DREAMDRIFTER: Book Two of the Newcomer Trilogy

By Shayn Bloom

Annie McGallagher is ready for a quiet life.

But a quiet life isn’t ready for her.

Chased from her home by murderous Dreamtrappers and racked with confusion as to the secrets of a loved one’s subconscious mind, Annie is racing her unanswered questions to the finish line. It doesn’t help that the Arrowhearts are back in her life, and even as Adia beseeches Annie to stop shirking her responsibilities and live to her full potential, Todd is prepared to ask for much, much more. Ash is infuriated by Annie and Todd’s antics, his relationship with Annie at the breaking point. Add a prophecy yet unfulfilled, a girl frozen in ice, and a surprise meeting with an old friend, and Annie has more than enough to handle.

And that’s leaving out the fact that the Wildecore Holurn is on the brink of collapse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shayn Bloom
• Release date: Jul 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310363078

Shayn Bloom

Shayn Bloom was born in Moscow, Russia and has been a writer since the age of thirteen, penning novels, poems, essays, songs, articles, short stories, and novellas. Shayn lives and writes in Denton, Maryland.

Book preview

Dreamdrifter

The Newcomer Trilogy (Book 2)

Shayn Bloom

Copyright 2015 Shayn Bloom.

For more information about the author and trilogy:

http://shaynbloom.blogspot.com

Edited and formatted by Kye Fehrenbach.

Cover design by Ronnell Porter.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

1. The Dreamcatcher Girl

2. Alexi

3. The Birthday Girl

4. The New Holurn

5. The Turncoat

6. The Escape

7. The Fight

8. Katarina

9. The Grand Holan

10. The Reason

11. The Justices

12. The Dreams of Lin Divion

13. Adia

14. The Grand Holan’s Lover

15. Dreamdrifter

Child of night

Know my light

I am your Dreamdrifter

See my love

Raise you above

I am your Dreamdrifter

Hear me loud

Sing you proud

I am your Dreamdrifter

Touch my soul

Heal you whole

I am your Dreamdrifter

– Dreamdrifter psalm

1. The Dreamcatcher Girl

Adia Arrowheart stared me down from across the table, her long nails turning a napkin to mush in the hand not grasping a coffee mug. Adia’s body was tensed, but not in fear. Instead, she was poised to strike me down.

You’re the Newcomer, Adia said.

I nodded. I know that.

No, Adia replied. You don’t. You have no idea, Annie McGallagher. Frustration was boiling in Adia, turning her usually gorgeous features into a collage of tinted dissonance. You are running from yourself!

My hair was long now. The pixie cut of my teenage self was lost to the fog of years while my longer, styled self shone through like a lighthouse reeling in a ship from a dark and wintry sea. But my hair was not the only thing that had changed. In my early twenties I had belatedly began to wear makeup and around the same time I had started wearing fashionable clothes. I was older, more confident, fatter, and happier than I had ever been in my life.

You see this, I said, gesturing to the dreamcatcher earth tattooed on my chest. This means that I don’t have to listen to you anymore, Adia. You aren’t my teacher anymore. I’m a Dreamdrifter now. Too many unhappy years led to these happy ones and you won’t disrupt my path.

I am trying to illuminate your path! Adia hissed.

I shook my head. You don’t care about me, Adia. If you did care, then you would never have helped Ash to infiltrate my subconscious mind. Why should I listen to you at all? If you were at least being honest then I could –

I am being honest! Adia said. Your success is mine!

That’s true, I agreed. But not for the reasons you think. This has nothing to do with me, Adia. It has only to do with you. You want your prophecy to not be a failure. You want that success only for yourself!

She leaned back in her chair, her eyes never leaving mine. We stared at each other for a moment. And then, at the exact same moment, we both sampled our drinks. My medium blend coffee was only lukewarm. On top of that, the café had been out of my favored dark roast – as if my day needed any more tension.

