Therese opened her eyes and found herself standing on a cool, muddy bank. Fog curled around her, and through it she could see water in front of her, and it flowed in a narrow gorge between two ominous granite mountains. “Mom! Dad!” Her screams were stifled by the thick fog. “Mom! Dad!” She looked around the empty bank. Her bare feet sunk into the itchy mud. Where were her shoes? Her white gloves were back on her hands, her gown perfectly dry, and her hair back up in its fat clip. Tall blades of grass as high as her knees grew in tufts along the shore. Mosquitoes swarmed over one area of the water. Three large boulders leaned in a cluster on the left side of the shore against the base of a steep, massive wall of rock. How did she get here?
She waded into the icy lake. The cold water crept up her thighs. She couldn’t see Huck Finn Bridge. Nothing looked familiar, but she had to find her parents. Isn’t this where they went under in the car? She dove into the freezing water.
Long, snakelike tendrils of hydrilla weeds grabbed and scratched at her ankles. She flinched, kicking her legs all about.
“She’s moving,” a familiar voice above her said.
“Therese?”
She resurfaced. “Who said that?” Her voice was only a whisper, though she tried to speak loudly. It was hard for her to move her mouth. “Who, who said that?”
When no answer came, she dove back into the icy lake. “Mom! Dad!” Why was she looking for them? Her memory went fuzzy. “Mom? Dad?” She could talk underwater as though she were talking through air. She could breathe without water entering her mouth. How strange, she thought to herself. She felt as though she had turned into some kind of mer-creature. The lake transformed into a beautiful world of colorful coral, tropical fish, and sunken treasure chests.
She swam back to the muddy shore. “I must be dreaming.” She walked over to the three boulders and sat on one of them. “Or I’m dead.” She pulled off the wet gloves and tossed them on the ground.
Therese jumped into the air and swam a breaststroke through the fog, like she always did to test if she was dreaming. She went up above the curling, iridescent moisture where she could see the twinkling stars. Therese turned somersaults, forward and backward, dolphin-kicked a loop-de-loop, and then floated on her back. “Yep. I’m either dreaming or I’m dead.”
She made the fog disappear so she could see all around her. She reached up and touched a sparkling star, turned it into a diamond ring, and put it on her finger. Then she plucked her flute out of the air and played a Handel sonata. The flute felt comfortable in her hands, the cool, shiny metal beneath her fingers. The tones flowed smoothly as she blew, moving from one fingering to the next with perfect fluidity.
“I’ve never seen anyone like you,” a voice came beside her.
Therese stopped playing. She hadn’t willed him, as she had willed other guys to appear in dreams past, but she was glad he was there floating in the night sky alongside her. His thick golden hair covered his ears and fell on his forehead almost into his eyes. His eyes were blue, his skin fair, and his lips moist and peach. They parted into a smile.
“Are you checking me out?” he asked.
Therese blushed. “This is my dream, isn’t it? Or am I dead?”
“You’re not dead.”
“So I’m dreaming, then. I can do whatever I want.” She tossed the flute and willed her parents to appear, and they did.
“Mom! Dad!” She flew across the sky and into their arms. They were still in their formal wear. Her mother’s neck, face, and scarf were perfectly clean, and she smelled like Haiku, her favorite fragrance. Her father smelled like musk, like the deodorant he always wore. Unlike Therese, her parents wore their shoes. Therese decided she should have her new shoes back, so she willed them to appear on her feet.
“Fascinating,” the boy said. He wore a white, opened shirt, and his tight abs gleamed in the moonlight. White loose pants covered his legs, and he wore brown sandals on his feet.
Therese willed his shirt off, and the shirt disappeared.
The boy laughed. “You have so much control. Very few people are lucid dreamers, and I’ve never known anyone like you.”
Therese turned to her parents. “I thought you were dead.”
“Silly girl. Of course not,” her mother scolded. “Give me a kiss.”
She kissed her mother’s cheek. It felt warm and soft and fully alive.
