Dream Boy (21 page)

Serena left a note for her parents. (“What am I supposed to say?” she’d asked. “That I went looking for owls with friends?” “Close enough,” Talon had answered. “Write it.”)

We hurried along single file, like dwarves headed for the mines. Serena took the lead, followed by me and Macy, blundering through in our dresses and heels; then Will; Paolo; Billy, bearlike, bottles clanking in his pocket; Talon, with Spice straining at the leash; and at the rear, Daniel.

The woods were quiet except for the rumble of our footfalls; Serena led us to a side trail, and then to another until the way began to narrow. As the trees arched over to make a dark tunnel, I knew where I was. It was the path where we’d stumbled upon the clearing. The path from my dream.

“Hold up,” I whispered. “It’s just ahead.” Serena stopped and I nosed in front of her.

When I looked up, though, it was not the opening I saw.

It was the girl.

The pinpricks in her blank eyes glistened like drops of blood, and her mouth was smeared with something dark and rusty.

“I won.” Her voice came out high, like those old baby dolls that talk when you pull their strings. “I told you I’d already be here!” A snake wove a path between her feet as it crossed the trail.

I stood before her—like a birthday present, all wrapped up in a fluffy, pink bow. Knowing she was stronger, knowing she’d buried me once, here at the edge of the clearing. Swearing she wouldn’t do it again. This was my world, not hers.

A few more steps and the forest would open into that large circle of matted grass, edged by trees, with—I hoped—that one colossal tree still standing in the middle. I imagined it as a painting, a wish—gnarled, mystical, magnificent, its bottles glinting like colored promises.

“What do you want?” I kept my voice low, reined in.

“Play with me!” She turned her moon-blanched eyes toward my face.

I pushed ahead, past the girl until I stood below on the cusp of the opening, hoping to see branches and bottles and not the truncated stump. In the glow of night, the space yawned before me, just as I remembered it—and in the center, the enormous tree.

I went over what I’d learned. Spirits. Corks. River. And then I looked back to where the girl was standing, a few feet back on the path. If the bottle tree had power, it was inside the grass circle. I could feel it. I knew the girl could, too.

Then I felt something else. Hands on my neck, strangling. The girl’s fists were clenched by her side. Like in my nightmare, an invisible vise gripped me, cutting off air. But this time it was my breath, my body—real, alive. If I died this time, there’d be no waking up.

“Stop!” I tried to scream, but my open mouth was dry and soundless.

The girl’s body began to tremor, her smile stretched wide and thin brown liquid trickled from the corner of her lips. She answered my unspoken question in a grim whisper. “You’re special, but it’s not going to be you, it’s going to be
me
. I’m going to be the mommy, and you’ll be nothing…not even a dream.”

My eyes flashed to Will…Serena…Paolo…Macy…Daniel…Talon…Spice…They were all stiff, gripped by whatever held me. Even Billy, huge as he was, couldn’t move anything but his panic-stricken eyes.

A thick red-skinned snake rippled in the branches near the girl. Piercing the canopy, it stretched its long body toward her and slinked around her neck. A jewel that shimmered as it moved.

“I’m going to be like you,” the nightmare went on. “I’ll be the Dreamer. I’ll make the dreams.”

“You’re wrong!” I said it in my mind, loud enough that she’d be sure to hear me. “I’m nobody. I didn’t—”

“Did too! You brought us here. All of us. Even me.” The girl got on her tiptoes and put her lips inches away from my face. Her pupils throbbed and I could smell her ripe breath. The red snake raised its head, too, staring and nodding as it stretched toward my cheek. “You’re the Dreamer,” she hissed.

She placed her palm on my forehead like a faith healer. For a moment, I felt her fingers sear inside my head, rummaging around, rearranging. “Here,” she said, pressing her palm flat again. “Here. Here. Here.”

I closed my eyes in pain, but in my mind I could see. It was like I was opening the lid of a little box. And then another. And inside each was a frozen dream.

• • •

I
stand
in
the
open
doorway
to
Will’s bedroom. I have come there to ask him something about gravity. But when I find him, he is with a girl. She is beautiful, glossy, perfect—everything I am not—and she is unmistakably Stephanie. She sits on the edge of his bed, a long string of neon green gum trailing from her mouth to the tip of her pinky. It hovers there, a swing bridge between her lips and finger. Will lies back, his eyes opening to the sight of me.

• • •

I
hold
the
hand
of
a
frail
old
lady
at
the
nursing
home
where
my
mom
works. Jared Wales, my mom’s divorce lawyer, stands in the corner of the room, taking notes on a large yellow pad. I have just told Mrs. Finch that for Christmas I want a cup that will always be full of whatever I want to drink.

