Shadows of the World

As we continued on through the dense, dark woods that surrounded his home, our breathing got more and more labored. It was hard to walk in the dark in the woods, I constantly felt my feet collide with things, sending me tumbling forward just slightly. But our hands never left each other. We were grasped onto each other like vicegrips and nothing could tear us apart. It was that one connection, that one feeling that plastered a smile on my face and kept me following. My heart thumped loudly in my chest and I could hear it like a scream in my ears. Around us, here, the night was fully alive. There were rustles of things in the bushes and underbrush, the hoots of owls, the flapping of wings. I wasn't afraid though. I might have been if I had been alone, but with Carson, afraid was the least thing I felt.

Suddenly, we stopped and when I looked up, I realized why. Before us was a large pond that shone brilliantly silver from the moon that lit overhead. Here, you could see everything, and as we stepped out of the forest to the clearing where the pond was, I looked up and once again saw the stars. Along the sides of the pond were tall weeping willows, their branches cascading down to touch the water. I looked at Carson, he was smiling. In that moment, I felt a tiny pulse and light from him, and it was almost like I could feel his soul. Maybe that was love. I wasn't too sure. Instead of saying anything, Carson just sat down on the grass that touched the edge of the sandy dirt that surrounded the pond. I sat down with him.

With a sigh, he laid back and I collapsed too, just looking at the stars. "When I heard the learned astronomer, when the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, when I was shown the charts, the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, when I sitting heard the learned astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room, how soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, looked up in perfect silence at the stars." Carson's voice was soft. I looked at him. His face turned towards me. "Walt Whitman," he explained. I smiled and Carson looked back up at the stars and sighed. "This...this is magic."

I turned towards him. "Why don't you think what you can do is magic?" I asked.

Carson turned towards me, so we were facing each other. His skin shone with the pearl-light of the moon. His eyes looked milky and shiny and dark. "Because it's just changing things, creating illusions for people. Dreams aren't real, but the messages they hold are. Magic is in nature and the beauty of the human soul. It's not in silly transformations or dreams." His words sounded like they'd just come from a forty year old, not a sixteen year old. I turned my head back to the stars.

"I think there are different types of magic." My voice was soft. I wanted to say, I think you are magic. I think this is magic, but I didn't. Carson grabbed some grass and sandy dirt that lay between us and tossed it up into the air. It erupted into thousands of tiny lights, like tiny fireworks. They were like the shooting stars from my dreams, flaring once brilliantly and then going out, leaving us again in half darkness. I looked back at Carson, who was still staring into space. "How do you feel people?" I asked him.

He looked back down to me and I saw that surprise had flashed over his face, as if he hadn't expected me to ask him anymore questions about himself. Then he looked away. "It's like a heartbeat. And when I try hard enough, I can feel a little spark of something. When it's warm, I know someone is happy. When it's cold, I know they're sad," he told me.

I smiled. "What am I?" I questioned.

Carson looked at me with soft eyes. "You...are very warm."

"I am very happy." I was silent after that. There was still so much I wanted to say. Just wanted to shout out all my feelings but couldn't. And all my feelings were so rushed and new, I almost felt like I was being taken over by them. From somewhere in the depths of the pond, a frog croaked. We lay, facing each other, and then I looked back at the sky. It was vast. "Then how do you figure out what to make people dream about?" I asked him. "I mean, how do you know exactly how they feel?"

"I don't," Carson said. "But if I try hard enough, I can focus fairly clearly on the feelings of one person. Then I make a dream for them, pulling on the strings of their mind. It's almost like a web, taking ideas from what they've thought about that day to what other dreams they've had-"

"But you said you weren't allowed to look in other people's dreams without permission," I countered.

Carson grinned. "Nice of you to pay attention," he told me. I snorted with laughter. "We can't just look inside any person's head. You have no problems that I'm supposed to solve, I'm not allowed to try and see inside your mind. Now if I know someone needs my help, if I can feel that their pulse is off balance or acutely cold, then I know that they need me. But you...are completely normal. Which makes things difficult. You said that you dreamed about me, and I want to know what about."

I looked at him carefully. I didn't know what to say. But I knew I wasn't going to say anything that even hinted to the fact that I even remotely liked him. I opened my mouth to speak. "But if you really wanted, you could just find out what I'm telling you. You could just try hard and figure out what my pulse is telling you," fell out. Damn, I thought. That definitely hadn't gone the way I'd wanted.

