Nevermor Page 5

  The boy considered her with utter confusion – she could tell by the tilt of his head, even though she could not see his face. She thought it was a very strange response.

  “Yes,” she admitted, as if her long hair and gown didn’t make it obvious enough that she was female. “Do you know how I got here?”

  He began to step closer to her, circling around to get a better look. She turned in place to watch him as he did so, unwilling to take her eyes off him.

  “You don’t seem to be a wanderer, so you must be a dreamer, but it’s strange. You’re a girl. Very unusual…”

  Was he talking to himself? If he was talking to her, Wren wasn’t sure how she should respond.

  “I’m sorry,” she said finally, for lack of understanding. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She examined him again as he came back to stand in front of her. His silence made her just a bit uneasy. Would he help her, or not? Wren noticed something protruding from his side, and her muscles tensed when she realized it was a sword, lashed to a belt of vines. She was startled by that, and instinctively took a step back.

  “You have a sword,” she said as if he needed to be told. “Please don’t hurt me. I don’t have anything.”

  “I would never hurt a girl,” he said solidly as if she had insulted his honor. She almost wanted to apologize, but he was speaking again before she got the chance. “Besides, I couldn’t harm you if I wanted to. You’re not really here.”

  “What?”

  “Look,” he said, pointing at the ground. She looked where he directed her but didn’t understand what he was showing her at first. All she saw was his long shadow, stretched across the sand beneath the light of the moon – but it was alone.

  I don’t have a shadow, she realized. It was true. His was there and, since she was standing in front of him, hers should have been there as well, but there was nothing. Wren looked all around herself, but her shadow was nowhere to be found.

  “They don’t attach themselves to the dreamers,” he said.

  “They what?” His words were so ridiculous that she didn’t understand them. She felt she should correct him. “Shadows don’t attach to things. They are already attached.”

  Clearly she thought that she knew more than he did about this, but he didn’t back down.

  “A shadow is a shadow, but that is a mimic,” he corrected her, pointing at his shadow, which didn’t move – except as he moved. “It’s an imp that attaches to a host.”

  He said it so matter-of-factly that she had trouble doubting him.

  “Is it dangerous?” she asked dumbly, silently hoping that he was right about one not seeking her out.

  “No,” he told her. “It’s just damned annoying sometimes.”

  He spoke accusingly, then she saw him smile a little, and she got the impression that he was talking about her instead of the shadow. Was she getting on his nerves? But she hadn’t done anything!

  “Well, I’m glad I don’t have one then,” she said, her nose in the air. Who did he think he was, insulting her like that? They had only just met.

  They stared at each other for a few moments in silence, but Wren was not ready to back down from this. She heard a short laugh come out from beneath the hood.

  “A girl – and with bite. Not what I was expecting to call here,” he considered. “I suppose it’s good that I can still be surprised after all this time.”

  Call? She didn’t understand. As she was preparing to attack that, he pulled back his hood to scratch his head, thus revealing himself to her. She could see his face clearly now, and this did not help her choice to be frustrated with him, for she hadn’t failed to notice that he was handsome – in an unkempt sort of way.

  His hair was lightened by the sun, untamed and windblown, cut at several different lengths and sticking up all over. There were two streaks of red paint – at least she perceived it to be paint – trailing from his cheekbone and disappearing somewhere between his smooth chin and the square of his jaw. She could see now that his eyes were blue, set in a tan face, and in his amusement, he was smiling attractively at her. It was the coy smile of a boy who recognized his own seductive power.

  There was something about that grin that made her almost forget who she was. She had to try very hard not to smile back. She was only able to break out of it when he moved, taking a few leisurely steps across the sand.

  “If I’m not here, then what am I?” she demanded to know, once she had come out of her trance. “You said ‘dreamer’…”

  “This is your dream self,” he explained, stepping nearer to her so that they were shoulder to shoulder. His closeness made her heart speed. “You made it past the sea of dreams to find this place, but your body isn’t really here. You can see Nevermor, but you don’t belong in it.”

  Nevermor? Was that what this place was called? She wanted to ask, but the way he was looking at her face made her hesitate. He seemed to be caught in his own daze as he looked at her. What was he thinking? Wren stared back into his eyes, and neither of them spoke until he snapped free of it visibly.

  “My home,” he said, holding out his arms as if to present it to her. “It’s the place where dreams go.”

  “Dreams,” she said thoughtfully. “And what do you use the sword for?”

  “To keep away the nightmares,” he said easily.

  Wren thought all this was very unusual. She knew she was certainly dreaming now. Yes, she was asleep. There was no other explanation.

  “I didn’t expect to find someone like you,” he mused thoughtfully, pacing across the sand as he examined her. “It’s very strange.”

  “Who are you?” she asked him. Shouldn’t he have introduced himself by now?

  He turned back to her, frozen for a moment as if that was a forbidden question that she shouldn’t have asked.

  “I don’t have a name,” he told her. Wren wasn’t sure why, but she thought he looked a bit confused by her question. Was it that difficult?

  “Well, they must call you something,” she insisted.

