Briar & the Dreamers of Midnight

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Before Silver’s granddaughter was taken from her, I hardly ever saw Silver. She came to me one day and asked me to help find her granddaughter, Ruby. That’s when we really became friends. She’d seen me floating in and out of her dreams before, but I doubt if she trusted me before that.

There aren’t many people who still dream of me. Those dreamers are either old enough to remember the sleeping Princess Briar, or they are noblemen dreaming about rescuing the legendary Sleeping Beauty, as they like to call me. Luckily, I haven’t met a dreamer who is both.

Silver was one of the former. I was drifting around in the Dreaming and saw myself. I was a little girl, laughing at a dragonfly that was buzzing around me. To either side of me were my parents, looking young and regal—laughing at me as I buzzed around them.

I couldn’t help but come back to Silver’s dreams after that. That little snippet from Silver kept me lurking in her dreams, night after night.

It turns out that golden snippet was one of her rare happy dreams. Like everyone else in Midnight, she mostly has nightmares. Dark and anxious, often looking for someone she lost, fighting a battle that never ends.

Then one night, she came looking for me. I hadn’t even known she’d noticed me watching at the edge of her dreams. Silver’s like that, though. She notices a lot of things.

Silver’s granddaughter disappeared during a hunt. Lots of girls did. I try to stay away from those nightmares. There’s nothing I can do to help, and it’s too difficult to stand by and watch.

But Silver convinced me otherwise. She sent me off searching from dream to dream to find Ruby.

Once we figured out that Ruby was being held in Midnight Castle, we knew we wouldn’t be able to get her out. So Silver asked me to help train and advise Ruby through her dreams. It was our way of keeping her alive until we figured out a way to rescue her.

After that, Silver and I met regularly. At first, I showed up as Ruby, but Silver didn’t like that. I kind of liked it, though. I liked the way she looked at me. As though I belonged with her. As though I was family.

Anyway, she didn’t like me pretending to be Ruby, so I went back to myself. She’d teach me fighting techniques and survival strategies so that I could go into Ruby’s dreams and pass on the lessons.

If I was doing it now, I’d probably get them to meet in a joint dream, but that’s a new skill that I didn’t know how to do until recently. I’m glad I didn’t know, because otherwise, I would have missed Silver’s full attention. I would just have been a lurker in her granddaughter’s lessons.

In Ruby’s dreams, I showed up as Silver. But Ruby’s version of Silver is much older, so that was a little strange to get used to. Anyway, strange should be my middle name, so I got used to it.

“So, is this a social visit?” I ask.

“Not quite. Can you bring together a meeting?” asks Silver.

I frown. “I thought Ruby is safe now.”

“This doesn’t involve her. It’s a different matter.”

I don’t like meetings so much. It’s a lot of work, but that’s not what bothers me. In order to time the meeting correctly, I have to wait in my tower so that I’ll know what time it is in the Waking.

Usually, the last thing I want to do is sit and wait in my tower.

Time is funny in the Dreaming, and I don’t have much need of it. But time is everything to those in the Waking. The only place I can be sure of knowing the time in the Waking is by the clock tower outside my window. Anywhere else, it’s simply dream time.

“How many dreamers?” I ask.

“Me, two wolfkin and two agents from the castle. Can you bring it together?”

I nod. “All right. When?”

“Tomorrow night, the usual time, usual place.”

Even in dreams, Silver is careful. She doesn’t like to identify the time and location, even when the meeting takes place in a dream. Habits run deep, and she never jeopardizes anything unnecessarily, asleep or awake.

I can tell she wishes I could pull together the meeting tonight, but it isn’t easy getting everybody to the same place at the same time. There’s no way to tell if everyone is asleep at the same time unless you schedule it, especially now that night is getting longer.

“I’ll let the wolfkin know,” she says. “Can you contact the agents?”

I nod.

I’ll do anything to help the cause. I’m not an official member of the Order of the Midnight Rose, the way Silver is, but I might as well be. I’ve helped the fight against the Dark King ever since I met Silver.

The Midnight Rose and the wolfkin stand against the Dark King and the fairies. They want the kingdom free of their tyranny as much as I do, which is saying a lot. Like me, every member of the Order and every wolfkin have someone they loved who’s been killed or enslaved. I have the honor of being the only one who’s been cursed, though.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” says Silver. Then she disappears.