Nathan called back, “I can hear you! Can you see us?”
“Grab this!” Something that looked like a rope protruded from the hole.
“Mom,” he said, still pulling with both hands. “Can you get it?”
She tucked the flashlight under her arm and wrapped her hands around the thick line. “Got it!”
Amber’s hands pushed through, reeling out the rope. “No, Nathan. You take the vine and tie it to one of the spider trees. I will keep the hole open.”
“The vine?”
“Yes. It’s from a living tree in the Earth Yellow dream world.” Grunting, she pushed an arm against each side of the hole. “Go now. I have it.”
Nathan eased his hands out and took the vine. It vibrated in his grip, wiggling to get free. “Daryl, stay here and help Amber if she needs it. Mom and I are going to look for the tree.”
“Watch out,” Daryl said. “That thing’s bite is probably worse than its bark.”
“You’ll be okay without the flashlight?”
“Get going,” Daryl said, lifting her bag. “I’ll fire up a candle.”
While his mother guided their steps with the beam, Nathan pulled the vine, walking a step or two behind her. Obviously alive and aware, the fibrous line curled around his wrist and jerked back, but not with enough force to slow his progress. “I think the tree’s at about eleven o’clock,” he said. “Just a hair to your left.”
After a few seconds, the beam swept across the familiar silhouette of a bent oak. It appeared to jerk at the passage of light, as if awakened.
“Better slow down,” Nathan said. “You keep out of its reach while I do the tying.” He bent forward and lugged the vine toward the tree. How long was this thing? He had already pulled it at least sixty feet.
Now within reach of the twisted oak, Nathan paused and looked up at its leafless branches. Slowly, they bent toward him, reaching with their knobby-fingered twigs.
Dashing ahead, he ducked under the branches and leaned against the trunk. He passed the vine halfway around, but it stopped. He pulled, but he couldn’t gain another inch. “Amber!” he called. “I need more slack!”
“I have no more, Nathan.” Her distant voice sounded strained. “The vine is tight.”
The branches arched toward him, closer and closer. Following the flashlight’s beam, he looked up into the tree’s skeleton. A nest of looping vines sagged from nearly every limb.
A wooden claw snatched at his shirt but missed. Still holding Amber’s vine, Nathan leaped straight up and grabbed a vine from the spider tree. Now hanging two feet off the ground, he looped one vine into the other, then dropped, pulling the end of Amber’s vine with him. After yanking it tight, he began fashioning a knot. Again the branches drew closer.
“Watch behind you, Nathan!”
Nathan cringed. He couldn’t look. He had to finish the knot. A sharp claw dug into his back, and a knife-edged finger slid around his arm. Ignoring the pain, he jerked the knot tight and jumped, but the claw pulled him back and lifted him off the ground.
“Nathan!” His mother shone the beam on his chest. “Fight!”
He thrashed and kicked, but to no avail. Another set of wooden fingers caught his legs and squeezed them together, immobilizing them. Tiny threads shot out from pores in the wood and arced over his limbs, like webbing over a captured fly.
Nathan’s mother ran to the trunk, clambered up the lower limbs, and banged the flashlight against the branches. “Let go of him!”
“Mom! No! It’s too dangerous. I’ll get out some — ” The claw tightened, squeezing his breath away.
“Daryl!” his mother screamed. “Help!”
“Coming!” A stream of light signaled Daryl’s approach, and her voice grew louder with each word. “I have something that’ll teach that pile of kindling a lesson.”
Holding the candle high, she touched the flame to the lowest branch. The tree shuddered. Its limbs popped and crackled. It jerked the branch away from the fire, but Daryl stalked closer to the trunk, keeping the candle lifted. “Let him go, or you’ll be ashes!”
“Daryl!” Nathan called. “If you set it on fire, we’ll get — ”
“This rotting hunk of driftwood” — she touched the trunk with the flame — “just needs a little persuasion.”
A branch swiped at her, scratching her head. Wincing, she caught the branch and set the flame against a wooden finger. “Eat fire, you Treebeard wannabe!”
Several branches swung wildly, loosening the web. Nathan kicked free and jumped to the ground. As his mother climbed down, he checked the knot: still tight.
