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Something on my left caught my eye and my body swung around. I stared into the slobbery mouth of a huge beast, with long canines and black beady eyes. Low growls came from him and then he took a step toward me. His eyes didn’t leave me once. They were locked on mine and I took a step backwards.

Black smoke overpowered his back legs and they moved slowly up towards his front and then his entire face disappeared as the smoke came toward me.

My heart rose faster and faster and the sand appeared in my palm again. I looked down. “No!” It was pitched black, just like the hound.

The smoke came closer and closer and I crawled backward, until I found no more ground. The entire place that was once beautiful turned into soot and burned down trees. It was dark and black, and I struggled to breathe again.

I had absolutely nothing to fight against the dark that was trying to consume me, only the dark and black dust. Dust I didn’t want.

The hound jumped out of the black dust like smoke and I screamed.

“Chastity!” Mom’s voice yelled and my eyes flew open. I was back on the couch. My hand trembled softly and I pulled them through my hair.

Heaps of sand were on the couch, making me jump up. Her eyes still reflected horror as she stared at me.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. One second you were still talking to me, the next I was there, literally.” I spoke fast without taking my eyes off the couch filled with sand. Light golden sand.

“That would explain the sand. It comes when you’re scared. We should try to make it come from will.”

“Mom,” I said. “My sand was black.”

Mom got up too and flung her arms around me. “It doesn’t matter. You’re sand is gold. Which means when they find us, they’ll take you to Revera.”

“When they find us? What do you mean?”

Mom let go of me and she backed a couple of inches away to look at me. Both her hands gripped my shoulders. “They will find us. It’s just a matter of time. Your father’s sand will protect us for now, Chastity, but it’ll run out and that’s when they’ll come.”

I just stared at her. I didn’t like that one bit. We would get separated and I would be alone. “So what are we going to do, Mom?”

“We’re going to train. You need to know how to wield your sand freely, without fear, you need to learn how to wield the things you need from the sand, and how to fight when danger comes.”

“Fight?”

“How do you think your father and I met? We were both Guardians.”

“I thought you said you were Dream Casters.”

Vinique laughed. “All of us are, but we are trained in the thing that we shine the most at. And what our family does best, is fighting, Chastity. We are fighters.”

MOM HADN’T BEEN JOKING WHEN SHE SAID WE WERE fighters. The first day when she showed me what it was she could do, I almost wanted to run away.

I always thought that Tim was the dangerous one in the family and if anybody wanted to harm us that he’d have chopped and kicked the living daylight out of whoever thought about it. If anybody told me a week ago that my mother would actually do the kicking, I would’ve laughed in their faces.

Now, it was a different story as she showed me moves where her hands broke through a block of concrete and kicked through wooden beams that splintered in half, daggers thrown into a target board, breaking targets with a long whip, things that would take me a lifetime to master. Not to mention how she wielded a weapon from her dark sand. The knife felt real, all the details were sculpted into the hilt. It even had a red ruby right in the middle of the hilt where the blade started. Something that I wasn’t good with at all.

“Chas, again!” Mom yelled as my golden sand was strewn all over the place creating long lines without a hint of a weapon or anything that resembled an object. It was just sand.

“Mom, I’m tired.”

She crouched next to me where I was kneeling on all fours concentrating hard on my golden sand. “You’ve got to concentrate, want it with your heart, mind and soul or you’re never going to wield anything.”

“Do you cast dreams like this too?”

Mom nodded.

“Can you show me?”

Mom’s eyes open wider. “NO! That I can’t and won’t do. I’ve told you before, Shadow Casters only create nightmares, the worst kind. What humans usually see is only about twenty percent of the real thing. It is why dreams have always been so vague. If you have to witness it as I would create it, it would be the full dose, it’s worse than Oblivion.”

“Then how am I going to learn?”

“Revera will help you with creating dreams. I can’t.” She gave me a stern look. “I can only help you with this, Chastity. Now again.”

I closed my eyes and thought about wanting my sand again. It was difficult, I struggled the first time with it, but I had to admit that the more I tried it, the easier it got. I saw it flowing freely in my mind, imagined its touch against my hand, the slight warm temperature, its golden color. Then I felt it flow freely, accumulating in the palm of my hand. I let it pour into a heap on the ground until there was enough to create something from it.

