Dream Weaver (Dream Weaver #1) (8 page)

              Of course, maybe I was deluding myself.

             
I needed to know, though. I resolved to find a way to wake myself when he was with me. I tried just staying awake, but he wouldn’t come until I slept, as if he could sense my conscious state. My nightmares were decreasing, my apprehension that he would no longer come to me increased correspondingly. I had to do this, before he slipped out of my room with the morning light and out of my life forever.

             
Despite his manipulations, the nightmares returned in full fury the following night triggered by some unknown factor. This time, the crashing, the screaming, and the exploding into flames returned with malevolent vengeance. I could see my mother’s face so vividly as the blaze roared like an unchained beast around her—the only demon I truly believed in. I could feel the heat on my face, burning my eyes as it superheated the tears that filled them. The flash lit the night and my mother’s emerald eyes.

             
“Mommy!” The scream tore through my chest, shredded my throat as it escaped.

             
I bolted upright in my bed, and straight into the arms of my angel. He held me in an iron embrace. I clung desperately to him, cleaved to the reality of him, his arms, his chest, his solid presence confirming my sanity.

             
Oh shit!
He was real. There was a real man in my house.

             
I jerked away from him as if jolted by lightning. My hand shot under my pillow. Before I fully realized what I was doing, I sent a shock of my own coursing through his body. Ten. Million. Volts.

Chapter 9 Dream Weaver

             
His body arched and stiffened, a plank hitting the deck. He writhed on the floor; his mouth gaped in a silent scream. And then, he went limp.

             
“Oh my god. Oh my god,” I panted, torn between stunning him again and going to his aid.

             
His body began to evanesce, glittered like the snow off the glass of my built-ins.
He was here—that night—I saw him in the reflections.

             
The stun gun clattered to the floor, and I dropped to my knees beside him.

             
“Please…” Hysteria pitched my voice. His solidity wavered, phased between human and whatever the hell he was. “Don’t go! Please! Don’t go!”
Oh my god. What have I done?

             
My fingers trembled over his chest, both aching and afraid to help. He faded and shimmered. Leaving me. “Please. I’m sorry. Please, don’t go.”

             
His form guttered and winked
,
then solidified once more. His eyes fluttered and blinked, locked on mine. He grabbed my wrist so fast I barely saw it, and shook my body as the last of the voltage released him. I whimpered and strained against him. “Please don’t hurt me.”             

             
“I won’t—won’t hurt you,” he stammered.

             
A sound like half a laugh and half a cry raked through my throat.

             
“Emari…” His grip softened, eyes fluttered and breath rasped out him. The hand that held me fell limply to the floor. Though mostly human, whatever else he was sparked beneath his skin like a pulse. Curled in on myself, I watched as it slowed, slowed…and stopped.
I killed him.

             
I buried my face in my knees and sobbed.
What have I done? I’m so sorry.
He wasn’t bad. He tried to help me, not hurt me. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please don’t go,” I cried into my knees. Like those abused, neglected animals I cowered and cried. My turmoil stretched into silence. My rocking body accentuated only by the racking breaths that escaped my chest.

             
“Em-mari…” It was the moan of a ghost. He came back to haunt me. I covered my head with my arms. “Emari. It’s okay. I’m here.”

             
My eyes flashed open to find him gazing back at me. He reached toward me and I skittered away like a crab. A relieved and terrified sob was all I could manage. He pushed himself up on his elbows. “I promise, Emari. I won’t hurt you.” His voice was more groan than speech.

             
“Who…what are you?”

             
He heaved a sigh of a weighted heart. “I suppose I have some explaining to do.” His chin dropped to his chest. “Or I could just wipe your memory.”

             
“What? No. It’s not working anyway. Obviously.”

             
“No, I guess it’s gone too far for that now.” Then, in a voice I didn’t think I was suppose to hear, he said, “Sabre’s gonna kill me.”

             
“Who’s that? No. Tell me what you are first.” I dug my nails into my arms, just to verify that I was awake.

