Dreamfire (3 page)

Finally, she removed a long golden chain from around her neck and set it in the wicker dish. A tiny pendant hung from the chain—a plumeria blossom stamped on a golden disk. The plumeria represented the True Dream Walker, who had been the first person to enter the Dream and end nightmares. Josh wasn't really sure she believed in his legend—and she certainly didn't believe the tale that he would someday return—but she had grown up hearing the stories just like every other dream walker before her. Moreover, she believed in the ideals his legend stood for, and she wanted to wear the pendant tonight of all nights, when she accepted the mantle of responsibility he had—according to the stories—passed down to her. But she took it off so she could wear the only other necklace she owned: three jade teardrops, set an inch apart, hanging from a thin golden chain. Her grandmother had given it to her, and Deloise had shopped for Josh's outfit with it in mind.

Half an hour later, she was dry and dressed in a floor-length light-green skirt with a knit cream top that hung over her hips. Although the outfit didn't resemble the formal gowns most girls wore to their seventeenth-birthday parties—except one of the Grodonia girls, who had worn a black leather miniskirt, a blue-green corset, and a belly-button piercing so new it still dripped blood—Josh doubted anyone who knew her expected that she would arrive dressed for the prom. This was the only skirt she owned.

“Turn around,” Deloise said after fastening the necklace behind Josh's neck.

Josh went back into the bathroom to look at herself. Deloise had done a good job; the color of the jade matched the shade of the skirt exactly and made Josh's eyes appear darker than they were, drawing out the features of her face.

“Oh, it's perfect,” Deloise cooed, obviously pleased by this feminine touch. Winsor gave an indifferent nod of approval.

It
was
perfect—even Josh could see that. Which was precisely why she had asked Deloise to select an outfit for her. Deloise knew about things like details and accessories and the hidden implications of clothing.

“We're going to be late in four minutes,” Winsor announced, standing up and smoothing her dress.

Deloise grinned. “Come on, birthday girl.”

Josh took a deep breath and followed her sister through the bedroom door. She had faced hundreds of other people's nightmares; tonight she had to face her own.

*   *   *

They held the ceremony out on the lawn. Josh knew what to expect, but the sight of the stone pathway leading to a giant weeping willow tree in the moonlight, marked every yard by a glowing white candle, still made her suck in a breath.

“Oh,” Deloise whispered, “I love this stuff!”

Paper lanterns hung from the branches of the ancient willow tree, casting a yellow glow over the grass. The air was chilly but not cold—unseasonably warm for January—and Josh was glad Deloise had picked a sweater for her to wear.

More than a hundred people had gathered around the tree. Josh had known most of them all her life—they were all part of the local dream-walker clan—but she was self-conscious with the knowledge that tonight everyone was looking at
her,
talking about
her
. Expecting something special from
her
.

She started to ask Deloise to stay with her and found that her sister had already vanished, along with Winsor. The crowd's chatter died down as everyone turned their attention to Josh, which only increased her desire to go running, but she forced her wooden feet in their dainty cream slippers to keep walking along the candle-marked path. Through the thin soles, she felt the sharp gravel path with each step.

She sat down on a stone chair placed at the bottom of the willow tree's trunk and forced herself to look up bravely into the crowd. At first the glare of candlelight in her eyes was too strong, but after a few seconds the faces began to make themselves known to her. She felt less anxious as she recognized people and returned their smiles—her martial-arts instructor, her cousins and aunts and uncles, her mother's best friend. Just as Josh recognized Young Ben Sounclouse, he stepped out of the circle and came toward her.

Young Ben had to be approaching a hundred years old. In his twenties, he had taken over as seer for a really old guy named Ben, and everyone had been calling him Young Ben ever since. His face was dappled with liver spots and he walked slowly, but he had quick eyes and good hearing aids. He was the local seer, one of a small group of dream walkers who kept histories, doled out wisdom, and—most important—wrote prophecies. Under the monarchy that had once ruled Europe, Asia, and North America, seers had garnered great respect, but since the revolution—led by none other than Josh's own grandfather—the seers had lost all of their political authority, and no one was quite sure how they fit into dream-walker culture anymore.

