The Last Dream Keeper (4 page)

He'd petitioned the courts to make him her guardian and her entire world had changed. Under his constant care, she'd come out of her shell and started interacting with other people via notepad and pen. She'd come a long way in the intervening years, but she still couldn't speak—an affliction her doctors believed was purely psychological.

“I haven't thought about the Dragon in years,” Lyse said. “God, I used to go up there and spend hours reading books and writing bad poetry in my journal.”

The Dragon was actually an outcropping of rocks local vandals had spray-painted with graffiti, making it resemble the head of a massive reptile. Daniela thought it looked more like the basilisk from the Harry Potter movies than a dragon, but she seemed to be alone in her opinion.

“Why would she be going there?” Lyse asked Weir, as a drop of rain hit her on the nose.

“I don't know,” Weir said, crossing his arms over his chest. “She was hell-bent on getting up there last night, and then she had one of her episodes. I had to take her home after that.”

“Well, whatever the reason,” Daniela said, looking at the sky and not liking what she saw, “I just hope she's up there.”

They remained silent as they made their way through the trees, hiking deeper into the woods. A drop of rain hit Daniela's arm, and when she looked up again, the clouds had grown even darker.

“It's really gonna pour,” Lyse said, following Daniela's gaze heavenward.

Daniela nodded, picking up her pace. She jogged through the trees until she found the trail she was looking for and veered onto it.

They passed an elderly couple walking a German shepherd, and she gave them a wave. She'd seen them out in the park before, assumed they lived somewhere in the neighborhood, but they'd never exchanged names. It was one of the things she loved best about the Echo Park hills. You spent time outside, and even if you didn't know someone's name, they still smiled and said hello. It didn't matter if they were old hippies, funky artist/musicians, or one of the slew of younger hipster families that had recently infiltrated the hood; everyone was reasonably nice to everyone else.

They left the trail, striking off into the trees, and it was all uphill from there. Lyse had a little trouble with the incline, but Daniela was used to walking and spent more than a few mornings a week down at the Echo Park Pool.

“Should we slow down?” Daniela asked, but Lyse shook her head.

“Not on account of me. I'm fine. It's just my stupid leg. I sliced it open and I thought it was better, but it's just not.”

Daniela hadn't wanted to slow down and was glad Lyse didn't want to, either.

“It's close. Not too far now,” Daniela said.

Lyse nodded, her pale cheeks pink with exertion.

“I know,” she said. “You never forget how to find a place like the Dragon.”

“Do you see her?” Daniela asked as they rounded the bend and the Dragon came into view.

The outcropping of gray rock extended out of the hillside like a Paleolithic monster. If anything, it was covered in
more
graffiti than the last time Daniela had seen it. There were the requisite gang tags—swooping lines of color representing the initials of the various East L.A. gangs—and then the more artistic endeavors, which included ghost-white eyeballs encapsulated inside teal-blue circles of electric color that made the Dragon appear as if it were staring right at you.

“Lizbeth!” Weir yelled.

Daniela followed his gaze up to the top of the Dragon, where Lizbeth lay stretched out across the rocks, her body inert, long russet hair covering her face.

Weir took off, Lyse right there with him, her stride almost matching his own. Daniela watched as they scrambled across the rocks, clawing their way up the steep embankment that led to the top. Daniela let them go and doubled back, choosing to take the trail rather than climb up the stonier outcropping.

She reached Lizbeth just before the others and was able to step in front of Weir, blocking his path.

“Out of my way,” he said, moving past her.

“Look at her—
she's not touching the ground!
”

Daniela's words penetrated and Weir stopped in his tracks to stare down at his kid sister.

“Don't touch her,” Daniela continued. “I think she's
dreaming
.”

He looked back and forth between Daniela and Lizbeth's prone body, uncertainty in his eyes.

