Chapter Twenty

 

L: OMG he’s so freakin HOT!!! Is that the only pic?

V: 2 more otw

I send Lori the ones where we are looking at the camera, but not the one where he is kissing the top of my head. I can’t stop looking at any of them. Two have flaws—little things no one would notice but me. But one of them is perfect. We are leaning into each other, and not just smiling, but almost… glowing.

Happy.

L: Wow. Just WOW. And he knows about your dreams and everything?

V: His dreams are like mine. I hesitate, then add, His dad was MIA in Iraq the same week as my dad.

I can’t even remember the last time I didn’t tell Lorena everything, but even if they’re all tangled up together, Lucas’s secrets are not mine to tell. So I’m keeping the mystery of Jackass Connor and his creepy dream castle on the down-low for now.

L: It’s FATE. There is a reason for all of this. He is too hot for it not to be

V: He. Is. The. Best. Kisser. Ever. <3 <3

Well, he is. And as my former relationship coach, Lorena has the right to know. In fact, I owe it to her. It has nothing to do with provoking any little tweaks of jealousy, like I get when she goes on about her new boyfriend/haircut/license/iPhone. I swear.

L: That must be the reason! Ha! But maybe you two are supposed to find out about your dad. Things better with your mom?

V: Pretty much, but Mom being weird, saying all those things. She’s actually sick, she stayed in bed and slept all day.

L: She’s never sick! Hope she’s better soon. How’s my BBF?

V: Fine, launching a tarantula into space tomorrow :-o or a space chamber? Something Brian-y.

L: Smarter than all of us put together. Hug them both for me ok? Gotta bounce, sending u pics of me n Todd at the beach.

V: Cool, ttyl

The pictures she sends are exactly what I expect. Lorena’s hair is streaked with blonde spirals, springing to riotous life in the California humidity. She is wide-eyed across oversized sunglasses, making a big smoochy-lipped selfie face, cheek to cheek with the Fabulous Todd. He is the perfect, good-looking surfer cliché: longish hair, some kind of shell on a cord around his neck, very white teeth, and instantly forgettable.

I snap my phone closed and survey the landscape of Déjà Vu. Mom thinks she has the flu. She skipped dinner and went to bed early last night, and today I’m on my own. Everything looks good except for the customer refreshments. There’s an acute shortage here and at home, so I lock the front door and cross the dew-soaked morning grass to Noonie’s, ignoring the tiny star-flashes on the edge of my vision. I have more in mind than just a Macaroonie mission.

The heavy wooden door to the bakery is propped open, and the blackboard easel out front already boasts today’s lunch specials. Mr. Noonie scurries like a squirrel, sliding fresh trays of bakery heaven into the display case and serving up large cups of gourmet caffeine. This early, most of his customers are the artists and entrepreneurs of Zia Square. The lady who owns a gallery full of glass—everything from huge colorful vases to tiny spun-glass animals—pays for her triple espresso and cranberry-almond scone, then nods at me as she whirls out the door in a cloud of jasmine oil.

All alone, just me and Mr. Noonie. Suddenly, I feel both anxious and ridiculous. Will he take one look at me and remember a strange dream with a hawk, or maybe a shimmer of purple lights hollering, “Macaroonies!” in his regal-looking Dreamland bank?

“Hello, Miss Vivian!” He beams at me, and as usual, his big mustache, round brown eyes, and curly hair remind me of Super Mario Brothers. Or their dad.

“Seeing anything new at Déjà Vu?” he jokes for the thousandth time and winks at me. “How is your lovely mother these days?”

I think Mr. Noonie has kind of a crush on Mom, but who doesn’t?

“She’s fine, Mr. Noonie.” I smile and follow the script. “Nope, nothing at Déjà Vu that hasn’t been seen already.”

Unless you count the emerald fireflies following me from your dream.

“The usual?” He peels off a few white bakery bags from the stack and opens one with an efficient snap.

“Yes, sir. A dozen of each kind and a medium house blend. With cream.”

Mr. Noonie deftly fills each bag. “Oh! You have to try my latest creation. Strawberry-lemon ricotta.” He lifts out a Macaroonie in tissue paper and hands it to me.

Golden-white with flecks of dark pink, and still warm. I can smell it, rich and sweet and tart all at once, and I know this scent is going straight to the Dreamland Top 40. I refrain from popping the whole thing in my mouth and instead take a delicate bite like Mom would, and wait for the flavor bomb. Boom! There it is, like warm, crumbly cheesecake with chunks of sweet, moist berry and startling flecks of lemon. My eyes widen as they meet Mr. Noonie’s.

“Wow! Amazing. Maybe the best yet.”