• • •

Talon, Robert the library guy, Will, and Stephanie sit at a table in the food court with cups, wadded napkins, and French fries spread out before them. I stand near the table, holding a little dog. The fur of the dog is short, spotted brown, black, and white—just like Talon’s Spice. The dog’s mouth opens and I pull out a large white bone.

• • •

On
the
train
I
sit, pimpled and awkward, on a torn vinyl seat—a backpack beside me, my Miss Piggy toothbrush poking out the front pocket. In the flat frame of the windows, trees and hills have blurred to green. The train is almost full. The me in the picture looks down at my lap, but the me in my mind scans the seats. And there, a few rows back, Martin sits with his arm around Macy. But it isn’t exactly Macy. The hair is all wrong. And Martin is a duller, colorless version of himself. He looks a lot like Daniel. They could be cousins.

• • •

“Stop,” my mind screamed. “Stop it!”

The girl’s grip loosened for a second and I jerked myself free. “You put that there!” I yelled. “Those things weren’t real. You put that stuff in my head!”

“I didn’t say they were real,” the girl said. “I said they were dreams. Your dreams.”

“They aren’t mine!”

But as I said it, I knew I was the one lying. It had all been there already. But how? I’d read about Spice and the bone in Talon’s dream journal. And Will knew he’d dreamed Stephanie; he’d admitted it. Those were
their
dreams. But they’d been there in my head—Stephanie, Spice, Mrs. Finch, Macy—a parade of Chilton’s dreams.

Martin had matched us up like chess pieces, a different dreamer for each dream. But I knew the girl really only wanted me.

And I knew why. Because somehow, she thought it all came down to this: I was the one true dreamer. The chosen one, like Harry Potter or Buffy the effing Vampire Slayer. I was the one she had to take down.

I wanted to convince her that she was wrong, that she’d made a terrible mistake. I sat at the nobody table, for crying out loud. But there’s no arguing with a nightmare. And even if I won, if I could convince her I really was a nobody, then what? Would she turn on one of my friends instead?

My stomach seized, and I doubled over.

The girl reached out and grabbed my wrist. “I’m supposed to be the Dreamer,” she pouted. “Not you. Me!”

I jerked my hand away and stumbled backward into the opening.

As my shoe touched down on the ground in the clearing, I felt a shudder below my feet. Thunder rumbled. The air ripped in two. Out of nowhere, a tempest. It was like a dam had broken, only instead of water gushing out, it was wind.

The girl scrambled back, deeper into the cavernous pathway, away from the draw of wind, disappearing in the dark. From the distance, I could make out the glint of her eyes.

Will teetered, as if suddenly released from the nightmare’s grip. Talon crouched down and clutched Spice to her chest. They were free of the girl.

But now it was the wind that had them, had all of us.

With a trumpeting blast, the wind shoved us toward the orbit of the tree. We wobbled like drunks as the air bellowed around our heads, sucking us into the clearing.

The bottles tied to the branches pitched violently, some knocking into each other and smashing into bits. More thunder. Dead leaves swirled about our heads.

Macy stumbled closer toward the center of the clearing as if pushed by a giant hand.

“Hold on!” I shouted, but my voice was lost in the air that blustered around us.

Daniel, who was farthest away from the clearing, fought his way back down the path, until he was clear of the wind. He stood, watching us, his hands helpless at his sides.

Macy tried to run. I watched as her feet slipped out from under her and she hurtled toward the tree. Her body lifted off the ground, suspended for a moment in the air. It was as if the force of gravity was canceled out; her body slanted toward the tree, rising.

I ran toward her.

From the side, Billy lunged. He grabbed Macy by the ankle. For a moment, he just stood there, flying his awkward kite. Then he yanked her downward, trying to reel her in.

As I stumbled forward, I saw Paolo’s feet starting to slip from the grass, but Serena, small as she was, tackled him, pinning him down.

The tree was like a huge magnet. A magnet for dreams. All of us were wind-battered, but the dreams were pulled in by something much more powerful.

I turned back toward Billy; he had his arms wrapped around Macy now, but her entire body jerked and wrenched, as if trying to tug itself free. Talon started to lurch toward them on her ridiculous shoes. Her heel hit something hard and she fell, her arms opening to brace her fall; in a flash of lightning, I saw Spice ripped away by the wind.

“No!”

The little dog flew upward, twisting. Before I could stretch out to grab her, she was out of my reach. Her leash whipped past my fingers, beyond me.

Will, who had been a few feet behind, ran past me and jumped in a wide arc, impossibly high. He caught Spice by her waist with both hands and pulled the dog to his chest, but instead of dropping to the ground, they both kept rising.

