It took longer than it should have. By the time I slipped through the crack between worlds, Laurie’s breathing had deepened into sleep. The sound followed me for a second or two.
Then I heard nothing but the wind.
Oliver’s voice came to me before I’d fully arrived in the dreamscape.
“We should leave now. We have a hike ahead of us. Lots of hills.”
I opened my eyes slowly, and discovered that my head was tipped back. I was standing beneath our tree, the sight of it so familiar that it had an instant soothing effect. Through the leaves and branches, a black sky looked back, cold and distant. Strange—it was never nighttime when I came here. Sometimes the stars came out as the hours wore on, or if Oliver coaxed them into being, but never when I first opened my eyes.
Even stranger than the sky, though, was Oliver himself. He stood a few yards away, watching me with an expression I’d never seen before. It was polite, patient, as if we were strangers. His golden hair stirred in a gust of wind. The white T-shirt was gone, and my best friend looked prepared for a camping trip. He wore hardy-looking boots and a thick coat. A backpack rested against his spine, along with a tightly-rolled sleeping bag. A pile of items rested at his feet. I drew closer and saw they were duplicates of everything Oliver had. Boots, coat, backpack, and a sleeping bag.
“I thought you said you can’t manifest things anymore,” I remarked.
Oliver bent and picked up the backpack by its top strap. He stepped closer and held it out to me. “Actually, I said I can’t manifest things with a single thought. I can if I have a few hours on my hands.”
“Exactly how far is this mysterious thing you want to show me?” I asked as I accepted it from him.
I’d become too accustomed to faeries and their tendency to avoid direct answers, because I blinked when Oliver said, “Ten miles, give or take. We should be able to do it tonight. I got farther than that when I left, but I changed my mind about the direction I’d taken. If I hadn’t, I probably never would’ve found it.”
“Found what?” I asked, hoping Oliver would answer without thinking. He just quirked an eyebrow at me as if to say, Nice try. Well, it was worth a shot.
At that moment, the wind strengthened. I looked down at the white sundress I wore. It flapped against me, too feeble against the brisk air. My gaze fell on the pile of supplies Oliver had manifested for me, and there was a set of clothing between the coat and boots. He’d thought of everything.
I lifted my head to tell him I needed to change, but he’d already turned his back, offering me the guise of privacy. I moved quickly, pulling the hiking pants on beneath my dress, then yanking the dress off to replace it with the long-sleeved shirt and coat. Next came the socks and boots, and a stocking cap to complete the transformation.
“Ready?” Oliver said, turning his head so I’d hear him.
Hesitating, I wrapped my fingers around the straps against my shoulders. I wanted to comment on the strangeness of all this—the dark sky, the shifting rules, the fact that we were leaving—but I still wasn’t sure how to act around Oliver. Maybe he liked the strangeness. He’d been trapped in a place of sameness all these years, and now he was finally breaking free.
“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” I said eventually.
Oliver turned around. He looked me over and then came closer. Without a word, my best friend reached to adjust the tightness of one of the straps. I found myself looking up at him instead of down at what he was doing. Our faces were inches apart. I studied the faint freckles over the bridge of Oliver’s nose, oddly reassured by them. So much else had changed, but at least there were some constants, however small they may be.
Once the backpack rested against me more securely, Oliver straightened, thankfully unaware of my scrutiny. “There’s a water bottle in the bag, and some snacks if you get hungry,” he said.
I just nodded, trying to hide a creeping sense of anxiety. It surrounded my thoughts like strands of ivy. You’re being ridiculous, I told myself. This is all happening inside your own head. There’s nothing to be scared of.
That wasn’t entirely true, though. I stole a glance toward the statue of Oliver’s doppelgänger, remembering that terrifying night it attacked me. Maybe there was some validity to my worry.
I didn’t voice any of this to Oliver, though. Not so long ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to tell him anything, but in addition to all the other changes, there was a strange distance between us now. Physical distance, too, I realized as I registered that I had fallen behind. I hurried after Oliver, disarmed by the sensation of boots on my feet instead of going barefoot.
With that, we set off like two characters in a story, leaving behind everything familiar and comfortable. We passed the winged statue, looming in front of the glittering sea like a monster from the deep. Oliver didn’t look at it, and I averted my gaze quickly, suppressing a shudder. We walked by the place where our cottage used to be.
Only a few yards beyond that was where the ground began to slope upward. It was fortunate the grass wasn’t wet with dew, or it probably would’ve been impossible to climb. Oliver and I ascended the first hill, then the next, and a third one after that. We’d passed the invisible line that I had never crossed before, even when we were children and often spent our nights together exploring this dream world. It felt… unnatural, venturing into the unknown. Almost as if there was a silent, unseen presence urging me to go back. I pushed onward, more out of rebellion than any real desire to see whatever Oliver had stumbled across. We got so far from the cliffside that the sea shrank, and shrank, and shrank, until it looked like nothing more than a shiny sliver.
At the top of a particularly enormous hill, my thighs burning from exertion, I finally allowed myself to slow and look back. The clouds had parted, allowing some moonlight to shine down on everything. My lips parted in silent awe.
I hadn’t realized how vast the dreamscape was. How wild. It stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions, and from this distance, the sea looked endless, too. I turned, wondering what else I might be able to see. So far, we’d mostly been hugging the coastline and heading south. In the other direction, there were forests. Thick, dark forests that looked as unwelcoming as a Grimm fairy tale would describe.
This place had always felt small to me, but now I wasn’t sure how I ever believed that.
As I stood there, a new problem occurred to me. Oliver had appeared at my side, staring out at the view expressionlessly. “When I fall asleep, I always arrive next to the oak tree,” I told him, frowning. The wind tugged at our hair. “If we don’t make it tonight, does that mean we have to start over tomorrow night? Walk all this way again?”
A strand of hair blew into the corner of my mouth, and I pulled it out. Oliver was silent for a moment. A line deepened between his brows and his eyes moved away. Then he grabbed my shoulders and turned me east, toward another night-darkened horizon.
“See that mountain range?” Oliver said in my ear. He waited until I nodded; the range was barely perceptible, but the moon was just bright enough that I could make out a line. I shifted, turning slightly, and my backside brushed against the front of Oliver’s pants. He paused for a beat before he continued, “When you fall asleep tomorrow night, picture that in your mind.”