“Let’s go!” he shouted.
Daryl let the branch snap back. Nathan grabbed his mother’s hand, and the three ran to the barrier, following the taut vine, now illuminated by the jiggling flashlight beam.
They found Amber still holding the gap open with both arms. “Come through,” she called, grunting. “Bring your candles.”
Daryl piled the flashlight, the violin and bow, and the mirror into her bag but kept the candle in her grasp.
While Amber shifted to one side of the hole and tugged with both hands, Nathan held the other. Although the earlier adrenaline rush had made him forget about his injured palms, now they really ached. He couldn’t keep his grip on the wall for very long.
His mother pushed into the narrow opening, but with the two flaps pressing against her body, she had to wiggle to make any headway. As soon as she popped through, Daryl climbed in feet first. Bracing her back against one side and her feet against the other, she made a bridge of sorts that opened a gap underneath. “I can hold it,” she said, extending the bag to Nathan. “Take this and crawl under me.”
Nathan grabbed the bag, ducked under Daryl’s legs, and crawled through. When he came out on the other side, he reached for the ground but found only air.
“Grab the vine.” His mother hoisted him up by his elbow.
Groping with his fingers, he found the vine and hung on.
Seemingly suspended in midair, Daryl’s bag floated freely at his side.
Daryl reached the candle to Nathan. “I’m coming through!” With a kick and a push, she rolled out and grabbed his leg while hanging on to the candle. “This is so cool! We’re astronauts!”
Amber released the barrier. It snapped closed, the two sides merging until the gap disappeared. The vine, now locked in place, quivered but held firm.
“Where are we?” Nathan asked.
As Amber plucked a lit candle out of the air, its glow illuminated her tired face. “We are somewhere in the midst of Sarah’s Womb, the center of the three Earths. It acts as a barrier for the dream realms as well as the worlds that dwell in what you call reality.” She wrapped her fingers around the vine. “I have joined Blue and Yellow, so we can travel between them whenever we wish.”
Nathan ran a finger along the vine. “I guess no one ever came up with this idea before.”
“I am certain it was impossible before. The exterior of the core was impenetrable, but when the celestial wounds began to appear, so did the cracks that allowed passage from the outside to the inside. Yet I found no way to pass through from the inside to the outside.”
“So how big is this place?”
“Infinite in depth, as far as I can tell, but its breadth is only a stone’s throw.”
Nathan fanned the air. “Why does it have oxygen and no gravity?”
“I am not sure, but I have heard from the stalkers that Sarah’s Womb has everything necessary for sustaining life. As to our weightlessness, I was surprised, too. This is a new experience for me.”
“Gravity might exist,” Daryl said, “but who can say what’s physical or metaphysical in a dream world? What has mass and what doesn’t? Everything could be so perfectly balanced, no force overpowers any other force.”
“Come.” Amber pulled herself along the vine, drawing her body away from the barrier. “We must search for your father.”
Nathan followed, Dary
l’s candle in one hand and the bag hanging by a strap over his shoulder. His mother and Daryl trailed close behind. With no sound but their breathing, the dark chamber felt empty, as vast as space itself. The two candles cast oddly different glows. Amber’s shone bright and undisturbed, while Nathan’s flickered as he pulled his body through the black air.
In less than a minute, Amber stopped and pressed her hand against a new boundary. “This is the wall separating us from the Earth Yellow dream world. Since the vine keeps the hole partially open, we can escape.”
Nathan gave her a nod of approval. Using the only permanent object in the dream world to keep the barrier open was brilliant. He pushed two fingers between the vine and wall, then, hanging on to the vine, he pulled to the side as hard as he could. Without anything to press his feet against, the job seemed impossible, but as he clenched tightly to the vine, the gap slowly widened. The coarse wood scratched his wounded hand unmercifully, but it couldn’t be helped. He had to get the hole open.
When it stretched far enough, Daryl and Amber pitched in. Soon, Daryl was once again making a bridge within the hole. Nathan’s mother and Amber went through first. Then Daryl gave him a nod. “Last call, Captain. You’re not going down with this ship.”
