River of Dreams

by Jan Nash

  Rafe offered Julia a sad smile. “I also knew that if I told you my story, you’d just worry more than you were already worrying.” He smiled at her. There was a kindness to it. Maybe this was the side of him that Noah saw.

  Julia looked at Finn and then at Rafe. “I guess you should tell us everything. But maybe some tea first.”

  Rafe followed Julia to the kitchen. Finn could hear them whispering and assumed it was about whether he should tell Finn the truth or not about what happened to him. Finn could tell by Julia’s tone that she was being insistent. At one point she pretended to look at a book on the bookshelf to get closer, but they stopped talking. Her mom came out of the kitchen with tea and something like a smile.

  They all sat down on the couch. Julia and Rafe on either side of Finn.

  Rafe handed her a notebook and a ballpoint pen. “Take notes, ask questions at the end. Once I get started, don’t interrupt me, or I might not want to keep going.” He waited for Finn to open the notebook and click the end of her pen.

  And once he started talking, the words flooded out of him.

  * * *

  Rafe’s mother died when he was twelve. When he turned sixteen, there was no one to help him understand what was happening in his dreams. It was only years later, when he found a stack of letters belonging to his mother hidden in an old piece of furniture, that he discovered she’d had the gift, too.

  He’d wandered through the River for years, popping in and out of people’s dreams and nightmares without thinking he should help them or having any fear that he might harm them. Until the day he found himself in the middle of a war. A battle between a small group of men and women and an army of creatures from every myth he’d ever read. Rafe stayed on the fringes until one of the creatures attacked him. A woman ran over and defended him. She screamed at him, “Dreamwalker, draw your sword!” And when Rafe looked down, he realized he had a sword. He joined the battle. Ultimately, the creatures retreated, and almost immediately, the Dreamwalkers disappeared, called to their own dawns or destinies. Rafe was left with real-life cuts and bruises and even more questions. From that day, he decided to figure out what a Dreamwalker was and how he could do it better than anyone else.

  “All these books,” Rafe said, looking around the room, “helped me understand how I was supposed to do it.” He traveled around the world to find other Dreamwalkers and learn from them. It became his calling. He worked to be the best, most powerful version of himself. He devoted his energy to helping people in their dreams. He wanted to make their lives better, make the world better.

  It gave his life purpose.

  “Until…”

  It hung there. Just like with Noah, something had gone wrong.

  Rafe had been helping an older woman. She reminded him of his mother. Over a series of weeks, she was trapped in a recurring nightmare: accused of being a witch by villagers with torches, who held dogs that pulled at their leashes, eyes flashing fire. The woman was dragged from her house and tortured.

  Each night, Rafe bravely tried to help her. On most nights, he failed. Arriving too late, or unable to vanquish the crowds. He spent his waking hours trying to find her so he could understand why it was happening. He grew tired and weak. His fiancée begged him to go to a doctor, to get help. Rafe knew he should stop, but he couldn’t let the old woman down. He kept trying to help.

  Until that final night.

  He arrived at the old woman’s dream home and found it empty. For a brief moment, Rafe thought she’d been saved. But then he heard the villagers. They were outside, screaming for him to come out.

  It confused Rafe that the dream existed even though the old woman wasn’t there, but he decided to confront her tormentors, in case this was some kind of remnant emotional experience. He went outside. The dream was different from the ones before. The villagers were strong. And there were so many of them, more than he’d seen in any of the other dreams. He fought and fought, ultimately realizing he was going to lose. He tried to flee, to escape the dream. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t get back to the River.

  The villagers carried him to a stake in the middle of a pile of branches. They tied him to it, and one of them held up a flaming torch.

  It was the old woman.

  Rafe realized that he hadn’t been walking in her dream. These had been his dreams. She was his creation. He was attacking himself. He had no idea how he’d been wrong all that time, no idea how he’d allowed it to happen. It was like he’d been conned, but somehow he’d conned himself.

