Mindee Arnett - The Nightmare Dilemma

Screwing up my courage, I said, “So you want me to figure out who she’s dreaming about.”

Lady Elaine gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Yes. Just observe and report.”

Sounded simple enough, although in my experience nothing to do with magic was ever simple.

I drew a breath. “Okay, but tell me more first. Who found her? Where was she?”

Lady Elaine frowned. “There’s no time for details. She might stop dreaming any moment, and the longer we wait the fainter the residue becomes.”

“I get it, but her dreams aren’t going to be all clear like Eli’s. If I’ve any hope of spotting the person, I need to know more about what to look for.”

This sounded mostly true, even to my ears, but secretly I was thinking about how if Eli were here he would demand to know more. Ever since we defeated the evil warlock, Marrow, he’d had his heart set on starting an amateur student detective agency. We’d worked one minor “case” involving a stolen necklace, but this was the first hard-core mystery. He would want to investigate. As always, thoughts of Eli made me feel both flustered and comforted at the same time, a result of our more-than-friends-but-not-really status.

“Fine.” Lady Elaine stood up, her heels giving a little click as her feet touched the floor. She marched past me out the door. I heard a murmur of voices, and then she reentered the room, followed by a tall, hairy-looking man in a dark blue policeman’s uniform.

Sheriff Brackenberry fixed an irritated look at me. It was the same look he’d given me when I arrived a few minutes ago and Lady Elaine had asked him to wait out in the hall. I couldn’t decide if his irritation was strictly for me or just a side effect of being bossed around by a little old lady. Probably both. I smiled sheepishly back at him, trying to win him over. Not only was he the magickind sheriff, he was also head werewolf, which made him only slightly less scary than Lady Elaine.

“We need to hurry this up,” said Brackenberry. “Britney here is due to be transferred to Vejovis Hospital as soon as you’re done.”

The knot in my stomach twisted harder. Her injuries must be pretty bad if they were sending her there. I opened my mouth to tell him no need to bother with the details, but he started speaking before I got the chance.

“She was discovered at approximately eleven forty-five P.M. by Ms. Hardwick in one of the alcoves of the tunnel between the library and Flint Hall,” said Brackenberry.

I grimaced at this news. Ms. Hardwick was the school janitor and resident hag. Definitely not the kind of person I wanted to meet inside a dream. Especially one other than Eli’s. With any luck, she hadn’t been involved, although I wouldn’t put it past her.

“There was no apparent sign of a struggle,” Brackenberry went on. “But Britney was lying half in, half out of the water, which suggests she might’ve been trying to flee her attacker. It appears Ms. Hardwick arrived only minutes afterward, but she didn’t see anyone else.” Brackenberry’s tone turned scornful. “Is that enough information for you?”

I gulped. “I think I can make do with it.”

“Well, go on then.” He shooed at me.

I bit my lip. “Would you, um, mind leaving again?” Dream-feeding was kind of personal, and the last thing I wanted was a male audience.

If I’d been a bowl of ice cream I might have melted on the spot from the hot intensity of his stare. I glanced at Lady Elaine, hoping for some support, but she looked as impatient as the sheriff.

Resigning myself to the inevitable, I walked around to the side of the bed. I was just about to climb onto it and resume the proper Nightmare position, when I remembered a mere touch would do. I closed my eyes and reached my hands toward Britney’s forehead.

“What are you doing?” Lady Elaine said.

I looked over my shoulder. “Checking her temperature.”

She stomped her foot. “Not like that. This is too important, Dusty. You need to be in the traditional position to get the deepest connection to her dreams.”

It was my turn to scowl as I climbed onto the bed. I hadn’t dream-fed on anyone besides Eli in a long while. And feeding on a girl, especially one my age, just felt weird. There was nothing sexual about dream-feeding, but the pose was a bit on the lewd side.

I swung one foot over Britney’s middle. Then I squatted down onto her chest, doing my best to keep as much weight off her as I could. I wasn’t that heavy, but Britney was smaller than me, and I didn’t want to hurt her.

As always, the moment I was in place, instinct took over. Britney was dreaming, all right. The stuff of those dreams, the fictus, made something deep inside me burn with a terrible thirst. A thirst for magic.

Closing my eyes, I stretched my hands toward her temple. When my skin touched hers, I felt my consciousness slip from my body and slide down, down, down into the world of Britney’s dream.

A swirl of colors—a chaotic mixture of blues, purples, and greens—enveloped me like some kind of living light, warm and pulsating with energy. It lasted a long time before the chaos settled, and I found myself in a dark, damp cave. A single torch hung nearby, its light making the wet walls around it glisten and reflecting in the water from the canal that ran parallel to the walkway I stood on. To my left and right, the canal and walkway disappeared into the blackness of a long tunnel. Across from me, the canal widened into a small, circular pool, one of the many alcoves in Arkwell’s tunnel system.

The clarity of my surroundings surprised me. Most dreams, aside from Eli’s, were confused, disorienting things, usually in black-and-white, but this place was so real for a moment I thought I’d been transported here in the waking world.

The illusion broke almost at once. The walls began to lean inward, as if the tunnel were being drawn in on itself. The natural orange glow of the torch turned a molten red. And the water began to bubble and spurt in a rapid boil.

A scream rang out even louder than the raging water. I looked down to see Britney’s head break the surface of the alcove’s pool. I’d never seen her in her natural mermaid form, but I knew her skin should be pale, almost translucent, not the angry red color it was now. Blisters popped up on her skin. She was being cooked alive.

No, this wasn’t real. This wasn’t even a dream.

It was a nightmare.

My first instinct was to change the dream, manipulate the setting to somewhere safe and calm, but I resisted. Observe and report, Lady Elaine had said.

It was hard, especially as Britney swam toward the edge of the pool, struggling to pull herself out of the water. I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t, not here. Any physical contact with my dream-subject and I would be kicked out.

I closed my eyes, unable to watch any longer. I was about to cover my ears when everything went silent. I opened my eyes again, relieved to see the scene had shifted on its own. The tunnel had given way to a strange, small room with bright, colorful walls. I felt oddly weightless, and as strands of my red hair swam into my vision, I realized I was under water. As soon as I thought it, I became aware of the wetness and a sudden need to breathe.

Britney floated a few feet away from me in her mermaid form, her long tail a strawberry pink color that matched her hair. I focused my imagination on copying her form, and a moment later my body had transformed into a mermaid and my panic subsided.

I looked around at what I guessed was her bedroom. No furniture decorated the place, unless you counted the gigantic sea anemone growing along one side of the room that looked big enough to sleep in. But there was something personal and bedroom-ish about the trinkets set on the floor-to-ceiling shelves built into the coral walls.