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“Huh. What kind of dream was this?”
Ash and Dio wandered into the bedroom where we looked around, mystified.
“The American dream,” Ash supplied.
I had to wrack my brain to think about what that even meant. What had the American dream been? This?
“Everyone dreamed of having the perfect home and all the newest conveniences,” Ash said. “We learned about it in school, remember? We’d just come out of the Second World War, and industry was booming. It’s been a long time since anything like this has been achievable or perhaps even desirable, and I guess the dream’s been forgotten. There were a lot of problems with this dream, too. Equality wasn’t a thing, for starters.”
A thought tickled at the back of my mind about other concerns in the fifties, but that era had happened so long ago I almost didn’t even remember learning about it in school.
“Right. Some weird segregation shit or something, right?”
Ash nodded. “We’ve come a long way since then. Still a long way to go, though.”
“Yeah,” I agreed with my cousin. Ash was a lot more in touch with the day-to-day inequalities that people dealt with both legally and in general both from her own personal experiences and as a lawyer. I didn’t think that was what was bothering me about this era, though. Maybe it would come to me.
“Are all the houses like this?” I asked.
Ash shrugged. “I imagine so, but we’ve only checked two. Let’s keep looking.”
Geraint stayed close. He was right. The air did feel dead. There were hints of Dream essence but not nearly what I’d become used to. Even the conscious realm had more than this.
I looked at Dio. He’d been studying me, but quickly glanced away, sparing a quick glare for Geraint before he headed out of the creepy house.
He and Ash split off again, and we went from house to house, looking for some clue as to where Baz might be. Nic touched base. His search was going well, if more slowly than he could have accomplished in a realm filled with the normal levels of essence, and he found more of the same. Robby and Casey reported the same results.
Trying to ignore the anxious, yet hopeless feeling that dragged at my feet and weighed down my shoulders, I trudged to yet another house.
A ball rolled down the driveway, bumping into my feet. Idly I kicked it into the grass and went to the front door, Geraint on my heels.
It didn’t occur to me that the moving ball was the first true difference I’d seen in this place until the door slammed shut behind me, cutting me off from my knight. He pounded on the door, but it didn’t budge.
“Well, look at you.”
The harsh voice full of venom sent my heart racing.
I spun around.
Ember
“Who the hell are you?”
I stared at the woman who lounged on a seriously old school fainting couch. It didn’t match the rest of the fifties’ décor, but then, neither did she. The woman was probably older than me by about ten years and wore an elegant gown and smoked a cigarette on the end of a long stick. I wrinkled my nose at the smell. This house was clearly fifties era, but her clothing made me think of the twenties. She had her brown hair done up, and I thought it might be longer based on the intricate style.
She stood and sauntered over to me, moving languorously, like a cat taunting a mouse.
“Who am I? Honey, I’m just a woman who wants to get home.”
“Home?”
“The conscious realm. Manhattan, to be specific.” She circled me, and I tried not to sneeze at the unfamiliar odor of cigarette smoke. Most places were smokeless these days.
“You’re dreambound?”
She nodded, wandered back to her fainting chair, and draped herself back into it. “I was going to be a star. Instead, I’ve been trapped here for countless years.”
“You know, if it’s been that long, you might consider staying here.” I backed until I pressed against the door. The handle wouldn’t turn when I tried it. Geraint had stopped beating on the door. I hoped like hell he was searching for another way in.
