Dream Weaver (Dream Weaver #1) Page 7

  A legitimate impression of familiarity niggled at me, but the details eluded me. I chased the memory around and around in my head until it made me dizzy. Was he real? Or had I truly, completely and finally lost my mind?

  If he was real, and if I really thought about it, under the circumstances, it was more than kind of creepy. A strange man, angel, whatever he was, was manifesting in my room by night. He crawled into my head and rummaged around, only to melt away with the first light of day. No. Absolutely nothing mental with that.

  Human or ethereal, my instincts detected nothing evil or sinister in him, only a gentleness, a compassion that radiated from him like heat waves on a blistering summer day. I wanted to trust him implicitly, this figment of my imagination.

  I vacillated between believing in his reality and knowing full well he was only a creation of my depressed delusions. If he was real, it meant he was more than human, because no mere human could get into my house undetected. Although, getting into my house seemed the least of my concerns. How was he getting into my head?

  If I admitted to myself that he was a phantasm…I just couldn’t. I could not bring myself to believe that I was truly that insane and not simply depressed. Who wouldn’t be in my place? Of course, don’t they say that crazy people don’t think they’re crazy?

  That feeling, that knowing, that I knew him from somewhere, had met him before, still obsessed me more than anything. It wasn’t that we were friends, just had met. Somewhere.

  Somewhere—warm. The smell of pine. Gentle wind. A warm spring day. Towering trees. Shades of green. Rushing water. A painting. No…graffiti. That was it! Dead Man’s Creek. I saw this angel with obsidian eyes in the face of a man I bumped into down in the ravine almost a year ago.

  Not long after we moved out of Spokane to Mead, I discovered the path that led from the railroad tracks down to the creek. The sun rendered the scent of pine from the trees, a gentle wind caressed my face and tugged playfully at my hair. I explored for hours, or until the sun began to dip behind the crests of the trees and the buzz of mosquitoes replaced the drone of the bee, and the crickets and frogs began their night song.

  Usually, no one else was down there when I went, but occasionally I would run into other explorers walking or swimming their dog, or taking a dip themselves. My memory drifted to another warm summer day a couple of years ago. Some friends and I had just finished wading and chasing frogs in the cool mountain run-off, and we trudged up the path toward home. I took up the rear of the group, lingering to ensure that we packed out what we packed in. As we passed through a scraggly cluster of trees, I spied something so amazing I couldn’t believe no one else had seen it. It was a testament to nature’s profound gift of camouflage that everyone else in the group walked right by it.

  “Holy sh…” I whispered hoarsely, and everyone turned to see what was wrong. There, not five feet from the path, a mother deer had bedded down her tiny fawn while she went off on her own to forage. He must have been too young and weak to keep up with her.

  My friends followed my stunned gaze to the still, tiny fawn. The only movements from the spotted, russet body were the shallow panting breaths and the occasional twitch of his glossy black nose or blink of his wide frightened eyes. Obviously, Mother had told him not to move a muscle no matter what, and he was obediently complying.

  We all took turns getting a closer look and taking pictures with our cell phones, though we were careful not to touch him. We didn’t want to risk the mother abandoning him because he smelled like human. Dad always told me never to touch baby animals. Nature knew what it was doing. So, after a few brief minutes, we all backed off and left him alone. I went back, later that evening before dark, to check on him, worried the coyotes or dogs would kill him, and he was gone. Thankfully, we hadn’t frightened him to death or his mother away.

  Smiling, I shook off the memory. I still had that picture on my phone, a reminder of one of the most amazing days of my life. Wildness always kept the beauty of its creatures at a distance. I cherished the up-close experience forever digitally captured.

  Last spring, the haze of my grief entombed me in my own personal crypt, and I remembered little but that one fatal day. Though now, with direct thought, obscure impressions of a different day, a couple of weeks before the crash surfaced from within the morass. I was out scouting alone, no real concern for my own safety, though I carried a balisong—strictly for self-defense. As I tramped along, I came upon a dark-haired young man roaming along the opposite bank of the stream. I slipped on thick layers of pine needles and promptly fell on my butt. Despite a quick recovery and trying to back away unseen, he spotted me.