“Weir,” Lyse said, touching his arm. “Lizbeth is breathing—I can see her chest rising and falling—and she's not in any obvious danger. Let Daniela go to her. She can help your sister in a way neither of us can.”

Weir turned to Daniela for confirmation.

“Let me try first,” Daniela said. “She's having a different kind of ‘episode,' but I can get to her. I can reach her.”

Weir nodded, totally out of his element.

“Okay.”

“Okay, you'll let me do my thing? You won't try to interfere?” Daniela prodded.

Weir nodded his agreement.

Daniela could see how hard this was for him. His instinct was to rush in and save Lizbeth, and giving over control of the situation to someone else was not in his nature. But given the surreal situation, he appeared to trust them enough to let them intercede.

Daniela shot Lyse a look that said:
Keep him occupied.

Lyse nodded her understanding and wrapped her hand around Weir's arm, pulling him closer to her.

“Lizbeth?” Daniela said.

And turning away from the others, she began to remove her black leather gloves one finger at a time.

I
t had begun with a dream.

All her life Lizbeth's dreams had been more vivid, more
alive
than any of her waking hours, and this was still the case even when, for all intents and purposes, she was no longer a child.

In this particular dreamtime adventure, the tall lady—Hessika, she was called in real life—came to visit her and they'd gone to Elysian Park, moving along the wooded trails like ghosts. The tall lady wanted to show her something special, something Eleanora had left behind for Lizbeth at the Dragon. Eleanora had done this because she knew it was the place Lizbeth loved best. So it was here Lizbeth must go and go quickly, the tall lady had impressed upon her, because the item had to be retrieved before anyone else could steal it away.

Once upon a time, the tall lady had not visited Lizbeth often. But with Lyse's arrival in Echo Park, the tall lady's visits had become more regular, almost as if Lyse were their catalyst. So with the dreaming, the need to get to the Dragon
began to grow—and then, regardless of the dream, the urge to find whatever was waiting for her there took on a life of its own. As if it were a living, breathing creature calling out to Lizbeth through the ether, demanding she come find it.

Which was how she'd ended up in Elysian Park, moving through the woods as fast as her feet could carry her. The scarf she'd wrapped around her throat, a pale peach knitted thing Dev had given her as an eighteenth-birthday gift, was not enough to keep her warm. She wished she'd had the forethought to bring a jacket; the overalls and flannel she had on did little to warm her body now that the clouds had covered the sun and were threatening a downpour.

Lizbeth had easily found her way to the Dragon, her long-legged stride helping her cover ground quickly. But when she'd gotten there, she'd realized she had no idea what she was looking for. She'd stood beneath the Dragon's sleepy-eyed gaze, scanning the ground around her. Nothing had caught her attention. Whatever Eleanora had left behind for her, she could be assured it was well hidden. The former master of the Echo Park coven was nothing if not thorough.

If I were a secret thing, where would I be?
Lizbeth had wondered as she'd climbed up the incline, her sneakers gripping the rock, helping her not to slip on the loose stones as she'd worked her way up to the Dragon's head. Finally her fingers had found purchase on the edge of the cliff and she was able to pull herself up and over the precipice. Crawling to her feet, she'd brushed away the dirt that coated her hands like chalk.

She'd looked around, hoping she'd see things differently from another, loftier vantage point. But the woods were just woods. Full of trees with heavy branches held up toward the sun, and doe-brown dirt trails leading into the brush before disappearing entirely.

There had been nothing new in the park, nothing special clamoring for Lizbeth's attention.

She'd been mad at herself for being so stupid and not asking the tall lady to give her a clue. At the very least, a hint that would've guided her in the right direction.

If only she were asleep, she could've dreamed of the tall lady and asked—

Like the strong dark scent of the coffee Weir liked to brew in the mornings, an idea had caromed through Lizbeth's brain and jolted her awake.
Why couldn't she be asleep right now?

The answer was simple:
She could be.

