I slumped on a park bench, legs outstretched before me, and stared through heavy eyelids at a nameless lake. Overhead and behind me arched a timber trellis smothered with trailing vines. Bees droned, though I couldn’t see any inside my shallow cave of leaves and wide-petalled flowers. The sun beamed down outside my shelter, warm enough that I could feel the radiant heat beyond the scraggly edge of my patch of shade, but a water-cooled breeze reached me, ruffling my fringe and brushing my cheeks.
I yawned, rubbing my eyes, and stretched until my fingertips skimmed across the glossy leaves on either side of me. The air was rich with the aroma of honeysuckle. I was content. I could stay here forever.
Overhead, a currawong rustled in the branches, its crooning song melancholy, and I realised—
I’m not content. Something is wrong.
I rubbed my temples, frowning at the lake’s glistening, light-dappled surface. Where am I? How did I get here? I struggled for a moment to recall, but my thoughts were muddled and slow. I was waiting for someone, wasn’t I? Had I organised a lunch date with Jen? My mum? No, that wasn’t right. Was Brad meant to be meeting me? Why couldn’t I remember?
A memory of Brad, sliding bonelessly down a wall, flashed across my mind’s eye, driving me to my feet. Grass rustled beneath my boots and the leaves around me sighed in the playful breeze: hush, hush. Pressing my lips together, I shook my head violently. I would not hush. I stepped forward, into the sunlight.
The breeze faded, the hot air blanketing me, dragging my limbs downward with warmth and the suddenly overwhelming, saccharine sweetness of honeysuckle. I blinked, and forcing my eyes open again took conscious effort. But something had happened to Brad, and why couldn’t I remember?
I looked around. Now that my field of view wasn’t restricted by the trellis-cave, I could see that the lake had no end, stretching away until it faded from view, the way computer game scenery does at the edge of its render distance. The water’s surface was empty, as was the grassy park—the flower-covered trellis was the only feature. A sun-filled park on a beautiful afternoon should be full of people. Where were all the people?
“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” I said, looking up at a brilliant white sky. Despite the glow all around me, warming the top of my head and bathing my arms in golden light, there was no sun overhead. “Yup, dreaming.”
A flutter of movement drew my gaze back to the trellis. A butterfly danced from one rosy-pink flower to the next, touching down briefly before moving on. Its wings were black with white splotches, and I blinked with surprise. I’d expected it to be black and orange, and why would that be, and, oh god, Ikelos had taken over my mind.
Rage, iron-tangy and hot, flooded my mouth and set my pulse to racing. The artificial daylight seemed brighter as I spun, searching for some sign of the Oneiroi, some way out of the dream he’d trapped me in. When he’d invaded Mum’s mind, he’d locked her inside a fragment of dream within a dream. From the outside, it had looked like a dying wattle tree, a timber cocoon. What had it been like from the inside? Sleepy afternoon sunlight and the dull drone of bees?
“Like hell,” I growled, throwing a hand out to point an accusing finger at the trellis, the butterfly. I imagined it gone, destroyed in an eruption of flame as hot as my fury at Ikelos and his presumption. And fire did bloom, uncurling like a hand at the base of the trellis, its orange fingers grasping at the vines. But it wasn’t the inferno I’d imagined. Smoke, heavy and acrid, wafted out of the cave as the flame bit into green wood. Energy slipped from me, leaving me a little bit sleepier, my limbs a little bit heavier.
“This is my dream,” I whispered. That vine should have exploded in a shower of sparks and burning splinters. It shouldn’t have cost me anything. Something—or someone—was interfering with my ability to fully influence the dreamscape, dulling the usually keen edge of my wrath. I was so used to having total control over my own dreams, control without cost, that the concept left me a little breathless.
Or maybe that was the smoke.
I needed to get away from the heat and honeysuckle. Even now I could feel them insinuating themselves into my thoughts, attempting to lull me back to sleep. I clenched my hands, nails biting into my palms, each tiny crescent of pain helping to keep me alert.
I willed my real body to wake, my real eyes to open and—
Lying, curled on my side: a stiff foetal position.
A fabric-lined box.
Windows.
Lights sweeping across the roof.
Trying to move.
Barely the twitch of a finger.
“She’s awake.” My own voice. My own voice? But deeper, somehow. Richer. “But not for long.”
My eyes slid closed again.
—the currawong took flight from the top of the trellis, launching itself with a beat of its black and white wings. Its call—a single, descending note, repeated over and over—tugged my gaze skyward as it flew up, circling twice beneath the ceiling of the formless white sky … and disappeared, its song cutting off mid-note.
