Gradually, the pieces fell into place—spooky and surreal surroundings, fuzzy details, and a floating boy sewing a quilt in the corner, stitch by stitch, as if he were creating something…this was a nightmare.
At this realization I jerked upright. Instantly, the spiders and their webs disappeared. A dream, only a dream. I struck a match to light my candle before sinking against the pillows and waiting for my pounding heart to settle.
My entire life I'd wanted nothing more than to experience a dream, but not one like that; it had felt so terrifying and real, far more so than merely viewing another’s faded one. Even though I was now awake, its memory shrouded me like the shadows swaying with each flicker of the candle. I could still feel the spiders’ sticky webs immobilizing me, their legs prickling my skin. I rubbed my arms to wash the feeling away. And there had been that peculiar young man…
I gasped and scooted back, slamming my back against the wall. He still floated in the air, watching me.
My scream caught in my throat as icy fear curled up my spine. The young man made no acknowledgement of my noticing him. He turned towards the window as if to leave, but paused when he spotted my dream jar resting on the shelf where Stardust had left it. Puzzlement tugged at his mouth as he stared at it. He held his hand over the jar, as if feeling for something, and his eyebrows creased. Then in one swift move he pocketed it.
My body tightened, ready to spring from bed in order to snatch my dream from his thieving hands. “Give that back!”
He spun around, green eyes wide as they locked with mine. For one moment we stared at one another, during which a strange sensation overcame me, as if a thread was weaving between me and this strange man.
I heard his breath catch, as if he sensed this too. He advanced a hesitant step in the air and I immediately shrank back.
“Please, don’t come any closer.”
He paused, a puzzled frown tugging on his mouth. He didn’t move…nor did he make any motion to leave. He simply stared, the feeling between us intensifying the longer he did so. Tingles pinpricked my flesh and blood pounded in my ears. This couldn’t be real, but how could I tell? When did dreams end? I squeezed my eyes shut. Wake up, wake up, wake up.
I peeked one eye open. He’d advanced closer and was now only a few feet away, close enough for me to see the black spiderweb tattoo that stretched from his right eye and twisted towards his ear. I pressed myself so hard against the wall the wood scratched my back.
He paused, head tilted, eyes full of questions. “Can you see me?”
I finally found my voice and screamed. He stumbled backwards, clutching one of the ceiling beams to keep from losing his balance in the air.
“Impossible,” he murmured.
I screamed again. The sweet relief of Mother’s hurried footsteps echoed through the loft and the orange glow from her candle slipped through the cracks in the trapdoor to fill the room with faint candlelight.
“What’s wrong?” Mother’s voice, fraught with panic.
“Someone—in my room—”
He instantly disappeared with a sizzling crack, just as Mother poked her head into the loft. Her candle chased away the remaining shadows, and in the shuddering pale light, all traces of spiders, webs, and floating intruders vanished.
Mother sat on the edge of my bed and I immediately folded myself in her arms, shaking. She stiffened at first before gently stroking my hair. “What happened?”
The nightmare hovered over my senses, distorting what was and wasn’t real. I could still feel the prickling spiders’ legs, their sticky webs immobilizing me, but that stranger… “In my room. Watching me. He—” I clung to her more tightly.
“Where was he?”
I shakily pointed to the ceiling corner. “Up there. He was—” I wasn’t exactly sure what he’d been doing. He’d appeared to be sewing strange shadowy plants together into some sort of quilt, which had manipulated my dream as I’d experienced it. Was he one of the dream creators Stardust had mentioned?
Mother caressed my brow with surprising tenderness. “It was just a nightmare, Eden.”
Then how could I have seen that boy even after the nightmare ended? And if he hadn’t been part of my nightmare, what would keep him from returning? My closed window had done nothing to bar his entrance.
I shivered. “But he was so real…”
“I know dreams often seem real, but surely you’re old enough to tell the difference between them and reality?”
I shook my head. Mother couldn’t understand the significance of my finally experiencing my first dream. “You don’t understand, he had to have been real. I’ve told you before I can’t dream.”
She pursed her lips to suppress a sigh. “We’ve been over this. It’s impossible not to dream; you just don’t remember them.”
“You don’t dream either.” The words escaped before I could stop them. Mother stiffened and her hand froze against my hair mid-stroke. For a moment she didn’t speak before she hooked her finger beneath my chin and raised my gaze to meet hers, the motherly concern that had previously filled her eyes transformed into suspicion.
“Everybody dreams.”
I remained silent. I’d kept my secret dream-watching ability from Mother too long to ruin it now.
Eyes bright, Mother pulled away and marched to the corner I’d pointed to. There she immediately disregarded the floor and looked up at the ceiling, studying it with as much concentration as Stardust searching for clues before striding towards the window to peer out and search the sky.
My heart hammered as I watched her, unsure what to make of her actions. For one who’d always abhorred magic, she seemed to suspect the intruder had possessed some and seemed eager to uncover it, confirming she was likely part of the world where the intruder had come
