“Eden!” Mother’s tone was at breaking point. “If you’re not down here in one minute, I’m coming up there.”
“You better go,” Stardust said in a singsong voice. “Don’t worry about me; I’ll stay up here and wait for you.” She batted her eyes innocently…too innocently.
“Stay out of my things.” After one final warning glare, I descended the ladder.
The heat of the sun dispelled much of the autumn chill while it beat down on my neck as it rose higher in the sky, my only measurement of the passing morning. The flowers’ perfume tickled my nose in the soft breeze that tangled my hair. Mother harvested herbs in the side garden while I halfheartedly trimmed the rose bushes in the backyard and did a bit of weeding around the dahlias, but it was impossible to focus on gardening as I entertained every type of mischief Stardust could get into while unattended in my bedroom. I kept my ears perked for any suspicious sounds or crashes coming from the house, but save for the snip of my sheers and the fluttering wings of several multi-colored butterflies hovering around Mother’s unique plants, all was quiet.
At noon, the clock’s chimes echoed through the parlor window, signaling the end of my gardening sentence. The garden gate creaked, announcing Mother’s return to check on me, a basket of fresh herbs looped through her arm. She frowned as she surveyed the dirt smudging my dress and the pathetically tiny pile of weeds I’d pulled.
“Distracted today, are we?”
I flinched at her disapproving tone, even as I itched to see what Stardust was up to. After returning to the house and eating a quick lunch, I scampered towards the ladder, but I’d barely stepped onto the bottom rung when Mother grabbed my arm.
“Where are you escaping to? I need you to run an errand for me in the village.” She held up a wrapped pouch, more herbs to be delivered.
“I’ll be right back; I just need to grab something from my room.” I only needed one peek, just to check on that mischievous cloud.
But Mother wouldn’t hear of it, leaving me no choice but to go to the village, an excursion that would leave Stardust to her own devices for far longer than I wanted.
I hurried as quickly as I could through the meadow dividing our home from the bustling village, delivered my package to the old biddy, and after extracting myself from her tedious rambles, I made my escape.
I took several side roads to avoid the heated, suspicious stares of the bustling crowds, only pausing outside the village gates when I noticed a little girl standing with her father as he tenderly played pat-a-cake with her. My heart warmed at the smile lighting her face, pleased that her father’s attention was providing a respite from the memory of last night’s nightmare still hovering near her.
My gaze flickered from the girl’s smile to her father. Seeing him caused the familiar pang to swell in my breast as the question that had haunted me my entire life returned: what had happened to my father? I’d asked Mother about him countless times, each inquiry followed by the same response: “You don’t have a father,” an answer that always left me confused.
“But everyone has a father. Did he abandon us?”
“You don’t have a father,” Mother repeated in her firm, unrelenting tone that forbade further questions. No matter how much I prodded for more information, she remained tight-lipped, until I eventually gave up. My lack of a father became yet another difference between me and the villagers, one of many I could never break free from.
I sighed and turned my back on the tender family scene and trudged home, where once again I tried to escape to my room, but Mother kept me busy the rest of the afternoon until it was time to prepare dinner. I joined her at the table, where a stack of vegetables waited to be diced. I stifled my growl of frustration. It had now been nearly eight hours since I’d left Stardust to her own devices; I sincerely doubted she’d spent the entire day innocently coloring.
I’d never chopped carrots and onions more quickly, and nearly broke a glass when setting the table. Mother watched me with raised eyebrows as she cooked the stew over the fire, but thankfully she didn’t question my behavior. I strained my ears for any noises coming from upstairs, but Stardust remained quiet until after dinner, when a creak pierced the air as I scrubbed the dishes. I froze.
Mother paused in her sewing and glanced up. “What was that?”
I listened with bated breath. All was quiet. “What was what?”
Mother frowned, ear cocked towards the ceiling. “I thought I heard—never mind.”
I quickly finished the last plate and left the dishes to dry. “I’ll be in my room.” I dashed up the ladder before Mother could find something else for me to do.
Stardust hastily hid something behind her the moment I reached the loft. Her coloring book and crayons lay abandoned on the floor, her picture unfinished. As I’d suspected, she’d spent the entire day up to mischief.
“What are you hiding?”
“Nothing,” she said in a rush, eyes wide with guilt. “I’m not hiding anything.”
“Show me.” Judging by her behavior, it was definitely something of mine. She sighed and revealed one of my dream journals.
“Give that back.” I lunged forward, but she darted towards the ceiling.
“I haven’t had a chance to investigate it yet.”
“I told you not to cause any mischief.”
“Solving mysteries is anything but mischievous.” Her eyes glistened. “I knew you were hiding something, so I started investigating the moment you slipped downstairs. It was nearly impossible to find clues in such disarray, but I persevered. Did you think a clever cloud such as myself, with impeccable observation skills, would fail to notice the loose floorboard beneath the pile of pillows you call a bed, even in this sloppy mess? Please. It’s so cliché I can’t believe I didn’t look there in the first place.” She flipped my journal open to the first page.
“Don’t read it.” But my plea fell on unmerciful ears.