It couldn’t have left. It was an ephemera, not a real bird. But perhaps my subconscious was trying to show me something. You can fly in your dreams, I’d told Felice. You just have to will it. And yes, I’d taught myself to fly in dreams, but in my dreams I could also explode trellises into kindling and leaf fragments with a thought. Flying wouldn’t come free. What if my energy gave out when I was mid-air? The grass was soft underfoot, but it covered a layer of hard earth that would make short work of me if I hit it from a height.
“What the hell,” I said. “I’ve never had a proper falling dream before anyway.”
Imagining myself to be as light as the smoke particles floating upwards on the column of heated air above my fire, I threw myself skyward. I cheered when my boots didn’t immediately thump back to Earth, turning my gaze towards that whiteness, the perimeter of the dream I was trapped in. But it didn’t grow any closer. I didn’t soar so much as bob a couple of metres off the ground like a deflating helium balloon.
Muttering curses against Ikelos and promises of what I was going to do to him when I found him, I floundered upwards, kicking my feet and flapping my arms: the world’s most graceless bird. I must have looked ridiculous, and for a moment I was glad Leander wasn’t there to make fun of me. Of course, if he’d been there, I wouldn’t have been doing this in the first place. He had wings.
Beside me, the column of smoke dispersed as it rose. The stink of it tickled my nose, but it drove out the lulling honeysuckle aroma. I considered glancing down to see how far I’d come but dismissed the idea with a shudder. My previously blasé approach to flying, and to heights in my dreams more generally, had been based on my confidence that I wouldn’t … no, couldn’t fall. I felt no such confidence now. Instead, I kept my gaze fixed on the smoke.
By the time I reached the dream’s white ceiling, my arms and shoulders ached with effort. Sweat prickled my brow, and my lungs burned. It wasn’t cooler up here, not like it should be at higher altitudes. The heat closed in around me, squeezing the breath from my chest.
Gritting my teeth, I flung myself into, and through, the white ceiling, passing into it as though into a bank of fog. The heat dropped away like a discarded blanket. My weariness remained. I floated for a moment, staring around me. I’d seen this sort of thing before: unformed dreams, stripped of even their proto-dream. I’d met my father for the first time in such an environment. That meant this was a place Ikelos hadn’t shaped. Not yet, at least.
Feeling a surge of triumph, I again willed myself to wake up.
My eyes flew open, a surge of panic stiffening my limbs. The sheets rustled beneath me, and I realised where I was. In my house. In my own bed. The familiar scents of home reached me, replacing the stink of smoke and the cloying scent of honeysuckle: the fresh, white floral aroma of our laundry powder arising from my pillow; the more distant smell of coffee and … was that bacon coming from the kitchen? My mouth watered. Time to get up, before Jen and Mum eat it all.
I groaned and stretched like a cat, trying to shake off the befuddled haze of the dream. My limbs felt heavy and tingly, like they were in a post-anaesthetic daze. I stiffened as I remembered the needle in Ewan’s hand, Brad slumping against the wall. Had Ewan drugged me? How had I gotten home?
As if summoned by my thought, Brad appeared in the doorway, holding a steaming cup of coffee. Better him than Ewan. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” my boyfriend said with a gentle smile, coming into the room and placing the coffee cup on the bedside table. He looked good, and smelled even better when he leaned over to give me a kiss.
“Brad. You’re okay!”
“Of course.”
“How did I get home?” I asked, struggling to a sitting position and reaching for the cup.
The bed dipped as he sat beside my bent knees. “Constable Nelson got your message. He came for us.”
“And Olivia?”
“She’s fine.”
“Oh. Good.” I sipped the coffee. It tasted different than usual: weaker, almost watery. Had he short-changed me on the beans? But I appreciated the gesture. I could get used to coffee in bed. “What happened to Ewan?”
Brad shrugged, running a hand down my calf. Even through the blanket the sensation was delicious. Outside, the wind sighed through the treetops. It sounded almost like the ocean, but the nearest beach was a two-hour drive away. The sound relaxed me, helping the tension seep out of my bones. I was safe. “Nelson’s handling it,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“A bit sluggish.” I put the coffee back on the side table. I could make a stronger one later. “Did Ewan drug me?”
Brad shook his head, his hand running up my leg towards the knee, leaving me tingling. His dark eyes were smoky as he regarded me. “Jen isn’t home,” he said with a serious look.
“And Mum?”
“She’s asleep,” he said.
