Asleep

43 Teach Me

Nora~~

"Teach me to manipulate the dream."

Avery puts her hands on her hips, squaring herself off. "Not everyone can do it."

"Then we'll find out I can't."

Being a Monday morning, Ricky spotted me almost immediately when I walked into the Den. He grabbed Avery from the sound booth and sent us down here. Most dreamers are at work at this time. After what happened with Aaron, I'm again without a job, but now filled with the knowledge I'm trapped, getting another job is not on my list of priorities.

Avery bites her lips, her brown eyes looking me over. "Lucid are categorized by class. There are four. Class Fours can't manipulate the dream. Threes can create basic objects like that blanket. Twos can then make more advanced objects like weapons. I'm a Class Two."

"And Ones?"

"They really should have their own name—separate from the classes. They're so much more than just a level up from Class Twos. They can change what you see. The objects they can create surpass anything I could ever make. They can travel wherever they want by just closing their eyes."

I feel the blood rushing out of my face, and I grasp around for something to hold onto, but any furniture is out of reach. Out of options, I plant my feet into the floor, daring my body to just try and topple over.

Traveling with only a blink of the eyes . . .

"You good, Nora?" Ricky asks.

I force a smile even as I feel the ground crumbling beneath me. Charlie's Lucid. "Just taken aback. Do you know any Class Ones?" Could they heal someone is what I want to ask.

Avery turns up her palms and shrugs. "I don't have much experience with them. They're sort of rare." She steps toward me, slow, deliberate. "Ready to begin?"

*****

Forty minutes later and I think Avery's ready to kill me if she could kill in the dream. Kill. That was a word I'd forgotten.

"Don't just picture the blanket. Feel it. You have to understand it."

I feel absurd staring down at the floor, willing an oversized piece of cloth to materialize. At this point I'm convinced I'm a Class Four.

"Close your eyes. Block the room and me out."

"Then maybe you should stop talking," I snap and immediately regret my tone.

Crossing her arms, Avery steps toward me, her mouth pressed into a thin line. Her eyes seem to say go ahead.

I close my own eyes, recalling the way the cotton blanket Avery draped around me three days ago felt. I picture the orange and grey lines of fabric crisscrossing. There's a sudden weight in my hands, soft and not heavy, and I open my eyes to see the blanket from my mind.

Avery grins. "You're not as hopeless as I was starting to believe. The key to conjuring is that you need to have a basic understanding of the object, an instruction manual, if you will, for the dream to work with."

In my hands I hold a shred of evidence for proving to Tye that this world isn't right.

"Want to keep going?"

I set the blanket aside, hands trembling at the possibilities that just opened before me. "Weapons, right?"

Before she can respond, there's a knock on the door that opens onto a staircase leading up to the club.

Avery opens the door, and Ricky strolls in, carrying a white bag, which he holds up. "I brought sopaipillas. I figured you'd need some brain food."

Crossing her arms, Avery taps her foot. "Sopaipillas are not brain food."

Ricky makes an obscene gesture with his hand. "It's a dream. They can be whatever I want them to be."

Avery rolls her eyes. "That's not how that works. We're in the middle of something."

Ricky plops the bag on the table with a roll of his eyes that rivals her own. "Because I definitely forgot about that . . . How's it going?"

Avery fills him in, making sure to stress the forty minutes it took to get where we are. When she's finished, she tells me I'm going to create a knife. "Cup your hand so you'll be grasping it by its hilt."

I do so.

"Arm out. You do not want a repeat of what happened with your glass the other night. Now picture the knife's hilt. The color, its texture. Is it smooth? Does it have bumps? See the gleam of the blade.

A black hilt. Its sharp edge curving along the blade.

I feel its grip, sturdy firm, my fingers closing around it.

I open my eyes and see the knife.

Avery can't seem to keep the grin off her face, and I feel a blush spread across my cheeks.

What's your favorite "brain" food?