Dorian Matthews dreams of rain, pelting the roof of a luxurious modern home centered in the Pennsylvanian woods. For a moment, dream-Dorian studies the streams as they trickle down his bedside window. Perhaps this is the segueing image that had transitioned him from one dream to the next—from falling over the edge of a cliff to observing a single raindrop streaming down a frosted windowpane.

Dorian stands confidently, as men often do in dreams, and slips out from beneath the silken, maroon duvet. The moon shines through floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the eastern wall, and there is an alarm clock on the nightstand that reads 10:39 p.m.

Wearing a long-sleeve Henley shirt and a pair of navy boxer briefs, Dorian ambles from the bedroom to the kitchen. He will not realize until morning that he has never before seen this house, for as he dreams, Dorian feels familiar within the structure; in fact, it seems as though dream-Dorian calls this place home.

In the living room, the aft wall is constructed of another floor-to-ceiling window, allowing the outdoor precipitation to feel as though it is flooding the home. A brunette stands in the kitchen wearing a lace-trimmed satin robe. Her hair is long, reaching the middle of her spine, and the ends of her short kimono expose the bottoms of her cheeks and tanned legs. With her back towards him and her gaze upon the window, it appears as though the woman is admiring the view.

Dorian approaches her, a dreamlike intuition telling him who she is even though he has not yet made the connection within his real-world subconscious. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her back close to the plains of his chest, allowing himself to breathe in the floral fragrance of her shampoo. They gape in awe at the sight before them: moonlight, bathing droplets of rainwater with a mystical shimmer, illumining the expanse of pine trees that tower over their secluded home.

Through the blurry, rain-dripped reflection, Dorian sees the woman's face, and only then, does he realize who he was holding. Startled, he takes several steps backward.

"He knows," she whispers.

Rayne Foster turns around, and it is evident that she is a girl no longer. She is a woman now, appearing as though she has aged ten to fifteen years. Fine lines begin to crinkle the corners of her eyes; smile lines etched deep into her skin.

She steps toward him, one smooth leg slipping through the folds of her satin nightgown. A manicured hand extends toward him. "Don't be shy," she says, offering a lustrous Pacific Rose apple. Something slick suddenly slips down his fingers; Dorian can hear its steady drip-drop-drip against the birch wood flooring and trains his eyes downward. When he lifts his hands and surveys his palms, he discovers they are smeared with blood.

Rayne stands before him now. Toe to toe. The rapid quiver in her eyes and lips challenges the violent rattling of an eastern diamondback. The apple falls to the floor. As Dorian's gaze falls upon her, the golden hue of her skin begins to pale in patches, like a rash spreading across the surface of her flesh. Thin, black veins pebble her forearms, her collarbone, her cheeks, and she whispers, "Oh, God. He's found us."

Like moonlight gleaming off the internal facets of an emerald stone, Rayne Foster's brown eyes suddenly flicker a dazzling green. Dorian does not have long to recognize the shade, for as soon as the irises invoke a long-since forgotten memory, the woman before him thrusts a blade into his chest.

◢✥◣

"No!"

At half past three in the morning, Dorian Matthews awoke in a panic, clutching the breast of his T-shirt. It took a moment for Dorian's eyes to adjust to the darkened dorm room. For several heartbeats, he simply sat still, steadying his rushing breath until he could muster the energy to travel from his mattress to the mini-fridge in the corner. The staff's living quarters, located on the upper floors of the South Hall, were not nearly as extravagant as the student dormitory, however, they did possess a few luxuries the students did not (fridge, microwave, private bath, etc.).

Returning to his bed with bottled water in hand, Dorian sat on his real-world bedsheets, which were neither silk nor maroon. They were simple, white cotton sheets, and after downing a greedy sip of ice-cold water, Dorian relaxed into them, relishing in their familiarity.

Falling back to sleep proved to be a daunting task. Dorian's thoughts lingered on the dream, its vivid realness, and the forgotten trauma it brought to light: On the night Dorian's twin brother had committed murder, he too, possessed shimmering eyes of emerald green, just as Rayne Foster did in his dreams.