“You and your brother are my toughest critics.” He beams. “Here, take a few for him to try too.”

“As if,” I protest. “I’m not sharing. He can get his own.”

Mr. Noonie smiles and places a few in a separate bag… then a few more… and yet another handful. He snaps the lid on my coffee. “Here’s my new card too. You can put it on your tray, okay?” It’s a rich dark green, embossed in gold, looking like it was chiseled directly off his huge Dreamland vault.

When I leave Noonie’s, the sun has already sucked the dew from the grass, and the star-flashes have been replaced with the whining clamor of power tools emanating from Jackson Connor’s renovation project. The oily metallic odor tries to follow me across the square back to Déjà Vu, but I open the bag and inhale some still-warm strawberry-lemon paradise, trying to balance the anxiety and triumph teetering precariously on a tightrope in my head.

Mr. Noonie often tests out his newest flavors on the people of Zia Square. But never—never—has he just given away a dozen Macaroonies. Did I make this happen? Did I make some kind of post-dream suggestion, and he did it?

The Knot flips open and lights up like my phone. You tell me. Isn’t this exactly what Dad was talking about? Stargate, hellooooo!

Yeah, right. The Amazing Vivian, Dreamwalker Extraordinaire. Not likely. After all, this is why the Stargate Project ended. It doesn’t work. Lucid dreamers can control some parts of their own dreams. Maybe some of us—the dreamwalkers—can visit other people’s dreams, and maybe even make small things happen. I’m pretty sure I made Mr. Noonie look up in his dream, but I sure couldn’t make that Jackson Connor shapeshifter raven-thing go away. In fact, just the opposite.

There’s no way someone can go into another person’s dream and cause them to do something after they are awake. The Knot sits up in protest, but I firmly push it back down. No. That kind of mind control is simply not possible.

Unless it is, whispers The Knot. I unlock the door, flip the sign to OPEN, and pretend I didn’t hear that.

Business is steady most of the morning. I keep extra busy for Mom’s sake, and to keep The Knot quiet. I water the potted herbs in the back room and clean the front window. In between customers I make a list of supplies for the mural. Procrastination has reached its limit; I’ll start painting tomorrow, when Déjà Vu will be closed along with most of the other Zia Square shops.

In honor of Mom, I have a healthy salad for lunch. Well, not so much in honor of, but because of. She made it last night, and when I brought her tea this morning and sat on her bed to get the groggy-sounding marching orders for the day, she told me to take it for my lunch. I added some ham and an avocado, then picked out as much of the kale as I could because leaves should not have hair.

By midafternoon, things slow down. Lucas is almost finished transforming that twisted hunk of Chevy into an eagle—wings pulled back, talons outstretched, ready to snatch its unsuspecting prey—but when I told him that Mom’s sick and I’d be alone at the shop today, he said he would come by. All day long, he’s been on the edge of my thoughts.

Okay, I admit it, he’s right smack in the middle. It’s a good thing too, because when I think of him, I can’t hear The Knot, which has been making noises about the Macaroonies and the drawing of Connor and his dream buddies, which went to the trash as soon as I got home yesterday, before it could humiliate me any further. Ten minutes later, I fished it back out and put it under my bed. As bad as it is, something about it nags me. There’s definitely something there.

A small box of Zuni animal fetishes in the office needs to go in the display case. There are sixteen, including turtles, a butterfly, a mottled marble badger, a raven with a coral berry in its mouth, and a bear carrying a turquoise bead on its back. They are beautifully detailed, with contrasting eyes of white jasper or onyx, but they are made to sell. Empty. They have no history, no spirit. Yeah, I know, I don’t believe in signs, or spirits, or unseen forces. But lately, it seems like weird stuff happens whether I believe or not.

I stand behind the counter, bending over the box for the last of the fetishes, when the front door jingles.

“Welcome to Déjà Vu,” I say automatically, and when I stand up, I’m staring straight into the arctic blue eyes of Jackson Connor.

“Oh! Hi, Mr. Connor. Jack,” I amend, prompted by the friendly pout he puts on to remind me we’re friends now. He rewards me with a megawatt smile, which immediately puts my radar on full alert and sends The Knot into a defensive coil.

“Hello, Vivian! It’s hot as blazes out there.” He wipes some imaginary sweat from his brow and hoists a plastic bag onto the counter. The outline of a cardboard drink holder with two large slushees resting inside peeks through. “I brought you guys something cold to drink.” He looks behind me, sweeping his chilly gaze from the back hall to the ice cream door, tilting his head like a well-groomed dog. “Is your mother busy?”

