Page 18 of Ex Somnis

If This Man has really released my subconscious, maybe I can find her now. The pull in my chest is still there, same as before, only directional, no address attached.

I close my eyes, doing what I’ve done a hundred times. Building the intention toward a space, feeling the pull of it, before stepping through. I reach for her kitchen. The big windows. The countertop she was spread out on for me.

Nothing.

Her smell.

Nothing.

Her taste.

Nothing.

I think harder about the line of her jaw, the curve of her mouth, how her eyes pleaded for me, glared at me, and smiled at me. Her soft blonde hair. The weight of her hand in mine, her breath against my neck, and her citrus fingernails. I hold all of it as clearly as I’ve ever held anything, and I reach.

The pull says yes, that’s her. That’s exactly her, but it still doesn’t give me the where.

She’s somewhere.

Maybe he did not release me after all?

Maybe this is an illusion?

Another one of his sick tricks.

I open my eyes and reach for the dream architecture. The first creature comes easily, too many joints and eyes blinking in the wrong order. Then another. The shadows at the edges peel themselves into shapes that breathe wrong and take up too much room. I build like I haven’t built in a hundred days, not even in Lennon’s kitchen. It’s effortless, and it all comes—the whole inventory, whatever I reach for.

All of it works, better than ever.

But it means nothing.

The monsters mill around in the yellow flowers like they’re waiting to be told what to do. I lie back on my back and look at the sky full of stars, then conjure up a lollipop that tastes like sour lemon, but none of this is the point anymore.

The monsters aren’t the point.

The book isn’t the point.

“How could you leave me like this, sweetheart?”

The creatures wait.

The flowers don’t answer.

I make myself wake up, reach for the membrane between dream and waking, and push through it like a door. It takes three attempts before⁠—

I come up, blinking at my bedroom ceiling with the yellow flower smell still in my nose, fading by the second.

I count my fingers.

Five. Normal number, normal shape, all present.

Waking life.

So, if I can’t find her there, how can I find her here?

My phone goes off, and when I reach for it and look at the screen, I see it’s my agent calling. I stare at it through one full ring.

Right. This is apparently what’s happening.