The Dream Thief (2 page)

I followed her across the lobby, every footstep tightening the fist that clamped my brain, and waited while she spun the wheel for the safe and then used her keys to open a security door that led into the vault.

"I'll leave you to it," she said, and did just that, pulling the door mostly closed behind her to allow privacy without locking me in.

All of my security box daydreams flew out of the room with her. My mother hadn't been the nurturing sort. Not that she'd been cruel or abusive, just absent. Even when she was still home, it was my dad who bandaged my scraped knees and tucked me into bed. I knew full well that when I turned that little silver key in the lock and opened the lid I wasn't going to find a loving message or a heart shaped locket.

What I did find had certainly never crossed my mind as a possibility.

Three glass tubes, each half full of a straw colored liquid, stood upright in a metal rack. Each was neatly labeled in black marker. I'd donated plasma a few times when I was desperate for money, and the fluid looked ridiculously like what ended up in the collection bag during that process.

Time ticked by while I stared, trying to process what I was seeing and failing utterly. I couldn't think of any reason my mother would have left me plasma, but every other idea that came to mind was so far fetched and implausible that my brain hit the reject button.

Truth serum.

Cure for cancer.

Biological Weaponry. Perhaps mother had been plotting to kill the human race and was using me as her weapon of mass destruction.

That idea was too bizarre, even for me.

Walk away Jesse. Throw away the key.

I couldn't do it. Holding the test tube labeled
#1
well away well away from my body in case of spilling, I worked loose the cork, braced for disaster. Nothing happened. I sniffed it, catching a whiff of the sawmill, first, and then the unmistakable smell of a long summer afternoon and something else that made my cheeks flush hot with embarrassment.

These were dreams, then, or something very like them.

Warding off a throng of questions, I wedged the cork back into place and carefully wrapped the test tubes in a t-shirt pulled from my backpack, stowing them as securely as possible where they wouldn't be jarred or crushed against another hard object.

By now the fist in my head was stabbing thumbtacks into my eyes from the inside out, and if I didn't go confront Will soon I was going to be incapacitated and unable to ride. I stumbled out of the room in search of Bev.

"Honey, are you all right?"

"Fine." I tried to smile, but my lips felt stiff and numb.

"This must all be so difficult for you." Bev patted my shoulder and walked me out, giving me a little hug at the door. The sunlight was a spike of agony so intense I was barely able to get a leg over Red and start the ignition, but the pain eased the minute I headed in the right direction.

As my thoughts cleared I began to wish I'd listened to myself and left my mother's gift right there in the safety deposit box. Whatever was in those little tubes, it didn't mean anything good—for me or anybody else.

 

 

W
hen I got to
the mill it was after regular business hours, and the parking lot up by the office was nearly empty. Will's truck was still there, and I figured he was probably inside the mill, troubleshooting something with one of the shift supervisors. So I pulled the bike over beside his truck and sat waiting, letting the rays of evening sun warm and loosen the last tight bands of pain in my head.

The mill brought back a whole new inundation of memories, the first solidly good ones I'd had since I came home. My dad had worked here, and sometimes when he came in after hours or on the weekend he brought me with him. I'd spend time sitting in the truck waiting, listening to the radio or reading a book, and sometimes he'd even take me inside. I had a vivid recollection of the metal webbed catwalks, vibrating with the noise of the machinery, of my nose quivering with the hot buttered toast smell of fresh peeled logs and new cut lumber. I had my own small hardhat and felt perfectly safe there with him.

Floating on the happy thoughts, weary from a sleepless night and the emotional ups and downs of the last few days, I let my eyes close and turned my face up to the sun, trusting the kick stand to keep both me and Red upright.

Will's voice startled my eyes open. "What are you doing here, Jesse?"

He was wearing a white hard hat, making his tan look darker, his eyes almost navy in its shadow. He'd called me Jesse, not J-Bird, or even just J, and that was salt in my wounds. I knew damned well I deserved it, that I'd blown away any trust or kindness that might have lingered in him still after all of these years. What I wanted was to turn around and run as fast and as far as I could get. But since I'd already established that this choice was not on the menu, I looked for a roundabout way to make him  rethink the request he'd made.

