Grey Haven (Book 1: The Dreamer Chronicles)

The next thing I was aware of was the hands on my chest that worked in a steady rhythm to force water out of my lungs. I rolled to my side and threw up. The hands helped me turn. When I was done throwing up the water that had taken over my stomach, I closed my eyes again. It took me a second to realize that I was still in the dreamworld. Chris hadn’t pulled me out, despite the danger.

I opened my eyes and tried to sit up. My chest and throat felt as if they were on fire and my body was a roadmap to the painful force of the water on the ship. The hands that had given me air also helped me sit upright, and a strong voice urged me to be still. I recognized the voice and focused on the woman in front of me.

Miss Peck was crouched down so that we were at eye level. Her clothes were torn, and blood was on her pants. She looked as if she had gone through hell and come back with souvenirs. Her formidable jaw was full of tension, though her eyes were full of relief.

“Am I dead?” I asked around my sore throat.

“Not yet,” Miss Peck said.

“Reassuring,” I croaked.

I tried to stand and immediately had to sit down again. My head swam; the weight on my chest had increased with the movement. Miss Peck put a hand on my shoulder, to keep me in place. “Easy,” she said.

“How’d I get here?” I asked.

“A door opened, and there you were,” Miss Peck said. “You brought a bunch of water with you.”

It was then that I noticed the ground around me was drenched. The water from the ship had followed me through the door, but that didn’t answer the question of the door. I hadn’t opened one – I hadn’t known how. The only explanation I had was Chris. Which was…something.

It felt weird to owe him my life.

I glanced away from Miss Peck and saw that my crossbow had followed me through the door. The string was broken and there was only one arrow left, but it was fixable. I put a hand on it, relieved to have the familiar feeling of steel so close. It was like taking an old friend by the hand. Feeling calmer, I looked around, curious about where I had landed.

We were in a valley that had tall mountains surrounding it. The mountains were the Rockies, though changed by the subtleties of the mind, and brought a shiver of memories with them that I quickly repressed. The grass was bright green and a small brook bubbled next to us. I ignored the brook, not interested in anything associated with water, and finally noticed that Miss Peck and I were far from alone.

There were others on the green grass – other dreamers who had fought battles, only to narrowly escape with their lives. Many of them wore bandages. People talked, but it was a subdued thing, weighted with fear and uncertainty. Bernard was near the water, sitting by himself. He trembled when I caught his eye, as if he had never been more frightened in his life. Other dreamers guarded the perimeter, alert and fierce. Mr. Vimer kept a military-like guard over everyone. I didn’t feel any shades, but they had a fought a few off already. The grey ash near Mr. Vimer’s feet was clue enough.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“My dream,” Miss Peck said.

“Have Carrie or Tommy come through here?” I asked.

“No,” Miss Peck said.

Slowly, I pushed myself up and to my feet. My head swam, but I managed to keep myself steady. “I gotta find them,” I said.

“Tactically, it’s best if you stay here,” Miss Peck hedged.

“I don’t care,” I spat back at her.

“Chances are you won’t find them,” Miss Peck tried again. “There are too many dreams, too many shades to get in your way.”

“I don’t care about the odds,” I said.

Miss Peck stood and put her hand out in front of me, a truce. “At least let me patch you up. You won’t do them any good if you bleed out before you find them.”

I glanced down at my injured arm and knew she was right. My makeshift bandage had fallen off in the water. It was bleeding sluggishly.

“Fine,” I said.

Miss Peck called to another student and he brought over a bag of medical supplies. Miss Peck then cleaned and dressed the wound. Her hands were steady and certain, but slow. She was in no rush to send me on my way. As she worked, she asked, “Do you have any idea what’s trapped us here?”

“Yeah,” I said. “A shade named Bastian.”

“Bastian?” Miss Peck repeated in a sharp voice. She knew the name – she knew the danger.

“Yep,” I said.

“How?” she asked.

“He got someone at Grey Haven to pump sleeping gas into the houses and then somehow cut everyone off from waking up again.”

“Is Bastian the reason you dropped out of school without a reason?” Miss Peck asked, expression stern and disapproving.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I see,” Miss Peck said.

Her expression transformed with a realization. She knew that I wasn’t just looking for Carrie and Tommy. She sensed my mission. She turned back and exchanged a curious look with Mr. Vimer, who had shifted closer to hear my words.

