Dreamseeker by C.S. Friedman Read Free Book Online

said. It was frustrating to have no answers for him. “We’ll find out when he gets here.”
    Devon had wanted to tell his Dad the truth about what happened to us in the other world, so I’d given him the glow lamp. The alien tech with its thought-sensitive light would at least bear witness to the fact that he wasn’t making the whole story up, though what Dr. Tilford would deduce beyond that was anyone’s guess. What if he decided that Devon’s story was just too crazy to believe, tech or no tech? What if he became concerned about his son’s mental stability, and thought that maybe my influence had caused him to start raving about shapechangers and world gates and undead necromancers? If so, he might never let me see Devon again.
    I couldn’t handle that. Devon and Tommy had become vital psychological anchors for me, my only two confidants in a world gone mad. Who else could I confide in, when I feared that my Gift was unhinging my mind? Mom had always served as my rock—and I hungered to tell her the truth about Terra Prime now—but I knew she wasn’t strong enough to handle this stuff. She was having a difficult enough time dealing with one world, without my throwing parallel universes at her.
    I needed Devon.
    He’s coming up here,
I told myself as I paced.
Which means his father gave him the car. So he’s okay with Devon seeing me. That’s a good sign, right?
    I looked at my watch for the hundredth time. The small hand hadn’t moved significantly since my last check.
    I’d dreamed about Rita the night before. I dreamed about her every night, guilt-drenched nightmares from which I woke up sweating and trembling. But this last dream wasn’t a regular nightmare. Nor was it a symbolic dream full of mystical doors and arcane symbols, and a sense that the universe was a puzzle I must solveimmediately or terrible things would happen to me. This one was simply a memory, like a movie playing out in my brain.
    I witnessed our flight from Shadowcrest and our descent to the crystal Gate that controlled passage between the worlds. I relived the moment when the Greys jumped us and all hell broke loose. I felt blood splattering my face as I stabbed a Grey in the neck with a ball point pen, to free my brother. I saw how we ran back to the Gate, grabbing hold of each other as we dove into the unknown darkness between the worlds. Rita had gripped my arm so tightly that her fingernails dug into my flesh; I still had the marks. So what had gone wrong? How did we get separated? Even in my dream I couldn’t identify the moment it happened. One minute she was hanging on to me for dear life, and the next minute I was immersed in the chaos between the worlds. Then Devon, Tommy and I arrived in Mystic Caverns without her. Had she lagged a split-second behind the rest of us, and been trapped in Terra Prime when the Gate collapsed? Or had she entered the archway with us, but lost her grip on me afterward, and gotten lost in that terrible place? Try as I might, I couldn’t remember.
    At least I knew now that she wasn’t dead. That eased the burden of guilt a little. And time dilation could explain why she’d arrived here a week later than the rest of us, though it still didn’t answer the question of why that phenomenon had affected her, and not Devon or Tommy or me. But soon she would be here. Then I would learn what had happened to her.

    Shortly before noon, Dr. Tilford’s Lexus drove up the gravel road leading to the house. The sight of the car stirred such powerful memories that for a moment I flashed back to the night we had abandoned it in the woods—that awful night which began in one universe and ended in another. By the time it pulled into the driveway and stopped, my heart was pounding.
    The motor shut off. Three doors opened.
    Three?
    The first to get out was Devon’s dad. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that he came along,