The Dream Catcher's Daughter (2 page)

“Not yet. But we’ve got a few applicants.
We should know by tomorrow or the day after.” Mr. McKinney skimmed the
document’s print, then handed it to Jason. “Just sign and date the bottom,
son.”

So Jason did, and hated the scratch of
pen-tip on cheap paper.
This is what my death sounds like,
he thought.
After dating the contract, he handed it back to Mr. McKinney, who stashed it
away in the top drawer of his desk.

“Thank you, Jason. You can go home now.”

“Thank you, Mr. McKinney.” And he turned
to the Guardian. “Thank you, Guardian, Master of my father, Arthur McKinney.”
Another shift in the Guardian’s hood—a lift of the brow? Jason stood and turned
to leave when the Guardian’s voice caught him.

“Have you any dreams as of late?”

The smell of rotten chicken salad flooded
his nose. How she came to be was a mystery to him. Not something he wanted to
discuss with the Guardian, especially not with his father present. Especially
since his dreams were supposed to be sealed.

So without a word, Jason left.

***

Silver Moon Grocery stood nearly center
between downtown and uptown. To the east and west were the residential
areas—east with more of the rundown, slum-like housing. These were the houses
cast in mold and rot instead of paint hues, with glassless windows and
overgrown jungles for front yards. The people who emerged from these houses
wore wife beaters and spaghetti straps. The streets smelled of trash and
cigarette smoke.

Jason’s house stood just past these
houses, situated between a neighbor and an alleyway. The McKinney house was a
two-story, peach-colored building with pleasantly trimmed grass. Despite the
unbroken windows, the lack of mildew, and the absence of crushed beer cans
strewn throughout his yard, Jason stared at his house for a moment or two
before lumbering up the front walk, unlocking the door, and shoving inside.
Jason took off his shoes at the door, letting his eyes wander the hallway. He
had been back nearly a week, but still couldn’t believe how little had changed
in a year. The walls still remained half-painted, a pet project Mr. McKinney
picked up every once in a while, maybe painting bits and pieces here and there.
But he would stroke once, maybe twice, then put the brush back in the paint
bucket. He wouldn’t even look at the paint for months on end.

Jason moved into the living room on his
left. He didn’t enter, but hung at the entrance, casting a glance at every
article of furniture—the plush, gaudy red couch against the east wall,
bookcases on the north wall, and a small television and entertainment center on
the west. A love seat occupied the south wall. Jason could still see his mother
and father sitting, cuddling, and giggling on that love seat. They had looked
happy.

Jason caught himself massaging the back of
his head, and quickly turned away.

He headed farther up the hall and passed a
door on his right. He stopped, then turned. This door, a thick slab of oak
bolted into the maple frame with gold-painted hinges and screws, complete with
gold-painted doorknob, had remained closed for such a long time.

He reached for the handle, slowly. Hand
quivering. Breath. Hitch.
Ing
. When his fingers
brushed the doorknob, he winced. There was no enchantment on this door, but
Jason wished there was so he wouldn’t feel so stupid for flinching. He turned
the knob and pushed, but the door caught—locked. He let his hand fall and,
shaking his head, Jason turned toward the door at the end of the hall. Behind
it stood a staircase. The first steps creaked, then, as if he were walking on
the keys of a piano, the steps’ creaks rose to squeaks. The bare landing at the
top offered no sound—a broken key—and Jason continued down a short hall toward
an empty doorframe at the end. He lingered here for a long moment. He still
couldn’t believe how spotless his room was.

“Sorry! Cleaned your room while you were
gone. Most of your clothes are still in the closet, but if you want your toys
or video games, you’ll have to dig through the shed. They’re safe, I promise.”
This had been a note left by Mr. McKinney the first day Jason returned. Jason
had yet to rummage through the shed.

Now his room was nothing but the
barest of bare: his bed, with plain white sheets and a flower-embroidered
comforter with matching pillow set; the sand-colored floorboards that
disappeared under the wardrobe on the wall opposite of his bed; the barren desk
and nightstand beneath the window. Generic-brand Lysol and Windex permeated the
air.