Stardust studied each entry carefully. “These are only dreams.” She raised her disappointed gaze to mine. “You don’t seem the journalling type…which means this being a journal is nothing more than a red herring. Last year I read a book about secret codes. You must have mixed your dark secrets between random dreams to fool potential snoops. I bet three bags of moonbits these dreams are really encrypted messages.” She squinted at an entry so closely her nose grazed the page.
I sighed. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re investigating, only that I have nothing to do with it. Any magic I’ve performed has been too weak to cause any trouble.”
“False. There was a huge surge of magic where I found you this morning, and the magical remnants I discovered match the dream dust I confiscated from you.” She snapped my journal shut and glared at me. “Conclusion: you’re the culprit who performed the largest bit of unrecorded magic on Earth. There’s no room for doubt. Case closed.”
I shifted beneath her accusatory look. “Why does it matter? Nothing bad happened.”
“It does matter,” she said. “Because your unusual use of magic happened around the same time there was a theft in the Dream World.”
An ominous chill rippled up my spine. “What kind of theft?”
“A dream dust theft,” she whispered. “Thirty-seven minutes after dawn, a Dreamer reported that some of their dust had gone missing, stolen.”
“Maybe they just misplaced it.” In my short experiences with dream dust thus far, it had proven to be a rather slippery form of power.
Stardust shook herself back and forth. “Dream dust can’t just vanish. Dream lockets are enchanted to keep magic protected until it’s used, and only a locket’s owner can open and close it. Otherwise, only dark magic is strong enough to break such a secure charm.”
I sensed where her conclusions were leading. “You think there’s a connection between my magic and the magic linked to the theft?”
Stardust rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? Two impossible occurrences happen within moments of each other. That’
s no coincidence. I’m here to prove the two are connected, because I need to be the one to solve this mystery if I’m ever going to become a famous detective.”
“Not only am I not the only potential suspect—there was that Nightmare whose dust you found beneath the tree—but there’s another problem with your theory: how could I have stolen anything from your world if I was on Earth the entire time? I’ve never even been to this Dream World of yours.”
Stardust slumped and slowly drifted from the ceiling. “I suppose that’s a solid alibi.” She didn’t remain droopy for long. “But it’s too soon to declare this a dead end, not when I’ve recently discovered another lead.” She morphed into her notebook, flipped through a few pages, and tilted herself towards me so I could see what was inside. My stomach dropped. Staring back at me were several of Mother’s plants, drawn in such detail I almost tried to pull them from the pages.
“When did you—how—”
She smirked. “I followed you the moment you left the attic. Did you think I'd let my prime suspect out of my sight for a moment, or sit quietly here the entire afternoon when there's a case to be solved? Please.”
“But I didn’t see—” Then all at once I understood. “You were one of the butterflies hovering around the garden.”
“I was many things, a butterfly only being one of them,” she said. “Even after witnessing my morphing powers firsthand, you failed to notice me as I watched you and your Mother for several hours; I was able to gather many clues completely undetected.”
How could I have been fooled by such an obvious disguise? I gritted my teeth.
“Back to business,” she said. “What exactly are these plants? They’re unlike any I’ve ever seen in my Mortal Studies book or my wanderings around Earth, and there’s an air of foreign magic about them. Did you create them with your powers?”
“No.” But my mind was reeling. Not only did Mother possess dream dust, but even her plants were magical?
“Well someone did, and they’re growing in your garden; magical plants don’t just pop out of nowhere, you know.” She frowned at her drawings. “These are the most unusual magical plants I’ve ever seen. They almost seem like hybrids of various plants growing in the Dream World, but proving that will require further research. Rest assured I’ll get to the bottom of this. Since you’re being uncooperative as usual, I’ll just have to discover the answers for myself. Maybe I’ll look more into your mother…”
Oh no she wouldn’t; this had gone far enough. “I’ve had it with your investigation. I didn’t perform any unusual magic, there’s nothing suspicious about Mother’s plants, and I’ve never been to your strange world, so whatever crime you’re trying to pin on me isn’t—”
Outside, something brown and shimmery suddenly shone in the darkness. It bounced against the windowpane, as if knocking to come in, before dashing out of sight. I scrambled to the window and peered into the velvet night.
Stardust appeared beside me. “Do you see something?”
I pressed my face against the glass. A dream emerged, hovering near the forest like a flickering firefly. It followed Charlotte as she creaked the garden gate open and tiptoed towards the house, keeping herself masked beneath the shadows. The dream floated closely behind her, considerably shrunken from its earlier plump size, but unmistakably a nightmare.
“What’s that Mortal doing?” Stardust asked.
I eyed the bulging pouch Charlotte clutched. “Probably paying for Mother’s herbs her grandmother purchased yesterday.”
Stardust gasped. “You’re selling enchanted objects to Mortals? That’s illegal.”
I ignored her, focused only on the murky dream. Now really wasn’t the time to steal a peek, not with an accusatory cloud breathing down my neck, but as usual my curiosity piqued: what sort of dream had lingered in Charlotte’s memory all day?
Charlotte reached the house, dropped the pouch on the doorstep, and scampered away, as if tarrying too long at the home of a suspected witch was enough to cast a spell on her. There was no time to lose.
