Forsaken (7 page)

“Do I dream? Of course I do. Everybody does.”

“No, no.” He shook his head. “I don’t mean dreams like dreams and hopes. I mean the journey you go on when you’re asleep.”

“Um, same answer?” Nora frowned.

“And do you ever believe in your dreams? Do you ever feel like they have something to reveal to you? Perhaps a truth about the world?”

“Hmm…maybe. When I was younger. Not much, anymore, really.”

“Well,” he said coyly, “how would you like to experience that feeling again?”

“What, dreaming?”

“Not just dreaming.
Knowing
your dreams. Knowing they signify more.”

“How?” Nora lifted a brow in skepticism.

The eagerness in his expression was contagious, and her heart rate kicked up as he leaned toward her. “I can take you there.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s another…ability…I have. It’s what I wanted to show you.”

“Umm, okay.” No way would she back out now.

He looked ahead at the lake, and when he moved his lips the words were barely distinguishable. “Look outside, Nora. Look at the calm of the lake. Feel the serenity of the water.” He rolled down his window a bit. “Breathe in the air, feel the freshness, the vibrancy of it all. Actually…” He paused, contemplating her. “This would work better outside.” He hopped out of the car. Nora didn’t have any choice but to follow.

Hunter jumped up onto the hood of the Camaro and motioned for Nora to do the same. She climbed on and sat beside him, hands wrapped around her knees.

“Breathe the air in, Nora. Take in the silence, the nature. Hear the sounds of the lapping water, the rustle of wind through the trees. Embrace it all.”

“Okay…” she said uncertainly.

“Now, I want you to focus on this very moment, the very spot you’re in right now. Feel the cool metal of the car beneath you, the breeze tugging at your clothes. Inhale the pristine smells of the trees all around you. Listen to the rhythmic lapping of the lake.”

Nora listened to what he said and made her mind focus on each of the things he pointed out.

“Now, I want you to give me your hand. But before you do, know that this is going to be different from last time.”

“Different, how?”

“I’ll show you what I know.”

She looked deeply into his eyes, searching for…something. “Okay.” She reached over to take his hand, not knowing what to expect. When their fingers touched…there was nothing, no barrage of unwanted thoughts flooding into her mind. For some reason, she started to feel drowsy. Her eyes began to droop shut. Her focus wavered, and she had a hard time keeping her head up. She held his hand, though, and noticed it was icy cold, stealing her warmth.

“This…will go the other way,” he told her gently. “You’re going to want to take a nap.”

“I will?” Nora said drowsily.

“Yes, you will.” He tightened his grip on her hand. “Do not be afraid, Nora. Relax your mind, and let go.”

“…O…kay…” she drawled the word. Her eyes closed, and just before she fell asleep, she slumped heavily against Hunter.

Chapter Nine

~Into the Dream~

Nora opened her eyes. She was in exactly the same spot she remembered, sitting on the hood of the car. Nothing had changed. She looked up, realizing Hunter was holding her, looking down at her. His face looked a little…different. It was clearer than before. Or maybe everything else was a bit fuzzier.

“There you are,” he said. “You took a while.”

“What do you mean?”

He smiled. “Welcome to my world.” He leapt up off the car, but instead of landing on the ground, he just floated horizontally in the air. Nora gaped. He twisted back, hands behind his head, as if reclining on a couch.

“How are you doing that?” she asked. “Is this another trick?”

“No, no trick,” he promised. “You’re now in the dream world.”

“The dream world? What do you mean? Am I asleep?”

“That’s right. In fact, we’re both asleep, and you’re holding my hand.”

Nora looked around her. Nothing
looked
different. She put a hand down to feel the metal of the car. It was cool to the touch, as before. And the small, lapping waves at the shoreline continued just as before. She spun around to look behind her. The same dirt road she remembered driving down was there, as were all the evergreens, swaying gently in the light wind.

“How is it possible?” she asked. “I can see you just like I would in real life. Except, you know, for the fact that you’re
floating in the air!”

Hunter laughed lightly and touched down on the ground. He offered a hand to help her step down. She took it and then took her first step inside the dream world.

The ground
felt
solid enough underneath her. But just then, as she took another step, reality blurred. It was only for an instant, but in that instant she felt like she lost all her coordination, all sense of where she was.

She stumbled. Hunter caught her before she could fall.

“Careful there,” he said. “On your first journey here, your body needs to get used to it.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand what this is. Get used to what? You need to explain everything!”

“Everything?” Hunter mused.

“
Everything.
And don’t you dare leave anything out! You brought me here, after all!”

Hunter laughed. “In time, Nora, you’ll know more than you’d ever hoped. Explaining
everything
could take a very long time, though. Let’s start with the basics?”

“Okay,” she reluctantly agreed.

“All right, so the basics are…” He leapt in the air again to hover a few feet off the ground. “
I
can do this, and you cannot. Not yet, anyway.”

“How come?”

“Reality is mutable here. But you have to learn to control it.” He touched back to the ground. “For example, take
floating
, what I just did. How do you think I did it?”

“Um, I don’t know. You just jumped, and…stayed in the air.” Nora felt like an idiot explaining things that way.

“I jumped.” He smiled. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. What I did, in truth, is
push
everything else down. I
pushed
reality down, a few feet away from me. You went along with it.

