“Are you ready to begin, Jessa?” His voice is friendly, polite.
I glance up at a whiteboard on the wall behind him, but there’s no assignment to be seen. I look around for my backpack, and it’s nowhere to be found.
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing,” I finally say.
“Feeling lost without a notebook?” he asks sympathetically.
“Yeah.”
“There you go,” he says. “Feel free to take notes if you’re more comfortable that way.”
I glance down at the desk in front of me and flip open the Moleskine journal, sliding my pen from between the pages.
“Thanks, Mr.—” I look at him questioningly.
“Mario.” He smiles at me warmly. “Just call me Mario.”
“Thanks, Mario.”
“Don’t mention it.” He shifts back, pulling both legs off the floor, and sits squarely in the middle of his desk. He folds his arms over his chest and stares at me for a moment.
“So … Finn tells me you’re giving him a hard time.”
My head snaps up, and I stare back at him warily. “You know Finn?”
“He and I just met,” he tells me. “But you can’t really say the same, can you?”
“I—I don’t really know him,” I stammer.
“But you’ve been dreaming about him for quite a while,” he tells me. “Years.” He pushes himself off the desk. “Though you’ve only just made the connection in the last few months.”
I’m having a hard time getting words out of my suddenly dry throat. “How do you know that?”
“Because I know what you dream about. You’re dreaming right now.”
I look around me slowly. “I’m dreaming?”
He nods. “You’re dreaming.”
“Oh…” I close my notebook slowly. “This is … weird.”
“I’m going to explain everything, I promise.” He smiles at me again. “You might want to open the notebook back up,” he suggests. “This is going to take a while to explain.”
“Uh … sure,” I say, flipping the cover back and grabbing my pen. It doesn’t bother me that I’m dreaming. Part of my mind registers that this is going to make a really cool story. Might as well go with the flow.
“I’m here to speak with you because it’s time for you to learn what you are,” he tells me.
“And what is that?”
“You’re a Traveler,” he says, then gestures to himself. “And I am your Dreamer.”
“What’s a Dreamer?”
Mario goes to the front of the classroom, and the whiteboard behind him suddenly shimmers to life with a picture of a giant urn, the kind you’d see in a museum, with Greek figures drawn on it.
“Dreamers are—for lack of a more current term—Fates,” Mario says.
“Fates? As in Greek mythology Fates?”
“I’m referencing that because you know it and it’s close enough,” Mario says. “We don’t really decide anybody’s fate outright. We’re just in charge of keeping track of all the possibilities. Finn realized he was getting nowhere with you today, so he brought me in to talk to you.”
“Wait,” I say, touching my pen to my lips. “Is this going to be some kind of Christmas Carol–type thing? Like, Finn is the Ghost of Christmas Past or something? Is he visiting me to tell me how to fix my life?”
Mario laughs out loud, rich and full and genuine. “Oh, Jessa,” he says. “You’ve always had the best imagination. But in a way, you’re not far off. Finn is here to teach you, but also to keep an eye on you.”
“Teach me what, exactly?” I close my notebook again.
He moves over to the desk in front of me, turning around in the seat and leaning a forearm on my desk.
“He’s going to help me teach you how to travel between realities.”
Before I can form a question, he lifts a hand to shush me. “I know that sounds far-fetched,” he continues, “but bear with me. You’re dreaming anyway, right? You might as well hear me out.”
He’s got a point. Might as well hear him out.
“Dreams are just another reality, and there are many, many realities,” he explains. “Everyone can visit them in a dream state, though most people don’t have the power to change anything. You and Finn can travel while you’re awake, too. That’s what makes you Travelers.”
“Everyone goes to other realities in their dreams?”
“Sure they do.” Mario shrugs. “The dreams show the other realities. Some realities are wildly different. Some are very close to what you know but just a little off.” He leans in, warming to his subject. “Have you ever tried to describe a dream to someone? You say things like, ‘I was in a house and it was my house except it looked like it was as big as a football field. And then we went down to the diner in town and that waitress who has the weird hair told me that my cousin murdered Matt Damon.’”
My eyes widen. “In another reality I’m related to someone who murders Matt Damon?”
He lifts a shoulder. “You never know.”
I sit slowly back while I try to wrap my head around all this.