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Chapter 13

Timi and Peyr ran until their hearts seemed to leap into their throats, blocking what little air whistled through their lungs, until their eyes clouded with either sweat or fatigue, and they were beyond knowing or even caring which, until their legs buckled beneath them and all they could do was stumble forward rather than truly run. They ran until they collapsed retching to the ground, and Timi would have struggled to her feet to run again if Peyr had not reached out a shaking hand to stop her.

Sobbing to catch his breath, he gasped, "We'll never reach him if we kill ourselves."

"You don't understand," Timi gasped and sobbed in turn, but she allowed herself to be pulled back to the ground, to lie whimpering as her sides heaved and her legs shook. They sprawled side by side until their breathing slowly quieted and their hearts finally opted to not break through their ribs. "We must go on," Timi eventually whispered, once more battling to rise.

"Why?"

"Because I'm responsible," Timi replied with a whimper.

"I know."

"What do you mean? What do you know?" gasped Timi breathlessly.

"I told you before. You're like him. I can see it, feel it. I have felt it all along, although at first I thought you were less than him, and I don't think so now. I thought he was stronger, but he's not. You are."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Timi responded defensively.

"You do nothing to draw notice; you go out of your way to go unheeded. Yet you have the same ability to draw, to attract, to make people need you. You hide your charms. He doesn't. He's like a child wandering lost, in need of someone to watch over him, doing everything in his power so he'll get the attention he thinks he needs."

"He has far more power than any child."

"But he's a child nonetheless. A very needy child who forgets everything and everyone else when he's frightened. A child who sees no needs other than his own. And somehow I know you're the adult. So you're responsible for him."

This time when Timi sobbed, it had little to do with exhaustion. "If he's just a child, how did he gain so much control over you?"

A puzzled frown creased Peyr's brow. "Somehow he let me know that he needed someone like me. Not to love him. Just to look after him. I will admit his needs overwhelmed me at first. But that's not true anymore. Ever since we left my home, his hold on me has slowly faded. So slowly I don't think I noticed at first. But almost from the first there was another force countering his, whether it was being used intentionally or not. There was something I could feel pulling at me, drawing me away despite all his efforts to hold me; something so strong that his hold on me had been almost completely destroyed even before he ran away. And that something was you."

"What are you saying?" gasped Timi.

"His need for me to protect him was strong. Almost too strong to resist. But my need to be with you is stronger."

Timi flinched away as if she was frightened by whatever she saw in his face. "I've done nothing to captivate you. Nothing to make you need me."

Peyr's lips quirked into a sad smile. "I know. You have not drawn me against my will as he did. Yet you have still drawn me. You see, there was something I recognized in him, something I responded to from the beginning, but it was really you I was feeling and responding to, the part of him that somehow is also a part of you. That is why, even at its height, his hold on me was only on my compassion, on my willingness to protect. That was all he could ask, for he wasn't and couldn't be everything to me. He could only be a poor substitute for the real thing. And he could only be that because he tried so desperately when you didn't try at all."

"I never wanted to draw you like he does. I never wanted to do that to anyone. I'm not like that," Timi insisted tearfully.

"Why are you so busy hiding? What is it about yourself that frightens you so?"

"You still don't understand."

Peyr reached out a trembling hand and brushed the tears from her cheek, and although she winced, she didn't pull away. "So explain it to me," he whispered.

A shudder passed through Timi as if something as icy as Gyfree's Figment stood face to face with her again. Her teeth began to chatter and the hair prickled on her arms even after Peyr pulled her gently into the circle of his warmth. She shivered uncontrollably against his body as if she had always been cold and would always be cold, but then finally she murmured, "I always told myself that I was less vivid, less real than other people. That there was nothing in me that could attract another. Then I dreamed him. I dreamed him into existence although I had never dreamed before, and have never dreamed in the same way since. And I realized he had all the ability to attract that I lacked, that he was everything I wasn't."

"Yet that isn't true," Peyr breathed into her hair.

"I convinced myself that it was, but since I first saw you, I've been less sure."

