Liandra and the Dream Reader Read online

  “It breathed lightning,” she said. “Damn, that thing’s scary!”

  She checked her clock radio and saw that it was only 3am, so she decided to exercise the night away rather than try to exorcise her demons.

  ******

  Roocean looked baffled when he saw Liandra’s page full of details about last night’s dream. He almost lost it when he saw the three-page story chronicling what had happened, in sequential order. Liandra felt as if she’d skipped some steps in his recovery program, and with the way he was acting she felt as if she’d done something forbidden.

  He finished reading her journal and asked her to recount the details of her dream again, this time orally and with as many details as she could remember. Even after hearing the same story told again he still looked flabbergasted.

  “What is this?” he muttered to himself. “What is the meaning?”

  He went back to his bookshelf and consulted a few of his old tomes, but he soon put them away, looking concerned and disappointed.

  “I’m going to call Robert over.”

  “Should I go?” Liandra asked.

  “No, I think we’ll all need to talk.”

  Now she was confused.

  ******

  Robert arrived about twenty minutes later and sat at the table near Liandra, at Roocean’s behest. Roocean continued to stand and pace about rather frantically. The lingering silence was beginning to make Liandra nervous.

  “You have both told me some very interesting things today ... things that defy everything I’ve seen, heard, and learned over many decades. This information is so fanciful that I’m forced to conclude that this is a very elaborate prank by the two of you.”

  He smiled and eyed them both in turn.

  “I’d just like to know how you coordinated this on such short notice. It’s really ingenious.”

  Liandra and Robert looked at each other blankly. Roocean’s weak smile began to fade away.

  “This cannot be. This isn’t your prank?”

  Robert looked annoyed.

  “I’m here for treatment, Richard, not to play games. You’re my last hope here. If there’s something odd about what happened in our dreams last night, I think you should tell us just what that is and why it has you so shaken.”

  “Of course. I apologize for my unsettling behavior. This simply unravels much of what I’ve come to believe. I suppose we’ll just have to talk about your dreams.”

  Both of their dream journals sat atop one another on the dining room/kitchen table. Roocean slid them to Liandra and Robert. Liandra complained.

  “This isn’t mine!”

  “I know.”

  He quickly flipped through the pages of Robert’s journal to today’s date. She didn’t get a chance to even glimpse the previous pages. He then did the same with her journal in front of Robert. She noticed a page, in Robert’s journal, filled with very similar details as hers was from last night. She even saw her name in it, along with ... a description of the blue-eyed shadowy beast, only Robert described it by its name in classical myth: The Minotaur.

  She read over his shockingly similar account of last night’s dream and saw that his version lined up with hers. His kept on longer than hers, as he engaged the beast in bloody combat after she was struck down with a lightning blast from the beast’s mouth. His account ended after the beast strangled him. They both looked at each other when Liandra was done reading, and then back at Roocean.

  “What does this mean?” she asked.

  “I don’t exactly know. What’s obvious is that you both shared the same dream and perceived those events in the same sequential order. Where yours ended, Liandra, his continued. Same exact continuity. There is no explanation for that. I can’t begin to fathom how this happened.”

  He took a deep breath, closed both the journals and handed them to their respective owners. He exhaled and was suddenly very clinical.

  “Okay, there will be no more swapping,” he announced. “We will continue on as I’d originally planned, with the separate sessions and dream journals. I’m sorry that I called you all the way back here, Robert. You may go now.”

  “You gotta be kidding me! Really, Richard? That’s it? Just bye?”

  “Perhaps I’ve done too much in sharing this with you both. I think it’s best for both of you to continue to keep each session contained, that’s all.”

  Robert shook his head and grumbled, “Fine. You’re the expert.”

  He got up, rushed out the door and slammed it shut behind him.

  Roocean winced and looked at Liandra apologetically, “That man is filled with a lot of anger.”

  Chapter 7:

  Robert Grabas

  A week passed since Liandra had somehow shared her dream with Robert. It was a week that went by as sanely as she could imagine given the circumstances of her current life.

  Her dreams went back to the same barely-remembered vagueness as before. Dutifully, she wrote down what few details she could remember. Some nights she’d even pull a third detail from the dream.

  She’d been sitting in her room quietly for a few hours and was beginning to go stir crazy. She wanted to go talk to Roocean, but he had stepped out hours ago on the prowl for some sort of book. She figured now would be a good time to explore the city but had no set destination in mind. It was late, so most things were probably closed anyway. She cracked open one of her textbooks but couldn’t bring herself to read any more, since she was well ahead of where the teacher wanted her to be.

  She heard a banging down the hall, followed after by Robert yelling.

  “Richard! You in there? I need to talk!”

  He seemed to always be making demands, or to be in dire need of something, this spoiled American. She opened her door and eyeballed him. His face was red, and his forehead covered in sweat. He now wore a light blue long-sleeve shirt which nearly matched his eyes and clung to him enough to show his impressively broad physique. He must have run here, maybe from wherever he was staying. He turned and stared right at her.

  “Doesn’t look like he’s here, does it?”

