SAM

  There was ruby glow. It almost felt solid, and it surrounded me. It was all around me, but it wasn’t me. It was enchanting and so beautiful I wanted to stay, but I looked up, and there was gold. It was like light, but wasn’t light. It was solid, and I didn’t see the shape of it. But I know to call it “feather.”

  When I reached up to touch it, I felt presence. Female. It wasn’t Cora. It was lighter, there was no sound, but if there had been, it would’ve been tinkling. She was happy to see me. I was happy too.

  Then I startled awake, and the first thing I thought of was Cora, but I knew that it hadn’t been Cora. She feels different, heavier than that golden feather girl. Cora’s like a gentle rain when you have the windows open. The sound of comfort amidst the grey.

  This golden feather woman was so light and foreign, and happy in a way I don’t think I’ve ever felt.

  I honestly don’t think I’ve ever encountered anything like it.

  After I finished recording the dream, I sat my notebook and pencil down and grabbed my pad. It was 4:37 AM in Cheyenne, but in Nashville that would be 5:37. Early, but hopefully I wouldn’t wake Cora.

  “Sam?” she asked groggily through my screen.

  “Sorry to wake you, love.”

  Cora smiled. “Call me that again, and I’ll forgive you.”

  “I had a dream, love. But it wasn’t you; it was someone, something else.”

  I described everything to Cora, and she sat up. “Sam, you said HC thinks you dream the future?”

  “I dunno if it’s the future exactly, and this didn’t feel like anything from my dreams before except sort of like when my parents visit me, but more. So much more, Cora! She was almost solid, even though I didn’t see a person!”

  “I’m calling HC and Paddy,” she said, putting me on hold. When she came back on, she was no nonsense.

  “I know it’s goddamned early, old man, and I’m telling you it’s too important to wait. Tell him the dream, Sam,” Cora insisted.

  I did, and when I finished, HC was no longer irritated. He was fascinated.

  “Was there a sound?” he asked patiently.

  “No. It was silent, but I had the sensation that if there had been sound, it would’ve been—"

  “Wait! Don’t say it Sam. Hold on. Paddy, hand me that pen and pad. I’m gonna write down a word,” he said to his wife. I heard shuffling. “Okay, Sam, tell me what the sound didn’t sound like.”

  “Tinkling.”

  HC held paper up to the video, and on it was a single word: “tinkling.”

  “HC, what’s going on?”

  “Hold on, I’ve scanned my dream journals from decades ago, so I’ll pull them up and tell you what I wrote the first time I dreamt of the Red Phoenix.” A minute or so passed, then HC’s voice read:

  I walked through a field of cherry grass, and everything smelled sweet and fresh like fruit in the summer, though the air was cool and clean.

  I saw a red lake far in the distance, and it seemed I could never walk there, but behind me was a sound like running horses, so I whipped around, but nothing was there. When I turned back to the lake, I was standing next to it, and out of it rose a sight so beautiful I was entranced.

  She had ruby hair, and garments that matched it. Golden wings made of fire, and eyes that spilled orange flame. Light bent around her, and though I felt no heat, her presence warped the air like summer sun on asphalt.

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  When my eyes met hers, I was overcome and thrown out of the dream, and all I could think was that she was laughing at me with the sound of tinkling bells, though all I had heard in the silence of that realm had been something like horse hooves on dust.

  “Woah,” I whispered, awed.

  “Woah,” HC nodded in agreement.

  “So what is this, HC?” Cora asked softly. “What does this mean? Is it a person?”

  “Hold on a minute. I’m going to see if Bitsy Joon will answer one question, then we’ll find out how much that family is willing to tell us about dreams and the beings in them.”

  I sat there biting my lip as HC paused his feed, wondering if it was safe for Bitsy to tell us anything more than she already had, but when HC came back to the video, he wasn’t alone.

  A deep, friendly voice said, “Howzit gang? I’m Slydar Joon, and I hear you’re havin' dreams of a tinklin’ voice and golden feathers, thinkin’ that a gal is visitin’ you, and guess what? You’re probly not wrong.”

  I held my breath, looking at that face. His dreads were grey and pulled into a knot on the top of his head, and his black face was lined with years of laughter, not worry. His dark eyes sparkled with mischief and promised devilish things. I instantly loved and trusted that face and the deep, molasses voice that went with it.

  “Mr. Joon? You’re Bitsy’s dad?” I asked with wonder.