  “Hey,” he said, instead of ‘hi’, and grinned at me across the rushing water.

  “Hey,” I said back, as I brushed off my backside. I hoped I didn’t look too inept and disheveled. He appeared to be about my age, and kind of cute from a distance, with stylishly messy, dark hair and stunningly blue eyes; a blue so dark they were almost black. They reminded me of the sky just before the sun drags its last rays of light to the other side of the world.

  “Nice place,” he said. His voice was low and gentle. “Do you own this property? I mean, if I’m trespassing I apologize. We just moved in downstream a ways and I was just wandering….”

  I raised my hands to stop him. “No, no. It’s not mine. I think it belongs to the guy who owns most of the land around here,” I said with a gesture around the bowl-like valley the creek meandered through. “He’s cool with people coming down here.” I should not have told him that.

  “Oh, well. That’s cool.” He turned and started to walk away into the woods, but paused and turned back to me with a dazzling, boyish grin. “Maybe I’ll see you down here sometime.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  With that, he turned and walked away. I never did see him again, although I vaguely remembered hoping that I would bump into him. Then, obviously, I forgot completely about him; his memory drowned out by the tragedy that devastated my world a couple of short weeks later.

  “That’s it!” I said. I lurched back to the present and slammed my hand down on the bed. Eddyson jolted awake and scurried away from me, stared wide-eyed with a mixture of curiosity and fear. “Oh, I’m sorry puppa. It’s okay. Come come. Snug up.” I gently patted the bed to coax him back to me so I could pet him back to sleep.

  Now I knew he was real. I replayed the memory over and over in my mind to extract every detail I could remember. I absently ran my hands across the definition of Eddyson’s little muscles, left dark trails across his pelt from the rake my fingernails through his fur. Once he was snoozing soundly, I got up gingerly and went to the living room. I pulled back the curtains from across the French doors to the side deck, and stared into the darkness to the south of the house. Okay, so apparently, he lived down there somewhere; possibly the new house with the tennis courts that had just been built in the last couple of years. I thought about going there, but surely, they would think I was crazy. Who wouldn’t? Besides, what would I say? ‘Hey, is there a dark haired, blue-eyed cute guy who lives here, who may or may not be somehow coming into my house in the middle of the night, bypassing my security alarm, manipulating my dreams and then trying to make me forget him when he leaves?’

  Nope, nothing mental at all with that!

  No, I had to find a way to break whatever spell or memory block he was using on me. There had to be some way to remember him while I was asleep, to wake up while he was still there.

  Oh jeez. Even that sounds completely insane.

  Despite the insanity, I knew he was real and maybe he was some kind of hypnotist.

  But how the hell is he getting into my house?

  I tried to rouse myself the next morning as the dream of him faded, but he had lulled me too deeply into sleep, though I really didn’t mind after last night’s phantasm. It was like reliving the assault again in grisly detail. Cool fingers touched my face, the nightmare disintegrated, replaced by dreams of Eddyson frol
icking in the sun.

  The next morning, I managed to stir and moan, which brought him racing back to me to hush me gently back to sleep. His gentle hand stroked my hair. “Forget,” he whispered.

  Who was this beautifully handsome young man with his rock god face, who entered my home every night, and mysteriously managed to bypass my alarms? Surely, there was something supernatural about him. Normal people could not enter a secured home undetected, or charm people to sleep, or sweep away their nightmares with a touch. Maybe, he really was an angel.

  I read a book once, by a pastor from Idaho who received visitations from angels. He described them as massive men, seven foot tall or more and they all look different just like people. Their skin glowed, warm and radiant, and their eyes were molten like lava. He said he could actually feel compassion radiate from their celestial eyes. I found this same kindness and compassion in the eyes of my visitor.

