by Jan Nash
“Still. Tomorrow you need to go to the gym.” She held out the mug for Finn to take.
“I don’t want any more of that.”
Finn really didn’t want to drink the sludge. But Nana had clearly been instructed to make sure she did. Nana smiled at her. “I know. I’ll wash the mug for you. It’s a sticky mess and you have enough to do.”
Finn wasn’t willing to fight about it.
She left a little in the bottom of the mug and didn’t swallow her final mouthful. Nana didn’t notice. She took the mug, kissed Finn on the cheek, and left. Finn almost gagged as she rushed to the garbage can to spit out what was still in her mouth. She quickly drank the glass of water by her bed. Maybe dilution would help.
* * *
Finn spent another hour searching for something … anything that might reveal what had ultimately defeated Sydney. She now knew a lot about mazes, black grouse, and fevers in the eighteenth century, but not anything that could be helpful. And, thanks to the mug of gunk Nana had given her, she was exhausted.
Finn lay down on top of her sheets. She wasn’t sure what she planned to do. She wasn’t sure what she could do. In his notebook, Noah never talked about being scared. Confused, yes, but never scared.
Finn was scared. What if she wasn’t smart enough or strong enough to help Noah? What if she was too late and he was already lost? What if she wasn’t going to get another good night’s sleep for the rest of her life?
So far, being a Dreamwalker sucked.
She closed her eyes.
* * *
Finn heard movement in front of her, but it was so dark she couldn’t see what it was. Shouldn’t a Dreamwalker be able to get a little light in a room?
And just like that, the Lochran around her neck started to glow a little brighter, and Finn saw naked feet leading to naked legs; two bodies entwined on red sheets, faces hidden in the shadows.
A male hand traced a circle in the small of a woman’s back.
Finn didn’t want to be there, even if it was just a dream. She started to move back to the River when she heard a moan and, without thinking, turned toward it. The woman threw back her head into a shaft of moonlight that streamed through the window.
Finn was lying on the bed. Well, not Finn. A dreamed version of Finn, mostly like her but prettier and with fluffier hair. And, unlike the real Finn, naked and not alone. This couldn’t be her own dream, could it? Was that even possible?
Her mind was suddenly blank, and she couldn’t think of what to do next. She took a step back and bumped into a chair covered with clothes. It scooted into the wall with a thump.
“What was that?” she heard herself ask.
“Who cares?” the young man replied.
Jed.
Finn watched him lift himself up on his elbows, bringing his face into the moonlight. He was smiling. He looked happy.
This was Jed’s dream.
Finn really needed to go. She closed her eyes.
“So where were we?” she heard Jed ask.
Why was she still here? Wake up! she thought. It bounced like a scream around her head. She could hear Jed and Dream Finn kissing and laughing.
Finn felt her heart beating in her chest.
She willed the sound to get louder so it would block out the noises in the room.
BA-BOOM, BA-BOOM, BA-BOOM.
“Yes, just like—”
Louder!
BA-BOOM, BA-BOOM, BA—
The sound vibrated through her whole body but didn’t drown out a moan from the bed. Was that Jed or was it her? She didn’t want to know. What the hell did she have to do to get out of here? Somewhere else, Finn thought. And, unbidden, two more words: Deborah Marks.
Then—
* * *
Silence.
She was in a long and thin room. It was still dark, except for a small doorway in the distance. The walls were unfinished and covered with pipes. Crouching behind a pipe, she saw a shadow. Someone hiding. Finn took a step, and the shadow darted past her, knocking her over.
The “someone,” Finn quickly realized, was a mouse, about the same size she was. And, just as quickly, she knew the mouse was Deborah Marks. Something about it, the eyes, the way it moved: It was Deborah in mouse form.
Finn followed Mouse Deborah toward the doorway, which was really a hole in the wall. Mouse Deborah skittered into a large room. She ran around the baseboard, avoiding a man and a woman who sat at a table covered in ashes. They were thin, with hollow eyes. The woman at the table saw Mouse Deborah scurrying across the room. “There she is. Get her wallet!”
