Dreamcatcher

11

"God, they really need to fix the dreamcatcher of this house," Venus scoffed. When Chase looked at her like she was half-crazy, she pointed to a house in the far-left distance. "No wonder nobody's been dying lately. The Dream Catcher can't stand looking at those horrid rotten-yellow dreamcatchers and taking them."

"Maybe that was the point."

Venus looked unsatisfactory at Chase, who was picking at the lint on his baggy hoodie. "No wonder Aerial hasn't been coming over in a while; your attitude is quite dry."

"...Zip it."

The sun shone heavily over the street. For the official start of winter being only a week away, it seemed like the seasons were going backwards. Venus downed her glass of lemonade, and for a second Chase really thought it was summer again, another grim reminder of his loneliness.
"Do you know if she's even looked at your texts?" Venus asked, setting the empty glass down. She let out a sigh.

"Don't know. I haven't turned the read receipts on."

"Welp, I wouldn't be surprised if Aerial forgot how to use her phone. Is it really okay to trust her with such an expensive device after she broke the binoculars after one day?"

"...Well, I can check–" Chase paused for a moment, and Venus watched him curiously. "I...I'm an idiot. I could've just tracked the phone's location all this time."

"You still have that turned on after – what – three years?" Venus asked. "Or did you turn it on when you gave the phone to Aerial?"

Chase ignored Venus's question and quickly unlocked his phone, promptly logging into the app able to track all the devices the two cousins owned. There it was – a distant phone icon marking Aerial's phone, still under his name. It was located near a bunch of unfamiliar neighborhoods around a twenty minute walk away at a park called Reinfeld.

Venus saw a flash in Chase's blue eyes, as well as the grin of pride plastered on his face.

"So, I'll see you home before dinner, yeah?"

"Yep."

Chase shivered as he hurried down the streets and corners. It seemed like the afternoon winds were getting increasingly unforgiving while the sun still blazed hotly, as if making up for the fact that the autumn felt not at all autumn-like.

The park was now only two minutes away, but the location of the phone hadn't changed. No, there wasn't the possibility of Aerial simply dropping the phone in some random park and leaving it – the battery would've long died. Aerial was at least charging the old phone, and with each hopeful thought came Chase picking up his pace.

Soon Reinfeld Park's arch hung overhead – just like Moores Park – and Chase walked under it with quick steps, his eyes darting over the place from the tiny children to the bridge to the swings.

There – the swings.

Chase took a deep breath. "I'm totally calm, yeah," he mumbled to himself. No way was he calm as he practically skipped over to the back-turned girl on the swingset, his voice almost singing.

"He-ey..."

Aerial turned around, unamused at the sound of his voice. She looked exhausted. The bags under her eyes were sickly and dark, her hair looking grayer than usual, and all around she seemed simultaneously smaller and older.

She didn't say anything.

"Hey? Are you good?" Chase shuffled his feet uncomfortably at the unblinking girl. "Your last visit was when we went butterfly-catching, and that was two weeks ago."

"...Two weeks, huh?" Aerial mumbled. Her voice wasn't clear. Perhaps she hadn't had any water for the past few days. "Two weeks..."

Chase hadn't assumed Aerial was the type to drink while being underage. She seemed almost like she had no grasp of the world around her, and the only sign of logic in her brain was the charger near the free park outlets two feet away, her phone laying by it on a pile of autumn leaves. Chase was proud of her for this – at least she did know how to charge a phone properly.