Amy intentionally disregarded the fact that this comment suggested her death would be preferable to her being controlled and tried to explain her sense of being free from the looming mental shadow of the enemy.
“I’m not really sure what happened or why but I… I feel that the enemy has stopped trying to find me in the dream plane.”
“Ya feel?” replied Snipping with disdain lingering but a hint of intrigue rising to the surface. “Would ya care to elaborate on what that feeling is exactly?”
Amy considered it for a moment and struggled to find the words to describe the sensation.
“It’s like…” she started, still searching for words, “like when I was being followed, I was being pressed down by a heavy weight. Now it’s like the weight has been lifted. Whatever it was that was pressing against my mind isn’t there anymore.”
Snipping stopped to look at Amy more carefully. If they were lucky, there might just be some validity to these feelings. He couldn’t imagine why the enemy would have stopped hunting her but if he had, maybe this could be their window of opportunity. He wouldn’t have dared trust the feelings of a minimally trained human girl at all but Amy had just done something astonishing. Whatever the energy was that she had released, it wasn’t an earthly force. Not to mention, after she had used it, she had woken from her coma and been untroubled since. The girl clearly had powers that even Snipping didn’t understand. What was this strange energy she had released? Had she used the energy in the dream plane as well? Perhaps she had actually caught the enemy off guard with her power and pushed him away from her mind for the time being?
“Are ya absolutely certain? We can’t just hope and pray, we need to make an educated decision about what to do next and this could ‘ave a huge impact on our plans!”
Amy’s confidence, coupled with a desire to get moving away from here, was increasing steadily. So long as she remained awake, the threat to her mind was no problem but she knew, even in waking that something was different. While she had been unconscious she had been constantly wavering between the waking world and the world of dreams, as easily as one steps through a doorway. Now it felt as though she could still hear things on both sides of the door without having to step through it.
“Yes,” she replied strongly, “I’m certain of it. I don’t believe the enemy is trying to hunt us right now. I can’t feel any shadow of fear like I did before.”
With this, Snipping was finally convinced and his mind started to spin with plans again.
“Well, if that’s so then we’ve gotta take advantage of the situation. If we move quickly and ya avoid any more dreamwalkin’ it should be bloody ‘ard for the enemy to pick up our trail when ‘e starts searchin’ again. Oh yeah! I’m sure he will, eventually, but now we need to focus on more local factors. We ‘ave, shall we say, a slight local security problem, in that the police’ll be hunting for us and we haven’t made any real progress as yet towards findin’ Amy’s parents. I’m not too sure where to begin with this, which is problematic. Furthermore, the police’ll be searchin’ for us cos of more than a stolen car. This is gonna get tricky.”
That was an unpleasant reminder for Amy about what she had just done but she tried to block it out and focus on what they were doing.
“Do you agree that we should find the train station?”
“Initially, yeah” replied Snipping as they continued to walk. “But I reckon we will need to aim further than the next border. I suspect the international police groups in the whole of Europe’ll be on the lookout for us soon. We need to get completely clear o’ the continent!”
At this point Martay finally entered the discussion. He was exhausted and the idea of intercontinental travel was utterly daunting to him right at the moment.
“Really? Are you seriously recommending we fly to Australia or something?”
He held his hand to his side as he walked, tucked under his right arm. The evidence of his injury was completely covered by his jacket.
“It doesn’t ‘ave to be Australia. Preferably somewhere yer familiar with and where you could fit in without drawin’ too much attention to yourselves.”
Amy coughed uncomfortably as if she disagreed.
“Sorry,” she exclaimed, “but Snipping, are you suggesting that WE are the ones who need to be careful about drawing attention? You’re going to do that no matter where we go. Even covered up you get funny looks. We have to keep you somewhere cold so you can keep up your disguise!”
Snipping wasn’t amused but he had to concede that Amy was right. He needed to blend in too.
“Ok, yeah! Somewhere we won’t be looked for but we can fit in and are relatively familiar with, that has a cold climate. At least that should keep the list fairly narrow!”
“I’m afraid I can’t help,” stated Martay flatly. He had never travelled outside of Europe at all.
Snipping quickly turned his head back to Amy who was, unlike Martay, very well travelled indeed.
“Well, what information we do have to go off is that my parents were heading for the Himalayas in Nepal when they left but that was some time ago and I’m pretty sure they had to go into hiding.”
“Might be a good start though,” Snipping said with a nod of approval. “None of us would speak the language o’ course but it’s our best lead on ya parents.”
“Are there any other options,” Martay asked?
“There’s no shortage of cold places in the Northern Hemisphere this time of year. Greenland, Iceland, Canada, Alaska, Russia, Japan… I guess the best fit would be Canada. I’ve travelled there quite a lot. It’s properly cold and I doubt we would be looked for there. We would need to find a way to fly though.”
“O’ course we would,” said Snipping, “the sooner the better. I doubt we ‘ave much time before our descriptions or even our photos are bein’ sent to all the security databases the police can notify, and that’ll include all the airports.”
With that they focused on finding the local train station and their conversation steered away from the more serious task at hand.