“Who sent you here?” Miss Peck asked.

“I sent myself,” I said. “But Chris is watching over us.”

“Mrs. Z…?” Miss Peck started to ask.

“Is also asleep,” I said. “I don’t know what happened to her.”

“Ah,” Miss Peck said.

Though her words were carefully neutral, I sensed her worry. It was the same worry that had plagued the back of my mind since seeing her. If Mrs. Z. was really in the world of dreams, she should have already tracked down Bastian and made easy work of him. We should have all been free by now. Mrs. Z. couldn’t escape her reputation. Something had to have happened to her, something that prevented her from doing what was necessary to save her students. It was a little bit terrifying.

“And what’s your plan?” Miss Peck asked.

“Right now, it’s to find my friends, then kill Bastian, so we can get the hell out of here,” I said.

“And do you really think that will work?” she asked, as if we were back in class, talking about a particularly difficult exercise she had given us to work through.

“It’s not tactically sound, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said.

“A better plan would be to draw him to you,” she said.

“I’d like to, but he keeps blowing up the worlds I’m in,” I said.

Miss Peck exchanged another curious glance with Mr. Vimer. Something about my words had shocked them.

“What?” I asked.

“I’ve heard of Bastian,” Miss Peck said. “I’ve never heard him being described as powerful enough to destroy dreams. He walks through them, uses them, but he doesn’t destroy.”

“He seems plenty powerful to me,” I said.

Miss Peck had finished working on my arm. My throat hurt worse from our conversation, and I was eager to leave and find Carrie and Tommy. I knew they would assume I was dead. I didn’t want to prolong their worry. I took a step back from Miss Peck and picked up my crossbow. It needed a new string. I didn’t know how I would get one under the circumstances. I hadn’t learned how to make weapons outside of the grey yet.

“Damn,” I muttered.

Miss Peck’s expression flickered to compassionate and understanding. She took my crossbow from me and closed her eyes. She focused for a minute. The string on the crossbow restrung itself, as if it had a will of its own. Three bundles of arrows appeared on the ground at my feet. Miss Peck opened her eyes and handed my newly healed crossbow out for me to take. I picked up my arrows and smiled at her.

“Thanks,” I said.

“I don’t approve of your plan, but you must do what you feel is right,” Miss Peck said.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“I have to stay here and help those who are lost,” she said. “That’s my duty to the students and to the school. Otherwise, I would come with you.”

“I understand. It’s okay,” I said.

I looked away from her and saw the others in the group had figured out what I was doing. The gravity of my task had sunk in. Some of them wanted to help, to fight. Staying with Miss Peck and Mr. Vimer was infinitely safer. Too, I didn’t want to be responsible for getting anyone killed. It was easier for me to face the reality of fighting Bastian on my own than it was for me to lead them to him. I needed to leave before anyone could volunteer to come with me.

“Can you make a door?” I asked Miss Peck.

She focused, and a heavy steel door appeared on the grass. I crossed over to it, ready to continue my search, but Miss Peck stopped me with a hand on the arm. She focused a second time and five grey ribbons appeared in her hand. She held them out to me. “These ribbons are threads back to this dream,” she explained. “If you hold them and focus hard, the next door you make will lead you here. If you get in trouble, or if someone else needs a safe place, use them.”

I nodded and stuck the ribbons into my pocket. They were warm against my leg, a gentle reminder that there was a safe place in the middle of the chaos.

The safety was an illusion, though. It would fall apart soon if I didn’t find Bastian and put him down for good. Whispers from the others floated around me, questioning my story, questioning their safety in the dream. Before the whispers could grow louder, I opened the door and stepped through.

The other side was dark and smoky. A low ceiling and warm textures created an old-school mystery to the small room. There was a bar directly to my left, where the bartender poured out drinks with expert precision, and booths and tables sat to my right. Instead of injured dreamers, or a haven, there were thirty to forty shades. The shades were spaced throughout the bar, sitting as if they had always sat there. They were in 1920s attire, and the bar was decorated to match.

The shades stared at me as I appeared in the doorway. One man’s cigarette dangled precariously from his lips. Another woman had her glass half raised. A jazz band had been playing in the corner; they stopped playing with a clash of instruments to gaze at me hungrily. Shivers erupted, and I gripped my crossbow more tightly. I wanted to kill them, but I didn’t have enough arrows. They would overpower me fast.