You’re right, Adia admitted. But not completely. I want you to succeed so that my prophecy will succeed – you’re right about that. But this is not just about me. It’s about my parents and the Wildecore parents, and the others that gave their lives so that the Newcomer would survive. This is for the heroes of the Second Great Manifestation, Annie, and nobody else.

Our eyes met over our drinks. You were wrong in the beginning, I said, the accusatory note leaving my voice at exactly the wrong moment. You said my brother was the Newcomer. He is not the Newcomer. I am the Newcomer.

I know that! Adia defended. "Or – now, I know that. So I misinterpreted a prophecy. I was positive, at the time, that your brother had been the Newcomer. Fine, I was wrong. That hardly casts the entire thing into irrelevance, Annie. You still have that destiny to live up to as far as I’m concerned."

Maybe, I allowed. "But the question now isn’t about what I have to live up to. The question now is whether I even want to be the Newcomer, and, more importantly, why I should give a damn about your concerns."

Adia held her breath. I could see what was happening. It was all too obvious. My words had inflated her and now she was trying very hard not to burst.

People like Adia and my parents – academic types, hate more than anything to have their opinions disregarded. And so it was amusing to see Dr. Adia Arrowheart, the psychologist with expertise in clinical depression, on the cusp of reverie and yet smacked down by the weight of my mature, unflinching confidence.

You will not tell me where to go, I said quietly, leaning forward in my chair as I did. You will not tell me what to do. Those days are gone, dispatched like history not worth remembering.

But – Adia began.

"But you can’t, I hijacked. You can’t ruin my happiness, Adia. You already tried once, remember? You chose me – you targeted me, and attempted to force the love of my life into my subconscious mind involuntarily. And oh how you wish he had succeeded, I continued devilishly, pressing further. How you wish Ash hadn’t failed, how you wish we hadn’t fallen in love. He did, however, succeed in making you a failure!"

Was I being a bitch? Probably. But then again I hadn’t seen Adia in twelve years. Along with the years disgust had grown inside of me, disgust for everything Adia was and had been. Given the treatment I had received from her in my formative years, it was fair to say that I was going easy on her. And, in true fashion, here she was calling me a failure.

You’re a failure, Adia said. You carry within your soul a gift of the ages – the ability to bring peace to our world as the Newcomer, and yet you choose to cast your gift into the sea of indifference like the hopes of so many saints.

I – I began.

"I get to talk now, Adia hijacked. You’ve had your turn."

Fine, I quickly allowed. If she was going to insist on steering the conversation, she would at least have to drive under my green light.

Adia gazed out of the window by our table, her eyes hovering for a moment on the illuminated café sign. You attack me unprovoked, she began, her eyes still dislodged. "You say I chose you, but you are choosing to blame me for every hardship you have ever encountered. That is your choice, not a fact. True, my actions have played an enormous role in your life, but if you began taking a larger role in your own life then maybe mine would seem less significant. Annie, I have never wanted anything but good things for you."

I shook my head. "You mean you have never wanted anything but good things for you, only in this case it’s the same difference."

We engaged in a standoff, choosing to sip our drinks. My coffee had gone cold. The café surrounding our spot was buzzing with activity. Luckily my eyes could easily find distraction amid the passersby.

Why do you hate me, Annie? Adia asked.

I replaced my mug on the table. Because you’ve attempted over and over to ruin everything good in my life.

You’re lying, Adia said. And I know you’re lying. That’s not the real reason.

I crossed my arms. How do you know?

Because you were once my student, Adia began. Remember? All those years ago. Before life got serious.

You’re already wrong, I cut across. "I was miserable then. Life was serious."

Beside the point, Adia deemed. The point is that you’ve hated me from the very first class onward. You even called me out in that second class, remember? I wasn’t expecting you to retort. I wasn’t expecting a wildcard of a Newcomer.

A very involuntary smile broke across my features. I remember. I even surprised myself that day. And Ash was skipping, making it pointless.

Not quite pointless, Adia said. We’re talking about it now, aren’t we?

