The six of us crowd together at the edge of the tunnel as we look in on this new dream. Madelyn sits in her super wheelchair in the middle, and we all try to squeeze in around her. All except Master Mind, who takes one peek then moves back.
“Our first rule, Madelyn, is safety.” Justin tells her. “We’re Dreamers. We can wake up if something happens to us. Joy can really get hurt. We have to protect her at any cost. Do you understand?
She nods, her face serious. “Protect Joy. Of course.”
“My dad, Grampa Walt, can also get hurt. But protect him second. First Joy.”
I notice he didn’t explain I was a dream made permanent. That’s wise for now.
Madelyn nods again.
“To be safe, first we look at a new dream. A dream can be anything. It could be super dangerous for Joy, yeah?”
She nods and looks down.
We are looking down at a city and I recognize the architecture, the onion domes at the top of one of the ancient buildings. This is somewhere in Russia.
“I have been here,” Madelyn says. “We are in St. Petersburg.”
“That’s in Russia,” I whisper to Joy. “The Dreamer here may not speak English.”
“That building,” Madelyn points down at a huge church that looks hundreds of years old with colorful onion domes at the top. “It is the… sauveur de l'église du sang versé. Uh… I do not know in English.”
I try to piece together the French. “Ah, Church of Spilled Blood? Something like that?”
Madelyn shrugs. She does not know.
“Church of spilled blood?” Charlie looks at Joy who also shrugs. It sounds very strange.
“There, that’s the Dreamer,” Justin points. A woman around Justin’s and Madelyn’s age is walking through a street.
“Let us go!” Madelyn reaches to touch the buttons of her super wheelchair.
“No,” Justin stops her. “We look first.”
The woman’s clothes are dirty. Her head is covered with a handkerchief. She is wearing a few layers to keep warm. And in her hands she is holding… I can’t make it out.
“Oh! She is holding a baby!” Madelyn says.
Joy shoves her head forward. “A baby? A person baby? I want to see a person baby!”
I think she means ‘human baby’. She’s seen a lot of fantasy creatures in Justin’s dreams, but very few humans. And perhaps not a lot of babies, I don’t know.
“Hold on, Joy,” Justin tries to calm her with his voice. “We have to see what the dream is about.”
The woman walks over slowly to a building a few hundred meters from the church. She goes to a place with a few garbage cans.
“Uh…” Justin starts looking around and taps his fingers uncontrollably.
The woman sits on her knees next to one of the garbage cans.
“Oh boy…” Justin turns to Joy. “Joy, Charlie, look at me for a second.”
I don’t know what he thinks will happen, but he clearly wants them to not see it.
The woman places the baby on the ground on the sidewalk next to the garbage can.
“Oh, non!” Madelyn says.
“Shoot,” I say.
The woman cries.
“What’s happening? Why is she crying?!” Joy says. Charlie can’t take his eyes off the woman.
“Joy, Charlie, look at me for a minute.”
“In a second, Dad!”
The woman gets to her feet and walks away. The baby, crying now, remains behind on the floor.
“She left the baby?!” Joy screams. “She left the baby?!”
(To be continued…)
—Told by Grampa Walt