them unravel the hold they have over their lives.”
Grace rose from her seat and moved around to my side of the desk. She perched on the edge, her legs stretched out in front of her. “What you have witnessed time and time again in your mind isn’t your lost love dying in your arms. It’s the demise of your former love after he attempted to take your life.”
One full minute went by, or at least it felt that way, before I could respond. “You’re telling me that I have spent most of my life grieving for a man who tried to kill me in another life?” I frowned at how plausible it sounded after everything that had happened. Clearl
y, I was losing my mind if all of this was beginning to make sense. My eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you mention that part before? It’s the kind of info you lead with, don’t you think?”
“Would it have changed anything? I doubt it. You were not ready to believe me at first, Nora. Sometimes we need all of our senses in play before we accept the truths they are telling us.”
I nibbled my lip. She had a point. How many times had I felt in my gut things weren’t right with Granddad? He wasn’t eating or sleeping. Coughing late into the night and brushing it all off as a simple cold. But I knew it was more serious, even before the test results indicated it was. I almost smelled the cancer as it started to take hold. If I hadn’t been so deep in denial, maybe I could have pushed him harder. Insisted he get treatment sooner, before things got to where they were. But...now, with this, I couldn’t ignore my feelings again. Especially knowing it was what he’d wanted for me.
A cold shudder rattled my insides. “But Darcy loved me. And I used to love him.”
Her gaze softened as she saw what I wasn’t saying. “I know. It was quite possibly true, that you loved one another very deeply in another lifetime. But there is a fine line between love and obsession. Between passion and rage. Whatever else may be true of your history, he has crossed that line.”
“Why wouldn’t I remember that he had tried to hurt me or who stopped him?”
“Not hurt you, Nora.” Her voice sharpened to a razor point. “Kill you. There is a grave distinction. And I do not know why. Unfortunately, there are no answers written anywhere to all of this. Each of us must unravel our own mysteries for ourselves. All I know is the information I was given. We cater toward special children, not necessarily adults, but I was told to hire you despite all signs to the contrary. Despite your obvious lack of knowledge, skill, and experience, and despite your liaison with Troy.”