I glanced at my window; the curtains were drawn but a bright light seeped in around the edges. Daytime. She’d no doubt been up half the night, helping Lacey look for Olivia, worrying about me. Still, disappointment turned my mouth down at the corners.
“She’s a very deep sleeper,” Brad assured me, his voice husky as he leaned over to kiss me again. Even as his tongue parted my lips, his hand slipped between my knees, pressing against the blanket, against my core. I gasped, a warmth blossoming inside me. “And we can be quiet,” Brad added, his lips moving against mine.
“Quiet as church mice,” I whispered, lifting one of my sluggish arms to curl my fingers into his hair. Brad would be just the medicine for this lassitude gripping me. He really knew how to wake a girl up.
“Quieter.” Brad’s hand was still massaging. “Though I love to hear you squeak.”
“Squeak?” I protested, sliding back down under the blanket, drawing him after me. “I do not squeak.”
“Oh, really?” Brad slid his free hand under my shirt, the fingers brushing up my side to cup the swell of my breast, to lightly pinch my nipple. The other hand stayed where it was, circling slowly. “I bet I can make you squeak. Though I prefer it when you’re louder.” His eyes twinkled. “When you scream.”
I reached for him with a growl, tugging at his shirt, the button of his jeans. I craved his touch, the silken heat of his body against mine as we moved together. I wish clothes came off as easily as they do in the movies. All these pointless zippers and buckles!
Our clothes were on the floor, and I felt a moment of dizziness as hands that had been struggling with tight denim were suddenly grasping Brad’s erect hardness. “Oh, Melaina,” Brad groaned as my fingers clenched reflexively in surprise. “I want you so badly.”
“I…” I was naked too, and the hand that had massaged against the blanket was now working at the slick core of me. The sensation sent pleasure shooting through me like bursts of light, but something was wrong. Had I … had I blacked out for a moment?
Brad rolled, pulling me on top of him. I faced the window, and my eyes locked on the narrow strip of light between the curtains. It wasn’t just bright; it was white. Fog pressed up against the window pane? But that gusting wind would blow away any fog, wouldn’t it?
Oh no. No, no, no.
I was still dreaming.
Propped up on my elbows, I looked down at Brad. He stared up at me, his lips parted and his lids heavy with desire. “I love you.”
For a moment, I considered letting the dream run its course. Desire flamed through me. I wanted my boyfriend so badly that I ached to think of it. The sensation of him pressing up against me, waiting for me to ease down onto him, made me almost crazy with lust.
A tiny frown tightened the skin between Brad’s brows. “Is everything okay?”
I wanted to kiss that frown away. I wanted to lose myself in him. But this wasn’t Brad. And me losing myself … that was exactly what Ikelos wanted. Me, distracted. Not fighting him for control.
Reaching up, I yanked the curtains open, half-expecting to see the flame-eyed Oneiroi lurking outside, pressed up against the window like the world’s nastiest creeper. But all I saw was the press of white fog marking the edge of the dream.
“Melaina, what’s wrong?” The desire on Brad’s face faded, replaced by a concern that seemed so real. So very real. My chest clenched with pain. But I couldn’t do this with him here.
With my eyes burning, I bent down, kissing him on the lips. I blinked and a tear fell, making a wet circle on the pillow beside his ear. “I’ll find you, Brad, I promise.”
Brad’s chocolate eyes widened. “But I’m right—”
I willed the ephemera that looked like my boyfriend to disappear.
I collapsed onto the sheets on my hands and knees, my heart aching even more than my nether region did at Brad’s sudden absence. My throat tightened, but I swallowed the sobs. For a few moments, I’d felt safe and loved. But it hadn’t been real.
Wiping savagely at my cheeks with the back of my hand, I re-examined my room with narrowed eyes. Now that I was … undistracted, there were signs that it was a dream, signs other than the watery coffee and the fogbank at my window. The numbers on the clock radio were a nonsense jumble, and the small pile of unpaired socks that usually nested by my dresser was missing. Was there no washing machine sock monster in dreamland, or did Ikelos lack the power or insight to create a truly authentic representation of my house in my dream? It wasn’t like he’d seen the original, after all. At least, as far as I knew.
Not wanting to waste yet more of my energy reserves on creating clothes, I slid out of bed and marched to the wardrobe, yanking it open. A glance at the mirror inside the door showed only my reflection. Disappointment surged; even though I was buck naked, I would have been glad to see Leander just then, if he’d get me out of there.
