Grey Haven (Book 1: The Dreamer Chronicles)

The leash had dropped from the girl’s hand as she died. The guardian opened her eyes, but she didn’t seem to be aware of who I was or even who she was. She blinked at me several times, as if she had never seen something so bizarre. She then turned to stare blankly at the fire that was burning through the trees.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

She blinked a couple more times but didn’t reply. I wasn’t sure what magic had kept her under the girl’s control, but it lingered. It would take more than freeing her to wake her up. Instead of worrying about it, I focused on understanding why the dream had turned to fire.

My eyes swept the landscape for an answer. The fire worked its way through the trees, creating a strange tint of orange on the murky water. The sound it made as it wove its way around the large trees was unsettling. It was a crackle and a low hiss of moisture in the trees giving way to the extreme heat. The leaves created a black rain of ash over our heads.

I listened, trying to pinpoint the shouting that overrode the crackle of the trees. It was then I recognized a voice filled with incredible anger in the chaos. Carrie. She and the others had found their way into the dream. They had saved me, though I doubted they knew it.

I grabbed the guardian’s hand and ran toward the fight. Flames crackled and danced on all sides. Twice, I had to jump through the fire, the guardian stumbling obediently after me. The woman remained oblivious and pliant, a relief in the danger. I didn’t want to leave her, but I would if it meant helping the others.

Half a mile from where I had killed the girl, I saw them. Carrie, Ben, and Tommy were on one side of Bastian, while Dana and her group were on the other. They were fighting against Bastian with every trick they had. It wasn’t enough. Black blood oozed from Bastian, but he didn’t react to the wounds they had dug out of his flesh. He held a small sword in his hand and danced around the group with easy grace, toying with them. Several people in Dana’s group were lying in the water, floating face down.

The only thing that really seemed to hold Bastian’s attention was the fire. He kept looking at it, fear in his eyes.

I forced the guardian to stand in a safer part of the forest, hoping she would stay put and not wander off. Then, I joined Carrie, Tommy, and Ben in the fight. Carrie was the first one to notice me. Her eyes widened in shock and her body froze, surprise making her slow.

“Watch out!” Ben yelled.

Carrie ducked automatically as Bastian swung his sword at her throat. The blade took off a chunk of her hair, but he missed her jugular by an inch. She backed away and refocused on the fight. Tommy and Ben were just as shocked at seeing me alive, but they managed to keep their focus. Tommy fired arrow after arrow at Bastian. The arrows landed in a tight grouping, but Bastian only frowned. Tommy’s technique was perfect, and I realized he was a better shot than me, even if he had pretended otherwise when we practiced together.

A plan formed out of recklessness and desperation.

I stepped up to them and signaled to Dana to keep Bastian’s attention. She may not have liked me, but she didn’t argue, willing to fight until one of them was dead. She jumped closer, drawing his gaze. The others around her stepped up their attacks as well, desperation fueling them. I grabbed Tommy’s wrist in a gesture meant to get his attention and to keep him from firing the last of his arrows. The relief at feeling him alive and well, at knowing he was real, flashed through me, and he caught the expression.

His lips twitched with a small smile. “Happy to see me?” he asked cockily.

“I’m glad to see Carrie,” I returned playfully. I eyed Carrie, who was glaring at me, and Ben, who seemed impressed that I hadn’t died, and lowered my voice. “I have a plan…” I said.

They listened in silence, their eyes lingering on the fight beyond us cautiously. When I finished, I looked at Tommy. “You think you can make the shot?” I asked him.

Tommy smirked. “Can pigs fly?” he teased.

“Certainly makes me feel better,” Ben muttered.

“Ready?” I asked them.

They nodded. I handed Tommy my lighter and turned to face the fight, my crossbow at the ready. Ben and Carrie separated and moved to either side of Bastian, while Tommy did his best to go unnoticed as he ripped up part of his shirt and wrapped it around the arrow.

Bastian’s arrogance had shifted. He looked worried, edging toward afraid. He felt the fire moving in on him and knew his time was running out. The change made him frantic. I knew it would kill more people if I didn’t distract him from the dreamers trying to take him down.

“What’s the matter, Bastian?” I called in a teasing voice. “Scared of fire?”

Bastian refocused on me. His eyes narrowed at my mocking tone. His frantic fear was grounded by his hate for me.

“Your pet is dead, by the way,” I added. “Looks like you’ll have to die alone.”

“You can’t kill me,” Bastian said, gesturing down at his bloody body as proof. Arrows and knives stuck out of him, but he hadn’t slowed, hadn’t shown any signs of stopping.