“Mom took the morning off. She has some things to do today,” I inform him pleasantly as his smile dims by a few kilowatts. This is not actually a lie. Just because I don’t tell him she took the afternoon off too, and the “things” she’s doing are sleeping, drinking a lot of fluids, and sleeping some more. Not even “friends” tell each other everything.

As if he hears what I am thinking, he asks, “Is Summer feeling okay? There’s something going around.” He looks genuinely concerned, and before I can stop myself—

“Oh, she’s okay. A little tired.”

His smile softens. “Nothing serious, I hope?”

Shut up, The Knot groans, don’t tell him anything!

I recover quickly. I arrange my face into a patient, opaque smile. A wall of courtesy.

“No, she’s fine, just busy. Off tomorrow, back on Saturday. Did you have a reading?” I know for a fact he doesn’t, but I reach for the day timer that has all of Mom’s appointments.

“No, not ’til next week.” He shakes his head. “This is the craziest town. Who closes on Fridays?”

“Everybody here,” I observe, but that uneasy feeling is prickling around my neck again. I wish he’d hurry up and leave, or that Lucas would get here and rescue me.

“Only in the Land of Entrapment,” Jackson Connor mutters and flashes a quick smile as if this is a hilarious piece of wit I’ve never heard before.

“Mmm-hmm,” I murmur, not amused.

Lucas, where are you? Hurry! As if to answer me, a blue spark pulses at the edge of my sight.

Connor lets go of the bag, then peers into the case below. “Well, what do we have here? Carved animals?”

I don’t answer Captain Obvious, but I can’t stop a slight flinch as he plucks the raven off the countertop.

“Now, this one is lovely.” He lifts it up on his palm, but he isn’t looking at it. He’s looking at me. “Especially the eyes. Can you see them?”

“Yes, they’re all like that,” I say—but then I see, and my mouth goes dry. The tiny raven’s eyes were white, I swear, but now they’re different. They are a brilliant turquoise.

Like the flash on a camera, Déjà Vu blinks away. I’m paralyzed, pinned to that granite dream-wall, while Lucas clutches my ankle and a huge black bird dives toward us, its blue eyes burning nauseating holes into mine. Don’t look at it! His dreamwalk command echoes in my head.

I blink hard, and the wall is gone. The nausea isn’t, though. A cold sweat shivers across my body, and my healthy lunch is threatening to make a comeback. Desperate, I yank my focus away from the bird. Don’t look, don’t look.

“Really amazing, isn’t it? Some people have such a talent for these things. Have you ever tried anything like this?” Jackson Connor stares at me intently, and I have no idea what he’s searching for, but there’s no way I’m going to let him find it.

“Nope, I stick to painting.” I shrug like an indifferent teenager, hoping he can’t hear my heart pounding. “This kind of work is way beyond me.”

I finally meet his spearpoint blue gaze with what I hope are two impenetrable green shields and blink once. Two heartbeats go by—I know, because I can still feel my heart knocking against my lungs—and as the front door jingles open, Jackson Connor glances away.

I don’t care who it is—even one of the Peppers would be a welcome sight at this point—but it’s Lucas. Finally. Relief floods through me, but I hold steady, sending Go away! vibes to Jackson Connor.

Lucas looks at both of us, and his eager face swiftly shifts into deflector-mode.

“Hi Vivian! Hey there, Mr. Connor,” he offers cheerfully.

“Hello, Lucas.” As Connor carefully sets the onyx raven back on the counter, a wave of something—Annoyance? Speculation?—crosses his face the way a quick gust of wind passes over a field. He turns to Lucas with his usual toothpaste-ad smile. “You’re supposed to call me Jack.”

“I know. Sorry, Jack. I was raised to call my friends by their first name, but not my elders,” Lucas points out.

“But we are friends, aren’t we?” Connor’s voice is light, but his smile falls away from his eyes.

Lucas pauses and shoots him a level gaze. “Don’t worry. I won’t forget next time, Jack.”

Connor runs his hand through his hair and looks at his watch. “Well, I’d better be getting back. You two enjoy these.” He waves in the direction of the drinks and adds, “Vivi, please tell your mother I came by, and that I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“I sure will. And thanks for the slushees, Jack.” My smile-mask hurts my face, but I hold it until he goes out the door.

It’s not until Jackson Connor is off the front porch that all the air whooshes out of me, and I lean my elbows on the glass counter with my head swimming in my hands. Icy bands wrap around my chest, and I can’t catch my breath. Lucas is behind the counter in an instant, his arm around me, scooting the stool close so I can sit down.

“Vivian, are you okay? What the hell was that? What happened?”

“Connor…” I shake my head. Little black dots prickle in and out of my vision, and Lucas sounds as if he’s at the end of a long, long hallway.

