That’s when the train came. The five-note chord blast of its horn jolted Kara off her feet. She spun around, and the massive gray locomotive was right there. Its blazing single headlight was blindingly bright, but through its white corona, she caught a glimpse of a clown’s face in the train’s window. I hate clowns, she thought just as the train hit her.
Chaos. Whirling, boiling, writhing, lightning-strike chaos. Kara felt her body thrown around like a toy. She tumbled and fell and finally came to a stop. Wobbly and disoriented, she rose to her feet just when the dragon arrived.
Kara turned around to the gleam of spade-sized, ivory-white teeth inches from her face. Gusts of sewage-smelling wind washed over her. The beast opened its jaws, showing Kara more jagged teeth and a bloodred tunnel beyond. “Oh, this is just not cool,” she said.
The dragon roared. Globs of hot spittle pelted Kara.
“Not cool at all!” she yelled as the dragon swallowed her. The jaws closed, the teeth pierced, the blood flowed . . . only it was no longer blood. It was river water. Kara stood on a raft made of lashed palm tree trunks. Her cousin Lindy sat on the other half of the raft. Gosh, Kara thought, I haven’t seen Lindy in years. They were floating down a river the size of the Mississippi or the Nile.
Lindy looked up, flashing those huge blue eyes of hers. Wait, Kara thought. Her cousin’s eyes were way too big. And they were growing. The eyes continued to swell until they crowded Kara right off of the raft. She plunged into the water . . . only it wasn’t water any longer. It was air. Kara plummeted through clouds, into a cold blue sky. Patchwork land far below rushed up at her.
“C’mon, Rigby,” she muttered. “I’m getting tired of this.”
Kara glared at the surface as it grew larger and closer with each passing second. She could now make out a few structures: houses, roads, a stadium, and lots of trees. A buffalo flew by right beneath her. It wasn’t falling. It had wings. Great big Pegasus wings. And it maneuvered the sky with the skill of an eagle. “Hey,” Kara said, “that’s the critter from that restaurant!”
The winged buffalo was hardly the last oddity to pass her by on the way down. A pizza with antennae whirled overhead and disappeared. There was can-of-Coke blimp, a cherry-red BMW convertible with pumpkin tires, an octopus wearing a polka-dotted party hat, and a yodeling dwarf. Kara wasn’t positive, but she thought she saw the Wicked Witch of the West fly by on her broom. The strangest thing, however, was the guy surfing on a touchscreen smartphone.
He wasn’t surfing as in bouncing from site to site on the Web. He was standing on top of the supersized phone as if it were a surfboard. And it wasn’t just any guy. It was Rigby Thames. He swooped beneath Kara and caught her just a few seconds from impact.
“Whoa,” she said, “that was quite a rescue.”
“Yeah, sorry about the delay,” he said, shifting his hips to steer the phone-surfboard-thing back the way he had come. “You weren’t where I told you to wait for me.”
“I . . . I wasn’t?” she asked. “But I thought . . . well, there were all these crazy dream things happening, and I wasn’t sure if I was lucid dreaming or just regular dreaming.”
“Oh, you’re lucid dreaming, all right,” he said. “You just got caught up in the dream currents.”
“Dream currents?” she echoed.
“Yeah, yeah, the random bits of other people’s dreams,” he explained. “Remember? We talked about this.”
“I know, I know, but there’s so much to learn. It’s kind of over-whelming.”
“I understand,” he said. “I can explain again. Just let us get you to a spot I know.” Rigby steered the smartphone-surfboard-thing toward a thick forest at the base of a lumpy, dark mountain. In the center of the woods, there was a clearing. A lone castle tower stood in the midst of the trees. Rigby leaped from the board onto the tower balcony and set Kara back on her feet.
“Much better,” she said. “Not that I minded you carrying me so much, I mean. You’re very strong.”
“Yeah, I guess I am,” he said. “In the Dream, that is. C’mon, let’s ’ave us a conversation.” He led Kara to a pair of ornately carved wooden chairs, and they sat.