◢✥◣

"Every day with this stupid thing," Portia uttered as she clicked her keyboard. Morning sunbeams pierced the barred window, and Portia huffed as she held a hand over her screen so she could see.

Dorian's lip twitched, a shadow of a smile that never fully formed. He knew full-well that damned glare was the bane of her existence, but this morning, his thoughts were too tangled to engage with her banter.

Shifting her gaze to study his features, the secretary said, "Sweetie, you look rough. What's wrong?"

He met Portia's eyes and nearly thought she could see right through him. She smiled, a look of knowing sweeping her mossy irises for all but a moment. It was just his nerves. There was no way the secretary could have known what shameful visuals Dorian had conjured in his sleep. Hours later, the dream still haunted him, and he just couldn't make sense of their origins. He was the kind of man who would report such unlawful fraternization with students, so for Dorian to have dreamt of a student in such a regard thoroughly disturbed him.

"Talk to me, sugar plum," Portia said. "Don't be shy."

Don't be shy . . .

His mind flashed to the dream once more: the satin robe, the apple, the gray skin, the knife in his chest. The vividness of it gnawed at his conscience. Dorian took a deep, frustrated breath and rolled his neck to find a crack. The wakeful scent of dark-roasted coffee beans wafted beneath his nose, and after taking a sip, Dorian set down his coffee mug, rubbed his hands over the folds of his face, and pulled the skin downward, feeling drowsy and heavy. He had yet to throw some styling gel in his hair, so a tuft of his cowlick stood upwards in the back.

"Didn't get much sleep last night," he finally admitted, following the statement with a yawn. Sleep deprivation hit him in the form of a headache behind his left eye.

"Why not, sugar?" asked Portia, but before Dorian could answer, the loud clack of a stapler tumbling to the hardwood flooring caused her to quickly turn her head. "Hey. Harrington," she said, addressing the student who'd just dropped the tool. "You've only got thirty minutes before class starts, kiddo. Ya better hurry it up."

Pierce Harrington sat in the small desk behind hers, the sleeves of his student uniform pushed back to his elbows. He was bent over a box of paperwork, alphabetizing documents and placing them into their appropriate filing cabinets. The young senior picked up the stapler, clicked a stack of papers together, and dropped it into the hanging "F" file drawer.

"Almost done with this box, Miss Maxwell," the student said. "I'll try to finish the other one after class tonight."

"Miss Wilson won't let me go digital yet," Portia explained to Dorian. "So, we're stuck with all this"—she gestured toward the twenty filing cabinets cluttering her office—"until I can convince her we need a better system. I am fully committed to condensing it down to just five cabinets up front and four in the back. Just current students and need-to-know files. Everything else—zip! To the back." Turning to give the young student a loving look, Portia said, "You've been working so hard, poodle. Why don't you spend time with your friends tonight? You can come back tomorrow afternoon instead."

"I really need the hours, Miss Maxwell. My dad won't refill my Dining Card unless I get ten hours this week."

Portia glanced at Dorian. "Don't you love when the posh pretend to be poor?" She smiled and cracked her knuckles. "Well, in that case, how about I send a quick email to your father, explaining in explicit detail how you've managed to work fifteen hours this week already, huh?" She winked, but when Dorian cleared his throat, Portia faltered. "Uh, I—I mean . . . I could do that, but I definitely won't, because that . . . well, that would be lying, and lying . . . is bad."

She gave the young boy another wink, and Dorian knew she was already typing the fib into an email anyway.

The secretary faced Dorian. "Now you, my sweet shnookums, should really let someone else run detention tonight. Go to bed early. You need your beauty rest. You look terrible."

"I'll think about it," he replied with a chuckle and swiftly dismissed himself to ready his classroom for the day. Dorian tried not to think about how many hours lay before him. His dream had robbed him of both energy and enthusiasm. During homeroom and his first-period class, Dorian was noticeably weary, which really wasn't like him.