“What happened to the music?” a voice called over the sea of shades. “What am I paying you for?”

The band immediately started playing again and the shades turned away. Warm conversation and laughter filled the space, my presence forgotten. I let out a deep, relieved breath. My relief came from the voice that had called out. I knew it, just as I knew the people around me were shades.

Harry stepped around a couple by the bar, and moved in close, so that he was directly in front of me. “You need to leave right now,” he said without any preamble.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“I’ve managed to trap these shades,” Harry said. “I’m keeping them from going out and killing our dreamers. But they’ll wake up if you stick around.”

“How-?” I started to ask.

“This isn’t the time for lessons,” Harry said. “Get out of here. Now.”

I backed away.

“If you see Mrs. Z., tell her that she’s going to answer to me,” Harry added.

I nodded and walked through the door behind me for a second time.

The dream changed to hard-pressed earth, rusted metal, and the dark caverns of an underground world. My concern for Harry and his cryptic message was erased as a dark hound passed directly in front of me. I pressed my body against the wall and held my breath. When it was gone, I crept to the edge of the wall to take stock of my surroundings.

I was in a large mine.

A conveyor belt constantly fed dark rock to the surface. People worked near the belt and around the multi-layered cavern. They were dirty and had the bruises and marks of having been beaten into submission. There were unnaturally tall men around the cavern who were obviously guarding them. Details were difficult to grasp in the dim light, but they held whips and they used them liberally. I wasn’t sure what I had stumbled into, but I knew that the people working were dreamers. They had been trapped somehow.

“Hey!” a voice called in a low whisper.

I whirled around and noticed a group of people behind a wall of metal bars. There was a door, but it was protected by a thick lock. The group stared at me, eyes full of hope. I joined them on quiet feet. “Are you okay?” I asked.

A man with dark eyes and long hair nodded. He had been the one to get my attention. “Can you get us out?”

“I can pick the lock, but we’ll need a door,” I said.

The man put his hand through the bars and pointed behind me. “There’s a ladder that leads out of here. It’s the only way to get free of this place.”

“Can you fight?” I asked them.

“Yes,” the man said.

I knelt and pulled my lock picks out of my pocket. I worked quickly, though sweat dripped down my back and face at the added pressure of rescuing them. If I failed, they would die. Finally, I yanked the heavy lock off the door and the man led the group into the hallway. None of them had a weapon, but I got the distinct feeling that they didn’t need one as I took in their fierce glares and calm grace.

It didn’t take the shades long to figure out there had been a jailbreak. One of the tall men let loose a high-pitched yell and flicked a whip in our direction. The whip crackled with electricity. Goosebumps erupted over my arms as the dim light revealed his pointed teeth and angled eyes. He was shaped like a man, but he was anything but human.

I raised my crossbow and released an arrow. It landed in his throat. The shade toppled backward and hit the ground. As he fell, I counted the other shades in the room. There were four hounds and six of the man-like creatures.

The people who had been out in the cavern stopped working when they saw us and turned on the shades with the tools they had been using to dig. They gleefully hacked at their former tormentors. I took out two more of the hounds with arrows. By then, the rest of the shades were dead. When the screams of the shades died down, the group clambered over to the stairs, eager to get out of the pit.

When I stepped off the stairs, I was in the desert. The door dissolved into hard sand, erasing the existence of the mine, probably forever. The sun was hot, and I felt instantly parched. The others were alternating between staring at the landscape and eyeing me curiously.

The leader of the group spoke up. “You a student at Grey Haven?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Newer?” he asked.

“Yep,” I said.

“Ah,” he said. He turned away, ready to dismiss me.

Another girl, who had been with him in the cells, took a step closer to me. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asked.

“Sylvia be serious,” the man scoffed.

Sylvia ignored him. She waited expectantly for me to answer; her eyes reflected a kindness his lacked. I ignored him as well and focused on her. I told her the story in the briefest of rundowns. By the end of it, the others no longer doubted me. Even the man was listening. I finally pulled out the ribbons from my pocket, to show them Miss Peck’s gift. Sylvia took one of the ribbons from me and turned to the others, a plan on her lips. “We should-”

The earth rolled violently. My stomach clenched expectantly at the familiar sensation of moving earth and expectant dread.