“Who’s your friend?” her father asked.
Now that Therese had been comforted by her parents, she could let them go for a while. “I’ll be home later. ‘Kay?”
“Not too late,” her father said.
Therese willed him to take it back.
“Whenever you get home is fine,” he said.
Her parents vanished, causing a vague sense of panic to quell her excitement over the boy, but she pushed the panic down, reminding herself this was just a dream. She turned to the sexy guy, still shirtless, beside her. “So what’s your name?”
“I have many. Most people call me Hip, short for Hypnos.”
Okay, that’s strange. Whatever. “Hip. I’m Therese.”
“Are we going to make out now, or what?” He took her in his arms. “Your beauty, as well as your power, draws me. Is this a projection, or your real image?”
Therese had willed many sexy guys to appear in her dreams and have romances with her, but even there, she had kissed and made out with them on her own terms, and in the awake, real world, kissing was still a faraway anticipation. The eager look in the boy’s face made her wary.
She pushed him back. “Why are you in such a hurry?” She looked over her body. She decided to make her boobs bigger. She smiled down at the soft, round flesh protruding from the top of her blue formal gown. Nice cleavage, she thought. “How’s that?”
He threw his head back and guffawed. Then he shook his head, regaining his composure, and said, “I liked them better before.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” She blushed and deflated herself. “It’s my dream, not yours, but okay.”
“No kidding. And I like your dimples. You’ve got a cute round face and full lips. I wouldn’t mind kissing them.”
Another voice sounded above her. “Therese?”
“Who is that? Who keeps calling me?”
A vague inkling of a car in a lake threatened to impose itself into memory, but Therese turned back to the boy and took in his beauty, forgetting all else.
Hip said, “They’re trying to wake you up. But I’m not ready for you to go yet. You’re such a nice diversion from what can sometimes be my dreary existence.”
“How old are you?” She turned and floated on her back and looked down her body at him where he hovered near her shoes.
“Ancient.”
“You look eighteen. I’m fifteen. I’ll be a sophomore this year.”
Down below, she noticed a raft floating across what she now saw was a river. There were four people on it, but she couldn’t make out who they were. She swam the breaststroke through the air toward the water to get a better view. Her teeth felt loose. They started to crumble. She willed her teeth back into her mouth and licked them to be sure they were set correctly. Satisfied, she smiled.
Hip was fast behind her. “You’re so incredible. People usually wake up when their teeth fall out.”
She saw an old man standing on the raft dragging a long paddle through the water. Alongside him stood two familiar people and one other she didn’t know. “It’s my mom and dad. Hey, wait up.” She flew above them, but they didn’t seem to notice her.
The old man and the other passenger, whom she could now see was another guy, as cute as Hip, looked up at her. He looked sad and serious, like the silent moody type. His eyes were blue, and his hair was nearly black. He’s so awesomely beautiful, she thought. He wore loose white pants and an opened white shirt like Hip had worn earlier, and, as with Hip, she willed the shirt to disappear. The boy looked startled, but her parents didn’t react. They stood expressionless on the raft.
Hip laughed at the other boy’s bewilderment. “That’s my brother, Thanatos. Everyone calls him Than. I’m pretty sure that’s a first for him.”
“He looks a lot like you.”
“We’re twins, but not identical. I got the sense of humor, the easygoing disposition, and the charm with all the ladies. He got, well, not a whole lot, actually. I suppose he’s trustworthy. My father says dependable and responsible, but those are pretty boring qualities, if you ask me. I sometimes feel sorry for him.”
“What’s he doing with my parents?”
“He’s taking them to the Underworld, where all the dead go.”
“My parents aren’t dead.” Again, the vague inkling threatened to return to memory, but Therese shook her head. She willed herself back home in her own cozy bed with her dog, Clifford, curled beside her. Hip was not with her.
“Time to wake up,” she said to Clifford.
The brown and white fox terrier licked her cheek.