  He hesitated. Didn’t he want to tell her his name?

  Perhaps it doesn’t matter. This is a dream, after all. My dream.

  “They call me the Rifter,” he answered finally. “That’s all.”

  The Rifter? That’s an odd name…

  “Rifter, then,” she said, testing it out. “Why are you out here?”

  “I told you I live here. Did you forget?”

  She sighed in dismay. “I mean, why are you out here on the beach? I heard your music. I think I was following it.”

  “Oh that,” Rifter said dismissively, waving it off. “I’m waiting for someone. Have been for a few nights now.”

  “It seems rude of them to keep you waiting. Who are you waiting for?” Straight after, she wondered if she should have been so nosy.

  “I don’t know yet. Maybe you.” He paused, looking her over a moment. He didn’t seem convinced. “But that doesn’t seem likely.”

  He had only insulted her further. She wasn’t good enough to be the one he was looking for?

  “In fact,” he started again, “I’m not really sure why you’re here.”

  “Am I unwelcome?” Rifter looked back into her eyes, and what she saw there was unreadable. There was confusion, uncertainty – maybe even a hint of sadness.

  “I’ve just never called a girl before,” he said, as if he didn’t know what to do with it.

  I don’t understand this boy.

  “How can you not know who you’re waiting for? And if it was me, wouldn’t you know?”

  He gave her a hard look which made his blue eyes narrow to accusing slits. “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “I–! Do not,” she sputtered, taken aback.

  “Yes you do,” he pointed out, nodding as he realized it himself. “Everything you’ve said to me has been a question.” He looked at her suspiciously. “I don’t like too many questions, especially from dreamers.”

  He turned aw
ay from her without formally ending their conversation. Was he just going to leave her there?

  “Wait a minute!” she called, starting after him, but found that she couldn’t match his pace over the sand. He moved over it with impossible ease, and she struggled as it swallowed her feet.

  “Are you going to ask me more questions?” he asked without turning.

  Wren stopped. She had been about to ask him more about this place, but felt guilty for it now. She quickly tried to think of something that wasn’t a question.

  “My name is Wren,” she told him.

  He stopped, turning back to her slowly to peer over his shoulder. His face twisted and he looked extremely disapproving of that.

  “That’s an odd name to have…”

  If nothing else insulted her, this certainly did.

  “It’s better than Rifter!” she declared quickly, but then she felt her face grow hot. She wasn’t usually one for making personal remarks like that.

  “Is it?” He didn’t sound angry, but thoughtful, as if he was just considering that it wasn’t a very good name.

  “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “That wasn’t very nice of me. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  His confusion didn’t let up. He stared at her as if she was an unknown life-form that had been discovered under a rock. She had been taught that it wasn’t polite to stare.

  “You’re apologizing?” His eyes were wide, as if she’d just insulted his family name or something worse – as if he couldn’t believe her gall.

  “That’s what one does when one says the wrong thing.” Wren wondered why she was explaining herself.

  He smirked a little, nodding as he considered their meeting to himself.

  “You’re different,” he said. “I’ll have to think about this.”

  “Think about what?”

  “That’s another question,” he scolded, but he was smiling again, and she was puzzled.

  Wren sighed, feeling so frustrated that she turned her back on him and looked out at the ocean again. The sea of dreams? She had crossed it and now she was here in this place called Nevermor, except that she wasn’t really here at all. Her dream-self was here, and she was only able to look at the world. She was a visitor – a dreamer. But if that was so, how could she feel the sand beneath her feet or the wind on her face?

  And what of this confusing boy? The Rifter?

  “Will you at least tell me how I can—” She turned to look at him as she spoke, but found herself coming to a halt. He was gone.

  She couldn’t help but look down at his footprints in the sand, trailing away from her. They left off abruptly as if he had simply disappeared – as if he had never been there at all.

  “Get home,” she finished, but she was only talking to the air.

  2

  As Wren awoke in her bed at the orphanage, a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder jolted her, but she was not the only one. The other children began to stir in their beds, roused by the tempest outside. Thunder was grumbling angrily in the heavens and the wind was urging tree limbs to scratch at the window like a stray – or a monster from nightmares. Wren knew that soon, all of them would be awake, and would probably need consoling.

  What a strange dream…

  Wren felt groggy, unable to sit up for several moments in the wake of the dream, which had once again been so vivid that it had taken all the energy out of her. She still remembered the island and the frustrating, feral boy called Rifter – the endless water and the sand between her toes.

  It seemed so real. Could it have been?

  No, of course that wasn’t possible. She had dreamed it all up of course – the beach, the shadows, the Rifter… There was no way that it could have existed except in a child’s desperate reverie. She was more mature than that.

  Sea of Dreams? Wake up, Wren.

  She was still in a bit of a stupor when Max crawled into her bed, frightened by the storm. She hushed him instinctively, but she was in a distant world, wondering how she had found her way to that island beyond the sea, but she could not map out clear directions.

  In the next bed, Henry had rolled over, peering at her through the dark. The flashes of lightning illuminated his grim features, but he didn’t speak. Some of the others were coming out of their beds now, gathering around her to be protected as if she was their mother hen.