"Why?"

Instead of answering directly, Timi continued in a voice that shivered with cold. "I have spent a lot of time with Dreamers now, and from watching them, and from my own limited experience, I have come to believe that there are different reasons people dream strongly. Sometimes dreams spring from things we desire for ourselves, or things we desire to be. That's what I convinced myself had happened when I dreamed. But more often dreams spring from the things we fear, the things that won't let go of our most secret thoughts. And sometimes our dreams spring not from what we fear from unseen things outside ourselves, from others or the world, but from what we fear in ourselves. That is really why I dreamed him. He wasn't what I secretly wanted to be; he was what I secretly feared in myself."

Peyr's arms tightened around her, pulling her even closer, until finally his warmth began to seep through like the sun thawing frost-hardened ground, and her shivering slowly subsided. "There's really nothing to fear," he whispered into her hair. "You may possess the ability to attract, but unless you choose to use it as he does, you'll never hurt people or force them to do anything against their will. Because you fear what you might do, you'll always control it. You don't even have to try; it's already what you do."

She stiffened in his hold, then twisted around to meet his eyes. "But that's where you're wrong," she said urgently, the tears that had dried once more springing to her eyes. "When I saw you, I wanted you. And now here you are. As simple as that. I really am no better than he is."

"No, that's where you're wrong," Peyr retorted, his eyes delving down through all the layers of her fear and self-doubt. "When he wanted my protection it felt as if he had closed a giant hand around me. I couldn't move unless he wanted me to move. As if I was still in my body but at the same time watching myself being moved around like a child's toy. You have never used any of your powers against me. If you had, I would have been your puppet more completely than I ever was his, and he would never have been able to exert control over me at all. Trust me, I know the feel of someone using this particular talent. You may have wanted me, and in fact, I hope you did and that you still do, but you have never coerced me."

"I must have," Timi cried, "or you wouldn't feel as you do."

This time when Peyr smiled there was nothing sad in his expression, and his eyes were filled with a hope bordering on joy. "Didn't it ever occur to you that someone might respond freely to all those things you keep so carefully hidden, and that they would want you because you were exactly what they had always wanted? That someone like me could see in you everything I've ever desired?" Without waiting for an answer, he lowered his mouth to hers, parting her lips insistently, urgently, as if everything he wanted and needed in life could be found within that kiss.

"How can you feel that way?" Timi gasped when she could finally surface for air, her breathing quick and her heart hammering as if she had never stopped running. "If I'm like him at all you should shun me. The power in him is in me. It's not something to desire. It's something to fear. Something to hate."

"There is something in him desirable, something worth loving and caring for. The same thing that makes you so desirable and lovable. In the end, that is one of the things that makes him so powerful. He's not a monster, and despite what he did to me, I couldn't hate him for it. He didn't act from cruelty or maliciousness, but from simple childish need. I said he was a child, and I meant it. A selfish, misguided child in need of some direction, some unsolicited attention, and some real, uncoerced love."

"For someone who seemed at first to be the strong and silent type, you certainly know what to say when the need arises."

"And what to do when the need arises, even though I'm sure I seemed more like the strong and stupid type the first time you saw me," Peyr replied with a smile that wiped everything else from Timi's mind. "And what we need to do now is stop him before he reaches someone else."

"My Figment!" exclaimed Timi, breaking free from Peyr's embrace and stumbling to her feet. "We have to go!"

Once again Peyr reached up a restraining hand to keep her from bolting away. "We need to stop him," he agreed, "but we'll never do it by dashing around madly. The hummeybees will carry him farther and faster than we could ever run. We need to find another way."

"What other way?" Timi cried.

Peyr rose to his feet and towered above her, his eyes reflecting back her face as she had never seen it before, or perhaps as she had always feared to see it: full of color and life and a mysterious magnetism. "You said you dreamed him."

"Yes. He's a Figment."

"Then don't you have any power over him? The ability to make him stop? Can't you dream him somewhere quiet and empty, so that we can catch him?"

