The Dream Catcher: The Grotesque Gurglios Trilogy

By B. A. Foerster

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to find a dream catcher with a Revioscope, snatching up your dreams. This happened to Josh Hollister, and it caused a series of adventures to cascade through his once normal life.Suddenly, Sydney A. Pullman appears out of nowhere, wanting Josh's help with capturing the Revioscope. How does Sydney know so much about the dream catcher and what the eccentric man can do with this special apparatus? And more importantly, what does the dream catcher do with the dreams once he captures them?The sudden chaos that follows might have been easier to handle if Josh's new friendship with Sydney wasn't so complicated. Let's face it—there was something remarkably unusual about Sydney and how she already knew so much about the dream catcher.Will he succeed in finding answers to these questions? Will Josh and Sydney succeed in capturing the Revioscope and putting an end to the dream catcher's thievery? They must succeed since their lives depend on it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781643349831

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The Dream Catcher

The Grotesque Gurglios Trilogy

B. A. Foerster

Copyright © 2020 B.A.Foerster

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2020

ISBN 978-1-64334-984-8 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-64334-983-1 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

The Dream Shoppe

Discovery

Sydney A. Pullman

The Revioscope

The Plan

The Nightmare Jar Labeled Grotesque Gurglios

Looking for Answers

The Grotesque Gurglios

The Reviopress

Sydney’s Housemates

Marjorie Plane

The Spy Returns

Marjorie Plane Explains

Another Fine Mess You’ve Gotten Into

Saving Sydney

The Dream Catcher

To Elliot

I click and I snap and I catch the dreams up! No one knows that I am there; the whirring of my machine is silent except to my ears. I leave triumphant with my collected treasure.

Each dream is carefully placed in a ceramic jar and marked with a clean crisp label. You may buy these dreams or nightmares from my collection shelves. Coincidentally, one of them may even be your own.

—Darius Finch

The Dream Catcher on Using the Revioscope

My brother tries to take all the credit, but it is I who

maneuver the dream matter into sterilized jars.

Such precision: I am the master of execution.

He is nothing without me.

—Tobias Finch

Scientist Extraordinaire for the Reviopress

Prologue

The Encounter

One night, I woke up and caught a glimpse of the silver-haired man with bushy eyebrows; he was wearing a blue robe pasted with glowing moons. He stood in the center of my room, hunched over a telescope-like apparatus aimed at my head on the pillow. When I fully realized he was there, I sat up quickly. He gasped in surprise and then suddenly disappeared behind a door in the wall of my room. Now I know there isn’t a door in that wall, for I have slept in this room for eleven years, but there it was! For some inexplicable reason, there was a light outlining the shape of the door. I heard a muffled clank of metal—must have been the telescope contraption—then a faint click, and the light was gone.

There was total silence except for the steady pounding of my heart within my chest.

Despite my rapid heartbeat and my suddenly sweaty palms, my eyelids began to feel heavy, and my breathing slowed down to a calm steadiness. Within minutes, I willingly tucked the blanket under my chin and surrendered to sleep. The strange visitor was forgotten, and I was convinced he had been part of a dream.

In the morning, I woke and suspiciously stared at the wall where the man had departed. And seeing that there no longer appeared the outlines of a door, I jumped out of bed and touched the wall where there had been lines of light in the night, but I saw nothing—no evidence explaining how or where the man and his telescope had vanished.

It must have been just a dream.

Dismissing the whole episode, I happened to look down at the carpet near my feet and surprisingly spotted three small square marks in the carpet where the metal contraption had been the night before.

There was a brief tap at my bedroom door before my mother opened it; she stood in the frame, rubbing her eyes and yawning. My mother, like me, had wild hair that in the morning required a good combing through to tame it. We were never able to just wake up and appear presentable without some effort with our hair.

What are you doing? she then asked with a furrowed brow, her untamed head of hair bobbing up and down all over the place as she entered my room. She suddenly appeared awake and curious about the carpet near my feet.

Looking for something, I answered, quickly looking up from the carpet to stare directly into her face. My mom probably wouldn’t even believe me if I told her what had happened. Preposterous, is what she would say. You’re only imagining things.’

Well, she answered, start looking for something to wear. Your father is taking you to buy soccer shoes this morning.

I methodically lumbered over to my dresser, but all the time I kept glancing back at the wall, wondering where the gray-haired man had gone.

I didn’t think that I had just imagined him—it had seemed too real…besides, the carpet indentations proved that someone had been there.

But who was this character? He wasn’t one of the folklore characters from my childhood: not Santa, not the tooth fairy, and not even the Sand Man. No one had ever mentioned the silver-haired man in the robe with shining moons. No one had talked of anyone who came through bedroom walls carrying a metal apparatus in the middle of the night.

I had no idea what he had been doing and why he would run away so quickly when I woke. Later I found out about the dream catcher. It made me wonder why everyone didn’t know about him and why I surprisingly had been the only one who had ever seen him. Until I met her.

But I am getting ahead of myself because I am anxious to tell this story… Let me just explain that it wasn’t until I stumbled upon a strange novelty shop that things began to make any sense.

Oh! And did I mention Sydney Pullman?

I wish I could claim that she helped me understand many things, but there were times in the events to come that she might have made things worse. It all depends on how you want to look at it. But I will begin now the chronicle of this story, so you may be the judge for yourself.

Chapter 1

The Dream Shoppe

My dad, Paul Hollister, was a busy man, but that never kept him from helping me. Taking me shopping on a Saturday morning to buy soccer shoes was something he would do, since my mother, Iris Hollister, hated shopping. I liked doing things with my dad. Often for lunch, we would grab a bite to eat at Miscreant, my favorite burger place, but where they also served beer; something my dad would relish after accomplishing the morning errands.

My dad drove a little blue truck that bravely displayed large rugged strips of rust along the bottom edge of the body; not the best-looking vehicle, if you ask me, but he loved it. He kept telling Mom that he would drive it until it dropped. Because of this statement, any time I rode with him I imagined the frame peeling away as we journeyed down the road. Not a good feeling, truth be told, and I continuously found myself looking at the floorboard beneath my feet, expecting at some sudden moment to see the pavement below me.

My mom gave me a kiss goodbye