The Dream Catcher's Daughter (17 page)

“Striking similarities? I told them...E,
F, and D...”

“My guards?”

“Your guards. I told them I’m not the
Dream Caller. F even said I wasn’t.”

“Indeed. And I never said you were the
Dream Caller. But not many people claim dreams as their own. And their dreams
never come to life with flesh and blood. Only dreams summoned by the Dream
Caller become mortal like that.”

She had a point. Everything did seem
awfully weird. Then again, it had been that way from the beginning, ever since
Talshe appeared. Ever since that night, many years ago. That night he’d
forgotten. Then, he had a thought: “I heard E and F talking about the shadow
with red eyes.”

Gelen nodded. “It stalks my chamber.
Dreams wander even inside my castle from time to time, but no dream should be
able to penetrate my chamber. Only my guards and I know its whereabouts.” Her
gaze fell to the floor. “Ever since my husband disappeared, that is.”

Hollow shadows crowded under her eyes;
tight lips and smooth, pale cheeks—Jason recognized the look: He saw it
whenever he peered into a mirror, whenever he thought of a certain girl with a
four-letter name.

She just disappeared.

Gelen cleared her throat. “There is the
matter of that giant. It is indeed one of your dreams. And you are trying to
absorb her, yes?”

Jason raised his brow. “Um, yeah. How’d
you know?”

“While you slept, F felt your deepest
feelings. We had to make sure you were not the Caller. In this city, the Caller
is a wanted criminal.”

“Same where I come from.”

Gelen smirked, leaning back in her chair.
“Then we have a common enemy. Excellent. Because I think the Caller is
responsible for my king’s disappearance.”

“Oh, I see. Like, how do you know?”

“I do not. But I have a feeling, as you
say. And I have another feeling: The giantess and the red-eyed shadow will lead
us to the Dream Caller. So, I ask that you absorb them, and then perhaps we
will be able to prepare a better strategy.”

Jason nodded. He still didn’t know how
absorbing his dreams would lead them to the Caller, but if it meant
re-acquiring his dreams, he would agree. “I feel like there aren’t many dreams
left. I already have three of them. Talshe and Shades make five. But I...I feel
like there might be another. A sixth one...I can’t help but feel like the
train’s conductor is the sixth.”

“No, he is not. He is a denizen of this
city, like me.” Gelen’s eyes flashed. “Although, it may help you to know that F
felt something when she touched the giant with her sword.” Gelen closed her
eyes, letting a deep sigh drift from between her lips. “She gave the feeling to
E, who turned the feeling into a sight. D then translated the feeling into
sound. Then they sent the sight and sound to me: It was a green mouth, with
pearly-white teeth. And it said, ‘Jason McKinney, surrender all that is yours.
Soon, you will be mine.’” She looked up from the floor, and saw Jason’s frozen
expression. “Is that one of your dreams? The sixth one?”

All he could do was nod. Slowly. His eyes
focused on a point beyond Gelen’s shoulder.

“F thinks it might be weakened and living
inside the giant,” she continued. “Perhaps, if you can absorb the giant, you
can absorb the sixth dream, as well. That just leaves—”

Jason lunged forward, tackling Gelen to
the ground. Her chair split in half as a sword sliced through it. The owner of
the sword locked its red eyes with Jason’s. Its shadowy cloak hovered like a
black mist over the cleaved remains of the chair. Its breath of rotted meat and
hot trash nearly gagged him. Shades was in Visonia, as well.

“Run!” he said, helping Queen Gelen up.

As the Queen disappeared out the door,
Jason stood, feet shoulder-width apart. He didn’t know how to fight, especially
unarmed. He was fast, agile. But Shades was faster and possessed more cunning,
and it shot forward, jabbing its sword at Jason’s torso. He barely side-stepped
the strike and tried to kick at the billowing cloak of darkness. The shadow
danced out of his way, slashing up with its blade, catching Jason across the
calf. Jason fell to one knee. He grasped at his bleeding leg.

Except there was no blood: It was an
illusion.