The old Timi would have balked at such a suggestion, but the new Timi, the real Timi, the Timi that had hidden beneath the pale mask of the old Timi, slowly nodded her head. "I can try. At this point, we have nothing to lose other than a few extra minutes of futile running."

Settling back to the ground with her hands clasped firmly in Peyr's, Timi cast herself into a dream, the one dream she had avoided for so long, avoided from the moment she had first awakened to the realization that she was no longer whole. She dreamt of the Figment, of his perfect features, but in her dream she could now see his winsome smile, could see the loneliness deep in his beautiful eyes. Dreaming, she soared through space until she was with him, and invisible she flew by his side as he sailed into a thicket of trees, the hummeybees buzzing in her ears as well as his as they wove a path through the high branches, their wings spraying rainbow light across her eyes. There was no way to slow the hummeybees, for they were not hers to control, and she was afraid to slip into the Figment's thoughts, afraid of what she might find there, afraid of what she would become if she came too close. It might be in her power to make him want to stop, to make him insist that the hummeybees return him to the ground so that he might rest, but maybe it was also possible that when she tried, she would find herself inside him, one with him, wanting what he wanted, needing what he needed, so that instead of stopping him, she would become him. That was not a risk she was willing to take. But she had dreamt him into being, had dreamt him not only as a living entity, but also as a perfectly sculpted form, and that was something she could change, and change without risk. So in dreaming she wrapped herself around his slender body and dreamt of weight, of an incredible heaviness that seeped through the skin, of limbs with the density of lead, of a body with the concentrated mass of a mountain, of a head dragged down by forces even weightier than sleep. Heavy, so heavy, too heavy, she dreamt him far too heavy for the hummeybees to carry; their wings were throbbing desperately now, and still they were foundering, were being pulled from the sky by so much weight, and there was nothing they could do but lower his dense body to the ground so that he could rest as one with the other rocks, solid and heavy and inert.

A smile chased the dream from Timi's eyes, and her smile grew even brighter when she saw the brightness of her reflection in Peyr's eyes. "Let's go," she told him. "He's waiting for us, so there's no need to run. But I still don't want to leave him alone for too long."

"Fine with me," countered Peyr, "but there's one thing I need to do first." Without further preamble he took her in his arms again, his mouth devouring hers with the unquenchable thirst of a man who has gone too long without water and, finally finding a deep, cool stream, cannot be satisfied with just one sip. When he eventually raised his lips from hers, he teased huskily, "I can't wait to take you home. My parents are going to love you."

The soft bemusement in Timi's face was dispelled, and she looked back at him with sudden dread. "What makes you think so?"

"Well, all you have to do is try a little, and they really won't have a choice."

The color drained from Timi's face until she saw in his eyes the same pale reflection of herself that she had seen countless times before. Stricken, she quickly glanced away. With a strength she knew he possessed, but that she had not yet felt, he tilted her chin back up so that her face was trapped in the light of his eyes. "You need to learn to trust yourself," he admonished. "Until you do, you'll never be everything you could be."

"But I don't want to be everything I could be, because then I'll be just like him!"

"I don't think so. You share those qualities that make him attractive, but you are not him. You'll never be him. What you could be is so much more than you let yourself be, but far less than what you fear. Trust yourself. And until you're ready to trust yourself, at least trust me."

Timi shook her head. "And what if you're wrong? What if I can't trust you? What if he regains his hold on you the moment we reach him?"

"It won't happen," Peyr chuckled. "I've never wanted to kiss him, after all, and I can't stop thinking about kissing you."

The color slowly rose in Timi's cheeks and sparked her eyes to life again.

"We'd better be going," Peyr stated grudgingly. "Your charge is waiting. And if I kiss you again, I might not be able to stop."

Without another word they set off hand in hand in the direction Timi could sense the stranded Figment, Peyr's eyes full of Timi, and Timi's eyes full of both doubt and determination.

