“Hello, Jimmy,” she said in a soft voice.

  I didn't speak, not quite ready to converse with a flying woman who looked like the host of a cooking show.

  “Now's not the time to be shy, young man,” she continued. “I have come to give you an urgent message.”

  “Who are you? Why does it feel so real here?” I asked, giving up on the whole don't speak approach.

  “Who am I? It doesn't matter, really. I am a messenger, just like others you have come across in your many journeys since entering the first Door. As for why it feels so lifelike and real right now, that's part of the message I've come to talk to you about.” She smiled, revealing teeth that weren't quite white but nice looking all the same.

  “Are you one of the Givers?”

  “No.”

  “A member of the Alliance?”

  “Um … sure.”

  “Why did you hesitate?”

  “Because I am on the same team, if you will. I am on your side, Jimmy, I am on their side—the Alliance, the Givers. So … I guess I am one of them.”

  I couldn't imagine this sweet lady lying to me, so I felt better already.

  “What's your message?” I asked.

  “Well, I have two, and both are equally important. The first is to tell you more about things—more about the Stompers.” She paused. “The second is to tell you that you must come see me. Soon.”

  “Come see you? Isn't that what I'm doing right now?”

  “I need to see you in the … real world. I need you to bring something to me so that I can help you with it.”

  “What?” I asked.

  She smiled again, but this time it seemed darker, more serious.

  “The Red Disk.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you Erifani Tup?”

  A look of startled curiosity crossed her face, which then turned into amusement. She reminded me of a hillbilly country singer for some reason.

  “You think Erifani Tup is a person?” she asked.

  “What do you mean? It's not a person?”

  She waved her hand in the air as if swatting some pesky gnat. “Never mind that now. Let's speak no further of the Red Disk until you come to see me. There is much to tell you now.”

  From somewhere below a slight breeze began, swaying the rope and stirring the lady's hair. It seemed to bother her, and she looked down. I followed her gaze, and could see nothing of interest except the dangling, endless rope and darkness.

  “What's wrong?” I asked.

  “There should be no wind in this place.” She looked down again. “I don't think we're as safe as I thought.” Her eyes met mine, and they were full of worry, her brow creased.

  “Ya know,” I said, “for someone trying to clear things up for me, you're doing one whale of a job. I'm more confused than ever, now. Why aren't we safe?”

  “Okay, listen,” she replied after another glance down. “I'm going to talk fast, and I want no interruptions. Got it?”

  “Sure, whatever, lady. But my arms are getting awfully tired hanging on this rope.”

  “First,” she said, ignoring my complaint, “in case we get cut off, let me tell you where to find me. I'm in a place called New York City. Have you heard of it?”

  I raised my eyebrows at her, thinking she had to be kidding.

  “Well, have you?” she insisted.

  “Yes, I've heard of New York City. Isn't it in some weird country called America?”

  Brushing off my sarcasm, she continued. “There is a building there, called the Empire State Building. You must meet me on the roof, in two days, at nine in the morning. Can you do that?”

  Although it seemed very bizarre, I figured if I could go to the North Pole, I could pretty much go anywhere. But I knew Hood would have to help me, or Dad would have to drive me up there. But to keep things simple, I just nodded and filed it away in the old memory bank.

  “Good,” she said. The nameless floating lady then took a deep breath, paused, and started talking a mile a minute.

  “The Stompers, Jimmy. You need to understand what they are because the time is coming when everything will come to a head. They are nightmares—I know you have been told this. But it is not so simple. To understand them, you must understand the nature of dreams. You must understand the Yumeka, the World of Dreams.”

  “The Yuma-what?” I asked.

  “The yoo-may-kah. Yumeka. It is the place you go, where everyone goes, when they go beyond the normal dream state. It is real, as real as the skin on your body and the hair on your head. That is why it affects us so much, why we wake up sad when a dream was wonderful and we didn't want it to end, why we wake up terrified and sweating from our nightmares.