             
“I am Onar Caphar,” he said as he pushed himself up to sit facing me. He still looked a little jittery, a lot tired. “It’s Greek for Dream Writer, but we are called Dream Weavers now. Like the song.”

             
“What the hell is that suppose to mean?”

             
His mouth quirked on one side. He sighed again. “I can touch you, anyone, and heal your dreams. I can read your memories, change them or give you new ones.”

             
“You said ‘we’. How many of you are there? Where did you come from? And how the hell did you get in my house!”

             
He raised his hands to stop me. “Whoa. One question at a time.” He extended a hand to me. “Shall we get off the floor? It’s kinda hard and cold down here.”

             
A whine leapt from my throat and he withdrew his hand. “I can do it.” I pushed myself up off the floor, walked to the bed, my eyes trained on him. Eddyson lay snoozing in the middle of the bed. I wanted so badly to crawl in with him, use him as shield, but there would be no retreat. I’d be cornered. On the bed.
Yeah. Not happening.

             
This ‘Dream Weaver’ sat in the rocking chair by the bed still looking tired and weak. “Em, I won’t hurt you. I promise. I only came to help.”

             
And he had helped. But I still didn’t even know his name. I pushed my back to the wall, wished the stun gun was still within reach. He saw my eyes dart to the weapon on the floor. I whimpered again as he reached down and picked it up. “I don’t make promises lightly,” he said, and handed me the stunner, handle first, and sat back down. I clutched it to my chest. “Please. Be careful. That thing really sucks.” When I still didn’t sit he said, “Please, Emari. Sit. I won’t even touch you.”

             
I scampered onto the bed, pulled Eddyson’s limp body onto my lap and trained the stun gun on the guy. The guy. What was I suppose to call him? Dream Weaver?

             
He anticipated my question. “My name is Nickolas Benedetti. ‘We’ are not many—a few hundred in America. We’re not from space, just a rare genetic anomaly. And I got into your house by fazing. I am corporeal,” he waved his hand down his body, “and ethereal—as you probably saw when you tased me.”

             
“Technically, I stunned you, not tased you.”

             
“As you wish,” he conceded with a smile. He leaned back in the chair, steepled his fingers in front of him. “My aging processes came to a near halt when I was nineteen. That was in 1917. In a way, I’m an immortal.”

             
My hand went instinctively to my throat at his casual use of the word ‘immortal.’ That word had specific and nocuous meaning in my mind.

             
Nick chuckled quietly. “You’ve read too many vampire books, Emari, and seen too many monster movies.” He gestured to the glossy movie posters that adorned my walls.

             
I let my hand fall to my lap and laughed at myself. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right there.” I glanced up at my well-stocked bookshelves. In my defense, there were other genres of books there besides vampire novels. There were werewolf books, too, as well as classics from Twain; the Harry Potter Series, the Ink Heart Series, the Dragons In Our Midst series. There were definitely a large number of vampire books, including Stoker’s Dracula, and Meyer’s Twilight Saga—all my worlds of escape from the world that held me captive.

             
“I don’t require that type of sustenance,” he assured me. “I become ethereal, like a ghost or a spirit, to get into your house.”

             
“When was the first time?” I pressed him.

             
“When your parents died.” He cautiously assessed me through his thick dark lashes, and seemed painfully aware of the magnitude of my grief. “When those nightmares began. Once those diminished, I stopped coming.”

             
I wanted to take his hand in mine, but fear froze me. “Thank you for that. You may have saved my life.” Even though the crash nightmares continued, they had been especially devastating those first few weeks.

             
“Then, a few nights ago—I heard your cries again from out in the woods.”

             
“So? What? You’re like stalking me or something?” The thought abhorred me.

             
“No. No,” he said holding his hands up in surrender. “I just—I check up on you every few weeks to make sure the nightmares aren’t too bad. But then the other night—your cries—I knew something bad had happened.”

             
“So you know,” I said, and hung my head, wished for curtains of thick long hair to hide my shame.

