Dreamcatcher (ONC 2020)

13

"What?" I sputter. "Is that even possible?"

"I don't know," Hyacinth replies quietly. "There's only one way to find out."

"But you can't just do that!" I protest. "If you just take all of her dreams, it'll escalate your addiction to the point where you'd be downright insane. And it certainly won't be helpful if you're taking everyone else's dreams in a mad frenzy."

"Well then just get rid of me somehow!" Hyacinth says fiercely.

"I mean," Layla cuts in, pointing a finger at Vera, "we could just kill her instead."

Both Hyacinth and I glare at her. "Okay, fine," she grumbles. "No killing."

"You're not going to do this alone," I tell Hyacinth. "I'm going with you. We'll split the dreams fifty-fifty. This way, we won't have to kill any of you."

Hyacinth frowns. "But Dakota—"

"We're splitting the dreams," I say firmly.

Hyacinth closes her eyes. After a brief moment, she opens them again and says, "Fine." She heads over to Vera and kneels by her side, while I do the same.

She looks down at Vera's body, a mixture of expressions dancing across her face. Hyacinth lifts up her gaze at me. "I'm assuming you've done this before," she says.

"Not like this," I admit.

"Well..." she bites her lip. "Don't hold back. And please—don't judge Vera too harshly."

Hyacinth takes a strand of Vera's hair and tenderly tucks it behind her ear. Vera's expression is peaceful underneath the scars from the fight, and her chest heaves slowly with every deep breath she takes. She looks... harmless, almost.

Hyacinth digs into her pocket and pulls out a pinch of what looks like sugar—or salt, maybe. Her hand glows brightly for a second, aglow with essence, then she sprinkles the salt onto Vera's face.

"What's that for?" I ask her.

"Sleeping powder," Hyacinth replies. "Salt mixed with essence. So she won't wake up while we're doing this."

A flicker of realization dawns on me. The sleeping powder stuff was probably what Dad hit me with back then, on the night he left.

Hyacinth dusts her hands off of the remaining powder and puts a hand on Vera's left temple. I do the same on her right. Then Hyacinth raises her head and looks at me, and I get a sense of deja vu from the first time I saw her—lying down on the floor with Bailee towering over her, her expression filled with scorn that belonged not to her, but to Vera. But now, Hyacinth is calm, and her eyes are filled with some sort of bittersweetness. It makes me feel sad.

"Whenever you're ready," she says quietly.

I hesitate, then give her a small nod. She closes her eyes, and her hand starts to shimmer with the telltale gleam of essence. I concentrate on the own essence inside of me, imagining it running down my fingertips in small rivers of gold, running all the way past me into Vera herself, until the difference between her essence and mine is indistinguishable.

✺✺✺

Taking Vera's dreams was something different. Maybe it was because she was a dreamcatcher. Or maybe, something about her made her dreams radiate an intense peculiarity.

I was standing in what looked like a school playground. It was empty, and something about it seemed old and pristine, like an ancient relic in a museum. Everything was quiet.