  I was extremely skeptical when people started talking about otherworldly encounters—angels, demons, aliens and the like. This pastor’s account was one of the few I believed.

  Stories of the incubus from a book on paranormal lore I’d read, told of a male demon of sorts that came to women in their dreams to have sex with them while they slept. No, that couldn’t be. He was no demon. He took away the nightmares instead of bringing them.

  Of course, maybe I was deluding myself.

  I needed to know, though. I resolved to find a way to wake myself when he was with me. I tried just staying awake, but he wouldn’t come until I slept, as if he could sense my conscious state. My nightmares were decreasing, my apprehension that he would no longer come to me increased correspondingly. I had to do this, before he slipped out of my room with the morning light and out of my life forever.

  Despite his manipulations, the nightmares returned in full fury the following night triggered by some unknown factor. This time, the crashing, the screaming, and the exploding into flames returned with malevolent vengeance. I could see my mother’s face so vividly as the blaze roared like an unchained beast around her—the only demon I truly believed in. I could feel the heat on my face, burning my eyes as it superheated the tears that filled them. The flash lit the night and my mother’s emerald eyes.

  “Mommy!” The scream tore through my chest, shredded my throat as it escaped.

  I bolted upright in my bed, and straight into the arms of my angel. He held me in an iron embrace. I clung desperately to him, cleaved to the reality of him, his arms, his chest, his solid presence confirming my sanity.

  Oh shit! He was real. There was a real man in my house.

  I jerked away from him as if jolted by lightning. My hand shot under my pillow. Before I fully realized what I was doing, I sent a shock of my own coursing through his body. Ten. Million. Volts.

  Chapter 9 Dream Weaver

  His body arched and stiffened, a plank hitting the deck. He writhed on the floor; his mouth gaped in a silent scream. And then, he went limp.

  “Oh my god. Oh my god,” I panted, torn between stunning him again and going to his aid.

  His body began to evanesce, glittered like the snow off the glass of my built-ins. He was here—that night—I saw him in the reflections.

  The stun gun clattered to the floor, and I dropped to my knees beside him.

  “Please…” Hysteria pitched my voice. His solidity wavered, phased between human and whatever the hell he was. “Don’t go! Please! Don’t go!” Oh my god. What have I done?

  My fingers trembled over his chest, both aching and afraid to help. He faded and shimmered. Leaving me. “Please. I’m sorry. Please, don’t go.”

  His form guttered and winked, then solidified once more. His eyes fluttered and blinked, locked on mine. He grabbed my wrist so fast I barely saw it, and shook my body as the last of the voltage released him. I whimpered and strained against him. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  “I won’t—won’t hurt you,” he stammered.

  A sound like half a laugh and half a cry raked through my throat.

  “Emari…” His grip softened, eyes fluttered and breath rasped out him. The hand that held me fell limply to the floor. Though mostly human, whatever else he was sparked beneath his skin like a pulse. Curled in on myself, I watched as it slowed, slowed…and stopped. I killed him.

  I buried my face in my knees and sobbed. What have I done? I’m so sorry. He wasn’t bad. He tried to help me, not hurt me. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please don’t go,” I cried into my knees. Like those abused, neglected animals I cowered and cried. My turmoil stretched into silence. My rocking body accentuated only by the racking breaths that escaped my chest.

  “Em-mari…” It was the moan of a ghost. He came back to haunt me. I covered my head with my arms. “Emari. It’s okay. I’m here.”

  My eyes flashed open to find him gazing back at me. He reached toward me and I skittered away like a crab. A relieved and terrified sob was all I could manage. He pushed himself up on his elbows. “I promise, Emari. I won’t hurt you.” His voice was more groan than speech.

  “Who…what are you?”

  He heaved a sigh of a weighted heart. “I suppose I have some explaining to do.” His chin dropped to his chest. “Or I could just wipe your memory.”

  “What? No. It’s not working anyway. Obviously.”

  “No, I guess it’s gone too far for that now.” Then, in a voice I didn’t think I was suppose to hear, he said, “Sabre’s gonna kill me.”

