SUMMER OF STARS

Summer of Stars Part 26

Chapter 22

            The dream haunted me. Honestly, I was terrified to go back there. As Ian nagged me during the day to let him put me under, I prayed for protection from the dream each night before going to sleep. I couldn’t stand the thought of experiencing my own death again and, even more than that, I didn’t want to see my parents suffer without me. I’d seen them both when I rose out of that body. Was I supposed to see more or was that the end? And, of course, the mystery of the young man was still left unanswered. Maybe I wouldn’t meet him until some future date. I was almost sixteen in the dream. In this life, I’d only been fifteen for over a month.

            That weekend, I went to stay with Dad at my new home away from home. On Friday night, we ate dinner on trays in front of the television. We watched a show about a woman who had the power of dream. She was able to use the information she received in those dreams to solve crimes in the present. I felt a strange sort of affinity for this crime-solving heroine.

            “I had another dream,” I told Dad after the show ended.

            He stood up and took our plates to the sink. I turned around on the couch and watched him.

            “Dare I ask what happened?” he called over the running water.

            “I experienced my own death.”

            He turned off the water and leaned against the counter. I walked over to the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room.

            “I was shot right in front of Mom. And the guard who shot me seemed to have feelings for me.”

            Dad shook his head and turned back to the dishes.

            That wasn’t the reaction I wanted. I couldn’t handle him reacting the way Mom did. I needed to talk about this with one of them. It seemed so important to us. I grabbed a towel and joined him at the sink. “Say something.”

            “I don’t know what to say.” He handed me a plate to dry. “After what you told me about Zandria, I got to thinking about my conversations with her. When she first introduced herself to me online, she said she felt intuitively drawn to me, like we had something to work out.”

            “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

            “I never gave her ideas much thought. She believes in something she calls soul contracts. She thinks we’re all fulfilling promises we made to each other before we were even born. I put as much stock into that idea as I do miracle sightings of Jesus or Mary.”

            “So, you think she’s crazy?”

            “No, I just thought the idea was wishful thinking. Giving meaning to what is little more than chaos.”

            “It is an interesting theory, though.”

            Dad laughed. “You’ll have to share it with dream detective, Ian.”

            I went to bed that night thinking about soul contracts. The idea fit with everything Ian had told me, though he’d never called it that. I still wasn’t ready to revisit the dream. I felt my heart start to race as I closed my eyes. I asked for protection before I drifted off to sleep.

            On Monday morning, Hannah called to tell me she was back in town. She wanted to know if I was up for a trip to the pool. I agreed with the sad realization that my first trip to the pool would take place during the last two weeks of summer break.