*   *   *

Lizbeth lay down on the rock, letting the heat rise up through the stone to warm her body. Soon she felt the Sandman's pull, his lulling presence pushing her into sleep as the daylight disappeared.

I'm falling. I can feel it,
she thought, having a strange out-of-body moment before everything began to slip away from her. Her thoughts, cognizance of her own body, the chill of the air as it whipped across her . . . all of it ceased to exist for Lizbeth as she began to drift far, far away . . .

Only she wasn't far away. She was there. At the Dragon—and she was still inside her body.

Time to get up,
she thought, and then, almost without meaning to, she was sitting. Only her body didn't come with her. She swiveled onto her hip and looked behind her. Her body, hair spread around her head like a slash of reddish-brown blood, lay sprawled on the ground, lips and skin blue as a corpse.

Lizbeth was used to this kind of thing, so instead of being frightened, she calmly climbed to her knees and looked around. Everything was the same. The trees, the dirt, the trails, the gray sky—nothing had changed. She began to wonder if she'd fallen asleep for nothing. The only difference she noticed was that she no longer felt chilly. In other dreams, she'd been cold as ice, but here, in this particular one, that was not the case.

I'll be right back,
she thought to her unconscious body, and
stood up. Her legs felt a little wobbly underneath her, but she ignored the sensation. It was a dream and her legs did what she wanted them to do. She began to move around the top of the rock outcropping, searching for the secret thing Eleanora had hidden under the Dragon's watchful gaze.

Her lifeless body stayed exactly where it was.

“Hello?” Lizbeth called out, but her voice died on her lips.

Of course,
she thought.
Even in this dream—like all the other times I've explored the dreamlands—I'm mute.

She walked over to the edge of the Dragon's nose—or where its nose would be if it were a real dragon—and that was when everything shifted. It was like a tiny earthquake concentrated on the spot where she was standing, rolled through the ground, and took her legs out from underneath her. She fell forward, her face slamming into the ground. The impact of delicate skin on sharpened rock should've hurt like hell. There should've been bones cracking, blood flowing everywhere . . . but there wasn't.

The ground was still buckling underneath her as she reached up and touched her face.

Everything was intact.

No wound.

No blood.

There were strange rules in this dream.

Lizbeth felt her body rolling to the side, heading straight for the side of the Dragon's head. She tried to grab hold of something to stop herself from going over the edge, but her fingers slid across the dirt. They dug into the rock, grasping in desperation, but caught nothing. Another shake, another forceful wave of motion, and she was sailing into empty air, arms and legs flailing as she fell.

She hit the ground hard, her left side taking most of the brunt of the fall. She expected her body to start screaming, but after a few seconds, when there was no pain, she flipped onto her belly and raised her torso.

There was nothing to speak of in the way of hurting. Only a sense of lightness that served to remind her she was still in a dream and
that the rules of Earth physics didn't seem to apply to this part of the dreamlands.

Thank God,
Lizbeth thought—because she'd been in other dreams where things like gravity
did
apply and it hadn't been pretty. Once she'd even broken her wrist in a dream (and it had stayed broken in real life), but that had been in the days “before.” When she was in the institution and no one believed anything she said . . . and then she'd stopped talking.

And that had been the end of that.

The horrors of the institution had robbed her of her voice, rendering her mute and almost catatonic. Then Weir had rescued her from a fate worse than death and her whole life had changed. Only she'd realized—with dawning horror—that no matter how safe she felt in Echo Park, her voice would not come back. It had been swallowed up in the darkness of her lost life—

“Do you
DARE
to wake me!?”

The voice wasn't a pleasant one, and Lizbeth craned her neck to see whom, exactly, the voice belonged to. At first, she couldn't get a bead on the owner, but then the voice came again, and she quickly realized what she was dealing with:
the Dragon
.

