I EMERGED FROM behind the tipped car hesitantly, unsure of whether or not it was safe.

The series of bangs had stopped sounding only moments prior, and the smoke billowing up from what was left of a house was not filling me with any confidence.

I knew that little occurrences like these would soon become frequent. But I had not thought they would prevent me from returning home.

I had been at the train station. My coat was not doing much against the harsh sooty air but I clutched it tighter regardless. My jogging pants were damp from running into a puddle, and my dark grey tank top was clinging to my skin uncomfortably. Coming back to London from Southampton had been a job an a half, and for her sake I hoped that Magenta would not need me again anytime soon. We had traded a few dreams; the glass jars rattled melodiously in my carryon bag.

Dreams were rare now, since the effects of the war. Magenta had only agreed to trade because she no longer had need of them with her new promotion to the Dreamcatcher Authority —a position that she had not hesitated to flaunt. She possessed that quiet sort of superiority that agitated me more than if she were to brag outright. Her shop had always been more successful than mine; better known than mine —and she...even as a sister, she had treated life as a competition.

Which she still won.

There was no hatred in my heart for her, despite her antics. There was no love either. Such emotion was unbecoming of a Dreamcatcher.

Yet I still had to be grateful for the dreams Magenta had left with me. She could have destroyed them if she wished, or sold them to the highest bidder. Strictly speaking though, I had no need for them either, because my shop would most likely fall to ruin.

But having them in case a stray soul wandered by gave me comfort. And with the aftershocks of war, getting visitors like that was inevitable.

The war had been like no war before it —there were no tanks or guns or missiles. There had only been fire and magic, and as unlikely as it sounded, no victor prevailed. Tension was still pulled taut, so if the enemy was spotted, it was almost instinct to open fire. Luckily in London, the humans were more timid and less likely to attack a non-human like me. Magenta had still warned me not to trust any human for my own sake, but I refused to write them off as an entire species.

There must still be some good, somewhere.

A sudden blast then threw a damaged surveillance drone overhead, causing me to start and retreat rapidly. I froze, glancing from one side of the road to the other. No other drones showed themselves, and the only sound that filled the air was a car alarm. I stood on my haunches and tucked my hair behind my ears, out of my face.

It must have been a left over trap spell.

I breathed out and inched forward, hopping quirkily from foot to foot instead of blindly running for it, in an effort to draw less attention to myself. Once I had made it to the kerb, I darted across the road towards a battered mail holding unit. I dipped behind it and paused, waiting for something else to happen.

Nothing did.

So I scrambled to my trainered feet and fast-walked to the end of Oxford street. My shop was on the corner, just a part of the prestigious cluster of buildings and stores that lined the iconic street. It had costed a fortune to buy the little boutique, but it had been worth it. Selling dreams there had made Cotton Candy one of the most popular dream shops in the country.

I now stopped short outside of Cotton Candy. It still upheld most its structural integrity; the windows were either smashed or extensively cracked —but a great chunk of the roof and wall were missing on the side, leaving it exposed to the elements. Soot lined the surface of the remaining walls and discoloured the beams, and the gilt door was muddied brown. I nearly dropped my bag.

I was not sure of what I had expected. As if my shop would withstand the destruction of battle —it was such a short, stooping old lady of a building that really, a strong gust of wind could have blown it all down.

I should be beyond grateful to the Weavers that it was still standing.

After staring at it for a few moments I tiptoed to the entrance. I hesitantly reached out to grip the handle. Its cold metallic feel mirrored my own skin, easing the tension in my muscles. The feeling relaxed me.

The feeling of home.

I opened the door, with a slight shove, and the brass bell tinged. I immediately turned the closed sign over to read 'open'. Then I turned around. I drew in a breath, assessing the extent of the damage inside. A beam had broken and fallen over, completely crushing the right side of the front counter. Glass bottles littered the dusty wooden floorboards; some intact and some broken, leaking multicoloured mist into the air.

I cursed.

I did not curse often —I found it to be a rather nasty and unnecessary habit and I could not fully understand why humans and Fae Folk alike used vulgar language regularly —but when I did, it was because the situation called for it.

I cursed and bit my nails, unsure of where to start. I was scared that if I touched anything, everything would suddenly cave in. So I left the room untouched, and perched myself precariously on the stool behind the counter, pondering my next move.

