Liandra and the Dream Reader Read online

  “That’s just it, Mum. We don’t have to wait. I can rid myself of this curse now, maybe this year.”

  Both of her parents stared at her, obviously perplexed.

  “What do you mean?”

  Now or never!

  “If I go with Roocean he can treat me and his other patient at the same time. His other patient suffers from the same sort of dreams as mine. It could be better to have someone around who’s suffering from the same problem as I am, someone who understands everything I’m going through.”

  “Absolutely not!”

  Her mother bellowed louder than Liandra had ever heard her before. Her father shook his head and waited for the storm, and not the one outside.

  “What makes you think we’d allow this? This reckless and foolish course of action? No way! Absolutely not!”

  “But, Mum! You have to look at it logically. This is the best chance I have to rid myself of these horrible dreams and live a normal life. If I let this man go I could end up living with these dreams for years.”

  “Logic? What sort of logic would make me send my fifteen-year-old daughter off around the world with a man I barely know? I’m the one thinking logically here. Or have you forgotten about everything else? Your schoolwork, your college preparation, your future? Stopping now could derail all of your plans.”

  “I won’t be able to focus on any of that until I rid myself of these dreams. I’ll always struggle more than everyone else and will never reach my full potential. I’ll be too damn tired to do anything.”

  “No cursing in this house.”

  “Fine, Mum, but you know better than I do that I’m being held back by all this. And imagine if I’m still dealing with this all the way into college. I’ll never go anywhere or amount to anything. I need to stop these dreams now to pursue any of that.”

  “And what kind of mother would I be to let you go through with this?”

  “A smart and caring one.”

  “No, Liandra, I’d be a reckless one, a foolish one, and an unfit one. Good mothers simply don’t let their daughters go gallivanting around the world with strange men.”

  “Roocean? He’s strange I’ll admit—but he’s a gentleman through and through. Besides that, I can take care of myself. You know I’m more mature than others my age.”

  “No, Liandra!”

  “Your mother’s right,” her father said. “If we let you do this then we might as well hand you over to the authorities and turn ourselves in right behind you. We can’t let you do this, Liandra.”

  “But, Dad, you saw firsthand how much progress we’ve made. Is it really fair for me to lose that now? We have a good chance here to fix this.”

  Her mother continued to shake her head.

  “Absolutely not!” she said.

  “I’m sure Roocean couldn’t accommodate you anyway,” her father said. Her mother shot him a dirty look.

  “That’s not even worth mentioning. We are simply not going to allow this, Liandra. No matter what you say.”

  “Why, Mum? I’ve thought it all through. We can go up to the school tomorrow and get my schoolwork for the next month. If I have to, I’ll mail it in myself. Since Roocean does have some sort of practicing license, he can even provide me with an excuse. Roocean himself is harmless and a good instructor besides. I’ll keep up with my academics and study hard. We can even get a college prep test for me to study, so that I’m prepared for that as well. My teacher always picks them up from the universities. She’ll be sure to have a few. See how practical that is? I can do all that and return in a month with much more control over my dreams than before.

  Her staying with Roocean for only a month was a blatant lie. She didn’t think she’d change much in a month, but she didn’t think it was wise to attempt more than that right now.

  Her mother went to object again, but her father gently touched her shoulder.

  “We’ll think about it, Liandra. Though I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”

  That’s all she needed to hear. She just needed a chance. She only hoped they would think on it quickly, since Roocean would only be staying for the night.

  The family ate the rest of their dinner in silence.

  ******

  It was 12:30am and Roocean still hadn’t returned. Liandra imagined him out at a bar getting stared at because of his strangeness. He had some charm to him, so perhaps he’d found some woman to entertain with his outlandish tales of international travels. He seemed the type for that sort of indulgence. Liandra was still up doing late-night exercises. She couldn’t sleep with so much of her future balancing on tomorrow, or rather later today. She wanted to be prepared for either outcome. If her parents said no, then she’d have to buy the plane ticket herself with her savings. Impersonating her mother wouldn’t be that hard. The lady on the phone earlier had mentioned Stockholm, Sweden, as Roocean’s destination. If she couldn’t secure her ticket today, then she’d have a tough time tracking him down. It wouldn’t be completely impossible though, since he did advertise his services publicly.

