“Like what kind of weird dreams?” Alec asked.
“Just, kind of like out-of-body experiences.” I tried to make it sound like it was no big deal, but even to me it sounded weird.
Beside me, Alec’s brows furrowed. “Out-of-body experiences?”
“Well, I don’t really know what it’s called, but…” Realizing how silly this all sounded, I said, “You know what? Forget it.” I swished a hand in front of me, ridding away the topic.
I could feel Alec turn his head to look at me as we made our way up the stairs. “You should probably get your head checked out. That bump looks pretty nasty.”
“Maybe.” I raised a hand to touch the bump and flinched again.
We walked together in silence until we needed to split off in separate directions.
“See you at lunch!” he called as he made his way to math.
“Yup!” I called back as I headed off to history, to listen to the boring facts about Neanderthals. Whoohoo! (gag). If Mr. Kantle wasn’t such a hard-ass, I’d probably fall asleep.
But on the other hand, maybe not. Not with Shadow Man raiding my dreams. Because I really, really did not want to see him again.
.
Chapter 4
The whole day went as slow as a tortious crossing a freeway. But the worst part, besides the long boring classes and the useless information that was being pounded into our “fresh, young minds” was the pep rally that we had just before the end of the day. I nearly gagged when Lindsay was announced Homecoming Queen and was topped off with a sparkly, silver tiara. Alec got Homecoming King, and I nearly busted out laughing when his name was announced. The boy didn’t even like his picture being taken let alone stand in front of the whole entire school and be announced king. I was definitely going to pick on him later after the assembly.
“Well, congratulations, Your Majesty,” I had teased once I met Alec by his mom van. I over exaggerated a bow before I met his gaze and giggled.
Alec had tossed me a lopsided smile as he climbed into his van.
“So, you’re going to go to the Homecoming dance tomorrow in a monkey suit and dance with Lindsay.” I’d made a face as I buckled myself up. I wouldn’t want to touch Lindsay even with a ten foot pole.
“You know what,” Alec said, as we started out of the parking lot. He turned to face me, his smile wider. “You should go.”
I looked at him with a frown. “Go where?”
“To the dance.”
“Uh, heeellooo, Alec. I would rather jump off a cliff then watch Lindsay flaunt around in a skin-tight dress and some cheap tiara.” I’d brushed back my bangs that had slipped into my eyes.
“Come on,” he had pressed. “It’s your senior year. Your last Homecoming dance.”
I looked at him and rolled my eyes before I’d said, “Fine. I’ll-I’ll think about it.”
But when I got home, instead of thinking on whether or not I was going to go to the dance tomorrow night or working on Alec’s poster, I curled up on the couch with a blanket, and fell asleep.
* * *
I cursed softly when I stood before my body, which was curled up on the couch, snoring softly. I groaned in frustration and ran my hands through my silky hair.
“Jaqueline,” the familiar voice called out telepathically.
I whipped around, my heart drumming inside my chest, and saw Shadow Man standing there, looking at me with those amethyst eyes of his.
“What do you want?” I demanded, placing my hands angrily on my hips. I frowned at him.
“I want you to come with me,” Shadow Man said. He held out his hand for me to take again.
“Where do you want to take me?” I wasn’t going anywhere with this thing unless I knew where we were going. For all I knew, it could want to take me into a black hole or something.
“It’s called the Land of Dreams,” he replied. “It’s where all your dreams come true.” Behind him, the walkway to the kitchen started to glow and sparkle as golden light filled its space.
“If I go with you, will you leave me alone?” I asked, eyeing the glowing portal.
“If you wish me to; yes.”
I dropped my hands from my hips and took a step forward then stopped. I shifted my eyes off the portal and looked back at the Shadow Man. “If I go with you, will I be able to come back?”
“Of course. This is your dream. You can wake up whenever you want.”
I stood there for a moment, contemplating my options. Should I go or not?
Well, if you go with him, he said he’d leave you alone, I reasoned.
