Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland (The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 3) Read online

  Rachel breathed in the now-familiar dream-scent of lilacs and plaster-of-Paris. She gazed about alertly. Something about adventure, about learning new things, made her feel alive. She loved seeing previously unseen sights. It was as if her mind needed to drink in new knowledge for her mental gears to fully engage. She looked around eagerly, making certain that her eyes passed over everything. If she failed to notice something now, it would be preserved in her memory so that she could examine it later. Of course, surrounded by thick mist as they were, there was not much to see.

  “Where…are we?” Xandra’s jaw, the only part of her visible beneath her hood, gaped. Beneath her school robes, she wore a navy blue nightgown and pink bunny slippers. Rachel had no idea what had become of her oboe. “Where did the school go? What is all this mist? I’ve been swallowed by a mist whale, haven’t I? Tell me the truth. I can bear it!”

  “We’re in dreamland,” Zoë replied casually, as if people stepped into dreams every day, “where people go at night when they sleep.”

  “That’s a…place?” The normally unflappable Xandra’s voice squeaked in astonishment.

  The mist parted around them, and Joy screamed.

  Ahead of them, two bodies dangled in the air. Each hung from a hangman’s noose. Black cloth bags covered their heads. From the neck down, they wore black trousers, black vests, and fresh clean white shirts with enormous sleeves pleated like the bellows of an accordion. These traditional Hungarian garments might have been humorous had their surroundings not been so grisly.

  Their feet swung back and forth, the rope creaking. Somewhere, crows cawed.

  At least, Rachel thought it was crows.

  “That’s just…a dream, right?” gasped Joy, her face pale. Rachel swallowed and grasped the princess’s hand more tightly. Nastasia gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze.

  “Someone’s been watching too many horror flicks,” Zoë smirked. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, girls.”

  “I’m not a girl,” objected Siggy.

  Joy elbowed him, giggling.

  “Do you wear panties?” asked Zoë. “Hmm? I thought not. The point is: here in dreams, we see weird and horrible stuff all the time. Get used to it.”

  “Like naked people.” Rachel shuddered, recalling her first visit to dreamland.

  She tried not to stare at the dangling bodies, but there was something hypnotizing about their motion, as they swung back and forth from their scaffolding. Was some poor student at the school really dreaming about this? She felt sorry for whomever was having this nightmare. With a second shudder, she wondered if she, too, would now dream about this.

  Turning away from the execution dream, she looked around. Long curtains of mist, much taller than the students, undulated around them. Each curve held a different living diorama, which Rachel knew, from her previous excursion to dreamland, was the dream of a single individual. Behind them, in a different curve of the mist curtain, a boy ran endlessly uphill. Around the next bend, Rachel glimpsed a red-headed girl and her father building a go-cart.

  Valerie lifted her camera. The blinding flash lit the gallows and its unlucky burden.

  The scene of the hanging in the town square changed to a rocky peak in bright sunlight. Mountain goats leapt from rock to rock. Across the way, the boy now ran uphill under a glaring sun. The girl’s father held a camera. He took pictures of the go-cart using a bright flash.

  “Look, Goldilocks,” Siggy grinned enthusiastically at his girlfriend, “you changed people’s dreams.”

  “So, I did,” mused Valerie, her reporter-girl instincts intrigued.

  “If you can get everyone to dream about going to Mars, the space program will become popular again,” crowed Siggy. “Then, all we need is to turn invisible and sneak aboard the Mars ship. If we turn the crewmen into ferrets, it will compensate for the change in mass.”

  Lucky said hopefully, “Could we turn the astronauts into chickens? That would be tastier!”

  “Okay, enough of this.” Zoë glared at Lucky. “Now it’s your turn, Princess. Lead on, Fearless Leader! We follow.”

  “Very well.” Nastasia cleared her throat. “We shall now depart for Magical Australia.”

  “We’re going to Magical Australia?” The words burst from Rachel in an explosion of pure joy.

  “Ace!” shouted Siggy, punching the air with his free hand. Lucky’s head bounced up and down on his shoulder, but the length of his body was wrapped around Sigfried, so he did not let go. His great jade eyes glinted with eagerness, too.