Bastian had found me.

I managed to stuff the remaining ribbons back into my pocket before the ground opened into a wide chasm under me. It was all I managed. The other dreamers scrambled out of the way as my feet gave out from under me. Sylvia tried to grab me, but she was too late. Bastian’s door had done its work.

I hit the ground with a splash.

I was knee-deep in murky water that had a surprisingly fast undercurrent. Large, mossy trees reached up to the sky like broken, twisted bodies. Millions of insects flew around me, creating a heartbeat of sound. Swiftly, the heartbeat changed, settling into something more ominous. The sky darkened noticeably, and the insects went quiet. I waited, my body tensing with the evil of the shade that was near.

“Hello, Julie,” Bastian said. He stepped into the water from the rise of ground just beyond me, so that his scarred feet were covered, and casually put his hands in the pockets of his linen suit. Next to him was the little girl. She held a leash in her hands, which was attached to a collar that was fitted around the guardian who had attacked Tommy, Carrie, and I at the school.

The girl tugged on the leash forcefully as she sat down at Bastian’s feet and the woman sat with her, movements jerky and dazed, a slave to the will of the girl.

I fired two arrows at Bastian reflexively. The first arrow found its mark. It landed squarely in Bastian’s chest, directly in his heart. Instead of falling to the earth in pain from the would-be fatal wound, Bastian grimaced. He reached down and pulled the arrow out of his chest with a slick plop. Black blood trickled out of the open wound for a second, then his skin knitted back together.

Bastian started laughing at the look of shock on my face. “Is that any way to greet me?” he chastised.

I released a third arrow. This one disappeared into inky darkness in front of Bastian – the girl’s doing. A tremor of fear went through me. I didn’t understand what kept Bastian from dying. Minor shade or not, he should have died with my arrow.

Too late, I remembered Chris’ warning to use fire. I had a lighter, but I wasn’t sure how I would get close enough to use it on him. Getting within arm’s length felt decidedly stupid, and I had no way to hide what I was doing while his focus was so singularly on me. My mind blanked on strategies, weighted with the knowledge that Bastian was stronger.

Bastian’s dark eyes were full of happy malevolence. His smile told me that I wouldn’t be lucky enough to escape this time. No one could help me, and his need for death would be sated. He snapped his fingers once and the girl stood. I knew she was about to try to kill me. I released my next arrow at her chest. Before it hit her, the air around her shifted with inky black. Bastian, the girl, and the guardian disappeared. The black swirled in place nearly lazily, then it charged me.

It hit hard and propelled me upward. My body thrashed in time to the force of the spiraling dark. There was no control, only the hope that the wind wouldn’t be my death, that there was still time to fight. The darkness cleared as suddenly as it started, and I was in the eye of the storm.

I landed on my back on a dark, stone floor. The girl stood in front of me, the guardian’s leash still in her hand. The ceiling and walls swirled with the force of the darkness. It was disorienting and vaguely nauseating.

The girl extended her hands hungrily. I caught them and fought to push her away, setting my stance and not moving an inch. She was surprisingly strong, as strong as a full-grown man. She growled at me as we struggled, a sound that reminded me of a crawler. The guardian remained motionless behind her, her eyes closed. She was no more aware of this fight than she was her current state of possession. The girl’s hands inched closer to my face; her fingernails desperately trying to claw out my eyes.

I was losing the fight.

Suddenly, she reared back. She made a panicked sound and the darkness around us fell to the earth like water. The swamp was back, and it was burning. Bastian was missing, but distant shouts filled the air.

The girl started to dissolve, to run to her master to help with the fight. Happy to take advantage of her distraction, I grabbed her around the throat and slammed her onto the ground. I crawled on top of her and squeezed hard. She struggled against my hands. A dark wind tried to blow me off, but my hands tightened on her throat in irrevocable determination. Where ever I went, she would go too.

Slowly, her hands went limp and the wind stopped blowing around us. Her body collapsed in on itself, turning to bone and ash.

I had won, but I knew the fight wasn’t over. Bastian was still out there in the swamp. He was between us and freedom. With the fire closing in, time was running out. He would flee if I didn’t stop him. It was now or never. And never wasn’t an option. He had to die, and I would kill him or die trying. This needed to end, and I was determined my hand would be the one that did it.