The Dream Thief by Kerry Schafer Page B

climb it were still there, rusted and nearly invisible unless you knew where to look.
    "Careful," Will said, letting me go first. "That branch could be rotten by now."
    Using the spikes as footholds and embracing the roughness of the bark with both arms, I worked my way upward. This exercise had been easier ten years ago, but I had some adrenaline going in the moment that fueled my muscles and kept me from the fear of falling. The branch in question was as big around as my thigh, and ran parallel to the open hayloft. Will was right, of course. It was dead wood, and had long been so, its surface marked by a haphazard pattern of holes. The ants had been busy.
    Dialing my breathing back to a shallow setting I eased my body out onto the branch, moving slowly and restraining the irrational tendency to crawl madly forward before it had a chance to break. It held, and after a breathless moment of looking down at Will's upturned face below, I got my hands on the edge of the hayloft window and pulled myself up.
    A thin matting of old hay still covered the rough boards, but all the bales were gone. Swallows fluttered about in the rafters and one of them dive-bombed me, not at all happy about my presence, but there was no other sound. I pressed my hands over nose and upper lip to stifle a sneeze. And then Will scrambled up beside me and the two of us crossed to the square cut into the floor and the wooden built-in ladder that led down into the rest of the barn.
    Nothing moved below. It was near dark, with only a dim light coming in through a couple of windows too high and small to do much by way of illumination. As far as I could see, there was emptiness and dust and nothing out of the ordinary. The only sound was our own breathing and the fluttering of the disturbed birds above our heads. Will and I locked eyes for a long moment. He shrugged, and I swung my feet around to the ladder and made my descent.
    What had once been a large box stall—a place to hold a sick calf for a few days, that sort of thing—was now set up with a long table and all of the paraphernalia you'd expect to see in an illicit lab in a TV movie: tubing and beakers and a big pot set on a hot plate.
    Meth. That was my first thought. Asshole renters had made a meth lab in my barn. No wonder they'd been wanting to get back in here. I sniffed for the telltale odor of cat piss, but came up with nothing more than a snout full of dust that triggered another fit of sneezing. No cans of paint thinner, no fertilizer, no gas cans lying around. While I stepped closer to check out the apparatus—empty now, with no sign of whatever liquid had once bubbled through the tubes or simmered in the pot—I heard Will moving around behind me, opening feed bins and letting them fall shut.
    A squeak of hinges. And then his voice, hushed. "Jesse, you need to see this."
    Will stood in the doorway of the old tack room, where we'd once stored bridles and saddles and other paraphernalia connected to the two horses we'd owned. It had been swept spotlessly clean and somebody had built in wooden shelves from floor to ceiling. On three sides these were empty, but directly facing me was an extensive collection of small glass bottles containing clear fluid. Each was neatly labeled in black felt marker.
    Will picked one up. "Romantic evening," he read.
    "Don't drop that," I warned, as I read labels that said: Sex with a Stranger; Sword Fight; Fist Fight; Tender Moment with Child; Wedding; Car Crash; Playing Guitar.
    My skin crawled so hard I checked myself for ants or some other plague of insects but there were none. Will was handling another of the little bottles, but I was already backing out the door. "Put it down, Will. Step away."
    He followed my instruction without question. I closed the door and pulled down the wooden latch over it.
    "Bootlegged dreams?" Will asked. "Gives the concept of moonshine a whole new meaning."
    I felt sick. These weren't dreams, at least not the way the