When the moment of dread finally arose, and Rayne Foster stepped into his classroom with a baggy uniform hanging over a tiny figure, a strange sense of relief swept his shoulders. Dorian was pleased to see her as she was, just a young teenager trying to make it by, instead of the grown woman he'd held in his arms. Shame, however, had prevented him from making eye contact with the girl. He paced the front of the class, looking upwards only briefly to discover that the student was wearing a bright smile today. Rayne Foster threw her head back and bubbled with laughter, laughing alongside Lucas Abbot, another student whom Dorian had not seen smile so wide in over a year.

The cheerful sight managed to remind him why he was there—to change the lives of troubled adolescents. To be the mirror that showed these students the best version of themselves, even when he struggled to see it in himself. They could be more than who they were, more than what they'd done. There was a salvageable future beyond these walls. A full and forgiving life left to live. Rayne and Luke's smiles garnered the teacher a second wind, granting him enough energy to deliver a meaningful lecture. For the last twenty minutes of class, however, Dorian allowed the students to work amongst themselves so that he could sit at his desk and relax. After the bell, the students fled the classroom one after the other, but one student remained.

"Oh. Good morning, Miss Foster," Dorian said, sitting up as the student approached his desk. She had her hands stuffed into the pockets of her dress pants. "Can I help you?"

"Actually, yes." The student scratched her neck. "Mr. Matthews, I have a . . . a question for you, if you don't mind."

"Of course."

"It's kind of personal," she admitted, and Dorian inched backward.

"Miss Foster, I don't think—"

"Oh, it's nothing crazy personal. It's just . . . Have we ever met before?"

"No," he replied, surprised. Yet somehow, he understood the query. There was a sense of familiarity he felt within her, too—a disconcerting sort of recognition. Right now though, he had assumed it stemmed from the intimate dream he'd had. "No, Miss Foster, I don't believe we have. Do you feel like we have?"

"I don't know. Can I . . . ?" she trailed off.

"What is it, Miss Foster?"

"I wanted to . . . I mean . . . Can I ask you about your brother?"

From the moment Dorian first read Rayne Foster's file, all he could think about was Daniel. Part of him knew that was why he had shared such a personal story in detention yesterday—the first time he'd shared the story with students in almost two years. Dorian closed his eyes for a breath, envisioning the rich green eyes his brother possessed on the night of the murder, and then, he remembered Rayne's glowing irises from his dream.

Looking at her brown eyes now, he said, "What is it you'd like to know?"

"Well, what . . . happened exactly?"

"That's a very long story," he answered. "It's not the kind of story people want to hear."

"Please, I'd really like to know."

He paused. The way she spoke—softly and slowly—as she jabbed her thumb into a bruise on her bicep, all negated the tough disposition the young girl displayed the day before. "Why?" he asked softly.

"Please?" she insisted, stepping closer. The urgency in her voice, the sudden shift in her demeanor from reserved to troubled was almost alarming. "If it's really that long, then can I come back at lunch? I really don't mind long stories. I just . . . I would really like to know."

He thought about it for a minute, thought about the similarities between Rayne and his brother, and already knowing it was a mistake, knowing he was about to reopen wounds that had never fully healed, he replied: "Okay. Come back at lunch."

◢✥◣

Ever since the blue-eyed man had appeared before Rayne Foster during detention, so many new questions swarmed her subconscious, questions that demanded answers, and she was nearly bursting at the seams. To her dismay, she had not seen the phantom since, and his absence, coinciding with her sudden urge to communicate with him, was unsettling.

Maybe Lucas couldn't see the blue-eyed man, but he could see the shadows. They were real. And that meant Rayne wasn't crazy. Which maybe, just maybe, meant the blue-eyed man was real, too.

But if he wouldn't appear before her, then Rayne would have to seek answers elsewhere. Everything in her prayed that Mr. Matthews could shed light on who this man was and why he was haunting her, of all people.

The hours of Rayne's first three classes dragged on. With each passing second, her legs shook in anticipation, wishing she could will the clock to move faster. When lunchtime finally came, she made her way in and out of the Dining Hall as quickly as possible. Rayne's lunch tray was silver, embossed with a decorative alligator texturing. She loaded it with a Caesar salad, steamed veggies, an apple, a bread roll, and a six ounce steak grilled medium-rare.

