“Who is Ewan?” Lacey demanded. Mum and I exchanged a look, and Lacey slammed the notebook shut. The sound made me jump. “Where is my daughter?”
“We don’t know for certain,” Mum said, at the same time as I said, “You wouldn’t believe us if we told you.”
“Try me.” Lacey leaned against the counter, folding her arms and staring at us with fire in her eyes.
“We’re talking seriously new-age stuff here. I know how much you hate that.” I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. Maybe I could call Daniel, see if he was off shift. I needed Ewan’s address straight away.
“Does this relate to your dream therapy business?” Justin came into the room, passing the three of us to enter the kitchen proper.
“Yeah.” I didn’t look up, thumbing through my contacts.
“Tell me,” Lacey demanded, covering the phone screen with her hand so I had to meet her gaze.
“Fine.” I put it on the bench, gathering my thoughts. The process made me feel like a sheep dog must, trying to gather an unruly flock. How on earth was I going to explain this to Lacey? She was practically a card-carrying member of the Australian Sceptics, and she’d always hated my line of work.
“Melaina…” Mum’s tone was heavy with warning.
I shook my head. “She wants to know. And, if we’re right, Olivia may be in danger. And her baby, too. Besides, Leander’s not going to rat on me for telling.”
“What?” Justin squeaked, dropping a plastic bottle of juice onto the floor. The orange liquid splashed wildly around the interior but, fortunately, the lid held. “Danger?”
“I said ‘may be’.” I tried to smile bravely, but it felt more like a grimace so I stopped. “She’ll be fine, because I’m going to find her. I’m a regular old superhero.”
“You’re not that old,” he said, picking up the juice. Behind him, the unattended fridge door swung closed with a soft thud.
“Just a little bit old, right, Jat?” I heard Lacey draw breath and hurried on. “Like I said, this isn’t stuff you’re going to believe, Lacey. But just ... for the purposes of my explanation, even if you don’t, please realise there are other people who do. It’s important.”
She nodded, pressing her lips together.
I took a breath. Might as well dive straight in. “There are creatures called Oneiroi. They are spirits who live in people’s dreams and can manipulate those, um, dreams. Mostly, the Oneiroi stay in their own world and are pretty harmless to the human dreamer.” Except they have the ability to set blights and mara on you, and can create nightmares in their own right. But that was a dark, scary rabbit hole that I so wasn’t going to go down just now. “The thing is, though, if a person is a lucid dreamer and a female, an Oneiroi who spends a lot of time in her dreams while she’s pregnant can sort of … shape the foetus so it’s born with Oneiroi powers. Not all their powers, but some.”
“Right,” Lacey said flatly.
“Remember, other people believe it,” I reminded her. “Ewan certainly does. He used to be a nurse at Wattle Tree Park.”
“He’s the one the police were investigating for burning down Serenity’s New Age Gifts,” Justin added, sloshing juice into a glass. I glanced at him, surprised. “What? I pay attention to stuff.”
I gave him a half-smile before turning back to Lacey. “Jat’s right. Ewan was also taking advantage of the patients at the home—”
“Taking advantage of them how, exactly?” Lacey turned to Mum, horror blooming in her suddenly wide eyes.
“Not sexually,” Mum said. “He was using the home as a place to build a powerbase for his Oneiroi master.”
Lacey rubbed one of her temples with a hand; the other was wrapped around her middle as if keeping her reactions to herself was a physical struggle. I was impressed she hadn’t started yelling yet.
“Ewan knows Mum and I are lucid dreamers,” I said. “The fact Olivia is too, and is already pregnant, makes her vulnerable. Ewan will want her for Ikelos. His master.”
“And you …” Lacey gestured from Mum to me “… you believe all of this? Possession? Mutated babies with dream powers?”
“I learned first-hand that it’s true,” Mum murmured, her glance sliding across to me.
The room fell silent as both Lacey and Justin stared. It was Justin who spoke first. “You have dream powers?”
“I told you I was a superhero.” The room seemed too bright. How was I having this conversation with these people? I’d worked so hard to avoid it, not because of Justin but because of his mother. I’d been sure she’d have me committed. Looking at Lacey’s calculating gaze now, I wasn’t so sure I’d been wrong.
“That’s why I slept for so long.” A flush bloomed on Mum’s cheeks as her gaze dropped to her hands. They twisted together on the benchtop. “There was an Oneiroi in my dreams.”
Lacey snorted.
