The Land of Dreams

by Kira Moericke

  “And how is that?” I raised my glass of water to my lips and looked at her over the rim.

  Dharma swallowed hard, as if what she was about to say wasn’t easy. “You have to kill yourself in the dream.”

  “What?” I nearly spit out all the water I had in my mouth. In order to stay in the Land of Dreams, you had to kill yourself while you’re there? Seemed a little extreme, didn’t it? Swiping the water that had dribbled from my mouth with the back of my hand, I asked, “But I thought that if you died in your dream, you just woke up?”

  “That’s what people who don’t know any better tell you,” she replied. She took a quick sip from her water before she added, “You wake up just before you die in a dream, not if you die in a dream.”

  “But if I really did want to stay there, wouldn’t I wake up before I died?”

  “In any other dream, you would, but in the Land of Dreams, the only way to wake up from it is by going through that portal.”

  I opened my mouth to ask another question, but before I could, Alec came out of the bathroom and slid into the booth beside me. He reached forward and plucked a fry from the basket that sat in the center of the table. “So what have you guys been talking about?”

  Across the table, I saw Dharma open her mouth to reply, but not knowing whether or not she planned on telling him the truth, I quickly said, “Girl stuff.”

  Alec cringed as if he thought that automatically meant the different ways girls kiss boys and that time of the month. I suppressed a smile as I reached across the table and grabbed my own golden fry from the basket. As I munched on it, I tried to focus on what Alec was saying, instead of Dharma’s haunting words that seemed to send a chill down my spine.

  Chapter 13

  “Reve, can I ask you something?” Reve and I were sitting atop the Ferris wheel, a cool wind wrapping around us and the scent of popcorn drifting up from below.

  “Of course.” He shifted in his seat to look at me.

  I turned to look at him. With the slight breeze, his hair ruffled in the wind and his cheeks were an adorable shade of pink.

  I took a deep breath, not knowing whether or not I should mention that I got this information from Dharma. After a brief second of thinking about it, I decided to steer clear from her name for as long as I could.

  “So, I heard there’s a way to stay here forever,” I ventured.

  “You want to stay here forever?” A look of excitement poured onto his face. His amethyst-colored eyes sparkled with hopefulness.

  “Well, not exactly,” I said, carefully. I looked down at my fingernails, which were chipping from their “Havana Dream” color. “It’s just that I have some questions about it.”

  “Oh.” I turned my head to see the disappointment on Reve’s face. The sparkle in his eyes had disappeared along with the smile and all the excitement that seemed to have his body buzzing with energy. “Okay, well, what do you want to know?”

  “Well, is it true that if someone wants to stay here forever, they have to die in this dream?” I watched him, waiting for an answer.

  A large part of me hoped that Dharma was wrong, that you didn’t really have to die, but maybe say some magical words or something. But one look at Reve’s face squashed that hope as if it were a pesky little cockroach.

  “It’s true,” Reve said, sounding grim. He looked away toward the rest of the fair and ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it even more. “In order to stay here in the Land of Dreams, you have to leave the World of Reality.”

  “Is that what you call our world? The World of Reality?” I didn’t mean to get distracted, but it was just weird to hear my home be called something like the “World of Reality.”

  “Uh, yeah?” His brows furrowed in confusion as he turned back to look at me.

  “Sorry,” I apologized, shaking my head to get back on track. I brushed back strands of dark hair behind my ear to keep it from flying in front of my face. “Okay, about staying here forever…”

  “That’s about it.” He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, I also heard that the reason you keep taking me here is because you’re trying to get me addicted to this place, so that I’ll want to stay here forever.”

  Reve’s frown deepened. “Who told you that?”

  I froze, not knowing what to say. I wasn’t one to squeal on people, and I wasn’t about to start now.

  “Jaqueline, who told you that?” Reve repeated, his voice low and tinted with menace. It was barely audible over the cheery fair music that wafted from down below.

  “Uh… No one,” I lied, double blinking. It was an awful tell that kept getting me in trouble when I was younger.