Therese tossed back her comforter and climbed out of the bed, the warm, wooden floor familiar beneath her feet. She dropped some hamster food into Puffy’s hamster cage and turned on the lamp over her Russian tortoise’s tank.
“Good morning, Jewels,” Therese said.
The tortoise winked at her.
Therese headed downstairs. Clifford bounded behind her, as usual. Her parents were in the kitchen sitting at the granite bar drinking coffee and reading the paper, as on any Saturday morning.
They were still in their pajamas, but she was in her blue formal gown.
She replaced the gown with a nightshirt. Poof: There, better.
“Good morning,” she said to her parents.
She went through the screened front porch and out into what she was expecting to be the sunny morning on their wooden deck in the mountains but was instead the night sky over the foggy river. Hip greeted her.
“Nice outfit.”
“So this really is just a dream,” she said. “None of it’s real.”
“What makes a dream any less real?” he challenged.
“Hip, let her go!” the boy from below on the raft warned. “They need to revive her or she’s going to die!”
“Therese?” a voice came from somewhere above.
Than flew up and pulled Therese away from Hip. “Let her go, brother. You’re endangering her life.”
Therese felt weak and she tried to wriggle free but nearly fell from the air.
Than held her up. “You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered, close to her ear. He sent a shiver down her spine, but his breath was sweet.
She didn’t like the direction this dream was going. In the dreams in which she was about to die, she usually bolted into the air and changed the events into something happy. Although she couldn’t find the strength to jump up and twirl around, she did manage to throw her arms around the good-looking boy holding onto her. She could make the dream into a new romance. “My dream,” she managed to say as she clung to him. She put her lips against his lips. “You’re…so…lovely.”
“Whoa, brother,” Hip said. “Today’s full of all kinds of firsts for you, man.”
Than seemed shocked. He looked at her like she was an alien. “You can’t do this,” he said, but he didn’t push her away. His eyes closed, he sighed, and, almost reluctantly, it seemed, he put his strong arms around Therese, who felt weaker. She could feel his mouth near her forehead. A sound came from his throat, something like a groan.
She liked being in his arms. “You’re…so…lovely,” she murmured, growing weaker and weaker.
“Take her back.” Than seemed to be fighting an inner battle. “I’m to take her parents, but not her. It’s not her time.”
Therese willed herself up. “My parents? Where are you taking them?”
Than looked into her questioning eyes. He looked as though he wanted to kiss her. She wanted to kiss him, too. His face moved closer. She nearly lost her breath. But her parents! She flew from his arms and down to the raft.
“Charon, don’t board her!” Than growled, fast on her heels. “She’s not to go across.”
“Mom! Dad!”
Her parents didn’t seem to hear her.
“This is my dream, dammit. Look at me!”
Her parents turned toward her. “Therese?”
Than gave Therese a look of astonishment. “How did you do that?”
Therese flew down to her parents.
Strong arms went around her and pulled her away from the raft. The brothers were on either side of her. She was fighting a futile battle. The brothers were much too strong for her to break free from them.
Than smiled. “You’re right. She’s a powerful soul. I’ve never known someone to follow loved ones down this far.”
“You’re forgetting Orpheus and Hercules,” Hip pointed out.
“But they were demigods.” Than’s hands tightened their grip on Therese. Hip started to say something, but Than interrupted, “And Odysseus was sent down, so he doesn’t count, either.” Hip opened his mouth, but as before, Than was too quick with his retort, “And Aeneas had a guide and a golden bough, unlike this girl who came all on her own with no bribes.”
Hip finally got his say, “I told you this girl was powerful. You’re making my case, brother.” He pulled Therese closer to him. “I want to keep her.”
Therese wondered if they could possibly be talking about her. Powerful? She was anything but, as her inability to break free from them proved.
Than frowned. “If you try, she’ll die, and then what fascinates you about her will be lost.”
“Therese?” the voice from above called.
“Let her go!” Than implored.
Hip moved his lips to Therese’s ear. “Seek me out in your dreams. I want to find you again. Look for me. Call for me.”