  “Have you ever heard the old wives’ tale that if you die in your dream, you die in real life?”

  I nodded.

  “It's true if you enter the Yumeka. The World of Dreams is real, Jimmy. It is a place—as much as your home in Georgia is a place, as much as Mars and the Moon are places. Sometimes when you dream, you go there.”

  “That seems kind of freaky,” I said.

  “Just hear me out. You have to realize that the Yumeka is not just a figment of your imagination. Otherwise, your mind will never accept the true nature of your enemy.”

  “The Stompers?”

  “Yes. Their entire existence is based on the corruption of the Yumeka. After the Shadow Ka are sent into a world to initiate the Black Coma, the Stompers come in and feed off the minds of the people. They take the form of one's worst and most terrifying nightmares, and that is how they grow. Your fear is their food. And once they have you, there is no escape, no waking. Except for the Grand Exception.”

  “What's that?”

  “The Grand Exception. The one rule they cannot resist, the ultimate sacrifice.”

  “And what is it?” I asked. Her words were confusing and fascinating at the same time. I felt like a fingerless boy at a nose-picking convention.

  “A person can voluntarily take the place of another who is in the clutches of the Stompers. And they must accept—it is a rule of the universe, unbreakable. Unfortunately, they usually don't have to worry about it because their ultimate goal is to have everyone in their grasp anyway. Everyone.”

  She jogged my memory. “The Givers called it ‘dying’ for someone else, I think. One of them did it for Joseph when he was taken away by the Ka.”

  “Yes, you're right,” she said. “And the word works in more ways than you know. To be in the control of the Stompers is worse than death, if anything is. There is no escape. There is no hope. Even the Grand Exception is so remote, and in the end, so useless, because they will probably just get you later anyway.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, and her next words shook with emotion.

  “Oh, Jimmy, you sweet, brave boy. It is a terrible thing, your future. I shake with fear when I think of what you face in the days ahead. The Fourth Gift will put a burden on you the likes of which no one has ever known.”

  “The Fourth Gift? You know what it is?”

  “Soon, Jimmy, soon. But you must come to me later for that. We're not done here yet.” She rubbed her eyes, and I expected her to plummet without the use of her hands to hold herself up. Then I remembered she was just floating. I live a strange life, I thought.

  “I need to tell you about the Layers of the Yumeka. This will perhaps be the most shocking news of all, the most disturbing.”

  “What is it?”

  “The Stompers take their victims through endless loops, or cycles, of dreams. Their evil hunger for fear is best fed in the beginning stages of nightmares, before the dreamer becomes immune to it. They manipulate your mind so they can essentially erase your memories after a time, and then start from scratch. They take you fresh and happy into a new nightmare, enjoying and feeding off of your innocent and raw fear. When you become immune to that one, they erase your memories again, and begin anew. Over and over, for as long as they can keep your body alive, they take you from one nightmare to the next, starting from scratch each time. They're called Layers.”

  If I was confused before, now my mind was ready to give up. It was like some guy in a tight red jumper from a bad Star Trek episode had just set his phaser to “stun” and fired it on my brain. And the lady wasn't about to let up and offer time for questions.

  “Now, Jimmy, about these Layers. I know it's confusing, but we …”

  A gust of wind rushed upward, much faster than the one before. Floating Lady quit talking and gasped, as if the wind carried tiny needles that dug into her flesh. She looked at me, her face a mask of concern. Her next words made my spine do its own version of the jimmy-legs.

  “We've run out of time.”

  The wind picked up, roaring from below like the breath of some giant beast.

  Which, come to find out, was exactly correct. Kind of.

  The lady's hair flapped in all directions as she looked around her. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out something terrible was happening. Her face was pale with fright.

  “What's going on?” I asked, speaking up over the increasing sound of rushing wind.

  “You have to go, quickly!” she yelled. “You have seen this before—it's the Wall of the Stompers. If they get you before the Fourth Gift, it may all be wasted! Climb!”

