Baylor's Guide to Dreadful Dreams

by Robert Imfeld

  He worked at the high school, but all the teachers at the middle school got the memo, too. English class turned into an open reading period, and during social studies we watched battered VCR recordings of classic news segments.

  It was clear the day was a joke, and by lunchtime I was wondering if I could escape the premises and slip home unnoticed. As I was plotting out a strategy in the lunch line—today was the Thanksgiving special, complete with slimy turkey slices, cold corn, and mashed potatoes that tasted like recycled cardboard—someone grabbed my shoulder and yanked me out of line.

  “What’d you do to my brother, Bosco?” asked Cam Nguyen, his sizable cheeks looking rosier than usual after he’d dragged me a few feet away where no one could hear us. Cam was in the grade below me and also in the band, and I instantly remembered the incident on Saturday. It was his little brother I’d accidentally scared.

  “Oh, listen Cam, I’m sorry if I scared him,” I said. “I thought he and his friends were bullying Jack, but it was all a misunderstanding.”

  “Minh’s not a bully,” he said, still furious. “If anyone’s a bully here, it’s you. He hasn’t slept for the last few nights because you scared him so bad.”

  “Scared him? But . . . but I didn’t scare him,” I said. “I just talked to him.”

  “He said you were talking to a ghost,” he hissed, lowering his voice as he said the word “ghost.”

  “His grandpa,” Kristina said, flittering over. “You never actually delivered that message because all the kids ran away scared.”

  “That’s true,” I said, nodding. “It was actually your grandpa, now that I’m, uh, thinking of it. He said to tell you—well, actually Minh, but I’m sure you’re a good alternative—that he misses you.”

  Cam’s eyes turned dark. “This . . . this is the problem! You go around thinking everyone wants to hear stuff like that, Baylor, but not everyone does,” he said, throwing his hands up. “Especially not a seven-year-old who’s still afraid of the dark. He used to get by with three night-lights, but lately we’ve had to leave all his lights on just so he doesn’t feel scared in his room.”

  “Is there a problem here, gentlemen?” asked Mr. Connell, the toad-voiced vice-principal. He scuttled over from the end of the line and gave us each a once-over. “You’re not going to make the last day before break a difficult one for me, are you?”

  “No, sir,” Cam said, though he was still glaring at me. “I was just leaving.”

  “That’s what I thought,” he said as Cam walked to his table, crushing his brown paper lunch bag in his fist. “Baylor Bosco, I don’t know what’s gotten into you this year, but trouble seems to have taken a liking to you.”

  I shrugged. “It’s my calling, I guess.”

  TIP

  9

  Sharks aren’t the scariest things the ocean has to offer.

  EVERYONE CHEERED AFTER THE FINAL bell rang. On our walk out, Bobby was bouncing in excitement.

  “No school for five days,” he said dreamily. “I feel like singing! Five-day weekend, five-day weekend, just for me, just for me. Then I get to eat a ton, turkey, turkey, turkey, turkey, just for me, just for me.”

  Aiden, J, and I gawked at him as he kept humming the tune of his own special song. Kristina hovered just over his shoulder as if she were trying to check inside his ears.

  “He must have a fever,” she muttered to herself.

  “Bobby,” J said sharply, “if you ever do that again, our friendship is over.”

  “Please, J,” he said, smiling widely. “You’d last four minutes before you’d come crawling back to me.”

  J suppressed a smile and shook her head. “I think I’d be just fine, thank you very much.”

  “Who’d be fine in a world without Bobby Wackendorf?” he asked in horror. “I shudder at the thought of it.”

  Aiden was taking in the conversation in his usual awkward way, perpetually flustered that anyone could talk to J without first having to count to ten and take several deep breaths. He’d never admitted it to me, but I knew he was jealous of Bobby’s sheer effortlessness when it came to talking. I could almost see Aiden studying Bobby whenever he spoke, mentally taking notes on how to act cool. Then I pictured him trying to be cool in front of the mirror in his bathroom at home, and I shook my head. I really hoped that wasn’t true.