Martay distracted himself by questioning Snipping about some strange things that had recently occurred to him.
“Snipping, I don’t understand,” he began and Snipping cut in before he could keep talking.
“Well that’s a big surprise!” Snipping’s voice was practically drowning in sarcasm but he was smiling at Martay nonetheless. The two of them had been forced into bonds of friendship by their recent ordeals, and in good understanding Martay completely ignored the insult.
“You had never been in this world until Amy sort of… created you right?”
“An outrageously inaccurate description but ya meaning has an element o’ truth, yeah.”
The Imp was actually having fun with the conversation. He knew precisely where it was leading but enjoyed delaying Martay from getting his answers.
“So, how do you know so much about everything here? I mean, you speak heaps of languages, you know all our geography and how our societies work… the only thing that doesn’t fit is your strange English.”
“Ahh,” Snipping replied with pompousness and drama in his voice, “ya flatter me young man but in fact, there’re more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in ya sleep.”
“You mean, ‘dreamt of in our philosophies’,” Amy chipped in, albeit surprised that Snipping knew the quote at all. Martay had a legitimate point when she thought about it.
“No,” Snipping answered amusedly, “in yer sleep. Ya see, everythin’ I know, I know because it’s dreamt of, and I’ve walked through human dreams all my life. I was paraphrasin’ to explain my point.”
He grinned at the two of them.
“Why the crazy accent when you speak English then?” Martay asked.
“Dunno really. I guess it’s cos there’s so many different versions of English that I never really settled on anythin’. When I’m workin’ I usually just want people to wake up before they create somethin’ stupid, a
nd somethin’ about this accent really makes ‘em realise they must be dreamin’. It’s too ridiculous to believe ya see.”
Amy spent the next few minutes of their walk looking up flights using Martay's phone. They had already worked out where they needed to go to get to the train station but the sense of urgency still had them in its grips.
Nevertheless, it could have been worse. The sun was riding high over the city, making it a beautiful place to be. More than that, they were properly united again. Amy had escaped from her coma, the adrenalin and fear caused by Martay getting shot had been reduced as he walked along looking almost normal and Snipping had become significantly more cheerful after Amy’s announcement that the enemy was not pursuing her. Amy was the only one who remained despondent outside of her fleeting moments of humour or distraction.
They reached the nearest station after roughly ten minutes and did not have to wait much longer for the appropriate train to arrive. They needed to catch a flight to Frankfurt first, and then onwards to whatever destination they chose. The real danger was that airport security would be looking for them by the time they got there but this couldn’t be helped. They needed to at least try.
Once they were on the train they couldn’t talk as openly as before, packed in with all the other passengers. Snipping kept making suggestions as subtly as he could, the chief among which he repeated to the point of irritation.
“Do ya reckon you could manage to stay awake until we arrive at our destination?”
This was a big ask. The total travel time from Milan to any of their considered countries would be significant once they also accounted for check in, security, customs and the stopover in Frankfurt. Nevertheless, Amy had effectively been asleep for days now and in conjunction with the lingering adrenalin and dark thoughts which kept trying to push themselves into her conscious thought, she would be wide awake for a long time indeed. It was for this reason that when Snipping started to ask her the question yet again, she cut across him snappily.
“Yes, I’ll be fine! Once we get on the flight I’ll be fine! They always have all sorts of movies and stuff. Honestly I’m more likely to fall asleep in the airport waiting around after clearing security and…”
She stopped dead. Talking about clearing airport security had brought to her mind the image of passport control and she suddenly saw the enormous flaw in their entire plan.
Snipping raised his eyebrows at her as he waited for the end of her sentence. With reluctance, and a returning sense of anxiety, she allowed herself to finish, “passport checks.” Her voice was almost a whisper. Martay tensed up visibly and Snipping’s jaw dropped slowly downwards and his eyes widened. They all saw the problem now.
“Where can we go without a passport for Snipping? We’ll be stuck in Europe!”
Martay was whispering so as not to be overheard but he was so flustered that it came out as a fairly audible hiss. A couple of other passengers shot the three of them odd looks but then turned back to browsing their phones, chatting and staring out of the windows.
“We’re stuck,” admitted Amy hopelessly.
Their fear was rising steadily again. Snipping had closed his mouth and his eyes had narrowed in concentration but he remained silent.
“I guess we could try travelling south towards Africa? That would get us out of Europe at least.” Amy was simply grabbing at any idea that crossed her mind.
“No good,” Martay replied, “without a plane or a boat we’d have to go through the Middle East which has its own dangers and extreme security. Also Snipping couldn’t…” he was going to say keep his disguise but rightly thought better of it and ended with, “stand the heat.”
“How about east into Russia then?” Amy proffered.
“That might work!”
Martay's voice brightened with a glimmer of hope. Snipping however shut the idea down immediately.
“Every option to get out o’ Europe’ll require a passport and all o’ the borders are a long distance away. And we don’t ‘ave that much time. How could I possibly ‘ave forgotten this?”