“Put your head down between your knees. Breathe, Vivi.”

My knees dissolve. The hardwood floor ripples like a muddy pond, and I am desperately trying not to pitch into it head first. In, two, three, four.

“That raven. Blue eyes.”

Out, two, three, four.

“Shapeshifter.” The mud stops quivering and settles back into solid boards again. My blue-jeaned knees emerge as the tide of black dots rolls away. The stool is solid underneath me, and Lucas’s arm holds me gently against his chest, safely away from the abyss. I sit up and lean back into him, getting my bearings.

“The raven? In the dreamwalk?”

“Yes. No, the one on the counter. I was talking to Connor, and the eyes turned blue.”

He reaches over me and picks up the fetish. “This one? What did he do?”

How do I explain what just happened?

“Connor didn’t do anything. He just pointed out how interesting the eyes were, and… and then they were blue, and I was suddenly back in the dream, like a flashback. Then it was over, and he was just holding that raven and staring at me.”

Lucas picks up the raven, then scoots around sideways to show it to me. His arm never leaves my shoulder, but his face is troubled. “Look, Vivi, the eyes are white. Chips of white jasper.”

“I know. I knew it even when I was looking at it. The eyes are white. Maybe it was just a flashback to that dream, like a side effect or something? But for a second, it was like he turned the eyes blue.”

“What, a Jedi mind trick? Making you see something that isn’t there?”

“Worse. Like the little star-flashes. As if the raven followed me back from the dreamwalk.”

A hideous thought makes my heart skid to a halt. Stunned, I turn and face him.

“Oh my God. It’s just like the Macaroonies.”

“What?” Lucas has been following so far, but now he’s mystified. He stands in front of me, patiently holding both of my hands, and I scramble to make him understand.

“When I went to Mr. Noonie’s dream for practice, I suggested… well, actually, I yelled ‘Macaroonies’ at him. And this morning, he gave me extra ones. Not just a few, but a lot.” I close my eyes. “What if this is the same thing? What if Connor did this? What if he’s a—”

I can’t even say it out loud.

Lucas is quiet for a moment. Then, “You made Mr. Noonie give you extra cookies?”

I nod miserably. “I’m pretty sure.” My eyes are still closed, but tears fill them up with the unthinkable, and I can’t bear to look at Lucas’s face. He must think I’m a lunatic.

“Vivian.” He pulls me gently to him and wraps himself around me, folding me gently to his chest and resting his chin on my head as my arms reach around his waist. “This is it; it’s what our dads were working on. And we can do it, too—well, at least you can, kind of. This is huge.!”

Nesting in Lucas’s arms and feeling our bodies humming together from head to toe for one sweet moment, I let him hold me up with his optimism.

“But what about Jackson Connor?” I step back. “What if he’s a dreamwalker?” There, I said it. The word ripples through me like a shock wave.

“I guess it’s possible,” Lucas speculates, “but I don’t think so. There aren’t very many of us. He’s an annoying dickweed, but I think that’s all.” His eyes are soft. “I think you just had a flashback to the dream. Like you said, that bird scared the crap out of you. Both of us. And we were probably there for way too long.”

I remember. And I also remember how strained he sounded when I wanted to stay in the dream and peek in the last window. How he found the way out and wouldn’t let go until he knew we were safe. He’s right; I shouldn’t have kept us there. I should have followed my own instructions and left as soon as we felt that first tug.

Doubt still nibbles at me. “Then why was he staring at me like that?”

“Probably because you were as white as a sheet! When I came through the door, I thought you were going to either puke all over him or pass out.”

“I almost did both.”

Lucas gestures toward the melting slushees, which are leaving sweat rings on the counter. “Speaking of puke, do you want any of that?”

As if I would drink anything Jackass Connor set in front of me? I make a face and put them back in the bag. They’re going straight to the trash.

“Okay, you’re probably right,” I admit. “He’s probably not a dreamwalker or a Jedi master. But I’m staying away from him, awake or asleep. I’m just glad you showed up when you did.”

“Me too. You know what’s weird is when I was getting out of the truck, I thought I heard you call me.”

Our eyes lock together as I recall my silent plea… but no, that’s impossible. Sometimes you know exactly what someone is thinking, but people can’t hear each other’s actual thoughts.

“I don’t trust that asshole any more than you do. That drawing you did of his memory, his dream, whatever that was? It reminds me of something, but I don’t know what. It’s really bugging me. There’s something there.”

Maybe Lucas did hear me call him. When he echoes my thoughts like this, our connection feels so strong. It gives me courage. I need that more than ever, because no matter what Jackson Connor is, I can’t take any more chances. I know what I have to do.

Tonight, before it’s too late.