Was this a dream?
No, she was in a dream. IntheDream and she needed to manipulate it, not become a part of it. That’s what the books had said, some waking, rational part of her remembered. This was the danger of entering the Dream, that it took a person into itself and made you a part of the fabric of it. And the Dream wasn’t only of your own self and memories, but spun from all the dreamers in all the world in all of time. One could encounter anything in the Dream, perhaps contributed by someone who’d murdered thousands in war or lost their entire family.
As if evoked by her thought—and possibly it was—the brilliant garden dimmed, darkening with unnatural night, something sharking through it toward her, smelling of old blood and rot. She struggled against the roses holding her, crying out astheir thorns pierced her skin, adding the scent of her fresh blood and pain, her screams loud in her own ears but swallowed up in the next moment. She had to get free, return to the safety of the cottage. Thrashing, she tore herself loose, leaving flags of flesh behind, and ran for the cottage. The shadow creature loomed behind her, ever closer, even as the cottage receded, growing small in the distance.
The other little girl stood in the kitchen doorway, beckoning to her.
If only she could get back, she’d be safe.
“I am here to keep you safe,” Jada said, suddenly stepping into her path and opening her arms. “You’re only safe with me. Come to me.”
Thorn started to, then saw the chains in Jada’s hands. “No!” she sobbed, beset with terrible grief. A vast and terrible sleepiness washed over her and she crumpled to the ground, sinking into it, dissolving.
That distant, waking part of her thought hard. She was becoming lost in the Dream. None of this was real, and yet it was all too real. The roses snarled and whispered, shaking their canes at her.Back to the cottage,they urged.
You’ll never be safe.
You’re only safe there.
Jada smiled and rattled the chains. The soil covered her over like a soothing blanket.
The little girl with the long black hair ran past, giggling wildly.
“You’ve come this far,” she said to herself. “You entered the Dream when the books said almost no one was powerful enough to do that. But you did it and without anyone teaching you. You can get yourself out again.”
Remember,the roses whispered.
Remember where you’re going.
Out.
She didn’t want to go back to the cottage, once againenticingly near. The little girl stood by the garden gate, waving to her. “Come and play!” she called. “I’ll hide and you seek.” She opened the gate and ran out.
Thorn, feeling herself young and small again, like the girl who was her and not her, gave chase. She ran for the gate, her feet sinking into mushy, sticky soil, her legs weak, and she moved slowly as a tortoise, the enticing opening drawing farther away. The little girl had disappeared and Thorn was alone. Giving up, she began to sink into the muck.
Then the black cat Moriah was there.
Still as a statue carved of ebony, the cat sat on her haunches, tail curled primly around her front paws, only her emerald eyes showing life. They snapped with anger. “Foolissh, foolissh, child,” she hissed. “You will be lost forever.Think.Make a doorway and leave. Control the Dream or it controls you. I didn’t help you awaken for you to be lost in the Dream.”
Sobbing, Thorn tried to reach the open gate. She needed out. The purple roses waved their thorny canes, petals dripping like violet blood. The monster sharked its way back and forth before them, barring the way.Control the Dream or it controls you.Flexing her fingers, she drew the magic into and through them. It trickled out like egg yolk, thick and buttery yellow. She flung it at the monster, spattering it with sunshine. Howling, it dove at her, but she ran toward it, heart pounding.
And then she was through it. Braver now, she ran at the roses, who held out their arms to embrace her, chattering with excitement. She wanted out, out of the garden, past the fence of roses and out of the Dream. The arched gateway suddenly loomed before her, encircled by roses. Now Moriah sat on the other side, just as unmoving, gaze expectant.
Make a doorway and leave. She needed a portal.
Tracing the outline of the gate with a finger in the air, Thorn funneled her sorcery through it, imagining it like the silver-blue of Oneira’s. It sputtered and went out like a candle flame on awet wick. The monster swirled past, suddenly pouncing, and the little girl screamed, tufts of black hair flying like the feathers of a bluebird caught by a hawk.
“Not real,” Thorn said, her words muttering away and becoming blue butterflies with tiny teeth. They settled on her bare arms and set into painfully nibbling on her skin, as if to prove her wrong. This was real, in a way, and she could be trapped here forever, gradually blurring into the landscape, perhaps becoming a monster herself who chased other unfortunates. “I won’t let it be real.” She wasn’t sure if those words ever made it past her lips.
Trying again, Thorn thought of how her psychometry work felt, especially when she explored complex levels of an object’s provenance and history. That sorcery she’d learned well and practiced with ease. Perhaps she could apply those skills to the Dream, assessing and exploring its nature, finding the path through.
At first, the Dream poured out, searing her sorcerous senses, making her stagger, and sending the carnivorous butterflies into a bloody blue cloud. Moriah growled a warning and Thorn wrestled the power of the Dream. It was far too vast, comprised of too many people and animals and fragments of thoughts and memories going back eons. She couldn’t possibly parse all of that, any more than she could drink an ocean.
Pulling back, she tried again, but just one slice, just the bit right before her. The Dream coexisted with the waking world, so all she needed was the boundary between. Narrowing her psychometry to the width of a paring knife, she peeled away at the space within the gate, thinning it to transparency so that another realm began to show through. Hopefully that was the waking world and not another Dream space like the ones she’d already wandered through. It did look like forest beyond, with the strong, dark columns of trees, patterning one after another into the infinite forest.
Heartened, she kept peeling away, until suddenly the skin between the Dream and the waking world popped, like a blisterexploding outward. Moriah leapt away, racing off up a tree to perch on a low branch and dangle a leisurely paw, chin on the other. The butterflies eagerly swirled through the ragged, oval opening, fluttering off in vivid azure specks through the forest. Thorn hoped that wouldn’t be a problem. Could dream butterflies survive out there? For the waking world continued in winter, a contrast to the warmth of the Dream garden. Perhaps they’d freeze, which might be for the best, though she felt terribly sorry for them.
In desperation, Thorn crawled through the uneven opening, having to wriggle to fit her hips through the squeeze. No neat, perfectly rectangular doorway for her. She wept and struggled, her mind splintering into fluttering butterfly fragments. Then she popped through, falling in an ungainly heap on solid ground.