My mouth gaped as I examined the wardrobe’s contents. A rack of identical clothes greeted me: knee-length A-line dresses made of a white fabric with butterflies cavorting around the hem: caramel brown, jade green, blue and yellow, and one familiar black and orange one. I barely owned a dress, let alone one covered with butterflies. Curling my lip at the Monarch butterfly, I snatched one of the dresses out and scrambled into it. At least it fit.
My socks and underwear drawers were empty, but the underwear I’d been wearing before was in a neat pile in the corner, where I’d apparently wished it away to during my make-out session with the fake Brad. I couldn’t see any socks or my boots, so I spent a thin thread of energy to will them onto my feet. When the room swam for a moment, swaying as if I stood on the deck of a ship, not bland beige carpet, I wondered whether I should have gone barefoot, even if my boots did make me feel more confident.
Too late now.
Clenching my jaw, I stomped out into the corridor, glancing left and right in case the Oneiroi had left nastier delaying tactics than my sexy-arse boyfriend and a lack of shoes. The corridor was empty. To my left, Mum’s bedroom door lay open. I glanced inside … and froze.
I expected to see her bedroom: spacious, decorated in cream and soft peppermint tones, about as messy as my own. Instead, the door opened onto another familiar space, albeit one I hadn’t seen for a few months—Mum’s old room at Wattle Tree Park. The empty king-single bed was near the door, while her little table crouched underneath the window, its sole chair a lonely sidekick. I drifted towards the window, my gaze caught by something outside. Not a wall of white mist but a dreary, winter-cold garden full of wattle trees and other native shrubs. One of the trees was dying. A chill crept over me.
“Mum?” I murmured, my fingers brushing the glass. The smooth surface was so cold it stung my fingertips, as if I’d trailed them in icy water, and the smell of my mother’s perfume tickled my nose. I wanted to smash through the glass, barrel across the frost-covered lawn, and tear her free of that tree prison.
I turned my back on the lie. She wasn’t out there.
The lights flickered, plunging the room into blackness. Even the natural light from the window disappeared, though the distant sound of surf pounding on rocks remained. I gasped, taking a step back. The table struck the back of my thighs and—
“Melaina?”
“I don’t think she can hear you.”
“Well, have you got any other bright ideas, moth boy?”
“Not really, no. Melaina?”
—with a fluorescent hum, the lights flickered to life. The bed was no longer empty. Mum lay on her back, arranged in a pose that reminded me of Olivia’s when I’d found her in Ewan’s spare room: Snow White in her glass coffin. With her black hair flowing around her pale face, Mum fit the role even better than Olivia had.
The urge to protect my mother, to cross to her side and brush a loose strand of hair from her cheek, was so strong that I took half a step towards her before I realised I was moving. This was another ephemera, a dreaming figment created to delay and upset me. Just walk away, I told myself. She’s not real. Even if her chest is rising and falling with sleep, and she’s … snoring? What if it really was her?
There was one way to be sure.
Gritting my teeth, I willed my mother out of existence.
The blanket fell onto the sheets with a soft thump and a gentle puff of perfume-scented air. I staggered, catching myself on the bed’s chilly metal frame, my grasping fingers knocking a clipboard to the floor with a clatter. Instead of medical records, the clipboard’s top sheet was covered with a child’s scribbled drawings.
I couldn’t keep doing this. If I ran out of energy, I wouldn’t be able to fight Ikelos even if I could track him down.
I breathed slowly through my nose, my eyes closed, until the world righted itself and my pulse slowed. I was stronger than this. I had to be. I opened my eyes and marched from the nursing room ward and back into the hallway of my house.
The hallway opened into our tiny kitchen, which was empty of people. I raised my eyebrows, surprised. I’d half expected to find an ephemeral Jen next. The room was rich with the smell of food. Beside the empty stool was a plate heaped with breakfast, ready to eat. Bacon and eggs glistened on perfectly cooked toast, while tomato and avocado were neatly sliced and piled on the side. A glass of juice, its sides slick with condensation, towered beside the plate.
Hunger stabbed at my belly as though I hadn’t eaten for days. But the food’s unnatural freshness made me even warier than before. Even if fake Brad had fixed it, it shouldn’t have that straight-off-the-hotplate look.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to just grab a quick mouthful, would it? A slice of tomato to go?
I shook my head, narrowing my eyes at the plate of food like it was a slavering blight. This was another trap. Ikelos was getting desperate.
I turned towards the front door, throwing it open. Seeing the fog there, I sighed with relief. It wasn’t some other pocket of dream.
Real fog might have drifted in through the open portal. This white mist stayed in a white wall just beyond the threshold.
I stepped into it.