Finn wondered why a mouse would have a wallet right as the man jumped up and stamped his foot, sending Mouse Deborah back the way she’d come. The woman grabbed a broom and swatted at the small creature as it darted back and forth, trying to avoid being caught or killed. “Give it to me!” the woman screamed.
Mouse Deborah chirped in response. Finn remembered she was a mouse, too. If she wanted to understand, she could—
“Mom. Please. I don’t have any money,” Finn heard Mouse Deborah say.
But the woman didn’t understand or didn’t care. The broom kept flying. Mouse Deborah’s chirps became louder and more frightened.
Finn threw herself into the room. She saw her tiny mouse fingers on the floor. Her little legs churning as fast as they could toward the broom. Stop the broom.
“She brought a friend,” the man said, pointing at Mouse Finn.
Deborah’s mom swung the broom in Finn’s direction. It hit her and knocked her across the floor. Finn looked around, saw Mouse Deborah huddled underneath a cabinet. Finn scrambled to her feet.
“Run!” she yelled, though the sound came out as some sort of squeak. But it worked. Mouse Deborah began running back toward the hole in the wall.
Finn moved toward the man and woman. The man stomped on Finn’s tail. “Gotcha,” he said. Finn’s back burned from the pressure of her tail being pressed against the floor. Mouse Deborah disappeared into the wall as Deborah’s mother raised her foot to crush Finn.
She’s going to kill me, Finn thought. What happens then?
Above her, the foot started to come down.
I am not a mouse, she remembered. I am a Dreamwalker. Finn stood up on her hind legs and stretched her front legs high in the air. The shoe hit her paw and—
* * *
Finn woke up to someone whispering in her ear. She felt something wet hit her cheek.
“Good morning, sweetheart.”
Finn saw her mother leaning over her, smiling and crying at the same time. How long had she been sitting there, watching Finn, waiting for her to wake up? Her mother leaned over and wrapped her arms around Finn, at least as much as she could, given that Finn was lying down.
After a moment, Finn hugged her back. What else could she do?
TWELVE
Finn expected her mother to have a thousand questions about Noah and Rafe and the dreams. But she didn’t. She asked about school. And then, while Finn was getting dressed, her mom dug a beautiful Norwegian sweater out of her suitcase and gave it to her before they ate breakfast in Noah’s room. When they were finished, Julia finally said, “I guess we should talk about your dreams.”
Finn didn’t really want to go through the whole story again. She wanted to tell her mother that she had it handled, that she should leave Finn and Nana to take care of it, just as they’d taken care of everything else. Before she could say any of that, though, she glanced toward the kitchen where Nana was listening. Nana gestured with her head toward Julia. Tell her, the gesture said.
Deep down, Finn knew that Nana was probably right. If only because her mom might be able to help.
“Noah’s in my dreams,” she finally said. “He’s like a shadow of himself. Mostly Noah but not quite all there.”
Finn looked at her brother. In the silence, Finn realized they’d all fallen into rhythm with his breathing.
“What did Rafe say?” her mother asked.
&nbs
p; “I don’t care. I don’t trust him,” Finn replied.
Julia turned to Nana in the kitchen. “But you do?”
“Yes. Because Noah did.”
Julia nodded. After a moment, she stood up. “I guess we should talk to him.”
* * *
Rafe offered to come to the house, but Julia wanted to go to the gym.
Finn and her mom were quiet as they walked to the car. It was only when they both ended up at the passenger side that Julia asked, “Have you been practicing your driving?”
“There aren’t too many chances. Nana doesn’t drive much, just to the market and stuff. And she does all that when I’m home to watch Noah.”
Her mother handed her the keys. “No time like the present.”
