In Restless Dreams

By Wren Handman

A stunning YA fantasy with heart, humour, and otherworldly political intrigue. Fans of Michelle Madow and Elise Kova will devour Wren Handman’s In Restless Dreams, the first installment of The Phantasmer Cycle. Sylvia is just a normal girl with huge, normal problems—her mother’s attempted suicide; how to adjust to life on the Upper East Side; trying to make friends in a rich prep school where she doesn’t belong; whether or not to trust the cute boy with the dangerous eyes.
She thinks that’s more than she can handle, but she tests the limits of her endurance when she learns that she is the long awaited Phantasmer, a human who can change the fabric of Fairy simply by believing in a new story. Sylvia’s life is thrown off course as two warring Courts, the Seelie and Unseelie, both attempt to co-opt her gift to fight the other Court, which she has to deal with while trying not to get kicked out of school for fighting.
And it doesn’t help matters that the fairies begging for her help are both attractive young men with their own agendas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Parliament House
• Release date: Jan 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781953539403

Wren Handman

Wren Handman is a novelist and screenwriter from Vancouver, Canada. She writes a wide range of stories, from science fiction (Wire Wings) to YA contemporary paranormal (In Restless Dreams). All of her stories are connected by one thing: the magical blended with the everyday.

Book preview

Prologue

Beyond the Concrete Realm where humans dwell, deep in a forgotten stretch of the Abstract Land, stands a mountain. On this mountain is a path, choked with vine so richly green it cannot be described, and on the vine are thorns so sharp they cut the wind as it passes through them. The sound of it could be made out—sharp whistles and faint shrieks—if there was anyone to hear.

Up this path rests a cottage, built in a clearing on the peak of the mountain where the guarding thorns have given air for sapling trees to grow. The cottage was once cheerful, but its warm yellow trim is now greyed by spiderwebs, and the flower boxes below the windows hold nothing but thorns. Inside, beneath a layer of cobwebs and dust so thick it moves like a blanket, an old woman sleeps. The gentle rise and fall of her breath has been uninterrupted for a thousand years. Only the spiders and birds have dared move near her.

Like a bolt, she sits. Her eyes open, then close. Open again. Slowly she turns her head, surveying the dust and debris in the room, and the spiders skitter away like naughty children. She rises, not bothering to brush the webs from her thick grey hair.

She is coming, she creaks. Her voice, sandpaper and old cigarettes, catches at the back of her throat with a dry scrape. Her skin has the look of paper that has been crumpled and left to yellow at the bottom of a trunk, and her fingers are too long for human hands. When she moves, she leaves a track of footprints through the cottage’s only room. She opens the door and looks down the path. A skeleton sits sentinel to the right of the doorway, which makes her snicker. He was meant, no doubt, to warn the world when she woke, but his magic could not keep him alive through the long years.

Our guest will be here soon, she clucks, and starts to pull the skeleton’s fingers off like petals from a flower. They make dry cracking noises as they separate from his hand. And these bones are far too old to do me any good. I suppose I’ll have to make stew. She gathers the finger bones to her chest as she walks back inside, humming a discordant tune under her breath. She’s coming. She’s coming.

Introduction

Hello darkness, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains within the sound of silence

---

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

'Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

---

When my eyes were stabbed

By the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

---

-Sounds of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel

Chapter One

Y ou what? I hate the way my voice cracks. I wish I could make him think I didn’t care. Of course, if wishing could make it so, I would probably wish for him not to be breaking up with me, instead of just wishing I was handling it better.

I think we need some space. Y’know, to like. . .rethink things. Tommy runs a hand through his hair, an excuse to stare down at his feet instead of into my dangerously teary eyes. Please, God, don’t let me cry. As if being broken up with in the corner of an immensely crowded room while music blares around you isn’t bad enough, I am not going to cry in front of every person that I know.

Space. Like. . .like breaking-up space, or like going-to-the-cottage-for-the-weekend space? As if I don’t know the answer. We’ve only been going out for a few weeks, so it’s not like my heart is breaking in my chest—but the public humiliation might kill me even if the break-up doesn’t. Tommy doesn’t answer, which I know means the answer is obvious, but I stand there like an idiot waiting for him to say something. Finally, the silence becomes so awkward he clears his throat just to make a noise. I think if I talk I might start crying, so I just keep my mouth shut.