  Thankfully, Reve didn’t know that. He looked at me, his eyes roaming over my face. I didn’t like his eyes looking at me like that, like he was trying to uncover all my secrets. I had the sudden urge to throw a blanket over my head to shield myself from his penetrating gaze.

  “It was Dharma, wasn’t it?” he said after a long, drawn-out moment.

  I looked away. I couldn’t throw Dharma under the bus like that. So instead, I focused on a couple walking below us. They were holding hands and leaning in toward one another. The girl was carrying a large pink teddy bear in her free hand, and the guy was looking at her as if she was the most magical thing on earth, despite where they were. For some reason, I thought of Alec, and I got this strange pang in my chest.

  “Don’t listen to her, okay, Jaqueline?” I turned back to Reve, who was now looking at me with concern. “She’s just trying to scare people into making the decision she should have chosen a long time ago.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked with a frown of confusion.

  “Well, a long time ago, Dharma was brought here by her own dream. She had spent several weeks coming here, and after a while, her dream told her that if she wanted to, she could stay here. He had told her everything that she would have to give up, but also said that the choice was hers; she got to choose. And at the end of the night, she decided to give up her life in the World of Reality to stay here. To become part of the dream.”

  “So are you saying that she regrets staying here?”

  Reve nodded. “I suppose so since she’s trying to freak you out so that you’re too scared to make the decision for yourself.”

  “So, you’re saying that I shouldn’t listen to Dharma and should just do what I want to do?”

  Reve nodded again. “Yes.”

  Huh. I faced forward as we took another round on the Ferris wheel, resting my arm on the safety bar and cupping my chin in my palm. Tomorrow, if Dharma was still in Kayla Berg’s body, she and I were going to have a long, serious talk.

  Chapter 14

  “Hey, is everything okay?” Alec asked the next day at lunch. It was breakfast for lunch, so he and I had decided to stay on campus to eat. Alec was sitting across from me, cutting up his French toast into small bite-size pieces.

  “Yeah,” I lied, dipping my head so that my side-bangs covered my eyes as I double blinked. Alec was my friend, he knew my tell. When it was safe to look up, I brushed my bangs out of my eyes and poked my fork into my pancake. Actually, everything was not okay. I guess I had expected to run into Dharma/Kayla this morning in the same spot we had met up yesterday, but when I didn’t see her, I knew that I had been delusional. I needed to talk to her about the whole “Giving Up The World Of Reality To Live In The Land Of Dreams” thing, but I didn’t know where to find her.

  “You don’t look okay.” I could feel Alec’s eyes on me, studying me. I didn’t like it.

  I sighed as I dug up a lie. There was no way I could tell Alec the real reason I was bumming out without him thinking I was crazy and ship me off to some mental institution. So instead I said, “It’s my mom.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, she just wasn’t the one I was focused on at the moment.

  “Oh.” Alec nodded knowingly. “About what she said to you the other day?”

  I nodded and started to play with my cold, scrambled
eggs.

  “Well, like I said before, do what you want to do.” He lifted his shoulders. “If you don’t want to go, don’t go. If you want to go, go. And if you want to go, but bring someone with, I can come if you want?” He tilted his head down and looked at me through his dirty-blond lashes.

  I attempted a weak smile. “Thanks.”

  He returned my weak smile.

  I looked down and scrambled my cold eggs around. I only wished he could help me with the whole “Land of Dreams” dilemma I was having. But I knew I couldn’t tell him.

  Because I knew he wouldn’t believe me.

  * * *

  “Jaqueline!”

  I nearly ran at a rocket speed when I saw Dharma/Kayla standing near the orange sweetgum tree that stood just outside of school, dressed in denim shorts and a dark purple T-shirt. Her medium-length hair was twisted into a braid, and she wore black Converses on her feet. To anyone, she looked like a regular teenage girl–a particular teenage girl that woke up from a coma just a couple of days ago–but I knew that it wasn’t the real Kayla Berg. It was Dharma, who was borrowing her body for the time being. Taking this as my chance to speak to her about what Reve and I had discussed last night on the Ferris wheel, I hurried over to her.

