The Lost Door

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

Sara sipped her coffee and felt the cool breeze against her cheek. It tousled her brown hair tied back in a loose ponytail. She watched the trees on the hillside ripple in the wind. In her mind, she replayed the dream that felt like a memory. Dragons soaring in the blue sky above the vineyards, hillsides, and hot springs of Napa Valley.

Last month there were no dragons, but now Sara couldn’t but feel like there should be dragons.

“More coffee?” the waiter asked. He held out a pot and smiled. With rings on every finger and tattoos peeking out from a long-sleeved white shirt, Sara liked him even though she shouldn’t. She grinned back, holding out her cup

Set at the edge of Calistoga, right at the northern tip of Napa Valley, Brewtastic was Sara’s favorite café. Sitting at her special table on a beautiful Sunday morning felt good, but something was off. The missing dragons, knowing what it all meant, was like an itch she couldn’t scratch, or a crooked picture that foiled every attempt to fix.

In the dream, the first dragon she saw was a blue scaled, soaring in the clear sky. It’s (his?) wings tucked close in a barrel roll, then a twist before launching forward. The dragon’s eyes (or was it Sara’s?) searched the forest below for an enemy. The darkness they called it. Another dragon flew further south, scanning the vineyards and idyllic landscape. Another flew even further south, deeper in the valley. Keen eyes tracking a hidden enemy, an evil that was waiting, lurking, biding its time to strike. As Sara thought about it now, in the daylight and surrounded by other coffee drinkers, she knew the enemy was also watching her, a presence hidden beyond her sight.

“The avocado toast is the special today,” the waiter said. “The muffins are also good.”

“No thanks,” Sara said. “Just waiting for someone.”

The waiter walked to another table. Sara sighed, holding the warm cup in her hand.

Even now, Sara could feel the darkness. She looked up, toward the fields at the edge of town. Rising above the trees was the hill where the dragon landed. She could see the twisting limbs of the giant oak that the creature walked past. The road winding up the hill, a yellowed dirt track pockmarked with old stones.

Dragons. Evil. But there was something else. Warm. Possibility. Just out of reach and calling her. Magic. Despite the threat of the darkness, she enjoyed her time in the dream because of the magic. That, and the others. She could feel them watching the dragon, just like she did. She knew the darkness hunted them as well. Maybe they also knew more about the magic?

Which was why she was sitting in a café waiting for someone with the screen name SoaringLizards73. It was why she posted the enigmatic, “Anyone else see it land on the hill outside of town?” to the local message board to see if anyone answered.

Then, less than an hour later, SoaringLizards73 messaged back, “Sure did. Blue and scaly.” A few more messages, coordinating schedules and trying to not sound like a lunatic, and she was sitting at Brewtastic with a Cincinnati Reds ball cap waiting for SoaringLizards73. Goofy screen name, Sara thought, but appropriate.

“BigWingsLED?” a deep voice asked.

Sara looked at burly, older man in a flannel shirt and khaki shorts. He had red curly hair streaked with gray and a fishing hat, just like he said he would wear. “SoaringLizards73?” Sara asked, shaking his hand. The man nodded. “You can call me Sara,” she continued, waving to an empty chair.

“I’m Tim,” the man eased himself into the seat, groaning as he sat down. “Always meant to try this place,” he said. “Never got a chance to.”

“The food’s not bad,” Sara nodded at the menu. “Avocado toast is the special.”

“Any bacon here? A sandwich maybe,” Tim said, flipping through the menu, but not really reading. He waved to the waiter, who hurried over. “Coffee, black,” Tim said, handing over the menu. “And something with bacon.”

“We have a cobb salad,” the waiter said.

Tim waved his hand. “Tell you what, throw the bacon from the salad on toast with an egg, then sprinkle some cheese on it and I’m good.”

“I don’t think…” the waiter started.

“Grab that drink quick, would you?” he said quickly and with an edge in his voice. “Thanks, and I really appreciate it.”

The waiter hurried off, talking quickly to another waiter he passed. “I was a civil engineer in San Francisco for twenty years,” Tim said quietly. “I learned if you tell people what you need, they usually figure it out.”

“Figure it out? That doesn’t sound safe for San Francisco,” Sara said.

Tim shrugged, waving out a napkin and laying it gently in his lap. “Stuff works most of the time, and if it doesn’t, you fix it. Anyway, I’m retired and getting old, so I don’t have time to waste on avocado toast.” He glanced around the patio, his eyes moving slowly over the other patrons as he spoke. “So, that dream that we were talking about.”

Sara went over all the careful things she wanted to say, planning this moment ever since they scheduled their meeting. Then, in a rush of inadvertent excitement, the words tumbled out. “You had the dream too. You saw the dragons. You felt it,” she whispered, leaning across the table.

