In The Dreaming: Chapter Forty One "Fall is in the Air" (Fantasy Y/A Novel)

in #story5 years ago


-I wrote the following novel nearly two decades ago. In the years between then and now I've honed my craft, and my perception of this world; my thoughts and ideas; have changed dramatically. However, I still enjoy the premise and have decided to do an overhaul of revisions and rewrites, though likely not until sometime next year. (Though I'm sure I'll do a little as I post chapters)

For now I hope you will enjoy a glimpse into my book writing beginnings...



They are the closest of friends though they have never met in waking life.

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Prologue-PT1 Prologue-PT2 Chapter 1

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7

Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13

Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16

Chapter 17
Chapter 18 Chapter 19

Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22

Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25

Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28

Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31

Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34

Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37

Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40



Chapter Forty One



The first week back to school had been great fun for Aliyah. She had told her parents about the drinking, leaving out the boat of course, and they had been surprisingly lenient. They had lectured her and she guessed they were satisfied that she had paid for it. Of course she made a big deal about how she “couldn’t understand why people even did it” which probably made them worry less about a repeated offense. It went without saying that if she did repeat the offense they would not be so gracious.

She had joined the cross country team at school and with a little convincing Amy did too. She found that she really enjoyed running. She had tried other sports in the past like soccer and softball, but was now realizing that maybe she just wasn’t a team player. Although it was technically a team, running a race was more man vs. himself than man vs. man.

It was Saturday morning and she decided she would take a morning run, no sense getting rusty through the weekend. She had her mom drive her to Samsun state park a couple of towns away where she could run up a seasonal road, and at the moment she was sitting cross-legged under a giant tree drinking out of her water bottle.

It was a beautiful day, the kind that said “yes it is fall, but I haven’t yet let go of summer.” Sunny and warm, blue skies, lush and green, but the breeze had changed from the lazy warm breath of summer to a brisk chill like the kind you got opening a walk-in refrigerator. She couldn’t wait until the leaves began to change, which was usually a magnificent display in upstate NY.

Fall had always been her favorite season. It was the one time of year that she could still believe in magic. She would be taking a walk in the woods and feel certain she was being followed by fairies, that gnomes were scurrying back into their homes. That the mushrooms she passed housed Smurfs, and if she opened her closet at just the right time she could step through the back of it into another world. She couldn’t say exactly why the fall inspired these notions- and it wasn’t the fact that Halloween sat in the middle of it. She was sure of that because she didn’t spend a whole lot of time on Halloween. Trick or Treating of course, a party or two, a haunted hayride, but that was all.

Her magical Holiday time was Christmas which she lived for. Not just for the presents, but for the season. That was a completely different kind of magic then the magic of fall though.

She got off the ground slowly and began to stretch. She wondered why she hadn’t made a practice of stretching in the past, it felt so good.

When she finished she headed back the two miles she’d come, her mind flitting from one thing to the next than finally landing on Dave. She smiled brightly thinking of him walking her to every class they didn’t have together. He was the type of boyfriend that would carry her books home from school if they had been born earlier in the century. He also looked absolutely amazing. She had never told him about his hair but apparently someone had, probably when he was on vacation with his family, because he had a whole new, very flattering style. It wasn’t just his hair, it was his clothes too, he had completely switched gears, she had scooped him up just in time.

The moment people had seen him at school he had drawn a small gathering of flirtatious girls. Of course he was loving it, who wouldn’t bask in that kind of ego boosting? But he made it extremely clear that he was Aliyah’s guy. He surprised her further by going out for the football team. He joked that it was too bad she didn’t want to be a cheerleader, to which she mock gagged at him.

She had finally told her mom that she was interested in him as more than a friend, last night before she went to bed. Her mom had smiled and said “Well, you are growing up whether I like it or not.” Then she went on to give her the “you’re going through puberty and all sorts of hormones are pumping” speech, which finally ended in “I want you to go very slowly.” Aliyah was glad she had been honest, but knew it would make hanging out with him a little more suspect and supervised. Which, she decided, was probably a good thing. After all, she was filled with adolescent hormones. She giggled, but knew that there was definite truth in that.


Her shoe came untied and she bent over causing the chain around her neck to fall out. She looked at the small silver key dangling from it and shook her head in wonder. She had hidden the note Jack Aspen had left her deep in the back of her closet. He had not, as of yet, made the plunge, but he was on the brink. He had told her that he hoped she'd had a good time and that he wanted her to keep the key. He went on to say that if he chickened out and stayed in his life, he wanted her to use the boat whenever she could. He said that all she would need to do was ask the park supervisor if he, Robert Townsend Jr. (his real name) still owned it. The supervisor would know her, what was going on with the boat at the time, etc. etc. If he had indeed left his life and truly became Jack Aspen then the key could be a souvenir. Either way. Amy of course had been excited, she was already making plans for the next time they visited her family.

Aliyah shook her head and decided to concentrate on the scenery and her footfalls. Sometimes her mind would run away from her, but she ran better and felt better when she didn’t think too much. Maybe that was why she liked to run, normally her mind was going a mile a minute, this gave her a break from her endless chattering brain.

After just a few minutes of observation she came to a dead stop. There was a trail leading into the state park woods she hadn’t noticed before. She wouldn’t have noticed it now if she hadn't been looking at the woods so closely. What caused her to stop was the fact that it was bordered on both sides by different colored wildflowers as if it were planned that way. Maybe it was.

The entrance was so narrow that it could have been mistaken for a break in the tree line, but something about the way those flowers were arranged made her eyes see that there was definitely some kind of path. The wind picked up for a moment bringing her the feeling of fall again and now the path seemed somehow supernatural. She started walking down it and after about twenty yards it widened. The ground was mostly dirt with just a sprinkling of grass here and there.

It made her think of her dreams. She didn’t know why exactly, since it wasn’t really like the path she walked in them. In fact some of the paths behind her house were more like the one in her dreams than this was. Still, there was a certain quality about it.


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