  “I’m scared.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Can we go to the closet?” they began to ask.

  There was a deep closet that housed all their coats and shoes, and sometimes they would gather there when the weather was bad so that they could not hear the wind and thunder. They could all huddle together cozily for comfort, and often in the past, they would get a story or a song if they were good. Wren looked around to see that some of the others had not even stirred, but she would not wake them.

  “Get your pillows and come on,” she said, taking Max by the hand.

  Wren consented that they should go into the closet and instructed some of them to bring candles. Once there was light in their hands, they dared to go inside where they sat in rows on the floor beneath the clothes that brushed the tops of their heads. They settled themselves, excited for the adventure of the closet which could have been called their secret clubhouse. Wren was in the midst of them with a lamp, and they had no sooner closed the door than Max turned to her.

  “Tell us a story, Wren,” he requested. “Please?”

  This did not go ignored by the others, who jumped in immediately to express themselves as well.

  “Yes, it’s been so long since we’ve had a story!”

  Wren sighed, knowing that it was infectious now, but she had made a vow to herself that there would be no more stories to influence them in negative ways. No more talk of the factory and no more nonsense about running away.

  “I don’t know any more stories,” she claimed. “I’ve told them all to you. How about I sing instead?”

  “No, no! You must make one up!”

  “Please! A story!”

  Wren looked at their anxious faces, and while she had been able to make excuses for a while, they had all come together as one against her. She didn’t think that they could be appeased otherwise – all wide-awake because of the storm. They would continue to be until the storm had passed.

  I shouldn’t be filling their heads with these things anymore, but…

  Max was looking up at her with eagerness in his wide blue eyes, and she found Henry’s face nearby as well, watching her intently. Perhaps they needed this, whether or not it was good for them. Wren surrendered, and started off on the thing that was nearest to her mind.

  “Somewhere out there, beyond the sea of dreams, there is an island. It is the place where dreams go. It’s called Nevermor, and if you’re very lucky, you may see it some night when you are asleep, but it can only be found by flying low over the ocean and following the music of a reed flute in the distance.

  “On that island, everything you could possibly imagine, from all your wonderful dreams, can be seen and realized. Every day is an adventure, and every day you will discover something new.”

  Wren wasn’t sure how she knew these things. She had not seen enough of Nevermor to be able to make those judgments, but now that she was seeking it, the answers rose to the top of her mind.

  “A boy lives there, and he is called the Rifter. He is dressed in leaves and is protected by a strange glowing light – a fairy, perhaps – but you can’t quite see her because she moves about so quickly. There is a sword at his hip which he uses for battle. Though Nevermor is a place of dreams, sometimes, there are nightmares that threaten the world, and he has to fight against them to keep the island safe. Nevermor is his world, and he protects it.”

  Wren continued on, building her story about the Rifter and a particular adventure of how he battled a nightmare creature that often frightened the orphanage children: the mythical crocodile that lived under their beds. It seemed to move around from one
bed to the next, but it never actually left the dormitory as far as they were concerned, but at the end of her story, Rifter had killed it good and dead, and they did not have to worry about it anymore.

  All of the children seemed pleased and relieved that the crocodile was dead, and agreed to this among themselves. Wren wondered why she had never thought of such a thing before. A warrior who battles nightmares seemed like such a simple idea, but perhaps she never would have thought of it if she hadn’t seen it in her dream.

  “Rifter is very brave,” Liam commented. “The crocodile is a slippery fellow.”

  “Yes,” Wren confirmed. “He is very brave. He is a bit full of himself and he thinks that he is always right, but no one could accuse him of being a coward.”

  Wren wasn’t sure that this was true, but she thought it might have been.

  “Is Rifter very handsome?” Laura, who was six, asked. “I think I should like to marry him.”

  Wren thought that was adorable, but within her heart she had also begun to feel fond of Rifter because of her own story – but that seemed very ridiculous to her. He was not even real – just something she had dreamed up.

  “Could we really go to Nevermor?” Lewis asked. “Could we run away there?”

  Wren knew she should not entertain these ideas. She should tell them that it was all just a story and that none of it was real, but yet she saw that glimmer in their eyes – a sparkle of hope that she had not seen in a while – and she could not crush them.

  “Perhaps if you are very good and brave children, then the Rifter will choose you to join him there.”

  “I want to go to Nevermor,” Max said, and all the others agreed.

  Wren wasn’t sure what she had done by this, but they all seemed very happy to hear it. They had forgotten their troubles and the storm outside, and they were peaceful now, hoping for a new dream. Wren felt guilty for telling them lies.

  But what if it was real?

  Her mind kept shifting back to that, and Wren understood that even though she knew better, she wanted to believe in it just as they did. Hadn’t she been hearing the sound of that flute calling her for two nights already? She had a vague memory of flying over the sea, and then tonight she had finally found what she had been seeking. She couldn’t deny that it was one of the most brilliant dreams she’d ever had, and if given the choice, she probably would have stayed there in it forever.