Page 110 of Sweet Nightmare

My heart rate goes wild.

I forget how to breathe.

And my head—actually, my entire body—feels like it’s going to explode.

Because the whole world isn’t just in triplicate—which would be bad enough. No, the world I’m seeing, the world spread out right in front of me, appears to be the past, the present, and the future.

All at the exact same time.

The Caspian in front of me, talking to me, is the eighteen-year-old cousin I’m used to, dressed head to toe in Calder Academy red pajamas. But the Caspian next to him is the little boy with the perennially skinned knees who I used to build tree houses with. And the Caspian next to him is a forty-year-old man in a three-piece suit, who, unnervingly, happens to be missing a hand.

What. The. Hell. Is. Happening?

“Clementine?” Caspian sounds concerned, but I’m too busy trying to figure out what’s going on—while also keeping my brain from imploding—to answer him.

Frantic, confused, and more than a little horrified, I turn back to the center mall, where some of the teachers have finally reached the horde of traumatized students spinning around themselves and each other. I search the sidewalks for Jude—he shouldn’t be hard to find considering how tall and broad he is—but everything’s such a mess that I can’t find him.

Honestly, I can’t find anyone. Because the center mall doesn’t look like the center mall anymore. Or at least not a singular version of it.

Because it’s rainy, windy, and filled with broken sidewalks…and even more broken students.

But when I blink, it’s also sunny and filled with smiling paranormals walking down a sidewalk edged in beautiful flowers. Some have shifted—there are wolves and leopards and even a couple of dragons flying overhead—but there are also witches in old-fashioned bathing suits and vampires strolling along under huge, black umbrellas.

And then there are a bunch of other people again. I don’t recognize any of them, and the fact that they’re dressed in regular clothes instead of uniforms makes me wonder where they’re from. Especially since the sidewalk they’re walking on isn’t broken. And they don’t look scared. And it isn’t raining.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

I press a hand to my galloping heart, try to suck a breath into my too-tight lungs. And I guess I succeed because the world isn’t going dark around me. Which is a shame, because right now, I kind of wish it would.

“Your mom wants me to bring you to her,” one of the Caspians says, eyeing me uneasily. “She’s down at the beach, overseeing the portal. She says we’re leaving early.”

Considering what’s happening here, I can absolutely believe she wants to get out as fast as we possibly can. But that doesn’t exactly solve the problem I’m having.

I close my eyes and force myself to calm down—which isn’t exactly easy. I take another breath, promise myself that whatever happens when I open my eyes, it’s going to be okay, and exhale the breath out slowly.

Then, I open my eyes to a world that is still completely upside down. I ignore it for a moment, refusing to look at anything or anyone but eighteen-year-old Caspian. And I ask, “But what about—”

Words fail me, and I lift my hand up in an all-encompassing gesture, too overwhelmed by everything that’s just happened to even try to find the right words to talk about Eva. And Bianca. And all the many, many others.

Thankfully, though, Caspian understands. “We’ve been making plans for the last half an hour on how to deal with everything. The dorm is a mess—” His voice breaks, but he clears his throat and tries again. “We’ve got rosters, and we’ll be checking off every student who goes through the portal so we can make sure that we’ve found…all the others. We won’t leave anyone behind, Clementine, I swear.”

“Eva—” This time it’s my voice that breaks, and Caspian looks like he wants to cry with me. The other two versions—past and future—are doing their own things, with future Caspian scrolling through his phone and little Caspian bouncing a tiny rubber ball.

“We’ll get her body,” he promises me after clearing his throat. “We’ll get everyone. But I need to get you to your mom before she completely freaks out.”

I nod, because I know he’s right. No matter how difficult my relationship with my mother is—and it is exceptionally difficult—I’m just as relieved to know that she’s alive, that the nightmares didn’t get her.

“Jude?” I ask, my voice breaking once more because just the sound of his name has pain swamping me all over again. I can’t believe it has to end like this. Not after ten years. Not after everything we’ve gone through. And not after he finally told me what I’ve wanted to hear for so long.

He loves me. Jude loves me. But instead of being with me, he’s walking away—for good this time. And I’m left standing here, broken and brokenhearted, in a world that makes absolutely no sense anymore.

“My dad just found him.” Caspian sounds grim. “He told me Jude must have lost control of a lot of nightmares.”

“You know?” I gasp. Terror moves through me as we start to walk down the cottage steps. Because now that my mom and Uncle Christopher know that Jude lost the nightmares, I don’t know what they’re going to do. But whatever it is, it’s not going to be good. And there’s a part of me that can’t help thinking the Aethereum might have something to do with it.

“I don’t really get what’s happening,” Caspian admits. “But I know my dad isn’t letting him out of his sight until we can get to the warehouse and figure it out.”

I don’t say anything to that, partly because I don’t know what to say and partly because I barely make it down one step before I trip over nothing. My brain is completely freaking out right now, trying to process the multiple images in front of me. Except it’s not actually three cottages this time because, in what I think is the future, there is no cottage. And no steps. So, it’s actually two cottages and a bench surrounded by several small potted trees.

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