In the nineteen years since the overthrow, a permanent government had yet to be formed, and the junta that remained in power had thrown out the grand old ceremonies and elaborate rituals that the monarchs had loved. Coming-of-age parties—once a standard rite of passage with a well-known form—lacked their former ostentatious pomp.

Young Ben was wearing a Hawaiian-themed tux that didn't really fit—his beer belly was slumping over the cummerbund—and he held a heavy rosewood box. Jewels set into the lid caught the candlelight and glittered like colored stars. A lot of communities printed scrolls off computers and handed them out in sealed envelopes these days, but Young Ben still hand-wrote his on parchment and presented them in the same jeweled box he'd always used.

“Good evening,” he said, standing next to Josh's chair. His ancient voice sounded like a record played with a barbed-wire needle, but it carried clearly between the branches. When he put his plump hand on Josh's shoulder, his touch was warm and firm with affection. “Welcome to Josh's birthday,” he added, and easy laughter relaxed the atmosphere. “We're here tonight to welcome one of my favorite people into adulthood. Laurentius, Kerstel, you've done a wonderful job. You've given Josh every value a good dream walker needs, and I know Jona would be proud. I doubt there's one among us who hasn't been downright astonished by Josh's skills in the Dream, by her determination not just to end nightmares but to resolve them, or by her commitment to return night after night. I can't think of a higher compliment than to say that when Josh decides she's going to help a dreamer wake up, that person can know for certain that they aren't going to be abandoned to the monsters. And I don't know of a higher calling, or someone I'd rather see take it up.” He gave the crowd a big smile. “Does anyone have anything they'd like to say?”

Josh—who was already hot-cheeked and sick to her stomach—wondered if that wasn't a little like saying, “If anyone has any reason why this child should not be allowed into adulthood, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

And
this,
she realized, was what she was afraid of. Her deepest fear, her personal dreamfire, surrounded her in the form of friends and family. This was her moment of truth, and she was terrified that the truth was exactly what would be said.

For an instant, she thought she saw Ian's face in the crowd. Seven months ago he had been the one sitting beneath the wings of the willow tree, and she had been the one telling the crowd everything she loved about him.

He wasn't here tonight to tell her family the whole truth about what had happened to him. The evidence was right in front of them, but they didn't want to see it because Josh was their darling, their prodigy, proof of their success as a family and a community. They didn't want to think about Josh's mistakes.

She killed her boyfriend.

No one said that, or the other things she was afraid to hear. No one even made a joke at her expense. One by one, people rose to talk about her gifts, her abilities in-Dream unaccounted for by her training. They recalled her moments of glory—how at the age of eight she had resolved the first dream she ever walked without a word of instruction from her parents; how at twelve she had jumped out the window of a nine-story building and landed in a Dumpster, not a scratch on her or the old woman she had saved from a nightmare's burning apartment; how at fifteen she had dragged her own father, unconscious, out of the Dream after he was hit in the head with a hockey stick.

Everyone said nice things. But the longer Josh listened, the more apparent it became that no one was going to mention anything she had done outside the Dream. They spoke as if she existed to them only when she walked, only inside the Dream's nebulous fantasy world.

What else could they talk about?
she wondered.
My so-so grades? My complete lack of social graces? Last summer?

Her heart hurt at the thought of last summer. She felt the pain as an injured muscle—sore, battered, aching with every breath and beat. No one was going to bring up last summer, and she couldn't decide if she wanted them to or not, if it would be better to keep up this charade of her infallibility or to face what she had done. For a moment she even thought of stopping the ceremony and giving her own account of what had happened the night the cabin burned—wasn't that what a true adult would have done?—but the idea so frightened her that she only gripped the rough arms of the stone chair and swallowed hard.