“Wanna bet?” I asked.

As I said it, Ben and Carrie rushed forward. Ben had his sword, while Carrie wielded her dual daggers. Bastian raised his sword reflexively and fought them both at the same time. It wasn’t easy, as Ben and Carrie were frightening in their ferocity. Bastian started to lose ground. It didn’t help that he had no ground to lose. Dana moved in from behind, a knife in hand. She didn’t know what we were doing, but she was eager to take credit for the kill – to kill the shade that held the school captive.

Bastian was cornered. He realized it the same time I did. His fight with Ben and Carrie went from deadly to wild in an instant. The ground started to shake, rolling with expectant change, his need to fight them off the only reason it didn’t open immediately. If it opened, he would escape, and we would lose him once more. I didn’t have faith we would find him again.

“Any time now,” I said to Tommy.

“Just a second…” Tommy said. The lighter clicked several times, and then he hummed appreciatively. “Got it!”

I stepped aside, and Tommy took my place. He held a burning arrow against the bowstring and his face twisted with concentration. He took a second to line up his shot, inhaling sharply before holding his breath to steady the shot, and released the arrow. It flew at Bastian, true and steady. Carrie and Ben danced out of the way at the last possible second and the arrow hit Bastian squarely in the chest. His shirt caught on fire.

Bastian let out a dreadful scream; I had never heard anything quite so full of fear, so high-pitched, so human. He panicked and started flailing his arms, desperate to put out the fire, forgetting the water that was all around us.

In his panic, he charged at the first thing in his way – Ben. Ben tried to move out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough. A powerful, flailing backhand from Bastian sent Ben reeling backward. He landed against a tree and hit the ground. His hit knocked loose a burning branch, weakened by fire, which dropped on top of him with a fierce snap.

He didn’t get back up.

Bastian was still panicking, his arms flailing desperately for relief from the fire. We backed away from him as he started running through the trees. His screams shook the dream, rattled the earth, and seemed to make the roaring of the fire louder.

Tommy and I chased after him, wanting to be certain the fire did its work. Two hundred yards into the woods, he fell. His screams changed from panicked to accusatory as he struggled to his knees. “You promised I wouldn’t die! You promised-”

Bastian’s shrieks cut off as the burning forest caught up to him, surrounding him in flames, and he collapsed face-first.

Tommy and I shared a cautious, questioning look, then we stepped over to Bastian. I picked up a stick and used it to turn him over. His hair was gone, and his face was a mixture of black and red. His sharp features were unrecognizable. A hole had burned into his chest where the arrow had hit. I took a deep breath, relieved. We had done it. We had killed him.

“Nice shot,” I complimented Tommy.

“Thanks,” he said. He peered at me searchingly, noticing my bandaged arm and soggy clothes. “You okay?”

“I’ll live,” I said with a shrug.

“We should get back,” he said, lips quirking up in relief.

“Yeah,” I agreed, worried about Ben. I had to hope that he was alive. I had to hope that he hadn’t paid the ultimate price for Bastian’s death. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, he had grown on me.

As we turned away, Bastian’s skin gave way to grey ash. His body quickly disintegrated, and the sluggish current carried his remains to the bottom of the swamp. He was gone forever, never to darken Grey Haven’s doorstep again.

Carrie was waiting for our return. Her arms were crossed, and her body radiated concern. When she saw me, she uncrossed her arms and marched over, ignoring the raging fire and the rumbling of the dream. Her face changed from concern to anger in a heartbeat.

Without waiting for a hello, she punched me in the face. Her fist connected with my cheek. My head, neck, and body rolled instinctively with the weight of her hit, mitigating the damage, but it still hurt. I stumbled away from her, feeling disorientated. It was the sort of hit that held fear as well as anger. I grabbed my cheek, the world around me dancing with spots. Tommy’s hands circled my waist to help stay on my feet, but I pushed him away as anger replaced the surprise.

“What the hell?” I asked.

“Don’t you ever do something that stupid again!” Carrie shouted back. “We could have found another way to get off that ship! You had no right to make the choice for us!”

My anger slipped away with her words. “I just-”

She cut off my lame response with an irritated gesture. Then she stepped forward and hugged me tightly, hands holding onto me with fierce protectiveness. I hugged her back just as protective. She was right. It’d been close.

Tommy relaxed at the hug and shook his head in confusion. “Girls…” he muttered, as if he had never seen anything stranger.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Carrie whispered.

“Ditto,” I said.