“Anyway,” I said with a scowl, “all of this means we need to find Olivia. I don’t think she’s in physical danger—”
Justin frowned. “But you said…”
“It’s her mind I’m worried about. And the baby’s. Even then, we’ve got a bit of time, I think…” My stomach tightened at the idea of my bubbly cousin, unaware of what she was getting herself into, putting herself in the hands of Ewan and, worse, Ikelos. Did she think he was some supernatural Prince Charming, come to sweep her off her feet? He was certainly handsome enough, if your tastes ran to tattooed and sinister.
“Can your dream powers help you find Olivia?” Justin asked.
“Sadly, no. As far as superhero powers go … well, on a scale from one to Superman, I’m somewhere around a zero point five.”
“What can you do?”
I opened my mouth to answer—but, before I could, Lacey’s self-control snapped. “This is ridiculous.” She threw her hands in the air. “Stop filling my son’s head with nonsense. I need actual genuine help to find my daughter, not pseudo-spiritual fairytales. If you’re not really going to help, get the hell out of my house.”
“Show her.” Mum brushed my shoulder with her fingertips; when I looked at her, she shook her head. My aunt and I had a similar temperament despite not being biologically related. Maybe there was something to that nature versus nurture thing I’d ignored in science class after all. “She’s not going to believe you unless she sees proof,” Mum told me, “and her scepticism is wasting time.”
She’s right. I rolled my shoulders back, trying to ease the tension there. “Are you volunteering?”
“It can’t be me,” Mum said. “She’ll assume I’m faking. Again.”
I winced, but had to agree. I looked from Lacey to Justin. “I basically have two powers. One is the ability to shape a person’s dreams—”
“We don’t have time to take a nap,” Lacey said.
“—and the other is to put them to sleep by breathing on them,” I continued. “Something about them inhaling my breath puts them to sleep.” Justin opened his mouth, a glint in his eye, and I grinned at him. “Yes, I brush my teeth. It’s not garlic breath.”
“Garlic would only work for vampires anyway.” Justin put the juice back in the fridge.
“Anyway, the point is that I can prove it to you. That I’m part Oneiroi.”
“By putting one of us to sleep?” Justin asked.
“Yes.”
His hand shot into the air. “I volunteer as tribute.”
“I’m not sure…” Lacey said as Justin circled around the bench and came to stand before me. “That is. Um. What are you going to do to him?”
“Put him to sleep. Don’t worry; it’s safe. So long as he’s sitting or lying down.” I looked at my cousin. “Otherwise you’ll fall.”
“Oh. Makes sense,” he said. We trailed behind as he tromped out to the family room, throwing himself onto the scarlet couch. “Can I have a dream about bikini babes?”
“Jat,” I said with a sigh, perching on the edge of the seat beside him. “I can’t give you that kind of dream.”
“Why not?”
“Because ick?”
Lacey stood near us, shifting from foot to foot.
“What are you worried about?” Mum asked, sitting on the other couch. “After all, if we’re lying to you, nothing will happen. Right?”
Lacey studied me. I’d seen that look before, on some of my more sceptical clients. Wondering what the trick would be. “There’s more than one way to knock a person out,” Lacey said finally. Mum hissed an irritated breath.
“I’m not going to drug him or smack him on the head.” I held my hands up, fingers spread so she could see they were empty. “This is all natural.” Supernatural. Whatever.
Still keeping my hands in the air, I leaned over Justin, putting my face within a foot of his. Those tear-reddened eyes widened, clearly unnerved. “Relax, cuz,” I said. “I’m not going to kiss you.” And then I breathed on him.
I was familiar with the effect my power had on people; I’d been using it since my teens, when I’d discovered it was a great way to sneak out of my boarding house after curfew. Still, conscious of my aunt’s nervous, suspicious gaze, I watched with a critical eye as Justin’s eyelids slid shut and the tension eased out of his face, his muscles growing slack. A deep, sighing breath slipped between his lips as they softened, parting to reveal a hint of teeth. Slowly, his head listed to the side.
“Very funny, Justin.” Lacey stepped forward until her shadow fell over her sleeping son. “Justin?” He didn’t react, and her gaze shifted to me, realisation dawning in her eyes. “He’s really asleep.”
“Yes,” I said, speaking quietly. “They go straight into a deep sleep when I do that, so they tend to be oblivious to what’s going on around them. Still, he’ll wake up if you shake him or speak loudly enough. You know, if you’re worried about him.”
Lacey caught her bottom lip between her teeth, staring at her son’s relaxed face for several long moments. “No. Let him sleep for now. It’s been a stressful day, and we need to talk.”
I stood, and we filed back into the kitchen.
“Now,” Lacey said, turning to me and Mum. The scepticism and irritation were gone, replaced with a sharp-eyed determination. “How are we going to find Olivia?”