Kara ran her hands over the detailed artistry of the armrests. They’d been crafted to resemble the outstretched legs of a bird of prey and ended with sharp talons curling toward the floor. These weren’t just big chairs. They were thrones. She liked that. She liked that a lot.
“So, about the dream currents?” she prompted.
“Right,” Rigby said. He snapped his fingers and the phone-surfboard floated in through the balcony window and propped itself up on the curving tower wall between the two chairs. “Take a look at this.”
The phone’s screen came to life, showing a familiar surreal landscape. “That’s here,” Kara said.
“Right you are,” he said. “But that’s here now without the full effect of the dream currents.”
“Why’d they stop?”
“They didn’t stop,” Rigby explained. “But I dampened their impact. See, at any given time, millions—even billions—of people are asleep and dreaming. Those dreams are happening here, all of them, and at the same time. You know ’ow dreams go, right? Herky-jerky things. One moment this, one moment that, and not all of it pleasant.”
“Tell me about it,” Kara said. “In just a few minutes I was hit by a train, munched by a dragon, and skydiving without a parachute.”
“Right useful, parachutes,” Rigby said with a grin. Just then, a deep bell tolled. Rigby sat up rigidly and became still. The chimes continued: one, two, three, four, five . . .
Rigby swallowed. He waited a few more seconds and sighed with relief. “You ’ear that bell?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Five tolls.”
“Same here,” he said. “Those bells come from the big tower you can see from almost anywhere in the Dream. That’s Old Jack, the timekeeper for all who enter the Dream. We both ’eard five tolls, so that means we entered the Dream at roughly the same time. Good thing it wasn’t six or we’d ’ave to cut this short tonight.”
“Why?”
“Later, love,” he replied. “Later. For now, the currents. Take a look at this.” He gestured to the vast smartphone screen. “This is the Dream realm without dampening the currents.”
Kara gasped. The screen showed utter chaos. It was like ten thousand tidal waves, crashing and slamming into each other. It was a kaleidoscope of madness. No one could follow it all. The screen faded to black.
“You can tame all that?” Kara asked.
“Yeah, sure,” he replied. “Not all at once, of course. A little at a time. Just enough to keep your local environment safe. I’m going to let up on them a bit. I want you to reach out with your hands. Do you feel them?”
Hesitantly, Kara lifted her arms out. “Oh!” she said. “It’s, like, feathery.”
“Do you see anything?”
Kara frowned and stared out. At first, she saw nothing. Just her hands. But then, in sync with the feather pulses that she felt, waves of shadow rolled over and around her fingertips. “That’s so cool. Strange, but still cool.”
“Now, put your hands down,” he said. “And feel them with your mind. Close your eyes at first. It helps.”
Kara did just what he told her. In her mind, she imagined reaching out as before. She gasped. “I . . . I still feel them. I . . . Oh, that feels so strange. It’s like my arms are still outstretched and my fingers are touching the current.”
“Precisely,” Rigby explained. “It’s like a person who’s lost an arm or leg in an accident, and yet for months or years he still feels the limb there. The physical flesh is gone, but the mental concept, including all the sensations of experience, are still stored in the mind. It’s called phantom limb syndrome, and that’s the power of your brain in the waking world. Here in the Dream, more of your brain is at work than ever before. You have a reservoir of power now, power you’re not used to using.”
“How do I ta
p into it, the power?”
Rigby laughed. “Here we go, Kara,” he said. “You are going to love this. Start with your five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. You need to activate at least three of them to get something done. More if you can. And they are ready and waiting, Kara. Waiting with ridiculous power. I’m going to release my hold on the currents. You batten them down. See, feel, and ’ear the change, and it will be.”
Kara ducked suddenly as a sword swept over her head. The clown again. There were more dangers coming, but Kara didn’t panic. She closed her eyes, envisioned the images beginning to dissolve, to fade, and then . . . calm. When she opened her eyes again, the clown was gone. There was barely a shadow of anything recognizable.
“No way!” Rigby exclaimed. He’d stood up from his throne and turned in circles. “You just flattened them, Kara. ’Ow did—? Wait, you didn’t just dampen the currents here.” He ran to the balcony window. “You’ve calmed this whole area.”