I started with what was meant to be a preamble but came out way more direct than I'd intended. "What do you know about the Dream Merchant, Will?"

If you've ever seen a deer in the instant before it decides to run, while it's still assessing risk, you'll know what Will looked like then. His head lifted, the line of his back stretched and tightened; every muscle was fired up and ready for action. I thought he wasn't going to answer me, but after a long moment he did, his voice cautious. "No more than anybody knows, I guess. Let's talk in my office."

I followed him across the parking lot and into the long, low building that housed management and clerical staff. It was empty; only the production crew worked after hours. Will flipped on a light switch in the hall and unlocked a door that read, William Alderson, CEO.

That threw me.

This office was supposed to belong to Will's dad. As kids, the two of us had trooped in here often for one reason or another. Permission to go to the lake, money for ice cream or the movies. Mr. Alderson would wink at me and ask, "My boy giving you trouble, Jesse?"

And every time Will would rise to the bait. "Dad, of course not!"

Mr. Alderson and I would laugh at our own private joke, because we both knew if there was any trouble afoot it was my doing, not Will's.

Sometimes it seemed like Will was born responsible. And now this office was his. He turned and locked the door behind him. If he remembered our childhood visits, he didn't show it. His face was set, his eyes shut me out. "Now—what's this all about? I'm not in the mood for games. And we're not kids anymore."

So he did remember, maybe. I swallowed the lump in my throat, trying again to find some way to warn him. "It's about the Dream Merchant. It's important, Will."

He leaned against the desk, crossing his arms over his chest, sighed deeply, and decided to humor me. "Rumor has it you can buy a dream, if you're willing to pay."

"I hear the price is pretty steep." My voice was as cautious as his. The pain hadn't retreated far, and I knew that if I said too much it would be back.

Rumor. Conjecture. It was a puzzle to me how the word spread that there were dreams for sale. Nobody talked about it. You might have a dim memory of an item in the newspaper reading "Dreams for sale, negotiable price." If you went back to look for it, it wouldn't be there. Other little sound blips—radio jingles, billboards—there and then gone. Nothing on record. No bill of sale.

My belief is that we dream of the Merchant, and maybe she plants those dreams, or maybe they're part of the collective and come to us when we need her. Whatever the reason, when the world is falling apart around your ears, when you are fresh out of hope and courage, somehow this little insect of a thought crawls into your brain, that a good made-to-order dream can fix everything.

Will really looked at me then, and I braced myself. I didn't want to feel his hurt and anger, or see the hate in eyes that had once held so much love. I deserved it, though; and if I'd thought the dream was going to help him I would have been willing to do what I was about to be compelled to do, no matter what the cost to me.

But I was pretty sure it could only hurt him.

I wasn't doing well with my warnings, and he wasn't in the mood to play charades.

"Jesse—do us both a favor. Go home now."

"I can't," I heard my own voice saying. "You called on the Dream Merchant and she sent me."

A strangled laugh burst out of his throat. "You're kidding, right? So you're an angel of mercy now? Come in answer to prayer?"

If only. More the opposite. But I wasn't permitted to give him all the gloom and doom warnings, or to tell him about my own dream gone wrong, now turning my entire house into a haunted nightmare of a mess. I tried for a full minute to formulate any one of those things into a rational thought but the words slipped and slid and vanished on my tongue.

"Not exactly prayer," I said, at last. "And no, definitely not an angel." I took a few steps forward, against my own volition. "But I am the dream runner assigned to collect your order."

"Maybe I'm already dreaming. Because that is the only world in which it makes any sense that you would come in response to some prayer of mine."

"You're not dreaming. And it can only be prayer if you're asking help from God. "

Listen to me, Will Alderson. Get out, run, don't agree to the terms.

"Maybe the Merchant is God."

