For the second time in thirty years, the entire world has fallen asleep...
Thirty years after the Greymen caused the decimation of her people, high school drop out Rain Collins spends her days learning to pickpocket and hold her booze. Yet she long...
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While I sat up in my bed and ate a bowl of rich ice cream, Billy watched the picture-box in the corner, Kayle slept on the couch, and my father reclined in the chair next to my bed.
"I feel better," I said. No one moved. "A lot better."
Since I had been resting, the three of them traveled into nearby nightmares to look for Beth, but they wouldn't go very far because they didn't want to leave me alone in my condition. They actually used the word "alone," as if I weren't in the middle of the most populated city in dream or real world, in a hospital, surrounded by doctors. Still, I knew that if I was in better repair and my father loosened his stranglehold on me, we could set out to find her, and actually succeed.
"I said—"
"We heard you," Billy said. "We all heard you." He had been sour with me since my conversation with his mother about Jenny, but he wouldn't tell me why. I was sick of his attitude. Moreover, I was sick of my father's coddling.
"Why do you always treat me like a child?" I turned to my father abruptly.
"You are a child." He smiled and stroked my cheek. "My child."
I sighed. "Really, Dad. I need to know." I steadied myself. It had been awhile since I'd had enough energy to get properly angry about anything. "Why did you train the farmhands to be Dreamwalkers? Why not me? Why not Beth?" Tears welled up in my eyes when I said her name. "Didn't you consider our safety? If you hadn't been so thoughtless, maybe Beth would still be—"
"Thoughtless?" My father rose from his chair, towering over me, his eyes red with anger. "You think I don't consider your safety? Rain, all that I do is worry about you and your sister. Becoming a Dreamwalker was not the life I wanted for you. We are reckless, constantly in danger. We put our lives on the line so that children—especially our own children—never have to."
"And what about Billy?" I said, not willing to let this go until I was satisfied. "He's only a few years older than me and you've been training him since he was a child like me. How is that fair?"
"Billy is different." My father covered his eyes with one hand and continued, "He has a family to protect. That's why I gave him a job on the farm. That's why I taught him."
"I have a family, too," I shouted, thinking of Beth alone in nightmare. She was too sweet to be so scared. "Why won't you answer me? Why didn't you teach us anything?"
"I taught you about this city." He removed his hand from his face and looked around him. "I've been telling you stories about the Green City since you were born. I never expected that the Greymen would return, but if they did, I always thought your memories would lead you here."
"You were wrong."
"Yes. I was." His eyes glistened. "I'm sorry."
I reached out and touched his scruffy face. We needed Beth. She was such a calming force in our family. Without her, my father and I made a pathetic pair. Quiet at first, then outright and honest, we sobbed together.
