Dreamwalk

8

As Michael and Maria fell asleep in each other's arms admiring the artwork, Isabel was busy fighting off sleep at the Valenti home as she continued her incredibly long day-and night-with Kyle. Board games, cards, and movies had filled the hours since they had added dinner to their milk shakes at the Crashdown. Isabel had called her parents to let them know that she was safe and would be out late as her intention was to stay with Kyle until he was tired enough to fall asleep on his own.

Isabel was relieved that he had only suffered a few minor flashes throughout the evening, with none of them even coming close to the episode outside the Crashdown when he thought he had seen Alex's car. His fingers continued to drum softly as the two of them watched the credits role on some Jean-Claude Van Damme movie that was on one of the late-night basic cable channels. Even after sitting through the entire movie, she still couldn't think of the title, which was a statement as to how interested she had been in the film. Needless to say, it had not

been Isabel's first choice of things to watch, but she'd reminded herself that she was there for Kyle. Besides, she had found other ways to keep herself busy.

Checking her watch, Isabel confirmed that it was two thirty in the morning, and wondered when it would be okay to leave. Kyle was looking rather drowsy, but she wasn't entirely sure that he was finally ready to fall asleep. She had been waiting for him to send her home, but as yet that hadn't happened. If she was going to get up in the morning to go out with Jesse, she was going to need to get at least a couple hours of sleep. Again, she consulted her watch to see that thirty full seconds had passed since she'd last checked the time.

She placed yet another playing card on the rapidly growing structure in front of her. To occupy the slowly moving seconds, she had been constructing a house of cards on the coffee table for the last half hour of the movie. The building was beginning to look quite grand since the design already boasted several levels as well as a few different wings and what appeared to be an Olympic-size swimming pool built to scale. Of course, it would have been more inspiring if she hadn't been using her powers to hold it all together.

«Do you have another deck of cards?» she asked, admiring her architectural accomplishment. «I'm about to run out.»

«I think you've done enough," he replied. «If that thing gets any bigger, we're going to need to get a zoning permit.»

Two headlights flashed through the living room window as a car, presumably belonging to Kyle's dad, pulled into the driveway.

«Your dad's out pretty late," Isabel said, hoping that he would take the hint and send her home. She felt guilty for the thought the moment it had passed through her mind.

«He's been doing that a lot over the past few days," he replied sleepily, leaning against the arm of the couch. «At first, I thought he had gotten a new job, but he hasn't said anything. He just keeps disappearing a lot, and when he comes home, he's always humming.»

«Humming?» she thought about that for a moment. «You know, he was pretty good when he sang with Alex's band the other night. I was quite impressed. And now that I think of it, so was Maria's mom.»

«Please, don't remind me," Kyle replied. «I'm just happy I'll never have to witness my father doing a gig with a band ever again. And the less we talk about my dad and Ms. DeLuca, the better.»

Jim Valenti entered the house not only humming, but also looking happier than Isabel had seen him in a long time. There was even a bit of a bounce in the way he was walking, like he was moving to the beat of the song in his head. His mind was definitely still back on whatever he had been doing, since he made it halfway into the living room before he realized that he wasn't alone.

«Oh, kids… hey.» He stopped short as he passed the couch. «Isabel, what are you doing here at this hour?» Checking his watch, there was a sharp change in his mood. «Is something wrong? Where's Max? Did something happen?»

«Dad, relax," Kyle said from the couch. «Everything's fine. We're just hanging out, watching movies, and building a miniature metropolis out of cards.»

Valenti was visibly relieved. «Sorry. It's been a pretty quiet week around here, considering. And I get a little nervous waiting for the next thing to happen.» Then he saw the structure that was quickly overtaking his coffee table. «I assume that's your handiwork, Isabel.»

She nodded but was confused to hear Kyle's father act like nothing was going on, especially considering that his son had obviously been in a lot of pain over the past few days and even weeks. She looked over at Kyle and decided to test the waters. «I know what you mean about being tense. I was finally beginning to relax until this afternoon.»

«What happened?» the senior Valenti took the bait.