  “Climb? Where to? There's nothing up there!”

  “It's not literally up there! Your mind, Jimmy, your thoughts! Just climb, and escape!”

  As I tried to sort out her words, the wind picked up even faster and changed directions without warning, coming from above, pushing me down toward the abyss below. Thoughts and memories popped into my head—terrible ones of the Door in the woods, on the lake, in the desert with Farmer.…

  I knew what was coming before I saw it. And so I began to climb.

  “Hurry!” the lady screamed in my ear, floating upward with me.

  “Well, why don't you help for Pete's sake?” I yelled back at her.

  “I can't,” she said with sadness in her voice, barely audible over the sucking wind. “I must go now. Climb, boy, and be safe! I will see you in two days!”

  And then she was gone, her image flashing away like a turned-off TV.

  “Wait!” I screamed, even though I knew it was useless.

  Knowing it would only make things worse, I looked down anyway. Far below, the rope was being swallowed by a rising floor of blackness, somehow darker than what it had looked like before. I had seen this wall too many times already in my life, and knew that nothing good could come of letting it catch up to me.

  I looked back up and started climbing all over again. My arms ached and felt rubbery as I pulled myself up, knot by knot. Above, the glowing rope extended for as far as I could see. The Floating Lady's words about it all being in my head came to mind but didn't help. The wind got faster and faster, making the arduous climb even harder. There was no way I could keep it up much longer.

  I paused and looked down again. My heart slipped around inside my chest when I saw that the rising wall of blackness was already halfway closer than last time I'd taken a peek. I could see it now—it's writhing, sucking sea of goo coming for me. The lady had called it the Wall of the Stompers. Was that what they … looked like? I couldn't conceive of our bitter enemy looking like tar.

  Whatever it was, it wanted me inside of it.

  Shaking off my thoughts, I climbed. My body ached, sweat was making my hands slippery, and the wind tore at my clothes and hair, but I climbed. As I grabbed and pulled at each knot, a panic filled me that I hadn't felt in some time. Who knew if my Gifts worked here? This place could have totally different rules.

  Nothing was coming into view above. I was going nowhere, and my arms and legs burned, begging me to quit. Again, I stopped and looked down. The Wall was only a hundred yards below me, rising with a vengeance. Trying my best to calm my nerves, I threw my thoughts into the Ice, sending a blast of cold chunks with all the force I could manage into the oncoming Wall.

  The Ice struck it, shattering its flat surface, like an overweight uncle doing a cannonball into the pool. Great spouts of the goo shot up from all sides of where the Ice had struck and then came together and swallowed the Ice until it disappeared. The blackness shifted and settled back into a flat shape, and continued upward, not missing a beat.

  It was now fifty yards below me.

  I climbed up a few more knots, and knew it was over. I couldn't do it anymore—my limbs were spent. The Wall of the Stompers was now thirty yards below. I gripped the rope, closing my eyes, thinking. What did she mean, what did she mean? It's my mind, my thoughts. Think!

  I looked again. Ten yards away. With a scream, I threw everything within my soul into the Ice, blasting the world below me. The Wall flashed as a sheet of thick Ice slammed into it, repelling it forty or fifty yards downward. The black goo cracked through, burying any remnants of the cold stuff, and began to climb again.

  It came quicker, as if it were angry now. Again, I slammed it with all the strength of my Second Gift. The Ice repelled it again, throwing it down another forty or fifty yards. But in seconds the blackness overcame it, and rose again. I couldn't keep it down forever. Between the climbing and the mental energy of using the Gift, I was barely able to hold onto the rope.

  Forty yards away. Thirty yards. Twenty.

  My mind worked like crazy, trying to think up a solution. My thoughts, my mind.

  I thought of the bed. I had been sleeping in the bed at my uncle's house when all of this began. Nothing seemed like I was dreaming anymore, but it had to be. Dreams had taken on a new meaning now, but still …

  The bed. Surely my body was still in that bed. The bed. I concentrated my mind on that one thing, focused all my thoughts on it. The bed.

