But at that point in the horribly familiar nightmare, there was something different. As Torri stood, waiting in dread for the doors to open, a voice spoke in her ear.
“What’s wrong, Torri? What are you doing here?”
Turning her head she saw, to her surprise, that Vic was standing there. But he wasn’t dressed in beige scrubs—he was wearing a dark blue, long-sleeved shirt that buttoned down the front. It was tucked into a pair of tight black trousers which were, in turn, tucked into tall black boots that came up to his knees. He wore an expression of concern as he looked down at her from his immense height.
“Are you all right?” he asked, since Torri hadn’t answered his previous questions.
“Of course I’m not all right!” she exclaimed “When these doors open, I’m going to be sucked through them and I’ll have to see him—the Evil One.” She didn’t like to mention the AllFather’s name aloud—she had a superstitious dread that saying his name might bring him to her.
Vic frowned and shook his head.
“I don’t understand. You’ll be ‘sucked’ through the doors? By what? By who?”
“I don’t know.” Torri shook her head. “I only know I don’t want to go in there!”
She was sweating now—though how you could sweat in a dream, she didn’t know. But she could feel the cold sweat breaking out along her spine as dread overtook her, stealing her breath and making her heart pound a crazy rhythm in her chest.
“If you don’t wish to go, I won’t let you be taken,” Vic promised.
“But…how can you stop me?” Torri asked, hearing the despair in her own voice. It seemed impossible to fight the invisible force that sucked her into the AllFather’s throne room every night and drew her to him. At least, she had never been able to fight it.
Just then, the tall metal doors swung open and she felt the force begin to drag her forward.
“No!” she gasped, but there was nothing to hold on to—nothing to stop her from being dragged into the darkness…
Suddenly, Vic was there, standing right in front of her, between her and the open doorway. He wrapped long, muscular arms around her and pulled her close to his broad chest.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he rumbled, holding her close. And though the incredibly strong suction dragged at them both, he stood strong and refused to let go of Torri.
“How are you doing this? How are you keeping me safe?” She looked up at him, feeling protected in the cradle of his arms, but still worried. The suction that was trying to pull her into the throne room seemed to be getting stronger.
“I’m just not letting you go.” Vic raised his voice to be heard over the sucking wind that was dragging at them. “Quickly, think of someplace else you’d rather be—someplace good—and take us there.”
“You think I can transport us somewhere else?” Torri asked incredulously. “I mean—with my mind?”
He shrugged.
“This is your dream, Torri—you can do anything you want in it.”
My dream…this is a dream. I’m dreaming!
The thought came as a complete revelation to her. Because, as is usually the way with dreams, she never knew that she was dreaming when the night terrors took her. She only knew it afterwards, when she woke up. The thought that she might be dreaming and could change the outcome of the dream, had never occurred to her—especially not while she was in the middle of it.
Now that Vic had said it, though, she realized it was true—she was dreaming. And if she was having this dream, then she ought to be able to control it.
Think of someplace good and take us there, he had said. Torri closed her eyes and thought as hard as she could, imagining the two of them in a safe place where nothing could hurt them.
“Where is this?” she heard Vic ask.
Opening her eyes, she looked around and saw that they were in the middle of a field of buttercups and daisies. To one side was an old wooden fence, completely covered in honeysuckle vines in bloom—the white and yellow flowers bobbed gently in the soft breeze that was blowing. Sitting on a hill, which overlooked the meadow of flowers, was an old-fashioned, A-frame log cabin. It had clearly been built some time ago, but it was in excellent shape and well maintained—neat as a pin, as her Nana used to say.
“Where are we?” Vic asked again. “It’s very beautiful,” he added.
“We’re at my Nana’s house!” Torri exclaimed in delight. “Oh, I haven’t been here in ages! At least a year—she was in hospice those last six months and then not long after that, I was shoved in the asylum. She left it to me when she died and Chuck wanted to sell it but I just couldn’t bear to. I—” She stopped abruptly. Chuck always said she ‘ran off at the mouth’ when she got too excited. “Sorry—I didn’t mean to start babbling like that. I’m just really happy to see it again.”
Vic smiled at her.
“Please don’t stop—I like the sound of your voice.”
“I, um, like the sound of yours, too,” Torri admitted. Then she looked up at him in surprise. “Hey—you’re speaking in complete sentences here. Why is that?”
He wrinkled his forehead thoughtfully.
“I don’t know. Maybe because this is a dream and my external audio output speech centers aren’t required for communication.”
“Whoa…” Torri held up a hand to stop him. “You’re talking like you’re some kind of a robot or something.”
“Well, technically I am more of a cyborg. But not the bad kind that you humans have in your motion pictures,” he added quickly, giving her an anxious look. “I have seen some of your Terminator franchise and I assure you, I am not like that at all.”
“Meaning you didn’t come back through time to kill me to keep me from having a baby that will one day rise up and overthrow the oppression of the machines?” Torri asked dryly. She loved sci-fi movies, though Chuck had always refused to watch them with her.
“Exactly.” Vic nodded.
“Well, then if you didn’t come to kill me, why did you come?” Torri asked, looking up at him. She had to shade her eyes against the bright sun in the sky—here at Nana’s cabin, it seemed to be Spring, though she knew that in the waking world it was Autumn.
“I came to try and communicate with your people—to offer them a trade, of sorts,” Vic said, looking down at her. “I will be happy to explain all of it to you, if you like. But maybe we should sit? Our disparate heights make it more difficult to converse while standing.”
“Well, you certainly talk like a robot,” Torri remarked, smiling at him. “But sure, let’s have a seat.”
Vic looked around and then sat carefully on a clump of grass that was free of buttercups or daisies and she settled beside him. As she did, she noticed she was wearing an old patchwork skirt her Nana had made her when she was a kid.
Nana loved to quilt and Torri had loved to watch her. She had begged her grandmother to make her a skirt just like one of her quilts and Nana had obliged.
But I grew out of this when I was nine or ten, Torri thought, frowning as the many-colored skirt with its broad patches of blue and red and green and yellow settled around her. How am I wearing it now? Oh right—I’m dreaming.