Page 51 of Nineteen Eighty

“I’ll help, if I can,” Colleen replied. Her pulse quickened. Whatever this was, it was no whim. Something was wrong… wrong enough she couldn’t be sure there was anything she could do to help. She couldn’t guess where this was going. Why they’d fled to her home, in the middle of the night, in their pajamas.

“Where’s Oz?” Noah asked.

“At my mother’s,” Colin said.

“We’ll pay for that later,” Catherine murmured.

“All right,” Colleen said. “So tell me what’s wrong.”

“It started, oh, maybe three months ago, wouldn’t you say, Cat?”

“Now you’re interested in what I have to say?”

Colin didn’t even pretend to hide his annoyance with her. With a pointed look, he returned his gaze to Colleen. “I think it might have been happening to us both for a couple weeks before we ever talked about it. We both thought we were going crazy.”

“That ship sailed long ago,” Catherine said.

“We’re used to crazy around here,” Noah said, smiling. “So, a few months ago?”

“Yes, a few months ago, something strange started happening at night. I started seeing Oz in my dreams.”

Catherine rolled her eyes.

“We both did, though we didn’t talk about it for a while. Like I said, we both thought we were crazy.”

“It’s normal to see our loved ones in our dreams,” Colleen said, though she knew this wasn’t where Colin was going at all. Her dread deepened.

“No, that’s not what this was.” Colin kept shaking his head. He wrung his hands in his lap. He hadn’t even bothered to comb his hair. “He’s… it’s more like he’s an intruder. He doesn’t belong there. I don’t know how to explain it, except that he’s not meant to be there.”

“And it’s like that with you, too?” Noah asked Catherine.

“It’s like that,” she said through a clenched jaw.

Colleen leaned back in her chair. She struggled for breath, as the realization started to, slowly, come over her. “You’ve never experienced anything else like this before? With anyone else? Ever?”

“No,” the couple said in unison. “Never,” Colin added.

“Dreamwalking,” Colleen whispered, releasing a short, ragged breath with her words. “How unusual.”

“I don’t like the sound of that. Unusual,” Catherine said.

“Well, it is unusual. I don’t know any Deschanels who can do it,” Colleen replied, shorter than she intended. Catherine’s ill humor was rubbing off on her. She was tired. They all were.

“And? What does that mean, exactly?” Catherine demanded.

“I don’t know,” Colleen admitted. She looked at Noah for support, stifling a yawn, but he was subtly glaring at Catherine. “I don’t know where Oz learned it. Why he can do it. Where he got it from, seeing as the rest of you are rather benign.” She added that for Colin’s benefit. She knew how the Sullivans felt about this topic.

“If you don’t know, who would?” Colin asked. His tired eyes pleaded with her. “Who can help us?”

“What do you mean, help you? Train him?”

“Train him!” Catherine shrieked. “We want to stop him!”

“You want to stop him?” Colleen repeated, dumbfounded. But of course they wanted to stop him. The rest of the story filled in the blanks. They weren’t here for guidance. They were here for an exorcism, of sorts. “I may not know a lot about dreamwalking, but I know everyone is born with something that makes him special.”

“We don’t want our son to be special like that, Colleen.” Colin winced. “No offense.”

“You can’t say no offense and expect your words, which were intended to be offensive, not to be,” Colleen said, and then shook her head, sighing. “It’s late. We’re all tired. Why don’t we talk about this in the mor—”

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