The Afterlife series Box Set (Books 1-3)

  Nigel raised his hand. “But how do we actually physically catch these dreams? How do we hold on to them and what do we do with them?”

  “Aha, the practicalities. You want to know the technique?” said Mr. Dhamdul

  “Yes,” Nigel said.

  “We are getting to that. Don’t be in such a rush. Being in a hurry will get you nowhere when it comes to dream catching.”

  “Because it will disturb our inner peace and cause us to lose our balance?” said Frederic Cornwell with a mischievous grin imitating the teacher’s mystical calm voice. His sister sniggered loudly next to him, but Mr. Dhamdul didn’t take any notice of them.

  After half an hour of boring theory lessons each of us received a net. Mr. Dhamdul asked Nigel to lie down and fall asleep on a mattress on the floor. Ten minutes later he was snoring and caused giggling among most of the students. He even drooled on the pillow.

  “Come closer and look at his eye movements,” Mr. Dhamdul whispered. “The Rapid Eye Movement has already begun. That is when Nigel is dreaming. Now if you focus on the top of his head, you will begin to see something that humans are not capable of seeing. It might take a while for you to learn how to see it, but you will eventually.”

  We all stared intensely at Nigel. A rainbow of different colors suddenly seemed to appear. “Is it like colors?” I asked.

  “Yes! Yes!” Mr. Dhamdul said with great excitement that caused Nigel to snort and turn in his heavy sleep. “Keep looking and tell me what you see,” Mr. Dhamdul whispered.

  I looked at my classmates and realized they were all staring at me. Apparently they hadn’t been able to see anything yet, so they were somehow expecting me to tell them what they were supposed to see. I turned to look at Nigel again and now the colors seemed to be moving around and then it all turned into what looked like a bubble. Shapes appeared in it. It looked like people. Soon they had bodies and faces and they were walking, running, and doing stuff, like a small movie or a play taking place on top of Nigel’s head. It seemed so surreal. The people seemed to be talking now, but I couldn’t hear them, so I went closer. Everybody stared at me like I was watching something they couldn’t see.

  “It looks like a bubble. It has people in it,” I said.

  “That is it! That is the dream. It is inside that bubble. Very good, Meghan. I am impressed that you can see it so early in your training. Now pick up your net and try to catch it, but be very careful not to scare it off,” Mr. Dhamdul said.

  I lifted the net and went closer. I stretched my arm out and moved the net close to the bubble with the dream, but the bubble moved, so my net came back empty. I tried again but the same thing happened. Nigel started moving in his sleep. He began tossing and turning. The bubble seemed to become flaming red. I turned to Mr. Dhamdul for help. He looked pensive for a few seconds.

  “When you miss, it might cause the dream to go bad. So now he has a nightmare. Look at his tormented face while he is dreaming. We have to be very careful when we try to catch the dream. You don’t want to catch it when it is a bad one. Those are impossible to change. We have to wait to see if it calms down a little,” he whispered.

  We stared at the dream for a few minutes and eventually its colors changed again. Blue and yellow colors were mixed into the red and Nigel’s face seemed calmer.

  “We are fortunate,” Mr. Dhamdul whispered. “Look at how the colors are changing. Always look at the color of the dream before you try to catch it. Now I am going to try.”

  Mr. Dhamdul looked very focused and stood still in front of the bubble for a long time, just staring at it, like it was an animal that needed to trust him first. He reminded me of a dog on a hunt when it had found its prey. Then he slowly stretched out the net, but as he did the bubble jumped and he missed.

  “This one is tricky,” he whispered. “I will try another approach.” He closed his eyes and took in a couple of deep breaths before he neared the bubble again. I think Mr. Dhamdul was the first spirit I had ever seen fly like he was in slow motion. Slowly he came so close that he could reach out and almost touch the bubble. I held my breath while he froze in the air and became completely still. Nothing on him moved. Not a breath, not a blink, not one single movement.