The first one, he finally mutters. Sorry.

And you really thought the middle of Trisha’s birthday was the right time for this conversation? It feels good to get mad instead of weepy, so I go with it. People on the dance floor are starting to pay attention to us, and I can feel my hands balling into fists at my sides. Alice is giving me ‘concerned face,’ and she looks threateningly ready to come over here.

Yeah, well, Leanne sorta asked if I wanted to dance, and I didn’t want to, like, cheat or anything, so I figured we should talk. I’d kinda been thinking about it for a while, you know?

You’re breaking up with me for Leanne? Leanne Planter? Okay, that was definitely a shriek, and now people are definitely looking at us. Including Leanne.

Syl, c’mon. Calm down, Tommy hisses, turning his body away from the room and shielding me partially from view.

Whatever. Just. . .just whatever, I tell him, and shove ungracefully past. I can feel his eyes on my back as I storm out of the room, my cheeks hot as half of the crowd watches me go. What a disaster.

Tonight was supposed to be the best night of my year. Trisha McBride is the richest girl in our school, and when Daddy’s little princess turns sixteen, he throws her one heck of a party. Her whole house is done up like some fairytale dream, with those little twinkling lights wrapped around the banister and along the borders of the rooms. There’s an actual band playing in the living room (okay, they go to our high school, but they’re pretty good), and Tommy and Bruce got their brother to buy beer. There’s even a swimming pool in the backyard, and a big bonfire where people are roasting marshmallows and goofing off under the stars. For the first time in my entire high school life, I actually have a date to a party, and Alice helped me tame my curls into this unbelievably beautiful French braid, and I saved up my allowance for five months to buy this dress, and now I’m alone in the backyard trying not to cry because I chose to date a guy for his looks instead of his brains. What a total disaster.

---

Oh my God, what the hell just happened? Alice demands, bursting through the door behind me. She looks ready to pummel someone and is clearly just waiting for my word to make it so. God, I love her.

Tommy broke up with me, I mutter, wiping tears out of my eyes.

He what? Why?

So he can dance with Leanne. Is that a tinge of bitterness in my voice? Why, yes, I think it is. I’m thinking some very unkind things about Tommy, one of which pops out of Alice’s mouth. I widen my eyes, laughing despite myself. Alice!

Well, he is. Anyway, you don’t need him. You are so above him. She whips hair out of her face in an impatient gesture, and I hear someone around the bonfire call out her name. She ignores them, her attention concentrated wholly on me, and I’m grateful and uncomfortable all at once. I really don’t want to cry, and all this sympathy is sure to do me in. I just need to get out of here, go home and wallow where no one can see me.

Thanks, but you kind of have to think that. Best friend and all.

Oh come on, don’t tell me you’re going to let him ruin your night! You are a sixteen-year-old bombshell, and I know every eligible guy here. Alice tilts her floppy black hat down low over her eyes and makes like she’s scanning the crowd. She’s wearing an outfit that she claims is mimicking Annie Hall; she was downright horrified when I told her I had no idea who that was.

Everyone knows every eligible guy here. We’ve been going to school with them since first grade. I lace my arm through hers and kiss her on the cheek. Goodnight, Alice.

How are you gonna get home?

I’ll walk. I start walking back inside, and she follows me. As soon as we pass through the door, we have to raise our voices to be heard over the band. On second thought, they aren’t that good—the bass player can’t keep rhythm, and the lead singer sounds like he has a cold.

It’s dark.

It’s Topaz Lake. I think I can handle a twenty-minute walk.

Down the highway. Alone?

Alice, I— I completely forget what I was going to say as I see Tommy and Leanne grinding in the middle of the dance floor. I don’t think I could make my body move like that if I had all my bones removed. I’m gonna be sick. I hurry through the press of the crowd and out the front door, Alice hot on my heels.

You don’t even know if your mom will be home! Isn’t Eric out at a friend’s house? Maybe she went out for the night.