«Nothing," Kyle stressed in a way that Isabel got the clear message he was sending her to keep quiet. «Nothing but a little paranoia. We thought someone was following us, but it turned out to be a mistake.»

«Are you sure?» His father's concern did not subside. «Do you want me to look into it tomorrow?»

For reasons she did not entirely understand, Isabel decided to go along with the entirely fictitious story. «Really it was nothing more than my imagination," she said. Then she looked at Kyle pointedly, adding, «I feel silly for even mentioning it.»

«Yeah, well, you can never be too safe.» Valenti yawned «Sorry. It's been a long night. I should get to bed.» He looked at the teens sitting comfortably on the couch and he fell into parental mode. «Will you be getting to bed soon, son?»

«I hope so," he mumbled in response.

«And you, Isabel?» Valenti added in a voice somewhere between stern and lighthearted. «In your own bed, I hope?»

«Dad!» Kyle was shocked and embarrassed by what his father was implying.

Isabel laughed at Kyle's discomfort. Then she blushed because of her own self-consciousness, and the break in her concentration sent the house of cards falling to the ground in pieces.

«Well, it looks like my work here is done.» Valenti was pleased with himself for his joke having gotten the reaction he had hoped for. «I was just asking a simple question. You know, my father never would have let me have an attractive girl in the house alone at all hours in the morning.»

«Good night, Dad!» Kyle insisted.

"'Night, kids," Valenti replied, and Isabel saw a mischievous smirk on his face.

«Good night," she said, her facial coloring returning to normal as he left the room. Sliding off the couch, she began to pick up the forty-odd cards that were scattered about the floor.

«I'm sorry.» Kyle joined her on the ground, apologizing as if he had any control over the words that had come out of his dad's mouth.

Isabel could understand why his father might think something was up. By all appearances, they were the only pair not currently attached to anyone in their incestuous group. She had never really been interested in more than friendship with Kyle, but that's not to say she hadn't on occasion contemplated the possibility. At times, she kind of felt sorry for him, considering his bad luck with women. First Max had taken Liz from him, and later Max kind of took Tess as well. Then again, maybe it's not bad luck, she thought. Maybe it's just my brother.

At any rate, nothing was going on between them, and she figured nothing ever would. She had managed to find someone outside of the group and was having a good time dating Jesse Ramirez, thinking that it could turn into something more serious and hoping it would.

Once she confirmed that the door to Valenti's room had been firmly shut, Isabel returned to the crisis at hand. «Why haven't you told your father about the dreams?» she whispered, putting her cards back in the box.

«I don't want to worry him.» Kyle kept his voice low as well.

«Kyle, he's your dad. It's his job to worry about you.»

«I know.» He handed Isabel the cards he collected so she could put them away with the others.

Isabel could hear the inaudible «but» hanging in the air. «Go on.»

«I'm not the only one he worries about," Kyle reluctantly admitted. «Look at what happened when he walked in the door. The first thing he thought was that something was wrong with you or Max, and he was ready to spring into action. He spends so much time worrying about all of us surviving real threats that I don't need to bother him just because I've had a few sleepless nights.»

«What you're going through is more than a touch of insomnia," she reminded him. «But, I understand.» And she did. In a way, Valenti had become a surrogate father to the entire group since he was the only adult they had let in on the secret. As such, his concerns for his son had to be split with those for Max, Michael, Liz, Maria, and herself. Great, she thought. Not only did we introduce Kyle to all this craziness, but we stole his father from him as well.

She tried to push that last thought out of her mind so that her guilt didn't taint any decisions that she suspected she was about to make. The more she thought over Kyle's situation, the more motivated she felt to do something about it.

Crawling back onto the couch, Kyle let out a gaping yawn as his whole body seemed to drag. Isabel suspected that he must have been exhausted since he'd hardly gotten any sleep at all in the past week. She hoped that tonight would break the cycle, and that rest would come soon.

«Do you think you're ready for bed?»

«No," he answered honestly. «I'm not ready, but I'm going to have to try. Besides, I'm not going to make you stay up all night.»

«I can stay here until you're out," she offered.

«That's okay," he replied, yawning. «I think I'll be fine.»