Mr. Matthews was grading papers when she stepped in with her lunch. He lowered a pair of thick reading glasses to the tip of his nose, and as she pondered how strange it was to see him with eyewear, the teacher waved for her to sit down in the chair beside his desk. He adjusted his glasses and focused on his work while she began asking questions.

"So when exactly did you realize this is what you wanted to do?"

"I've been interested in this field ever since I was sixteen," the teacher replied, licking his finger and flicking to the second page of an essay.

"Ah." Rayne dipped her fork into a pre-cut square of steak. "Your word choice intrigued me yesterday. You said, 'divine intervention.' "

"Mhm." He nodded.

"The word itself though . . . 'intervention.' It sort of hits home for me. Like, how some things are just beyond our control." She pushed her veggies around a pool of A1 sauce. "Like maybe someone else could be pulling all the strings."

Mr. Matthews removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Perhaps. But I meant that in a good way, Miss Foster. You make it sound almost gloomy."

She shrugged. "It just got me thinking. Maybe bad things happen for a reason, too. I mean, maybe not a good reason, but . . . some reason."

He considered this. "Sometimes even bad things happen for good reason. When my brother passed away . . ." The teacher dropped an essay onto the stack of papers beside him. "Honestly, it's still one of the hardest things I've ever been through, but it led me here. And I think that's a good thing, don't you?" When Rayne finally smiled, the teacher returned the grin. "Would you like to see a picture?"

"Absolutely." She would not have been able to contain the excitement in her voice, even if she had tried.

Pulling on his desk drawer, the teacher withdrew a printed Kodak photo and handed it to her. Two boys with mirroring grins stood frozen with laughter. One of them, the taller one, had his left arm hung around the other. It appeared they were outdoors, at a family gathering of sorts, perhaps a barbecue. It struck a joyful chord deep within her, almost as though she were sneaking a glimpse into a piece of her own past, half-remembered and cloaked in shadows. Her own mother didn't have any childhood photos of her, so she knew how precious this was.

"You're twins," she said, flipping the photograph over. Two names were scribbled in fading ink: Daniel and Dorian. The year 2006 curled in a decorative script below. "What's his name?"

"Daniel."

She blinked, a pang of ache bleeding through her ribs. "Daniel," she whispered, the name rolling perfectly off her tongue. Her lips settled into a smile. "So, that makes you Dorian, huh?"

Ignoring the question, Mr. Matthews took hold of the image to study it for himself, almost as if seeing it for the first time. "He was a cool kid. Bit of a dork, but . . . really cool." The teacher finally grinned, too. "Daniel liked crystals and incense and things. Read lots of books on lucid dreaming and spiritual growth." He put the photograph back in his desk drawer. "Our mom was a journalist, so we both grew up with this obsessive appreciation for writing. I wanted to be an author. And Dan . . . well, Dan was still trying to figure it out. Last we knew, he wanted to be a crystal healer." He laughed softly. "He was writing his own how-to guides on astral projection and the medicinal powers of crystals and stones."

When his smile fell away, Rayne softly queried, "So what happened?"

"He . . ." Mr. Matthews trailed off when she picked up her apple and bit into its juicy red surface. He looked at the computer monitor. "One night, he just snapped . . . Killed his best friend."

"Why?"

"I don't know." He plucked the next document from his stack of persuasive essays and uncapped a green marker, striking through punctuation errors on the student's piece. "Daniel couldn't even remember that he did it."

Rayne faltered, nearly dropping her apple. "Wh-what?"

"Jury didn't believe him. They thought he was trying to get off easy, but he swore to me, over and over and over again, that he had no recollection of the incident."

"Dorian—"

"Oh, don't do that," he whispered, sliding his desk chair backward. "Please. Call me Mr. Matthews."

She rolled her eyes. Of course, he was only worried about propriety. "Just tell me, how did he die?"'

"I'd rather not answer that."

"Please, Mr. Matthews?"

"Miss Foster, I—"

"Please."

The teacher ran both hands up his face and through his hair. He let out a breathy chuckle—the kind released out of discomfort. Now Rayne could clearly see the dark circles that sagged beneath his frosty eyes. She hadn't realized how exhausted he looked until this moment.