“Now,” he continued, “from your perspective, it looked like I jumped up and floated in the air. But for me, I actually stayed perfectly still, in the same dimensional plane. It’s
everything else
that moved.”

“Whoa,” Nora breathed. “You’re saying I can learn to do that?”

“Eventually. If your mind is strong enough. But not yet. Like I said, reality is mutable here, which means we can control the things around us. Let’s try something simple. Like…your hair.”

“My hair?”

“Yes. What color is it?”

“Um, I don’t know. It’s dark. A deep shade of brown, maybe?”

“And mine?”

“Yours is sleek black.”

“Okay, I want you to watch me very carefully. Are you looking?”

“Yes.”

“Okay…and now?”

Nora’s jaw dropped. On his words, Hunter’s hair changed to the lightest shade of blonde she could imagine. There was no transition. One second it was black. The next, it was bleach-blond. Everything else about it stayed the same, though.

He laughed, and his hair changed back. “You want to give it a try?” he asked.

“Me?”

“Yes, I think you’re strong enough to do that.”

“Um, okay. How?”

“Well, the first thing you’ll discover is that you
can’t
do it to me. You can’t change anything about me, actually.”

“Why not?”

“Your mind has power over this world, as does my mind, but
we
aren’t actually a part of this world. We’re more like…reflections. What you see before you, the person you’re talking to – and who I see when I look at you – is just a
reflection
of your real self. So, since I’m not actually a part of this world, you can’t change things about me. Just like I can’t change things about you.

“However.” Hunter lifted one finger up. “You
do
have power over your reflection. It’s kind of like…” he paused to find the right words, “…kind of like adjusting the filter that a light goes through. If you put a blue screen over a flashlight, the light turns blue. You can put a yellow sheet over that, and the light turns green. But the light itself isn’t changing. Does that make sense?”

Nora nodded.

“But you
can
change things about yourself,” Hunter said. “If you do, your reflection in this world becomes whatever you project. You can be anything, here.” Suddenly, he was a head taller than before. Nora gasped. And in an instant he was even taller, rising high above her until his knees were level with her head. She looked up, speechless. He was as tall as the biggest evergreen, now, and looked down upon her with eyes as big as the sun. Then, just as quickly, he was back to his regular size. He smiled at her. “That, for example, was a lot like the hair thing. It just took more control. I don’t think you’d be able to do it, yet, but I think you have enough control to be able to change the color of your hair.”

“Okay.” Nora sat up straighter, eager to give it a try. “What do I do?”

“It all begins in here.” Hunter tapped his forehead with a finger. “First, you have to believe that reality can be changed. You have to
believe
that you have full control.”

“I can do that.”

“But it’s not enough me telling you. You have to experience it for yourself.”

Without warning, a huge explosion came from the car, knocking Nora backward with its force. She hit the ground. Enormous flames engulfed the ground around her. She tried to scream, but couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. She scrambled back. The heat from the flames made the air thick, and she could feel the heat against her skin. She spun her head wildly from side to side, searching desperately for some way to safety. But all around her, the flames only doubled in strength.

She was trapped. She couldn’t get out.

The flames roared higher, coming closer to her. Trapping her. The air was too hot to breathe. Heat blasted from the inferno, and she flung a hand in front of her face to reduce the blare, but it was no use.

She needed to get out. But
how
? The fire roared, nearly engulfing her. She could already smell the bitter scent of her singed hair. Wait. Hair.
Her
hair.

Suddenly, she remembered what Hunter had done to his. He had changed it. Meaning that she could change hers, too. More than that. She could change
reality
.

Desperate, not knowing what else to do, she squeezed her eyes shut and imagined the ground as it had been. She focused on the clean, cool air she remembered breathing before. On the breeze moving gently through the trees. On the sound of lapping water from the lake.

The lake! It was still there – it must be! Frantically, she imagined a great invisible bucket scooping up water from the lake beside her and throwing it over the fire.

She gasped as a heavy sheet of ice cold water slammed into her. Her eyes popped open in shock, and she coughed, choking on the bit of water that came up her nose. The fire was gone. As the coughing fit died down and she looked around her, she saw the ground was absolutely drenched. Puddles of water were everywhere, and she sat in the middle of the biggest one.

Laughter came from behind her, and she spun around. Hunter was there, picking his way along dry patches of ground. He didn’t have a drop of water on him.

Suddenly, everything came together.
He
had done this to her – he had caused the explosion! Anger raged through her, and she started to rise, ready to pummel him into oblivion with her fists, when a better idea struck.

Doing as she had before, she imagined a giant bucket dipping into the lake to pick up huge amount of water. But this time, it would carry
twice
as much water as before. As she did that, she allowed the water to be touched by a hint of frost, making it as cold as possible while remaining just short of freezing.

Then she threw it all right on top of Hunter.

He gasped as the water fell on his head, then slipped and fell as the stream engulfed his entire body. Nora placed an invisible border of air around her so the water from the lake wouldn’t get to her. Only when the pouring stopped, with Hunter lying helplessly on the ground just as drenched as she was, did she let the border of air dissipate.

She walked over to him smugly.

As she moved closer, she noticed that he was shivering. He had gotten up to his hands and knees, with his head down and his body trembling.

Doubt suddenly filled her. Had she hurt him? Did she make the water too cold? Did she pour too much?