“Just a second.” Nathan looked at his hand, bleeding once again. Wiping it on his shirt would have to do, unless . . . He looked at the barrier wall. Why not? It would be germ-free, wouldn’t it? He reached to the side of the hole and smeared blood on the black wall, but instead of making an indistinct smudge, he drew a small heart.
Pulling back, he looked at the heart. What did it mean? Love was the reason his hands bled — love for his parents, love for Scarlet, and love for . . . Yes. Definitely. Love for Kelly.
Giving Daryl a wink, he crawled under her legs. “Captain to the bridge. Give me another inch of clearance if you can.”
Daryl grunted. “I’ll try. Good thing you’re the skinnier version of Captain Kirk, or you’d never make it.”
Once through the barrier, they found themselves in a dimly lit bedroom. The vine, still as rigid as a tightrope, ran out a partially open window. A cool breeze wafted in, fresh and moist. Outside, the vine was attached to a spider tree standing a few feet from the exterior wall. One of its outstretched branches bent with the breeze, and a leafless twig tapped against the pane.
At the opposite side of the room, a child, curled in the fetal position, slept in a bed against a wall near the exit door. Sitting on the mattress next to him, a woman played a violin, gently coaxing the beginning notes of “Brahms’ Lullaby.” With her back turned, her face wasn’t visible, but long black tresses draping her flannel pajamas and her brilliant music gave her away.
Nathan tugged his mother’s sleeve. “Look,” he whispered. “It’s you.”
She pointed at the sleeping child. “And that must be you in bed.”
He set the bag down and surveyed the scene. No one in this realm would be dreaming this. Nathan Yellow wasn’t that old, so neither Francesca Yellow nor Solomon Yellow would know about Francesca Red’s habit of playing that tune as a bedtime lullaby.
Nathan pulled his three companions together and whispered, “This has to be my father’s dream.”
“Then where is he?” Daryl asked.
“Let’s find out.” Nathan’s mother pulled the violin and bow from the bag and played along, embellishing the piece with a few intermixed scales.
Letting out a gasp, the other Francesca stopped abruptly, stood, and spun toward them. With her eyes wide, she simply stared, letting her violin dangle limply.
Nathan’s mouth went dry. She looked exactly like his mother, only ten years younger.
“Do not be frightened,” Amber said, gliding closer. “I am — ” She halted and gazed into the dream-world Francesca’s eyes. After a few seconds, she turned to Nathan. “The dreamer is not using this woman as his viewpoint person. Her eyes do not carry the vision of a living spirit.”
“What are you talking about?” The dream-world Francesca asked, pointing her bow at no one in particular. “Of course I have a living spirit.”
Nathan gazed at this younger version of his mother. She did look kind of vacant. “If my father is the dreamer, how is he seeing this bedroom?” he asked.
“He must have created this scene in his mind and then departed,” Amber said, “but since he is manipulating this figment’s actions, he must hear us. I suspect, however, that he doesn’t see us, or this Francesca would have noticed that her virtual twin stands before her.” She touched the dream-world Francesca’s elbow. “Would you please call your husband?”
“I will, indeed.” Francesca marched to the bedroom door, pushing past the vine as if it were a normal fixture in every child’s bedroom. “Solomon!” she called. “We have company.
Their voices are familiar, but I don’t recognize them.”
Nathan shuddered. This was all just too creepy for words. And now who was going to walk through that door. His father? A dream representation of him?
While they waited, Amber pointed at the bag still hanging from Nathan’s shoulder. “Francesca. Daryl. Please light a candle. We must be sure to stay in touch with reality.”
Daryl reached into the bag and pulled out two candles. She touched the wicks to Amber’s, then passed one of the candles to Nathan’s mother.
A man appeared at the door, tall, broad shouldered, and dressed in dark blue sweats. Nathan took a step back. His mother gasped, trembling as she whispered, “Solomon?”
At first, Solomon squinted, closing one eye more than the other. Then, as a flicker of light danced in his eyes, the dream-world Francesca faded to a wisp along with the bed and the sleeping child. His lips quivered, and his voice shook. “Francesca?” He swallowed hard. “Is that you, my darling?”