But Jason realized this only as Shades
threw itself on top of him, forcing him to the ground. The shadow’s weight was
enough to restrain Jason, but not so heavy that Jason couldn’t breathe. Shades
straddled him, its eyes hovering above him. Already it moved its dry, cold lips
over his. Rancid breath of roadkill and mold wafted up Jason’s nose and seeped
into his throat as the monster explored his mouth with its tongue. Jason gagged
and heaved, but this didn’t deter Shades in the least. The shadow pulled away,
and lowered it lips to Jason’s ear:

“
you
will come to
the balcony in ten minutes otherwise this city will lie in ruins don’t keep us
waiting.”

Shades jumped from Jason’s body and
disappeared as Queen Gelen and her guards clamored into the room. They murmured
frantically, looking about for the shadow creature. The Queen said something,
and F kneeled next to Jason, feeling him all over. She said something back, but
Jason couldn’t hear her; the blood in his temples thrummed too loud. D placed
her hands to his ears. Suddenly, he could hear Queen Gelen and the others.

“Jason, are you okay?” said the Queen.

He shook his head.

“What happened? Are you hurt?”

He shook his head.

“He’s in shock, that’s all,” said F.
“Here, D, translate this feeling I just got.”

D removed her hands from Jason and placed
them in F’s hands. Shock rippled across D’s face, and she turned to Queen Gelen,
her lips moving rapidly. By now, the blood hushed, and when the Queen bent over
Jason and spoke, he could hear her say, “Jason, the giant has been spotted in
the city. She’s moving toward the balcony where Shades told you to be.”

Jason pressed one of his palms to his
forehead. He could do nothing but comply with the demand. Despite Len and
Darlene being back home, Jason did have this feeling, when Shades threatened
Visonia—a terrible riptide of guilt and the desire to protect.

“Jason, are you okay?”

He sat up. “I’ll be fine once my dreams
stop being a pain in my ass.”

This got a chuckle out of Gelen and her
guards. The Queen’s face darkened. “I’m certain the dream inside Talshe is
terrifying, but according to F, it is weak. Right now, it can barely drive
Talshe to do its bidding. If you absorb the inner dream, perhaps absorbing
Talshe shall become easier.”

“I hope so,” said Jason.

He looked out the window. Even from his
spot on the floor, he could see the ring and the balcony at the end of it.
Talshe wasn’t there yet. Jason rose to his knees, then his feet. His legs were
wobbly, but the guards helped steady him.

“We’ll guide you to the ring,” said E.
“But we won’t follow you to the balcony. No telling what that giant might do.
We’ve already lost one of our sisters.”

“No, it’s fine. She wants me, I’ll give
her me.”

When Jason looked to her, the Queen
dropped her gaze. A slight blush invaded her cheeks. “I apologize. You remind
me of someone I know.”

“Same here, Queen Gelen.”

Without further distraction, the guards
and Gelen led Jason through the castle. He didn’t bother to look around and
admire the different rooms. He focused solely on Talshe and the Thing inside
her.

Thing—the sixth dream’s name.

The guards stopped at a titanic door that
seemed to change color with every twitch of the eye. One moment it looked blue,
the next silver. He glanced over to Gelen, whose dress had changed again—into a
black skirt with matching veil. Jason hoped her wardrobe didn’t reflect Gelen’s
inner thoughts. The Queen nodded to her guards, and they moved to one of the
doors, gripping the gigantic handle. The three of them pulled the door open a
crack, giving Jason just enough room to comfortably walk between them. He
looked back to the Queen, and smiled.

The Queen smiled, and raised a fist.
“Forth, young Jason!”

He also raised a fist. “Forth!”

***

The trek to the balcony took less time
than Jason thought it would, even though he spent most of it staring at his
feet, at the see-through surface of the ring. The city and its many streets lay
far below, even farther than Jason might have realized from down there. It made
his stomach gurgle with queasiness. But he pressed on.

She was there, on the balcony, standing
roughly two inches taller than him. Jason wondered if this was
Talshe’s
normal height. Somewhere in his gut he felt it to
be true, but he had no reason to believe it. Still, he couldn’t help the
feeling. Especially when Talshe turned around and smiled—nostalgia floored him.

But that’s stupid,
he thought.
Why
nostalgia?

Talshe crossed her arms, her smile turning
into a smirk. “I knew you’d give up.”

