Dreams and Shadows

chapter SEVEN

THE BOY COLBY MAKES HIS CHOICE

Fairies are real?!” Colby shrieked at the top of his lungs. “Cool!” His face lit up at the mere thought. Despite meeting an actual djinn and getting offered the chance to make a wish, Colby hadn’t bothered to ask himself one very important question: If djinn were real, what else was out there? But now that very thought weighed heavily on his mind.

“Real?” Yashar answered coyly. “Well, that depends entirely on how you look at it.”

“What else is real?”

“Many things are real. Trees are real, people are real . . .”

“No, what other cool things are real?”

“Cool is a relative term, Colby. But I assume you are asking about what you might call . . . supernatural?” Colby looked puzzled. He didn’t know that word. “Well, you know fairies are real and you know the djinn are real.”

“Genies.”

“Yes, genies. But angels are also real, wizards . . .”

“Ghosts?”

“That’s where things get a little murky. But yes. In a sense.”

“Dragons?”

“No.”

“Monsters?”

Yashar paused. He nodded slowly, lost in thought, as if remembering something terrible. His gaze was at once both fatherly and frightening. “Colby,” he said. “Monsters are real. Very real. But they’re not just creatures. Monsters are everywhere. They’re people, they’re nightmares. They’re jealous viziers. They are the things that we harbor within ourselves. If you remember one thing, even above remembering me, remember that there is not a monster dreamt that hasn’t walked once within the soul of a man.”

Yashar leaned in closer, poking a single stern finger into Colby’s chest. “One day there may be a monster here. One with the teeth of a shark, the strength of a lion, and the cruelty only a man can bring to bear.”

Relaxing his gaze, he leaned back and smiled. “But do monsters of flesh and blood and bone exist? Monsters with wings and gaping jaws that can swallow children whole; that smell of rotting garbage and belch out sounds so foul they make your very knees shake? Do they exist?” He playfully poked Colby in the ribs, tickling him. “Oh yes, Colby. They exist. They very much exist.”

“Cool! I wanna see ’em. Not just the monsters, but everything. Fairies, angels, wizards. I wanna see ’em all. That’s my wish.”

Yashar laughed. “What?”

“That’s my wish. I wish I could see everything suprana . . . tral . . .”

Yashar became instantly serious. “Supernatural?”

“Supernatural,” Colby proudly belted out. “I wish you would show me everything supernatural.”

“No,” said Yashar. “That’s very dangerous. I forbid it.”

“But that’s my wish. You’ll protect me, right? I wish you’d show me and protect me. That’s my wish.”

“You don’t want anything else?” asked Yashar, pausing a moment so Colby could answer. “A utility belt?” He spoke with a hint of desperation. “A bicycle? A girlfriend?”

“Nope. That’s my wish. And you promised anything I wanted. And genies always keep their promises, right?”

Yashar’s heart broke: he had promised. No matter how badly he knew it would turn out for Colby, he had to see it through. He knew that this wasn’t the worst mistake he’d ever made, but he was beginning to worry that it might come close. Sighing deeply, he shook his head. Well, this is new.

“So that’s it, then? Your wish? You’re sure you don’t want anything else? Anything else?”

“Nope. I want to see everything.”

“Then your wish is my command,” the djinn said sadly.

Colby smiled. Yashar did not. Leaning in, Yashar placed a single hand on Colby’s forehead, pinning back the boy’s eyelids with his thumb and forefinger so he couldn’t blink. Then he spit lightly into each eye.

Colby yelped. “Hey!” he protested, wriggling away.

“Wipe your eyes and see the world anew,” said Yashar.

Colby opened his eyes but saw nothing different. There were no fairies flitting about, no angels perched in the branches of trees, just Yashar looking down gravely upon him.

“Enjoy it now, kid,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll be smiling in the morning. Come on, you’ve got some packing to do.”

UPSTAIRS, IN COLBY’S bedroom, Yashar gazed at the various pennants and posters adorning the wall, clearly placed there by a father wishing his son would grow up liking the same things he did. Nothing on the walls spoke of Colby at all—excepting perhaps that his parents didn’t really know him that well. Colby tiptoed across the creaky wooden floor, trying not to disturb his mother, still asleep on the couch in the living room below. Yashar took a few steps, pacing toward the window. “Shhh,” Colby warned. “Mommy said not to be back until five, and if she wakes up there’s gonna be trouble.”

Yashar looked back over his shoulder at Colby. “Half a bottle of Stoli in her stomach says she doesn’t wake up until seven thirty.”

Colby nodded. “Okay, but if she wakes up, you do the talking.”

Yashar secretly smiled. At least the kid had style. Sure, it probably came from too much television and an overactive imagination—but at least he was interesting. Colby sifted through his things, overstuffing a backpack with trinkets and toys. All manner of books, electronic games, and stuffed animals poked out of the sides in some peculiar form of non-Euclidian geometry, preventing the zipper from moving, let alone properly zipping up.

Yashar shook his head and decided to bring a quick end to this madness. “Leave it.”

“What?” asked Colby, terrified.

“Leave it all.”

Colby looked up at the djinn—his eyes as big as saucers—as if he’d just been commanded to kill a puppy with a blunt knife. “But . . . but these are my toys.”

“You won’t need them. Not where we’re going.”

“We won’t need toys?”

Yashar shook his head. “Not on an adventure, no. And anything you do need, I’ll get you.”

“So I can’t take anything?”

“No,” Yashar said sternly. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath: He’s only eight. “One toy, only one. Which is your favorite?”

“That’s easy,” said Colby. He walked over to his nightstand, taking from it a battered, worn, one-eyed mess of a teddy bear, its fur matted and dirty, but its sewn-on smile intact, peeking out like a ray of distilled childhood through the grime and sweat of eight years of abuse. “Mr. Bearston. He’s my favorite.”

“Well, you can take Mr. Bearston with you. Put him in your backpack and let’s go.”

“I think I’ll carry him for a while.” Colby set down Mr. Bearston, upturned the backpack, shaking it until every last bit of its contents spilled out onto his bed. Then he zipped up the pack, slung it over his shoulder, picked up Mr. Bearston by a single paw, and held out his other hand for Yashar to take. “Ready.”

“Say good-bye to your home, Colby. Next time you see it, you will be a very different person.” Yashar meant that, but it wasn’t true. For he had no way of knowing that Colby would look around one last time, say good-bye to all his toys; take off his gaudy, colorful watch and leave it on the nightstand on the way out; walk quietly down the stairs, kiss his mother on the brow; and tiptoe out the door only to never, ever return. But that’s exactly what would happen. Colby, like Ewan before him, had no idea that this would be the last time he’d ever see home.

And the two walked off into the evening—Colby holding Mr. Bearston in one hand and Yashar’s meaty palm in the other—toward adventure.