The Dream Keeper

Chapter 2: The Keys

The seven moons of Éadrom glowed brightly, casting hues of pale blue upon the beach. Gladamyr looked out onto the vast ocean before him and breathed in deeply. It had been decades since he took a moment for himself, and he loved it. True, he only just arrived in Éadrom minutes before, but that was all it took for the grandeur of the ocean city to hypnotize him with its magic. The wind whispered that he could live there forever, and he almost agreed with it. He leaned back in his hammock and swung his body into the wind.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw a man and two little children running down the beach. The man laughed and kicked the waves as they hit his legs. The water splashed up into the air and the two children danced in the reflected moonbeams. Gladamyr wondered which one of the three figures was the mortal visiting Dreams. Whichever it was, he thought they were pretty lucky to be brought to such a wonderful place for the night. The man reached down and picked up one of the children, and the boy laughed with glee. The other child suddenly melted into the surf, and Gladamyr knew at once that it was the boy in the man’s arms who was the dreamer.

He had seen it before. People come and go in a mortal’s imagination. The boy must have just wanted a moment alone with the gentle man. The scene wasn’t anything extraordinary to Gladamyr. He had seen a dozen mortals call up such moments from the past, or bends in time. Anything to spend just one more minute with the person they loved. He had seen husbands conjure up their deceased wives, and mothers their lost children. Gladamyr smiled as the boy chased the man round the beach, calling out over and over ‘Daddy, Daddy.’

Another figure appeared on the beach and Gladamyr knew that the boy’s wonderful moment with his father had come to an end. It was Felix, a dream keeper, come to take the boy back to the crossing—to return to Awake. Perhaps, Gladamyr thought, the child would return tomorrow and be able to see his father once again. It was wishful thinking, for only on the rarest of occasions did a mortal come to Éadrom. Gladamyr watched as the boy saw Felix standing on the sand. He heard Felix call out the boy’s name and beckon him closer, but the boy hesitated. He didn’t want to leave, not yet. He rushed to his father and wrapped his arms around the man’s neck.

“Don’t let him take me, Daddy, please,” he cried.

The father, who had been dressed in shorts and an open shirt, transformed into a solider bedecked in a tan and brown camouflage. The boy cried out and held onto his father just a little longer until the solider dissolved into the water. Slowly the boy turned to the dream keeper, and Gladamyr watched as they walked away from the beach. Felix pulled a golden key from his pocket and inserted it into the air. With a sudden turn of his hand the Felix and the boy vanished into a purple mist. Gladamyr heard the faint sound of a lullaby calling the boy back to Awake.

He got up from the hammock and walked over to where the father had been standing only moments before. He caught a glimpse of a silvery chain and identification tag as it washed away with the surf and had to wipe away the single tear that had forced its way down his cheek. Even in the beautiful ocean city, Gladamyr, the Dream Keeper, could not escape the sadness of his job.

“You are becoming too emotionally attached to the mortals.”

Gladamyr turned around to be confronted by two different faces, one the scowling face of a man with green skin, and the other the smiling face of a beautiful woman. Both faces belonged to the same dreamling. Jaynus, whom some called Two-face, had worked for a short time at the Crossing but had been let go due to the lack of cooperation from the always grumpy Mare side. At times, it seemed to Gladamyr that Jaynus was constantly fighting a battle with two individuals trapped within the same body.

“Did you hear me?” the female side of Jaynus asked in a gentle voice.

“Of course he heard you. He turned around, didn’t he?” answered the gruff male side. “Why are we over here in the first place? I told you I was hungry and wanted to find a concession stand.”