The Dream Catcher's Daughter

by Steven Fox

  This got a chuckle out of Gelen and her guards. The Queen’s face darkened. “I’m certain the dream inside Talshe is terrifying, but according to F, it is weak. Right now, it can barely drive Talshe to do its bidding. If you absorb the inner dream, perhaps absorbing Talshe shall become easier.”

  “I hope so,” said Jason.

  He looked out the window. Even from his spot on the floor, he could see the ring and the balcony at the end of it. Talshe wasn’t there yet. Jason rose to his knees, then his feet. His legs were wobbly, but the guards helped steady him.

  “We’ll guide you to the ring,” said E. “But we won’t follow you to the balcony. No telling what that giant might do. We’ve already lost one of our sisters.”

  “No, it’s fine. She wants me, I’ll give her me.”

  When Jason looked to her, the Queen dropped her gaze. A slight blush invaded her cheeks. “I apologize. You remind me of someone I know.”

  “Same here, Queen Gelen.”

  Without further distraction, the guards and Gelen led Jason through the castle. He didn’t bother to look around and admire the different rooms. He focused solely on Talshe and the Thing inside her.

  Thing—the sixth dream’s name.

  The guards stopped at a titanic door that seemed to change color with every twitch of the eye. One moment it looked blue, the next silver. He glanced over to Gelen, whose dress had changed again—into a black skirt with matching veil. Jason hoped her wardrobe didn’t reflect Gelen’s inner thoughts. The Queen nodded to her guards, and they moved to one of the doors, gripping the gigantic handle. The three of them pulled the door open a crack, giving Jason just enough room to comfortably walk between them. He looked back to the Queen, and smiled.

  The Queen smiled, and raised a fist. “Forth, young Jason!”

  He also raised a fist. “Forth!”

  ***

  The trek to the balcony took less time than Jason thought it would, even though he spent most of it staring at his feet, at the see-through surface of the ring. The city and its many streets lay far below, even farther than Jason might have realized from down there. It made his stomach gurgle with queasiness. But he pressed on.

  She was there, on the balcony, standing roughly two inches taller than him. Jason wondered if this was Talshe’s normal height. Somewhere in his gut he felt it to be true, but he had no reason to believe it. Still, he couldn’t help the feeling. Especially when Talshe turned around and smiled—nostalgia floored him.

  But that’s stupid, he thought. Why nostalgia?

  Talshe crossed her arms, her smile turning into a smirk. “I knew you’d give up.”

  She turned and stepped off the side of the balcony. Jason rushed forward. Halfway to the edge, Jason stopped as Talshe’s head rose above the balcony. When she stopped growing, Talshe’s bust was on level with Jason. Talshe lowered one hand, palm-up, and bridged her fingers across the edge of the balcony. A mile-wide grin was plastered on her face. Reluctantly, Jason stepped up onto the balcony’s rail and crawled into her hand. Talshe quickly raised him to her face without giving him a chance to stand. Her smile widened. Yet, as Jason stared into her eyes, he saw something else.

  “Now,” said Talshe, “you pay the price.”

  “What price? What’ve I done to you?”

  She tilted her head slightly. “You’re still playing that game? That’s sad. I hoped bringing you here would wake you up.”

  “Wake…me up?”

  She pinched him between two fingers and lifted him above her. Jason stared down into the large gray face. It was only then, dangling high above his possible doom, that Jason saw it, etched deep into the giantess’s features: Sadness.

  Talshe tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Her abysmal mouth opened wide, the back of her throat twitching. She dropped Jason in. And swallowed.