             
He dropped to his knees on the floor in front of me. His hands shook, restrained as he warred with the desire to hold me, yet he was still afraid to touch me. “Emari, don’t,” his voice came with a gentle force, quiet, from deep within him. His trembling hand finally touched my face. I winced but didn’t pull away. He lifted my chin to look into his eyes. “Emari,” he whispered, “you did nothing wrong. It was
all
him.” His warm hand cupped my face and he gazed into my soul. “And I swear to you,” he said solemnly, “I
will
find that, animal, and I
will
kill him for what he did to you.”

             
His memories of me that first night after the attack played before my mind like a horror movie. Nick relived every moment of the attack with me; his gut turned cold with fear, his heart raced for freedom, the blows bruised his face, his body—so great was his empathy towards me. In return, I felt his sorrow, his anger, his compassion. I whined and pulled away, gratefully shattered the images, as the intensity of his emotions overwhelmed me.

              He sat for several long moments, caressed my hand with his thumb, and gazed intently into my eyes. Without a word, he willed me to believe in him, to trust him. Slowly a warm peace drifted over me, and my eyelids fluttered. I nodded myself awake, “Nick, please. I don’t want to forget,” I murmured drowsily. He pulled my head to his shoulder and slid my body down onto the bed. “Please. Don’t make me forget.” I clutched weakly at his shirt, but I heard his relinquished sigh.

             
“As you wish. Now sleep.” He kissed my forehead. I felt heavy, warm, content. “Sleep, my love,” I could have sworn he whispered and that his lips lightly brushed my cheek as he spoke; like a butterfly kiss, his breath warm and sweet upon my face. From deep inside myself, I could hear the quiet rustle of his clothes as he moved, picked up Eddyson and tucked him in at my side.

Chapter 10 Black Velvet

              Misty coral light bathed the Eastern sky, the trees and valleys still cloaked in darkness. The pink morning stretched its fingers across the hard frozen farmland that billowed and rolled in shimmering waves of white. Winter obscured the land that, in the summer, was the epitome of America’s ‘amber waves of grain.’ The gleam of the snow chased away the stark nakedness that winter cast on the land.

              My room felt nearly as barren when I awoke to find Nick gone, and it frightened me. What if it had all been a dream or I made it all up? Although, since when did I remember my dreams in such vivid detail? When did I remember them at all? Maybe I was crazy and just too much in denial to own up to it.

             
At least he was true to his word; I could still remember him—him, the entire conversation, and every memory he imparted to me. I sighed and rolled over to find Eddyson staring curiously up at me, his paint-dipped tail thumped loudly on the bed. “Morning, Puppa. Come come. Snug up.” He inched closer on his round little belly and tucked himself against my chest.

             
Eddyson’s body was warm, soft, like a living teddy bear—my teddy puppy. I closed my eyes, stroked his velvet fur, tried to block out the harsh reality that a strange man had broken into my home. I didn’t want to think about that part, as if denial would make it somehow less true, less dangerous.

             
As the pink morning melted into a glimmering crystal day, I finally roused myself from my reverie. Eddy yawned and blinked his bleary eyes. My morning stretch was disturbing his beauty sleep. I found his softest part, the patch of fur behind his ear, and raked my nails through it. He cocked his head happily to give me better access to the spot and rolled his eyes in bliss. After a few moments, his teeth pricked my hand with playful bites. I tousled him around on the bed, flipped him over and scratched his fat tummy as he bit at me with mock ferocity.

             
Finally, having delayed the start of my day long enough, I let the puppy out into the yard, and searched for the new tea I’d been drinking. I checked the tin, the drawers and cabinets but I couldn’t find it. I didn’t remember running out. Somehow, I knew Nick had something to do with it. I made a mental note to ask him, and brewed some fresh coffee instead. That actually sounded better today anyway.