“Is that wrong?”
“No, no,” he said. “No way. That’s power, Kara. You are seriously strong. The only ones I’ve ever seen with that kind of power are the Dreamtreaders.”
“Who?” Kara asked. She looked down and to the side so that Rigby couldn’t see her eyes.
“Subject for another time, love. All I’m saying is you ’ave serious dream muscle, okay? I wonder . . .”
“What?”
“Nothing really,” Rigby said, glancing again to the window. “I was just thinking your little display might attract attention.”
“Whose attention?” Kara asked. “Or wait, is this another one of those ‘you’ll tell me later’ things?”
He winked. “Yep.”
“So what now, then?”
“Now, it’s time to meet the club and play a little. But, uh, you might want to change.”
“What? Why?”
“You’re still in your pajamas, Kara,” Rigby replied patiently.
“Well, what can I wear?”
Rigby smiled. “We’re in a Lucid Dream, darlin’. You can wear whatever you can imagine.”
When Kara reappeared from the castle tower, she wore a completely new outfit. Black steel-toed boots, gray cargo pants, a form-fitting black tank top beneath a half-cinched olive-green military jacket.
“Uhm, that’s something,” Rigby said, laughing quietly.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Rigby said with a dismissive wave of the hand.
Kara looked down at herself. “It’s from that zombie show online,” she said sheepishly. “You know, that one where those seven teenagers are the last real humans and they have to fight hordes of undead?”
Rigby nodded. “Yeah, sure. Blood Company.”
“Well, the leader, Crystal Gray, wears stuff like this. It was the first outfit that came to mind. Do I look stupid?”
“Far from it,” he said, averting his eyes. He leaped up and landed on his smartphone-surfboard. “Ready, then?”
Kara jumped on behind him. “I can’t wait to learn how to do this,” she said. “Surfing on dreams. Must be difficult.”
Rigby leaned forward, and they were off, surging over the landscape and accelerating. “It’s not all that hard,” he said humbly. “A lot easier than flying.”
“You can fly here?”
“Of course,” he replied. “But it’s costly. The mental energy required to project yourself through space—manipulating air currents and your own form—it’s ridiculously tiring.”
“That explains a lot,” Kara muttered.
“What’s that, love?” Rigby asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me about the club.”
“Don’t need to.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re here.”
Rigby took the smartphone-surfboard into a swoop, descending rapidly toward a vast windswept field that lay in the protection of mountains and towering black trees.
The field itself was alive with activity. Here and there, explosions lit an expanse of grass. There were figures moving all around, colliding and clashing. Some of the figures looked human in shape. But some were larger. Much larger . . . and monstrous. “What’s going on here?” Kara asked. “It looks like a battle.”
“It is,” Rigby said. “Or at least, training for one.” He guided the smartphone-surfboard to a feather-light landing a hundred yards from the fighting. Then he hopped off, strode forward, and put his pinkie fingers in the corners of his mouth.
Kara was ready for a high, shrill whistle, but the sound Rigby unleashed was more like an air-raid siren. Before the sound could fade, the combatants, the structures, the fires, the monstrous shapes—everything on the field—vanished. Everything except five dark forms speeding toward Rigby.
They came to a screeching halt, and Kara took an involuntary step backward. Five teenagers approached. Rigby turned and held out an arm. “Kara, I’d like you to meet the Lucid Walkers Club.”
Kara’s astonished expression mingled with childlike joy. She recognized one of the newcomers. Ultra-straight black hair, anime-large green eyes, and a short but spritely figure—it had to be. “Bree?” Kara said. “Bree Lassiter?”
“Kara!” she squealed, leaping the twenty-foot gap between them. She embraced Kara, then held her at arm’s length. “Cute outfit!” Bree said.
“Uhm, thanks,” Kara mumbled.
“Oh, you’re, like, always so stylish,” Bree went on. “You look, like, familiar. Wait, I know: Crystal from Blood Company!”
Kara laughed and shook her head. “When did you join this club?”
“Last week after I came to Dresden High,” Rigby answered for her. “You and she are the only two from your school. The rest were with me at GIFT when I was there.”