When people finished talking, Young Ben stepped around to face Josh, and Laurentius and Kerstel fell in on either side of him. “Stand up,” Ben whispered, after several seconds' pause, and Josh realized he had been waiting for her and scrambled to her feet.

“Joshlyn Dustine Hazel Weavaros,” he announced, “from tonight on you will be an adult among us. I understand you wish to take your journeyer's vows?”

“I do,” Josh said. This was the only part of the ceremony she had looked forward to.

“Just let her take her master's vows!” someone in the crowd called out, and laughter filled the yard.

Young Ben made a face like he was giving the idea some thought, then grew serious again. “Hold out your hands and repeat after me.”

Josh held her hands out, palms up, and Ben dipped his finger in a vial of scented oil before tracing a spiral onto each palm. As he did so, he said, “
I do this night commit my body, mind, and heart to the protection and care of the Dream for a term of seven years.
”

Josh repeated the words. The oil on her palms smelled like cedar and sandalwood. Dream-walker children took a novice vow before they began training, but not many bothered to take a formal journeyer vow when they turned seventeen, and even fewer took a master vow at the age of twenty-five. Even those who dedicated the better parts of their lives to dream walking rarely took vows, but the words meant a great deal to Josh. She felt them sink into her body like warmth.

Ben rested his hands on her shoulders. “May the True Dream Walker himself watch over you, and may you always walk safely.”

“Walk safely,” a hundred voices echoed.

Young Ben took the rosewood box from Kerstel and held it out to Josh. He opened the lid.

Josh couldn't stop herself from pulling back a few inches, half expecting all the world's evils to come pouring from the box's mouth. When they didn't, she peered at the contents the way she would have looked at the sun—with her eyes fixed up against the inevitable pain.

But all she saw was a wooden box lined in black velvet and edged with gold tassel. A piece of parchment rested innocently inside, rolled tight and fastened with a green wax seal stamped
W
.

“Go on,” Young Ben said.

Josh stared at the scroll for a long time, making out the depth of the stamp in the wax, the slight imperfections in the surface of the parchment.

“Go on, pick it up,” Ben said. “It won't bite.”

Chuckles came from those nearby, and even though Josh loved Young Ben, she shot him a hateful look. She rubbed her hands together to disperse the oil on her palms and then, overcoming her reluctance with speed, she snatched the scroll up from where it lay. The paper felt grainy against her fingertips, and she could smell the wax seal. It softened against her hot palm.

Inside the scroll was written the seer's vision of her life. A vision that would—no matter the actions taken against it—come to pass. Clues, hints, warnings … She wouldn't know unless she broke the seal.

Only three people knew what the scroll said inside: her parents and Young Ben, who had written it. Whether or not Josh ever learned what it contained was up to her now; it was her decision. She was being issued a challenge, and if she rose to it, then she would be a true adult.

She thought again of Ian, who had been given the same challenge and failed miserably. She had been partially responsible, and the idea that she was being given another chance to ruin a life unsettled her. As far as she was concerned, the scroll was a time bomb that would go off the moment she opened it.

She looked up at Young Ben and forced a smile that was overshadowed by her sense of dread. “Thanks,” she managed to say.

Young Ben shouted, “Happy birthday!” and the crowd broke into hoots and agreements that filled the air like wishes floating up to the stars.

Never,
Josh promised herself, deaf to the cheers around her.

I will never open this scroll.

 

Three

Although Josh's moment
of reckoning had come and gone, and her scroll hadn't exploded in her hand, three hours later she still felt anxious. She sat on a couch between Deloise and Winsor in the long, badly lit basement of the house, surrounded by an assortment of unloved furniture, storage boxes, and training equipment. The basement was the only room big enough to hold a hundred people, so that's where Kerstel had set up a fabulous reception—Champagne, a two-tier cake, tables of finger food, even a silver samovar of hot chocolate kept warm by a little gas burner. No one had commented on the concrete wall with the bank-vault door at the far end of the room; everyone at the party knew what it protected.