  “Everyone’s staying in town for break, right?” asked J. “Let’s hang out on Friday or Saturday.”

  “My cousins are going to be in town for Thanksgiving,” I said, “but as long as they can come?”

  “The more the merrier!” J said to me. She turned to Bobby and Aiden. “Do you guys have any visitors?”

  “Lots of cousins,” Bobby said, “but they’re all either ten years older or ten years younger than me, so I won’t be inviting them to come hang out with us, unless you guys want to spend two hours at Build-A-Bear.”

  Aiden’s eyes flashed in excitement, and I frowned at him.

  “I’m sure he’d love another for his collection,” Kristina said to me, smirking.

  “What about you, Aiden?” J asked.

  “Um . . . it’s just me and my mom this year,” he said, looking at his shoes. “Usually my grandparents come in, but they couldn’t make it.”

  “Oh,” J said. She turned to me and her eyebrows shot up. I shrugged. “That’s a bummer.”

  “It’s fine,” he said quickly, scanning the cars in the pick-up lane. “We’ll probably just get some pizza since it’s a lot for my mom to cook for just two people. Oh, there she is.” Through the front passenger window we could see Mrs. Kirkwood leaning over the center console and waving at us with both hands. “Text me about the plans. And happy Thanksgiving!” He smiled weakly and scrambled to the car. We could just make out Mrs. Kirkwood screaming “Hi, kids!” before Aiden slammed the door shut.

  As they drove away, J looked at me and frowned. “I feel terrible. It’s just the two of them for Thanksgiving dinner? And they’re going to order a pizza?”

  “Depressing,” Bobby said, shaking his head.

  “I didn’t know, either,” I said.

  “I’m sure Mom wouldn’t mind having them over,” Kristina said.

  I nodded. “Maybe they can come to the Bosco Thanksgiving extravaganza?”

  “You should ask your mom!” J said as she waved to her dad. “I gotta go, but let me know how it goes.”

  Thanksgiving was my mom’s time to shine. Chopping random vegetables in the kitchen was her main form of stress relief, and figuring out how to combine them in creative, not disgusting ways had become a specialty of hers. Through the years, she learned you can mix just about anything into a casserole and no one will really know the difference as long as there’s enough cheese in it.

  After I was home, I told Mom what Aiden had said. She looked horrified.

  “Oh no,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “I feel awful.”

  “Well, it’s not too late to invite them over, right?” I shrugged, eating one of the cookies she’d baked to celebrate the long break. “Just call her.”

  “That’s not it,” she said, putting her hand over her face. “I was telling Karen last week how I was so happy it was going to be just family this year, with none of the random stragglers we’ve had over the last couple years.”

  It was true—our Thanksgivings usually turned into a Who’s Who of misfits. Last year Grandma Renee had invited a few people from her church who had nowhere else to go, and the year before that Aunt Hilda had invited two of her friends who’d then invited a couple of their friends without telling her. Before we knew it, we’d had eight extra people at the house, and my dad had to run to the store to buy rotisserie chickens so they could trick people into thinking they had enough food.

  “I don’t understand the problem,” I said. “She won’t remember you saying that. I can text Aiden if you don’t want to tell Mrs. Kirkwood.”

  “Of course she’ll remember I said that,” she said, incredulous. “I wa
s such a jerk about it. I went on and on about how it was going to be enjoyable this year without having to worry about any of the charity cases that have been showing up.” She groaned. “It was not my finest moment.”

  “She’s not going to think she’s a charity case,” I said.

  “Baylor, you are so sweet and innocent and naive,” she said, kissing the top of my head. “That’s exactly what she’s going to think.”

  Kristina chuckled. “Silly Baylor,” she said. “So naive.”

  I called J afterward to tell her what my mom said.

  “I don’t get the problem,” I said. “I’ll just text Aiden and tell him to come. I really don’t think his mom would remember.”