  “We’re…going to Magical Australia tonight? We’re leaving school grounds?” murmured Xandra. “Oh. Just great.”

  Rachel gave Xandra’s hand an encouraging squeeze. The older girl had not signed up for this, the way the rest of them had. She had been sent by her Voices. Xandra gave a very quick squeeze back. The upperclassman towered above Rachel, which was not difficult, as Rachel was particularly short. She shared her diminutive size with her part-Korean mother. She had also inherited her mother’s Asian eyes and her power of perfect recall.

  Unfortunately, she had not inherited her mother’s beautiful, thick locks. Strands of Rachel’s fine, black hair had escaped her hair clip and now tickled her face. Unable to use her hands to brush it away, she had to settle for twitching her nose and blowing.

  “Zoë and I went two days ago,” Nastasia continued. “We visited a dream version of the castle where I live when I am not at school. Zoë says she could take us down into the real castle—the waking world version—but it might be hard to explain to my parents how we came to be there.” She paused. “Hard to explain to Mother. Father…would, no doubt, understand. Though by the time he was done, the explanation would invariably include wombats and emu.” The princess sighed.

  The others laughed, but a sharp pain stabbed through Rachel.

  Nastasia and Zoë had gone to Magical Australia without her? They had experimented with Nastasia’s secret gift without her? Zoë was supposed to be her friend. Rachel was the one who had insisted on including her in their group, and the princess was Rachel’s best friend.

  How could they have gone without her?

  “We were at a castle earlier today,” Sigfried volunteered. “An evil creature called a D-bone tried to sacrifice us to destroy the world. Glad we avoided that. It would have been messy, not to mention inconvenient. If the world were destroyed, where would Lucky and I keep all our gold? Not to mention that being sacrificed might have ruined our entire day! Fortunately, we were saved by some bloke named Finn. Probably a big fish or a shark or something.”

  Rachel’s body tensed, but she managed not to blurt out: No, you were saved by me!

  “That was demon, not debone,” stated the princess. “Our rescuer was our math tutor’s husband, Finn MacDannan.”

  “Finn MacDannan? You mean the rock star, Red Ryder?” Zoë sounded truly impressed for the first time since Rachel had met the laid-back girl.

  Xandra mused, “He’s thought to be the best enchanter alive today.”

  “He was amazing,” Rachel admitted.

  The MacDannans were family friends, and it was right to give credit where credit was due. Still, she could not help adding sadly to herself: even if he wasn’t the one who saved the world. I did that, and my uncle, Myrddin the Ghost Boy.

  Suddenly, her lips curved upward. She always felt uncomfortable when she ended up in the limelight or people made too much of her. She should be grateful no one knew of her part in the previous evening’s activities.

  “What castle was that,” Valerie asked, snapping another picture. “The one where the demon nearly sacrificed you?” She sounded as if she did not quite believe Sigfried.

  “Beaumont,” said Rachel. “It’s in Transylvania.”

  “Oooh, scary,” laughed Joy.

  The dreamscape changed. A huge gray castle draped in ivy rose above them.

  “That’s Beaumont!” Rachel craned her head to look up at the vast basalt walls.

 
A violent longing seized her.

  All her life, she had wanted to visit this castle. Her hero, librarian-adventurer Darius Northwest had disappeared there in 1868, presumably slain by some monster he had been investigating. It was so frustrating to have been so close and not have had the opportunity to go inside. She wanted to explore it now but wisely restrained the impulse to pull her friends headlong toward the vast edifice.

  If any clues to Northwest’s final fate remained, they would not be in this dream Beaumont.

  Siggy gawked up at the towering basalt walls. “Where’d this castle come from?”

  Zoë peered downward, one hand resting on Lucky’s sinuous tail where it slipped under her arm and around her waist. “Harder for me to look out of dreams than to look in. Still. Pretty sure we’re in the dream of a Starkadder prince.”

  “Those are the princes of Magical Bavaria, right?” asked Sigfried.

