“So Finn and I travel through dreams?” I’m getting confused.
“No, you observe through your dreams. That’s where I come in. There aren’t a lot of Travelers, and each Traveler has a Dreamer. We keep an eye on all the realities and their possibilities, and we ask a Traveler to step in when something needs a correction.”
“A correction?”
He moves back to the front of the class again, and the whiteboard behind him shimmers once more. This time, it’s a horizontal line that spans the width of the board.
“There’s a ripple effect when a decision is made that changes reality,” he explains. “Sometimes the ripples are no big deal, and the reality stream remains on course. Sometimes one decision”—he touches his finger to the line and it splits into two lines, now at right angles to each other—“can alter things dramatically, and a new reality shears off and is formed. Dreamers can see that and figure out the potential repercussions.” He touches one of the lines again, and it branches into five more. “We brief you through your dreams and then dispatch you to make the necessary adjustments.”
“And how do we do that? Is there a wormhole or something?’
“It’s a lot simpler than that,” Mario says. “I’ll leave the hands-on training to Finn.”
I set my pen carefully on the desk. “Look … Mario…”
“You’re not sure if you believe me. And you want to wake up, write it all down in your journal, and make sense of it. I know,” he says. “But that won’t work. It won’t make sense. Not until you’re ready to believe.”
“You have to admit, it’s a lot to take in.”
“It is. And you haven’t even heard the rest of it.”
“The rest of it?” How much more could there be? “I think I want to wake up now.”
“We’re not done here,” Mario says. “I’ve invited some guests to join us.” He gestures toward the bright red door in the corner.
“Right this way,” he says.
I get up from the desk and move hesitantly toward him. “Where are we going?”
“Into the dreamscape.”
“We’re going into my dreams? I thought we were already there.”
“The dreamscape is a place where Dreamers can observe all realities, and all the people who shape them. Including you.”
I must be making a face, because he smiles at me to reassure me. “Nothing’s going to hurt you here, Jessa. This is just an observational platform.”
“Right,” I say, trying to sound like this is all perfectly fine. “I’m right behind you.”
He opens the door, and I take a deep breath.
I step through, and I’m in a baseball stadium. Thousands of fans are cheering around us, and Mario is somehow now eighty years old and wearing one of those cabbie caps that old guys like to wear to cover their bald spots. I have no idea how I know it’s still him, but I do.
He takes the cap off and folds it in his hand. “Yankee Stadium,” he says, gesturing with the flopping hat.
“I saw a game here once with my dad,” I say. “It was a long time ago, though.”
“Huh?” He leans in, cupping a hand to his ear.
“I said, I’ve been here before,” I say loudly.
He nods. “It’s too loud here, don’t you think? Come on.”
He walks back toward the red door again—which is visible in the wall behind the last row of seats—and we walk back through.
Instead of the classroom, we’re standing next to a river, on the outskirts of a rain forest. Mario is now a woman, short and brown-skinned, with thick black hair.
“It’s a lot more peaceful here,” she says.
“You can go back and forth like this?” I ask, awestruck. “What are you—a shape-shifter or something?”
“It’s the dreamscape.” She shrugs. “I can look like anyone here. I can take you anywhere you want to go. Or show you anyone in any reality.”
“Won’t people notice us?”
“It’s not real. Think of it like … an interactive movie. It feels real while you’re here, but it’s just a projection.”
I glance around. “I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.”
“You haven’t. Not this you, anyway.” She motions me toward a nearby shack. There are fish hanging on a line, drying in the sun, and the red door stands out from its frame. She opens it and once again motions me through.
“How many realities are we going to visit?” I ask.
“Last one tonight,” she says. “I promise.”
We step through and we’re in the middle of the desert. Scrub brush dots the landscape, and it’s evening.
A fire has been built within a circle of red boulders, and Mario gestures for me to take a seat on one of the boulders. I do a double-take because he now looks like a young Native American boy, and he’s beautiful. His hair is long and silky, and his high cheekbones and flawless skin make him look almost too perfect in the firelight. He catches me staring and smiles as he finds a boulder of his own.
Sitting next to him is a man in his early forties, blond-haired and steely-eyed with an impeccable haircut and dressed in a business suit—which really looks odd, considering we’re sitting on rocks. And next to him …