But what if it’s a trap? another part of my brain wondered.
But it is your dream. If something bad happens, you can just wake up.
“Fine,” I said after a moment, raising my chin in defiance. “I’ll go. But only for a moment.”
“That’s all I ask of you,” Shadow Man said, stretching out his hand even further out to me.
Sucking in a breath, I reached out my hand tentatively and placed it in Shadow Man’s. I expected my hand to pass right through his, being that he was only a shadow, but to my surprise, it didn’t.
“Ready?” Shadow Man asked, wrapping his fingers gently around mine.
“As I’ll ever be,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Come.”
I let Shadow Man walk me to the portal that had been my kitchen. Before we entered, though, I squeezed my eyes close, afraid of what might happen once I stepped into the shimmering gold. I didn’t know what to expect when I stepped through the portal–maybe a painful sensation of twisting bones or maybe the feeling of free-falling off a very tall building–but instead, it felt like gentle rain pattering lightly against my skin. It was only for a second, but for that second, I felt refreshed. Then I felt warmth. When I opened my eyes, I shrieked in fear and dropped Shadow Man’s hand as I saw a weird, twisted version of myself standing before me. I tried to take a step back, but Shadow Man grabbed my shoulders, holding me in place.
“Jaqueline, it’s okay. It’s just a fun house mirror,” Shadow Man said with a little chuckle.
“What?” As I tried to calm my frenzied heart, I realized that Shadow Man was right. I was just looking at myself through a fun house mirror–one that made my hips super skinny and my butt super huge. On the left of it was a mirror that made everything look short and fat, and on the right was a mirror that made everything look super tall and skinny. Looking around, I saw bright reds and blues and yellows. “Why are we in a fun house?”
“I don’t know. It’s your dream,” Shadow Man replied.
Looking behind me, I saw a glimmering doorway, leading back to my living room where my body slept on the couch. “Huh.”
“So, shall we continue?” Shadow Man asked, turning his amethyst-colored eyes on me.
I shrugged my shoulders and pushed back my bangs that had slipped into my eyes again. “I guess.”
“Come then.” He started to walk away toward the large spinning thing that exits the fun house. He walked across it, not even waiting for me.
“Hey, wait up!” I called, hurrying after him. I rushed across the spinning thing, feeling my body being tugged in the direction it was going, before exiting it. When my feet landed on unmoving ground, I looked around, my jaw nearly dropping.
I was standing in a large carnival topped off with a giant Ferris wheel, rodeo show, and deep-fried Oreo booth. But the thing that got me was the time of day it was. It was night, the sky an inky-black color with no sign of a sun. Stars glittered in the sky. All the colorful fair lights were on, stealing my breath away. It was my favorite time to be at a fair.
“Oh. My. Gosh.” I twirled around in a slow circle, taking everything in. Everything was amazing. My feet itched to go on the Tilt-A-Whirl that I saw bathed in golden light just to my left.
“You know you can go on these, right?” Shadow Man said, looking down at me.
“Do I need tickets?” I asked.
“Why would you? This is all just a d
ream?”
He didn’t need to say anything else. Without a second thought, I rushed to the Tilt-A-Whirl as fast as my feet would take me.
* * *
After being on the Tilt-A-Whirl, the Ali Baba, Evolution, the Zipper, and the Cliffhanger, I decided I needed a more settled ride before I emptied out the contents of my stomach. Walking to the Ferris wheel, I waited in a short line of people before I climbed into a yellow seat by myself. A good-looking guy with a face full of freckles and a head full of dark red waves locked me in and flashed me a grin that made me blush before he let more people into the seat in front of me.
Alone, I sighed and relaxed against my plush seat. My eyes scanned over the fair, taking in all the colorful lights and the screams and laughter of everyone who was at the fair with me. The sight was nearly magical. Smiling to myself, I inhaled a deep breath through my nose, catching the scent of yummy, deep-fried food.
