Beautiful Dreamer

Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

In my dream, I was in my room. A kind of bone-deep darkness hung in the air, but it wasn't complete; suspended above it, almost as a second layer of atmosphere, was a strange, gauzy glow. Colored streaks lived at the edges of my vision, the way that teen prevention movies show the world through the eyes of kids on hallucinogenic drugs.

But in this dream, the lights didn't seem strange—they were pretty, and I got out of bed to chase them out of my peripherals. My feet seemed to have other ideas, though, because they marched me across my room and to the door, which hung slightly ajar. I thought I felt a prickling on the pads of my feet, but the sensation fled quickly as I ducked into the hallway, which was bathed in the same fuzzy light, and sidled easily down the stairs.

There were shadows all around me, guiding me through the living room and kitchen with icy fingers, but I was not afraid. This was only a dream, after all; they couldn't hurt me.

I waltzed into the sun room on floating feet, past the sleeping form of dream-Zipper. The outer door was streaked with water; it was raining hard. Still, I did not hesitate to push it open and step out into the downpour. It should have been cold, and I knew that, but I didn't feel the chill, even as I strode through the muddy grass on my bare feet, leaving the door ajar behind me.

The wind whistled; I felt the pellets of rain bearing down on my scalp, but the sensation was muted. Everything was still hazy, reminding me with every step that this was not real. I wondered if somehow, I'd unlocked a lucid dream all on my own; but no, that couldn't be right, could it? If that were the case, I would be in control, and I wasn't. There was a force in my feet that guided my steps through the dirt.

At the fence I stopped, placing two hands on its slick surface and hauling myself up to sit atop it. I paused for a moment at that vantage point, looking first to the right, at my blurry blue house, then to the left, at the forest. Ahead of me lay a mystery, all of those trees there that were just begging me to get lost in their mazes. So, with a sigh that had no cause, I leapt to the ground and padded calmly into the dark.

I followed my own footsteps into the woods, walking in a careful rhythm as the howling gale threw leaves into my hair and hair into my face. A small branch flew by, scratching my cheek, but I paid it no mind; I hardly even felt it. I had a destination, and though I didn't know what it was, I knew that I needed to get there.

Step, step, step, said my brain, counting the soft squelches of my feet against the sopping ground. In my mind, the woods were alive with sound. Branches bending, creaking, their wooden limbs crying out in pain; birds, tucked away in their nests, chirping as they tried to protect their homes from the rain; animal footsteps, darting in and out of bushes, just out of my sight. Everyone had come out to see the show, and I guess that was where I was going, too.

Eventually, after a hazy eternity of walking, I found myself approaching a familiar clearing: the little crescent of space just before Bear Lake came into view. That is where my feet stopped, planting me right in the clearing's center. The wind whipped around me and rain poured in a frenzied tempest, but I just stood there and smiled a little and let myself be lifted slightly off the ground. It was a strange sensation; I felt as if I was detached, not quite tethered to reality and at the mercy of the wind.