She turned and stepped off the side of the
balcony. Jason rushed forward. Halfway to the edge, Jason stopped as
Talshe’s
head rose above the balcony. When she stopped
growing,
Talshe’s
bust was on level with Jason.
Talshe lowered one hand, palm-up, and bridged her fingers across the edge of
the balcony. A mile-wide grin was plastered on her face. Reluctantly, Jason
stepped up onto the balcony’s rail and crawled into her hand. Talshe quickly
raised him to her face without giving him a chance to stand. Her smile widened.
Yet, as Jason stared into her eyes, he saw something else.

“Now,” said Talshe, “you pay the price.”

“What price? What’ve I done to you?”

She tilted her head slightly. “You’re
still playing that game? That’s sad. I hoped bringing you here would wake you
up.”

“Wake…me up?”

She pinched him between two fingers and
lifted him above her. Jason stared down into the large gray face. It was only
then, dangling high above his possible doom, that Jason saw it, etched deep
into the giantess’s features: Sadness.

Talshe tilted her head back and closed her
eyes. Her abysmal mouth opened wide, the back of her throat twitching. She
dropped Jason in. And swallowed.

He splashed in something that smelled like
stale burp. Jason jumped up, shaking himself dry as it slowly stung his flesh.
The spongy ground below him shook. Everything around him seemed to sway and
jiggle. A loud gurgle came from nearby, so Jason jogged in the opposite
direction. It was then his foolishness dawned on him. How could he hope to find
his way toward the sixth dream? What if the sixth dream wasn’t even in
Talshe’s
stomach, in
Talshe’s
body? He ran until he hit a fleshy wall, slick with something that smelled like
vomit and plastic. Jason wished he’d paid attention in biology, but he’d never
thought he would be getting a live demonstration on how the human stomach
worked. Then again, Talshe wasn’t human, so neither was her stomach.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jason
spotted a pinprick of light. Any other time, he might’ve thought it was just an
illusion. But, so far, the stomach had been pitch black. Anything was better
than wandering until he melted into goop. As he made for the light, the burning
sensation intensified. He ran his fingers along every part of him that he could
touch, but didn’t feel any lesions in his flesh. Of course, if he were
bleeding, he wouldn’t be able to tell by touch, thanks to the stomach juices and
bile slick upon his skin.

The light grew steadily, and this lifted
Jason’s hopes. After a few minutes, it also seemed the burns were fading.
Jason’s shoes hit something solid, and he nearly fell on his face. The stomach
lining had turned into concrete. Dry, firm concrete. Up ahead, where the light
winked at him, a door appeared. Jason gripped the key in his pocket. He sighed
in relief; he hadn’t dropped it outside of Talshe. Finally, he would be able to
use it. He would let himself inside, as Len had said.

The light came from the top of a lamppost,
which stood only a few yards from the door. The door seemed to be part of a
wall made not of stomach lining, but wood. The design of the door, though
faded, struck a chord in his memory: Jason had come to a mansion and, inside,
the Thing said it would devour Jason completely. But Jason had escaped. He’d
left the Thing in ruins.

He inserted the key into the lock. But it
didn’t fit. He stared at it a moment, mouth flopped open, then tried again. But
no matter how many times he tried, the key wouldn’t go in. He shoved the key
back into his pocket. It was a stupid thought, but he wondered if the door
wasn’t actually locked. He grabbed the doorknob, turned it without complaint,
and pushed open the door. He felt slightly stupid, but that wasn’t the main
thought on his mind.

This place wasn’t the mansion he
remembered: Everything was broken, covered in dust and cobwebs. Mold had
overtaken the walls, crawling up from the floorboard in black vines. Jason covered
his mouth, though the
mildewy
stench snaked through
his fingers and crawled into his nose. The hallway stretched to his left and
right. He saw a light to his left, and headed toward it. Along the floor were
shards of pottery and shredded paintings—the result of a long struggle with the
Thing. Jason shivered. The stomach had been so warm and damp, but this place
felt colder than a meat locker. He came to an open door, and froze. Music—it
had a festive feel, with an upbeat tempo and bright melody. But it seemed
sloppy, as though played by a group of inexperienced and exhausted high school
students.

Jason recognized the music.

The pressure in the back of his head
resurfaced. The liquid stone trickled into his fingers. “Forth,” he said.