She released me, and I looked beyond her to where the others had gathered around Ben. They had pulled him away from the burning tree, to where the guardian was standing with a dazed expression on her face. Everyone was somber. My heart felt heavy.

“He’s alive,” Carrie said in a sad voice.

“What’s wrong then?” I asked.

Jen and Lisa shifted away at my words and I was able to see Ben. He was awake, but his face was red – redder than it should have been. There were places on his hair and face that went beyond red. They were scarred by fire, still bubbling angrily. His eyes were the most damaged. They searched the swamp blindly. Dana held him in her arms, but her eyes were afraid. There wasn’t just fear; there was repulsion. She was unsettled by Ben’s apparent blindness. I had never seen a person look more rattled.

“He’s having trouble seeing,” Carrie said.

“That’s fixable, though, right?” I asked. “I mean, there’s no telling how it’ll affect him in our world…”

“There’s hope,” Carrie said, though her voice didn’t carry that hope at all.

A large tree fell behind us, throwing up sparks and startling us all. We raised our weapons in reflex, but it was only the fire doing its work, destroying what was left of the swamp. The dream was collapsing around us. We had to get out or risk sharing Bastian’s fate.

“We need a door,” I said.

One appeared in front of us obligingly. I wasn’t sure who created it, but it didn’t really matter.

“Ben first,” I said.

Dana and another boy helped Ben stand. Ben groaned with the movement but didn’t protest. Dana guided him over to the door, the expression of repulsion not fading from her face. I made the guardian go through next with Jen and Lisa. The others filed through the door quickly, eager to get away from the heat and the bodies of their fallen classmates.

Carrie, Tommy, and I were the last ones left. We shared a look of meaning, mutual relief that we had survived, fear for what came next, then we walked through the door together.

The dream on the other side of the door was strange. There were snakes everywhere, but they were frozen, trapped by a greater force. We had stepped out to the exterior of a house large enough for two people. On the porch were Mrs. Waite and a man I didn’t recognize. He matched her age, and I assumed he was her husband. “My goodness, what happened to Mr. Even?” Mrs. Waite asked, rising from her chair as Dana helped Ben sit on the porch.

“A shade,” I said.

Mrs. Waite bent down next to Ben and touched his face gently, eyes worried.

“What’s with the snakes?” Tommy asked, body pressed against mine, feet starting to stand on mine. His expression hovered near terrified.

“Shades, my dear,” Mrs. Waite said. “Never doubt that they come in snake form!”

Tommy and I shared a look. I looked away first, so that we wouldn’t start laughing. If we started now, it was a safe bet it would sound demented and wild and probably last for far too long. People were worried enough. They didn’t need our manic laughter to add to it. “Right…” I said, pushing him away. He stumbled and glared, then edged around a nearby snake, watching it suspiciously. “Well, I think we should try to wake up now, go back to our minds, or the grey, or however it works. With Bastian dead, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“That’s the first good idea you’ve had,” Dana said, flicking her hair over her shoulder. She closed her eyes and focused. We watched her, eager to go home and be free of the danger. She didn’t move, and no door appeared to show her the way. She opened her eyes again. “Nothing’s happening,” she added unnecessarily.

“The way out is shut,” Mrs. Waite added helpfully. “Has been since I fell asleep.”

“But we killed Bastian,” I said. “He’s not controlling things now.”

The guardian moved on her own for the first time since I had freed her. She frowned. “It was a trap,” she said.

We stared at her, expecting her to keep talking. She just blinked at us, her eyes confused.

Mrs. Waite moved to her, not having noticed her around Ben. “Mary Anne,” Mrs. Waite said to the guardian. “I’m glad to see you’re okay.”

Mary Anne frowned at Mrs. Waite. “It was a trap,” she repeated.

Mrs. Waite frowned back at her. She leaned in close and stared into Mary Anne’s eyes. “She was caught by a shade,” she said. “It will take her some time to come back to herself.”

“What does she mean though?” Tommy asked, not dropping it as the others seemed ready to do.

“Maybe Bastian was never controlling things,” Carrie said thoughtfully.

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Isn’t it strange for a minor shade to have so much control over our dreams?” Carrie asked. “Isn’t it weird for Bastian to be able to block the way out, especially against trained dreamers like Mrs. Waite?”

“Very,” Mrs. Waite said. “Only a major shade could manage such a task. A minor shade could manage it over twenty people, at the most, and the shade would have to be specialized in that skill. Not all of them can do it.”

