A loud beeping jerked me awake. I sat up in my bed gasping as I grabbed my phone and turned off the alarm. There was a text from Jessica that she was sick and wouldn’t be at school.

  On the bus, I pulled out my dream journal and wrote about the ship, trying to remember every detail and wondering if Keegan’s newfound friendliness was going to extend to school.

  When I walked into psychology class, he was already there, lounging in his usual seat. He looked up at me and smiled. I grinned tentatively at him as I sat in my usual place on the other side of the room from him. He was writing in his dream journal, pausing occasionally to tap his pen on the table.

  When the bell rang for class to start, Ms. Douglas began talking about dreams again, but I didn’t pay much attention to what she was saying. There was too much on my mind that had nothing to do with class.

  Suddenly I noticed that people were moving around the room, and I had no idea what we were supposed to be doing.

  “Hey there, Ria, you okay?” asked Keegan teasingly. He had walked over to my desk and sounded exactly like the Keegan from my dream.

  “Umm, what are we supposed to be doing?” I asked.

  “Dream dictionaries. Time to learn what your subconscious needs you to know.”

  I got up and walked towards the front of the room to get a dream dictionary. Keegan stayed right behind me, and I could feel him towering above me. I grabbed a dictionary and started back towards my seat.

  “Hey, Maria, can I sit with you today?” asked Keegan. “John is gone,” he gestured towards his table.

  “Sure, I guess,” I said.

  He followed me and sprawled into the chair at my table. “Okay, so what did you dream about last?”

  "Pirates," I said. “I was just on this ship and some guy was helping me hide.

  For a second, I thought I saw a look of triumph in his eyes, but then it was gone, and he frowned.

  “Keegan, are you okay?” I asked, leaning towards him.

  “I’m fine.” His voice was curt, and he pulled away from me.

  “Keegan, please talk to me.”

  He shook his head. “I have to go,” he said abruptly. He got up, grabbed his things and walked out of the room. Ms. Douglas watched him go but didn't do anything to stop him.

  I didn’t see Keegan the rest of the day, even though I looked for him at lunch and in the hallways. I finally texted Drew and asked if he’d seen him.

  ‘He went home,’ Drew texted back. ‘Said he had to take care of something.’

  When I got home I called Jessica.

  “Hello.” She sounded horrible.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  “No, I’ve got the flu or something. I don’t think I’ll be back to school for the next few days.”

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. “Stay home and get better. I’ll make sure to get homework and any handouts for you.”

  Jessica was gone the next few days, and so was Keegan. I kept pestering Drew for news, but he shrugged it off, saying it wasn’t the first time Keegan had disappeared for a while.

  “I’m sure he’s fine, Ria,” Drew said. “He’s probably just sick like Jess and lost his phone or something. Or his dad took it away.”

  By Wednesday night, I was exhausted and fell asleep feeling emotionally drained.

  I could feel the sun shining against my eyelids, beating on my skin. A breeze ruffled my long hair. I quickly opened my eyes and jumped up, expecting to find myself on the ship again.

  I was disappointed. I was in a field full of leafy plants that rippled like waves in a field that stretched as far as I could see.

  I slowly turned around and gasped. A line of mountains stretched out in either direction as far as I could see, towering into the sky, forcing my head to tilt back as I looked at them. Their tops were covered with snow that streaked down into the foothills bordering the field where I was standing.

  I heard someone behind me and quickly turned around.

  A boy was walking towards me. He looked about ten or eleven years old, but he was not much shorter than me. He was dirty, and his clothes were little more than rags. He was extremely thin and his face was pale and looked tired. When he saw me, he smiled, and I felt a flash of recognition.

  His smile transformed him. His brown eyes sparkled under the blond bangs that fell onto his face, and he looked like a pixie or some other faerie creature. He looked at my surprised features and laughed. He walked right up to me, grabbed my hand and started pulling me towards a line of trees at the edge of the field.

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  “You’re a Dreamer,” he stated.

  I started. “Someone else called me that,” I replied, “but I don’t know what it means.”

  The boy looked at me curiously. “You don’t know what a Dreamer is?”

  “I don’t. I mean, I know what it means to have dreams, obviously. And I guess if you dream, you could be called a… a dreamer. But then, everyone would be one, and there wouldn’t be a title for it, which is why there isn’t…” I stopped. I knew I sounded ridiculous.

  The boy grinned at me, amused that I was getting flustered. Then he laughed, an impish, chuckling laugh, his eyes dancing.

  I frowned at him, and he chuckled again. “It’s more than just dreaming. It’s going to other places when you dream,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Soren! You get over here right now!” A woman’s harsh voice cut into our conversation.

  I looked up and saw a thin woman in a simple, ragged black dress glaring at me, walking through the field towards us. Her eyes were hard, and her mouth was pressed into a thin line. A few wispy gray hairs had escaped from under the black strip of cloth wound around her head.