  Slowly and soundlessly he then reached out with the net again. But still the dream moved just in time for him to miss it.

  Some of the students giggled while Mr. Dhamdul tried to suppress the growing irritation inside of him. Then he closed his eyes and started humming. He meditated for a few minutes. “Some of them are just impossible,” he said when he opened his eyes again and had regained his peaceful self. “As you just saw with your own eyes, it is very difficult to catch a dream. It takes years of training. This one in particular is very hard.”

  I kept staring at the bubble on top of Nigel’s head and suddenly I felt an urge. I felt like I could do this. “May I try one last time?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Mr. Dhamdul said.

  I floated silently toward the dream, and when I got close, I put the net down. I sensed the confusion in my classmates’ expressions as I left the net behind. But I tried not to take any notice of it. I didn’t want to break my concentration. The bubble seemed to know we were trying to catch it so it started to roll back and forth, constantly changing its direction. It moved like a small animal trying to avoid being caught. I suddenly remembered from my childhood that I used to catch lizards with my bare hands. I smiled at the memory and carefully reached out both of my hands and with one quick movement I grabbed the dream and held it between my hands. I heard the whole class gasp behind me and I felt like everything had stopped. Now I was holding the bubble between my hands, while it was trying constantly to escape, but I had no idea what to do next. Mr. Dhamdul looked at me with huge eyes.

  “So … what do I do now?” I stuttered. The bubble was slippery and difficult to hold on to. The people in it kept moving around and talking, but all I could hear was distant voices as if from a radio or TV in another room.

  Mr. Dhamdul floated toward me. “I … I have to say … That was really impressive, Meghan. You have a real talent for this. I have never had a student catch a dream on her first try. And never ever with her bare hands.”

  All eyes were on me and I felt a little insecure. This was the second time in a short period that I had done something like this.

  “How did you do that?” Mr. Dhamdul asked.

  “I … I don’t know. I just … I mean it is a lot like catching lizards,” I said.

  The entire class burst into a huge laughter and that was quite a relief for me. In the bubble I spotted Nigel talking to a girl and I suddenly felt like I was looking at something I shouldn’t be looking at. It was Acacia. He was dreaming about her. I lifted my head and looked at her, but then I realized that I didn’t even know if the others could see the dream at all. By the look at Acacia’s face, she didn’t see anything. Maybe all she saw was the bubble. Maybe she didn’t even see that.

  “So what do I do with it now?” I asked again.

  “Let it go for now,” Mr. Dhamdul said, seeming a little perplexed for the first time. I did as he said and placed the bubble back on Nigel’s head again. The bubble seemed confused and started spinning around like it was afraid I wanted to catch it again, but soon it calmed down. Mr. Dhamdul told us to get back to our desks while he gently woke up Nigel. He seemed a little confused as he got back to reality, and the class laughed at him as he wiped away the drool from his chin.

  “Thank you Nigel,” said Mr. Dhamdul, “for kindly letting us borrow your dream today.”

  Nigel blushed and glanced in Acacia’s direction. I was the only one who knew why. Then he went back to his seat while Mr. Dhamdul continued.

  “The next step is to look into how we open up the dream after catching it and, most importantly, how we change it.”

  “Wow! How did you do that?” asked Abhik as we left the classroom. We were floating through the corridors where torches burned on the white marble walls. O
n our way we passed the walking armor who greeted us.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I guess I was just lucky.”

  “No, you are getting good at everything. That was amazing. Most of us only saw the bubble. We didn’t even see the dream inside of it. For the most part, I only saw colors moving and sometimes not even that. But I did see how Mr. Dhamdul looked at you.”

  After lunch, I went to the library to pick up a book on dream catching. I was beginning to think that it might be my talent. I seemed really good at it and I liked the idea of being able to help humans by telling them information through their dreams—like Mick had helped that woman tell her husband she was all right. That was really cool.