Glances were exchanged between the four remaining members—a young woman and three young men—sly glances and quiet laughter. Rigby cleared his throat, and the teens shuffled into a makeshift line.
“Let me introduce everyone,” Rigby said. “This fine fellow,” Rigby said, referring to a wiry young man with very wide-set, beady eyes and seemingly no neck, “is Bently Aristotle Cumberland the Third.”
Bently’s hand shot out. He and Kara shook. “Call me Roach,” he said.
“Must I?” Kara asked. “I don’t care much for bugs, especially roaches.”
He scratched at a scraggly patch of dark hair that stuck out like a wing above his ear. “It’s an unfortunate nickname, I know,” he said. “I got it in second grade because I always finished off everyone’s lunches . . . you know, if they were just going to throw them away. The name kind of grew on me.”
“Get the charter, would you, Roach?” Rigby asked.
“You got it.” Roach scurried off in a blur. He was gone from view in an instant.
The next kid had plenty of neck and a very round head covered in red buzz-cut hair. He had sleepy eyes and a lazy smile. His arms and legs were thick and muscular but very short. Kara thought he looked like a turtle. With the plate armor vest and the heavy-duty combat backpack, he really did look like he could disappear inside it. He held out a stubby hand and said, “Reginald Emerson Hyde. But call me Hyde. Hyde with a y.”
“As in Jekyll and Hyde?” Kara asked.
He frowned, and his eyelids lowered drolly. “No, far from it,” he said, a hint of irritation in his voice. “Hyde as in Nobel Laureate Stanton Romano Hyde’s grandson. I take it that you are unaware of my family’s contribution to science.”
“I’m sorry,” Kara said. “But you’re right. I’m sure your family is quite exceptional.”
“Quite,” he said.
The girl standing next to Hyde was a human javelin. She was thin and pointy with the longest ponytail Kara had ever seen. The tremendous blond lock fell almost to her knees.
“And you must be Rapunzel,” Kara said, feeling quite clever.
“Like I haven’t heard that before,” she said, half rolling her eyes. “The name’s Bianca Giovanni P
iper. I have an IQ above 130, I’m a world-class chess player, and an alternate on the track and field team for the Junior Olympic Games. What’ve you got?”
Kara crossed her arms and started to speak, but Rigby cut her off. “What she has is enough mental muscle to flatten the rest of us,” he said. “If given the right training, that is. She smacked down the dream current on her first try.”
Kara felt a little satisfaction seeing the group’s raised eyebrows, and especially noting the bob in Bianca’s throat.
“Last but not least,” Rigby said, “meet the Coopman, the Coopster, the Coop—”
“The name’s Cooper Bertram Rutherford,” said the plump African American kid with clever eyes and fine, spiky curls that looked like short, tight ringlets flying above his head. “But it’s just Coop.” He laughed. Rigby laughed. They all laughed.
When they shook hands, Kara found herself feeling instantly more at ease. Coop was just so friendly—and happy—that she couldn’t help but relax.
NINE
TEST FLIGHT
RIGBY THAMES’S EYES WERE GLUED TO THE SCREEN OF his phone as he got off the bus. That’s why he didn’t see his new friend Kara Windchil until she practically tackled him.
“Oh my gosh, I thought you were totally pulling my leg,” she said, following him like a giddy puppy. “All those stories about your crazy uncle and his crazy research into dreams . . . well, they were just crazy. But you were right. You were so right.”
Rigby picked up his phone and carefully wiped it off. Other students filed around them on either side. He glared at Kara and shook his head. “You could’a broken my phone. Do you ’ave any idea the trouble . . . Bah, never mind.”
Kara didn’t stop smiling. She spun in little circles as if she were in a private waltz as she spoke. Then she drew near to Rigby and whispered, “I’d always hoped Lucid Dreaming could be real.”
Rigby slipped his phone into the special holster on his belt. “I told you my uncle wasn’t a nutter . . . well, not completely anyway.”
“Oh, and the knight,” she said. “Better than Prince Charming, and he bowed to me . . . and took my hand! We danced in the clouds. In the clouds!”