Dream a Little Dream (26 page)

Mich looked away from her and she could see the hurt on his handsome face.

“But that does not mean that I can’t visit,” she added quickly. “I’ll come back if you need me. I’ll be here for you, the way you are here for me now.”

Mich continued to look away and Nola longed to see his face, but she knew it would only show pain. “I can go with you,” he said.

“Not for very long. You would die there.”

“No,” he said gently. “You have the stones. You can make me real, make me be like you.”

Nola had forgotten about the twin stones’ power. She thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know if that would be such a good idea. Kafka needs you. But I do want to be with you. Please give me sometime.”

“Of course, Nola.” Mich leaned back on the ground and closed his eyes. “I love you, whatever you decide.”

Nola lay beside him. Just when she was sure she would get some rest, Esprit’s gentle thoughts surged into her open mind.

I’m sorry to disturb your rest,
he thought.

“You could never disturb me,” she thought back.

I hope you don’t mind my always reading your thoughts. I suppose it can become quite a burden. However, I must discuss something with you.

“Yes?” She waited, feeling the tension and excitement in his thoughts.

You know, I have known of you ever since I was created. We share one soul. I know of Mich’s request, yet I too have always longed to share in your human life. Though I cannot become a real human, lean become a real horse.

“Horses are stupid and beasts of burden. I could never do that to you!”

I
would not be an ordinary horse. I would retain my intelligence, as well as my magical ability, but I would be real. I would lose my distinguishing characteristics, such as my ability to fly, my horn and my eye color. This would be necessary to blend in. I would gladly give up those things to live with you on Earth.

She knew that Esprit immediately felt her dismay and confusion. She wanted both him and Mich to go with her, but Esprit had warned her the stones could be used only once in this way. When used to make an unreal creature into a real one the stones disappeared, having spent all the magic within on such a large spell. If she used them to take either of them to Earth, not only would she leave one of them hurt and rejected, but she would lose her ability to ever visit Kafka
again. Once the stones had been used, they would be gone forever.

I know I must let you decide and I don't mean to hurt you or your true love, but it is my fondest wish to be real, as I’m sure it is his as well. The decision will be yours. Do not let either of us influence your choice, or you will be unhappy with it.

He gave her mind a loving touch, then departed from it, leaving her to wallow in her confusion and sadness. She had to decide between her true love and her best friend. She would rather die than ever have to desert either one of them. How could she turn them both down without hurting them? Right now, she was faced with a different problem. Should she hurt both of them by not choosing, or hurt one of them by choosing? Then, if she did choose, whom would she choose?
How
could she choose?

Sometime deep in the night, the group was shaken by a man’s shriek. Nola created torches all around the inside wall of the enclosure, so that no creature could escape the light.

Between the unisi and the netted Fren stood an older man. He was wearing a loose white shirt and a pair of rumpled pants. He looked as if he had just gotten up from bed. He was holding his knee; he ‘d apparently wandered too close to the Fren and gotten himself cut.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Mich demanded.

The man looked up with a pained expression. “My name’s Newton, and I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

He’s a Creator,
Heat thought.

“Oh, cool!” Tina chimed in.

“What’s going on here?” the man demanded. “The last thing I remember is playing with a marble that I found on the ground. What is this place?”

Nola approached him. “Hello, Newton. My name’s Nola. These are Mich, Tina, Heat, Spirit, Curbie and Curbia. All you need to know about them right now is that they are friends. Elsewhere there are the worm warriors, led by Drake, who may look horrendously ugly, but are also friends. Lastly, those things over there are the Fren.”

“One of those things cut me!” He glanced around. “And what the hell are those?” he asked, pointing to the unisi.

“I just told you—” Nola began.

All questions will be answered now,
thought Spirit to his mind.

Nola stared at Newton. His eyes went blank as Spirit’s mind filled his mind with answers to his questions. His eyes went from confused to surprised, to happy to angry to sad, then to angry again: Spirit had filled him in, in a matter of a few moments.

“Wow” was all he could say.

Spirit informed the rest of the group that Newton was an abused patient at a mental hospital. He had made the mistake of making his belief in his dreams known to everyone around him, insisting that hippocampus and other bizarre monsters were real. His wife had committed him. He continued to believe, and resisted counseling. Therefore he was subjected to painful experiments, at his cost.

While Spirit sent Newton’s thoughts to everyone, there was another arrival. Another man. This one looked to be about twenty-five years old. He wore a sweater and a pair of jeans and sneakers. He looked just as bewildered as Newton had. This time, Heat filled him in.