  “Dharma,” I said once I got nearer. “I have to talk to you.”

  “I have to talk to you, too,” she said, brushing aside some wispy strands of hair that had escaped her braid. Directing her full attention on me, she opened her mouth as if to say something, when someone gently knocked shoulders with me.

  “Ready to go?” Alec asked me. When he saw Dharma, he nodded his head toward her. “Dharma, right?” I was lucky enough that Alec hadn’t caught the news about Kayla waking up from her coma, so I was able to introduce her body as Dharma.

  Dharma nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Uh, I think I’m going to hang out with Dharma today,” I told Alec. I thought I saw a brief flicker of shock on his face–we had been riding together to and from school every day (well, except for when Alec had away games and had to leave school early and take the bus to some other city). So to have me turn down a ride must have been a little shocking.

  “How are you going to get home?” he asked, his brows furrowing just a bit.

  “I’ll walk.”

  “But you live ten blocks away,” he stated.

  “So?” I lifted my shoulders, not seeing what the big deal was.

  “Well, let me hang out with you,” Alec said, letting his backpack slip off one of his broad shoulders and land with a soft thud onto the grass, crinkling some dying leaves that sat on the ground, waiting to decompose. I could tell he was ready to get comfortable on the ground. “That way, when you guys are done talking, I can give you a ride.”

  “Uh…” Panic started to roll through me. I couldn’t allow Alec to stay while Dharma and I talked about the Land of Dreams. Opening my mouth, I blurted the first thing that came out of me; “We’re going to talk about girl stuff.”

  “Girl stuff?” Alec’s face crinkled. “Again?

  “Uh… Yup. There’s a lot to talk about in that topic. You know, like periods, and guys, and making out?” I turned my head a little to the side so Alec wouldn’t see me double blink.

  To my luck, he hitched his backpack back up onto his shoulder and took a step back.

  “Otherwise,” Alec said, backing slowly toward the parking lot, “whenever you guys are done talking about… girl stuff… you can just call or text me, okay?”

  I struggled hard to keep a smile off my face as I watched Alec start toward the Mom Van. “Okay.”

  “See ya, Dharma,” he said, nodding his head to Dharma, who stood beside me under the shade of the sweetgum tree.

  “Bye.” She lifted her hand in a little wave.

  Dharma and I watched Alec leave, then waited for the buses to leave and the people around us to disperse until it was only the two of us on school grounds.

  “Girl stuff?” Dharma asked once I turned to face her.

  “It was the only thing I could think of in the spur of the moment.” I swished my hand between Dharma and I, ridding away the topic. “But that’s not what we’re going to talk about. What we are going to talk about is this whole thing with the Land of Dreams.”

  A solemn look crossed Dharma/Kayla’s face. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

  “Why are you trying to scare me away from there?” I demanded, my eyebrows furrowing. I placed my hands on my hips and looked down at her since she was a whole half a head shorter than me.

  “Scare you?” She frowned in confusion. “How am I trying to scare you?”

  “By saying how Reve’s trying to manipulate my decision on staying there.”

  “But he is,” Dharma insisted, a hint of urgency creeping into her voice. “And I’m not trying to scare you, Jaqueline, I’m trying to warn you.”

  “No.” I shook my head, making my side-bangs slip down my forehead. Taking one hand off my hip, I brushed them aside, before placing it back. “There’s nothing to be warned about. You don’t know Reve like I do. He’s sweet, and understanding, and… and considerate.” If I wanted to, I could list all of Reve’s characteristics on my fingers plus some.

  “That’s how they all are!” Dharma exclaimed with frustration.

  My frown shifted from irritation to confusion. My hands dropped to my side. “What?”

  “That’s how they all are,” she repeated, sounding slightly tired.

  “What do you mean?” It sounded like she was saying that there were more people like Reve.

  Dharma sucked in a deep breath. “Like how you have… what did you name him? Reve?” I nodded. “I had someone, too.”

