CHAPTER FIFTEEN - THE END OF THE BEGINNING
I jolt upright in bed, my heart racing. I’m back in my room, in real life, and the morning sun is peeking into my room from the curtains. I leap to open them, just to make sure that I really am back in the real world. Everything outside looks normal, and I collapse to the floor, sighing in relief.
“It was all a dream,” I whisper to myself, cracking a weak smile, “It wasn’t real.”
I get back up on my feet shakily, taking a few deep breaths to calm my racing heart. Getting up is hard since all my muscles are sore and stiff. It feels like I’ve been hit by a bus! I must’ve tossed and turned a lot in my sleep to compensate for all the movement I was doing in my dream. I stretch a few times, wincing. A hot bath sometime today is in order, for sure.
To make doubly sure that I’m back in the real world, I check myself out in the full-length mirror next to my bedroom door. I’m still wearing the same pajamas I went to sleep in, and the hem of my shirt isn’t torn. I lean forward, brushing my fringe away from my face, and there’s no evidence that I’d just taken a lightning strike head-on. I examine my face closely. My eyes look more weary than usual, but that doesn’t take away from my looks at all! Despite all that happened, I’m still the same person I have always been, and I am very grateful for that!
I exit my room and walk down the hallway to find the door to Anton’s room ajar. I push it open gently and peek inside. His hair is down and he’s leaning his head out the window. He’s smoking, again… I watch him for a few minutes, but eventually he senses my presence and turns to face me. He doesn’t say anything— well, what is there to say? I think he’s taking the events of last night’s dream just as hard as I am. The exhausted look in his eyes tells me everything I need to know.
I walk towards him, wordlessly, and wrap my arms around him. He jolts a bit at the contact, but he reaches to ash his cigarette on the ashtray on his nightstand and awkwardly strokes my hair. I start crying uncontrollably, blubbering about how that dream felt so real and other nonsense muffled by my face being smushed against him. He doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t even seem to mind that I’m crying two big wet spots onto his shirt. Normally, if I were to try and do something like this he’d become angry and shove me away. But this time is different. He just lets it happen because he knows it should happen.
That dream left us both with many unanswered questions. What happened to Maggie? Why was Tim Smith there? Why was Catherine there? Why pancakes? And just what were the awful things Anton had done to invoke Magdalena’s wrath and an eleven-year-long grudge? And also, most importantly, if it really was Magdalena’s dream the whole time, why had I been having it for so long? As Anton and I discussed some of those burning questions, we figured that it would be impossible to try to make any sense of them, because dreams are by nature nonsensical and what little logic there is to them begins to unravel if you attempt to explain them. But we weren’t really able to reason away the fact that I’d had that dream repeatedly for many nights beforehand, and that that dream would always end with the very void that claimed Magdalena’s life. Maybe because of dream magic? Who knows. Whether I have dream magic or not doesn’t really matter, that’s always something I can test out later (with Anton’s blessing). For now, I’m just glad that he and I are both safe and where we belong— in reality.
(Also, the stern lecture Anton was planning never happened because he felt it would be pointless to discipline me over something that wasn’t even my fault. He felt the trials and tribulations we faced were more than enough punishment to make up for any misdeed committed, and I agreed wholeheartedly.)