  SEVENTEEN

  He splashed in something that smelled like stale burp. Jason jumped up, shaking himself dry as it slowly stung his flesh. The spongy ground below him shook. Everything around him seemed to sway and jiggle. A loud gurgle came from nearby, so Jason jogged in the opposite direction. It was then his foolishness dawned on him. How could he hope to find his way toward the sixth dream? What if the sixth dream wasn’t even in Talshe’s stomach, in Talshe’s body? He ran until he hit a fleshy wall, slick with something that smelled like vomit and plastic. Jason wished he’d paid attention in biology, but he’d never thought he would be getting a live demonstration on how the human stomach worked. Then again, Talshe wasn’t human, so neither was her stomach.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jason spotted a pinprick of light. Any other time, he might’ve thought it was just an illusion. But, so far, the stomach had been pitch black. Anything was better than wandering until he melted into goop. As he made for the light, the burning sensation intensified. He ran his fingers along every part of him that he could touch, but didn’t feel any lesions in his flesh. Of course, if he were bleeding, he wouldn’t be able to tell by touch, thanks to the stomach juices and bile slick upon his skin.

  The light grew steadily, and this lifted Jason’s hopes. After a few minutes, it also seemed the burns were fading. Jason’s shoes hit something solid, and he nearly fell on his face. The stomach lining had turned into concrete. Dry, firm concrete. Up ahead, where the light winked at him, a door appeared. Jason gripped the key in his pocket. He sighed in relief; he hadn’t dropped it outside of Talshe. Finally, he would be able to use it. He would let himself inside, as Len had said.

  The light came from the top of a lamppost, which stood only a few yards from the door. The door seemed to be part of a wall made not of stomach lining, but wood. The design of the door, though faded, struck a chord in his memory: Jason had come to a mansion and, inside, the Thing said it would devour Jason completely. But Jason had escaped. He’d left the Thing in ruins.

  He inserted the key into the lock. But it didn’t fit. He stared at it a moment, mouth flopped open, then tried again. But no matter how many times he tried, the key wouldn’t go in. He shoved the key back into his pocket. It was a stupid thought, but he wondered if the door wasn’t actually locked. He grabbed the doorknob, turned it without complaint, and pushed open the door. He felt slightly stupid, but that wasn’t the main thought on his mind.

  This place wasn’t the mansion he remembered: Everything was broken, covered in dust and cobwebs. Mold had overtaken the walls, crawling up from the floorboard in black vines. Jason covered his mouth, though the mildewy stench snaked through his fingers and crawled into his nose. The hallway stretched to his left and right. He saw a light to his left, and headed toward it. Along the floor were shards of pottery and shredded paintings—the result of a long struggle with the Thing. Jason shivered. The stomach had been so warm and damp, but this place felt colder than a meat locker. He came to an open door, and froze. Music—it had a festive feel, with an upbeat tempo and bright melody. But it seemed sloppy, as though played by a group of inexperienced and exhausted high school students.

  Jason recognized the music.

  The pressure in the back of his head resurfaced. The liquid stone trickled into his fingers. “Forth,” he said.

  But the pressure continued to hum in the back of his head, as if following the music. Jason almost turned to leave, but he heard a voice, and it said to him, “Jason! I can’t see the parade, lift me on top of your shoulders!”

  And Jason heard himself reply, “Hop on, Miss Tara! All aboard the McKinney express!”

  “You’re such a goof!”

  “But you love me, right?”

  “Love you with all my heart, Jayce.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Jason turned back toward the door. His chest tightened around his galloping heart. His lips felt dry, his throat parched. Everything around him seemed darker, and the only light within miles was the sliver through the doorway. Part of him said to keep moving, to look for the sixth dream. The rest of him—ninety-five percent of him—said to enter the do
or.

  He did.

  He stepped into a crowd on a sunny day. None of it felt like an illusion: the sun baked his neck; the people moved around and bumped into him; everything was real. His heart fluttered as he glanced behind him. But Tara wasn’t on his shoulders.

  “Hurry up, pokey!” said Tara.

  “All right, all right, your majesty!” said Jason.

  Jason turned around, and saw her only feet away from him. Yet, she was standing right next to him—the past him. A muscle in Jason’s jaw ticked as he watched Tara mount Jason’s back. Not that he was jealous of himself, but of the smile they shared as the past Jason lifted Tara, seated on his shoulders, into the air. Jason shifted from foot to foot, thinking, No. Please, don’t do this to me. I know what happens next.

  But the day continued. And Jason found that he couldn’t move from his spot. So he stared after the smiling couple.