"Trust me, she's not."

His eyes narrowed. They'd gone the color of the lake under storm clouds, a blue so deep they were nearly black. "You seem to know a lot about the Dream Merchant. What makes you think she's a she? Tell you what—how about if you just explain to me what she's like."

This was my opportunity. I took a deep breath, my brain full of all that I wanted to tell him, but  the words slid away the instant I opened my mouth. "The Dream Merchant—is," I said, finally.

"Is what?"

"That's it. She just
is
. And that's all I can tell you."

This wasn't helping my case with Will. If there had been any last hope of ever fixing what I'd done to him, I knew it was about to fly away. I prayed—I really did pray—to the God I hadn't spoken to since I was ten and my mother ran off, that Will would somehow hear or see what I couldn't say. That he would be smart about this, like he'd always been smart. Careful, except for that one stupid night when my life and his were both broken.

But his face had a wild, careless look, not at all like the Will I'd always known. "Look. I called for a dream. If I have to go through you to get it, then that's one of life's little ironies and I'm not about to quibble, but I'd like to get it over with. How does this work?"

I tried to pick my words carefully, so maybe he would come to his senses. "Have you considered the cost? A price will be exacted."

"I know."

"No, you don't know! You have no idea what that price will be. Think about this." I made myself look into his eyes, still hoping he would read all of the things I couldn't say, but he took it all wrong.

"Why are you trying to keep this from me, Jesse? Because I don't think your need for revenge should get in the way."

And that was it. My eyes went dry, matching my mouth, which already felt like cotton. "Here's how it works. I become a conduit for her to read you. She'll prepare your dream and I'll deliver it when it's ready, usually a day or two. At some point in the future, you'll be informed of the price you're expected to pay. Are you sure you understand the terms?"

"I get it. Now—can we get on with the show?"

There was a day, once upon a time, when I would have jumped at the opportunity to read Will's mind or his emotions. But that was in an entirely different lifetime—the one where there was a possibility of happy ever after. This was more like being strapped down and made to listen to Vogon poetry.

"Fine. Sign here." I pulled out the contract and a pen, still hoping, but he signed without even reading.

My last hope gone, I held out my hand, which, despite all of my best efforts at staying calm, was shaking like a bunny invited to a party of hounds. Will looked at it like my skin was molting, Zombie style, and tears forced themselves up against the backs of my eyeballs again. My own damned fault, I reminded myself, and I didn't deserve the luxury of tears. I fought them back. There was only the very faintest quaver in my voice when I told him, "We have to shake on it. Seals the deal."

That almost stopped him. His reluctance to touch me just then was palpable. "And then?"

"I'm a conduit. I told you."

I don't want to do this, Will. Please see. You don't want this, it isn't good, won't be good, can't be good for anybody, especially you.

But Will had made up his mind and that was that. He'd always been that way, ever since he was a little kid. His parents could spank him, time him out, deprive him of desserts and screen time, even take away his beloved guitar, and if he'd made up his mind it all amounted to nothing. So he wasn't about to let an obstacle like touching the hand of a person he despised stop him.

His hand was calloused, the hand of a man who had worked his way through the lumber mill he now owned. There was a scar on the back of it, and a tattoo that gave me a double take, but by then it was too late to think, to talk, to do anything.

When his fingers touched mine, lightning happened. White light wreathed around our joined hands and shot way up into the air, traveling along the ceiling in all directions. I smelled ozone, felt the electric current travel through me from head to toe, and then everything vanished in a blaze of white light. I couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't even feel. There was only the heat and the light and a sense of two things fusing into one.

It seemed like no time passed at all, but when the light dimmed and faded the clock on the wall had shifted by a good thirty minutes. I blinked, dazed and confused. My feet and legs ached and there was a cramp in my lower back. Will's eyes stared in my general direction but they didn't see me, and his hand was clenched around mine so tightly all of the bones were crushed together. I'd just had time to begin to panic when he gasped, shook his head, and his eyes focused.