 

It was wearing to keep up the strenuous pace that they all realized was necessary, for they had been through much recently, and two of them had even looked directly into the eyes of death. Yet they all knew there was no choice. They must keep moving, steadily moving in the direction whispered into Gyfree's mind from the watching land, moving in the direction of Timi and her Figment. The danger this Figment represented might be nothing compared to the danger that would soon be visited upon this world, but at present it was the only danger they had the ability to address. So on they trudged, the packs on their backs as heavy as their eyes and as cumbersome as their legs. On they trudged, until in a weariness that she couldn't dream away, Drew stumbled and fell. And when Gyfree stooped over to help her to her feet, his own legs crumpled beneath him, so that he too tumbled to the ground.

"That's it," gasped Mischa, collapsing in turn to the ground. "Like it or not, our bodies are demanding that we rest. And I for one am going to comply."

Throwing himself down beside her, Sevor groaned "If I had ever dreamed that I could be this tired, I would have been tempted to stay home in bed, and not to come venturing into this world."

"Is that so?" quipped Mischa.

"No," grinned Sevor, "but it sure sounds good right now."

"We've got to keep going," Gyfree insisted, "or we'll never catch the Figment in time."

"We're never going to catch him in time regardless," sighed Mischa. "Isn't there another way?"

"What are you talking about?" snapped Gyfree.

Mischa's eyes twinkled with all the glee of a child pointing out a parent's mistake. "You are the Keeper, aren't you? So can't you call on the land for a little help? Perhaps a few trees could be convinced to catch him as he flies by and entangle him in their branches."

Gyfree blinked, his expression stunned, and then slowly his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"

"Well, in truth I had forgotten about your promotion until just now. It was wiped from my mind by everything else I've been through lately. What's your excuse?"

"I am new to this," he scowled. "And I've been dealing with a fair amount myself lately."

"Now that I have reminded you, what are you waiting for?" Mischa asked slyly, eliciting a quick laugh from Sevor.

Gyfree frowned angrily, but his eyes immediately sparked as if something dormant had leapt to life inside, and then his frown faded away as his gaze grew distant. Accustomed to working with the last Keeper, and well aware that these things took time, Mischa settled back with her head on Sevor's chest to enjoy a much needed rest. The last thing she expected was Gyfree's sudden exclamation of surprise.

Opening one eye and glaring at the new Keeper, Mischa griped, "Why all the noise?"

"Because for some reason the Figment has stopped moving. And according to the land directly beneath him, he couldn't move even if he wanted to. He weighs so much that the land is actually complaining."

"Timi?" Drew queried in surprise.

"Timi," agreed Gyfree, "has been busily dreaming."

 

For the first time since he had entered this new, colorful world, he found himself perched on a rock, basking in the sun, and since there was nothing else to do at the moment, he let his mind drift aimlessly through the trees as his eyes inched shut. Spread out below his mind's eye were all the sharp lines and bright hues that he had found here, the bold brushstrokes of the trees a deep emerald green, the distant ground a splash of rich brown speckled with flecks of every color imaginable, as if some giant hand had dropped a palette full of paint to splatter across the land in every direction. Everything was so crisp, so clear, so full of life that it brought tears trickling from the corners of his eyes, and spurred the hummeybees on his shoulders into anxious buzzing. There were birds as bright and distinct as the rest of the scene darting from tree to tree, but there were no other hummeybees here, no other creatures he could trust. Only the hummeybees who had accompanied him here were loyal; only they had proven themselves to care about him and only him.

He had thought at first that he had finally found the world he had waited for, and although it was as full and rich as he had always envisioned, it had failed to bring him the joy he had once expected. For a brief time it had brought him a woman, and he had certainly enjoyed touching her, holding her, listening to the music in her voice. But she had grown strange and distant, and almost as indistinct and hazy as the world he had left, and she had done nothing to protect him when he needed protection the most. There had also been others for a while, but except for the man he had chosen above all others to protect him, they had not followed him as they should have followed. And even his protector had seemed distracted for most of the time, needing constant reminders that his job was to protect rather than to watch the pale Dreamer as if she was more important than anything else.