  From down the street blared fire truck sirens. People sat atop the trucks, shooting squirt guns at the crowd and chucking candy for all the kids. Behind them were the little men in go-carts, doing tight circles in the narrow street as they chased after the fire trucks. Tara bent forward and whispered into the side of past Jason’s head. His smile cracked wide before they both let out gleeful laughter. Jason clenched his fists.

  “This is torture,” he said.

  “good.”

  Jason wheeled around, and there stood Shades, glaring at him with its red eyes. “What are you doing here?” he said.

  “making sure you suffer making sure you remember everything soon everything you remember will belong to me.”

  A yelp. A scream, and someone thudded against the sidewalk pavement. A hush fell throughout the crowd, and most of them turned in the same direction. All except Jason; he had the words memorized, and didn’t need to see it again.

  “You bastard!” shouted Tara. “Traitor! Son of a bitch! You said you’d love me no matter what!”

  Silence.

  Tara scrambled to her feet. Biting her bottom lip, Tara sprinted through the crowd, away from the past Jason, who remained silent. She passed Jason and Shades, cradling her right wrist. Shades’s eyes flickered toward Tara as she passed. Jason whispered ‘forth’ under his breath, but it hardly seemed to help his thudding heart and queasy head. Shades looked back to Jason. He could almost see its face, the vague outline of a twisted smile on its chapped lips. Lips the creature had used to kiss Jason.

  Jason’s eyes widened, and he stopped saying forth.

  “You—”

  “now go your worst nightmare is waiting.”

  And the shadowy creature kicked Jason in the gut. He clutched his stomach as he fell back. The parade and the sun disappeared, sucked into a long, twisting darkness. The darkness seemed to grow longer, slanting at an upward angle. Wooden steps crunched into his back, and Jason realized he was falling down stairs. His vision cut out, and he heard his favorite words: “Sleep and forget. Forget and sleep. Sleep and forget…”

  ***

  “Wake.”

  Jason thought he was dreaming. Strangely, his dream point-of-view was from the floor, looking up at a tall man wearing a suit and cloak. The man held a broken umbrella in his right hand, in the left a small orb of light that sniffled. Blood ran down the side of his face, his suit and pants jagged with rips and tears. The man looked down at the orb. “I’m sorry. There’s no way I can make it out of here.”

  The orb sniffled louder.

  “I know you don’t want me to stay. But I can’t let Talshe and the others suffer alone. It was my idea; I’ll see it through.” The man moved toward the steps—the same steps Jason fell down—when a burst of light erupted from up above. The man looked up, his eyes narrowing. “You? But aren’t you one of the—”

  A ball of fiery light struck the man in the chest, and he fell back, dropping his umbrella. He somehow clung to the orb, which sniffled and snorted loudly.

  “It’s okay,” the man said. “I can handle this myself.”

  “I think not.”

  The voice came from high on the stairs, higher than what Jason could see from the floor. The man held the orb high in his hand.

  “It’s this you want. What for? It’ll only give you a good sense of smell. Unless your hobby is smelling roses?”

  “Hardly. I know who you are. And I know what you can do. I also know what your creation can do. I’m sure you know as well as I that she’ll make the perfect vessel.”

  “Is that what your master told you? Sorry to disappoint you, but I have no intention of letting you have this.”

  The man snapped his fingers, and the hall flooded with white light.

  ***

  Jason opened his eyes, and found himself on the floor at the foot of the stairs. He jerked up, looking around. It was the same basement hallway. That man holding the orb…he had been here too. Jason snapped his head in the direction of a noise from down the hall, where complete and utter blackness awaited him. After regaining his bearings, he stood and leaned against the wall for support. He felt winded and was shocked to find his body unbroken. Then again, he’d fallen down the stairs at Len’s house and survived. Perhaps he was just lucky.

  The farther he moved down the hall, the clammier his skin became. His knees trembled. He thought he might vomit, but kept it down. No time to show weakness. Not when that Thing waited for him at the end of the hall. It was in the belly of darkness, halfway between the stairs and the end of the hall, that he first heard it:

  McKinney, said the voice. You’ve come back. Excellent. Have you enjoyed my hospitality? It certainly seems so. Come, come! Your shambling only delays the inevitable. You knew this day would eventually come.

