Dream of Me

Chapter 2-2

“The Sandman?” she huffed out as she let the moment of panic slip away. Was she really going to base her decision off of what a kid said in her dreams about a children’s tale? Perhaps, the dream was just her subconscious way of dealing with the guilt she felt over leaving. Maybe some small part of her wanted to stay because she didn’t want to leave Darla and Wayne to fend for themselves.

Blowing out a breath that caused her cheeks to puff out like a blowfish, she pushed the covers back and got out of bed. Serenity raised her arms up over her head and stretched the kinks out. For the first time in six days, she had slept through the entire night. She had finally just given into the dream and let it run its course. Though she didn’t feel completely rested, she wouldn’t complain. At least the dark circles under her eyes were gone she noted as she walked past her dresser mirror toward the bathroom.

After showering, dressing, and taming her wild, long locks, she headed down for breakfast only to find a note next to gravy-smothered biscuits. The note read: Had to get to work early to put up the Christmas decorations. Eat your breakfast and have a great day! Love, Aunt Darla.

“Like I have to be told to eat biscuits and gravy,” she muttered under her breath as she began shoveling the gooey goodness into her mouth. As she ate, her mind revisited her conversation with Emma.

As the day wore on, the strange conversation refused to leave her mind. By the time the school bell rang signaling the end of the day, Serenity’s head hurt from all the concentration she had given to the dream. She couldn’t really bring herself to believe in a being such as the Sandman, not to mention the fact that his real name was Dair. What kind of a name was Dair, anyway? It sounded like, ‘I DARE you to go jump off a bridge.’ Maybe now that she had let the dream play out in its entirety, it would go away and she could finally move on. Surely that would be the case.

As she headed to work, she shoved the tiny voice that wanted her to give the whole Sandman some consideration into a mental box. I’m eighteen years old for goodness sake, she told herself. I don’t believe in mythical beings, especially not when I’m told about them by a kid in a dream. But what if that kid is a self-professed genius who spouts out knowledge as if she’s a scholar and uses words that no eight-year-old should comprehend? “No, Sarah Serenity,” she said firmly and this time out loud. She pulled into the parking lot of the vet clinic and took several deep breaths. “There is no Sandman; there is no eight-year-old genius, and the world will not implode on itself if you leave Yellville.” Saying it all out loud made her realize just how ridiculous it sounded. Sufficiently convinced of her sanity, she finally opened her car door and headed in for work. She didn’t allow herself to think about the Dair character at all, okay no more than a few dozen times, and she didn’t come up with bizarre scenarios for why she would need to stay in the small town—well, not more than fifteen, she was sure. And when her cell rang and she answered it knowing it was Glory on the other end, she did not immediately ask, “Do you know anything about the Sandman or an inhuman being named Brudair?” Yep, she had officially jumped off the deep end, head first, while her last shred of dignity peered down at her from the top of the cliff.

His patience was beginning to wear thin as he watched Serenity argue back and forth with herself about the possibility of his existence and the truth behind the things Emma had told her. His need for her to believe in him irritated him.

He had been shocked when the girl had taken over the dream. One of the things Dair was able to do when dealing with a particularly difficult human was to link others to the dream he created. This little trick had its own set of rules, however. The most important of these was that the linked individual had to be connected to the dream somehow. The subject had to somehow be involved in the decision his charge was supposed to make. He had no idea how Emma was involved with Serenity’s fate considering they didn’t even live in the same state, but he had hoped the girl would be able to sway her. Instead, Emma might have done the complete opposite. She’d given birth to the concept of free will within the dream. She blatantly told Serenity that she could ignore the dream if she wanted to. He would have to have a visit with little Emma. As he thought about the talk he would have with the child, he found himself wishing that Serenity had the faith of one as young as Emma. It wasn’t unusual for children to be able to see him. Not just any children, mind you, but those who were predisposed to seeing the world as more than what was visible to the naked eye. Children weren’t hindered by the need to have facts and tangible evidence that something exists; they just believed because their faith was still innocent, unjaded by the world.

As Serenity left her job muttering under her breath, “not real, not real, not real,” Dair decided it was time to take matters into his own hands where her belief was concerned. Tonight he would be paying Serenity’s history teacher a visit.

As always, he followed Serenity home to ensure she arrived there safely. Dair had this need to keep her safe, to ensure that nothing would harm her. He had never felt protective of a human. Then again he had never before been so enamored with one.

As he waited in her room while she went about her evening activities, he felt a blast of heat engulf him. Dair let out a sigh. He had known it would happen eventually. He was breaking the rules now and that would not go unnoticed.

