Dreamcatchers

Part 3

I found Matthew Connors at Wredling Middle School in St. Charles, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. I broke so many rules to get information about Matthew that I was sure I would get fired if I was found out. As soon as I had the information I needed, I had taken a week of personal time. Each employee had two weeks and I had yet to use any of mine.

So here I was, parked outside of a junior high school waiting for the courage to go inside and confront Matthew with the information I had. I didn't want to make him relive his trauma - it was obviously why he'd been referred to IDEAS in the first place - but Dominic Cross needed to be brought to justice. That thought alone gave me the courage to get out my my car. I had contacted the school as an employee of IDEAS and volunteered to speak about applying math in professions that don't seem like they would require the use of math. Unfortunately, I was told that the school did not accept calls from solicitors. That mean I needed to move on the Plan B.

Plan B was me walking to the math department after the three o'clock bell and talking to Matthew Connors without pretense. In retrospect, Plan B maybe should have been Plan A. I found my way to his classroom through throngs of small teenagers headed home for the day.

"Mr. Connors?" I knocked on the door to alert him to my attention. At his nod I continued. "My name is Jaylyn Miles. Do you have a few minutes to speak to me about an urgent matter?"

The man with dark blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes as deep as the sea seemed confused as to why I was in him classroom, but replied, "of course, what can I do for you?"

"I just need you to hear me out without becoming defensive. I promise all will be explained. First, know that you may be in danger."

"In danger from what?"

"Does the name Dominic Cross have any meaning to you?" By the blank expression on his face, I knew he did not. I hadn't expected him to remember, or to even have been told, Dominic's name in the first place. I just needed to know for sure.

"Should it?" He asked me, obviously still confused, but a small part of him seemed intrigued by why a complete stranger was standing in his classroom telling him he was in danger.

"You don't know me, so I know that what I am about to tell you will seem fantastical at best, but I need to make sure that you have all of the information I know just in case. I work for IDEAS, the company that makes the dreamcatchers. I also know that you are one of the people who have purchased a dreamcatcher. Over the past week, you have been able to sleep without the nightmares of your past pouring into your dreams. I know this, because it is my job to clean out the dreamcatchers. All of the data, your dreams, get stored in your dreamcatcher. Then, after seven days, if they are not removed, they will spill back out into your brain to make room to trap new dreams. I'm not going to explain the science because we don't have time and that is not my department. What I will tell you, is that I see the dreams of all one thousand one hundred and fifty-seven people in the Chicago area who are currently using these dreamcatchers. I live all of their worst nightmares."

I could see that I had gotten Matthew's attention, so I continued. "Yesterday morning I cleaned your dreamcatcher for the first time. You must be a new user. There was so much fear and panic in your dreams I didn't think I would survive watching them. I wanted to die from the amount of fear I was feeling. Then, at the end of the seventh dream, I recognized a man's voice. I didn't know how I recognized it, but I did. The man said, 'Quit your fussing, Matty boy, or I'm going to go and kill your momma!' The man had a Irish accent and for some reason, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd heard it before. Then, I reached the dreams of a man named Dominic Cross. The dreams are dumped in alphabetical order, so it didn't take long for me to go from your dreams to his. It was so coincidental that I just happened to be dumping both dreamcatchers on the same day."

Matthew's face had gone pale. He knew what I was telling him was the truth. How else would I have known what the man who kidnapped him said all those years ago? "I knew as soon as I heard Dominic Cross's voice in his own dreams that he was the same man that I had heard in your dreams. Mr. Connors, you were kidnapped as a child, weren't you?"

He nodded, so slightly that if I hadn't been looking him directly in the face I wouldn't have seen it. There was so much fear on his face that I briefly questioned whether or not I was doing the right thing. Then, I remembered Dominic's dream and I knew that I was. Whatever the cost to me, I had to let Matthew know that he was in danger from Dominic Cross.

"In Dominic Cross's dream I heard him say, 'I've found him. He escaped me once. I can't let it happen again. Time for Matty-boy to meet his maker.'" When I repeated what Dominic had said in his dream, I had looked away from Matthew, not sure I could say it looking him in the eyes. But after saying it, I looked at him again. His entire body was shaking and the blood had drained from his face. The expression on his face was so panicked that I felt the breath catch in my throat. I wasn't seeing his dreams, but I could still feel the fear and trauma that he was feeling. I went to Matthew and put my hands on his arms. I felt the need to ground him. Like if I didn't hold him here, he would completely disappear into the oblivion of fear and never return.

"Matthew," I said softly, knowing that a calming tone would be the only way to keep him from further panic. "I know that this is scary. I didn't experience this first hand, but through your dreamcatcher I have. You are reliving the worst time of your life, but I need you to take a deep breath in and release it slowly." He did what I asked. "Good, again." And he took a deep breath once more. I could feel the shaking of his body slowing as he continued to take deep breaths. I breathed with him, and after about fifteen deep breaths, the shaking had stopped completely.

"Thank you," his whispered voice sounded in my ears. "I would still be in full panic mode if it wasn't for you."

"You wouldn't have been in panic mode if it wasn't for me. I just thought that you needed to know what I saw and heard. It sounds like Dominic Cross is aware of where you are and is out for some sort of revenge. I didn't go to the police because I know they won't view dreams as evidence and I also know that my company won't allow me to release personal information to police without a warrant or your consent. And even if I had your consent, we couldn't release Mr. Cross's. I didn't know what else to do but take time off work and come explain why I think you could be in danger."

Matthew was slow to respond, but when he did, his voice seemed stronger and more in control. "You risked your job to come here and tell me this, didn't you?" At my nod he continued. "Why? You don't know me. We have never met before? Why would you risk your job for me?"

"Because, even though we've never met, I do know you. I have experienced the most traumatic event of your life. In that sense, I know you better than people who have known you for years. When people share trauma, it connects them. I feel connected to you now. I also know that telling you this is the moral thing to do and if something happened and I hadn't told you I would feel guilty for the rest of my life and have one more nightmare to add to the ones I already live with on a daily and nightly basis."

I could see in Matthew's eyes that what I had just said triggered something in him. I couldn't tell what, though. Was he put off by this weird girl who randomly appeared in his life with knowledge of his deepest fears? Was he grateful for the knowledge? Or was he still just in utter terror about the information I had presented him? Had I revealed something too personal about myself? All I knew, was that I had done the right thing. I had done what I could live with.

"Well, Ms. Miles," Matthew said after a few minutes of silence. "What do we do next?"

"That, Mr. Connors, is up to you."