He nodded, turning his head to look at the hill behind him. “It started four months ago,” he said quietly. “Had it every night since then.”

“The same dream?”

“Little changes,” he turned back to her. “Little things change, but yeah. It’s the dream. And you?” he asked.

She sighed. “It started three weeks ago. Same dream every night. The,” she waved at the air over the hill. “Then the,” she pointed at the road stretching toward the yellow buildings and palm trees of downtown Calistoga, a touch of fear as she looked in that direction. “You know.”

“We all feel them in the dream,” Tim said slowly.

“We?” Sara asked. “There are others?”

“Yeah,” Tim paused as the waiter arrived with the coffee.

“Here you go,” the waiter said. No smile this time, Sara noted. “And the bacon, it is…”

“Going to be awesome,” Tim interrupted, taking the cup. “Just surprise me. Don’t spoil it,” he waved the waiter away.

Sara watched him leave, his face turning red. “Anyway,” Tim continued. “There are a few of us who have the dream,” he took a drink, wincing. “Jesus, that’s hot!”

“How many others?”

“Four so far. You’ll be five,” Tim put the cup down, ticking out his fingers. “There’s a carpenter, Jack, that works at an old winery off Pickett Road. He found me from a sign on a bulletin board. I saw it at the front entrance of the grocery store a few nights after I started having the dream.”

“I thought about doing putting up a sign,” Sara muttered.

“Then Jack and I met up with Hazel,” another finger ticked up. “She saw the same sign and called Jack, and she’s had the dream since around the holidays, like Christmas, so we think she’s the first. Hazel’s visiting family in Pennsylvania, or she’d have been here too,” he tried another sip of coffee. Another wince. “She’s in high school, runs track, and she’s seen a few different dragons in her dream. Like, different colors and one didn’t have wings. Then there’s Ellie. Hazel found her in some dreaming psychology forum, one of those online things. Ellie, works as a painter, but her dreams aren’t as vivid.”

“You, Jack, Hazel, and the painter Ellie,” she whispered the named. “Is it the same dream?”

“I’m getting to it…”

“Look,” Sara reached out, grabbing his arm. “It was… nice, at first. The dream, and the dragon and magic. Flying in the air. But now,” she glanced around. “I can feel it even when I’m not asleep. The other ones, that thing, I… think they’re watching me,” she whispered.

Tim put his other hand over hers, “I know,” he whispered. “It’s why we’re working together. Believe me, I know what you’re going through.”

“Do you?” Sara started to say, then leaned back, looking in Tim’s eyes and seeing the same tension she felt. “You do,” she pulled her hand back.

“We all do,” he smiled. “And we’re going to work on this together, okay?”

“Okay,” she tried to smile back.

“Good! Now, I need you to tell me about it. What happened.”

“The dream?” Tim nodded. “Alright,” Sara sat back, gathering her thoughts, and sipping her caramel latte cold brew. “It starts in the sky. I’m over the valley flying, but I’m also watching this dragon in the air. Deep blue, silvery scales, thick body, and long neck with large wings. And the eyes. They are a deeper, darker color, and… like a cat.” She spoke softly, just loud enough so Tim could hear. Slowly sinking deeper in the dream.

“The dragon, or me, spins in the air,” a hand motion showing a barrel roll, and Tim smiles. “But even with the motion it’s the ground we’re focused on. I see main street, Lincoln Avenue. There’s the hills and mountains to the north. There’s the hot springs and the resort. The geyser. I know the dragon is looking for something, and I am too.” Sara opened her eyes, leaning forward. “Looking for something here in this town. It’s our town, but it’s different because of this… thing we’re looking for. I can sense something evil. It’s Calistoga, just… different and wrong.”

They pause as the waiter comes to the table with a piece of toast on a small plate, another waiter close behind him. “Avocado toast, hold the avocado, with a side of crumbled bacon and an egg. Parmesan cheese on top.” He set the plate on the table tentatively.

Tim smiled, picking up the sandwich with a huge grin. “This is awesome!” He bit into the sandwich and gave the waiters a thumbs up. “Easily the best avocado toast with no avocado I’ve ever eaten.” Both waiters smiled, and the one in the back gave a little clap. “Truly, give my heartfelt thanks to the chef.”

The waiters stepped away, and Tim watched them before pushing aside his plate. “Who in the hell overcooks a damn egg?” he muttered.

Sara laughed, “That bad?”

“Not good,” he took another bite, chewing slowly. “Whatever,” he sighed. “Anyway, most of us start the dream in the sky, but Jack starts on a hill near the resort, then takes off into the sky.”

