The Dreamer's Curse

Summer Cleaning

[Chapter 26]

Matt slumped into his bed, grime on his skin and the book in his hands. Why Fiddle or Samuel was so eager to get his hands on it was questionable—they couldn’t make heads or tails out of it.

The hotel room he had checked into for the night was bare but clean. The wallpaper was worn, but the sheets were crisp. There was not a speck of dust on the carpet. Well, not before Matt had brought himself in, at least. He flipped the book open on his lap and stared at the dark ink that seemed to splatter itself on the page. The lines were foreign. To any onlooker, the strokes would seem random.

He knew what the book contained. He could speak its language. He knew its tongue. Though Fiddle owned the damned book, Matt alone could decipher it. He alone of this realm could flip through its pages.

And the contents weren’t pretty.

The book Matt had in his possession was a chronicling of the In Between Place and the interesting things that had happened there. He happened to know, and from a reliable source, that the book was a Dream Angel’s diary. It was, if truth need be told, his own mother’s diary. (Although he never considered his mother a Dream Angel…She was more of a Dream…Half-Angel…)

Dear Mummy’s diary held a very prized secret: the In Between Place’s history. It began with the sudden collision of the different realms—a kind of collision that merged a realm at peace with a realm at war. It began with a Dreamer. It ended with the indefinite separation of all realms. There was one war, one long and bloody battle, one promise, one bloody mistake, and too many lives lost in the process.

Just as history so often does, the collision was proving to repeat itself. The battle was coming. The realms were merging.

The only difference was Jane March. Her little Curse could stop things from happening. She could put an end to all this Dreamer business for good. If Jane March, however, made the same bloody mistake from the past, they would all die.

Matt rubbed his eyes fiercely. The diary’s presence in this realm had a funny effect on the whole collision—the young man felt it deep in his gut. Its presence seemed to speed things up.

He had to get rid of it. 

Never mind that no one could make anything out of its bloody letters.

He had to get rid of it.

There was too much at stake. 

XXX

The summer began with Danny in my arms and a side-apparition to Norfolk. Thanks to a kind house elf named Orwik, our trunks and our owls arrived at Chrysocolla Cottage moments before we stepped foot in the gate.

There was an eerie quiet to the house, almost as if it knew what Alice and I had both resolved to do. The plan was quite simple, really—break the Curse. 

Books and blueprints and plans soon littered one of the spare rooms we’d made into a makeshift study. I lay eagle spread on the floor amidst notes and papers, thinking about how to go about it. I went through the list of things to do in my mind. 

Find the horn.

Destroy the door.

Break the Curse.

I seem to be missing something…

Oh, right…

Stay alive.

But how?

I heard the door close softly behind me. 

“You’re working too hard,” said Draco in his signature droll. I looked up.