“WILL!” I jumped up, but he was far above my head, his body twisting. Then, in a single hellish moment, he slammed into a web of branches; I felt my throat go raw. Thunder.

Bottles smashed. A bolt of lightning crashed down from the sky, splitting the tree with a tremendous crack.

Will’s body contorted in midair…then
he
was wind. Vanished.

The air scorched with sulfur. Where Will had been, a bottle shattered into chunks of glass, spraying blue dust.

The wind died with a long exhale. The leaves, which had been whirling about, drifted back to the ground. Stillness descended. The two halves of the tree lay ruined, charred, smoke rising from them in plumes.

In the absence of the wind, I crumpled to the ground. I looked to Talon, but her eyes, lined in black, didn’t say anything I could read.

A hand on my shoulder. “Annabelle?” Serena kneeled beside me and wrapped me in her arms. I leaned into her, too dazed to speak. The only sound was our ragged breathing, and in the distance, the wind-chime laughter of the little girl.

The
girl.
She knew to run away before the wind really started blowing. She would know where Will had gone, how to find him.

I disentangled myself from Serena’s arms. “I’ve got to—” But I couldn’t explain it. I needed to run, to get to the girl, to get Will back. I must have looked wild-eyed, half crazy in the dark, as I shook my head and started to sprint across the clearing to the path.

“Where are you—?” Paolo started.

“Come on!” I yelled, not looking back.

I could hear Macy call, “Wait! Annabelle, wait!” But I didn’t wait. I kept running in the direction of the laugh.

Before I’d gotten far down the path, the girl’s wind-up voice called from the thickest part of the woods. “Hide-and-seek! I’ll hide!”

I went straight for the voice, clambering over dying ferns and ducking under low branches of scrubby trees. At the base of a tree, three brown snakes, curled in a heap, pulled apart and scattered. Two slithered toward my feet. Swallowing, I hopped over the length of them and plunged forward through the brush. The skirt of my dress snagged on briars, but I ripped it free, charging on until I arrived at the place where the girl’s voice had seemed to come from. I was standing on the edge of a ravine. I heard her again, calling me over the edge.

This time I stayed put. “Where’s Will?” I shouted. “Where is he? I bet you can’t tell me.” My voice echoed in the night.

“Who?” She was in the branches now, closer.

“Will,” I said. “
Will
. I bet you don’t even know where he is. Not much of a dreamer, if you don’t know that.”

“Am too!” Closer.

“Prove it,” I said.

She sprung out from behind the tree I was leaning against. “Found you!”

I stepped back, teetering. One step more and I would have fallen fifty feet. Fixing a smile on my face, I edged away from the ravine. “
I
found you,” I said. “You lose.”

Her pale face contorted. “Liar!”

I could feel her invisible hands against my shoulders, forcing me down to my knees. I started to bend.

“No!” I shoved the hands away in my mind, and stood. I imagined a wall between us, made of something strong and clear, something she’d have to bang against with her fists.
My
world, I reminded myself. I was in control.

She pressed against the barrier, but it held.

A scrunching sound came from the woods and I waited for my friends to emerge from the brush. They didn’t. I flexed my fingers, anxious. “Where did Will go?” I repeated.

“He didn’t go anywhere, silly. He’s gone.” She twisted her hair around her finger again. She was toying with me now—a cat who first played with the cricket it intended to eat. “He doesn’t matter.”

“You’re wrong,” I said. Will Connor mattered. He always had. I turned Ernshaw’s phrase over in my head.
Mind
over
matter. Matter over mind.

“Where is he?” I asked her.

“He isn’t!” From the nest of her hair, a shimmer of emerald—a beetle scuttled down her cheek. It looked like scarabs we’d studied during our unit on Ancient Egypt. The bug darted down her shoulder, zigzagging along her arm until it reached her hand, where it perched on her pinky like a ring.

“You’re wrong,” I said. “It was a mistake. The tree only wanted…It only wanted…”

She laughed. “It wanted your
dreams
!”

I looked into the girl’s sour-milk eyes.

“You didn’t know, you didn’t know!” she squealed. “
He
was your dream, too!”

“It was the dog,” I said. “The
dog
was a dream. Will just got caught.”

But the conversation at the golf course came back to me—a passage that, as I read it in my mind, was highlighted in yellow:
“What if I told you I was one of them?”

Was Will a dream?

No, that was cracked.
She
was cracked.

“Tell me where he went,” I repeated.