“That…” Sara started. “Why is his different?”

“They are all a little different,” he explained. “Sometimes the dreams change a little, something missing or something added. It took a while, but we think there’s something important, a clue maybe, in the differences. That’s why I need you to tell me about your dream.”

Sara took another sip, gathering her thoughts. “Like I said it starts in the sky, and then the dragon lands on the hill.” She pointed to the tree covered hill just beyond Brewtastic.

“That hill,” Tim asked. Sara nodded. “You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Okay,” he smiled again. “Keep going.”

“So, the dragon lands. It’s dark now. Not like the dark is at night, but late evening with this red haze from the sunset-under-the-horizon feel to it. The dragon, both of us, move through the trees toward town.” Her eyes closed as she spoke, following the steps of the dream. “As we move, I know we’re hunting this… darkness, or badness… but it’s also hunting us. Normally I can sense it, that’s how the dragon hunts this… thing, but it feels like the creatures we’re hunting are everywhere.”

“We all feel it,” Tim said. “Hazel calls it the Wendigo, an evil creature her aunt from Canada talks about.”

“There’s more than one,” Sara countered. “In the dream, we’re hunting several of them.”

“More than one? Here in town?”

“I think,” she starts, then pauses, turning to look at the main road through Calistoga. “The one we’re hunting is near town hall. The dragon sensed it when we were in the air, but once we land, we could feel another one near the church or high school. There could have been a few by the river but they were moving.”

“That’s new,” Tim tapped the table. “Okay, keep going.”

“We move into town, crossing over the river but keeping a close eye on things. It’s quiet, but I know there are people with us,” she looks up at Tim. “I think you were there. And this old woman is watching from one of the roofs. This young man who doesn’t usually speak English, but we see each other. Like I said, it’s Calistoga, but different. The buildings, some of them feel older. Birds are above us. Just out of the corner of our eye, there’s this big, old tree with crooked limbs. The darkness, it felt like it’s ahead of us.”

“Out towards the resort?”

“I guess,” Sara shrugged. “We stopped at one of the old buildings. Stone, with an archway maybe, but it has extra levels, or floors, and it went both up and down.”

“We all see the church, even Ellie. That’s what most of us are calling it. Jack thinks we can’t know what the extra floors mean until we find the church.”

“You think it’s real?” Sara asked.

Tim took another drink, no wincing this time. “Much better,” he sighed. “Yeah, we’re looking for the church. That’s where Hazel sees the extra dragons, around that building in the dream. She says they open the door for her.”

“I see other dragons also. In the sky.” She swirled her iced latte then took another drink. “But the church is where I hear the voices.”

“Voices? What are they saying?”

Sara looked away, “The voices are… important. Anyway, in the dream we stop at the place you’re calling the church, and I can feel the,” she paused again, her voice going softer. “Magic…”

“That’s what we call it,” Tim said, just as softly.

“Could it be anything else?” Sara asked as Tim shook his head. “We could feel the darkness growing stronger ahead of us, so we move toward the hot springs. The old lady is gone, and the birds, there may be more of them, and the trees are… bigger, and it’s like they are guiding us. Then, as we get to the top of the hill,” she paused.

“Yeah?”

A long, drawn-out sigh. “I wake up. Or something explodes, and that’s it.”

Tim sat back, taking another half-hearted bit of his sandwich. “That’s when we all wake up. I was hoping maybe you saw a little more.”

“That’s my story,” Sara said. “Now, what do you know? What about the dream, or the…” She waved again toward the center of town.

“I, well, we all have similar dreams. Dragon in the air. Land on the hill. Walk through town. Old lady and the church. The wendigo,” Tim leaned forward. “We’ve been learning more about the dreams, and what the differences mean. We think it’s like… each of us have a different camera angle, seeing a slightly different scene. Put them all together and we get a better picture of the story. Jack usually starts out near the geyser and the hot springs. We think that’s where the dragon lives. Hazel sees extra dragons at the church, and one of them, big guy with dark scales and glittery sparkles she says, opens the door to the church.”

Another bite of his sandwich. “Ellie thinks the Wendigo is feeding, and it’s hiding something even worse. In her dream, she’s gathering flowers as she walks through town. Jack doesn’t see the church exactly, but he knows about the extra floors. He thinks there’s a secret on every level,” Tim paused, letting the sandwich dangle in his fingers. “It’s like he’s already been inside the church, but he can’t remember what’s there. He just needs to get back.” Another shake of his head, then a bite. “Hazel stops at the town hall,” Tim continues between bites. “She speaks to a dead man that wants to help and looks at a mural. Little differences, but as we study the dream, we find more clues.”

“Clues to what?” Sara asked.