“Now imagine a dagger. See the sharp blade, the hilt.”

I saw the picture as I stared at her sand. “I got it.”

“Now concentrate on the detail. What does the hilt look like? Does it have a ruby, on it, snakes twirling around it?”

I liked the snake idea and imagined two snakes twirling around a copper hilt. I imagined what the leather on the hilt looked like. The soft touch with a suede feel to it. Two lines appeared again, but not a hilt.

I lost the picture in my head and took a deep breath. “This is hopeless.”

“No, it’s not. But maybe you’re right. If you’re getting tired there is no way you are going to conjure it. I suggest a two hour nap, Chastity.”

“Seriously?”

Mom gave me her a typical mother’s look. “Sleep, now.”

My body slumped as I got up from the ground and walked back to the cabin. I slouched all the way to my room that was on the upper level and fell onto my bed. Nowadays it felt as if I could sleep for an entire month. Two hours was nothing.

For the last few weeks, ever since Mom told me what we were, nothing was fun anymore.

I would start off with a two mile run at dawn, followed by a big breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns and toast. Then it was an hour of martial arts, an hour of kick boxing and another hour of weapons training. Lunch would follow after that and then the rest of the day was practicing with my sand. My mom was a drill sergeant straight from hell.

Sometimes I wished that the people would just find us, but the minute that thought formed into my head, I felt guilty. It would mean Mom would disappear. I couldn’t imagine life without her but I know I wouldn’t be able to survive in Revera knowing that Mom was trapped in the Oblivion, which is where they would take her when she was caught.

The plan was simple: when the men came, my mom would pretend she was my kidnapper. I didn’t look anything like her. Thanks to my father’s strong Asian complex that shone through me.

All of a sudden I didn’t want to think about that day anymore, so I closed my eyes and cleared my mind.

Since my Initiation dream, I hadn’t dreamt of anything else. Mom couldn’t explain to me who Leigh was either. Light Casters, that young, wouldn’t be able to go to the Oblivion, unless they belonged there – and judging by Leigh’s golden sand, he was no Shadow Caster.

What he meant by me being able to choose, could only mean one thing: I could become a Light Caster. But why would my mother tell me that there was no grey area? That you are what you are?

In my case I was both. Dad was a Light Caster, a Level Four, as mom had said, which was the highest level Dream Casters could achieve, unless you were one of the Somniums —and Selene was the last one.

When my eyes opened again, the sun had started to set. It didn’t matter whether it was light or dark, my mom would still carry on with training. At least I wasn’t as tired as I’d been a couple of hours ago. I thought about just lying in bed, pretending to be asleep but then her voice jumped into my head, explaining how important all this was going to be if I was going to survive in Revera. I had no choice.

I rolled off my bed, and got up. My body felt stronger from training day and night, the muscles in my arms and stomach had started to cut nicely. I didn’t look like a dancer anymore, but more like some sort of gym junky.

I opened my door and the smell of meat filled my nostrils. Ahhh. Stew.

Mom paraded in between the pot on the stove to the cupboard, with a glass of whiskey in her hand while music played softly in the background. I’d never seen her drink so much in my entire life, but then again, I never knew my mother was such a badass too.

She looked over her shoulder as I entered, and gave me a loving smile. “Good, you’re awake. Hungry?”

“Starving,” I said.

“Grab the plates, food is almost ready.”

I did as she told and picked up two plates and placed them on the counter by the gas stove.

In a couple of minutes both plates were filled with a heap of rice and stew covering the entire plate. Another thing that had change ever since I started with this intense training was my appetite. I’d never eaten this much in my entire life. You’d think I’d have picked up a couple of pounds, but it was just the opposite. I’d shed a couple of pounds and all I picked up was muscle, lean and strong. I couldn’t wait for the beach.

My mother took my hand and closed her eyes.

“Father, bless our food which we are about to eat and although we know that danger is near, keep us safe, Amen.”

I opened my eyes. “Bon appétit.”

“It looks delicious.” I sounded ravenous and started to dig in.

Mom just stared at me as I shoved lumps of food into my mouth every five seconds.

“Easy tiger, the food isn’t going to run off your plate.”