“Brudair,” the deep voice from the messenger angel filled the room. Dair turned from the pictures he had been examining that were stuck to a bulletin board on Serenity’s wall and looked at the formidable male. He supposed he could understand why people often freaked out when they saw angels. They were big, and the radiance that was the Creator enveloped them, going with them wherever they went. They, of course, could tamp down that glory when need be but he imagined for humans it was very difficult to be in the same vicinity when their magnificence was on display.

“Hello, Raphael,” Dair said to his old friend.

“You know why I’m here.”

Dair nodded.

“You are not going to leave, are you?” Raphael asked. He had known Dair a very, very long time, and Dair knew it would be nearly impossible to try to lie to the angel.

“I cannot leave, not yet,” he told him.

Raphael’s eyes narrowed and he tilted his head, studying him. “You care for this human.” It wasn’t a question.

“She’s different, unique, and I’m drawn to her.”

The angel chuckled as he shook his head. In a very human-like manner, he rubbed his forehead. “I never thought it would be you—the brooding loner who has kept to himself for centuries now—enamored with a mortal. You know it will not end well. There is a reason the Creator set up the boundaries between our kinds.”

“I am not an angel, Raphael. Why should the rules be the same for me?” Dair asked, suddenly angry as the thought of the rules squeezed him like steel bands tightening around his chest. “Why should I not be allowed a mate, someone to care for and be cared for by? You were created to worship Him and to deliver His messages, but that was not and is not my purpose. I am simply the dream maker, the Sandman, as the humans like to call me. I have walked this earth since the beginning of time with no real home. I don’t belong in the celestial realm, nor do I belong in the human one.”

“But you feel that you belong with her,” Raphael finished for him.

Dair nodded as the fight was quickly drained from him like a balloon losing air. “I have never felt as though I belong anywhere until Serenity.”

“What if she does not accept you? What will you do then?”

“I will leave her and let her live her life without me.” Even as he said the words he wondered if that were true. Could he leave her? Could he allow her to give her heart, body, and spirit to another?

Raphael was obviously thinking the same thing. “We do not feel as humans do, Dair. Our emotions run much, much deeper and stronger. It is one of the reasons the Creator has forbidden relationships with humans. They are finicky and impulsive, while we are steadfast and determined in our choices. They do not mate for life, or at least the vast majority of them do not. The longer you stay, the more difficult it will be for you to let go. She will never be able to feel the kind of love that you will feel for her; she is not capable of something that pure. If she ever tired of you and decided she did not love you, as they so often do, I do not think you would be able to let her leave you, not even for her own happiness.”

Dair knew the things he said were true, except for one thing. “I don’t believe that she is not capable of loving as I do. She is different, Raphael; her spirit is different.”

“Perhaps, but are you so sure that you are willing to risk destroying her if that is not the case? Because your need of her―, your need to protect, to love, to possess, and to touch―will only smother her if what she wants is to be free of you.”

Dair didn’t want to hear anymore. He didn’t want to think about Serenity rejecting him, though he didn’t know when he had decided to try and win her heart. But he had. He wanted a chance to know her, to see if she could feel for him what he did for her. “I cannot leave just yet,” he said again when what he really wanted to do was roar at his friend that he knew that he and Serenity might not be able to overcome their differences. But he wasn’t ready to admit that out loud.

Raphael nodded. “You know the Creator might send others.”

“I know.”

“So be it. Take care, my friend,” Raphael told him and then was gone, taking all of the heat with him and leaving Dair wrapped in the cold arms of uncertainty and despair.

“Good night, Aunt Darla.” He heard Serenity’s voice just before her bedroom door opened and, just like that, the feelings fled and were replaced with his need of her. He was so lost in watching her that it was nearly too late when he realized she was about to be undressed as she began changing into her night clothes. He turned around quickly just as she began to lift her shirt, feeling even more like a creepy stalker. He had to reveal himself to her. He couldn’t just keep following her around and listening to her conversations without her knowledge. It was beginning to feel like a betrayal of her trust. When he no longer heard the rustling of clothes, he slowly turned his head back, prepared to quickly look away if she was still not dressed. But she was fully clothed and sitting on her bed. Her notebook, where all her notes on her dream were written, was sitting in her lap and she was thumbing through the pages. He figured now was as good a time as any to leave her for a short while and go have a chat with Mr. Sweeney, her history teacher. Of course, Mr. Sweeney would never be aware that it happened.

Dair stood staring at the middle age man who lay sleeping in his bed. What he was about to do was completely against the rules, but then he seemed to have decided to throw the rulebook out the window when it came to a certain lovely brunette. He began to weave a dream in his mind and push it into the mind of the human before him. When Mr. Sweeney woke up in the morning, he would suddenly have the urge to teach about folklore stemming from central and northern Europe with a particular focus on the legend of the Sandman. Perhaps, that would get Serenity’s attention.