"He remembered," Mr. Matthews finally said, fidgeting with the papers on his desk. "Turns out, he just couldn't live with it."

"What does that mean?"

He hesitated, relenting only when he realized she wouldn't let up. "When we were nineteen, I got a call from the prison. I'd been up late the night before, studying for a test, so I missed the call . . ." He looked at the cracked screen of his cell phone. "Still have the voicemail. Couldn't bring myself to get rid of it."

Rayne eyed the phone, vision tunneling on the device until she blurted, "Can I hear it?"

"That's not—"

"Mr. Matthews," she pressed.

"Miss Foster, it's personal."

"You don't understand. I need to hear it." She leaned over his desk. "Please. I have to know."

Suddenly, and for reasons unknown, it seemed Mr. Matthews connected with her sense of urgency. She could see it striking his blue eyes, the moment of recognition as they both felt the same abstract epiphany that this was something they both needed to do, for a reason neither of them could explain. After staring at the phone, Mr. Matthews abruptly slid his chair closer, picked up the cell, scrolled through his voicemail box, and put it on speaker.

He gave her a startled look, almost as if he was asking her, Why? Why am I doing this?

Rayne didn't want to answer. This was exactly what she came here for. A chance to speak with the blue-eyed man. Her heartbeat drummed in anticipation—happy, surprised, and relieved to be one step closer to understanding.

"Dorian . . ." the voicemail began, trailing off with a whimpering sound.

Although Daniel sounded like a younger Mr. Matthews, there was a different string of familiarity that twisted Rayne's breast, as if, perhaps, they had spoken once before . . .

Maybe, in dreams . . . ?

She listened as the boy began again: "Dorian, I . . . I remember now," he said, breaking into a long, wailing sob. "I'm so sorry . . . Please, tell Brennan's dad that I'm so sorry, please. Oh, please, Dorian, you have to tell them I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. So, so sorry . . ."

Mr. Matthews' lip twitched, his eyes glazing over like glass marbles. Rayne took the phone from his trembling fingers, and at the touch, she saw a vision of Mr. Matthews when he was young, hair cropped short, crying on the bathroom floor, bloodied hands pulling his hair, shards of broken glass at his feet; it looked like he had punched a mirror.

In the classroom, Daniel's voice over the cell phone's speaker grew panicked. "Dorian, he knows. He knows I know." Suddenly the boy screamed, voice growing distant as if someone was pulling him away. "You have to kill him! Kill him, Dorian! Please, don't let—"

Mr. Matthews took the phone and cut the voicemail short. "I think that's enough."

Rayne sat still, though her hands trembled. She didn't know what to say. Although she now felt empathy for the blue-eyed man and connected with his misfortune, she was still frightened to see half of his corpse-like face suddenly appear behind the teacher, a sad smile popping his dimple into place.

"He killed himself," Rayne whispered, not knowing how she knew it but knowing it all the same. A painfully hollow sensation ripped through her, eyes lingering on the falling curve of that smile lilting into a frown.

"They didn't believe him," Mr. Matthews continued, "but I know he was telling the truth. He really didn't remember anything until that moment. He . . . he just needed help. You can hear it in that call. He wasn't right. Something was wrong. He just . . . needed medication. He needed something." The hard lines of his frown aged his otherwise youthful features. "I don't know why I shared that with you. I shouldn't have shared that with you." It was evident the conversation caused him to relive an event he'd kept buried for a long time. "Please tell me it was useful to you somehow . . . ?"

Rayne grabbed his hand, and just before the teacher tugged it back, the fuzzy screen in the corners of her mind was already flooded with a compilation of visions: Daniel's spirit watching over Dorian, resting a hand on his shoulder as the young man studied for a test; a literal waterfall of light breaking through clouds, shining over an invitation for a conference the teacher spoke at in Lockwood, Pennsylvania; Mr. Matthews' hands flipping through Rayne's dossier, reading all of the private information about her case; and in Rayne's heart, she now felt the same magnetic pull that the teacher felt, a metaphysical revelation that they had just stumbled upon something significant. Something that would change their lives forever. A purpose. A mission.

But what did it mean?