  “Baylor, how dumb are you?” J said. “Of course Mrs. Kirkwood’s going to remember. I guarantee you that if you invited them over now, she’d only feel like a charity case. She’d come up with some excuse as to why she and Aiden wouldn’t be able to join.” She sighed. “Your poor mom. I bet she feels awful.”

  “Women are so weird,” I said. “You think too much.”

  “Maybe you don’t think enough,” J snapped.

  Kristina laughed from the bed and said, “She’s got that right.”

  I glared at her as J kept speaking. “Even if we can’t save his Thanksgiving, maybe there’s something else we can do to help him. He needs a confidence boost. I mean, he’s too scared to even hold my hand!”

  “What do you have in mind?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure yet,” she said slowly, clearly tossing around a million ideas in her mind. “But I’ll think of something.”

  After I hung up the phone, Kristina was smiling dreamily. “I like J. She keeps you on your toes.”

  “You just like her because she snaps at me like you do. You see too much of yourself in her.”

  “Only the good qualities,” she said. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “We have very different definitions of good,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “And mine’s the better one.”

  “Anyway,” I said, eager to change the subject, “I’m just happy break is starting. I need a few days to process this whole dreamwalking thing. It’s starting to really mess with me.”

  She frowned. “What happened now? Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

  “Too tired,” I said. “I feel like I haven’t gotten any sleep.”

  “Well, maybe if you would just stay put in your own dreams for a while, there wouldn’t be a problem,” she said irritably.

  “But there’s too much to explore,” I said, rubbing my eyes. Then I remembered my revelatory little chat with Marge. “I ran into Aunt Hilda’s friend Marge. You don’t know her because Rosalie had already nabbed you at that point, but last night she told me about the Dream Portal. She calls it Loved Ones’ Lane. You failed to mention that ghosts could use the same room to visit people too.”

  She turned away, fidgeting with something on her ghost shirt. “Did I?” she mumbled.

  “You sure did,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me? Do you ever visit Mom and Dad?”

  She nodded, still going to town at the invisible thread on her shirt.

  “How often?”

  She straightened her already pristine skirt. “Fairly regularly.”

  “Wait a second. That means they can see you, though.”

  “When they see me, they think I’m Ella as a teenager,” she said quietly. “And I don’t bother to correct them.”

  “But why?” I asked. “You could have had a relationship with them all this time.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Baylor,” she said sadly. “Ghosts can’t just drop in whenever they want. The visits are reserved for special circumstances, and they’re meant to pass on comforting messages and vibes from the Beyond. I can’t just start a relationship with them in their dreams.”

  “Why not? That’s exactly what you can do.”

  “Maybe in a lucid dream,” she said, “but in a regular dream it just wouldn’t work. They’re too outlandish. I’d be asking Mom to pay attention to me while she’s running around in a cooking competition, trying to cut her vegetables with dull spoons or something.” She shrugged, her face wistful. “I just like to be with them sometimes.”

  “That’s so depressing,” I said. “Does Mom really dream about stuff like that?”

  She nodded. “She’s a Food Network Star in her dreams.”

  “I’ll have to check out her show one of these nights,” I said, laughing. “Can you explain something, though? Why would Will Parker show up as one of my loved ones? That makes no sense to me.”

  “You forged a strong bond with him and Isabella, even if you don’t realize it now,” she said.

  “But I wouldn’t say they were my loved ones,” I said.

  She shrugged. “It’s not up to you.”

  “What?”

  “That’s decided in the Beyond.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” I said. “I should have a say over who shows up in my lane.”

  “Well, sorry, Baylor, but that’s just the way it is. It’s never been an issue before since the Beyond never had to account for bratty teenage mediums.”

  “I will consider your apology,” I said. “Though, to be frank, it didn’t sound that sincere.”

  “Gosh, you’re smart,” she said sarcastically.

  “I have another question about the dreams,” I said. It felt like a scratchy rope with a ten-pound weight was tied around my vocal cords.

  “You’ve got to be kidding. Let it go.”