“So, what if she means that her possession was a ploy to get Mrs. Z. to come in after her?” Carrie asked, on a roll, chasing after the hint Mary Anne had given. “With Mrs. Z. trapped here and not able to protect us, Grey Haven would be easy to attack by a more powerful shade. Bastian could have been the bait, not the cause of all this.”

“I knew there was more to it,” Dana said. “Julie’s story didn’t make any sense.”

“It was more of a story than you had,” Carrie snapped.

“Yeah, because I don’t go around looking for trouble I can’t handle,” Dana said.

Carrie’s face turned red. An argument was the last thing we needed, especially if a major shade was controlling things. And I was suddenly certain that was the case. Bastian’s last words had been accusatory; he blamed someone else for his death. I should have known escape wouldn’t be as easy as killing him. Things were never that easy. Not in my life.

“It’s fine,” I told Carrie. “What now?”

“The same as before. We have to find the shade,” Carrie said.

“And kill it?” Dana asked. “That’s impossible. Even Mrs. Z. wouldn’t be able to kill a major shade.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“It’s never been done before,” Dana replied haughtily.

“What a perfectly good reason to do it now,” I said.

“It’s suicide,” Dana said.

“Yep,” I agreed. I pulled out the ribbons Miss Peck had given me. I showed them to the others. “This will take you back to Miss Peck. You’ll be safe there.”

Dana picked one up and eyed it carefully. She glanced between the ribbon and me with a mixture of suspicion, resentment, and curiosity. “And you’re just going to keep hunting until you run into a fight you can’t win?” she asked.

“I was never good at sitting still,” I said, flippant and unwilling to give in to her negativity. Mainly because it would piss her off.

Dana’s hand wrapped around the ribbon and she turned away from me with a roll of her eyes. She handed the ribbon to Jen. “You two go,” Dana said. “Take the others.”

“Dana…” Jen started to protest.

“I need someone to look after Ben,” Dana said. “I only trust you two to do that.”

Jen closed her mouth and shared a look with Lisa. They nodded and helped Ben stand.

“The rest of you should go as well,” Dana said.

No one argued with her. They didn’t look happy, but they were also not brave enough to consider what I was considering. Dana’s decision to come along surprised me, but not nearly as much as it surprised Carrie. Her eyes were wide, and I saw her wondering how Dana could leave Ben when he needed her most. Then, I saw her come to the same conclusion I had come to. We would die if we didn’t do something. It was find the shade or give up. Carrie’s expression hardened with resolve and tentative understanding.

Mrs. Waite eyed me curiously. “I might be able to get you to the shade,” she said.

“How?” Carrie asked.

“I wasn’t always an old teacher,” Mrs. Waite said with a hint of mystery I had never noticed in her before. She put her hand on mine. “You’ll have to be strong,” she told me.

I nodded, willing to agree to anything if it meant I got to the shade faster, without all the fights of lesser shades in between, and crossed over to Ben. I took his hand. He squeezed it tightly. “Thanks for your help,” I told him.

He didn’t reply. Instead, he handed me his sword. I took it from him with a nod, forgetting he couldn’t see it until it was too late, and backed away. Dana didn’t try to say goodbye to him. She turned away as a door formed next to Ben. Carrie stared openly as Lisa and Jen helped him through it, eyes shining with fear and hope.

I turned to Mrs. Waite, who had been joined by her husband. Mrs. Waite focused, and a red door appeared next to her, between a pair of particularly aggressive-looking snakes. “That should get you close,” she said. “Take the door quickly. When I leave, the shades will start moving again.”

Mrs. Waite and her husband left after my hum of assent. The door closed quietly behind them, leaving us to the red door and the certainty that we were headed toward an impossible fight that no one had ever won.

“Stay here and let the snakes kill us, or go and find out what a major shade is like?” I asked.

One of the snakes turned to look at us and hissed in a warning. Tommy looked ready to jump into my arms, edging closer. “Definitely the major shade,” he answered distastefully.

Dana rolled her eyes and opened the door, flicking her hair in disdain as she stepped through. Tommy quickly followed her, no shame in his desire to get away. I walked over to the door, ready to leave, only to notice that Carrie was still lost in thought, unmoving from where she had stopped.

“Carrie?” I pressed.

I watched as she visibly shook off her worry and refocused. She squared her shoulders and released her fear. She marched through the door without a word, trusting I would follow her, trusting I had her back.

It would take a lot more than trust to kill the shade. It would take luck and maybe even more death. It was a heavy cost we had to pay, but we were willing to. I gripped Ben’s sword tighter and followed the others through the door and to whatever nightmare was waiting behind it.