The Waking Dreamer (3 page)

You know nothing. You’re a meddler. The midwife to the bastard child. You covet power, hiding behind the throne. You will never wield true power. Power like that of the little boy’s Master. Tremble before the Rugged Mountain, Mother.

“I fear nothing other than the great mysteries of the universe,” the old woman chuckled.

Amala trembled, momentarily heartened by her Elder’s seeming confidence yet terrified still that the red eyes would see her standing so plainly visible in the room.

Arrogance. The boy
must
be the Waking Dreamer. You know what he is meant for; what he will one day do. Bring him out of your hiding place and let him attend the world’s burning.

At these words, something shifted in the old woman’s expression. It was mercurial, both a fleeting smile and a worried grimace. Her hunched shoulders straightened then, and she turned her back abruptly to the red eyes wreathed in shadow. Amala watched as the Archivist closed her own heavy eyes and sighed deeply.

“The time will come, but it is not tonight. You attempt to force what is not yours to control. In this way, you have not changed. And you never will. I name you, Bezaliel. Leave this place, and do not return.”

The whirling shadows reacted at her words, collapsing in on the red eyes and unnatural, grinning mouth. Amala felt the boiler room tremble, as if the entire building were being shaken. A low, rushing sound filled her ears as the shadows retreated into the far corner, distorting the figure’s visage and melting its features into blackness until only the soft, flickering candlelight and rain remained.

The invisible force pinning Rhiannon to the wall suddenly released, and she fell several feet to the floor in a crumpled heap. Amala wanted to run to her protector but remained frozen where her Elder had commanded.

The Archivist took the infant from the terrified young Druid. Amala said nothing, petrified by the experience. Her serpent finally settled across her shoulder, but they both were still suffused with fear of the red eyes. Yet through it all, the newborn gazed upward, silent and seemingly contemplative.

“I am quite proud of you, Amala,” she said, passing her hand over the girl’s forehead as she looked upon Rhiannon. “Don’t fear, child. Rhiannon will be fine. She’s a Druid, made of things stronger than bones or skin. As are you. And you both will need it.”

Amala wanted to cry, and yet her Elder’s touch filled her with courage and hope. She continued to stare into the corner, waiting for the shadows to return.

“Elder …” Amala began, suppressing tears.

“That was an Old One. He’s known now in this age as The Grinning Man,” she answered, her attention focused on the baby. “Most will never encounter an Old One in their lifetime, Amala. You, though, will encounter many. And I’m afraid you will face The Grinning Man again.”

The girl’s frightened amber eyes looked up at her Elder. “There is much still for you to learn. We have more to discuss tonight as well.”

Amala nodded mutely, sensing her Wisdom’s posture relaxing and feeling the onset of drowsiness that follows a moment of great effort and stress.

“Come, let us tend to Rhiannon and take you both away from here. We’ll return to the Grove soon. First, though, we will take our young dreamer to his new home. There, you can say good-bye until it is time for you to hold Emmett Brennan in your arms again.”

CHAPTER 2

E
mmett Jonathan Brennan, turn that car around and get your skinny hipster ass back here now!

It was 7:36 AM when Nancy’s first text came through. Emmett hadn’t looked down to read it yet, Houston’s speed-up-to-brake bumper-car traffic consuming his attention. A moment later the phone rang. Emmett may have been expecting the call, but he was still irritated by it. Nancy knew he didn’t talk on the phone. Only text. When he didn’t answer, he heard another text come through.

Pick. Up. Now.

Emmett was prepared for her reaction, convincing himself that skipping out in the pre-dawn hours was the best option. His
only
option. It was either a drawn-out good-bye like every melodrama film, or a pregnant woman’s anger. And Emmett hated melodramas, so …

He answered the phone.

“Good morning, Nantucket!” he chirped, his hands unconsciously bracing the steering wheel against his impending doom.

“No, no, no, no, you don’t ‘good morning’ me, mister. No, a
good
morning would be waking up and finding I’d lost weight instead of gained it. A
good
morning would be finding a no-foam sugar-free latte awaiting me on my nightstand. A good morning is
not
waking up to find that the seventeen-year-old you told a court administrator you’d care for until he was eighteen has left and isn’t coming back!”

“Mama Rose is mad, I get it.” Emmett smirked, Nancy always oblivious to the
Rosemary’s Baby
references he made.

“And why is she mad? Hmm, let’s see. Did Emmett leave when he was a legal adult?”

“That’s in less than two weeks,” he said.

“Did Emmett have a plan for where he was going or how to provide for himself?”

“I can stand on a corner and spin signs,” he replied.

“Did Emmett say good-bye to the woman who kept the bullies off him in high school? Who took him in so he could avoid another foster home shuffle?”

“Hey, I left you a note! With all the well-earned thank you’s for everything you’ve done for me.” It wasn’t that Emmett wasn’t grateful. He was. He just knew she’d never let him leave.