  “Just listen. At the end of my lane I keep seeing this ocean scene. It doesn’t seem like a dream, though. It looks just like a real night sky and a big wavy sea. I thought I saw something in the distance, but I couldn’t be sure. At first it felt like something was really wrong, but the second time it happened, I swam out and talked to this kid. He was with a girl, and they were on an overturned boat. I talked to him for a second, but then a wave hit and I was right back on the lane.”

  Kristina looked at me like I had grown an extra ear in the middle of my forehead. “You didn’t go through a dream door?” she asked, her voice tense.

  “Nope,” I said. “It sort of just happened.”

  “That’s . . . bizarre. Believe me, there’s no beach access off Loved Ones’ Lane for any of the other ghosts who use it. Ghosts hate the ocean.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The ocean’s just a big void to ghosts because there’s no people in it,” she said. “It’s a vast empty space, and they’re afraid of getting sucked out to sea and lost forever.”

  “Lost forever? Can’t they just cross back into the Beyond?”

  “It’s not that easy. Living people serve as the focal points for ghosts. If ghosts get separated from loved ones, there’s no easy way for them to return to the Beyond, and they’re endangering the welfare of their eternal souls.” She shook her head. “They’re called the Lost Souls. Sometimes they find their way back, but a lot more of them wind up wandering for years, and before long, they transform.”

  “Into what?”

  “It depends. Sometimes they just disappear and become part of the Earth’s energy. Sometimes they devolve into demons. I’ve heard the Bermuda Triangle’s swarming with Ashens and who knows what else.”

  Ashens are new, freshly converted demons. They’re the least dangerous of all the demons, which is the equivalent of saying rat poison is the least poisonous of all the poisons. They’re still bad, but there are much, much worse.

  She frowned. “The Lost Souls are so far gone that they’ve become devoted to evil and deception. Tricking boat crews and airplane pilots, wreaking havoc, and feasting upon the souls of innocent people caught in their wake of destruction and death. They have no choice but to drift along with them forever, and soon enough, they transform too.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I said. “They sound like an evil motorcycle gang of the seas.”

  “Kind of. The ocean is a
mysterious force,” she said with a shrug. “I mean, why do you think people like going to the beach so much?”

  “Because people find the ocean relaxing?”

  “Exactly. Most people don’t go to the beach to roll around in the sand. They’re there for the ocean, even if they don’t realize it. Spirits steer clear of the ocean to avoid the Lost Souls, and that makes it easier for people to relax.”

  “Well, it’s also beautiful and fun,” I said.

  “Right,” Kristina said, nodding, “because the spirits aren’t there to bother them.”

  “I feel like it would still be relaxing and beautiful and fun even if the spirits were brave enough to show up.”

  “That’s unlikely.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s very likely.”

  “I guess we’ll never know,” she said brightly.

  “Right. So if I’m randomly dreaming of oceans, does that mean my soul could get sucked away too?”

  “You’re not a ghost,” she said. “You’re fine.”

  “But then what could it be? Whose dream was it?”

  She hesitated. “It could be any number of reasons, Baylor. Hopefully it won’t happen again.” Except that it had already happened a couple times, and there was no reason for it to not occur again. That sense of dread I’d felt was too real for me to ignore, and I couldn’t help but suspect someone—or some spirit—might have needed my help.

  That night, though, after I watched Mom beat Bobby Flay in a grilling competition, I walked to the end of the lane and found the stars and the moon and the oceans waiting for me. I searched through the vast, dimly lit expanse for some clue, for a dark figure in the shadows, and I jumped off the edge of the lane and propelled myself in the direction I’d gone before. As I got closer, though, another shape popped up and distracted me.

  It was a very faint, thin band of white in the shape of a rectangle, far out in the distance, hovering in the sky. I changed directions and headed for the rectangle. As I swam, the amulet warmed against my chest, but my attention quickly turned back to the strange shape. No matter how hard I swam toward it, though, it stayed the same distance away from me, completely out of reach.