He plopped down on his bed, his schoolbag
sliding off one side and landing hunched and small on the floor. He stared at
the bag, blue with black straps and stitching. It had two pockets: one for
books, the other for pens, pencils, rulers, and calculators. He hoped it might
soon contain a
Megatron
figure, the one he’d deliver
to Trevor after class. First he had to find it. He looked up, and his eyes
landed on the desk. In that split flicker, another chair appeared next to
Jason’s. In it sat a girl, bent over the desk, a single leaf of notebook paper
before her.

Once upon a time, there was a knight who
didn’t want to be a knight.

Jason jerked back, clasping his hand to
the back of his head. The pressure had pooled there again, and he tried
twisting his head every which way, begging for something, anything, to pop, to
relieve the nagging pressure at the base of his skull. His brow cinched tight,
his breath shallow. He clutched his hands to his chest, curling his arms up, as
though he would flap them and fly away. Too heavy to hold up, they fell to his
sides.

Green flesh and pearly-white teeth—a cruel
smile—flashed through his mind, followed by a heaviness that pooled in his
fingers and slowly rose into his wrists.

He gasped, falling onto his back. The
bedsprings grunted under his weight. He stared at the ceiling, trying to move,
but could only manage to wiggle his toes and open his mouth.
The aftermath,
he thought.
Guardian told me how to get out of this. How to deal with the
day dreams.

Say something,
said the Guardian
in his mind.
Create a special word of power. It matters not the word’s
origin, but it must have a strong connection with you. If not, then I hope you
enjoy life as a statue.

He wiggled his toes, his mouth flopping
open. The word was there, but he couldn’t get his tongue or lungs to work
together. The heaviness, like wet cement, had crawled up his arms and
overflowed into his chest. Green flesh and glistening teeth still loomed before
him.

“Forth!” he screamed. “Forth!”

The teeth and flesh, the liquid
heaviness—they disappeared, receding deep into his brain, into a dark place
where all of Jason’s dreams and shadows now lived. The
daymare
slithered into his head, clicking into place like the puzzle piece of a larger,
more grotesque collage.

Jason bolted upright, letting loose a
scream that seemed to rattle the air about him. When the scream vanished and
Jason was left breathless, he sat there, hunched over. He survived another one.
What should he do next? Something. Anything. He decided to retrieve
Megatron
from the shed. He changed out of his work uniform,
replacing it with a plain t-shirt and jeans. After lacing up his shoes, he
stood and walked to his door. There, he stopped. He threw a glance over his
shoulder. Only one chair now sat before the desk.

Jason headed downstairs through the living
room and into the linoleum-tiled kitchen with its mountain-high stack of dirty
dishes in the sink. The moldy stench of food scraps curdled the air. He passed
through the back door and descended the stone steps into his fenced-in
backyard. Across the yard, next to the apple tree, he came before the shed. It
took a while, but he didn’t have to sift through as much garbage as he feared.
There was such a lack of garbage, he wondered if his father had contracted a
fatal illness in the year Jason had been gone.
Father never cleaned so much
before,
he thought.

Clutching
Megatron
under his arm, he closed the shed door, held the Transformer up to his face,
and turned to head inside.

It stood as tall as him, with no visible
eyes or limbs—a ragdoll of inky darkness, pulsating and writhing like the coils
of a snake. For a moment, Jason thought it might be the Guardian. But it
couldn’t be him; he had green eyes. This creature’s eyes were red.

Before he could say anything, the creature
rushed past him, and a stench similar to ripe trash wafted up his nostrils.
Jason clasped a hand over his mouth and hunched over. He struggled to keep his
blurry vision on the figure as it leaped over the six-foot fence. When the
nausea and bile receded, he straightened himself, slowly, just in case the
nausea hadn’t completely settled.

What was that?
he
thought.
That smell...It reminds me of something.

