The Dream Cages #15

When Ronan disappeared—woke up, Adam supposed—the creature did not cease to attack. Only, as it turned out, it hadn't been attacking at all. Well, it had been attacking Ronan. Which was par for the course in Ronan's dreams; horrifying creatures assaulted him quite regularly while he slept. But the... "dragon," for lack of a better word... did not seem intent on hurting Adam. It only wanted to take him somewhere, and its method for that was to dig in its claws and drag him.

The more Adam fought its grasp, the tighter the talons became, until finally Adam yelled up at it, "Okay, I get it! I'll come with. But you're hurting me."

He could almost feel it thinking as it carried him another yard. But in the end, it relented and released him. Adam landed unceremoniously on his ass in the dirt and the dragon landed just behind him. Not with a thud or the shuddering of the earth, but silently. The only reason Adam knew it was there was because its shadow fell over him.

Adam sat looking at the farmhouse in the distance. He turned to look at the cows in the pasture. "Matthew?" he asked.

The dragon let out a low growl but then lifted off again and glided with remarkable grace to circle over the cows. The cows didn't appear bothered. Maybe dream creatures had some kind of understanding? When a dream thing meets a dream thing coming through the rye...

Am I a dream thing?

No, he wasn't. He was only a consciousness caught in a dream. Ronan's dream. Ronan's recreated Cabeswater. He thought about what Ronan had said, about creating a dream Barns to fit over the real one. Two planes meshed into one. If it worked, could the sleeping creatures be awakened? Could the Barns become an extension of Cabeswater?

Ronan had said he didn't want to make a bigger cage, but maybe he'd become that desperate. Or maybe this was a stop-gap solution until he could fix the underlying problem.

But why am I here?

Screaming brought Adam's attention back to the immediate moment. The dragon was returning, this time with Matthew in its clutches. Matthew kicked and shouted things Ronan would not have liked hearing his innocent, sweet little brother say. The dragon ignored him and dropped him beside Adam. Matthew looked at Adam, wide-eyed, then scrambled to his feet to run, but Adam said, "Don't."

Matthew sat back down. He made more of a thud than the dragon had.

"It doesn't want to hurt us. It wants to take us somewhere."

"Back to its nest to feed us to its young or something," said Matthew.

"I don't think so. Do the numbers six and twenty mean anything to you?"

Matthew's brow wrinkled but a moment later he jolted where he sat as though physically struck with a thought. "Sure, it's Ronan's favorite verse."

"Verse?" Adam asked. "Like a poem?"

Matthew laughed. "Nah. I found a book of poems by Shelley under his bed once, though." He laughed again. "He was so pissed."

"The verse, though?" Adam prompted.

"Matthew 6:20. Something like, 'Store up your treasures in heaven, where moths nor rust corrupts, and where thieves do not break in and steal.'"

Adam thought about this a moment. "Shit," he said. He looked at Matthew—a little dirty, but none the worse for wear. No wounds where the dragon had grabbed him, no blood. He looked at his own shoulders. Same. "Shit," he said again.

He stood up and turned to the dragon, which waited patiently for them to figure things out. "You're trying to take us back," he said.

"Back where?" Matthew asked.

"To the waking world," Adam told him. "We've been... imported here. Not on purpose, but still, we can't stay. We have to get back to our bodies. If we're gone too long, they'll die."

"I feel fine," Matthew said. "I feel like me. If my body dies, then can't I just stay here?"

"If your body dies, so does your consciousness." Well, mine does, anyway. But Adam could hardly tell Matthew his brother had dreamt him. "That's what's here now. If your body dies, and your consciousness dies, there won't be anything else to stay here."

"So how did our consciousness end up here? We're having the same dream?"

"Not exactly. We're part of someone else's dream. Ronan wants to keep us safe, and in some backward way, this is how Cabeswater is granting his wish." When Matthew still looked confused, Adam said, "We're Ronan's treasure."