The pedantic side of me urged my hands to get busy and organise the mess, but I did not want to get stuck in doing something that I felt I could not finish. And as though I had suddenly remembered, it then occurred to me to go around and check the back room.

"I hope it is still here..." I murmured, thinking aloud.

I gingerly made my way around the fallen beam and padded to a white door at the end of a short hallway. I gripped the door handle, and breathed a sigh of relief at the feel of no dust. I pushed the door open purposefully and poked my head around the door.

My eyes immediately went for the mantelpiece on the fireplace, searching for only one thing.

A photograph of a cauliflower.

It was the gift from a farmer who had loaned me part of the money to buy Cotton Candy. He had not known, but I was unable to take it since it would not be eaten. With no digestive system or cooking experience, I could not have done the vegetable justice. So I took a picture. He had seemed satisfied.

Farmer Patrick had been my number one customer ever since I used to run business in Surrey. He was a greying man with a bad back and a walking cane, and his dream requests always baffled me.

He always asked for something to do with magic. The kind of magic was that whimsical and for show, not the kind that had substance.

In those days, two centuries ago, mostly children dreamt of magic so innocently. The issue was buying the dreams from them, because like many beings, humans did not like to share.

But as the ability to dream thinned out on a genetic level, the stinginess surprisingly thinned along with it. Bucketloads of dreams were donated to dream shops during the war until some of the smaller ones overflowed. That was how the trading started.

In retrospect it was not as much of a success as we Dreamcatchers had hoped. We nabbed and snatched just as ruthlessly as Elves, desperate to please our customers.

I never minded, and had always kept my distance from the all the riffraff.

'You're not like other Dreamcatchers, Purple,' Farmer Patrick used to tell me. 'You're not a Dreamcatcher. You're a Dream-giver.'

I walked over to the fireplace and picked up the framed photograph, smiling slightly. I smoothed my hand over the glass, reminiscing. I missed the days before the war. Things were simpler, and manageable.

Now everything was difficult.

The sudden sound of the bell tinging made me jump and consequently drop the frame, and the glass shattered. I flinched back and gasped, crushing shards of glass underneath my shoes in the process. I whined, like a dog in pain, and knelt down amongst the glass. I did not care about the person who was at the door. I did not care about the cuts the glass would cause. I only cared that the picture I had built Cotton Candy on was now damaged —ironically by my own hand.

Thin black strings began to wind out in the air like spins of spider's web from the cuts I had managed to get, before I abruptly slapped them down against my skin. I breathed out in exasperation and slumped, thinking about how I was going to have to deal with bleeding on top of all of this.

It was annoying, because I abnormally tended to bleed quite often for a Dreamcatcher. My thin stringy blood would eventually neatly stitch up the severed skin by itself, but getting cut in the first place was something I actively tried to avoid.

I clenched my fists. I stood to my feet and kicked some of the glass away, before turning to the door.

"...Hello? Is anyone even in here?" the snarky voice of a young girl carried from the front. "...Jesus, this place looks totally fucked up."

I snorted and stomped to the front of the shop.

"...You have got some nerve," I started saying as I weaved around the beam again. "You made me drop my most prized possession. Do you even know how irreplaceable it is? It is not a real cauliflower, but I would not be here without it."

The girl, who stood at a head shorter than me and was wrapped up warmly, blinked rapidly as I came to a stop in front of her. She could not be more than fifteen. She was clutching at one of her backpack straps, and shuffling about nervously. "...Cauliflower?" she repeated in a Cockney accent, frowning in confusion.

Realising my vagueness, I shook my head and massaged my temples. "...I am sorry. I am not...content, at the moment. Can I...can I help you?"

Her expression changed from concerned to agitated. "...Yeah. I'd like to leave a dream for someone."

I gasped in shock. "You still dream?" I whispered. I had not thought that there were in fact still humans who could still dream, so this news took me aback.

"...So what? What's it to you?" she snapped, moving to stand in a defensive position.

I sighed and shook my head. It was none of my business, but I probably would not let it go any time soon. "...For someone, you said? As in, a gift?" I then diverted the conversation.

She hesitated to nod, before glancing at the wall.