To where? The only choices are pretty much the casino or Junction Bar, and she has no money and doesn’t drink. Goodnight, Alice.

Do you want me to come with you? Talk? she offers. I stop my headlong rush to freedom and turn back with a sigh.

No. Seriously, I’m fine. I just need to not be watching that right now. Go. Enjoy the party. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?

Promise?

Promise. We hug tightly, and I set out across the lawn. As I go, one of my shoes sinks into the dirt, and I almost fall flat on my face. I hear sniggers from the front porch, and awkwardly pull my heel out of the grass. As if this night could get any worse. I am never wearing heels again.

---

⤞⤞⤞⤞⤞⤞⤞⤞ ❂ ⤝⤝⤝⤝⤝⤝⤝⤝

---

Topaz Lake is a tiny town just to the north of the Nevada/California border. It’s mainly made up of fishers and the folk who work in the casino, so my family is a bit of an oddity because my mother is a painter. And on top of being all artsy but living in Hicksville, she’s a single mom too. Dad lives in New York, and we pretty much only see him when he comes to visit at Christmas. We get birthday presents a day or two after our birthdays every year, and phone calls a week or so after the relevant holiday. Sometimes he’ll get all nostalgic and fly in to visit us on the spur of the moment—it’s not like he doesn’t care, he just has this crazy busy life where he owns all these companies or something, and we don’t really fit in. So we live in Topaz Lake and dream about the big wide world. It’s actually a pretty cool place to grow up. I know how to gut and skin a fish in less than two minutes, and I can identify ten different types of mushrooms, and tell you which ones you can eat and which ones will kill you (and which ones the stoners at school eat).

When I get home the house is mainly dark, just the front porch and a kitchen light are on. I hear a crash as I get to the front walk, and figure Mom is trying to cook. It never ends well—we’re mostly a Shake ‘n Bake sort of a family. It’s enough to put a bit of a smile on my face, and all the stuff with Tommy doesn’t seem as bad with him safely miles away at the party. I open the door and drop my ridiculous heels on the ground.

I am never wearing heels again! I yell out in the direction of the kitchen, dropping my purse beside the shoes. Also, men suck!

There’s no answer, which is weird. Normally Mom would be sticking her head around the corner, anxious for the gossip. She’s been acting really off lately, though. Sleeping in late, being kinda grumpy, and she won’t let me see any of her paintings. She says she’s just going through a phase, and not to let it worry me, but it does. Even though it happened when I was four, I don’t think she ever really got over the fact that Dad wouldn’t leave New York for her, and ever since her girlfriend Sally moved to Wyoming last year she’s been distant, hard to reach.

Mom? I call out, and I cut through the corner of the dark living room. I navigate around the end table by memory and come out into the blinding brightness of the kitchen. For a moment I have to squint against the florescent lights, and I don’t quite know what I’m seeing. Mom is lying on the floor. Why is Mom lying on the floor? And then it hits me, and I don’t know whether to scream or stop breathing. Mom is lying on the floor.

Mom! I scream, and I hit the tiles beside her so hard my knees bounce and hit again. I don’t see any blood. There isn’t any blood. I shake her once, hard, but she doesn’t move. Is she breathing? Check her breathing. Call 9-1-1. No, no, check her breathing first, then call 9-1-1. Do CPR? Oh my God, I don’t remember how to do CPR! I press my head against her back. She’s slumped over like she was sitting against the counter and she just fell, her shoulder half-turned towards the ground, her curls obscuring her face. I’m afraid to move them, afraid to see. What if her face is white? I don’t feel anything, and I start to panic, but then there’s a gentle swell against my face. She’s breathing! 9-1-1. Call 9-1-1.

I grab the phone in a daze and punch in the numbers, hurrying back to her side. There’s a bottle of pills on the ground. I pick it up—it’s a prescription bottle. The cap is lying beside it. I don’t see any pills, and I spend a moment searching the floor for them before the voice on the line brings me back.

Police, fire, or ambulance? It takes me a second to figure out what she’s asking, and another second before I can make my voice work.

Ambulance, I croak. There’s a pause, a click, and then it rings once before a woman answers.

Topaz Lake ambulance.