“Why do you care?” She raised her hand and brought the beetle to her lips. Tenderly, she opened her mouth and the bug crawled inside, then out again, wandering down her chin and settling at the base of her throat. The red snake pulled back its head, curled like a question mark, and snapped at the beetle, swallowing it in a single seamless motion. “He’s just a dream. Your very first dream come true.”

“That’s not right!”

I had to focus—on something other than the beetle-eating snake and the girl’s lies. If there was any chance of getting Will back, and Spice—if there was any chance of waking Martin and Stephanie—I had to act now. I wanted my friends. Talon’s boldness, Serena’s unshakable loyalty. But they hadn’t found me. Here, when it mattered most, it was just me.
The
chosen
one.
Yeah, well.

I stepped toward the girl, reminding myself I was bigger. Sure, she was crazy strong, not to mention just crazy. And she had those nasty eyes, and the snakes, and the whole mind-invasion thing going for her. But I had something, too—I had to, right? I wasn’t going to let her puff us away like dandelion fuzz.

“Listen, you little snake.” All the panic I’d felt—all the fear she’d sparked, all the confusion—burned away. What was left was incandescent rage. I harnessed that anger, controlled it, funneled it into a power I wasn’t sure I had.
“Tell me where he is.”

For a second, the girl looked small and confused, like a real little girl lost in the woods. Then she straightened and put her hands on her hips, a sassy poltergeist.

“He’s nowhere,” she said. “And so are you. Both of you, you’re nothing.” She opened her hand and I saw she was holding the stained rag doll with the stitched neck and pink dress.

“Where did you get that?” An image: Will stuffing the doll in his pocket.
It’s nothing
, he had said.

“Nothing,” the girl echoed.

My wall shattered, and invisible hands pushed me, hard, toward the edge of the ravine. The girl hadn’t moved from where she was standing, but she grinned, wildly, tilting her head as if listening to some unearthly music.

As I felt myself being shoved back, I grabbed the trunk of a tree, a slender maple that had already surrendered most of its leaves. It was all that stood between me and a fifty-foot drop.

Then I saw them—all six of them: Talon, Serena, Paolo, Macy, Daniel, and Billy. They emerged from the woods with barely a sound, like they’d been there all along.

The girl saw them, too. Pleased with the idea of an audience, she gave an awkward curtsy, and I took that second to push against the invisible hands. The pressure slackened, the barest sliver.

Paolo and Billy made a move to tackle her, but Macy held them back with an outstretched arm and a firm headshake. Billy tapped an empty beer bottled against his leg. Serena crouched, her curly hair savagely haloing her head. Beside her, Talon stood tall in her ridiculous spiked heels.

The girl squeezed her eyes, tightening her grip on me, and I felt the maple’s bark dig against my back. Then it struck me…where we were, what we had.

I pushed the hands away in my mind. “The tree,” I wheezed as the others neared, jetting my eyes back at Talon, then down at her stilettos. “Bottle.” Like Will said, my face must have been a billboard, because after a second, Talon’s eyes sharpened. The bottle tree that had taken Will was ruined, but we had the makings for a tree of our own.

There was a hot spot in my brain that pulsed, and I focused on that, willing the girl’s hands away. The throb in my head grew brighter, more intense, and I directed it toward the girl. Her invisible grip slipped and I felt myself break free. “The bottle!” I yelled at Billy, then nodded to Talon.

The nightmare screamed, her voice a dark pit. She could read me, too, and she knew what I was thinking. But she couldn’t fight me, not now that I’d finally found my strength. “It’s not fair!” she screamed. “I’m the Dreamer! It’s supposed to be me!”

She lunged at me, but I sidestepped her, just as Talon peeled off her shoe and slammed the spiky heel hard into the maple’s smooth trunk. It stuck there. Talon twisted the shoe and the heel snapped off—leaving the spike behind.

“Get back!” I yelled to Paolo and Macy. They bolted into the brush like startled deer.

“ME!” The girl shrieked.

I held up my hands, as if I was playing football, and turned to Billy, who was a dozen feet away, confused, holding on to his empty beer bottle like a toddler.

“Pass!” I called.

Instinct took over. He drew the bottle up beside his ear and fired it straight to me. I caught it and then rammed it down on Talon’s spike.

It seemed impossible that it could work, that a shoe heel and a beer bottle could have even a fraction of the power of the tree in the clearing—or any power at all. But then the wind came. It wasn’t as harsh as before, more a groan than a howl.

The girl balled her fists and opened her mouth as if she was about to throw a tantrum. But before she could utter the first, bloodcurdling scream, her white eyes yellowed and her hair dulled to gray.

Rising, she faded to fog, a wisp of smoke that swirled into the bottle’s mouth, and she was gone.