For all its vivid beauty, this world, so promising at first, had not brought him all he had wanted. It had brought him disappointment and even discomfort, and now it had allowed his Dreamer to reach out and pull him from the sky, to imprison him on this rock in the sun, to trap him more securely than the burning wall had imprisoned him in his old world. And now it was bringing his Dreamer to him, as well as his protector, for he could see them as his mind floated above, striding toward him with a purpose that rendered them as vivid and striking as the canvas of life that surrounded him, the beautiful canvas brimming with color and texture and cruelty.

Eyes still shut, he watched them enter the sun-drenched clearing where he sat immobile on a rock, watched them enter hand in hand, and with his mind he pulled at his protector, tried to pull him away and back to the spot where he belonged. When his protector failed to respond, his eyes inched open again and slowly filled with tears as pure and lovely as his face. On his shoulders the hummeybees buzzed fiercely, but he was tired, too tired and sad to ask for their help, at least not yet.

"I am losing them all," he whispered, his eyes shifting from his erstwhile protector and settling on his Dreamer's face. His Dreamer's newly colorful and surprisingly lovely face. "You have taken my protector away from me just as that other man has taken the woman. You have left me with nothing but the hummeybees, and I need more. So much more. Why won't you let me find more? You never wanted me, but others will if you only let me go."

Timi stepped forward, relieved and stunned that Peyr's hand still gripped her own. "I can't allow you to find any others. You make people do things they would never do if given a choice."

"But they want to do things for me. It makes them happy."

"Perhaps at first. But when you care for a person, it helps if they care for you too. You made people love you and need you, but you never loved them back."

"But I needed them. I still need them."

"Yes, but all you have ever cared about was what they could do for you. You never considered what they needed."

The Figment shook his head like the petulant child Peyr had claimed him to be. "I don't understand," he complained. "Why couldn't they be happy by making me happy? Shouldn't that be enough?"

Timi's eyes widened in comprehension as Peyr gently squeezed her hand. "You really don't understand, do you?" she asked softly.

The Figment scowled and the hummeybees lifted from his shoulders, buzzing with menace. "I understand that you never cared about me. You were the one who brought me life, but then you sent me away. You left me alone, and you never came to get me, and when someone else brought me here you were unhappy. You wanted to send me back. You wanted to hurt me. You still want to hurt me. You're the one who should have loved me and needed me, but you never did."

As Peyr squeezed her hand again, all his words came back to Timi, and somehow she finally understood what she needed to do, what she had needed to do from the beginning but could never have faced until now. Carefully pulling her hand free from Peyr's hold she stepped forward alone, her eyes never leaving the Figment's flushed face. She could feel Peyr behind her, but she could also feel that he too understood what must be done, and she smiled with the realization that he had known long before she had, and had done everything in his power to help her understand.

As she neared the Figment the hummeybees buzzed a distinct warning, but with her eyes still on her creation's face, she said soothingly, "I promise not to hurt you," and the hummeybees immediately subsided. Stepping even closer, close enough to feel the Figment's warm breath wafting across her cheeks, she raised trembling hands and gently cupped his face. "I never wanted to hurt you," she whispered. "How could I hurt someone so beautiful, so wonderful?"

The crystalline tears adorning his face like rare jewels suddenly ceased. "You think I'm beautiful? Wonderful?"

"Isn't that how I created you? As someone who would always be loved."

"My protector doesn't love me anymore," he sulked, his eyes shifting to the quietly attentive Peyr.

"Of course he does," consoled Timi. "And so does Mischa. They both love you very much, but it also hurts them to love you so much. They feel more love than they can bear."

"How is that possible?" he pouted.

"You are so wonderful that people want to give you all their love. More than all their love. More love than they can contain within their bodies. So much love that they forget everything else. But people aren't made to hold so much love. We are weak things compared to you, too weak to give you as much love as you deserve."

"The hummeybees love me that much."

"That is why they are special. Their capacity for love is worthy of you."

Tears leaked from his eyes again and he whimpered. "It's still not enough."

"I know. And you deserve more."