  None of his research had prepared him for anything like this. He was trapped. And then, when the woman set the torch to the pile of wood, it started to burn, and the heat felt real. As the flames surged, the old woman laughed. The pain from the fire was worse than anything he’d ever felt. He kept pulling against the ropes and eventually got one hand free. And with the smell of his own burning flesh in his nose, he tore the Lochran from his neck and …

  Darkness.

  He woke up a week later in the hospital.

  “I haven’t had a dream since,” he said. “Sleep is … a void. It’s not restful or restless. It’s just the time between closing my eyes and opening them again. But the world … it’s less vibrant somehow. I don’t know if it’s the lack of dreams or what I went through. But it’s like I live in a fog. If I had it to do over again, I think … I would have let the fire burn. I might have died, but maybe…”

  He wouldn’t have died, Finn thought. He would have lapsed into a coma he couldn’t wake up from. Finn knew her mother was thinking the same thing, because Julia turned away from her. Finn wished she could say something that would let her mother know everything was going to be okay, but what exactly would she say? “It’s okay, Mom. Noah’s not dead. He’s just being burned at the stake. Or whatever his version of torture is.” No way that helped.

  But there must be some way to use Rafe’s experience.

  “Who was the old woman?” Finn asked.

  Rafe shrugged. “I don’t know. In all the dreams where I was trying to help her, she felt like my mother, smelled like my mother. Or what I remembered her smelling like. Vanilla. But at the end, it was clear she was just evil. Even with the fire burning around me, I felt a coldness coming from her.”

  Finn flashed back to her dream the night before. The “hole” she’d reached into. The chill. A space empty of goodness.

  Finn had touched that void and survived.

  That had to mean something.

  Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw her mother turn toward them. Julia’s eyes were bright. She’d been crying. Finn put a hand on her mother’s leg. “I’ve got this, Mom.”

  Finn looked at Rafe’s library. “Which of these are your Dreamwalking journals?”

  Rafe shook his head. “Come on, Rafe,” Finn insisted. “Dreamwalking nerd like you? You wrote down everything. I know you did. And I get that they’re personal. But give them to me anyway. You owe us that.”

  It took a long time, but Rafe eventually crossed to the shelves and grabbed a handful of books. He carried them over to Finn and Julia. Julia reached out, but Rafe didn’t hand them over right away.

  “I’m sorry, Julia. I really tried to help him.”

  Her mom took the books.

  “Rafe,” Finn said. “You knew that ripping the Lochran would get you expelled from the dream world. Sydney Norwich talks about it. So why did you do it?”

  “I’m not sure.” Rafe thought for a long moment. “I don’t have the perfect recall I used to. But I think the old woman told me to. I think she said it would end my pain.” It was clear from the way he said it that he’d simply traded one kind of pain for another.

  Julia reached up and put a hand on his arm. Rafe looked at her hand but said nothing. After a moment, he turned and walked away. He headed through a door Finn had never noticed. The edge of it fit seamlessly into the wall. When he closed the door behind him, it was as if the door disappeared. It was as if Rafe had disappeared.

&n
bsp; Finn assumed he’d gone into his bedroom.

  She imagined a bed, a lamp, a nightstand covered with books.

  A place to wait for morning.

  To remember the dreams that were and mourn the ones never to be.

  THIRTEEN

  Finn drove. Her mother looked out the window. They were almost home when her mom said, “Your father was a Dreamwalker,” so quietly Finn barely heard it.

  “I thought he might be.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Finn saw her mother turn toward her. “Why?”

  “Nana said it runs in families and, based on that family tree Nana showed me, our branch of the clan definitely pulled the short straw.” Her mom nodded, whether because of her good guess or the “short straw,” Finn didn’t know.

  Finn stopped behind a delivery truck at a red light. “I saw Dad in one of my first Dreamwalker dreams,” she said quietly. “At least, it looked like him. How I remember him.”

  “It wasn’t your father.”

