Dreamland (Riley Bloom 3)

So, I dove in. Telling him all about me, and my family, how we died in a car accident—including how I stuck around the earth plane long after that so I could continue to visit (or haunt, depending on how you chose to look at it) my big sister, Ever. Going into as much detail as I could, taking great care to keep it entertaining, to keep it from getting too factual, too boring. I had a feeling he was the type to bore easily—that while he may have insisted on hearing the motivation, he had no interest in the day-to-day details. Trips to the dentist, the first time I made my own sandwich—those were the sort of things I kept to myself. And every time he started to fool with his goatee, twirling it between his forefinger and thumb, I knew I’d better speed things up, or lose him completely.

But when it came time to reveal just what kind of message I wanted to send … well, that’s when the whole thing fell apart.

I stuttered.

Spluttered.

The words lodged in my throat until I completely stalled out.

Completely embarrassed by how bad I’d flubbed up—and yet, I would’ve been far more embarrassed to admit that my message wasn’t so much to help Ever, as it was to help myself.

I mean, yeah, I wanted her to know that I loved her and missed her and all that. I also wanted to share some of my worries about the kind of life she’d found herself in—and my real and valid concerns that I might never get to see her again. Though I wasn’t exactly willing to share any of that with Balthazar, so it just became more information I kept to myself.

Still, if I’m going to be 100 percent honest, then I’ll have to admit that the dream jump was mostly for me.

I needed reassurance.

I needed some good and solid advice.

I needed Ever to tell me how to make friends—how to get teenagers to like me.

How to get boys to take notice of me.

The kinds of things I’d never even thought about, much less worried about, before.

But mostly, I needed her to tell me how to be a teen. It was all I ever really wanted—and yet, I had no idea how to proceed.

If the Council was going to force me to take a break from Soul Catching—the only way I knew how to increase my glow, which in turn might make me grow and mature—then I had no choice but to seek advice from the most amazing teenager I knew—Ever, my sister.

And though I wasn’t actually dumb enough to think one visit with her would make me thirteen—I was pretty convinced that if I could just learn how to act it, then someday, hopefully soon, I could be it.

But when my eyes met Balthazar’s, well, I knew I couldn’t share any of that—not when I could barely admit it to myself.

So instead, I encouraged him to fill up his notebook with a random, but carefully chosen assortment of somewhat relevant facts. And when it came time for more, well, I just lifted my shoulders, lowered my eyes, and told him that I had no agenda. Told him my only goal was to check in, see how it flowed, and take it from there.

His pen crashed to his desk. He leaned all the way back in his chair and leveled his eyes right on mine. And even though I didn’t have a lot of interview experience to go on, I was pretty sure Balthazar’s body language signaled a fail.

Which is why I couldn’t have been more surprised when he said, “Perfetto!”

I looked at him. Blinked. Wondered if I’d misunderstood.

“Magnifico!” He clapped his hands together, once, twice, before he rested them against the outward curve of his belly. “This is so pure! So … honest!” He swung his chair forward, gripped the sides of his desk. “We will let the story flow … we will keep it natural, organic. This is truly fantastico! I cannot wait to get started!” His eyebrows jumped as his goatee twitched back and forth.

Then he leaped from his seat, skirted his desk, and yanked hard on my sleeve, pulling me through a side door I’d failed to notice before. Whisking Buttercup and me along a series of halls, before he stopped, pressed a short, stubby finger to his chin, and said, “Here is where we begin.”

I followed him inside, amazed to find the kind of space I’d originally envisioned—a small, dark theater with chairs, a projector, and a screen.

Buttercup settled at my feet as Balthazar claimed the seat right beside me. Crossing his legs, he folded his hands onto his knees, his voice low and serious when he said, “We begin as we always begin—in silence. You will close your eyes. You will go very, very quiet—very, very deep. You will remember your sister. You will make a mental picture of her to fill up your head. Then, when the picture is complete, you will tune in to her energy pattern. Like fingerprints, everyone has one. And, also like fingerprints, each one is unique. Then, while you are busy with that, I will take this energy’s … how do you say …” He looked at me, squinted, but I just lifted my shoulders in reply, I had no idea where he was headed. “I will take this energy’s imprint.” He nodded. “Yes, that’s it. Imprint. The imprint is the most important thing. Without it, we can do nothing. Understand?”

Honestly? I didn’t. I didn’t understand a single thing he’d said. None of it made the least bit of sense. But, the way he looked at me, his eyes wide, head bobbing, I knew I was expected to widen my eyes and bob my head too.

So I did.

And then I closed my eyes and tried to appear as though I was following all the other directions as well. Picturing my sister, zooming in on her image until she filled up my head. Trying to tune in to her energy, her imprint, even though I really had no idea what that meant.

Mostly I just sat there and thought about her. Remembering the way she looked—a lot like me with the blond hair and blue eyes—though unlike me in that her nose was not semi-stubby—her chest was not sadly sunken. Ever was pretty and popular in the way I could only hope to be.

I remembered how she laughed—the sound sort of light, tinkly, and girly. Then I remembered how she laughed a lot less after surviving the accident—and just how hard I had to work to kick-start her laughter again.