Her comment made me giggle as I imagined grains of rice and blocks of beef growing little legs and running off my plate. “I’m just so hungry.”

“Then eat more fruit, Chastity.”

“Bleh.”

Mom shook her head. “You are the only teenager I know that doesn’t like fruit. Everyone else loves at least two or three different kinds.”

“Not my thing. I hate the sweet taste they carry.”

“It’s healthy sugar which your body needs too.”

“Chocolates are also healthy.”

Mom rolled her eyes, it made her look ten times younger than she was.

“Can you at least tell me what I’m going to go through when they come?”

“I told you before, you act like you don’t know me, act scared, like I put you through hell.”

“Mom, you are putting me through hell.”

Mom chucked her napkin at me. “Not that kind. Like I just kept you here against your free will.” I gave her a raised eyebrow look. “Don’t comment on that, please.”

I laughed.

“I wasn’t talking about that. I mean, tell me about Revera.”

She put down her knife and fork and leaned back in her chair.

“The small bit I saw of Revera was breathtaking. Your father used to tell me that anything was possible, it’s a place where dreams come true.”

“It sounds like Hollywood.”

Mom laughed again.

“Not that kind. The kind that makes your dreams literally come true. Light Casters have the ability to wield their own happiness.”

“Then why did you guys leave?”

“Because the love we shared wasn’t allowed in Revera. Even if I stopped, one Shadow Caster inside Revera would destroy it completely the way Magdalena almost did so many years ago.”

“That is so unfair. I mean, you guys didn’t choose to love one another, it just happened. Sometimes I don’t know if I want to go to Revera.”

“And live a life running from them? It’s not the kind of life I want for you, Chastity.”

Silence filled the dining room for a few minutes.

“How many will come, Mom?”

“I don’t know. It won’t be the two from before and I’ll have to disguise myself as I’m sure Beavis and Butthead already told Selene about you and that you got away. It would be a team of elite Pursuers, and they usually travel in groups of about five, maybe six.” She took a deep breath and smiled softly. “Your father used to be the leader of his team. They would go on many missions and quests for Selene. When guardians graduate, they have to prove themselves first so they get to guard the edge of Revera, all the escape routes, be on guard and watch out for Shadow Casters that try to enter Revera. It’s not easy but now and then they would find a way.”

“How did you and Dad meet then, if your love wasn’t allowed?”

A soft smile broke on her face. “It wasn’t always easy but your father used to wield a place. It didn’t hold very long, only a couple of hours or so.”

“A couple of hours or so?”

Vinique laughed. “You haven’t been in love yet, sweetheart. So a couple of hours feels like nothing if it’s spent with the person you love.”

I felt sorry for her. She really hadn’t had a chance at all to be with Dad and be truly happy. To think that he’d given up his life so that his family could escape.

“You never even got a real chance with him, did you?” I spoke softly.

Mom just smiled. “I did. You. You are in so many ways like him. Smart, stubborn and you follow your gut, not to mention you inherited his humor and the ability to say exactly what’s on your mind.”

“That’s from him? I thought it came from you.”

We both laughed and finished our meal. As I finished my glass of Coke, Mom put the dirty plates in the dishwasher.

“You ready?”

I got up and walked to the kitchen. “I probably don’t have a choice, so yes, I’m ready.”

Mom grabbed me playfully with her arm around the neck. “If only your will was connected to that mouth of yours, this would’ve been so much easier.”

We practiced till late that night. I tried so hard, but the only thing that appeared were the two lines. It was followed by plenty of tries and plenty of frustrated grunts. I really wanted to do this, but for some reason I just couldn’t get the picture that was inside my head to appear from my golden sand.

Mom glanced at her watch and sighed. “I think it’s time to do our runs, make sure the shield is holding, and call it a night.”

I looked with worried eyes at her. “How much do we still have?”

“Not a lot, enough to last at least another day or two, three at the most.”

“Then I should try a couple of times more, Mom.”

“You’re tired, Chas. It shows in your sand.”

My gaze snapped to my sand. It still looked like sand and still had that light, brownish gold color.

Mom giggled and gently lifted up my chin to look at her. “You’re producing less and less. Take it from me, you need your rest. Tomorrow is a new day.”