  Joy elbowed the handsome boy again, blushing and loudly giggling. “No, silly, that’s Vladimir Von Dread. And besides, it’s just Bavaria. Not Magical Bavaria. The Unwary know about it, too.”

  “Stop jabbing me, Joy,” scowled Sigfried.

  Joy wilted like a plucked flower. Rachel’s heart went out to her. She knew from books that girls who fancied boys they were not dating often poked and hit them. Joy had a huge crush on Sigfried, but her love was unrequited. He was completely devoted to Valerie.

  “Okay, people!” Zoë addressed the group. “This trip off into the wop-wops requires us to walk along some kooky rail that the princess creates. It’s not very wide. But so far, we haven’t fallen off.”

  A silvery beam like liquid moonlight, about as wide as a train rail, appeared before Nastasia. She stepped gingerly forward onto the narrow moonlight track.

  “Wow!” Rachel breathed. She leaned toward the princess and whispered very softly, “Is this what our Elf taught you?” Nastasia nodded and squeezed her hand.

  Rachel took a step forward. The silver track gave slightly beneath her foot. Her excitement swelled. Pushing aside the faint ache left by the knowledge that Nastasia had done this two days ago without her—nothing should interfere with the joy of the coming adventure—she stepped forward.

  Sternly, she also tamped down her tremendous desire to possess this traveling talent of the princess’s. It was not seemly to envy a friend’s gift.

  They were going to travel!

  Rachel Griffin wanted to travel more than she could say—literally, for words could not express the depth of her wanderlust nor the breadth of her longing to see faraway places. Perhaps it was because she had spent so much of her life at so few places: Gryphon Park and its attached town of Gryphon-on-Dart, Hot Springs Beach at Thulehavn, occasionally London, and now here in New York State at Roanoke Academy. Perhaps it was because she had spent so many hours curled up in the library at the top of Grandfather’s tower, reading fanciful tales; perhaps because she had spent so much time immersed in Daring Northwest’s works of discovery and adventure.

  She wanted to stand upon high peaks and catch glimpses of distant sapphire seas. She wanted to drink from “yet untasted wells.” She wanted to meet fairy creatures that she had read about in books. She wanted to kick sand on the beaches of Neverland, to pick a ripe volume from the book trees of Oz, to drink the Mad Hatter’s tea in Wonderland.

  At the very least, she wanted to feel the hot desert winds of Magical Australia!

  Rachel Griffin wanted to know everything.

  But everything was a big subject, and even she had to occasionally admit that some things were more interesting than others. What she wanted, most of all, was to know secrets, things unseen by eyes other than hers.

  Besides, a little voice whispered very quietly in the back of her mind, if she did not discover more, if she did not learn about the greater world and the threats it represented, how could she protect her loved ones from coming dangers?

  Behind her, the others had stepped onto the silvery beam. Rachel gave the impressive edifice of Dream Beaumont one last wistful glance. As she turned her head, she caught a glimpse of the same wanderlust that burned within her reflected in the face of Sigfried Smith.

  Their gazes met, and they grinned at each other.

  “The Starkadders are the princes of Transylvania,” she kindly answered Sigfried’s previous question. “One of them must have heard us say the name of the castle, the way the dreamers saw Valerie’s flash.”

  “Transylvania, Bavaria,” Sigfried shrugged, “what’s the difference? They’re both made-up places, right?”

  “No, you goofball! They’re real!” Joy snickered, poking him again with her elbow.

  “Don’t do that!” Sigfried jerked away from Joy.

  He jerked too hard.

  Siggy and Joy lost their balance and tumbled off the silvery Way, dragging the others after them. Rachel fell knees-first onto the soft cloudy stuff of dreamland. Despite the wrenching to her shoulders, she managed to keep hold on the princess and Xandra.

  Joy was not so lucky. Her hand slipped out of Sigfried’s.

  “Oops!” Joy cried, grabbing for Siggy again, but it was too late.