  Finn didn’t want the cold, cruel man she’d seen to be her father. “Maybe people exist in the dream space even after they die,” she said.

  Julia shook her head. “Your dad tore his Lochran when you were born. He said he didn’t want being a Dreamwalker to interfere with being a father. Sydney Norwich, Rafe, everything I’ve learned since Noah went into his coma says the same thing: Lose your Lochran, walk no more.”

  “Don’t you wonder about where it all came from?”

  “No. I just want to know how to stop it from afflicting my children.”

  Finn pulled into the driveway and turned off the ignition.

  “What’s next?” her mother asked.

  Finn knew exactly what she had to do. Sydney and Rafe had been expelled from the dream world when they ripped their Lochrans. Finn was confident her brother had refused to do that. He’d been captured, wounded, trapped, but Finn knew he was still in the dream space. All she had to do was find him and bring him home.

  And she had all the pieces she needed—Noah’s journals, Sydney’s book, Rafe’s notes—she just had to figure it out. Jed would help her.

  She felt bad keeping secrets from her mom, but she didn’t have a choice.

  Julia’s job was to make sure Finn was okay. Finn’s job was to save Noah. Those two things might not be compatible.

  Finn looked at her mother, who was waiting for an answer to her question. She could see the fear in her eyes. Finn opened her eyes a little bit to give her answer that ring of truthfulness. “I think I’d like to go to school.”

  * * *

  Finn took the monastery notes out of her mother’s purse. Stole might be a better word, but Finn decided taking it fit into the “greater good” category. She also pocketed one of Rafe’s journals. Mom would definitely notice if she took all of them.

  When she got to school—with a note that she’d had an appointment—she took the long way to English class so she could go by fifth-period physics. Jed had it, and she thought she might be able to catch his eye. She’d sent him a text this morning: Mom home. Can’t walk. He’d written back, Good for you. Bad for Jed. As much as Finn was leery about seeing him after walking into his dream the night before, she was certain he’d been up much of the night thinking about Noah’s journal and the maze. And chances were, he’d found something. That’s what Jed did.

  If he asked if she’d gone into his dreams, she was going to lie. It was easier.

  She stood at the door to his class, trying to get his attention, while staying out of the teacher’s line of sight. Jed was doodling, which probably looked like note-taking to the teacher. Keisha Williams, who sat two rows in front of him, saw Finn. It took a long pantomime for Finn to communicate she wanted Jed. When Keisha finally realized what Finn wanted, she ripped a small corner of her notebook, wadded it up, and threw it at him. Jed looked up, annoyed, but his annoyance turned to delight when Keisha pointed at the door.

  He immediately went back to his notebook and started writing. After a moment, he held up a scribbled sign: I figured it out!

  * * *

  There were only two periods left in the day, but Finn was finding it hard to concentrate. What had Jed figured out? Would it be enough to help her find Noah? She pulled her mother’s monastery notes out of her backpack and studied them while Mrs. Hewitt talked about a system of linear inequalities at the board. It was easy to see why her mother had found the original document compelling. Based on her notes, it had the same energy as Noah’s journal at the end. No maze, but several references to birds and water.

  Finn looked up. Deborah Marks sat several rows in front of her. She was playing with her hair, twirling it around her finger, which pulled it away from the back of her neck. Right below her hairline, Finn saw a yellow splotch, like a bruise that was halfway healed.

  A weird place for a bruise.

  Unless someone grabbed you around the neck.

  * * *

  On Fridays, Finn had study hall for her final period. She often skipped it and went home. No one in the office gave her any trouble, since they knew she was helping to take care of Noah. But today she had to wait for Jed, and she knew Marcus had last-period study hall, too. Even if they weren’t really friends, Deborah had always been nice to Finn. Finn would never forgive herself if something bad happened to Deborah and she hadn’t tried to help. Right now, she didn’t have any proof that something was going on: just a dream and a bruise. Marcus might tell her something, though, if she could figure out how to ask him.