She stared at him through her candle’s light, trembling so hard, the flame shook wildly. “Amber?” she called pitifully. “Is he real or a dream?”
Amber gazed at him through her own flame. “He has not faded yet in my sight, but a powerful mind creates stronger images in this world. At the very least, he is the dreamer’s vision of himself, so in one sense, he is real. Solomon, your husband, speaks through this man.”
“Of course I’m real,” Solomon said, marching straight to Francesca. He set his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t you recognize me?”
“I . . . I mean, you look like . . .” Her legs buckled, but he propped her up. “You were wearing Solomon Blue’s khakis and a . . . and a polo shirt and trench coat.”
Solomon looked down at his clothes. “After all I’ve been through, I had to change clothes. I found these in a drawer, and they fit.”
“But this is a dream world,” Nathan said, keeping Solomon within the light of his candle. “Any clothes you find here aren’t real.”
“They’re real enough. They fit, and they cover me.” He pulled Nathan into a three-person hug. “Son! It’s so good to see you again. Why are you both acting — ” His eyebrows shot up, and he pulled back. “Oh! Did Mictar tell you I was dead?”
Nathan cleared his throat. “Not dead . . . uh . . . Dad. We’re just not sure if you’re real or an image in your own dream.”
Solomon locked wrists with Nathan. “Does that feel like an image? Can a dream embrace you like I just did?”
“Well,” Nathan said. “Yeah, I think it can — in the dream world, that is.” He raised the candle again, but his father showed no signs of fading.
Daryl pushed the two apart. “Look. It’s time to use a little logic. Someone’s dreaming up this place.” She pointed at Solomon. “If it’s not you, then who is it?”
He looked at her and blinked rapidly. “I’m not dreaming. I know I’m in a dream world. I figured that out when I fought Mictar, but I’m fully awake.”
Nathan’s mother held up her candle. “He’s starting to fade.”
“Indeed,” Amber said. “He is losing hold of his dream.”
Trembling, Nathan trained his gaze on his fa
ther, looking at him directly through the flame. Every detail stayed clear — his noble brow, his firm chin, his sparkling eyes. “Are you sure? I don’t see any fading.”
Daryl held up her candle. “He’s a ghost, Nathan. Better get a grip. We all see it.”
Solomon pulled Nathan close. “Do you remember what I told you about having a minority opinion?”
“Yeah.” Nathan let his head rest on his father’s shoulder. His embrace felt good. “Strength doesn’t lie in numbers. Strength lies in standing up for the truth, even if you’re alone in your opinion.”
“Nathan,” his mother called. “Come back to us! You’re fading, too!”
Dizzy now, Nathan looked at her. Her outline blurred, and her voice sounded distant. “No, Mom. You’re the one who’s fading. You’d better look through your candle.”
“Time for drastic action,” Daryl said. She reared back and slapped Nathan’s father in the face. “Wake up, Mr. Shepherd!” she shouted. “You’re dreaming, and your family needs you!”
Solomon jerked away. Staggering, he braced his hand against a wall. The bedroom darkened. The wall disappeared. He fell to the floor, touching his wounded cheek. “I thought I had found you,” he murmured. “I really thought I had found you.”
Nathan knelt at his father’s side and scowled at Daryl. “Why did you hit him? He was just — ”
“Can it, Nathan.” Still looking like a ghost, Daryl opened the window a notch wider and let in the cool breeze. She joined them on the floor and patted Solomon’s other cheek. “Mr. Shepherd, wake up. You’re almost there.”
The room darkened further. Three candles burned steadily while Nathan’s flickered in the breeze. He pushed a hand under his father’s shoulder. “Dad, get up. We have to find Kelly and save the worlds.”
As he lifted, the weight evaporated. His father’s body crumbled and vanished.
Gasping for breath, Nathan leaped to his feet and backed away from Daryl. “What happened to him?”
She snatched the candle from him. “I’m so stupid! I lit this one while in the dream world.” She blew it out and touched her flame to the wick. After sparking for a second, the new flame grew high and bright. “Now take this,” she said, sliding the candle into Nathan’s hand. “Look at it until you can see us better.”