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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After a long, filling, confusing breakfast full of astonishing revelations and rich food, my head floated somewhere above my feet, which carried me out of the marketplace, away from Dr. Farrah's forty story monster, and down the old highway turnoff to home.
I hadn't seen my father nor Beth since the morning after the Masters had made their first attack and, even though it had only been two days, I was surprised to see that everything was as it had always been. The house stood as it always had, Beth reading in her bedroom window. The fields behind, swaying in the same westerly wind it always did, Dad and his workers toiling amongst the crops. They both looked up as I walked up the drive to our front porch, and both abandoned their activities to run and greet me.
After a few minutes of the appropriate chastising, my father allowed his relief to wash over him and he pulled me into a tight hug. "Don't do that to me," he said into my hair.
"I'm sorry," I said, meaning it.
He held me for a few moments more before letting me go and returning to his scolding session, but Beth saved me with her own hugs. As he watched his daughters reunite, the anger and fear fell away completely.
I felt terrible to return it so quickly. "Dad," I sighed, "I have something I have to tell you. You're not going to like it."
My father leaned back on the porch railing, then waved a hand. "Go ahead."
"The Speaker is a Master."
Beth and my father's jaws both dropped: hers wide in surprise and his twisted in anger. "How dare you, Rain?" He was already shouting, apparently still fairly worked up from my disappearance. "The Speaker is a hero to humanity, one of the first Dreamcallers, and my closest friend. Dr. Farrah's been putting all these ideas in your head and it's wrong. It's a fantasy, Rain. A fiction, just like the Masters themselves. The Greymen created it all to trick us back into the dream world, and the doctor's falling for it. I won't let you fall for it, too. The woman's a liar."
"She's not!" I shouted back. "He told me himself."
His hands shot up, covering his ears as he looked away from me. "No. That's not true."
"Dad, please. It is. It's all true. The Masters are here. Trade is drying up, we've seen their attacks... what more proof do you need to believe?"
"In two Big Sleeps, I have seen a lot of proof of a lot of things. Most of those things ended up not being true." He sighed. "The Greymen are masters of deception. And we've never understood their powers. Not really. For all we know, it was a Greyman disguised as the Speaker who told you that. The dream world is not as easy to parse as you may think."
"I don't believe it," I said. "But," I continued before he could argue, "I understand why you're afraid. Still, it's true. And tomorrow, you'll see. It's all you'll hear about. Dad, you have to trust us. Please."
