Alex ignored the guy and scrubbed his hand over his mouth. She couldn’t tell if the gesture was one of guilt or contemplation, or a stall tactic. Xander stepped back from the open doorway, reaching for her, pressing her into his side while closing the door.
“Did you really dream about what happened to Gale?” Alex’s words rushed out, powerful enough to stop the door Xander had been about to shut in his face. Isleen met the man’s gaze. His eyes begged for another chance with her, with Xander. Maybe Xander would never see a way to forgive his dad, and maybe there wasn’t one, but she wouldn’t deny him the future possibility of having a loving father in his life.
A father. Something she’d never had.
“Don’t you talk to her. She doesn’t need your—”
“It was the worst dream of my life.”
Alex’s brows bounced halfway up his forehead, as if startled that Isleen had answered him. But then he picked up the opportunity she’d just tossed him. “A precognitive dream. Science has never been able to confirm their existence. Most claims are hoaxes.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. Get in here. This isn’t something we want to advertise.” Xander stepped back from the door, and she moved fluidly with his body like they were one person, not two. Xander motioned toward the chair across from the couch. “You can come in, but this doesn’t mean we’re square. It means Isleen needs information about what’s happening to her.”
“I’ll help any way I can.” Alex stepped inside Xander’s cabin, his gaze taking in all the surroundings while he moved to the chair Xander still pointed at. “You’ve really fixed this place up. Never thought it could look so quaint and cozy.” Alex was worming his way in via her. And she was going to let him as long he didn’t hurt Xander or her ever again.
“One topic only. The dreams.” Xander’s voice held no room for argument.
She and Xander moved toward the couch. They walked as if they were a long-married couple engrained in each other’s manners and ways. It felt so real and right to be close to him like this. “And there is no question about her dreams.”
They settled on the couch, and she told his father about her dreams of Simon Smith and William Goodspeed. And Xander explained his interviews with the two men. His father asked a few clarifying questions, but never once indicated any disbelief.
The thing no one mentioned was her dream of Gran. Just as well. She wasn’t certain she could speak about it anyway.
“If this is a recurrent pattern, do you realize the implications?” Alex aimed his question at her. Her mind conjured no implications beyond the horror of it all. “Lives that could be saved. Simply from a dream. Do you know how revolutionary that would be? And if I can document—”
“She’s not your guinea pig or your favorite new toy.”
“That’s not my intention.” Alex spoke directly to her. “Gale and I founded the Ohio Institute of Oneirology.”
“Oh—what?” Isleen asked.
“Oneirology. We were pioneers in the field of dream research. We were the first to theorize that dreams were more than just a waste product of the brain. That they could be essential to cognitive functioning, creativity, mental health, and even psychic phenomenon. Did you know Gale was a sleep-talker?”
“Yeah.” Her voice brightened, thinking about Gran. “She was always that way.”
“She was also skilled at mutual dreaming. She could enter another person’s dream—without them even knowing—and observe.”
Isleen felt her eyes grow weirdly wide. “That’s a real thing? Are you serious?” If Gran could enter another person’s dreams… The things she dreamed about with Xander were not things she wanted her grandmother to see.
“Very. Her ability was incredibly fascinating. We were able to document her experience in the dream and compare it with the person who had the dream. It blew people’s minds. Either that or they cried hoax and claimed we weren’t conducting proper scientific studies. The one downfall to Gale’s mutual dreaming was that after every dream, she had a seizure. Have you had a seizure after one of these dreams?”
Alex was asking her, but Xander answered. “She’s never had what I’d call a seizure. When it happened in the hospital, she passed out for a few minutes, then came to and was cold and sleepy. When it happened here, she got the headache, but then it went away, then she got sleepy and cold again. The night Gale…” Xander didn’t need to say it. “She passed out that night.”
Fuzzy, fringe-of-her-mind memories matched up to Xander’s words.
“Seizures come in varying forms. During a precognitive dream, your brain is doing double duty. It’s guiding you through the cycles of sleep and operating as normal, but on a different plane of reality.”