For a long moment he stared back at her, and the only sound in the clearing was the now pensive buzz of the hummeybees. At last he asked, "Do you love me?"

Tears as beautiful and precious as his slid down her face. "Yes. Very much."

"Will you give yourself to me?"

Timi shook her head gently. "No. It still would not be enough. You would still need more. You will always need more."

"Then what can I do?" he cried plaintively. "Who will take care of me?"

"I will take care of you," Timi answered, her voice brushing across him in a comforting caress. "I will hold you as you need to be held, and I will never let you go. I will watch over you and protect you and make sure all your needs are met."

"How will you do these things if you don't belong to me?"

"There is another way. A way that will be enough."

"What way?" he wept, with all the sorrow and trust of a child who seeks an answer, and both fears and knows that the answer exists.

Timi leaned closer, her lips a breath away from his lips. "You are mine," she whispered huskily. "You have always been mine. You are part of me. I need you. I want you. I need you to come back." With the last word her lips folded over his, and she kissed him with all the love and pain and fearful hope with which a mother kisses her child, knowing all the beauty and hurt life can bring, and knowing that she could no more bestow enough of the joy than she could completely exclude all the anguish.

Beneath her hands and lips her Figment shivered, and she could taste his tears as they coursed down his face, their flavor sweet and pure. Dropping her hands from his face, she wrapped her arms about his body and pulled him close, lifting her face and sheltering his head in the crook of her neck She hugged him tightly and he shivered again, shivered until it seemed that he would shake apart. "Trust yourself," she heard Peyr whisper at her back, or perhaps in her memory, but it no longer mattered which. Beneath closed lids her eyes filled with the one true dream, the dream that had changed her life, the dream that was cradled in her arms. This time she held nothing back as she wrapped her dreaming self around him, wrapped her entire self around him. And dreaming she soaked into his mind, sponging up all his needs and wants and desires, all the needs and wants and desires that she had given him, and absorbed them back into herself. She was no longer afraid of losing herself to him; she was, after all, the stronger. Nor was he afraid of being destroyed, for he had never felt so loved. This was what he needed. This was what she needed. To become one. To become whole.

Within her arms the Figment shivered one last time, and then he slowly dissolved into breathtaking particles of shimmering light that briefly swirled and basked in the sunshine before filtering through his Dreamer's glowing skin. And when Timi's eyes blinked open, and she saw the vibrant colors surrounding her, saw in her mind's eye the richness and wonder of this world, she knew he wasn't truly gone. He was simply back where he belonged.

A hush held the clearing in thrall, a hush so intense that not even the hummeybees seemed capable of sound. A hush held them all, a hush full of things that could never be said because there were no words to say them. And then Timi turned and smiled at Peyr, and the silence released them.

A loud buzz split the air. "He'z gone," droned the larger hummeybee.

The smaller hummeybee swept across the clearing to linger above Timi's face. "Not gone. Changed. Zhe will command uz now."

Timi gazed up at the hovering hummeybees, their wings a blur of rainbow-lit motion, their fuzzy bodies pulsing with life as stunning as the throbbing of their wings. They were so beautiful, so incredible, that her heart clenched and she would have forgotten to breathe if her body hadn't proceeded without her. And she looked into the eyes that were prepared to surrender to her as completely as they had surrendered to her Figment. "No," she told them softly, "I will never command you. You may stay or you may leave, but what you do from this moment forward is entirely up to you."

Two strong arms folded around her waist and pulled her close to a warm body, and then an even warmer voice whispered in her ear. "I told you that you could trust yourself."

Timi leaned her head back against Peyr's shoulder and allowed her eyes to inch shut. "How did you know?" she murmured.

"I could just feel it. From the first I knew he truly did need someone to take care of him, that for all his willfulness and power he was just a little lost boy in search of something he could feel was missing, although he didn't seem to know what it might be. And then I could also feel in you that there was something missing, as if you had long denied an important part of yourself, a part you could never completely be yourself without. When I realized who both of you were, the rest seemed fairly obvious."