The smile died on my face. No, we’re talking about why I hate you.

"Not why but when, Adia corrected. And the answer is always. You have always hated me, and therefore your hate is perhaps questionable at best as no single event stands behind it. This isn’t personal, Annie – this about universal salvation. How can you be so selfish? How can you?"

For the first time since sitting down with Adia, real anger was starting to pulse in my veins. Up until this moment Adia had been annoying me, but it had been an almost fond kind of annoyance as I remembered my former self while simultaneously dissing Adia into oblivion as I had promised myself I would. Now, however, she was crossing lines. Calling me selfish was the catalyst.

"And where, exactly, I began, cutting from a different angle. Have you been for the last twelve years? Waiting for your moral compass to reboot so that you might perhaps remember your own overly important role in universal salvation? Or were you too embarrassed after having screwed up the prophecy?"

You – Adia began.

"I’m glad, I interrupted. That you and your brother never returned to the Holurn after that night – glad that both of you never came back. My life has improved tremendously since you’ve left it. I’m glad –"

He’s Holan, Adia interrupted, brushing her long, braided hair back over her shoulder. Todd’s Holan. He’s founded a new Holurn.

I – But the words stalled in my throat, caught as they were by surprise. Todd Arrowheart, the sweet boy from my youth, a Holan? It just didn’t seem right somehow. He had always been so… not a Holan.

Todd and I have grown apart, Adia admitted quietly, her tone lilting for the first time. He was furious after that night. Furious at the Holan and Ash for allowing what he sees as your abuse, and even more furious at me for sponsoring it. We still talk, occasionally. But his days of looking up to me, like yours, Annie, are apparently over.

For a second I hesitated, but only for a second. You’re a psychologist, I said dismissively. What does Freud say about karma?

Adia buried her head in her hands. Soon, however, I realized that her movements were born of exasperation rather than sorrow. Will you ever stop pretending? Adia began, freeing her face. That you have anything to lose!

"I have everything to lose! I exclaimed, gesturing outward. Everything! I have Ash! I have Alexi! I have my work and my happiness! You, Adia, are the one who has nothing to lose! You’re estranged from your brother, your husband, your former student, and your entire Holurn, I added cruelly. You’re at the end of the line, Adia. You go off and save the world if you want to so badly."

Adia stared at me, my words barely touching her features, still stunning even as they fought against the years. Her expression was blank. You’re right, Adia said. You’re right, Annie. Except where you’re wrong!

And where’s that? I asked. That is, if you care to be so candid?

Adia’s eyes receded in surrender. You’re right, she said. I haven’t much to lose. And you’re right that those things in my life have passed me by. But I’m not finished. I’m not dead yet. I have one thing left. Know what it is?

I shook my head.

You, Adia murmured. I have you along with my last prophecy, the Newcomer prophecy. Together they are salvation – salvation for the world, and salvation for me. My only hope is you. Join me like you were meant to, Annie, and you will make Alexi proud to have been your brother.

How dare you! I yelled. My temples were aflame. "How dare you use Alexi as a tool for your own gain! How dare you speak of him like that! I will never help you, Adia. So there! You have nothing to live for now! Die like the deaths you’ve caused!"

You don’t mean that, Adia interpreted quickly. "You will help me, Annie. And you know perfectly well that the Second Great Manifestation was supposed to protect Alexi! Not harm him or anybody else, including my own parents!"

I held up my hand. It doesn’t matter. The Second Great Manifestation failed, and you’re to blame. Was it supposed to protect Alexi? Yes, but it didn’t. Not only are you responsible for those deaths, but you also gave your Dreamtrapper of a husband the Newcomer’s identity. You’re responsible for Alexi’s death!

Adia tried to protest, but I went on despite her. "All of your attempts to do anything and everything have failed, Adia. Now it’s up to me, and me alone, to keep Alexi safe. How can I make my brother proud, you wonder? By keeping him safe, that’s how! And safe means