chapter 5
“Griffin.”
Through a grey swirling mist, Griffin heard Selene’s cultured voice calling his name. He realized he was dreaming.
“Go away!” he called out to the emptiness surrounding him, as his head swiveled around looking for her.
“Griffin, please,” she pleaded.
He clenched his jaw. “You’re the one who controls dreams, Selene. You clear this up.”
“I don’t control dreams, really. I just visit. Let me in, and you’ll clear it up yourself.”
The wisps of cloud and fog drifted away. Rays of sunlight broke through. Suddenly, Griffin was standing in a field of wheat with a brilliant blue sky above him. He felt no heat or cold or breeze and saw no movement and no end to the vast golden landscape. He glanced down and realized he was clothed in casual jeans and a t-shirt—similar to what he’d worn earlier that day.
“Well?” he prodded. “Come on. Show yourself.”
“I’m right here.”
Griffin spun around at the sound of Selene’s voice directly behind him. She stood placidly, adorned in a flowing, pale purple sundress that perfectly highlighted her delicate bone structure.
Selene smiled. “Thanks for the pretty dress.” But her face froze when she caught Griffin’s hostile expression. She sighed. “Won’t you talk to me? We could always talk here… in our dreams.”
Griffin crossed his muscular arms over his chest and scowled, attempting to disguise the fact that his silence was due in part to Selene’s unexpected beauty. “But these aren’t our dreams, are they?” he muttered. “This is you invading my dream.”
“Mmmm…” Her grey eyes never wavered from his handsome face. “I’ve missed our conversations, Griffin. I hadn’t realized how much we used to talk until I couldn’t visit you anymore.”
“You could’ve talked to me.”
Selene tipped her head to the side, taking in his closed-off body language and unwelcoming expression. “Would you have even let me in? I had to yell pretty loudly to get past all your mental barriers tonight.”
Griffin shrugged. “Probably not.”
With a heavy sigh, he dropped his arms to his sides and made his way over to a nearby bench swing. He could’ve sworn that it hadn’t been there only seconds before, and if he had really thought about it, a swing in the middle of a field of wheat was odd. And yet, somehow, its existence seemed completely natural now.
After a brief hesitation, Selene joined him.
“So what do you want to talk about?” Griffin asked.
Selene shivered and then twirled the tassel on the end of the shawl she was suddenly wrapped in.
When’d she get that? Griffin wondered. Huh. I forgot how stuff just appears when I talk to Selene in dreams.
“It’s probably ridiculous to ask, but would it be possible to talk like we used to? Kind of… make this neutral ground?” Selene asked in a quiet voice.
Griffin was reluctant to admit how much that idea appealed to him. Here, where they’d been meeting for so many years, the real world didn’t exist. And he really had missed his conversations with his dream girl. Maybe they could suspend reality just for a while.
He racked his mind for something to talk about. Something safe. “So…” Griffin lightly tapped his fingers on the silvery rock. “Ellie mentioned you’re starting college. Have you decided on a major yet?”
“History,” she responded promptly.
“Yeah? What do you plan to do with that?”
“Learn something?” She grinned.
Griffin leaned over to bump his shoulder into her. “No… really.”
Selene shrugged. “I’m actually a little serious about that. I didn’t get a chance to experience much of the world while my brother was alive. And maybe by studying history I can learn and save myself from some mistakes others have made.”
“So when you’re done, you’ll go back to the Vyusher?” Griffin tried really hard to keep that suspended reality mentality and not let his suspicion creep back in.
Selene twiddled the fringe of her shawl some more. “I don’t know yet. It’s… complicated.”
“Huh. I guess it would be.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” Selene’s lips twisted in a bitter grimace. “I remember that you always enjoyed movies. Seen any good ones lately?”
Griffin noticed the abrupt change in subject and decided to let it slide. “A couple. How about you? Seen any you liked?”
“Well, I’ve been limited on time. But I’ve squeezed in one or two.” She gave him a lopsided grin.
“Okay, here’s one for you… now that I know who and what you are. Who in the Vyusher do you think has the coolest power?”
Selene couldn’t conceal her shock. She hadn’t expected Griffin to want to even say their name, let alone talk about them.
“You’re surprised?” Griffin asked.
Selene’s eyebrows shot up. Normally people couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
“Um… well, we don’t have anything as cool as a dragon,” she said, referring to the unique power Ellie had used to kill Gideon last year. “But we do have someone who controls the earth. He can cause earthquakes and rip giant chasms in the ground. It’s pretty terrifying, actually.”
“Griffin,” Ellie’s voice echoed through the fields as though they were in a hollow room.
Griffin looked around, thinking he’d see his sister standing there.
Selene’s hand on his arm pulled his attention back to her. “She’s calling for you. I guess you should wake up now.”
His mouth fell into a slight frown. He didn’t want to leave this place… or her. “Okay.”
The grey mist started to intrude on their golden field. As the images started to blur and disappear, he heard a soft voice whisper, “Thanks for letting me in, Griffin.”
Jerking awake, he sat up and found himself back in his own room with Ellie calling from the other side of his bedroom door. As the feel of the dream receded and reality came crashing back, so did Griffin’s earlier bitterness. He flopped back on the bed with a huff and flung his arm over his eyes.
“What the hell was I thinking!?”