  He sneered.

  “Well, where is he then?”

  “He went to get some book.”

  He looked at Roocean’s door helplessly, and then back at her. He slowly made his way towards her and she stayed stuck in the doorway. He looked her right in the eye once he was in front of her.

  “You know when he’ll be back?”

  His voice was gentler now.

  “Sorry, mate, no clue!”

  She offered that much louder than she’d intended. He sighed loudly and looked her up and down. He spoke to himself very quietly, but she caught what he said. He was a horrible whisperer.

  “You’re just a kid.”

  She scoffed and was suddenly annoyed.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Nothing. You hungry?”

  Somehow his words failed to register.

  “What?”

  “Food, want to get some?”

  “Yeah, but where? My fridge is pretty empty.”

  Her meals had so far come from Roocean. She didn’t eat much but fresh fruits and vegetables besides.

  “We’ll find a place. Grab your shoes and let’s go.”

  “Alright, just give me a second.”

  She closed her apartment door and ran to her room for her shoes. She unpacked a thin purple jacket and smoothed it out. She threw on her ankle high black boots and looked at herself briefly in the mirror. She liked the look of her white and black striped shirt, denim miniskirt, solid black tights, and black heeled boots. She quickly put on her jacket and pulled her long black curly hair out of it so that it fell down her back. She realized how rude she’d been to leave Robert out in the hall. She apologized as soon as she opened the door and saw him still standing there.

  “Sorry ‘bout that. So, where we off to?”

  “We’ll know when we get there. Unless you have a suggestion.”


  “No, none here,” she said.

  He started walking and she followed right behind him to the outside of the building and down the busy street. At night the city had a whole different personality. She hadn’t seen much of it, since she only came out during the day sometimes to accompany Roocean on errands. She found herself liking the dim lights, tight alleyways, and even the way the old buildings looked at night. Suddenly it felt like this was where she was supposed to be, even while she was accompanying this strange man who barely talked to her.

  She had seen him eying a few places, and finally he chose a lone bar, not too far from the apartments. Liandra didn’t have a fake ID or anything so she wondered how she’d get in. She wanted to ask Robert about this, but he was walking too fast. Inside, they came across a bouncer who stopped them after quickly glancing at Liandra. He spoke to them with heavily accented English.

  “How old is she, buddy?”

  Robert walked up to him and grumbled, “Old enough,” as he then slipped a one thousand kronor bill into the man’s shirt pocket. The bald man smiled and then saluted them. They continued in, and Liandra found the place to be barely lit, crowded, and loud. It was like a funner and darker version of her lunchroom at school, only these folks laughed more, cared less, and of course were drunk, but she’d always wondered that about some of her mates at home as well.

  Robert had somehow found a table for them, even in this crowd. They sat down at the dirty table and soon a tavern girl, with a tattoo on her arm of a large mug of overflowing ale and the words “Bar Wench” inside of it, was cleaning their table and taking their drink orders.

  “Pale ale for me. I’ll take your best blond, if you have it.”

  The girl nodded her head, gave Robert a smile and lingering stare, and waited for Liandra. Liandra figured she’d enjoy this experience with a drink, but Robert looked at her knowingly as the thought crossed her mind. She wondered if they shared than just their dreams.

  “Ginger ale please.”

  The tavern girl nodded and hurried off. Liandra looked around the bar at the laughing faces of rambunctious men and women and couldn’t imagine any of them in the quiet daytime atmosphere. Robert seemed to be forming his own thoughts on the crowd as he eyed their merriment. Liandra decided to break the silence between them.

  “So, Robert, you wanted to talk about something?”

  He picked up a menu and thumbed through it.

  “I want to eat.”

  Her instinct was to snap back at him with something sarcastic and mean, but this atmosphere called for a more pleasant response.

  “So that’s why you were banging on Richard’s door like a madman? You were hungry, maybe even hangry, as my mates like to say.”

  He finally lost his scowl and offered her a smirk.

  “That’s exactly it. I’m lost without Richard’s cooking.”

  “I don’t know how you get along without him.”

  “I don’t, I just slowly wither away.”

  Nothing about him looked withered, she had to admit. Maybe he could cook or maybe he took trips to places like this every night. The tavern girl, aka bar wench, returned with their drinks and took their food orders. When she left, Liandra thought of roughly two thousand subjects to talk to Robert about.

  “So, Robert, how old are you exactly?”

  “Twenty-five, and you’re what, fifteen?”

  Good guess, she thought, and nodded her head.

  “I’ll be sixteen soon this year.”

  “You’re so young to be dealing with all this. When did your dreams start?”

  “I had them sometimes when I was really little, but they didn’t become frequent until I was ten. What about yours?”

  “Mine came on about fifteen years ago, so I guess they started around the same age that yours did. They’ve been bad ever since.”

  “Ten years! That’s horrific! Thank goodness for Richard though, right?”

  “Well, he hasn’t taught me as much as he’s taught you. I could already control most of my dream. Right now, I’m just trying to figure out what these dreams mean and exactly what’s inside of me. He has no answers to any of that yet.”