I need an ambulance! It’s my mother!

What’s your address?

I give it to her in a daze. My mother’s skin is still warm. That’s a good sign, right? I think that’s important. I think it means something. Is she still breathing? She looks like she’s not breathing as much. I miss what the operator says and have to ask her to repeat it.

What happened?

I don’t know. I think… I think she took some pills? The bottle in my hand feels strange, like something from someone else’s life. Not mine. Things like this don’t happen here. Maybe she was sick. Maybe she was sick, and she didn’t say because she didn’t want to worry me. She’s the kind of mother who would do that, try to shield my brother and me from the truth. So she was sick, and she was trying to get her prescription but she forgot to refill it and—

What did she take? the operator asks. I scan the bottle. The label says paroxetine, and then underneath, in small letters, it says Paxil.

Paxil, I say. But . . . that’s an antidepressant, isn’t it?

Just hang on. The ambulance will be there soon. Just hang on, okay?

So I hang on, listening to the operator’s voice, trying to breathe shallowly enough that I can still hear my mother’s breathing, the buzz of the refrigerator beside us and the faint sound of crickets in the yard outside. I just hang on.

---

⤞⤞⤞⤞⤞⤞⤞⤞ ❂ ⤝⤝⤝⤝⤝⤝⤝⤝

---

I’m standing outside the door to Mrs. Shaker’s house, staring at the knocker. I’m trying to get my hand to reach up, but all I can see is the paramedics loading my mother onto the stretcher. The way she looked when they moved her—like a rag doll. They said she would be okay, but how could she be? She was so limp. How can someone leave their body like that and come back okay? They said she would be okay. They asked if I wanted to come with them in the ambulance, but I couldn’t go and leave Eric here. It wouldn’t be fair to ask Mrs. Shaker to drive us all the way to the hospital, and I somehow couldn’t bear to make that call. I need to talk to Eric. There’s been an accident. I thought this would be easier, but now I can’t make my hand reach up. I keep thinking it, but my hand doesn’t work like it should. Everything feels strange and stretched out in front of me, and I feel like I’m up at the top of a mountain and there’s all this air, but not enough oxygen to breathe. Like I’m suffocating. I need to go. I have the car keys in my hand. She can’t wake up without us there. We need to go, now. We need to go!

I slam my hand against the door, harder than I meant to, once and then twice and then I’m pounding on the door, my eyes too wide and prickling from the feeling of the air against them. Mrs. Shaker opens the door quickly, her expression wide and alarmed, and it gets worse when she sees me standing there. I must look insane, in my party dress and bare feet, my hair half undone, the keys to a car she knows I don’t have a license for dangling in one hand.

Sylvia—what’s wrong? she exclaims.

I need to talk to Eric. There’s been an accident. Is that what I’m going to call it? An accident? I can’t tell her about the pills, about the bottle on the floor. What do I say?

Oh, my God. Eric! she calls out, and she steps back from the door to let me in. I don’t move from her stoop. I just need to get Eric, get in the car, get to the hospital. I just need to keep going, because if I stop, I won’t be able to start again. Is it your mother? Is she alright?

She’s had an accident, I repeat dully. I need to take Eric to the hospital.

Honey, you can’t drive, she says. Eric still hasn’t come. What’s keeping him?

Eric! I scream over her shoulder. My body feels like it’s vibrating, humming in my stomach. I think I might throw up. We just need to go.

I’ll drive you. She grabs her purse from a table by the door, slipping her feet into shoes. Finally Eric appears from a room down the hall, his friend Taylor close behind. He looks disheveled and bored until he sees the expression on my face, and then everything goes still except for his feet, which keep walking him towards us.

What’s going on? he asks. He’s blinking too much, preparing himself for some horrible news while still trying to pretend he doesn’t think anything is wrong.

There’s been an accident, I say again. I see his expression start to break down and I quickly rush on. She’s okay, they say she’ll be fine, but Mom’s in the hospital. We have to go. I hold my hand out for his.

I’m going to drive them to the hospital, Mrs. Shaker tells Taylor. Let your dad know where we are, okay?