But the pressure continued to hum in the
back of his head, as if following the music. Jason almost turned to leave, but
he heard a voice, and it said to him, “Jason! I can’t see the parade, lift me
on top of your shoulders!”

And Jason heard himself reply, “Hop on,
Miss Tara! All aboard the McKinney express!”

“You’re such a goof!”

“But you love me, right?”

“Love you with all my heart, Jayce.”

“I love you, too.”

Jason turned back toward the door. His
chest tightened around his galloping heart. His lips felt dry, his throat
parched. Everything around him seemed darker, and the only light within miles
was the sliver through the doorway. Part of him said to keep moving, to look
for the sixth dream. The rest of him—ninety-five percent of him—said to enter
the door.

He did.

He stepped into a crowd on a sunny day.
None of it felt like an illusion: the sun baked his neck; the people moved
around and bumped into him; everything was real. His heart fluttered as he
glanced behind him. But Tara wasn’t on his shoulders.

“Hurry up, pokey!” said Tara.

“All right, all right, your majesty!” said
Jason.

Jason turned around, and saw her only feet
away from him. Yet, she was standing right next to him—the past him. A muscle
in Jason’s jaw ticked as he watched Tara mount Jason’s back. Not that he was jealous
of himself, but of the smile they shared as the past Jason lifted Tara, seated
on his shoulders, into the air. Jason shifted from foot to foot, thinking,
No
. Please, don’t do this to me. I know what
happens next.

But the day continued. And Jason found
that he couldn’t move from his spot. So he stared after the smiling couple.

From down the street blared fire truck
sirens. People sat atop the trucks, shooting squirt guns at the crowd and
chucking candy for all the kids. Behind them were the little men in go-carts,
doing tight circles in the narrow street as they chased after the fire trucks.
Tara bent forward and whispered into the side of past Jason’s head. His smile
cracked wide before they both let out gleeful laughter. Jason clenched his
fists.

“This is torture,” he said.

“
good
.”

Jason wheeled around, and there stood
Shades, glaring at him with its red eyes. “What are you doing here?” he said.

“
making
sure you
suffer making sure you remember everything soon everything you remember will
belong to
me
.”

A yelp. A scream, and someone thudded
against the sidewalk pavement. A hush fell throughout the crowd, and most of
them turned in the same direction. All except Jason; he had the words
memorized, and didn’t need to see it again.

“You bastard!” shouted Tara. “Traitor! Son
of a bitch! You said you’d love me no matter what!”

Silence.

Tara scrambled to her feet. Biting her
bottom lip, Tara sprinted through the crowd, away from the past Jason, who
remained silent. She passed Jason and Shades, cradling her right wrist.
Shades’s
eyes flickered toward Tara as she passed. Jason
whispered ‘forth’ under his breath, but it hardly seemed to help his thudding
heart and queasy head. Shades looked back to Jason. He could almost see its
face, the vague outline of a twisted smile on its chapped lips. Lips the
creature had used to kiss Jason.

Jason’s eyes widened, and he stopped
saying forth.

“You—”

“
now
go your
worst nightmare is waiting.”

And the shadowy creature kicked Jason in
the gut. He clutched his stomach as he fell back. The parade and the sun
disappeared, sucked into a long, twisting darkness. The darkness seemed to grow
longer, slanting at an upward angle. Wooden steps crunched into his back, and
Jason realized he was falling down stairs. His vision cut out, and he heard his
favorite words: “Sleep and forget. Forget and sleep. Sleep and forget...”

***

“Wake.”

Jason thought he was dreaming. Strangely,
his dream point-of-view was from the floor, looking up at a tall man wearing a
suit and cloak. The man held a broken umbrella in his right hand, in the left a
small orb of light that sniffled. Blood ran down the side of his face, his suit
and pants jagged with rips and tears. The man looked down at the orb. “I’m
sorry. There’s no way I can make it out of here.”

The orb sniffled louder.

“I know you don’t want me to stay. But I
can’t let Talshe and the others suffer alone. It was my idea; I’ll see it
through.” The man moved toward the steps—the same steps Jason fell down—when a
burst of light erupted from up above. The man looked up, his eyes narrowing.
“You? But aren’t you one of the—”

A ball of fiery light struck the man in
the chest, and he fell back, dropping his umbrella. He somehow clung to the
orb, which sniffled and snorted loudly.