             
While I watched the last of the water splutter into the small four-cup carafe, I contemplated potential outcomes of last night’s encounter. Naturally, for me, it didn’t take long for my cynical side to rear its ugly head. What if he doesn’t come back? Maybe he would just never return, in spite of my knowledge of him. What if he was just one more person to abandon me with yet one more nightmare to haunt me? My private psychical ghosts loomed in the darkness of night to vex me and drive me to madness.
Not a little melodramatic, are we?
             

             
After his morning romp, I bundled Eddyson up in his fleecy baby blanket and snuggled him. I ruffled the pup’s fur with the blanket to dry him off and held his soft cold ears in my hands to warm them up. I was just unbundling him, when I heard a car door slam and gentle rap at the back door a moment later. I glanced out the kitchen window, and recognized Jesse’s car. His grinning mug peered in at me. I grinned back and poked the numbers on the alarm pad to let him in.

             
“Jesse!” I greeted him with a one-armed hug.

             
“Hey Em! Whatcha got there?” With a pearly grin, he eyed Eddyson. His rich brown eyes flashed quickly from my face to the pup in my arms.

             
“This is my new guard dog, Eddyson. Isn’t he adorable?”

             
“Sure,” he replied, hesitant. “Shouldn’t you be shooting for vicious, though?”

             
I bristled slightly. “I suppose that was the original idea, but I think he’s here to guard my sanity more than anything else.”

             
I led Jesse to the living room, where we plopped down on the couch. Eddyson curled up in my lap for his mid-morning nap. Jesse fidgeted and watched his anxious hands. His eyes avoided my face.

             
“You look really good,” he finally said.

             
“How would you know? You’re hardly looking at me.” I tried to be gentle. I knew this had to be painfully rough for him. His face flushed. Finally, his eyes met mine, and I could see all the pain, all the grief inside him. And something else, something arcane, something dark and excruciating and buried, deep.

             
“I’m sorry, Em. It’s just…”

             
I reached over and squeezed his hand. “Jesse, I’m so sorry this has been so hard on you. I can only imagine what a mess I was. That couldn’t have been easy for you to see. I want you to know how grateful I am for all of your support. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

             
Jesse’s eyes filled with tears. He laced his fingers through mine and wrapped my small hand between both of his. “Em, I didn’t know what to do. Your face…there was so much blood…I was afraid I’d hurt you just to touch you.” The memories choked him. I imagined myself, what I had looked like after the attack, through his eyes. I had been a bloody mess, with gaping wounds on my face and head, my clothes torn and disheveled. I remembered the look in his eyes when he realized this was not a simple case of assault;
his
grief and rage still haunted me as much as anything else.

             
“I’m okay now, Jess,” I squeezed his hand again for reassurance. “I’m okay partly because you came for me, because you got the help I needed, even if I didn’t want it at the time. You took care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself.”

             
“Well, I, care about you, Em. It makes me crazy what that guy did to you. I swear if I found out who he was, I’d kill him with my bare hands.”

             
Well, well, my second offer for murder committed on my account. “Jess,” I didn’t know what else to say.

             
Jesse was quiet for a few moments as he reined in his fury, his eyes focused again on that deep and faraway place. I wondered what he saw when his eyes drifted to that place. “So, Ivy is kind of freaking out without you,” he finally said. “You should probably come in and see her soon.” The soft Hispanic accent colored his voice, and made me smile.

             
“Do you think I look okay enough to be in public?”

             
He scanned my face. “I’m actually pretty amazed at how great you look, after, what? Ten days?” He fidgeted, tentative, unsure if he should mention how long it had been.

             
“Closer to eight,” I said to give him the impression of confidence. He’d had enough of the drama that was my life lately already. I needed to be strong, not just for myself but also for him. I needed him to be confident that I was doing all right. I still didn’t have the fortitude to hold everyone else together but at least I needed them to believe I was holding my own.

             
Reluctantly, Jesse slid to the front of the couch and released my hand. “I should be going.” He stood and strolled to the kitchen. I gingerly placed Eddyson on the couch and followed Jesse to where he’d stopped, the doorknob clutched in his hand. “You really should come see Ivy. She needs to see for herself that you’re alive.”