The question was mostly to himself and he shook his head slowly in a disgruntled way. He knew what the options were from here but was reluctant to suggest them.
“We need to take our chances. We ‘ave two problems, neither o’ which can be ignored. However, one is pressin’ and the other’s, we think, abated for the moment. I’d hoped to keep our plans hidden as long as possible. We can’t know what the enemy is doin’ for sure. Nevertheless, this is the best chance. We ‘ave to take the risk. If I can get a passport it’ll make all our choices much easier.”
He had carefully been talking around his actual idea so far, but he was nearing it.
“Besides,” he added with a meaningful look, “even runnin’ is pointless unless we use the time to train Amy.”
He didn’t say it directly but then again, he didn’t need to. They knew precisely what he was saying now. Amy shifted uncomfortably in her seat and Martay scowled.
“She just escaped from an attack and you want her to do the same thing that got her in trouble in the first place?”
Martay was feeling very protective.
“She was exposed cos the enemy was searchin’ for her. Now we think he’s stopped, even if it’s only temporarily. All chances carry some kind o’ risk.”
“Amy?”
Martay tried to get her input on the idea. She was staring into nothingness and wasn’t entirely following what the other two were saying. Martay's query brought her attention back to the conversation at hand. She had, in fact, already considered Snipping’s idea.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” she said slowly, “but I think it’s worth a try.”
Martay wasn’t going to try to argue with her but he was still scowling. Snipping gave her a serious but appreciative nod.
“I don’t think it will be any worse than getting stuck here and at least I can just wake up if he tries to… get inside my head again. Besides, I would have to sleep eventually and the Arbiter can probably give us some guidance.”
“In that case,” responded Snipping, “we’d better try as soon as possible.”
Amy wasn’t remotely tired. The sun was bright and the train was relatively noisy, all of which made her task a lot more difficult. She also still had reservations about entering dreams again. It had hardly been an hour since she had woken up and escaped the nightmare.
“Remember,” Snipping explained quietly, “a Dreamwalker can enter and leave the dream plane whenever they wish. It isn’t a case o’ fallin’ asleep. You need to will yourself to cross into the other plane.”
Not too long ago this kind of advice would have left Amy feeling exasperated inside, like he was asking the impossible but the coma had definitely changed something about her perceptions. She had actually felt what it was like to drift between the waking world and her dreams as if there was barely a difference between them. If anything, it had felt like the dream plane was more real than waking. She knew that what Snipping had said was plausible, and believing that made it easier to achieve.
As she thought about what she needed to do, she smiled faintly.
“This is like something out of Star Wars,” she told herself. It wasn’t about trying to feel sleepy, she just needed to stretch out with some kind of undefinable feeling. She needed to let herself sense the dream plane, let herself see it. As she did so, the strangest sensation filled her from within. It was like all weight had been lifted from her body. The world went quiet suddenly and her mind went temporarily empty.
Amy was walking slowly down a bright corridor, with purpose, but also with trepidation. She knew she was in the dream plane. She knew what was at the end of the corridor.
She was here for a very different purpose but this was important to her, more important perhaps than trying to contact the Arbiter or create a passport. Nevertheless, she thought hard about the Arbiter as she walked. She needed him now! She needed her questions to be answered.
&nb
sp; Her feet carried her forward until she passed through a set of doors and stopped to look around. As expected, she saw the policeman just to her right, slumped against the wall. She knelt down beside him and tears welled in her eyes. The intake of her breath was sharp and as she exhaled her whole body juddered in a rough way.
How could she have done this? At first her power had seemed exciting, wonderful, amazing! What greater dream come true could there be than to have the power to literally make any of your dreams come true? Now though, she wished she didn’t have the power at all. Then something happened that caused her to throw herself backwards in shock.
The policeman opened his eyes and lifted his head a little so that his chin was no longer resting on his chest. He groaned heavily and put a hand gingerly to the back of his head, which clearly pained him. Then he saw the shocked Amy on the ground a few feet away, breathing fast and unevenly.
“Are you alright dear? What happened?”
His voice was friendly and soothing. Amy stumbled over her words as she tried to respond. She knew this was a dream but she also knew that the officer was dead. What did this mean? How could he be alive in this type of dream if he was dead in reality? In a more human dream it would be perfectly normal but she knew from her training that she couldn’t, or until now at least, didn’t change anything subconsciously in an elven dream.
“You… you got knocked out… against the wall,” she managed faintly.
“And how did that happen?”
He seemed completely disoriented and confused.
“I… I don’t actually know,” Amy stammered. Then, unable to help herself, she blurted out, “I thought you were dead!”
“Not yet dear,” he smiled, “but I feel like my head is splitting in two. I’ll be alright though, don’t worry! What’s your name dear?”
“A… Amy.”
“Officer De Luca,” he replied, and after getting to his feet, helped Amy to hers as well.
“You look awfully shaken up Amy! I need to report to the captain quickly and find out what’s going on but I’ll get a nurse to come and check on you. I think you’d best be looked at before you go.”
Bridge Between the Worlds (Dreamwalker Book 1) Page 39