Dream

Ms. Dream, could you please come outside? I fear I might be in danger. The notification from the transporter app flashes at the top of my screen.

Oh, no! Okay, coming! What’s happening? I message back. Leaving my seat in the coffee shop, I place my book in my satchel.

Oh no, what could this be? Transporters usually just leave if they get spooked. Okay, let me check the app. What’s his mode of teleportation? Oh, he has a car that jumps through time and space. That’s cool. So why doesn’t he leave? Could this be a setup or something? No, no way. He just needs the money.

Or because of my stupid reputation, he doesn’t want to make the mighty Dream Tower mad. I hate this. The Heirs have cost me everything. First, they take my sister away from me. I’m lucky if I get a call from her every six months these days. A text is impossible. Then I’m made a target for every ill-mannered soul in high school because I’m semifamous. Then they take Velli because… because… It’s not their fault. It’s mine—or his because he’s a lying, manipulative jerk. Or it’s mine because I’m a horrible person who made my best friend think he had to be anything but himself for me to like him. Or it’s his because he said he wouldn’t lie to me but he did anyway. Thoughts for another time.

“Thank you for your service,” I tell the barista as I toss forty drops into the tip jar as penance for improper thoughts against the Heirs. “Division forgive me, please accept what I give thee,” I mumble as I rush out the door.

The transporter is not hard to find. He’s in a unique situation. He’s about five rows of cars straight down to my left, parked parallel to the sidewalk. Three sets of streetlamps spray weak light on the path to the car. Four tall rainbow-colored clowns surround the car in a perfect circle. I’m not sure if they speak. The natural noise of the night—the streetlamp’s buzz, cars whizzing on distant highways, and bugs and birds leaving the street in search of one less eerie—covers their voices from here. I believe they speak, though, because they stare at one another and not the car they’ve surrounded—the car I’m supposed to get in.

I press forward and look for any witnesses, anybody else to recognize the strangeness of the situation and serve as a shield from what the odd group could do to me if they thought no one would know. With remarkable speed, the coffee shop turns off its lights and closes its blinds. They don’t bother to flip the open sign to closed. The grave quiet of the place is enough of a sign. No one is here but me, the car, and the four assailants.

“Hey,” I call to them, and I’m surprised by how weak my voice sounds. It cracks, like an internal attempt to make me shut up. Well, that won’t do at all. The transporter could be in danger. “Hey!” I scream this time, unafraid to let the world hear and, most importantly, the clowns.

They don’t acknowledge me, and now I’m in a bit of a huff because that’s plain rude. So I stomp over to them, and I do it. I name-drop.

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“Dream Tower, sister to Rose Tower, Heir of Division, demands you move.”

They don’t move. They don’t even acknowledge me. I’ve got this stupid reputation that makes people scared of me. It made me a target for bullies in high school and took away my sister, and it doesn’t even work when I need it to. I have had enough.

“Oh, sorry for hating on the Heirs, Division,” I mumble in a prayer. “Forgive me. Please accept what I give thee.” I make a mental note to give an extra tip to my driver. Then it’s back to business. I take three big stomps to the closest clown and grab him by the arm.

“Leave him alone!” I shout.

All four clowns turn their heads in unison to look at me. Their eyes are closed, and their mouths hang open. The clown I hold frees himself from my grip, and his arm locks onto mine, a quick—and scary—reversal.

These clowns do not laugh.

“Let me go!” I jerk my wrist twice, and his grip does not stir.

The other clowns do. They lose interest in the car and take slow, unorthodox steps toward me.

I pull out my gun. “You need to let me go now!”

None of the clowns stop. None of them care.

“Please, I don’t want to shoot!”

His grip doesn’t change, doesn’t tighten, doesn’t recognize my desperation to preserve my life and the danger he’s in. Then I see it. It’s so faint, like catching a glimpse of a spiderweb on a trail. Strings extend from the shoulders and mouth of one clown. My gaze follows the strings into the clouds, and for the first time tonight, I notice the sky is purple.

With anger and fear and a need to be alive, I slam the butt of my gun into the clown’s wrist—again and again. Metal meets bone. My sensational screaming fights against his death wish apathy. I dig my heels into the ground and beg for any sort of momentum. He stands firm and does not let go.

But something cracks. I’m free. He still has not let go. His hand hangs onto mine. Blood spurts from his now handless arm. Even separated from his body, his hand stays on me. With his fingers still encircling my wrist, I dash for the car and throw myself inside.

“Lock the door!” I yell at my driver.

The car locks with a satisfying click. I work on removing the hand from my wrist. Pure force is not enough. I break two joints on each finger to remove it. It takes so long, and I feel so awful. I’ll never forget the sound of a small bone snapping. I lean back in the seat, grateful to be going home. Why aren’t we moving?

“Excuse me, sir. We should leave… if that’s possible.”

The driver turns around, and I know what he is before he does so. The string that moves his mouth goes up into the sky from small holes through the roof.

“Sorry, Ms. Dream.” The driver’s mouth bounces up and down like a marionette. “We got your driver too.”

“Aahhhhh!” I scream like I haven’t screamed since I was a child. I don’t bother trying to escape a locked door. I toss myself through a window, roll, and run. I lose a shoe in the process, and out of the corner of my eye, something swoops through the sky to pick it up. Okay, I’m in over my head. I need Rose. I pull out my phone and scramble to find her number.

A purple wire drops from the purple sky and yanks my phone from my hand. My eyes follow its ascent until it blends into the clouds. With one shoe and no phone, I do something between a limp and a run. Then there it is. My body reels. It’s like a whip on my back, except this whip doesn’t leave my flesh. It burrows inside my skin then pulls me up into the sky. I’m on the puppet string now.