             
I took his hand in mine, “I will. Soon. I promise. Tell her for me, that I’ll come into town in the next day or so to see her. I’ve got to look for something anyway.”

             
He squeezed my hand and lingered a few more moments at the door, his emotions still stooped his shoulders as they weighed heavily on his heart. “You really do look great, Em,” he finally said. “I’m really glad to see that you’re all right.”

             
Score! I’d convinced him. “Thanks.” I held my arms open for a hug. A self-conscious smile leapt to his face. He glanced at my eyes and then to the floor, but stepped into my embrace. “Jesse. It’s not even me anymore,” I said, reminding him of the last time he left me and I’d pulled away from him. I felt his tense muscles relax slightly, as if I had removed some of the weight from his shoulders, but he didn’t know what to say in return so he remained silent. His arms around me solidified his assurance of my safety. It made me alive and well, and replaced the last brutal images of me in his mind. We hugged all the time. That’s just the kind of friends we were. He had
needed
this, though, to see me and touch me, to cement in his heart that I was truly okay.

             
He stepped away, shy and reluctant. “I’ll see you soon,” he grinned. The muscles in his face curved naturally, authentically; not a put on smile for my benefit, but a genuine, honest smile that carried the warmth of the sun. The kind that belonged on his face and inoculated anyone close by. “And I’ll let Ivy know you’re coming soon, too. Before she drives us all nuts.”

             
“Thanks Jess.” I watched as Jesse walked past my car in the carport and got into his own. I waved as he drove away, and reset the alarm system.

             
My cell phone broke the silence. It was playing “Dream Weaver” by Gary Wright.
Okay. I know I didn’t do that
. I allowed the song to play through as I hunted down my phone in the bedroom and discovered a text.

             
Good morning.

             
Good morning to you…Nick???
I typed.

             
Yes. Um, hope that was OK…the song…thought you might get a kick.

             
No. It’s totally cool!!
I smiled, texting furiously. I marveled at his use of something as mundane as text messaging to communicate, but I’m not sure what I expected. A voice from heaven maybe?

             
Are you sure?

             
It’s all good.

             
May I visit?

             
So formal. When?

             
Now?

             
Sure…

             
On my way. 2 minutes.

             
I glanced at the clock. I would time him. Before the two minutes elapsed, Nick Benedetti, the Dream Weaver, stood knocking quietly on the kitchen door. I smiled.
It’s a back door kind of day.
What does that plaque say? ‘Back door friends are best.’ I disarmed the system, and opened the door to let him in. He walked in, head low, shy or maybe embarrassed.

             
“Hi,” I said.

             
“Hi,” he said as he pushed the door closed. He froze for a moment with his hand on the knob and stared at the floor. “Was someone here?”

             
“Yes,” I said hesitantly. “How did you know that?”

             
“He’s very—concerned about you.”

             
“He
was
. He’s cool now, though.”

             
“He has very strong feelings for you. Are you…?” he looked at me pointedly.

             
“Jesse? No. Jesse is my friend from work. He’s the one who found me after the, uh, attack. He called for help, stayed with me.”

              His hand dropped from the doorknob and he stood silently facing me, that hesitant look returned to his eyes. “I probably shouldn’t be here. I just wanted to check on you. Make sure you were okay.”

             
I reached for his arm but my fingers veered away, still hesitant to touch this stranger. “I’m good.”

             
“Yeah. So—I should probably go…” He turned to the door.

             
“You can stay. Will you tell me more?”

             
“I probably shouldn’t.”

             
“What? Stay? Or tell me more?”

             
“Either.”

             
Something in me couldn’t let him go. With trembling fingers, I took his hand in mine and led him to the couch, but sat on the opposite end with Eddyson tucked in beside me. Eddyson stretched and yawned, and padded across the cushions to curl up with his head in Nick’s lap.

              “He’s very smart, you know,” Nick smiled and stroked the pup’s body, still not looking up.

             
“That he is. And you’ve done a wonderful job training him.”