Finn didn’t really want to drive. Her last experience had been horrible. Jed’s father had let her drive through town and then tried to teach her to parallel park. But Jed was in the back seat making jokes, and she ended up driving onto the curb. So, as she put on her seat belt and adjusted her mirrors, she set “not crashing” as her goal. It was a low bar, but one she thought she could manage.
As they drove through town, she could see her mother working an “invisible” brake, but Julia never corrected Finn or pointed out the obvious traffic dangers. Her mother passed the time by telling Finn about life in Norway and how the oil company had agreed to let her work from home for the foreseeable future.
“How long’s ‘foreseeable’?” Finn asked.
“I don’t know. How long will it take to make sure you’re safe?”
“Probably as long as it’ll take me to pull into this parking spot.”
Much to Finn’s dismay, the only parking spot she’d found near the gym was a parallel spot between a large pickup truck and an expensive sports car. Whoever drove the pickup had made no effort to pull close to the curb.
“Do you want to do it?” Finn asked her mother.
“This is easier than anything you’ve been through in the last year.”
And then, with a confidence that helped Finn understand how her mother thrived in an industry dominated by men who didn’t want to listen to her, her mom deftly explained how to parallel park.
Pull up next to the pickup. Put the car in reverse. Look over her right shoulder. As Finn got even with the rear of the truck, her mother told her to turn the steering wheel to aim the back of the car into the spot, then when she’d cleared the truck, to turn it the other direction. Straighten out and, just like that, Finn was parked. Admittedly, farther away from the curb than she was supposed to be, but she was in the spot.
Finn turned the car off and opened the door. The roof light came on. Finn could see her mother’s face reflected in the window in front of her.
“Did you think that Noah’s coma happened because he was a Dreamwalker?”
“Only when the doctors couldn’t find another cause.”
“You should have stopped him.”
Julia took the blow, then quietly said, “I didn’t know how.”
“It was your job to figure it out.” The words came out louder than Finn had intended. She wasn’t trying to pick a fight, she just didn’t understand how all these adults, all these people who were supposed to love Noah and take care of him, how they let this happen.
Finn watched her mother’s eyes darting back and forth, the way they did when she was thinking. Finally, they stopped. She reached out and touched Finn’s cheek. Her hand was warm. Her fingers were soft. “I know. I’ll do better this time.”
* * *
When they got inside, Julia looked around, and Finn realized she didn’t know where to go. “You’ve never been here before?”
“Rafe always picked Noah up. Or met us outside the gym.”
“What was he hiding?”
“It didn’t dawn on me that he was hiding anything.”
As they walked across the gym, Finn explained the crazy stairs, and when they got to them, Julia leaned over and ran her hands along the top and bottom of the second stair. “The center has been shaved to less than a millimeter. It’s not load-bearing at all.”
“I think that’s the point. You step there, you fall.”
Finn watched her mother run her fingers around a hole in another step.
“And this has been buffed smooth by going with the grain. The only way to do that would be by hand. It would have taken forever.”
Finn shrugged. “Just because they’re homemade doesn’t make him any less crazy.” And, with that, she moved forward to guide her mother up to the top, one careful footstep at a time.
* * *
Rafe wasn’t glad to see them. It wasn’t anything he said or did. He smiled when he opened the door, offered them a seat on the couch and some tea, but Finn could feel it. Something was off. After a few minutes, she decided it was guilt. More than anyone, Rafe was responsible for what happened to Noah. He let everyone believe the training was making Noah safe. He let Noah believe he could do what needed to be done. He’d been wrong.
When they started talking about Finn’s training, and Rafe’s theory that Noah was reaching out for her help, stuff Finn already knew, she stopped paying attention. She walked over to his bookcases and scanned the titles, looking for anything else that might help the search for her brother. She found an old book with a bird on its spine and pulled it off the shelf, but it was written in some ancient language that seemed more picture than alphabet. If it were helpful, she’d never know it. As she slid it back into its place, she glanced at her mother. Julia smiled at her. Finn could see that it was taking all her Mom’s willpower not to cry. Finn had been mad in the car, but, now, she couldn’t hold on to it. She flashed back to her mother’s dream …
What are you looking for?… You … I’m right here.