"Really?" I checked, blinking in surprise. People did not usually leave gifts. Even before the war when shops were new —they were not that thoughtful.

"Uh, yeah?" she scoffed, eyeing me suspiciously. "Unless you're closed or something..."

"No, no!" I assured her, but she did not look all too relieved. "It is just that, I have not had a customer for a while. And now you arrive at my door, seeking to do business and —" I stopped short, tucking my white hair behind my ear. I glanced downwards and paused, wondering how silly I sounded. I then cleared my throat and smiled wearily at her. "...I am open. I just got back from a trip actually."

"Okay..." she drawled, before rolling her eyes as she inhaled sharply.

I turned around and bent down to retrieve a glass jar from underneath the front of the counter. I held it in front of her. "Have you done this before?" I asked.

She shook her head and gripped her backpack even tighter. "No," she mumbled almost inaudibly.

"It does not hurt," I offered, tilting my head to the side. "It feels slightly ticklish."

She made a face and I tittered accordingly.

"So, how does it work?" she sighed, shaking her head slightly and making strands of her short, wavy straw-coloured hair fall away from her face.

"You think of the dream, and I receive it through any contact of skin. You do not have to be asleep."

Her eyes widened slightly. "...Is that the only way?" she whispered. "You know...touching?"

"Yes," I answered. I frowned. I studied her body language. She was standing very stiffly and upright, and pulling her denim jacket tightly around her. Something about the way she asked —the way she closed off at the notion of the contact of skin —told me that a very troubled reason was buried somewhere deep inside of her. "...Is that a problem?" I asked softly.

She hesitated, before biting on her forefinger nail thoughtfully. "...Okay. Here," she murmured, holding out her other palm. "We'll touch hand to hand, yeah?"

"Perfect," I declared, reaching up to place my hand flat against hers. "Now close your eyes."

Her eyelids fluttered closed over her green eyes and she took a deep breath. Her rosebud lips then began to move slightly as though she were murmuring in her sleep. And then it started —blue, pink and purple mist rose from her fingertips and circled our hands. A tingly feeling spread against my skin where it touched hers, before I stiffened as the mist was then absorbed into my own fingertips.

Images flashed in my mind; scenes of what appeared to be a future of some kind, with the girl living as an adult with a lanky dark-haired man in a house in the country. Runny-nosed and rosy-cheeked children's laughter echoed in the halls of an enormous house as they ran through it. It was sweet. It was wistful.

The images then abruptly stopped when the scenes shifted back in time to a setting more like the present —an inexperienced tangle of limbs; breathless and fast and fumbled in the dark...No, not lovemaking. It was harsher and harder than that, but not forced. The images then stopped because the girl quickly withdrew her hand, and opened her eyes fearfully. She held the hand that had touched mine protectively with her other one, looking at me nervously.

She looked worried that I had seen what I saw.

We stared at each other for a few moments; formulated words evading us.

I then turned and placed the glass jar on the part of the counter that was still intact, deciding to do her a favour and completely ignore the last part of her dream.

"...Do you have any paper?" I asked in a quiet voice.

"Uh...yeah."

"Good. You will need to write a short message for the recipient," I continued. "Then I will need you to write their name on a separate piece of paper and poke a hole through one end. I have run out of label tags."

"Okay."

She got set scribbling, while I packaged her dream. I flittered my fingers towards the glass jar and blue, pink and purple mist whirled swiftly into the jar before pooling up inside in a more liquid form. Once it was full, I ducked under the counter for a cork and a piece of string. I popped back up and corked the jar, and then looked to the girl to see if she was done.

She was murmuring under her breath as she continued writing, and frowning slightly. Then she stabbed the paper with the pen, before folding another piece of paper over thrice and sliding both pieces over.

I pulled the note closer then slid it underneath the jar, and took the name tag too. I threaded the string through the hole and tied it around the neck of the jar.

Joshua Walker.

"...I will keep the dream here until the recipient comes to collect it. What time should I expect them?" I asked.

The girl paused. "Twelve-ish."

"Okay."

She then promptly turned around and marched to the front door, but she hesitated as her hand reached out for the handle. "...Thanks," she mumbled. Then she left.

author's note |
here's the first chapter! i hope you liked it, and will wait in anticipation for more. don't forget to vote and comment your thoughts ~