Timi turned in his arms, her eyes suddenly intent on his face. "What do you see when you look at me now?" she demanded.

A smile lit Peyr's eyes and tightened the corners of his mouth. "The woman of my dreams," he answered.

"But you don't have dreams," Timi protested with a frown.

"But I do have an imagination, and I've spent all my life imagining a woman just like you. And my imaginings came true. So perhaps imagination is a bit like dreaming, with a special power of its own."

Peyr's lips lowered to hers, but just as his mouth parted hers, she jumped and shrieked. A sudden buzzing filled her ears as an unexpected weight settled onto each of her shoulders. "Don't worry," buzzed the heavier hummeybee, and she was almost certain that his buzz reverberated with laughter, "but thiz iz our choize."

"We know we are free," buzzed the lighter weight. "But thiz iz not our world, and for the time being, it zeemz bezt to ztay with you."

As he looked at the expression of consternation on Timi's face, Peyr undutifully threw back his head and laughed. And knowing that her Figment would have never allowed such a reaction, Timi felt safe enough to laugh as well.

 

Curiosity drove them forward even after the land had whispered to the Keeper that something had changed, or was changing, and they would not be urgently needed after all. Curiosity even continued to drive them when the land sighed with relief that the great weight of the Figment had been lifted from the grumbling rock. And curiosity kept them poised on their feet when their eyes spotted two figures emerge from the horizon and gradually transform into Peyr and Timi. And stunned incredulity held them in place when the two approaching figures had grown large enough and clear enough for the hummeybees perched on Timi's shoulders to resolve themselves as more than misleading shadows. Then as if to break the spell that held them all in check, the hummeybees sprang from Timi's shoulders and hurdled directly toward Drew, speeding far ahead of their traveling companions to whir around her head in boundless excitement.

"Yez, we remember now," the larger one buzzed. "It'z her, it'z her."

"Free, we are free," buzzed the smaller one, "the other zet uz free zo we could remember."

At first Drew ducked her head beneath the hummeybees seeming assault, but almost immediately she lifted her face toward their hovering bodies as if she was seeing them for the very first time, and as their rainbow wings scattered light across her cheeks, her eyes slowly widened. "This must be a dream," she breathed.

Gyfree flinched as if something invisible had reached out and slapped him across the face. "What are you talking about?" he blurted.

"The hummeybees," murmured Drew, so entranced that she failed to notice the color draining from Gyfree's face and the light draining from his eyes. "They're a dream. My dream. Earlier I said they seemed like something from a dream, but not until this moment did I recognize the truth."

"Yez, yez," proclaimed the large hummeybee. "Zhe iz the one. Zhe made uz, all of uz. All the hummeybeez in our world."

"There was a dream," Drew sighed, "a dream I had often, although when I remember, it doesn't seem like a dream at all. There were bees, countless bees, all at least as big as a man's fist and sometimes bigger, and they all swarmed around me. They seemed so fierce, so formidable, as if nothing could ever really harm them, that at first I was frightened, but they never did sting me. They would just fly so close and buzz in my ears until I seemed to see them and hear them inside my head." She blinked as if awakening from that long forgotten dream, her eyes losing their distance as she focused on the living, soaring hummeybees. "They always lived in a forest. A beautiful forest that looked like the watercolor my great-grandmother had hanging on the wall above the rocking chair where she spent all her days. Soft colors running into other colors, as muted and hazy as a dream."

"Yez," agreed the smaller hummeybee. "Our world. You zaw it. You were there."

"Yes, I saw it. I was there. But I was there many times before. In my dreams."

Slowly her knees buckled beneath her, and she would have fallen if Gyfree hadn't caught her and lowered her gently to the ground. "I visited their world," she whispered to him, frightened eyes on his bleak face, "and then I woke up in my bed. In my world. From dream to dream. That's how I've lived my life. And in the end, I'm always back home in my bed, whether I choose to be or not."

Without a word, Gyfree pulled her into his arms, but the eyes that looked over her head were shaken by the approach of a nightmare that he feared could not be averted.