  On the surface, Jason had no idea what the voice was talking about. But something inside him felt enraged. Defeated. He did know that he never wanted to come back here. He never wanted to see the Thing in the basement again. A light broke up ahead. There, a thick steel door stood ajar. A lock and chain lay in a twisted heap on the floor, which troubled Jason.

  The Thing couldn’t have gotten out, let alone mangle that lock.

  He chased the thought away as he stepped into what looked like a medieval torture chamber. The ceiling was high-arching, with four pillars supporting it. Metal spikes ran up and down the length of these pillars, chains slithering down toward the center of the room, which lay at the bottom of a pit. Water dripped from high above. Jason’s feet splashed in small puddles as he descended into the pit. Already he could see the Thing at the bottom, secured in place by the chains. Though Jason had a gut feeling the chains were useless, he continued his descent.

  The pressure struck so suddenly that Jason flinched, gripping the back of his head tightly with both hands. For a moment, the chamber wasn’t there. He was back at the parade, two years ago. Tara Engel was on his shoulders; he felt her warmth pressed against his neck. The smile across his lips almost hurt, that was how much he enjoyed the feeling.

  And when he turned to look at her, she lay on the ground, cradling her wrist. Tears rolled down her face as she shouted, “Bastard! Traitor! Son of a bitch!” Her skin turned mottled and gray, rotted and dead.

  He ripped his eyes open, staring down into the pit. He looked directly at it, at the Thing bound by chains—a green-scaled fish the length of an SUV and about as wide. It had long, whip-like fins that were pasty-white. Despite being above water, the fish’s massive gills flapped with its breath. But the most unique features were its eyes and mouth: Its eyes, much like its skin, were a rich green, and its mouth was twisted into a cruel smile, with perfectly white teeth glimmering in the torchlight.

  “Ah, you’ve made it,” said the fish-Thing. “I have to give you credit. I didn’t think Talshe’s stomach would let you go so easily.”

  Jason clenched his fists. He faced the giant fish, but his eyes wanted to settle anywhere else but on the unnatural smile and human-like eyes.

  “What’s the matter? Can’t look me in the face? I bet not. You’re probably sick
of looking at me. After all, I’ve been goading you into coming since day one. Now we can have a little chat.” The giant fish shifted, its chains falling to the floor in a heap. Its whip-like fins rose into the air and danced like hypnotized cobras, swaying back and forth.

  “First, we need to get rid of an unnecessary annoyance. Isn’t that right, Shades?”

  The shadow’s slender arms snaked down Jason’s chest. Its breath felt hot on his left ear. Before Jason could think to move, Shades snatched the key from his pocket.

  “i’ll never let you have this even after you die.”

  It shoved Jason forward, onto his knees. He looked back just in time to see Shades lower the key into its mouth. With an audible gulp, the key disappeared into Shades’s body.

  “Why?” said Jason. “Why are you doing this?”

  The fish-Thing answered, “Because you know her.”

  Its fins lashed out, catching Shades around its wrists and ankles. It stared at the fins, its red eyes unblinking. But Jason could see the scowl etched into the creature’s lips.

  “what are you doing Thing we have a deal.”

  “I don’t make deals with food.”

  The other fins wrapped around Shades’s waist, and jerked it off its feet. In a flash, the shadow flew through the air, catapulting straight into the fish’s gaping maw. And like that, Shades disappeared. Thing didn’t even swallow. Once the shadow was gone, the fish’s fins returned to its sides, and the grin returned.

  “That was annoying. But we’re finally alone.”

  Jason glanced back over his shoulder toward the stairs. If he had to make an escape, he could try, though he didn’t know how far those fins could reach.

  “What is there to talk about?”

  The creature’s smile grew wide, and Jason winced at the pressure in the back of his head. He needed to run now. No matter what the fish-Thing said.

  “Perhaps we could start with your mother? Or, should I say, the Dream Caller?”

  Jason no longer cared about the staircase behind him. His eyes focused on the green fish-Thing. “You’re lying. She’s dead.”