  The Wall was almost on me, the force of its sucking wind ripping at my body. I could see its shaking, evil goo reaching for me. When it was five feet below, I was ready. Without looking above, I held onto my thought, and reached for what I wanted.

  The world shimmered, and I am suddenly dreaming again. Everything is different.

  The Wall of goo reaches my feet, repelled by the Shield. The Wall swells as it rises up and around the protective force, fully encasing me in a bubble of blackness. Soon it cuts off both ends of the rope, and the faint glow disappears, leaving me in complete darkness. The air grows stale and reeks of dank, rotting leaves. I close my eyes, take a deep breath.

  And then I wake myself up.

  Rusty was screaming at me.

  “Jimmy, wake up! WAKE UP!”

  He shook my shoulders and slapped my face.

  “I'm up!” I yelled, my cheek stinging. “I'm up, you idiot! Get off!”

  Rusty shrank back, and sat down on his bed. He was sweating, and looked scared out of his wits.

  “What's wrong with you?” I asked.

  “You were going nuts, man! I thought you were falling into the Coma.”

  I rubbed my eyes with both hands and tried to shake off the absolute reality of the dream I'd just had. I knew my life was strange, but this was almost too much.

  “Oh, man, this is weird,” I said. “Maybe I was … I don't know. I just had the craziest dream.”

  Rusty was still breathing heavily but started to calm down a bit. “What was it?” he asked.

  “It was whacked-out. It's hard to explain, but I was dreaming, and then something happened to me …. I wasn't dreaming anymore but still in the place of the dream. And then later I switched back again, right before I woke up.”

  “Whacked-out? I'd say so,” Rusty said.

  “I'm dead serious. This lady came to me like some angel and told me all this stuff about the Stompers. And about dreams—the World of Dreams—how they're actually real and all this weird stuff. She said I was supposed to come visit her.”

  “Visit her? Where?”

  “New York City.” My face blushed as if I were telling a doctor that I'd been seeing talking bunnies in the shower. “The Empire State Building of all places.”

  Rusty looked at me with his mouth open, playing his role as the doctor who'd been told about the bunnies. I waited for his diagnosis of insanity.

  “Jimmy, I don't doubt anything anymore. We better go talk to Mom and Dad.”

  “It's still the middle of the night. Let's just wait until the morning.”

  “You really think you can go back to sleep?”

  “I …”

  There was a loud crash outside. Rusty and I jumped up and ran to the window. It had sounded like someone falling into the bushes, twigs snapping and leaves shaking. Rusty pushed up the window, grunting with the effort—it was old and heavy. We both popped our heads out at the same time and looked down. The moonlight coming through the taint of the Ka painted a dead, silver glow over everything, and we could see the place where the bushes had been messed up. Something caught my attention to the right, a shadow disappearing around the corner of the house.

  “There!” I yelled. “Did you see that?”

  “What?”

  “I saw someone running away, around the house. Come on!”

  I pulled my head back in the window and ran out of the room. Rusty followed right behind. We flew down the creaky stairs and ran to the front door, not wasting time on shoes. Seconds later we were walking around the yard barefoot, searching everywhere for signs of the intruder. We found no traces a person had ever been there, except for the broken bush. It was easy to figure out that whoever it was had been trying to climb up to our window and had slipped and fallen.

  “Who in the world could it have been?” Rusty asked.

  “I don't have a clue.” The cool air of the night made me shiver. I took in a deep breath and felt the crispness of fall. In better times, it would've gotten me excited for football and Halloween. “Should we keep searching, walk down the road a bit?”

  “I don't know. I'm too creeped out. Let's go wake up Dad.”

  “Okay, come on.”

  We were walking toward the front door when Rusty pulled up, stood still. He was staring at a spot in the yard about twenty feet away, under a small tree.