  She looked around. He was sitting by himself at a table in the back.

  Finn walked by six empty tables to get to him. She pulled out some homework and sat down, offering him a quiet “Hi” as she did. Marcus looked around, clearly noticing how many other tables she could have chosen to sit at.

  He had a notebook open in front of him, an old-fashioned ballpoint in his hand. Finn didn’t see the novel on the table, but she guessed he was working on his Fahrenheit 451 paper, which was due Monday. He’d stopped writing in the middle of a sentence.

  She flipped through her notebook, but she was really watching Marcus out of the corner of her eye. He was staring at the page like he hoped the words would appear by themselves. Daydreaming, Finn thought.

  She closed her eyes, hoping she was right, that the stream of subconscious that connected our dreams, Rafe’s “axis mundi,” might keep flowing even if we were awake. She heard the tick, tick, tick of a clock on the back wall. She focused on it, took a deep breath … waited.

  And then …

  The now-familiar cacophony of sounds, all the dreams merging together in the flow of images, emotions. More beautiful than she remembered. She tried to sense Marcus, to see if his daydreams had brought him here. She heard someone singing—

  And opened her eyes.

  Saw a dragon.

  A woman with eight arms.

  A rainbow made only of red and purple stripes.

  Marcus, she thought again.

  Something crashed against her leg. She jumped away from it and came down in—

  A long hallway.

  Each one of a thousand linoleum tiles a different color, making an enthusiastic checkerboard. An empty checkerboard. It didn’t seem like a setting for any dream of Marcus’s, but maybe she didn’t give him enough credit. She heard footsteps behind her and turned around. There he was …

  Naked, except for socks and running shoes. Finn looked away. Why the hell was everyone naked?

  Marcus approached her. Stopped. “I’m late for class,” he said.

  Finn almost laughed. Marcus was in the middle of a “naked at school” and “late to class” nightmare combo. The English paper was scaring him. She took off the jacket she was wearing and handed it to him. He started to put it on.

  “I think maybe tie it around your waist,” she offered.

  Only then did he notice he was naked. He blushed and covered himself with the jacket. “Which way to Mrs. Jepsen’s class?”

  “Are yo
u late for English, Marcus?”

  He nodded.

  “You know,” Finn said, “I think one of the most interesting things in Fahrenheit 451 is the role of women. The girl is the instigator. The old woman dies for her convictions. His wife can’t relate to his struggle.” Finn wondered if technically this was cheating. “But the book allows for a lot of different interpretations. Whatever interests you is as valid as what interests anyone else.”

  Finn’s words echoed down the hallway. She waited until there was silence. “Deborah needs you, Marcus.” He looked at her intently. “Find out what’s wrong. Help her.” She didn’t know how, but she felt that he understood what she was saying. She pointed down the hall. “See if your class is that way.”

  He headed off. Finn closed her eyes and …

  * * *

  Became aware of the tick, tick, tick of the clock.

  Finn opened her eyes. Marcus was still sitting beside her, ballpoint still poised over the paper. “I think it’s great you and Deborah are together,” she said, hoping to drive home her subconscious idea. Marcus stared at her like she was crazy. Maybe she was. She pressed on. “I mean, it’s great that she’s got you to talk to about, you know, everything.” Everything? Finn realized that it was both too vague and too specific. “It just seems like she’s got a lot going on. And you’re a good listener. And kind.” She pointed at his paper. “Like Guy Montag. You’re affected by what happens to people. You want to help them.”

  Marcus was looking through her. She stood up. “Anyway. Have a great evening.” He didn’t respond. He had already started writing furiously. She threw her backpack over her shoulder. She’d helped him with his paper. It made her optimistic about the rest of it.

  * * *

  Jed was waiting outside for her after school, bouncing from one foot to the other. Finn thought he was cold, but it turned out he was just excited. He handed her a piece of paper. “The maze doesn’t have a solution. If you were a rat looking for cheese through that bottom door, you’d die of starvation.”