Isabel stood, and Kyle started to rise as well. «No, don't get up.» She noticed that he looked like he was about to fall asleep right there, and didn't want him to move. «Just curl up on the couch.»

«Okay.» He did exactly as she said.

As Isabel made her way to the door, she paused to look back at Kyle. His eyes were drooping, but every time the lids made contact, they kept popping back open. He was so tired, however, that he didn't even notice she was still in the room, which allowed her to stay a few minutes longer to watch. Gradually, his eyes would stay closed for longer increments of time until they finally appeared to shut for good.

Opening the door and letting in a bit of the uncharacteristically cold summer night air, Isabel started to leave

when she heard Kyle mumble, «You want me to come along?»

For a moment, she thought he was talking to her, but his eyes were most definitely closed, and his breathing beginning to get shallow. Isabel knew enough from past science classes that it usually took people a while to start dreaming once they fell asleep. She recalled learning that the dreams usually came somewhere around ninety minutes into the sleep cycle. The statistic had stuck in her mind because she had heard it about the same time she had developed a keen interest in learning about anything that was related to sleep, because of her ability to dreamwalk. From that point, she'd tried to learn as much as she could about dreaming and dreamers so that she could be better skilled at the exercise. The fact that Kyle was able to fall into his dreams the moment his eyes closed concerned her a great deal.

As she stared at her sleeping friend, Isabel noticed that Kyle was not only mumbling, but the fingers of his right hand were tapping on the pillow in the same repetitive pattern she had seen before. He was clearly locked into another loop of his nightmare images. She felt horribly for him, but there was nothing she could do about it. Her powers just didn't work that way. It was too dangerous.

Closing the door to the Valenti home, Isabel made her way back to her own house through the chilly night air with those last few thoughts running through her head. They eventually were joined by a renewed sense of guilt over the fact that she and her brother unintentionally had stolen part of Kyle's father from him. Realizing that Kyle's dad was the only parent he really had, it made her feel

even worse. Then she thought about all the times that knowing their secret had put Kyle's life in danger, and all the normal things he and his father had given up for them, including the sheriff's job.

And, finally, she thought about Alex.

It didn't take long for Isabel to get home. By the time she had reached the front walk, she knew exactly what she had to do. She tried not to wake her parents as she silently made her way into the house, since she knew they would be getting up in only two hours so they could start their early morning trek to Santa Fe.

Her mother had left the living room light on for her, as she always did, so that Isabel would not have to stumble around in the dark. Turning off the light, she carefully continued through the dimly lit hallway into her bedroom.

With the door gently closed behind her, she turned on her small desk lamp instead of her brighter lamps so there wouldn't be too much light in the room to distract her. Grabbing her yearbook from the shelf, she paused a moment, looking for another book as well. Tucked in between a collection of Shakespeare's sonnets and a largely unused dictionary, she found a book on dream analysis she had bought a while back.

The book had been purchased during the time when she was researching as much as she could about dream images after she'd realized she could visit other people in their nighttime imaginings. For a short time she'd even made a hobby out of analyzing the dreams of some of her friends at school, which often proved to be an entertaining pastime, to say the least. Of course, that was before she'd

realized how dangerous it could have been to abuse her powers on recreational activities.

She placed the dream analysis book down on her desk so that she could consult it later, and sat down on her bed with the most recent copy of the West Roswell High School Yearbook. Flipping to the photos of the previous year's junior class, she turned to the Vs and found Kyle's photo. On the page, he looked so happy with his frozen smile. The photo had been taken much earlier in the school year- months before Alex's death and Tess's departure.

I'm only going to look around, she thought, justifying her own actions to her conscience. I just want to get an idea of what's going on in his head, so I can figure out what to do. There's nothing dangerous in that. I do it all the time.

And yet, her own subconscious was practically screaming out to her that this was not a good idea. You should wait for your brother to get back, the intense voice said to her.

Ignoring the inner voices, Isabel placed her right index finger on the photo of Kyle, concentrating on her subject. Closing her eyes, she willed herself into her friend's dreams. Her body relaxed as she could feel her mind leaving on its journey. Slumping down into the bed, the yearbook slipped out of her hands and fell onto the floor.