  Liandra did a deep lunge between each thought and held it for a few seconds. Cooling down from the high intensity part of her workout, her face, arms, and chest were all glistening, huge droplets of sweat falling from her forehead. Her aqua-colored tank-top was drenched and looked dark blue, while her black sweatpants were relatively dry in comparison.

  By her fifteenth lunge she was trying to figure out what time she’d try to get her ticket. It had to be by early morning. A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. She dried herself with her towel and opened her bedroom door. Her parents stood outside it looking completely drained. Both had red faces and puffy, shining eyes. They stepped into her room and her father pointed to her bed. She sat down on it and her parents did so after her. This time her dad sat closest to her, with her mum right behind him. They locked hands after they settled down and he lifted hers and kissed it, then lowered it and cupped it with his own.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Her dad spoke up in a voice starved for air.

  “We’re going to let you go. For a month only.”

  Liandra could’ve leapt off of the bed and celebrated right there, but she instead remained respectfully reserved in the face of her parents’ somber mood. Her dad seemed to sense her inner giddiness and added:

  “You still have to make sure this is okay with Roocean. If he says no, then that’s it.”

  She leapt over and hugged them both, then gave each of them a kiss to the side of their head.

  “Thank you both sooooooooo much! I’ll work extra hard to fix all this! You’ll see!”

  “You might as well pack your bags right now. Your mother and I will take care of the rest of the arrangements, which would be much easier if Roocean were here.”

  Her parents got up and walked towards the door. Liandra got up and gently called out to her mother.

  “Mum, thanks. I know this wasn’t easy for you.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “I love you, Mum, you know that.”

  “I love you too, dove.”

  She hugged and kissed her mother again and watched them walk out of the room. She closed her door, jumped on her bed for a while, and then commenced with her packing.

  ******

  The arrangements were all made rather quickly. There was heavy reluctance by all parties involved, including her teachers, her parents, and even Roocean. But she had a strong desire to see that this trip occurred, and in the end, she convinced them all.

  They arrived at Heathrow airport early and their flight managed to take off on time. There weren’t as many people as she’d expected, and their two-and-a-half-hour flight went smoothly. Once they touched down in Stockholm, Roocean mapped out the rest of the day to her. After getting her settled in, he would meet with his client face-to-face for the first time. She silently wondered if she would get to meet this person as well.

  They caught a taxi from the airport and took a te
n-minute drive from there to an ancient looking neighborhood.

  “Wow, it’s so old here. It reminds me of my old hometown in Baalbek, though it does look a lot different.”

  “You stayed in Baalbek?” he asked. “That’s almost unbelievable. I’ve spent some time there as well, many years ago. It was definitely before you were born, a lifetime ago. Nothing but rocks and old men there now. Thank your parents that you moved.”

  They arrived at his place, a somewhat small apartment building that looked like it had many stories to tell, like an old relative who’d seen it all. Roocean paid the driver when they stopped and had Liandra get her two suitcases from the trunk. He got his after and they walked into the old building together. There was nothing at the front but tiny mailboxes and a few green leafy plants. Roocean made her wait with the luggage while he went off searching for the landlord. He was only gone for five minutes before he returned shaking his head.

  “She’s never here and it always inconveniences me. We’ll just bring your things into my apartment until we get a hold of her.”

  They did just that, and Roocean made a few calls before he finally came back to her with a big smile on his face.

  “We have a room available for you this month, right down the hall. It’s fully furnished and hasn’t been used for almost six months now. She’s giving you a nice deal on it—you’ll only pay ten percent of the normal price. We’re going to have to move your stuff out in a hurry if someone rents it, so unpack lightly.”