  Something pierced my chest. “Who was he?”

  A sad smile claimed Dharma’s lips. Her eyes glazed over as she lost herself in a distant memory. “I had called him Dusk.”

  Dusk? What kind of a name was Dusk? It sounded like a name from… Suddenly it hit me. I didn’t know anything about Dharma; where she lived, who she really was, how she ended up in the Land of Dreams.

  Making myself comfortable on the grass, I waited for Dharma to join me before I asked, “Who are you?”

  “What do you mean?” She crossed her legs pretzel-style. “You know who I am.”

  “Yeah, I know your name is Dharma, but that’s it. I don’t know anything else about you. You know, like where you came from or how you ended up in the Land of Dreams?”

  “Oh.” Dharma’s face saddened. “Well, what do want to know about me?”

  “I don’t know. Everything.”

  Dharma sighed. “Fine. My name is Dharma Trouster. I was born in 1961 near Antelope Valley in California. I was fifteen when Dusk convinced me to stay with him. He told me that he loved me, and being so young, I was naïve. I actually believed he did. So, one night, I went to the Land of Dreams with Dusk and imagined myself on a cliff with dark water and sharp rocks below. Dusk had told me to close my eyes and pretend I was flying, and by the time I opened my eyes, we could be together…” Her voice cracked, and as she looked away, I saw unshed tears glistening in her clear hazel eyes. Or, Kayla’s eyes. It was all very complicated.

  “What happened then?” I asked, my voice soft.

  Dharma blinked away the tears from her eyes and swallowed hard. “When I opened my eyes after the fall, I was back on the cliff. It was like I hadn’t even jumped. I looked the same and didn’t feel any different. But beside me, Dusk wasn’t the same. He was in shadow form again, and instead of being sweet and kind and all the stuff that you said Reve was, he was… dark. Haunting.” She shivered as the old memory came back to haunt her. “I had told Dusk I wanted to go home, but it was too late. When I landed on the rocks, my body died and my soul was trapped in the Land of Dreams, where I’ve been for the last decades.” Tears rolled down her pale cheeks. She quickly looked away and swiped them away with the back of her hands.

  “Why do you regret your decision?” I asked, curious. I wanted to know everything.
Even the dark and scary stuff. “I mean, even without this Dusk guy, the place is still mystical.”

  Dharma snapped her gaze at me. “You know how groovy the Land of Dreams looks?”

  I nodded. “Yeah?”

  “Well, once you give yourself to that place, everything becomes haunted-looking and warped. It’s as if you stepped into a nightmare.”

  I frowned. “How?”

  She shrugged her shoulders limply. “I don’t know. It seemed like when I became a part of it, some kind of glamour fell from it and I saw how twisted and messed up the place really is.”

  Nightmare? Glamour? I couldn’t picture the Land of Dreams anything more than a magical dreamland.

  “And that’s why I don’t want you, or anyone else, to suffer the same fate as I,” she said softly. Besides the couple of tears rolling down her cheek, she had more glistening in her eyes. “I don’t want you to lose everything that I had lost.”

  “What did you lose?” I asked, my voice low and soft.

  “A lot,” Dharma said vaguely. “My parents, my sister, Ellen, my dog, my friends, my…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Your what?” I pressed, my voice sounding a little too eager.

  “Well, my friend, Paul,” she replied. “We were really good friends. His parents were friends with my parents so we had kind of been friends since birth.” A small smile rode up on her lips as her eyes glazed over again as she thought of the memory. “I don’t know, maybe it was just me, but I think if I hadn’t been so naïve and made the decision that I had, something might have happened between us. Something more than just being friends.”

  Guilt smacked into me as if it were one of those red rubber dodgeballs. I thought of Alec and our long friendship and his confession of his feelings toward me.

  Was my relationship with Reve a hoax? Was he trying to hoodwink me? And what if Alec and my relationship is supposed to be more, and by choosing the Land of Dreams, I’m throwing it all away?

  I groaned and buried my face in my hands. I didn’t know what was true and what was not, and which path I should take.