  Chapter Two:

  Trapped in Transylvania

  With a shout, Rachel, Joy, Xandra, and the princess plummeted out of dreamland. Determined not to bruise her already-tender tailbone, Rachel tucked her body and flipped. As she came out of the flip, spreading her arms and pointing her toes, she gave thanks for all the vaulting classes she had taken as a child. Years of learning to land lightly on the back of her pony had finally paid off.

  Or would have if…

  Bang!

  Just as she was about to execute a perfect gymnast’s landing, Xandra and Joy knocked into her. Rachel spun wildly, arms wind-milling. She tried to right herself, but it was too late. She struck the ground cheek-first and slid.

  Ouch.

  Upside down, her rear in the air, her weight pressing her face into the sharp gravel, Rachel noted ironically that she had been granted her wish: she had not landed on her tailbone.

  The other three rushed over, crowding around her.

  “Rachel! Are you all right?” Joy had a long scratch down her arm and was holding her bleeding elbow. However, she lost her struggle to keep a straight face. Amidst peels of helpless laughter, she burst out, “You just hit the ground…with your face!”

  Rachel ducked her head. The heat of embarrassment did not help her bleeding cheek. It ached. Her lip hurt, too. She tasted blood. When she breathed in, the chill of the air stung her lungs.

  Somewhere inside her, a whimper began. That and the sympathetic yet amused faces of her friends threatened to undo her. The horrific events of the last twelve hours—discovering the truth about the horrific murder of her grandfather’s first family; facing death to save the school from the rogue jumbo jet; seeing her friends get kidnapped; being asked to kill her family so a demon could destroy the world—pressed upon her. Unshed tears stung her eyes. Her ripped lip quivered dangerously.

  She would not cry.

  A young woman of quality does not cry in the presence of others. Her august Victorian grandmother’s voice echoed in her memory. Gritting her teeth, Rachel called upon the dissembling techniques she had learned from her mother to hide her expression. Her face became as calm as a mask.

  A jumble of pain and fear remained inside.

  She felt lost.

  Xandra pulled her oboe from a small bag at her hip. Obviously, it was a kenomanced bag, with extra room added, because there was no other way that the long black and silver instrument could have fit in such a tiny space. Lifting the instrument, Xandra played a lilting tune.

  The music swelled. Tiny green sparkles swirled from the mouth of the instrument and danced over Rachel’s face and Joy’s arm. A delicious scent of fresh baked muffins wafted from the green glints of healing magic. The pain in her face eased, and her cheek stopped smarting. The flesh of her torn lip re-knit. Soon, the ache had become a tingle.

  She
sighed with delight and rubbed her face, finding no wound.

  “Wait,” Joy’s voice squeaked. “Where are we?”

  They stood in the middle of a gravel walk lined by stately elms. Something about the walkway struck her as familiar. Her brows drew together. Wasn’t it the middle of the night? How could she see so clearly?

  She spun around.

  Behind her loomed a familiar gray castle. Much of its vast bulk was obscured behind dark green ivy that covered the flat walls and the six, rounded towers that served in lieu of corners. The only opening in this imposing structure was the gatehouse, the arched doorway of which stood open with no sign of a portcullis. Carvings on its rounded walls showed vultures defiling corpses and serpents swallowing children. These had been gouged into the wall recently, over the top of older, more pleasant bas-reliefs.

  “Beaumont!” Rachel cried yet again. “We’re at Beaumont!”

  “Just my luck,” Xandra mused resignedly as she lowered her instrument. “My first sojourn into dreamland, and I fall out next to a castle where people feed children to snakes. Are there vampires? This is Transylvania, right? With my luck, there’ll be vampires…or maybe werewolves? Aren’t the Starkadder princes actually werewolves?”

  Zoë stepped out of a puff of mist, her free hand on her hip. Lucky’s golden tail was wrapped around her waist, its red tip fluttering. The rest of him trailed off into the mist.

  “Did you fall out again, you goofy kids? What am I to do with you?” She halted, blinking in the daylight and chafing her arms at the cold. “Um, Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

  “Beaumont,” Rachel repeated with a laugh, rubbing her freshly-healed cheek, which tingled slightly. “We’re in Transylvania. It’s seven hours ahead of New York. It’s daytime here.”