“A cryptic note riddled with quotes from movie sequences that took me nearly twenty minutes to decode. Here I am searching the Internet and thinking, okay, it’s like your movie treasure hunt game you did for us with that DVD night of
Spirit’s Away
—”

“
Spirited Away
,” Emmett corrected under his breath, irked she couldn’t remember such an important film.

“—only to finally figure out that you’ve left for Florida. Do you know how much I had to look up online to figure out half of these film references? And I don’t even
know
who this ‘Gull-ur-mow del Toro’ even is!” she yelled, haltingly pronouncing the final words.

Emmett laughed and didn’t bother to hide it from Nancy. “Oh, come on, you loved the note. Did you get
The City of Lost Children
reference? I put it in there for you. Plus ten points to you if you did.”

“I hated that movie.”

“Lies,” Emmett cooed. “Big sis loves her some dark sci-fi and fantasy films, and she loves me more for exposing her to the best of them.”

The two met when he was an outcast freshman and she a bored senior searching for a pet project. He became as much a fixture in her senior year as her makeup or smart phone—Emmett Brennan, the cute and lanky younger brother she’d never had. Two weeks after graduation she married a wealthy, hulking mass of a man named Gerry—a successful litigator who spent most of his time working in Dallas and who liked Emmett even less than Emmett liked him. Yet Nancy kept in contact, Emmett the welcome distraction for the young woman who already had everything.

When the latest nameless, faceless foster parent had died weeks ago—a woman Emmett was as unlikely to remember as she was to distinguish him from the dozen or so kids she already tended—Nancy had offered to take him in. Since then she’d spent long hours trying to guide him along the predictable path to the comfortable, if monotonous, life. School. Career. Marriage. Home. Fulfillment. She introduced him to her girlfriends, played hostess to double date nights everyone but Emmett seemed to know about. And though some girls had shown initial interest, the consensus was that, while intelligent and attractively aloof, Emmett Brennan could not be pinned down. Something else—or some
one
—called to him.

“What you’re doing is crazy. I don’t know what movie you think you’re getting this idea from—”

“
Thelma & Louise
meets
Return to Oz
seems about right—” Emmett offered.

“—but you are turning that car around and coming back here.”

“Yeah. Not so much. Not happening.”

She went silent. Emmett had to look away from the road to his phone to see if she’d disconnected or paused for dramatic effect. He saw she was still on the line, the picture attached to her contact information displayed still on his phone: Nancy and Emmett’s zombified faces from last Halloween’s horror marathon.

“Emmett, I’m going to assume that because of your age and inexperience you don’t know when you’ve pushed a woman to her limit. So let me just tell you: you have pushed me to my limit!”

Traffic slammed to a vocal stop. Emmett strained against his seatbelt as he hit his own brakes an almost-half-second too late. Horns blared from angry motorists delayed to their destination. He appreciated the appropriateness of the moment.

“Okay, okay, enough with the character-defining banter! You want me to come back, but a couple more weeks won’t make any difference. I’m not
happy
, Nancy. With any of it. The pre-planned life, the college courses, the environmentally responsible, pat-me-on-the-back-for-using-reusable-grocery-bags life. I get that it works for you, and I’m happy for you! But I need something different. Something … I don’t know … something intrinsically …
alien
.”

“Then watch
Star Wars
!”

He sighed and shook his head. Nancy knew him well, and yet she didn’t know him at all. She continued admonishing him as he half-tuned her out, thankful even more now that he’d left before she awoke. She was warning him of being broke and stuck in the backwoods of some rundown trailer park, unable to find work, and trading on the generosity of people who would let a skinny, almost-eighteen year old stay in their home seemingly rent-free.

Emmett turned the phone’s volume down, permitting himself a moment’s reprieve. He breathed deeply, purposefully, and looked eastward at the dawn. Blinking, listless hazel eyes once again met the slow-rising sun ahead. He pushed his tousled, floppy black hair out of his face and tucked it back under his signature
Donnie Darko
hoodie. He pulled a pair of sunglasses from his glove compartment as the wide yawn of an insomniac racked his entire body.

He tried to shake off the miasma of post-sleep somnolence still clouding his mind. He’d slept terribly the night before his planned escape. It was always terrible, unfulfilling sleep, frustrating and featuring the same recurring dream: a dream about a painting and a woman. The dream painting was always
Belshazzar’s Feast
, with the disembodied hand pointing at the words written in the air above the king’s head. The woman, too, was always the same—an unknown, amber-eyed woman who danced with serpents.

With Nancy still lecturing, he took a sip from his morning hot chocolate—his signature drink no matter how many kids mocked him for it—released a tired yawn, and willed his half-lidded eyes to respond to the sugar.

Emmett turned his volume back up as he yawned again. Her maternal instinct overrode her sermon on the dangers young people, apparently, weren’t prepared for out in the wide world. “I heard that yawn. Did you even get enough sleep to do this?”