  She nodded her head, simply grateful to have a place all to herself, and fully furnished at that. So, she took all of her stuff to her apartment, inspected all of the furniture, and finally plopped down on someone else’s old bed. It smelled fresh and was soft enough to melt into which is what she did for nearly an hour.

  When she felt nice and soothed she put her luggage into the closet and walked down the hall back to Roocean’s. She tried to open the door, but it was locked, so she knocked. He opened the door and waved her in with a smile on his face. His apartment now smelled wonderfully aromatic. He was cooking something, something good her stomach decided for her. Its growl was noticed by Roocean. He was still wearing his dress attire from earlier, with his colorful headscarf, shawl, and rings.

  “Want some stew? It’s fisherman’s wharf.”

  “Sure.”

  She answered him more nonchalantly than she meant. His apartment was smaller than hers. His kitchen and dining room were combined in a large rectangle, whereas hers was sectioned off. But his living room was a little larger, since hers shared space with the dining room. He had all sorts of candles on the tables, shelves, and hanging from the black, vine-looking holders on the walls. There were long bamboo beads in each of the doorways, one with a blue backdrop and tiny yellow stars and a huge shining sun looking contented and a crescent moon below it with a searching look on its pale face. The other beaded curtain was also mostly blue, but with a large yin yang design in the center. The others were some sort of artistic looking tall grass, except for the one in the doorway of Roocean’s room. That one was the most detailed, with a large painted nightscape of a lone peak amidst crashing waves of dark blue immersed in the golden light from the stars, the moon, and some curling wave of gold that appeared on the horizon—maybe the approaching dawn.

  All sorts of trinkets hung from the ceiling. Tiny silver stars and multicolored gemstones were prevalent at the end of thin chains of various lengths and metal types. There was no T.V. or radio to speak of in the apartment, but plenty of old gaudy tomes and Psychology Today magazines on the shelves and strewn about on his tables. Liandra sat at the dining room/kitchen table and plainly asked what was on her mind.

  “When are you meeting your new client?”

  “He’ll be here in an hour. You can meet him then.”

  She wondered how old this guy would be. She hoped for someone close to her age, but with her luck she knew she’d get a boring old geezer.

  “Who said I wanted to meet him? I’m only asking so I know what to expect.”

  They both sat and ate until they were full, and even still they had leftovers to spare. Roocean told her a little about this part of Stockholm, Gamla stan, and why it was so old looking. Turned out most of these buildings had been here for centuries. That fascinated Liandra. She loved places with such history. She could swear that these places were filled with a certain lively spirit apart from more modern constructions. She could feel it in the bricks—untold stories of the past.

  Roocean’s apartment buzzer interrupted their conversation. Roocean rose up, peeked out the window, and then left the apartment wordlessly. Liandra snuck over to the window to peek as well, but saw no one, so she opted to sit back down at the dining table.

  She began to grow annoyed after twenty minutes of waiting, and her patience and curiosity reached its limits. Just as she stood to leave, Roocean’s door opened and he walked in with a smile on his face. Behind him entered a taller man with blond hair. He looked a lot younger than Roocean and was maybe in his twenties. He wore dark navy slacks, brown dress shoes, a white dress shirt, and a solid red tie. He clutched his navy blazer in his hand until Roocean took it and hung it up on the coat rack by the door. Roocean noticed Liandra gawking awkwardly and escorted his guest over to her.

  The man had the palest eyes she had ever seen. They looked almost silver at a distance, but up close were a very pale blue. He looked to be some sort of businessman, or at the very least a snazzy dresser. Even his hair was carefully trimmed around the sides and back, while the top was a little longer and combed backwards, which gave him a sleek, leading-man look, a look which was completed with his smooth clean-shaven face. His face seemed to hold no emotion as he approached with Roocean.