  “Da! That’s me. And even better, Grand-da to her son Pitch. Now, Bits has told me all about you. The whole fam, really, we know the books and poems you’ve been writin,’ and Sam, we’re lookin’ forward to seeing you at Centre Oasis in Shurwinn. I won’t say much due to circumstances bein’ what they are, but I’ll tell you all the story of that day I last spoke with HC Merrin, so hold on tight, this one’ll be a tale for the ages.”

  “My grandson isn’t a typical sort of fella, and when he was a little boy, he loved the graphic novel Red Phoenix so much it was never outta his tiny hands. The child slept with the thang under his pilla. That sorta obsession. And Pitch? He didn’t really talk, see. Only sometimes, and in lines of poetry. Not exactly typical, you get me?”

  I nodded, so he went on.

  “I’m a telepath, and when—“

  My thoughts stuttered for a moment, stuck on his confession that he was a telepath. “Ah, sorry to interrupt. Did you say ‘telepath?’”

  “Correct. Communicate through emotions and thought. Just like in a dream when you don’t actually talk. No one uses words in dreams— you ever noticed that? It’s simply just known between you. Ya don’t read or speak when you’re dreaming; that’s sorta what telepathy is like. Anywhoo, my grandson Pitch was four years old, and I saw an image in his mind that looked and felt exactly like the Red Phoenix graphic novels, but it wasn’t a character to him. It was a real being.”

  What he was saying sounded like madness, but the look on his face told me he spoke truth.

  “So I was mighty concerned that there was someone fuckin’ with an innocent child’s mind, and I called HC Merrin to get the whole story about how he wrote his novel. I was not surprised one bit when he told me it started in his dreams with a bird-woman visitin' him. At that point, I was pretty pissed off thinking something was fucking with my family, so while Pitch was asleep I did something most telepaths choose to avoid.”

  Where was he going with this? Everything Slydar said just sounded more and more insane, but I couldn’t stop listening to his melodic voice.

  “I went into a deeply relaxed state. You could call it meditation. And I opened my mind so fully that for a while, I wasn’t Slydar Joon, I was Pitch, and the boy was dreamin.' I saw the girl with golden wings in a ruby world, and she wasn’t dangerous. She was his friend. And I’ll end the story there because of reasons,” he said, eyes darting side to side.

  I nodded, understanding he only wanted to say so much in case of surveillance, then I got an idea.

  “So these are dreams. Just dreams. Mine. Your grandson’s. HC’s,” I said, smirking knowingly.

  Slydar grinned at me, and his face pinched in a knowing, sarcastic way, “Just dreams, Samantha.”

  My heart was racing. If they weren’t dreams. If we were both joking about something, mocking ourselves and those who might overhear us— what was the other option?

  Multiple people.

  HC.

  Then a little boy called Pitch in Andromeda Galaxy who loved HC’s book, probably even more than I did, if that was possible.

  Me. Who grew up enchanted by the Red Phoenix, and was so devoted to the stories and their author that I fangirled over him when we met on Discord.

  All of us dreaming of a character from a story book, but those dreams didn’t feel like ephemera. They felt real.

  My eyes focused on the screen, and I remembered I wasn’t alone.

  “Mr. Joon, thank you for telling us these stories. I’ve always been interested in dreams, as you know, since you’ve read my book, and I’m glad I’ll see you soon. I—“

  I stuttered, and HC picked up where I left off. “It’s been such a long time Slydar, so I thank you for picking up. If we don’t see you on Shurwinn, I hope our paths will cross again soon.”

  “Oh, HC Merrin, you know better than that. All roads lead to one place. Good day.”

  And his video went dark.

  “Damn that bastard!” HC cursed. “Again! He’s left me with a riddle again! Fucking fucks! ‘All roads lead to one place,’” HC mocked, and he seemed genuinely angry.

  Paddy and Cora burst out laughing, and I joined them.

  “No compassion. All you women are as evil as him! Devils, the lot of you! I’m gonna shower, then maybe we can find some place open for breakfast and coffee at this god-forsaken hour.”

  HC’s screen went dark, and the sound of Paddy’s laughter with it.

  Then it was just me and Cora, and I looked at her, both of our eyes shining, neither of us knowing what to say.

  “I think I’ll shower too, and finish packing. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  “I can’t wait, Sam. I’ll be there at the landing platform when you come out of the station.”

  I smiled at her. “See you soon then, love.”

  “See you soon, babe.”

  I clicked off the video and put my coffee mug in the sink, heading for the shower and wondering what the hell was going on with men who claimed to be telepaths, and all the dreams of presences who weren’t women and tinkling that wasn’t sound.