Carson looked embarrassed and then frusterated, and then embarassed again. "I've been trying to. All this time. To figure out what's different about you. Because I know...I can feel that something is different. It's just that something seems to be blocking the way. It's like you're covered in a mist that I can't walk through. I keep getting lost within the depths of your heart." I was silent. I should kiss him. That could tell him, loud and clear, how I felt. But I was happy he didn't know, because I didn't know how he'd react. He'd hugged me in the dream, he'd held my hand. He was lying next to me, and we were close enough to hear each other's breathing. I should just go for it. But I couldn't. Because I just couldn't make the first move. I hated myself for being so shy.

He looked uncomfortable, so I decided to change the subject. "What happened with the principal? Did you and James Blanchard ever figure out what you were going to say?" I asked. Carson looked at me strangely for a moment and then smirked.

"Oh. So you did hear what went on. How very sneaky." I flushed at this one. "We just told him the same thing, stuck to the same story. Mr. Wardwick didn't really believe us, but we got off on a week's worth of morning detentions. I was there this morning from seven to seven forty-five and will be for the next six days." He sighed, but smiled. "It's better than getting suspended. My grandmother would go ballistic if she realized what was up."

I smiled. "So you live with your grandmother?" I asked.

Carson's face slid into one of cool composure, like the face he wore all the time at school. That face of apathy...the face I knew he was forcing to hide. "Yeah," he told me vaguely, and I realized this must be a pretty tender subject, so I didn't talk about it more.

I just sighed instead. "Who is James, anyway?

Carson looked frusterated again and picked up some grass and sand and threw it high in the sky. It turned into thousands of pinpricks of light, little dots that closely resembled stars. Then they blinked out and I heard the splash of sand hitting the water. "He's like me. Only he shouldn't be here. The reason I got into a fight with him on the first day he came was because I recognized immedietley that he was like me. There are only supposed to be one person per high school, and usually there are none. Eventually, he explained that he'd had a dream that he was told to come here, so he did." Carson sighed a very deep, very melancholy sigh. "I don't know though. It all feels wrong. He said that he's suddenly become very sick. He can't stop coughing, and sometimes, he coughs up blood. I don't know, I don't know..." Carson shut his eyes and I watched him, a darkness suddenly spreading through my body.

"What's wrong?" I asked, because that was all I knew how to ask.

Carson was silent for awhile and then eventually reopened his eyes. "I keep having this terrible feeling that something is very, very wrong. I keep trying to reach out to the higher-ups, the leaders, in my dreams, but no one will respond to me. Everyone is silent. The only time anyone ever has said anything was when they told me to tell you. They didn't even help me about what to do with James. This morning, James told me that the night before, he had this terrible nightmare about being somewhere, and knowing he had to get somewhere but not being able to find it. It wasn't a message, it was just a very bad dream. No one will say anything to him either, but he knows his sickness isn't normal. He told me he'd been to the doctors and there is nothing wrong with him. His lungs are fine. His blood is fine. He's working properly. Something is going wrong."

"I had a dream like that," I finally admitted. Carson looked at me, shocked. "I was in a place of green grass, and I had to get James somewhere. All I could feel was urgency. And then we were in my room, only it was menacing. And it was dark, and I saw myself sleeping and then I fell into darkness-" And that was all I said. I didn't know why I didn't want to include the part about Carson. I just couldn't, my heart kept clenching up when I thought about those dreams. And when I thought about Carson's hand in the darkness...hope. I swallowed. "I had that dream before I knew James, too. I had that dream the night before he came to our school."

Carson looked at me darkly. "Don't tell anyone about that dream. No one. I'm going to try and find out what's going on. Why you had a dream like that, why you knew James before you saw him, why James had that dream, why you needed to know. I'm going to figure out what's wrong with James, and why you're involved." He got up quickly and suddenly, I felt like the magic had been broken. I should have just not brought up anything. I almost wanted to hit myself for being so stupid. Everything had been very perfect and I'd gone and gotten him worked up. He didn't even look back at me as he started forward. I looked up at the stars. The night was still dark, but I could see that the stars were more faint now. It was getting lighter. Morning was going to come.

"Wait, Carson!" I shouted. I heard him make his way back to me and I swallowed carefully. And then I realized I didn't have anything to say. I knew his secret, but I felt like I didn't know him at all. I wanted him to love me the way I loved him. I wanted him to feel him, the way I felt him. I wanted him to dream about me the way I dreamed about him. He looked at me softly. "You can't feel that?" I asked. He stood still. I looked down. "I feel so much. So much..." I felt the prick of tears at my eyes and I ferociously willed them away. "I'm sorry I made you upset. I just..." I just what?! What did I even mean? I met my wet eyes with his own surprised ones. "There is just so much in my heart. It is overwhelming."

Carson touched my hair and then my shoulder. He put an arm around my waist and another at the back of my head. It almost felt like my dream. But instead of laying me down, he held me close to him. And that. That right there. That was magic.