  “You are making headlines at the school these days,” a voice said when I turned a corner in the corridor. I spotted Mick leaning against the wall, looking casual and appealing. He moved slowly toward me.

  “What did you hear?” I said and suppressed a smile. I couldn’t help being a little proud.

  “That you caught a dream on first attempt with your bare hands.”

  I shrugged. “I guess they are right, then. It was my second attempt, though.”

  “That is amazing. I have never heard of anyone do that before. You are really growing strong.”

  “I guess.”

  Mick ran a hand through his blond hair. He gave me a look like I was an idiot. “What? Aren’t you happy? You are one of the best students this school has ever had.”

  I sighed. “Of course I am happy. I just don’t quite know what to make of it. It is going a little fast for me.”

  Mick tilted his head. “You don’t like change, do you?”

  “It just takes some time getting used to it. That’s all. I’ve never been a good student. I was never the teacher’s pet or anything. And it’s kind of taking me by surprise.”

  He nodded. “I see what you mean. But once you realize what you are capable of, I tell you, it is a whole new world out there.”

  “Was it like this for you, once you realized what you could do?”

  “Yes. It does remind me of that,” Mick said with the trace of a smile. “I didn’t do all those things you are doing, but I was the best student during my final year too.”

  “So how did you handle it?”

  “I kept practicing and eventually got better at controlling it.”

  “Maybe I should try that,” I said. “I have to get going now, I have a class in a few minutes and I need to go to the library first.”

  I started floating slowly toward the library again. Mick escorted me. We stayed quiet most of the way. Suddenly I felt his hand in mine. I turned to see if anyone was behind us, but we were alone.

  Chapter 16

  The next couple of weeks really changed how I looked at myself. I kept growing and doing wonderful things I had never done before. And I became quite the celebrity at the school. People looked at me with a mixture of awe and respect. No one spoke of the cancelled wedding any longer. Instead, everybody wanted to see me do something amazing. It was a positive turn, and I enjoyed that part of it. But at the same time, I had never liked being the center of attention either, so I kept mostly to myself and tried to avoid being in big groups of people. If someone approached me I would politely talk to them, but try to get out of it as quickly as possible. But inside my confidence slowly grew. I knew now that I had a lot of talents. And I was really good—everybody kept telling me that. But I had a great respect for what was happening as well. By now I had little if any control over my talents and I was careful not to misuse it.

  Every day I trained in my room. I practiced making things appear between my hands. But what appeared was never what I intended. And I couldn’t quite see the silver lining in it. With Mick, it had always been food, but with me it was all kind of things. I had books appear when I was trying for a cup of tea. I had a coconut roll out of my hands onto the floor when I wanted a pencil. I had no control over it whatsoever. And I never knew what was coming. At one point a whole tree appeared in the middle of our dormitory, when I was trying to make a necklace. I had no idea how to get rid of it again, so I had to ask Rahmiel for help. Fortunately she made it disappear with just a look.

  “It is a good thing that you are exploring your talents, but maybe you could do it outside from now on,” she said.

  So I continued outside for the next couple of weeks. Every day after school I went into the yard and tried as hard as I could. One afternoon I had a little breakthrough. I wanted to make a butterfly and put it in the garden. So I concentrated and thought about a beautiful purple one. I rubbed my hands together and they turned burning hot. Then I felt that something inside of them. As I opened them I was holding a small cocoon. I was so happy. Finally something that was really close to what I wanted to make. I put it in the Butterfly Garden, and checked on it every day. Finally one day when I got there, it had hatched. I looked around and saw a beautiful blue butterfly flickering around a flower close by. It had to be it, I thought. It just had to be. It wasn’t exactly what I had wanted but it had finally come close. I was getting better and it wouldn’t be long before I could finally control it.