  He slowly shook his head and sipped his beer, looking quite frustrated.

  “I see, and you learned to control your dreams on your own?”

  “Yeah. Ten years is enough time to learn a thing or two.”

  “And you’re from the U.S.?”

  “Born and raised.”

  “Which part?” she asked, genuinely curious.

  “Chicago, but I’ve been all over.”

  “And what do you do?”

  “Well, I finished school early. Now I’m trying to figure out the next step. Right now, I’m working as a political staffer.”

  “I can’t stand politicians. They’re all so fake.”

  “Understandable. Not all of them are like that. Not the ones I vote for anyway. I’m only doing this until I can figure out what comes next.”

  “No offense, but I pegged you for a spoiled guy before.”

  He snorted and smiled.

  “That’s not the first time I’ve heard that, and I’ll admit that there’s some truth to it. My parents weren’t poor. What about your parents and where you’re from?”

  “My parents and I are originally from Baalbek, Lebanon—well, me and my father are—my mother’s from the U.K. Her parents were immigrants, my grandmum from Lebanon and my grandad from Greece. Now we stay in London, have for years now. My parents do well, Dad’s a psychologist and Mum’s a T.V. producer for a news channel. They’ve been helping me with these dreams for a while now, doing everything in their power to get me through this.”

  “You must love them a lot,” he said. The sincerity of the statement caught her off guard.

  “I do. I love them both. Me and Mum have always been extra close. We nearly died together when she was giving birth to me.”

  “The best bonds are forged from near-death experiences, or after someone you’re both close with dies. I’ve seen it firsthand. Your mom is probably extra sweet on you now.”

  “No, she’s actually the tough one. She babies me sometimes, but my dad always goes soft on me.”

  He smiled at her, warmly this time, and she found herself suddenly glad to have someone to talk with like this. Especially someone who knew her pain so intimately that she barely needed to describe it. They kept on like that until their food arrived and only slowed the conversation between chews. They talked about as much as she could think of and then it came back to the topic of dreams.

  “That creature, the Minotaur, who is it?”

  “I don’t really know. He’s been in my dreams forever and loves to cause me pain. Even though I can barely remember the dreams when I wake up, I know he’s there. I can always feel it in the pit of my stomach.”

  “Fear?”

  “Yes, and anger. The worst kinds of each.”

  “Why did you call ... him ... father?”

  He paused and stared at her.

  “I think I’ve always called him that. Don’t know why.”

  “That’s weird,” she said.

  “It is, but he responds to it, so it must be the right thing to call him. It’s not this way for you?”

  She thought about it.

  “Well, it makes sense, I think. Your eyes are similar. It’s funny, because the first time he met us, Richard had disrespected my mother by comparing her to the Minotaur because they both had blue eyes, black hair, and a desire to punish me.”

  They both laughed.

  “He said that? He’s nuts!”

  “He’s a pretty strange guy. Useful though.”

  “I can’t imagine what was going through your heads when he first said that.”

  “My mum thought it was funny, so all’s forgiven.”

  “I get the feeling that your mother must be very lovely.”

  She smiled.

  “Yes, and she’s also very married.”

  They both
had a laugh at that.

  Chapter 8:

  Progress

  Liandra woke up and slapped her radio’s alarm clock. She tried to stretch the sleepiness out of her flesh and bones but still felt restless, so she shook off her blanket and sat up on the side of her bed, yawning. She looked at the time on her clock radio and saw that it was only 9am. She’d managed to sleep through the whole night, though she felt like she could use a few more hours. Still, this was a huge development for her.

  The past three weeks with Roocean had been fruitful. She could now recall a whole host of details from her dreams. She remembered whole scenes, people’s faces, and could even better recall the sequence of her dreams’ events.

  She and Roocean had even noted a major shift in the tone of her dreams. She now saw people and places, old and new. She didn’t recognize any of it. Time periods seemed to cross and mash-up, as ancient men and women were often in modern settings amongst more contemporary looking folks and vice versa. There was no violence, only a very mundane passiveness as these dream-folk went about their tasks. The frequency of these dreams had increased in the last few weeks and Roocean noted that it had improved her mood as well, but Liandra felt that was to be expected when someone spent most of their nights dreaming about sunny grass fields with perfect calming breezes.

  Robert, on the other hand, seemed to be getting worse. Despite Roocean’s warning, they’d confided the details of their dreams with each other. Robert still had the same torturous imagery of the Minotaur, only now he could remember much more of it, especially the many gory details of each night’s death. He confided in her that there were more faces, all seated at the long table, more beasts like the Minotaur, only they had different animal heads—all of them shouting for his death. He’d managed to defeat most of them, until the Minotaur always bested him in the end in a different cruel death every night.

  Liandra felt bad for him, but she was also envious of his level of control inside his dreams. At least he had the power to fight the beast, she had only been able to wait and watch it come after her. She wanted to learn and explore her dreamscape on her own and not have her subconscious dictate what it wanted her to see. That control was the next step, Roocean had promised her.