Jason set the
Megatron
figure on the steps and tore through the alley behind his house, clutching his
gut. The nausea still threatened him, but not as bad now. Something about the
phantom’s smell—he didn’t know where he had smelled something so vile, but he
recognized it from somewhere. That’s why he had to chase it. To try and catch
that memory. The sun was now half-past the horizon, its light peeking around
buildings and Sheriffsburg’s large,
Space
Needle-like
water tower. There were a lot of places for a shadow phantom to hide at
twilight.

Jason reached the intersection in front of
Silver Moon Grocery. The seven o’clock traffic had arrived and bustled like
every nervous driver’s worst nightmare. The shadow appeared just across the
walk, on the other side of traffic, and stared him down with its red eyes. The
walk light turned white, and Jason prepared to jet off after the shadow, after
the answer to his question.

“
Yo
, Jason!”

He wheeled around, and nearly screamed at
Darlene. But he bit his tongue, shifting from foot to foot like a five year-old
with a full bladder. “Darlene. Sorry, got to be somewhere.”

“Whoa, what’s the rush? Do you
gotta
take a piss?”

He glanced back over his shoulder. The
shadow remained still, but how much longer would that last? “No, and listen:
There’s this thing I have to do.”

“Cool. I’ll come with.”

“No, I don’t think—”

“Oh, by the way, I reported those two
asshats
to your dad.”

“Cool, thanks. Now please—”

Darlene looked up, and her eyes widened.
She pointed past Jason’s shoulder, her mouth forming an O. “Hey, um,
Jason...Look behind you.” He did, and saw the shadow, still glaring at him from
across the street. The walk sign was still white.

If Darlene would just…

“See that shadow thing? What is it?”

“I’m chasing...Wait, you can see it?”

“Well, yeah. I’m sure most magi can.”

Jason stared at Darlene blankly for a
moment. The light’s white picture of a walking person changed to a blinking
orange hand. Jason gripped Darlene’s wrist, and she yelped as they ran over the
crosswalk. The shadow moved slowly at first and when Jason and Darlene were
three-fourths across it picked up speed, gliding over the sidewalk unnoticed by
drivers and pedestrians. Jason would apologize to Darlene later, but for now he
figured having someone who could use magic was a lot better than his
normie-self chasing after a mysterious phantom.

It led them to the bridge, which arched
over a railroad and an old industrial district—the perfect place for a shadow
to hide. The phantom leaped over the edge, disappearing into the umbra of an
abandoned two-story building. Jason didn’t slow; there was a staircase on the
side of the bridge. It was only wide enough for a single-file line, so Jason
let go of Darlene.

“What
is
that thing?” she said.

“I don’t know. It just showed up in my
backyard. Is it one of those snake women you told me about?”

“A lamia? No. But…I haven’t seen anything
like it.”

They shot down the steps two at a time.
For all Jason knew, the shadow could be a lamia—one of those half-woman,
half-serpent magic-eaters. While certain the creature would starve if it came
after him, he felt guilty for bringing Darlene along. She had magic, but wasn’t
even graduated from magi high school. How the hell was she supposed to fight a
feral lamia?

But Darlene charged down the steps with
him and didn’t hesitate to leap from the bottom step. She tore off toward the
two-story building. A wide smile stretched her face and her eyes sparkled.
Jason admired her lead on him, the bravery she showed, the caution she
discarded. Jason remembered that she wanted to be a paladin, and he would be
surprised if she didn’t achieve her dream.

They crossed onto the building’s
threshold. As they approached the front doors, the shadow burst out and brushed
past them. Jason braced himself this time, plugging his nose between two
fingers, holding his breath. Darlene, seemingly unfazed by the creature’s
stink, grabbed Jason’s wrist, directing him toward the shadow’s trail. Sweat
beaded on his brow, and the smell of autumn night tinged with rust stung his
nose and throat. But this was the first time since returning that he felt
something other than complacency or dull annoyance. Excitement. Adrenaline.
These words popped like firecrackers in his mind.
This is how I was before
the Guardian sealed my dreams,
he thought.