  “Alright, time for introductions!” Roocean said with gusto. “Robert Grabas, this is Liandra Keyrouz. Liandra Keyrouz, meet Robert Grabas.”

  She gave a small smile and a curt nod.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said with cool pleasantry.

  She offered her hand and he took it in his. His handshake was strong and firm, but he gave no smile. He turned to Roocean and whispered to him, only he was loud enough that Liandra could still hear.

  “Is she your assistant?”

  His accent was distinctly American. Roocean looked suddenly uncomfortable.

  “No, I met Liandra on my last trip to London. She and her parents insisted I take her with me ... to help her.”

  The Grabas fellow looked concerned and perplexed.

  “So ... she’s your patient too? I thought you only took on one patient at a time?”

  Roocean was now rubbing his forehead quite vehemently.

  “Normally yes, but this is a very rare situation. I am compelled to alter my normal procedures. You see, this girl suffers from the same sorts of dreams as you.”

  “Really?” he asked, apparently seeing her, the person, for the first time. When they traded glances, she thought she saw disapproval in his eyes. She shuddered under his stare, such creepy eyes, the eyes of a ghost.

  “It’s hard to imagine anyone else suffering from these nightmares,” he said. “So, we’ll be sharing sessions?”

  “Only sometimes. For the most part, I plan to keep your sessions separate.”

  “Good!” he declared a little too quickly and loudly for Liandra’s liking.

  “I don’t want you two to cast influence on each other’s dreams, which is why unless it’s otherwise stated there’ll be no sitting in, listening in, or sharing of each other’s sessions. We’ll start with the dream journals, which you both should now be familiar with. Afterwards, once you get accustomed to gathering more details from each dream, we’ll go much deeper.

  Both Liandra and Robert eagerly nodded their heads.

  Chapter 6:

  Crossed

  It was a strange night for sure. Despite the excitement of it all, Liandra managed to drift to sleep easily. What was stranger than the night was this current feeling. In her dream, she was f
loating in Roocean’s apartment, all alone. It was quiet, and when she looked out the window she couldn’t see anything except black nothingness. She was amazed that she could look around, and even more amazed that she knew she now felt amazed. These feelings were strangely concrete. She wasn’t used to that.

  Time passed, and Roocean’s apartment disappeared from around her. It was replaced by her bedroom in Westminster and the dark hallway outside of it. Awaiting her out there were the same pair of furious eyes from before, so she was more than happy to stay in her spot, observing. She wrote it all in her journal, only now it looked like one of Roocean’s old tomes, like something magical.

  The beast didn’t cross into her room. It was interrupted by another pair of blue eyes—these smaller, paler, colder. A man’s form filled in around the eyes—tall, muscular, and blond-haired. It was Robert, who she’d just met. He and the formless beast stared each other down and Liandra heard the man ask the beast a strange question.

  “Father, why?”

  The beast erupted in anger then. Its roaring voice was thunder. Liandra’s whole dreamscape shook. She tried to make out what the beast was saying but found it impossible to do. Her room fell away, leaving only a darkly blank stage for the three of them. The beast appeared in full bullheaded form and towered over Robert by the height of a whole other man. Robert stood his ground and simply repeated himself.

  “Father ... why?”

  The beast grabbed and lifted him with powerful arms to its eye level and sneered at him.

  “Do we not share the same blood?” Robert asked firmly.

  The beast squeezed Robert and as it crushed him Liandra felt something inside of her suddenly scream out. The beast took notice and dropped Robert into the void. Its furious gaze was now on her and she despaired when she saw it open its mouth. She could now hear it clearly; its voice held complete bass and authority.

  “Killer and traitor!”

  From its very breath came a stream of instant pain.

  She woke up covered in sweat with her heart pounding fast in what felt like the same moment, only now she was really in her room in Gamla stan and felt all sorts of sensations that her dream lacked, like the cool air against her burning skin. She ripped off the blanket to let her body breathe and remembered what had just killed her.