His name turned out to be Joseph. He was a grown-up child who had nothing but his dreams and cocaine. His family had all been killed when he was young, and he had grown up in several foster homes. He had hidden himself from the world with his drugs. The drugs brought him closer to his dreams, his escape of reality.

The next to come was a young girl. She was eight years old and her name was Lucina. Tina identified with her. She had come from a broken home and her mother was extremely abusive to her.

A woman, named Joelle, lived with an abusive and alcoholic husband. She and Nola hit it off right away.

By the sixth arrival, Nola began to realize that everyone who had
arrived so far seemed to be a lot like her. Many of them were suicidal and all of them had very difficult lives. They all complained that the real world had been dragging them down. Many expressed an interest in staying in Kafka, when they learned that everything that ever meant anything to them was here. Nola stressed to them that Earth needed them and they all eventually agreed, saying how much better they felt knowing that Kafka existed.

The Creators stopped coming early the next morning. Nola took count. There were six women, four men and two children. One of the children was confined to a wheelchair. They seemed to come from all walks of life and were of different races. Some of them did not speak English, but Nola easily took care of that by spelling them.

Nola wondered why there weren’t more children here. Children surely had the greatest imaginations. Perhaps it was because the longer one lived, the more pain was endured, and the more the person needed his or her dreams. This thought put in perspective the amount of abuse the two children must have suffered to cling so tightly to their dreams.

When things seemed to be taking shape, Nola transported Drake and his warriors to the enclosure. Drake was happy to be back by her side. He informed her that almost every Fren left in the cliffs was now netted and there had been no escapes.

Mich and Tina worked with Drake and his warriors on a plan while Nola tended to their guests, making them comfortable and answering questions, which were now increasingly practical rather than perplexed. The new Creators were taking hold of the situation, and however crazy or hopeless they had been on Earth, they were emerging as the powerful figures they were in this realm. Some were practicing small acts of Creation, getting the technique straight. But there were so many miscues that it was clear that some instruction would be needed.

“We must put the barrier down in order to deal with the Fren,”
Mich said. “You can be sure that they are in the vicinity. As soon as we put it down, they will try to attack us.”

“That ain’t good,” Tina said. “I know, from experience, that it’s hard to focus on anything else while you’re tryin’ to convert a Fren. I prob’ly wouldn’t be able to fight ‘em and convert ‘em at the same time. We can’t net ‘em all. If we tried, they’d keep us busy throwing nets, while one of ‘em snuck up behind.”

“I will have my wormsch guard you,” Drake suggested.

“But there are only fifteen of you. Some of you are still weak from our last encounter with the Fren, and the new worms are still very slow. We’ll need some help.”

It was then that heads turned in the direction of the netted Fren. They were Fren no longer. They had snapped the net, not by strength, but by growth.

The Creators crowded into one corner, pressed there by the huge dragons that thrashed about. One was red and gold, one green and gold, and three more were blue and silver. Each one had a set of eight transparent wings, six armored legs and huge multifaceted eyes, much like the dragonflies of Earth. They seemed to be Kafka’s literal translation.

They growled and hissed at one another in the confusion because of the sudden lack of room. One dragon’s foot was on another’s tail and yet another’s slender nose poked another’s eye. Scales rasped against scales, wings buzzed and nostrils gurgled forth slender flames.

“Who converted them?” yelled Mich.

“It was the children! They wanted to practice!” Nola yelled.

One of the dragons laid its heavy, claw-covered foot too close to them and they screamed in terror. It was then that a dragon took notice of them. It lifted its head high and gave a strange honk. The other dragons immediately took note of the morsels at their feet.

Both Nola and Tina went into action. Nola expanded the enclosure to give the inexperienced Creators more room to get out of the
way while Tina threw up a wall in front of the them. But that wasn’t enough. Though there now was more room, Tina’s walls were not magical and the dragons simply knocked them over.

One of the dragons opened its mouth to pick up a child. The little girl screamed and ducked as the dragon’s yellow tooth caught in her belt loop. It lifted her high into the air and was about to crunch her to bits.

A bolt of lightning shot down from the sky and landed at the dragon’s feet with a loud crack. Everyone paused, staring—dragons, worms and people alike.

A dark-skinned woman with silver-gray wings descended gently into the enclosure. Nola recognized her as the Volant.

“Listen to me, creatures of air, your lives are in danger unless you help the ones you seek to eat.”

“Why should we help them? Do you ever help us?” asked the dragon. “Why do we turn into such vile creatures and you not help us, our mother? Tell me why I should not avenge myself, and do tell why I should listen to you? Tell me.”