Taylor says something, but I’m not listening, just folding Eric up in a big tight hug. We haven’t been close for a while. He’s thirteen, too old for me to keep treating like the little brother that I usually treat him like, and we’re always on each other’s cases. But right now, he’s just that kid brother who used to follow me around the house copying everything I did, and I just want him to feel like things will be okay. So I hug him close to my heart and listen to the sound of his breathing. She was still breathing—she never stopped. That’s what matters. Not the rag doll they loaded onto the stretcher. Not that.

Somehow we make it to the car, and Eric keeps asking me what happened, what’s wrong, and I don’t want Mrs. Shaker to hear so I just keep saying ‘accident’ until the word doesn’t mean anything, and Eric looks ready to punch me in the mouth but Mrs. Shaker says they’ll explain it all when we get there, and I hold his hand and watch the trees whipping past in the dark. It takes so long to get there—what if something changes? What if we get there and ‘she’s alright’ becomes something else?

Mrs. Shaker drops us at the door and goes to find a place to park. I run inside, trusting Eric to keep up, and reach the front desk.

Our mother. They brought her in an ambulance, I tell the woman behind the desk. She looks tired, an older woman with dry brown hair and dark circles under her eyes.

What’s your mom’s name? she asks, and there’s something soothing about her voice.

Gail. Gail Hartford, I blurt. Beside me Eric is playing with a pen on the top of the counter, his eyes dark. I know the look—he’s determined to do something that he knows I won’t like. I don’t ask what.

She’s in room 312. The elevator’s right down that hallway.

Thank you, ma’am, I say, and hurry to catch up with Eric, who’s already halfway there. We get into the elevator, and I watch the numbers as they climb from 1 to 3.

They’re going to tell us what happened, Eric says suddenly. His blond hair looks strange under the hospital lights. Everything feels wrong, too bright or too dim. The sound of the elevator reaching our floor is loud. I nod, watching the doors as they pull open. So why won’t you tell me?

I just wanted a moment alone. That’s all. We’re the only ones in the elevator, so I take a deep breath and turn towards him. Like I said, it was an accident, okay? She was on some pills, and I guess she took a few too many. That’s all.

Some pills? What kind of pills? Is she sick? Eric asks. All sorts of new worries pile up in his eyes. We step out of the elevator as a younger woman wheels an older woman onto it. Neither of them looks up. I don’t think I’ve taken a deep breath since all this started. I don’t know the answer. Is she sick? Depends on what you mean by sick, I guess.

I don’t know. We’ll have to see, okay? I try to take his hand, but he pulls away, shoving them both deep into his pockets. I walk towards the room, and he follows a few steps behind. There’s a doctor coming out as we walk up, and he stops.

Are you Eric and Sylvia? he asks gently. I nod.

How do you know our names? Eric asks.

I wish I could say I was psychic, but alas, no. The doctor waves the file folder he’s holding with a smile. Personal files. I like to get to know my patients. I called her emergency contact, but the number was disconnected. Do you know who Sally Kitchener is?

Her . . . I pause, awkward. Topaz Lake isn’t exactly New York, and Mom and Sally never advertised their relationship. . . . friend. She moved to Wyoming, I say. Our neighbor is here. She drove us.

She’s parking, Eric says. Her name is Mrs. Shaker. She’s my friend’s mom. I nudge him and he goes silent. The doctor nods.

Do you want to wait for her before we talk? he asks. I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak. I don’t want her to hear about the pills. Why don’t you kids have a seat, okay? And I’ll explain what’s going on.

We both sit down in cheap vinyl chairs. I realize I’m still not wearing shoes. The linoleum feels cold and a little wet, like maybe they wash it down at night. The soles of my feet tingle. The doctor crouches in front of us, trying to get on our level. Why couldn’t we have all just stood up?

Your mom is going to be just fine, okay? She took a few too many pills, but we cleared the drugs out of her system. She’s very lucky that you caught her in time. An hour later… he trails off, like he’s rethinking whether he should have said that, and my white face must convince him to leave it at that. If Tommy hadn’t broken up with me, my mother would be dead. Is that what he’s really saying? It couldn’t have been that close.

A few too many pills? Eric echoes, and he sounds angry. How many?

"You don’t