“You crawl upon my back and stomp across my nose! You have no decency or respect whatsoever—”

Only in her dream, he wasn't made of stone anymore. He was flesh and blood. Other than that little detail, he looked exactly as he did in waking life. His gray scales were covered in gang tags and graffiti and lovers' initials wreathed in rough-hewn hearts. Even his eyes were the same: dark teal pupils and white eyeballs encircled in electric-blue paint.

She opened her mouth to speak, to apologize to the Dragon for treading on its head, but the words wouldn't—
couldn't
—come. They sat like hard glass marbles taking up real estate in her mouth. She wanted to spit them out, but it wasn't an option. Instead, she stood up and took a deep bow. Her hope was the beast would accept this as a polite response to his tirade.

“Do not bow at me,” the Dragon roared, slithering down from the cliff like a snake, its body long and lean and sinewy.

In her fear, Lizbeth took a step backward and tripped over an exposed tree root that ran across the ground behind her. She lost her balance and fell hard against an old pine tree. Luckily, she was able to grab hold of the tree's massive trunk and stay on her feet—but in the process she'd made a pretty good fool of herself in front of the Dragon.

She heard laughter coming from behind her, and she spun around to face the creature. Coiled like a garden hose in the yard, his serpentine body glittered with silvery light despite the fact the sky was dark with thunderheads. The creature was shining from the inside out, as if he were powered by a tiny sun instead of a heart.

Maybe he was.

“Cat got your tongue?” the Dragon asked after he finished laughing at her—not that she minded. Better to be laughed at than roasted alive, even in a dream.

While she tried to find a way to communicate with him, the beast continued to stare at her. Up close, he was very beautiful, his huge eyes fringed in thick black lashes.

“Aha!” the Dragon said, head rising up from the coil and looming over her. “Maybe this will be better for you, mute. I'll just put my voice inside your head.”

—Can you hear me?

Lizbeth started, unsettled. The feeling of having someone speaking directly to her brain was surreal.

—Well?

She nodded.

—You can speak back, silly mute.

Oh,
Lizbeth thought.
This is strange.

The Dragon let out a long guffaw, revealing nubby herbivore's teeth. Which made Lizbeth relax a little. Obviously the Dragon wasn't a meat eater—unless he torched his prey into soft, overcooked meat kabobs first. And if that was the case, then all bets were off.

“I can hear everything you're thinking,” the Dragon said as he slithered over to her, unwinding himself to his full length.

For the first time, Lizbeth could really appreciate the monstrous size of the beast. His head was as big as a golf cart, but much more
shapely, and his scaled body was probably fifty feet long. Lizbeth tried to remember if the Dragon was this big in waking life, but it was hard to remember back to the real world when you were inside a dream. It was also hard to think clearly when something so large and imposing was freaking you out by reading your mind.

“I can still hear you,” the Dragon said out loud, looking displeased that Lizbeth couldn't rein in her thoughts. “Although, it
is
a lot more fun to watch you squirm, so thank you for that.”

Sorry,
Lizbeth thought.
I'm not used to anyone being able to hear me. Even though I'm talking to you with my head and not my mouth, it's . . . just . . . an odd sensation. Being understood.

The Dragon nodded. He really did seem to understand.

I'm here, in this place, because a friend left something for me,
Lizbeth thought.
Maybe you can help me find it—

The Dragon physically recoiled from Lizbeth, swaying his head far away from her.

“But you're still just a child!” he cried, almost spitting the words at her. “Not even full grown. I can smell childish things on you.”

He blinked so rapidly Lizbeth could tell he was actually upset and not just teasing her.

I'm not a child,
Lizbeth thought, trying to protest, but the Dragon rose high above her head, shadowing her with his body.

“You are, too!” the Dragon said, his voice rising an octave in annoyance. “Hold up a moment. I need to change form. This is all too much for this body to handle.”

Lizbeth blinked and the Dragon was gone. In his place stood a beanpole of a man with pale gray eyes and a shock of pitch-black hair shaped into an impressive mohawk.