The War for the Waking World (6 page)

Archer sat at his dining room table and munched absently on a big sourdough pretzel. His father stood at the sink and stared out of the window to the backyard.

“Good day at school?” Mr. Keaton asked, his face lit white from the sunlight reflected off the snow outside.

“Decent day,” Archer said. “Strange day.”

“Really? How so?”

Archer hesitated. “Well, I had trouble focusing,” he said, omitting the most troubling details. “It was like I just couldn't think straight.”

“I suppose that's to be expected,” Mr. Keaton replied, grabbing a tall coffeepot from the counter and beginning to fill it at the faucet.

Archer nodded. He heard a series of car doors shut somewhere outside.
Guess Kaylie and Buster are home from school,
he thought as he took another bite of pretzel.

“If it's still bothering you after today,” Mr. Keaton said, “we should get you to the doc's for a look-see.”

Archer heard the front door open and the giggle-ruckus of snow boots being taken off. Buster said, “Dude, you got snow on my socks.”

“Did not,” Kaylie argued.

Yep,
Archer thought.
Just like normal.

“Full pot?” Archer's father asked without turning from the sink. “Or half pot?”

Archer blinked and took a bite of pretzel.

“Full pot,” came a voice from the foyer.

Archer chewed thoughtfully and said, “It was nice of Amy's mom to stick around so late last night. Y'know? To make sure I was okay.”

His father shut off the kitchen faucet. “Amy and her mom went home at eight last night.”

Archer felt the terrible itch in the back of his mind again. “Then . . . who was sitting by my bedside?”

“Good to see you up and around, Archer,” a woman said, just a blur in his peripheral vision, entering the kitchen from the foyer. “I was afraid school would be too much for you today. How are you feeling?”

Archer knew the voice before he turned around. The chill vanished, overwhelmed by a complicated mixture of feelings. Almost involuntarily, he sprang up from the table. Tears already streaking his cheeks, he ran to the woman. He embraced her and wept on her shoulder, holding on as if she might at any moment be pulled from his grasp, pulled from his life once more.

SEVEN

A
RRESTING
D
EVELOPMENTS

“M
OM
,” A
RCHER SAID
. “M
OM
, I'V
E MISSED YOU SO MUCH
.”

“Group hug!” Kaylie announced. She and Buster latched onto their mother, enthusiastically joining the embrace.

“Awww, Archer. Thank you,” she said, “but you missed me that much from a day at school?”

The sweetness of that embrace . . . soured a little. Archer pulled back a pace. “But, Mom, you have been gone . . . gone for so long.” It wasn't so much a memory filling his mind as it was a sense of certainty, like a cold piece of iron hammered into the ground. Archer found himself saying, “You died, Mom. The cancer took you away.”

“Archer!” his father cut in. “Don't say that!”

“Mommy?” Kaylie squealed. “You have cancer?”

Archer's mother dropped down to look Kaylie in the eyes. “No, sweetie,” she told her daughter. “Not anymore.” She tweaked Kaylie's chin, stood, and took a firm grasp of Archer's shoulders. “Archer, I've been in remission for years. No sign of the cancer. I still think it was the well water.” She giggled lightly. “Maybe we should get you a sip of well water—if it's not frozen solid that is.”

The well.

His mother's favorite well.

Archer felt dizzy now. He swayed where he stood and might have fallen if his mother's arms hadn't held him steady. He stared hard at her.

“Archer,” she said, “what's wrong, sweetie? You look pale. Maybe you should sit—”

“No!” Archer exclaimed, pulling away from her. “Something's wrong.”

“It's the injury,” she replied, glancing over her shoulder at her husband. “I told you it was too soon for Archer to go back to school.”

Mr. Keaton shrugged. “He seemed fine to me this morning.”

Archer resisted his mother's attempts to hold him, but part of him didn't want to resist. Something at his core, something raw and needy, urged him to just fall into her embrace and soak up the feel of her warmth, the scent of her perfume, the melodic sound of her voice. He almost did.

But he suddenly found himself careening out of the kitchen, past Kaylie's and Buster's wide-eyed attempts to slow him down, past his shell-shocked father's haunted expression. Archer stumbled around the corner, banged into the basement door, and bounded into the laundry room. In a tear-streaked blur, he pounded out of the side door, charged for the backyard gate, and . . . without a jacket, without a hat, without even his shoes, he ran out into the snow.

He slip-slid down the hill through the slush, crusty snow, and ice until he collapsed hard at the base of the wishing well. Ignoring the shooting pain of the bitter cold on his bare feet, Archer crouched by the well and clung to its stone. He didn't wish. He prayed. “Oh, God, please . . .” he cried. “I want her to be real. I want her back . . . please let this be . . . true.”

Tears burned at the corners of his eyes and streaked down his cheeks. Memories flashed: bare feet cushioned on the warming summer grass and well water sloshing as he carried a cool bucket up the hill; the delicious tang of his mother's lemonade, made from fresh-squeezed lemons, cane sugar, and well water; and the grateful look in his mother's eyes when he delivered a glass of water . . . a look that communicated the simple but powerful message:
You matter to me
.

With all five senses firing, Archer could see, smell, taste, hear, and feel all of it. And it was all connected to her.

“Archer?” Her voice was there now, right beside him. “Archer, please come back inside.”

“Dude, get some shoes on!” Buster advised. “It's cold out here, man!”

He felt a tugging at his elbow. “C'mon, Archer,” Kaylie said. “Let's go back inside.”

Archer reluctantly pulled away from the well and let himself be led back up the hill, back inside. His father was waiting for him in the den. “Son, I'm sorry,” he said. “I know your head injury has taken its toll on you. I know things don't seem right to you . . . but you've got to take control of your emotions. You're hurting. I get that. But you can't lash out like that. Now, please, don't mention your mother's cancer ever again.”