“‘When you have insomnia, you’re never really asleep,’” Emmett quoted, “‘and you’re never really awake.’
Fight Club
. So much truth. But yes, Nancy, you needn’t fear. By sugar and courage I drive forth into a new sunrise, with enough lens flare to make J. J. Abrams jealous.”

“I have no idea what that means,” she said.

“It means I’m wide-awake and so excited I could run to Florida,” Emmett answered. “And YouTube the lens flare bit after I’m gone. Totally worth it. Just have sunglasses on so you aren’t blinded.”

“Em, that
car
won’t make it to Florida.”

He hated “Em.” She knew it, and she said it when she had use for it. Nancy’s older-sister role-playing usually meant he had to tolerate her sometimes-condescending comments. She cared; it was her way of caring. Though it grated on him, it was the closest thing an orphan who’d grown up in a dozen different foster homes had ever known.

The sea of red lights ahead winked out and traffic resumed forward en masse.

“A broken-down car is a road-trip movie staple, Nancy. And it’s exactly what I need. Get thrown headfirst into adventure. Find allies in my quest. Learn something about myself and grow. I’m not going to get my hero’s journey started in that condo of yours. So, Act One begins out here on the open road, Ridley Scott style.”

“Let me see if I understand you. Because that’s what you want from me, isn’t it? To understand?” Emmett could picture her on the phone: arms crossed, nearly a foot shorter than him, pacing the hallway in front of Gerry’s trophy case. It was the posture she took just before making what she felt was a logical and eloquent argument.

“Sure. Shoot away.”

“You’re leaving Houston, just getting into your car—a car so old it probably wouldn’t make the drive—without a job or any money, and driving to Florida—a state you’ve never been to—with little money and no job or ability to get a job other than your high school diploma that isn’t worth much, to find a birth mother you’ve never known and who’s dead now, anyway, all because of Ridley Scott?”

This was the part when she raised an eyebrow, expectant of the imminent triumph. Too bad her logic always fell on deaf ears. Goes-with-his-gut ears.

“Hey! Ridley Scott can do no wrong. Well, maybe one recent wrong, but that wasn’t his fault. He didn’t write the screenplay.”

Signs indicated the interstate was two miles ahead. Emmett checked over his shoulder and moved into the far-right lane as he heard Nancy’s resigned sigh over the phone.

“I give up. You go ahead and leave because of a chick flick. And then you wonder why people gossiped about you in school.”

Emmett rolled his eyes, irritated more that she’d call
Thelma & Louise
a chick flick than the fact that she was making a dig on his masculinity.

“Some guys want the damsel. I’ll take Ellen Ripley. That Power Loader mech suit is so much sex.”

“I’ll buy you one then if you’ll just stay through your eighteenth birthday. After New Year’s you can head out. It can’t be
that
bad here.”

Traffic was thinning, Emmett increasing speed expectantly. He was close, and soon it would be an ending and beginning at the same time.

“Didn’t you ever know that you didn’t belong somewhere, Nancy? That you just needed to get away and try something different? Even if just to prove to yourself that you were fine right where you were in the first place?”

She went silent. Expecting she was preparing another counter-argument, another reason not to leave, Emmett was surprised by the quiet whisper that instead came through the phone.

“I never had to, Emmett. I got married,” she whispered, and in her hushed tones permitted herself the momentary vulnerability she secreted away even from her husband—the vulnerability that, in rare, quiet moments when she thought no one was watching her, would lead her to look out the window at the people exploring life and long, too, for freedom.

He said nothing, for nothing else needed to be said. On some level, Emmett knew Nancy finally got it—more than just accepting, that she finally understood. Emmett was his own man. And he was leaving.

“So,” she said finally, her tone curt and matter-of-fact. “How long’s your drive?”

“I should get to Ormond Beach by tomorrow.” The only thing Emmett had learned of his mother was that she was from that Floridian seaside town overlooking the gray Atlantic. It wasn’t much information, but it was somewhere to start.

“Promise you’ll call when you find what you’re looking for.”

He took a deep breath, willing the winter chill to steel his resolve. He would find a job. He could live in his car until he had the money to get his own place. Anything was better than what he had, floundering through purposeless days thirsting for some measure of truth in an otherwise unremarkable life.

“It wouldn’t be an epilogue if I didn’t,” he answered, hanging up.

He checked the rearview mirror and saw the glass towers behind him silently awaiting his acknowledgement that he did not have the courage to leave. He pictured Nancy waving at him from the corner outside one of those towers, standing in the shadow of her comfortable, careful life, where the routine was exciting and the ordinary was comforting.

Emmett’s foot reacted; the itching desperation to escape something that almost imprisoned him was quick to flare. He allowed one final moment’s consideration for the commonplace life he was rejecting. Could he quench his desire for the exotic and the bizarre in the stylized suburban supermarkets and kitchen table fundraisers that subsumed Nancy’s life?

Emmett released a heavy, deep breath of purpose. He needed to believe that life could be untamed, unbound from schedules. Life had to be about more than just existing. It had to be about
living
.