“It’s okay,” the man said. “I can handle
this myself.”

“I think not.”

The voice came from high on the stairs,
higher than what Jason could see from the floor. The man held the orb high in
his hand.

“It’s this you want. What for? It’ll only give
you a good sense of smell. Unless your hobby is smelling roses?”

“Hardly. I know who you are. And I know
what you can do. I also know what your creation can do. I’m sure you know as
well as I that she’ll make the perfect vessel.”

“Is that what your master told you? Sorry
to disappoint you, but I have no intention of letting you have this.”

The man snapped his fingers, and the hall
flooded with white light.

***

Jason opened his eyes, and found himself on
the floor at the foot of the stairs. He jerked up, looking around. It was the
same basement hallway. That man holding the orb…he had been here too. Jason
snapped his head in the direction of a noise from down the hall, where complete
and utter blackness awaited him. After regaining his bearings, he stood and
leaned against the wall for support. He felt winded and was shocked to find his
body unbroken. Then again, he’d fallen down the stairs at Len’s house and
survived. Perhaps he was just lucky.

The farther he moved down the hall, the
clammier his skin became. His knees trembled. He thought he might vomit, but
kept it down. No time to show weakness. Not when that Thing waited for him at
the end of the hall. It was in the belly of darkness, halfway between the
stairs and the end of the hall, that he first heard it:

McKinney,
said the voice.
You’ve
come back. Excellent. Have you enjoyed my hospitality? It certainly seems so.
Come, come! Your shambling only delays the inevitable. You knew this day would
eventually come.

On the surface, Jason had no idea what the
voice was talking about. But something inside him felt enraged. Defeated. He
did know that he never wanted to come back here. He never wanted to see the
Thing in the basement again. A light broke up ahead. There, a thick steel
door stood ajar. A lock and chain lay in a twisted heap on the floor, which
troubled Jason.

The Thing couldn’t have gotten out, let
alone mangle that lock.

He chased the thought away as he stepped
into what looked like a medieval torture chamber. The ceiling was high-arching,
with four pillars supporting it. Metal spikes ran up and down the length of
these pillars, chains slithering down toward the center of the room, which lay
at the bottom of a pit. Water dripped from high above. Jason’s feet splashed in
small puddles as he descended into the pit. Already he could see the Thing at
the bottom, secured in place by the chains. Though Jason had a gut feeling the
chains were useless, he continued his descent.

The pressure struck so suddenly that Jason
flinched, gripping the back of his head tightly with both hands. For a moment,
the chamber wasn’t there. He was back at the parade, two years ago. Tara Engel
was on his shoulders; he felt her warmth pressed against his neck. The smile across
his lips almost hurt, that was how much he enjoyed the feeling.

And when he turned to look at her, she lay
on the ground, cradling her wrist. Tears rolled down her face as she shouted,
“Bastard! Traitor! Son of a bitch!” Her skin turned mottled and gray, rotted
and dead.

He ripped his eyes open, staring down into
the pit. He looked directly at it, at the Thing bound by chains—a green-scaled
fish the length of an SUV and about as wide. It had long, whip-like fins that
were pasty-white. Despite being above water, the fish’s massive gills flapped
with its breath. But the most unique features were its eyes and mouth: Its
eyes, much like its skin, were a rich green, and its mouth was twisted into a
cruel smile, with perfectly white teeth glimmering in the torchlight.

“Ah, you’ve made it,” said the fish-Thing.
“I have to give you credit. I didn’t think
Talshe’s
stomach would let you go so easily.”

Jason clenched his fists. He faced the
giant fish, but his eyes wanted to settle anywhere else but on the unnatural
smile and human-like eyes.

“What’s the matter? Can’t look me in the
face? I bet not. You’re probably sick of looking at me. After all, I’ve been
goading you into coming since day one. Now we can have a little chat.” The
giant fish shifted, its chains falling to the floor in a heap. Its whip-like
fins rose into the air and danced like hypnotized cobras, swaying back and
forth.

“First, we need to get rid of an
unnecessary annoyance. Isn’t that right, Shades?”

The shadow’s slender arms snaked down
Jason’s chest. Its breath felt hot on his left ear. Before Jason could think to
move, Shades snatched the key from his pocket.