“So, what do you think so far?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of Shadow Man’s voice inside my head. Turning my head to the side, I saw him sitting next to me, looking at me with those mystical eyes of his.
“It’s amazing,” I admitted, as much I hated to. But there was no denying it: this place was truly amazing.
“I told you it wasn’t bad here,” he said, sounding like he had a smile in his voice.
I was silent for a moment, not wanting to admit that he was right. But after a moment, I realized something that made me ask, “If this is my dream, why are there so many other people here?”
“Because all these people are having the same dream as you,” Shadow Man replied. “Here, we just group people together if they are having the same dream instead of just having them have their own world. Because if each person had their own world, that would be a lot of dream worlds.”
“Oh.” I furrowed my brows as I took that in. Then another question hit me. “What are you? I mean, clearly you’re a shadow, but why don’t you have a body?”
“Because you never gave me one,” he replied simply.
“What?” I frowned, confused.
“I’m part of your dream, and in your dream, you conscious creates a world and sometimes the people in it. But since I just moved into your dream, I have yet to have a look beside my bare figure.” He motioned to himself with a wave of his hand.
“So, you’re saying I can make you look like whatever I want?” I asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Yup.” He nodded.
A small smiled crawled onto my lips as I looked at Shadow Man. Pursing my lips, I thought of a clown with a frizzy red wig, a yellow and red poke-a-dot jumpsuit, and a red, rubber nose. Suddenly, Shadow Man turned into the clown that I had imagined, just with purple eyes. I couldn’t help but laugh when he looked down at himself and frowned.
“A clown? Really?”
“Sorry,” I laughed, covering my mouth with a hand. Dropping my hand into my lap, I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm my bubbly laughter, before growing serious. “Okay,” I said, trying so hard not to giggle as Shadow Man squeezed his red, rubber nose, making it squeak. Closing my eyes, I imagined white-blond hair, a fine chin with a clean shave, a lean, strong body, a violet T-shirt with a V-neckline, and dark jeans.
“Much better.”
I opened my eyes and nearly drooled over Shadow Man, who now looked like an actual human being. I watched as he looked down at himself, observing his shirt and pants, then ran a hand across his chin, feeling the smooth chin I gave him, before looking at me with a pearly smile on his face that almost made my breath hitch. Almost.
“Thanks for ditching the humor,” he said with a little laugh as he sat back in the corner of his seat.
“N–no problem,” I stammered, stumbling over my words. The body I had picked out was a model I had seen in an American Eagle add that I had seen once while scrolling through Facebook.
Shadow Man–if you could call him that anymore–chuckled heartily.
“So, do you have a name?” I asked, once I managed words again without stumbling over them like a babbling idiot. “Or do they just call you Purple Eyed Dude or Shadow Guy?”
“Nope.” He shook his head, sending some of his shaggy hair to flop on top of his head. “Being that I’m only part of a dream, there is no reason for me to have a name.”
“Well, I have to call you something,” I said matter-of-factly.
“What would you wish to call me?” he asked.
Thinking, I pursed my lips, and tapped my finger against my chin for dramatic effect. “How about… Reve?”
“Reve?”
I nodded, my ponytail bobbing behind me. “Yeah. Do you like it?”
Reve smiled, giving me that knee-trembling affect. I was thankful that I was sitting down. “It’s perfect.”
I beamed. I just couldn’t help it. Reve–now with a human body–just had the effect on me.
“J.J.!” a voice rumbled throughout the sky. Beneath me, the Ferris wheel quivered. It sounded like Dad. Grasping the safety bar, I looked around to see if anyone else had heard the voice, but everyone else seemed oblivious to it.
“Reve, what’s happening?” I asked, my voice laced with panic as a tingling sensation took over my entire body.
“Your father is trying to wake you up,” Reve replied, losing his smile. “It’s time for you to go.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t help the disappointment that snuck into my voice. This experience really hadn’t been that bad.