  “Who’s that? No. Tell me what you are first.” I dug my nails into my arms, just to verify that I was awake.

  “I am Onar Caphar,” he said as he pushed himself up to sit facing me. He still looked a little jittery, a lot tired. “It’s Greek for Dream Writer, but we are called Dream Weavers now. Like the song.”

  “What the hell is that suppose to mean?”

  His mouth quirked on one side. He sighed again. “I can touch you, anyone, and heal your dreams. I can read your memories, change them or give you new ones.”

  “You said ‘we’. How many of you are there? Where did you come from? And how the hell did you get in my house!”

  He raised his hands to stop me. “Whoa. One question at a time.” He extended a hand to me. “Shall we get off the floor? It’s kinda hard and cold down here.”

  A whine leapt from my throat and he withdrew his hand. “I can do it.” I pushed myself up off the floor, walked to the bed, my eyes trained on him. Eddyson lay snoozing in the middle of the bed. I wanted so badly to crawl in with him, use him as shield, but there would be no retreat. I’d be cornered. On the bed. Yeah. Not happening.

  This ‘Dream Weaver’ sat in the rocking chair by the bed still looking tired and weak. “Em, I won’t hurt you. I promise. I only came to help.”

  And he had helped. But I still didn’t even know his name. I pushed my back to the wall, wished the stun gun was still within reach. He saw my eyes dart to the weapon on the floor. I whimpered again as he reached down and picked it up. “I don’t make promises lightly,” he said, and handed me the stunner, handle first, and sat back down. I clutched it to my chest. “Please. Be careful. That thing really sucks.” When I still didn’t sit he said, “Please, Emari. Sit. I won’t even touch you.”

  I scampered onto the bed, pulled Eddyson’s limp body onto my lap and trained the stun gun on the guy. The guy. What was I suppose to call him? Dream Weaver?

  He anticipated my question. “My name is Nickolas Benedetti. ‘We’ are not many—a few hundred in America. We’re not from space, just a rare genetic anomaly. And I got into your house by fazing. I am corporeal,” he waved his hand down his body, “and ethereal—as you probably saw when you tased me.”

  “Technically, I stunned you, not tased you.”

  “As you wish,” he conceded with a smile. He leaned back in the chair, steepled his fingers in front of him. “My aging processes came to a near halt when I was nineteen. That was in 1917. In a way, I’m an immortal.”

  My hand went instinctiv
ely to my throat at his casual use of the word ‘immortal.’ That word had specific and nocuous meaning in my mind.

  Nick chuckled quietly. “You’ve read too many vampire books, Emari, and seen too many monster movies.” He gestured to the glossy movie posters that adorned my walls.

  I let my hand fall to my lap and laughed at myself. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right there.” I glanced up at my well-stocked bookshelves. In my defense, there were other genres of books there besides vampire novels. There were werewolf books, too, as well as classics from Twain; the Harry Potter Series, the Ink Heart Series, the Dragons In Our Midst series. There were definitely a large number of vampire books, including Stoker’s Dracula, and Meyer’s Twilight Saga—all my worlds of escape from the world that held me captive.

  “I don’t require that type of sustenance,” he assured me. “I become ethereal, like a ghost or a spirit, to get into your house.”

  “When was the first time?” I pressed him.

  “When your parents died.” He cautiously assessed me through his thick dark lashes, and seemed painfully aware of the magnitude of my grief. “When those nightmares began. Once those diminished, I stopped coming.”

  I wanted to take his hand in mine, but fear froze me. “Thank you for that. You may have saved my life.” Even though the crash nightmares continued, they had been especially devastating those first few weeks.

  “Then, a few nights ago—I heard your cries again from out in the woods.”

  “So? What? You’re like stalking me or something?” The thought abhorred me.

  “No. No,” he said holding his hands up in surrender. “I just—I check up on you every few weeks to make sure the nightmares aren’t too bad. But then the other night—your cries—I knew something bad had happened.”