The Dream Catcher's Daughter by Steven Fox Page A

down the road, the black-haired twins were ogling the
key. Jason remembered the playground, the kid separated from his body, and the
knife held at the boy’s throat.
    “Bootelia. Amor.” The twins smiled and
waved at Jason.
    “Why, speak of the handsome devil,” said
Amor, “and he shall appear!”
    “With a scrumptious-looking friend!” said
Bootelia.
    “You can have her if you want, but
I’ll have Jason. His lips are just so...And his bubble butt...”
    “Nothing like mine, of course.”
    “Of course not, dear sister!”
    Something inside Jason wished he could
slap the twins. He gave them his sternest glare—nothing more than the
halfway-interested stare a student might give his Algebra homework.
    “Give us the key,” he said.
    They glanced at the key, then back to Jason,
then at each other. They nodded.
    “We’ll give it to you,” said Amor,
“because you commanded us so nicely. And we love to be commanded.”
    “ He might,” said Bootelia, “but I’m not going to give it away. You have to do something in return.”
    “Oh?” said Len. “What’s that?”
    “Well...This key’s pretty nice-looking.
The price will be steep.” Bootelia turned around and wiggled her hips at Jason.
“I think a firm smooch on my right cheek should do the trick.”
    Len’s brow knitted up. Jason’s face, despite
the weirdness from Bootelia’s mouth, remained smooth, unaffected. “And if I
don’t?” said Jason.
    Bootelia motioned to Amor and he reached
for the waistband of her pants, pulling it back a bit. She dropped the down
inside; Amor snapped her waistband shut.
    “Catch us if you can!” said Bootelia, and
the twins bolted off, giggling.
    As he watched them run, something inside
him broke. When it did, he balled his fists and ground his teeth. His breath
hitched and he shuddered, his vision blurring a bit. Everything faded into
darkness and a cold veil slid over his body. Air whooshed against him, whipping
his hair up.
    The voices came:
     
    Who am I?
    You’re my…
    No. I’m not. I know about…
    You know nothing.
    Then tell me.
    I created you, so obey.
     
    The air stilled. Light cut into Jason’s
vision, and there he was, just as he had been, staring after Amor and Bootelia.
His heart thundered in his chest. He ground his teeth together, and he pressed
his clenched fists against his sides. From deep within his chest, a boiling
riptide surged through his veins, through his arteries, through his neurons and
nerve-endings. It surged toward his throat, then overflowed into his mouth, and
erupted from him:
    “Come back, you bastards ! Come back
and give me that fucking key!”
    Len placed a hand on Jason’s arm, and he
jerked away from her. “Why the hell are you touching me?” he said. “I don’t
even know you!”
    “Jason, calm down.”
    “They just took that key!”
    “You’re more important than a key.”
    The words halted the vomit of anger. He unclenched
his hands, his fingers aching as he stretched them. He swallowed dryly and
noticed his throat felt bloody raw. His vision flooded with fireflies. His
anger, that sudden burst of fury from deep inside the cauldron of his soul, had
faded. Jason stared at his hands and wondered where the anger had come from. Up
till this point, all of his emotions had been fuzzy. Hazy. Numb. But they were
there. He had just fully tasted his anger, so what of his other emotions?
Happiness? Sadness? Love?
    Love.
    Watching the twins disappear down the
block, he wondered if love hadn’t done the same.

FIVE
    Len insisted Jason sit back and chill, but
he didn’t listen. Thoughts clustered inside his head and every thought was
painted in an angry, pulsating red. The thoughts throbbed inside his skull,
pounding at his temples like ironsmiths. As Jason crawled back into the
driver’s seat of the delivery van, Len followed him and stood outside the
driver-side window on the tips of her toes.
    “You shouldn’t drive,” she said.
    He shoved the key into the