“J.J.?” I heard Dad call again. At the reverberating sound of his voice, the tingling sensation in my body worsened.
“Take my hand,” Reve said, holding out his hand toward me.
Without thinking, I took it, surprised by how warm his skin was, even though there was a slight chill in the air.
In a blink of an eye, we were standing on the pavement instead of being suspended up a hundred feet in the air.
“Hey, Jaqueline, are you going to wake up?”
The tingling in my body became even more intense as Reve guided me through the thicket of people, back to the fun house, where we started out from. Instead of starting from the beginning and working our way through, we entered through the exit, and followed the hallway toward the three crazy mirrors.
“Ready to go back?” Reve asked, his hand still wrapped around mine.
“Yeah, I guess,” I replied, looking through the shimmery portal to see my dad hunched over my laying form that still rested against the couch. But unlike the last time, my body stirred and made little moaning noises as I started to wake up.
“You guess?” Reve raised an amused eyebrow as a small smile tugged a corner of his lips upwards.
“I mean,” I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant, and glanced down at my blue Converses, “I guess this was kind of fun. I wouldn’t mind coming back.”
Reve’s small smile grew. “You can come back, you know.”
A smile formed on my face as a burst of happiness rushed through me. I looked up at Reve’s face, my blue eyes locking with his amethyst ones. “I can?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
The smile I wore seemed too big for my face. It hurt my cheeks.
“You better go,” Reve said, as my dad started to poke my arm, trying to wake me up on the other side of the portal.
“Yeah.” Sucking in a deep breath, I tore my eyes off Reve and focused on the portal in front of me. Squaring my shoulders back, I took one step, two steps, three steps, before I was engulfed in the shimmering light.
* * *
“Hey, J.J., are you going to wake up?”
My eyes flashed open and I saw my dad, his graying hair and sparkly blue eyes, leaning over me, making sure that I was okay.
“Hey, Jaqueline,” he greeted with a warm smile, backing away from the couch as I pushed myself up into a sitting position.
“Uh, hey, Dad,” I greeted, rubbing my sleep-filled eyes with the heels of my hands. Pulling my hands out of my eyes, I looked up at him. “How
long have I been asleep?”
Dad shrugged his shoulders. Scrunching up one of his dress shirt sleeves, he looked down at his gold-plated wrist watch. “It’s about four-thirty now.”
“Four thirty!” Shit, Alec’s game started at five and I hadn’t made him a poster, and even if I started one now, the glitter glue wouldn’t dry in time.
I scrambled off the couch and rushed around Dad to my room, where I yanked out my ponytail so that my long black hair tumbled down my back, before grabbing a brush to unsnarl the tangles.
“Is there somewhere you need to be?” I heard Dad call from the living room.
“I planned on going to Alec’s football game,” I replied, flinching when my brush snagged on a snarl. “It’s the Homecoming game.”
“Oh.” I could imagine Dad slowly nodding his head as he eased himself down onto the couch that I had just vacated from. “Well, have fun.”
I’ll try. Tossing my brush down on top of my dresser, I squirted a little perfume on me, before rushing back out into the hallway.
“Can I borrow the keys to the car?” I asked Dad once I stepped into the living room. I looked at him and saw him sitting on the couch where I had been just minutes before.
“Sure,” he replied, grabbing the remote from the coffee table sitting right next to him. “They’re on the kitchen table.”
“Thanks.” I hurried into the kitchen, snagged the keys and a couple bucks from my wallet, which sat on the counter next to the toaster, and hurried out the door before all the seats were taken and I was forced to sit in the grass, giving Lindsay another reason to be a bitch toward me.
Chapter 5
When I arrived at the football field, I was relieved to find an open spot in the bleachers, second row up, behind some heavier girl, who chatted excitedly to a girl with a face full of acne. I thought their names started with a T and a K, but I wasn’t sure. They were even lower on the totem pole then I was. And that was saying something.
The Land of Dreams Page 2