I HADN’T BEEN ABLE TO fall back asleep, and by the time Kristina reappeared around six o’clock in the morning. I was surrounded by candles, trying to cleanse my space of any negative vibes I may have picked up from Aiden’s nightmare.
“What happened?” Kristina said, suspicious. “You’re up far too early and surrounded by far too many candles for me to think everything is okay here.”
I sighed. “I went exploring last night.”
She stared at me hard and her mouth puckered. “Go on.”
“Well, who should I begin with? Grandma or Aiden?”
“Grandma.”
“In her dream, she was bullying some girls at school and being a total jerk. It was horrible.”
She nodded, looking over my shoulders and out the window. “And Aiden?”
“His mom, J, and I all took turns shoving his insecurities down his throat. It was also horrible.”
“Baylor, I don’t want to sound like Mom, but what did I tell you about walking through dreams?”
“If you don’t want to sound like Mom right now, you’re doing a horrible job.”
“You have a choice here. It’s your mission in life to pass on healing messages, but you don’t have to walk through dreams; honestly, it’s very intrusive. You may as well just walk in the bathroom while Grandma’s taking a shower and rip open the curtain!”
“What!” I shrieked, slapping my hands to cover my eyes. “Why would you say that? That’s in no way the same thing!”
“Secondly,” she continued, unfazed, “it’s going to affect your opinion of people. You don’t know that any of these things actually happened in real life. Maybe Grandma was reliving some bad experience from her past, or maybe it was, you know, a dream.”
“It seemed like more than a dream to me,” I said, still trying to burn away images from my eyeballs. “And Aiden’s was definitely real. Well, the feelings behind it, I mean.”
“My point is, you don’t know the extent of the reality here, and you’re never going to know because, to even ask the question, you’d have to admit that you spied on their dreams and invaded their privacy.”
“Or,” I said, brainstorming out loud, “I could strongly hint at certain things around them and see how they react?”
“Oh, yeah, great idea,” Kristina said sarcastically. “So what’s the plan for Aiden? You’re just going to casually hint around about what a loser he is?”
“Well, I haven’t really figured that part out yet, Kristina,” I said. “I’ll get there.”
“Don’t be a jerk about it,” she said tensely. “The last thing Aiden needs is for his friend to act so nosy and insensitive about something he’s clearly sensitive about.”
“I am offended you’d even suggest such a thing,” I said, feeling surprised and a bit proud at how protective she’d sounded of him.
“Good,” she said with a vindictive look in her eye. “It’s about time I offended you as much as your tuba’s offended my ears the last couple weeks. I’ll never get over that mash-up.”
“That’s a bit rude. It didn’t sound that bad.”
“Baylor, Beethoven could hear it in the Beyond, and he was weeping like a little girl.”
* * *
In homeroom later that morning, Aiden looked frazzled.
“What’s up with you?” I asked, a bit hesitantly.
“Nothing, nothing,” he said too quickly. “Just pretty tired. Ready for Thanksgiving break to start.” We only had to get through today and tomorrow before break began on Wednesday.
“Tired?” I asked, lasering in. “Did you not sleep well?”
He side-eyed me and said cryptically, “I’ve slept better.”
“Oh? Why? Bad dream?”
“Snoyes,” he stammered in one jumbled mess.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said, glancing around the room. “I mean, sort of.”
I held my breath, hoping he’d discuss the dream with me.
“I dreamed,” he said, pausing for a split second, “that Mr. G. kept yelling at me and telling me how worthless I am.” He swallowed hard.
“Oh,” I said, feeling my stomach turn to ice as a storm of sadness crossed his face. He pressed his lips together so his cheeks grew wider, like a devastated chipmunk.
“That’s really . . . rough,” I said.
He nodded.
“You know you’re not, though. Right, Aiden?” I said, chills suddenly pulsing through my body. “Don’t think about it for even one more second because that’s so wrong, and to entertain the possibility that what your m—uh, what Mr. G. said could remotely be true is one of the dumbest things you could ever do.”
Aiden looked at me, his eyes scrunched in confusion. “What are you talking about, Baylor?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I . . . I just wanted to remind you it was only a dream.”
Suspicion crossed his face, but he looked away.
There’s no way he can know you were actually in his dream. No way. How could he possibly figure that one out?
But there was that one second, right before I left, when Aiden had winced as he looked at me, and I got the sudden feeling I shouldn’t be there. I wondered how many times he’d had that dream; my bet was it happened pretty often, but that was probably the first time a second Baylor had showed up to comfort him.
But still, my presence didn’t immediately prove to him that I was actually in his dream. If anything, it just further confirmed that he was having an insane dream. As far as he was concerned, my presence was merely an extension of his subconscious, something for him to root out and decipher on his own time.
* * *
That night I got into bed, quickly fell asleep, battled a merciless talking fish and his urchin army, realized I was dreaming, and then found myself back in the Starry Night.
But I was hesitant to move forward. If I entered anyone else’s dreams, what was I going to find? More character assassinations like in Grandma Renee’s dream? More deep-rooted insecurities like in Aiden’s dream? I thought of my mom and her habit of chopping things when she’s nervous; what if in her dreams she didn’t limit it to just vegetables, but took glee in stabbing anything that crossed her path?
It was enough to make me want to go hang out with Bobby and Mr. Moose. I bet Ella dreamed in fun ways, too, with talking dolphins and life-size Barbies whirling about. Why couldn’t everyone’s dreams be so simple?
It was no use. I wouldn’t be able to visit anyone tonight. I’d just have to try—
All of sudden, a bright flash of light erupted over the Starry Night like a dangerous lightning storm, followed by a cataclysmic bang, the force shaking my face and borderline rupturing my eardrums. I looked up and discovered a horrible face staring back at me.