  The following weekend I decided to take some time off from practicing and go visit my human again. After all, she was my assignment and I had only visited her once, while my classmates had gone several times already to visit their assignments. I kept postponing it since I thought Rosey would only be sitting in that wheelchair all day doing nothing, so there wasn’t much for me to do. I wasn’t planning on going but that Saturday Abhik was going for the fifth time to visit his little girl in Uganda. Before he left he looked at me and said, “Don’t you think it is about time you start taking this assignment seriously?”

  “I don’t know what to do down there,” I tried to explain myself. “She just sits in her chair all day and does nothing.”

  “You will not graduate if you do not fulfill your assignment,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how good you are at all the other stuff. This is the most important one. It shows you care more about other people than yourself. That is worth a thousand times more than all of your special talents and skills. They are worth nothing if you don’t use them to help someone or improve someone’s life.”

  It felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Abhik had a way of speaking the truth and making me feel like a horrible person. But this time I needed it. I realized I had been selfish. I had focused only on myself and all my talents and neglected my most important assignment.

  So I went to see Rosey, my assignment, my project. On my way there my mind drifted as I flew with snow-covered mountaintops underneath me. There was only a week left until Jason would come to the school and lately I had a lot of butterflies in my stomach at the thought of it. I didn’t quite know if I was looking forward to it or not. Things were better with Mick now and Jason coming here might ruin that once and for all. But again it might not. Maybe I would finally realize that Jason wasn’t the one; maybe I would finally let him go. I was looking forward to getting it over with and move on with my life, but at the same time I enjoyed the secrecy between me and Mick. We weren’t really seeing each other, not officially, but still we would “accidently” meet somewhere in the castle every day and talk, and even sometimes kiss where nobody saw it. I enjoyed the sneaking around. I enjoyed that it wasn’t all so serious. When Jason arrived, I knew I had to make my decision. I had to choose between Mick and Jason. And if I chose Mick it would get serious again. I would have to marry him.

  I had gone over it a million times in my head. Jason would arrive at the school. I would face him, look into his eyes and maybe talk to him. I was hoping it would be easy, that seeing Jason would make me feel nothing at all, but I knew in my heart that seeing him again—and him finally seeing me—would be emotional for me. Just thinking about him as I was flying toward the psychiatric hospital made tears well up into my eyes. I had loved him so much once and I was afraid that I still did.

  I looked for Rosey in the acti
vity room but she wasn’t there. All the other patients were playing games or watching the broken TV as usual, but she was nowhere in sight. So I found her room and went in through the door. There she was in her bed. She looked pale, even more than last time. She had a tube in her nose that I guessed they used to force feed her with. I sighed and sat at her bed. Her eyes stared at nothing. They had lost all life. Tears rolled down her cheeks. I didn’t quite know what I was supposed to do. So I sat there for awhile thinking about Jason. An hour or so later a nurse entered, the same nurse I had seen last time. Her nametag said Mary.

  “Time for lunch, Rosey,” she sang as she fastened a bag of tan fluid to the end of the tube and it ran through Rosey’s nose. Rosey didn’t even blink. The nurse sighed and stroked Rosey a few times. “I know it is a tough day for you,” she said. “But killing yourself by not eating will not bring your daughter and husband back.”

  My ears perked up. Finally some answers. So her husband and daughter from the picture were dead. That made sense. I looked at Rosey and thought I saw a reaction in her eyes as the nurse mentioned the family. Rosey was still in there somewhere.

  When Mary left, I followed her into the break room where she poured herself a cup of coffee. Then she sat at a table with a younger nurse who flipped through a magazine. Mary sighed deeply while she shook her head.

  “Having a tough day?” asked the younger nurse.

  “Not as tough as it is on Rosey in there,” Mary said. “It has been eight years today.”

  “Oh. That has to be rough.”

  “Yeah. We always let her stay in her bed on this day, the fourth of November. It’s just too much for her.”

  “Well no wonder. Terrible story.”

  “I know. She is the one patient I’m closest to actually understanding. I have no idea how I would have reacted if that happened to me.”