Ventus stifled her ire. She was well aware how rude dragons were. “Behold, the Kahh.”

She raised the crescent-shaped iron object high so that all could see it. The effect was immediate. All the dragons froze, staring as if hypnotized. “The medal of honor,” the spokes-dragon breathed. “We are yours, O great goddess!”

“You know what to do,” the Volant replied.

The dragons set the girl free, apologized and vowed to help. They and the worms would do their best to guard the Creators while they captured and converted Fren. All of the Fren would not be there, but the ones that came would be going for blood. Nola, meanwhile, would need special attention, as it was up to her to destroy the dam.

The Volant departed with best wishes to the Creators. She wanted nothing to do with the ensuing war.

After she had gone, the red and gold dragon that had spoken earlier introduced himself as Z. His proper name was too difficult to pronounce. “Please, human sister, when shall we ignite our fires on the backsides of the Fren?”

“There will be no injury to the Fren,” Nola replied.

Z curled his lips with displeasure. “Why not? Do they not deserve it for what they have done? Please explain.”

“Of course, Z. Spirit will fill you in on the details. While he does that, a feast will be prepared and healing spice distributed. All of us must be fully charged for tomorrow morning. That is when I will conjure us to the dam. The Fren will be waiting, no doubt, and we will need all of your best efforts. I would like to request that you stay by my side, Z.”

“Yes, human sister. It would be my humble honor.”

While Spirit filled in the dragon, Nola began creating meals for the huge creatures. They couldn’t be expected to perform well on empty stomachs, and it was best to provide no temptation.

Tina worked with the twelve Creators, helping them practice. Most of them were amazed by what they could do. Joelle fainted. The only ones who acted as if this Creation business were routine, at first, were the children and Newton. Newton seemed quite at home and in fact was doing very well. “Why can’t we just Create a bunch more dragonflies or something?” he asked Tina. “That way we don’t have to worry about it.”

“That’s a good question, but the answer’s not so simple,” Tina replied. “The dream creatures that become real here don’t last too long. It’s easy to create things that aren’t living, like food and houses and stuff, ‘cause they don’t got no feelings, no lives to live. People and creatures have to be believed in for a long time in order to make ‘em real.”

Newton still looked confused.

“Take Nola and Mich, for example. Nola knows everything there
is to know about Mich, because she made him. She believed in him for lots of years, makin’ him real. She gave him a sense of humor, and a sense of loyalty, and a big dollop of naivete, and she gave him her love. Only then did he become real. See, if you created a creature in one day, it would die. It wouldn’t have a soul, no life. Even though Kafka is a dreamland, these people have souls. I know.” She smiled.

“I understand. So we are forced to use the resources that we have left, which aren’t many. But how is it there are demons and such? Why would a person want to create a horror like that?”

“Sometimes people can make their darkest fears real, when they don’t face ‘em. The more you hide from ‘em, the more you get to know about ‘em and the more they bug you. I never learned to face my demons. But they all have a place here, good or bad. You understand now?”

“Yup.” Newton nodded his head.

“Well, keep practicing.” She addressed the rest of the group. “I’m sorry you all don’t have Fren to practice on, but it’d be too dangerous to find any. I think when it comes time to convert them, you all will do fine.”

The new Creators practiced until noon, when they snacked on lu-cream pastries. They practiced even more when they finished and by the time Nola’s feast was ready, all of them felt confident that Kafka would be saved. The morale was high and things finally seemed to be turning in their favor, though they would have much work to do. The possibility was great that lives would be lost.

They feasted on roast beef, mashed potatoes, parsnips, corn-bread, sweet peas and soda pop. Everything was sprinkled with healing spice and everyone loved it. They gobbled the steaming food with relish, savoring each bite.

When the meal was over, everyone felt very healthy and very full. When darkness fell, they discussed the next day among themselves,
and the new Creators had their first experience with sleepless sleep. Eventually, everyone fell silent.

Nola stared up into the midnight, her eyes reflecting the stars as the clouds drifted between them. Her heart was sad. She knew it was best to put aside her worries until it was time for them, yet she could not. She wondered what she would do with the stones. Should she use them and lose her chance to return here? If she did use them, whom would she choose to take back? She wished desperately that she could take both Mich and Spirit with her.

She shook her head in the darkness, as the looming war filled her mind and mingled with her other thoughts. The stars in her view began to blur. She blinked away her tears, turned over and closed her eyes. She was worried.

She felt Mich’s consoling hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. Somehow, this night, it did not comfort her. She pulled her knees in close to her chin and forced herself into repose.