Archer looked from face to face. Buster looked confused, Kaylie looked afraid, and his father seemed determined but somehow fragile too. Archer turned to his mother. He so dearly wanted just to get lost in her welcoming, understanding, loving eyes. “I'm sorry, Mom,” he said. “I'm so sorry. I don't know what's wrong . . . what's wrong with me. I—”

He'd seen it in her face, an ashen ripple. So small, just a tiny feathery distortion, but it was enough. “No, this isn't real!” He backed away, backed into his father.

“Archer, settle down,” he said. “You're getting all worked up. You need—”

“Get off of me!” Archer demanded. “All of you. This isn't right. None of it.”

He turned from them, and as he rocketed from the den the whole scene whirled with ash, and he saw, just for a moment, the dreary darkness of a cold, winter night. He saw the emptiness of the home. And, through the hallway, he saw the damage to the kitchen cabinets the three-headed wolf creature had caused, back when . . .

It all came flooding back into his mind: Dreamtreading, the Rift, the world gone mad. That's what had been lingering just outside of
his consciousness. Archer tore up the stairs, flexing his mental will, constricting the tiny muscles around his eyes to see, to
really
see. It was spectris, a skill only experienced Dreamtreaders could master, and it allowed Archer to see beyond the norm.

Like a curtain of undulating ashes, the daylight world parted, revealing night once more. He heard his father at the bottom of the stairs yelling, “Archer, wait! Come back!” But when Archer turned, he saw nothing but the night-darkened stairs.

“Archer, please!” his mother called, just a faint echo.

But Archer knew what he needed to do. He ran into his room, threw open the closet doors, and took out his copy of the Dreamtreader's Creed. He needed Master Gabriel, and he needed him now.

He snatched the gossamer-white Summoning Feather and tossed it into the air. As the frame around his room door became sealed in luminous blue light, Archer felt a presence in the room behind him. He spun around.

There, dressed fully in his Incandescent Armor was the leader of all Dreamtreaders, Master Gabriel. He wasn't alone. Two figures Archer had never seen before accompanied him on either side. They looked so similar that they might have been male and female fraternal twins. And they wore armor like Master Gabriel's.

Archer didn't waste another moment. He let it all out in a rush. “The Rift!” Archer cried out. “It's worse than I thought! It's hidden. There's a spell over everyone, a spell of make-believe . . . like nothing bad ever happened.”

“I am sorry, Archer,” Master Gabriel said.

“Don't you see?” Archer demanded. He whipped his forearm across his face and swiped the tears from his eyes. “The Rift has put people in a living dream—they don't know what's happening to them. They can't see reality!”

“I truly am sorry,” Master Gabriel said. “Now, please hold out your hands.”

“What?” Archer tilted his head. He held out his hands but had no idea why. “Master Gabriel, we need to wake up the world!”

“Archer Percival Keaton,” Master Gabriel said. “By the power vested in me—”

“We don't have time for this,” Archer cried out. “What . . . what are you doing? People are dying out there . . . and they don't even see it!”

“Archer!” Master Gabriel thundered. His armor lit up the room like the flash of a lightning bolt. “I am well aware of the plight of this world. Now, be silent.”

Archer had never seen Master Gabriel in so severe a mood. What was he talking about? Archer's mind reeled. That's when Master Gabriel turned to one of the strangers and grabbed a pair of dull metal shackles joined by a thick chain. In one swift motion, he placed them on Archer's wrists. The shackles clicked and turned fiery white.

“Aaah!” Archer cried out. “Aaah, that hurts! What is this? Master Gabriel? What are you doing to me?”

“It is not what I am doing to you,” the master Dreamtreader snapped. “It is what you have done to yourself. I say once more, be silent, Archer! You stand accused of violating Dreamtreader law. Though it grieves me to do so, I hereby place you under arrest.”

D
REAMTREADER
C
REED
, C
ONCEPTUS
11

A
nchor first. Anchor deep.

The Dreamtreader Anchor deep. must secure himself to truth at all costs. You must remain grounded and perform your duties, not just to the best of your abilities, but beyond simple effort to . . . ultimate success. For yours is not a mundane occupation. Yours is no routine in which from time to time you might just go through the motions or simply . . . get by.

For you, success is the only acceptable outcome. For to fail would mean the destruction of lives . . . and worlds.

EIGHT

C
ORPORATE
T
AKEOVER

K
ARA
W
INDCHIL FINISHED WRITING, PUT DOWN HER
pen, and gazed at her flourished signature.

“That,” Frederick said, “makes it official.”

Kara smiled and gazed at the Baltimore city skyline. The Dream Inc. Building, often called the Dream Tower, was the tallest in Baltimore, of course. She had based the design on several skyscrapers she'd seen in her research. It had been months in the planning, and then, the moment the Rift became a reality, Kara had spent a tremendous amount of will to build the Dream Tower from the ground up . . . in a matter of a few hours. The view of the surrounding world from just more than 660 feet suited Kara perfectly.

It's my world now,
she thought, not gloating but rather a pondering of fact.

Frederick adjusted his ever-present dark glasses, and then made the knot on his black tie a little bit tighter. “It's a shame about Mr. Thames,” he said.

Kara stood and waltzed to the window. “A loss for all of us,” she whispered, staring at the dual image in the glass: the city and her own reflection. She wore a smart business suit, custom tailored so the suit sleeves stretched beyond their usual length into decorative cuffs that reached her knuckles. She raised a hand to her frozen-plum lips and continued to ruin a perfect manicure by nibbling at her pinky nail.