Finn felt the weight of her mother’s dream tears on her shoulder.
Julia didn’t want any of this to happen. But …
There was no way anyone could have stopped Noah. He was stubborn.
Maybe she and her mom should leave and go have breakfast, talk about school and boys and how cold it is in Norway. Finn was adrift in the list of things they could do to distract themselves when she heard her mom say, “Monastery.” It turned out Julia had been searching all over Europe for information about Dreamwalkers. She’d gone to libraries, universities, rare booksellers, and monasteries, any place with old books that seemed promising. It was how she spent her free time.
Finn watched her mom reach into her purse and pull out a stack of papers. The pages had been folded and unfolded hundreds of times. “There was a ledger from a clerk in a small town in northern England,” she said. “The early pages were lists of people’s property: sheep, cows, rounds of cheese. But then it started to get more frenzied, scribbles all over, drawings of crazy things. Like Noah’s journal.” She couldn’t photocopy the documents, so her mom had drawn them, replicating the frenzy as best as she could.
She held the pages out to Rafe, who cautiously took them, flipping through them as if they were dusted in poison.
“Malum,” he said quietly.
“It was written over and over again.” She paused. “I remembered it from Noah’s journal. There must be a connection, right?”
“It’s just a word.” From the look on her mother’s face, it was clear she didn’t believe that. Finn certainly didn’t. She doubted Rafe even believed what he was saying.
He handed the pages back to Julia, and she tucked them back in her purse.
“I’m not sure how they help.”
“Rafe, you have to do something,” Julia pleaded. “My son is dying, and my daughter is—”
She stopped, almost like she’d just remembered Finn was there. Finn looked between Rafe and her mother. Rafe saw her and looked away. Guilty. Why?
Did he know how to fix all this?
Did he know it couldn’t be fixed?
Finn’s eyes locked on the scar on Rafe’s neck. Something clicked.
“Why can’t you go into
the River anymore, Rafe?” she demanded. Her mother looked at her, confused. Maybe surprised.
“I just can’t.”
“Dreamwalkers are born. You said the gift chooses you. Why don’t you use your gift anymore? Why don’t you—”
“Shut up, Finn.” He leaped to his feet. His face was contorted with rage. “Just shut up!”
Finn shut up.
After a moment, he collapsed back onto the couch, his head in his hands.
It was the first moment since they’d met that Finn had actually liked him.
* * *
Finn and her mother sat there as Rafe struggled to control himself. His energy was sharp, anxious, but then slowly it evened out as he took some of the centering breaths he’d taught her the day before. In the silence, Julia reached out and took Finn’s hand. Her mother’s hands were cold.
Finally, Rafe lifted his head.
“Fifteen years ago, I died. Not figuratively. I died. I saw something in the dream world that scared me so much I ripped the Lochran from my neck. I didn’t know how powerful the cord was, how connected to me it had become. When I pulled it off, it cut my carotid artery. I was engaged at the time, and my fiancée was a nurse. She saved me. Explaining how I’d gotten a life-threatening injury lying in bed was … harder.”
“Like Sydney Norwich,” Finn said.
“Yes.” He rubbed the scar. To Finn’s eye, it looked angrier than it had just a moment before.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Julia asked.
“I knew Noah wasn’t going to stop, and I…” He paused a long time. “I thought maybe if I could help him, it would help me.” Julia reacted, but Rafe jumped in before she could say anything. “I did try to help him. I did everything I could to get him to wait, to take the herbs. And when that didn’t work, I tried to convince him it was okay to go into the River without actually helping people. I even called a Dreamwalker I know in Brazil to see if she could find Noah in the dream space and talk to him. But all he wanted to talk about was how he could be better, stronger. He wouldn’t even consider stopping.” Finn knew that side of Noah.