The Dream Between Us

Clay did not come back the next day.

At first, Lydia told herself not to worry.

He had vanished before.

That was simply what he did.

He appeared like moonlight and disappeared like mist.

Still, the absence felt different this time.

He had kissed her.

He had looked afraid.

And then he was simply… gone.

By morning, Lydia found herself standing on the hill again, staring down at the square below as if she might somehow catch sight of him in the crowd.

Nothing.

Only the ordinary life of the town moving beneath the pale gold light of day.

Children chasing one another around the fountain.

Women carrying baskets of bread and fruit.

The violinist who often played near the bakery.

Everything looked normal.

So why did it suddenly feel so wrong?

By afternoon, Lydia had made excuses to pass through every street in town.

Twice.

She checked the square.

The market.

The little bookstore with the crooked sign.

The ferris wheel field, now half dismantled after the festival.

No Clay.

The ache in her chest had begun to sharpen into something harder.

Fear.

On the second day, she began asking questions.

“Have you seen him?”

Cherise looked up from tying bouquets.

“The mystery boy?”

Lydia frowned.

“You say that like you don’t believe he exists.”

Cherise smiled.

“I didn’t say that.”

Lydia lowered her voice.

“Dark hair. Black jacket. About this tall.”

She lifted her hand.

Cherise’s expression shifted.

Not into recognition.

Into confusion.

“No,” she said. “I’ve never seen him.”

Lydia stared.

“You saw us together at the festival.”

Cherise blinked.

“What festival?”

Lydia laughed softly, thinking it a joke.

Then stopped.

Cherise wasn’t smiling.

“The Lantern Festival,” Lydia said carefully.

Cherise’s brows pulled together.

“That was three weeks ago.”

The words hit Lydia like cold water.

“What?”

Cherise tilted her head.

“Are you feeling alright?”

Lydia took a step back.

No.

That wasn’t possible.

The festival had been last night.

Hadn’t it?

Her pulse began to race.

She left the flower stall without another word.

The square felt different now.

Sharper.

Too bright.

Too loud.

She turned toward the bakery.

The smell stopped her.

Yesterday it had smelled of cinnamon and orange peel.

Today…

lavender.

Lydia froze.

No.

That wasn’t right.

She pushed open the bakery door.

The bell chimed overhead.

Inside, rows of cakes and pastries lined the glass cases.

But none of them were the familiar orange rolls.

Instead, the shelves were filled with frosted lavender cakes and little honey tarts she had never seen before.

A woman stood behind the counter.

Young.

Dark red hair.

Freckles.

Lydia stared at her.

Yesterday it had been an old woman.

She knew it had.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked kindly.

Lydia’s mouth went dry.

“I… I thought someone else worked here.”

The woman smiled.

“I’ve owned this bakery for seven years.”

Seven years.

Lydia stepped backward.

“I’m sorry.”

The bell chimed again as she hurried out.

Her breathing had gone shallow.

Fast.

The town square spun around her in a blur of color and sound.

That was impossible.

Impossible.

By the third day, Clay still hadn’t appeared.

Lydia began searching every place she had ever seen him.

The fountain.

The edge of the woods.

The stone wall near Linden Street.

The bookstore.

Nothing.

So she began searching for evidence that he had ever existed at all.

She asked the fruit seller.

The violinist.

The ferris wheel operator.

The grocer.

No one remembered him.

No one.

It was as if he had only ever belonged to her.

That afternoon, Lydia did something she had never done before.

She made posters.

Handwritten.

Simple.

HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?

Dark hair. Tall. Black jacket. Kind eyes.

Last seen at the Lantern Festival.

She pinned them around town.

On lamp posts.

Market walls.

Store windows.

The square.

The bakery.

The fountain.

As she pressed the final poster against the wooden notice board near the grocer’s, something made her pause.

There had been another poster beneath it.

Half torn.

The edge of a name visible.

…YDIA ASHEFORD

Her breath caught.

Slowly, she peeled back the corner.

The old paper crackled in her fingers.

It was faded.

Weathered.

Older than it should have been.

A missing person notice.

A photograph.

A girl.

Her.

Lydia stumbled backward so hard she nearly fell.

The picture was unmistakable.

Her own face stared back at her from the old paper.

Below it, in faded ink:

MISSING — LYDIA ASHEFORD

Last seen three years ago

Her hands began to shake.

Three years?

No.

That wasn’t possible.

She was here.

She had always been here.

Hadn’t she?

Her eyes moved across the square.

Suddenly everything looked wrong.

The people.

The buildings.

The sounds.

Too fluid.

Too shifting.

Like scenery painted over something deeper.

Her gaze landed on the grocer’s window.

A young man was inside.

No.

Wait.

Now it was an older woman.

Lydia stared in horror.

The figure changed again.

A teenage boy stocking shelves.

Then a middle-aged man.

Then the window reflected only herself.

Her breath hitched.

The world around her was changing.

Not slowly.

Moment by moment.

That night, Lydia didn’t go home.

She sat on the hill where Clay had kissed her and stared at the town below.

Lantern light flickered in windows.

Smoke curled from chimneys.

Everything looked peaceful.

Yet now she could see it.

The seams.

Little flickers.

Houses slightly shifting positions.

Streetlights appearing where none had been.

People changing clothes, faces, ages.

Like pieces being rearranged.

Like a dream.

The thought came uninvited.

A dream.

Lydia’s heart began to pound.

No.

That was absurd.

And yet…

The missing poster.

The changing town.

The lost time.

Clay disappearing.

The ache in her chest deepened.

Where are you?

Near midnight, unable to bear it any longer, Lydia made a decision.

She would leave town.

No one ever did.

No one ever even spoke of what lay beyond the edge of the square roads.

But now she had begun to notice something.

Every path curved inward.

Every road somehow led back.

As if the town itself were trying to keep her contained.

Not tonight.

She walked past Linden Street.

Past the last cottage.

Past the fields.

And toward the old stone boundary wall at the edge of town.

Moonlight silvered the grass.

The wind whispered through the hedges.

Lydia climbed over the wall.

The moment her feet touched the other side…

the world changed.

The air turned colder.

The sky darkened to a deeper shade of blue.

The stars looked larger.

Stranger.

The trees beyond the boundary twisted upward in shapes she had never seen before, their branches shimmering with silver leaves that hummed softly in the wind.

In the distance, something moved.

Too large to be human.

Too graceful to be animal.

Glowing eyes watched her from the woods.

Lydia took a shaky breath.

And for the first time, she understood.

Clay had not disappeared from her world.

She had never understood what her world truly was.

And somewhere beyond these boundaries…

he was waiting.