  “Good-for-nothing child, always pulling Dreamwalkers here,” she muttered quietly, still glaring at me. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  I was taken aback. “I… I don’t know,” I stammered.

  “Then be off,” she shouted.

  “Cyntia,” Soren said quietly, “you know we have to help her. We can’t leave her here.”

  “Enough. I’m headed to the village, and it’s not safe to take her there.”

  “We can hide her in the cave and take her to Emilia later.”

  The woman looked up at me, her eyes full of anger. “You. Come,” she ordered and marched off toward the line of trees and the dirt pathway behind it. When we reached the dirt lane, the woman turned down it, and I quickly followed behind her.

  Soren smiled and took my hand, following Cyntia. After a while, he began to sing. At first he sang so quietly that I couldn’t make out the words.

  “What are you singing?” I asked. The song had a sad, longing sound to it.

  Soren looked at me very solemnly and sang,

  Deep darkness covers all the land

  Men have lost the joy of life

  Courage melts away like sand

  The world is filled with war and strife.

  Little dove come fly to me

  Soaring through the sparkling sea

  Sing to me of hope and peace

  Your song will make all troubles cease

  Rivers, valleys, mountains, trees

  Watch the world go flashing by

  The wind will blow if he please

  Flames will reach into the sky

  Little dove come fly to me

  Soaring through the sparkling …

  “Soren, quiet!” the woman hissed, breaking through his song. “Quick, get off the path!”

  Without Soren’s singing I could hear the sound of horses’ hooves flying up the pathway towards us. Soren dragged me with him through the trees back into the field, just as a man on a horse came into view. Cyntia was already lying flat on her stomach as Soren pulled me down among the tall plants.

  As soon as we hit the ground, the man jerked on the reins and the horse skidded to a stop. I peeked through the plants and could see a large man dressed all in black robes with a black hood hiding his face, sitting on a large white horse.

  The man looked strange, like his proportions were wrong. He was extremely tall, and extremely thin, as if he had been stretched out. Even his fingers, which peeked from his billowy sleeves to hold the reins, seemed pale, and long, and skinny.

  I looked down at Soren. He was staring through the man with a look of intense concentration in his eyes, his fingers pressed against his temples.

  The man slowly rode up the pathway, head still tilted to the side, listening.

  Beside me, Soren’s teeth were clenched together, and his eyes, still glaring towards the man, now looked pained.

  The man in black continued towards us, finally coming to a stop right where we had been a few moments before. He turned around, his head moving back and forth as he scanned the fields. He moved closer towards us.

  I gasped, my breath catching in my throat. His eyes were completely white. They did not even have irises. His face was pale and long and thin like the rest of him, his pale eyebrows almost invisible against his skin, and his lips a lifeless color. He looked dead. I had never seen such a terrifying face. His milky eyes twitched back and forth over us.

  I felt a strong urge to scream welling up inside of me. Cyntia grasped my arm and shook her head, finger pressed to her lips. I clamped my mouth shut, determined not to make a sound.

  The man’s eyes pointed blankly, right at the spot where we were, for a long time before turning towards the fields on the other side of the path. Finally he turned and raced down the pathway, his black cloak streaming out behind him.

  We waited until he was gone before climbing slowly out of the field.

  “Soren, we must leave her here. More Changelings will come. You can’t hold them all off.”

  Soren shook his head. “I’ll keep blocking her and them. We can’t let them get a hold of another one. Especially not this one.”

  “Excuse me,” I interrupted.

  “No!” Cyntia shouted at Soren, as if I wasn’t there, “You can’t save all of the Dreamwalkers.”

  “I won’t leave her!” Soren insisted.

  Cyntia reached out and shook Soren by the shoulders. “I won’t allow it, Soren. It is too dangerous for you. For everyone.”

  Soren glared defiantly at the woman. “Cyntia, you know what will happen if we leave her here.”

  “And you know what will happen if they find you again.”

  I interrupted before the boy got into more trouble, “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. After all, it’s only a dream.”

  Soren looked up at me with wide eyes. “But it’s not just a dream.” His voice was urgent. “It’s really happening.” He grabbed my hand and shook it. “You must understand. It’s real. It’s really real.”

  I laughed a bit nervously and tried to pull my hand away.

  “Soren!” Cyntia barked, but he didn’t let go. His eyes were intense just shrugged.

  I tugged harder, but he refused to let go.

  “Here, I’ll show you.” He reached down to the ground and picked up a pointed rock. He yanked my hand towards him and raked the rock down my arm, drawing a thin line of blood.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  I jerked awake and reached across my nightstand to shut off the alarm on my phone. I tapped the screen and froze. There was just enough light coming in the window for me to see the long scrape running down my arm.