I scurried from the window and lifted the loose floorboard, where I kept a reserve of empty jars, but when I returned the dream was gone. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” Stardust’s tone dripped with impatience. “I don’t see anything.”
“The dream.”
Stardust frowned. “Dreams are impossible to see. After Weavings they immediately disappear because—”
“There it is!” I pushed the window open. Charlotte glanced up, wide eyed, before slamming the garden gate and running towards the village, her dream trailing behind.
I prepared to summon my magic but hesitated at Stardust’s scrutinizing gaze. If I caught the dream in front of her, she’d undoubtedly realize that’s what my jar contained, but I couldn’t let this dream escape; only one of the highest caliber would have lasted so long.
“Could you possibly look away for a moment?”
Her eyes narrowed. “No.”
There was nothing to do but let her watch. My magic brimmed in my hands as I concentrated on the dream, but before I could use it…
I was completely surrounded by greyish brown, but this was no ordinary brown; this kind was dark and otherworldly and made my stomach churn, as if I’d been submerged in a murky lake devoid of color. The stifling air felt layers thick, as if a giant weight crushed me, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't move.
In the midst of this suffocating nothingness, I faintly heard the clinks of a shovel striking the ground, coming from somewhere above me. With each metallic ping, smothering loads of dirt pressed down upon me.
I was being buried alive.
I struggled to move, to scream, to yank myself out of this nightmare, but I was trapped within the confining walls of my dirt prison. I could do nothing but wait…wait for something, anything, to happen. Anxiety squeezed my chest with each shovelful, my only measurement of time in this unbearable torture, until I was sure I’d go mad.
With a sharp pull I jerked out of the nightmare and found myself lying on the floor of my bedroom, curled in a fetal position and drenched in a cold sweat.
“Eden?” Stardust shook me frantically, her eyes shiny. “Are you alright?”
My lungs burned for air, as if I’d really been trapped underground rather than a mere observer of the dream. I took several gasping breaths while Stardust stroked my hair like Mother used to do long ago.
“What happened?”
Stardust carefully propped me against the pillows. “You were in a strange trance, unblinking and unresponsive, almost as if you weren’t even here.” She shivered. “It was scary.”
Long shadows filled the room. Outside, the violet sky had faded into ebony. Although the strange nightmare had vanished, its creepiness lingered and my insides churned. I instinctively pressed myself deeper into Stardust’s soft and surprisingly comforting hold. She nuzzled against me and curled in my lap like a cat. As I pet her, each touch of her frothy body gently pushed the disturbing memory of the nightmare away; gradually my shaking stilled.
“What did you see?” Concern filled Stardust’s inquiry, and all my long-hidden secrets weighed me down as if I were still trapped belowground, suddenly too heavy to bear alone anymore.
I doubted my abilities were anything unusual in the strange world Stardust came from. Perhaps she held the answers which had eluded me for so long, and if she didn’t, she’d eagerly track down the solution to the puzzle I’d been trying to solve my entire life: why could I see others’ dreams?
Stardust prodded me with her gaze, an invitation that solidified my decision. “I have a secret ability, which I’ve never shared with anyone before now…”
Chapter 5
My ability to see dreams was a secret I’d harbored for so long it was surreal to share it now, much less with a talking cloud. Recounting my many years of spying on dreams invisible to everyone else—as well as my attempts at using magic to bottle them up—made the experience like tell
ing a bedtime story rather than something from my own life. Stardust lay snuggled against me, listening with rapt attention and surprisingly no interruptions. When I finished, she didn’t speak for several minutes, her face scrunched in concentration.
“How many Dreamers can see dreams?” I asked when I couldn’t bear her agonizing silence any longer.
“None. I didn’t know such an ability existed. It’s a well-established fact that dreams disappear immediately after they’re viewed.”
“But that’s not true,” I said. “They float around for hours and only fade away as they’re forgotten.”
“The fact that such a phenomenon isn’t common knowledge proves this is magic beyond the Dream World’s current understanding.” Stardust paged through my dream journal with renewed interest. “The more I study these, the more I can tell each possesses a distinct style, unique to the different Weavers who created them. Are any of these yours?”
Time for my final confession. “No. I’ve never dreamed.”
She snapped my journal shut. “Never? But every Mortal on Earth is assigned a set of Weavers. As a magical being yourself, your lack of dreaming would make sense as Dreamers are unable to receive dreams, but Dreamers don’t live on Earth, nor can Mortals see them the way that Mortal girl saw you tonight. But you can’t be a Mortal due to your possessing magical powers. It sure is perplexing.”
An eager glint filled her eyes. All of her earlier accusations seemed to have been forgotten, the mystery surrounding me apparently more intriguing than the evidence against me. She sure loved a good mystery.
Stardust’s stomach suddenly rumbled. “It’s difficult to concentrate on cracking this case when I’m so hungry.”
“Do you want some water?” I asked, unsure what clouds needed. “Or some leftover stew?”
“Do you have any moonbits?” She looked around the room, as if she expected there to be several packages hidden within the chaos.
Dreamer (The Dream World Chronicles Book 1) Page 5