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All the information I’d crammed haphazardly in my brain over the past several weeks evaporated in an instant. I bit my lip. “Weaving thread?”
She rolled her magenta eyes. “Brilliant deduction. Whattypeof weaving thread?”
I shrugged; my focus on the creative aspect of dream construction had caused me to forget many of the technical details…which explained why I hadn’t done as well on that portion of the exam as I’d hoped.
Angel pressed her nails against her hips. “Weren’t you paying attention when we went over this? It’s essential you understand your thread, as stitches are the foundation of weaving. There are several different types of threads you can use to improve the quality of your dreams, each of which serves a unique purpose.” She ticked them off her fingers. “Some emphasize various senses, others help bring out a Mortal’s emotions; some are more durable and create a realistic quality in dreams, others are dainty and more dreamlike. Experienced Weavers often use several at once to create an intricate dream tapestry. The one we’ll be using tonight is a basic thread used by beginners for simple stitchery that’s firm enough to hold even the most stubborn dream flowers together.”
She opened her jiggling weaving bag and dozens of flowers rose into the air, all various colors, shapes, and sizes. Three quickly engaged in a game of jump rope, while the others waltzed in twirls around me.
“What dream did you plan for Maci?”
I eagerly pulled out the blueprint I’d copied from my notebook. “I decided to create a flying dream, where each constellation Maci soars past comes to life and—”
Angel snatched my blueprint, crumpled it in a ball, and shoved it into her bag. “Too complex for a newborn.”
Heat flashed through me. “Why does it matter? Babies can’t possibly remember their early dreams.”
When I’d first found out my Mortal would be a newborn, I’d immediately gone to Earth to spy on baby dreams, something I’d neglected to do before. I soon discovered this to be impossible, for babies seemed to forget their dreams almost immediately upon waking. I’d never seen anything more than a wisp of color following a baby, nothing substantial enough to actually view.
So I’d settled on viewing the dreams created for toddlers instead; they couldn’t be too different from babies’ dreams. Those had often been creative, wondrous stories, making me certain Maci would love my idea.
“Itdoesmatter,” Angel said. “A baby’s dreams shape their development. It’s best to create simple dreams for them; just pick two or three details.”
The flowers kept wiggling, making it difficult to see the sensory detail they harbored, but from the glimpses I managed, each was incredibly lovely. How could I possibly choose between them? I hadn’t the faintest idea what a newborn would enjoy.
“Try a lullaby.” Angel pointed to the flower playing a game of hopscotch with itself. Musical notes skimmed its aura; the melody trilled through my mind when I focused on it, a rendition of “Rock-a-Bye Baby.”
Sparkles of dream dust skipped from my hourglass locket as I performed the summoning spell. The magic curled around the flower and brought it into my waiting hand. After much agonizing deliberation and Angel’s suggestions, I selected the gentle rocking motion of wind and a soft cloud of feathers.
Angel hovered over my shoulder as I struggled to connect all the details together. Weaving real flowers was far more difficult than the cloth I’d practiced with during my training, especially as the flowers didn’t seem to want to keep still. The lullaby flower curled up and snored quietly, but the wind one zoomed around like a tornado, while the feather flower kept lazily drifting away, requiring me to summon it back multiple times.
“Your stitches are too careless,” Angel said. “You really need more practice. No, those are too big; there mustn’t be any space between them. Make them tiny and delicate, a finely tailored quilt.”
I pricked my finger for the second time. “Ow! Why do I have to stitch them together now? Can’t I weave the dream as Maci views it?” That’s what Nightmare Darius had done when he’d given me his creepy nightmare, a technique that seemed much faster, and I was eager to begin my first weaving.
“Only advanced Weavers do that so they can respond to the Mortal’s actions and emotions while the Mortal dreams,” Angel said. “It requires polished technique and rapid stitchery, and as a beginner you’re still too slow…and sloppy.”
I had to unpick four times before my stitches were to Angel’s finicky satisfaction. I held up my completed dream, a rough patchwork comprised of jagged stitches.
Angel frowned at it. “See? Nothing to it.”
She had to be joking. I silently cursed that my hours of needlework practice had been nearly useless when applied to flowers that wouldn’t stop wriggling. “It’s so rough.”
“Nonsense,” Angel said half-heartedly. “A few more years and your skills will be up to par. Now, this is my favorite part: place it on top of Maci for her to view it.”
I gently tucked the dream around Maci. It immediately seeped into her and vanished. Angel pulled a mirror from her bag and handed it to me. “This is a weaving mirror. It acts as a window to a Mortal’s mind and allows you to watch the dream unfold. It’s the closest we can ever come to having dreams of our own, but it only works on the dream you created, not your partner’s.”
I watched as blurred images appeared in the mirror like a washed-out watercolor, but paused when the dream I’d created appeared above Maci as a swirly aqua orb, just like the ones I’d seen floating around the village. Because it was being viewed at the moment, if I entered the dream now I’d be able to watch the entire thing in all its vivid detail. I glanced sideways at Angel, now preoccupied with polishing her fingernails, before I focused on the dream and tumbled inside.
I found myself nestled within a bed of feathered clouds, which swayed back and forth in a gentle breeze as “Rock-a-Bye Baby” trilled in a soft, melodious hum. The dream wasn’t long, but it was simple and elegant, perfect for a newborn. Despite my poor stitches—evident by the occasional gaps in my details, as if the dream was already a few hours old—it was still quite good. It ended as gently as it’d begun.
My surroundings faded until I once more floated in Maci’s bedroom. A twirl of dream dust flew through the air and seeped into my locket, my payment for the dream.
Angel bounced on her heels. “See, that wasn’t too hard. You’ll have weaving down in no time, and soon you’ll be skilled enough to give Maci multiple dreams a night as she grows older.”
Warm satisfaction blossomed in my chest. The dream I’d just watch unfold hadn’t been another Weaver’s, it’d beenmine.
Angel helped me gather the flowers we hadn’t used, which were entertaining themselves with a game of leap frog and seemed quite reluctant to return to my bag.