The hummeybees droned soothingly, but it was the sound of Sevor clearing his throat that broke through the nightmare fear that had seized both Drew and Gyfree. "It's not that simple," he remarked almost apologetically.

Drew turned her eyes up to his crookedly smiling face. "What's not simple?"

"You never visited the hummeybees' world."

"I remember it clearly from my dreams. Now that I've taken the time to think about it, I know it's the same world I saw when Gyfree and I found the Figment," objected Drew.

"True enough."

"So how is that not simple?"

Sevor squatted down, looking deeply into Drew's eyes, then just as deeply into Gyfree's. Then looking back at Drew, he said so softly that only she and Gyfree could clearly hear, "You never visited the hummeybees. Not the way you are visiting here, your body and mind exploring a completely new world, a world that was shaped long before you discovered it. It was different with the hummeybees. You did more than just visit in all those dreams. You see, you dreamed their world into existence."

"What?" exclaimed Gyfree and Drew in unison.

"You dreamed the hummeybees into life, and then you dreamed them a world of their own. I dreamed of you doing it, and I must admit, it was rather impressive."

"Are you saying it's possible for a Dreamer to actually dream an entire world into existence?" demanded Gyfree.

"It's very rare, but it has happened at least once or twice."

"So the hummeybees are Figments?" queried Drew.

"I said it's not that simple. When a Dreamer like you dreams a world for the creatures she dreams, she gives those creatures a new reality. The hummeybees' world is as real as this one, as real as mine, as real as your old one. And they are as real as anyone or anything that inhabits any other world."

"But I thought Figments were real as well," Drew protested with a confused frown.

"They are real," he agreed, "but they are not alive in the same way as you or Gyfree, Mischa or me, Timi or Peyr, or even the hummeybees are alive. They change constantly in a way we could never change, but they don't really age or grow in the same way we do. They may have physical relationships, but they don't reproduce. And even though they can be destroyed, in the normal course of things, they don't really die. They are real. But they aren't bound by the same rules that apply to us, or to creatures born from a dream but then anchored to a world of their own."

At that moment Mischa leaned over and tugged frantically on Sevor's arm. "You can finish your explanation later," she hissed. "In the meantime, you need to look at this."

Four pairs of eyes turned to watch the arrival of Timi and Peyr, and four pairs of eyes were suddenly riveted to Timi's face. The pale phantom of a woman was gone, and in her place stood another woman brimming with color and life. Her hair was no longer limp and faded, but was instead thick and full and shimmering golden like the sun. Cheeks once waxen were flushed, and lips once thin and colorless were as swollen and blushing as a bud in bloom. Yet it was her eyes that were the most remarkable. Eyes still gray, but no longer the gray of a cool and distant mist. Eyes now the intense gray of a stormy sky so beautiful that even the most cautious of weather watchers would be willing to risk a soaking if they could only capture and remember the wonder of such a sight.

Hand in hand with Peyr, Timi stepped forward, her own eyes riveted to just one stunned face. "Mischa?" she asked tentatively.

"Yes?" croaked Mischa.

"Are you all right?"

With a laugh Sevor scrambled to his feet and wrapped an arm around Mischa. "She's more than all right," he answered. "You might say she's herself again."

"Timi?" asked Mischa uncertainly.

"Yes?" responded Timi with a shaky smile.

"Are you all right?"

This time Peyr laughed and wrapped an arm around Timi's slender shoulders. "She's more than all right too," he announced proudly. "You might say she's her entire self again."

"Where's the Figment?" Gyfree asked sharply.

"Not gone. Changed," droned a hummeybee.

Before Gyfree could explode, Timi answered with a mysterious smile. "I finally understood him and accepted him, and gave him what he needed."

"What?" demanded Gyfree.

"It's a long story," Timi admitted ruefully.

"Well, since we're all in need of some rest," Mischa interjected decisively, "now might be a good time to sit down and hear it."

"Mischa," Timi remarked softly, "it's nice to have you back."

"Timi," replied Mischa with a twinkle in her eye, "it's nice to meet you."

 

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Framed