He paused, taking another bite of sandwich. “What it means. How can we stop the Wendigo? Why do we have the dream? How’re we connected?”

“Wendigos,” Sara corrected. “More than one.” She sat back, going over what Tim said about the Wendigo, a church (that didn’t feel quite right, Sara thought, but it was close). The Dragons in the Valley. Stop the Wendigo. She rolled the words and what they meant over in her mind as Tim finished his sandwich, and it felt right. “I’m in,” she said finally.

“Awesome!” Tim smiled as he cleaned his fingers. “One of the worst sandwiches ever, but that’s great news!”

“So, how’s this work?” she asked.

“We’ve got a few approaches to solving the dream,” he pulled out a battered little notebook from his pocket. “Hazel has been learning these techniques online. She can give you a few tips on how to remember details, like this dream journal,” he waved the notebook in the air. “You record them, then Hazel compiles them and sorts through the details.”

“Is it a club? The dream dragon club, and you get together for meetings?” she said with a smile.

Tim grinned back. “Jack, Hazel, and I have a Discord channel where we talk and pass notes, but nothing secret and we’re careful. It’s…” he paused, looking carefully back at town. “Jack is sure we aren’t the only ones looking into this, and we’re never sure who is listening.” Tim turned back and took a last drink. “Ellie is a little more difficult. She’s ‘off-the-gid’ and lives in an old bus outside of town, but we meet with her every few days. Plus, she makes the best bread, jam, and honey.”

“Seriously, off-the-grid…” Sara pursed her lips. “How does she…”

“Dragons don’t care about electronics,” Tim argued. “Kooky, I get it, but she has a way of asking questions that get to the truth. She’s good and you’ll like her. Anyway, what do you do?”

“When I’m not dreaming about dragons?” Tim nodded. “Freelance data analysis.”

“What the hell is that?” he asked.

“I look at data and databases for the wineries and tell them what the numbers mean or how to make better numbers,” Sara smiled. “I get to work from home, work when I want to, and I’m good at it.”

“Got it,” Tim shrugged. “Anyway, Hazel is collecting the details from the dream, and Ellie’s learning hypnotism. Jack and I are looking into the church.” He paused, tipping over his empty cup. “We both, well, all of us, think the first step is finding the church.”

“You think it’s real,” she asked.

“It’s got to be. It’s here in town. We all see it, and some of the details just feel right.”

“That feels right to me also,” Sara nodded.

“Agreed,” Tim continued. “Jack feels like the church, or whatever, is old. Really old, and probably one of the first buildings here in Calistoga, or even the valley. We’ve been digging into the building records, land contracts, even journals from the settlers and records from the Patwin native Americans that lived here before the wineries were built. We’re looking for information on old structures. Anything we can find on who or what was here a long time ago.”

“Find anything?”

“A few leads, but nothing certain. I’m retired, so I spend my days at the library, or on the internet asking people for information. Sometimes you can find me digging into boxes and microfiche in town hall. I find something, then send it to Tim to review in between shifts.”

Sara dipped back into the dream, to the building where the dragon stopped, and the old woman standing on the rooftop across the street. The white stone was shrouded in dusk, with details hazy in the dim light, but the voices were vivid. She knew the building was important. “How do we start?” she asked. “What can I do?”

“You need to meet the others,” Tim said. “I let them know I might have someone else for the team and another lead. We’re meeting at Ellie’s tomorrow night. I have the address, or we can drive out together. Hazel’s calling in on my laptop. We’ll introduce you to everyone, go over what we have. Hazel can teach you about the dream journal and all those memory tricks, and I think Jack is going to go over his findings. Then,” another big smile as he waved at the waiter. “Honey and bread from Ellie, and probably cheap beer from Jack. I’ll bring chips. We’ll go from there.”

The waiter stopped by with a check, and Tim handed him a twenty with another smile, telling him to keep the change. Sara kept her eyes focused on downtown Calistoga, where she knew, or felt, something waiting. A Wendigo, Tim called it. Maybe, Sara thought, but something didn’t feel quite right.

“Miss Sara, it has truly been a pleasure,” Tim said, reaching out to shake her hand. “Welcome to the team!”

“Wait,” she said sharply, coming to a decision, then holding her palm up. “I… I need to show you something.”

“What is it?” Tim asked, sitting back down. “Something wrong?”

Sara took a toothpick from the case on the table. “Remember I told you about the voices. The ones in the dream, near the building?”

“Yeah,” Tim said. “We need to know what the voices are saying. That’s more Hazel’s area, recording and analyzing the dream, but…”

“There’s more,” she interrupted. “I’ve been… trying to understand the words, writing down what I hear, but they didn’t make sense at first, and then…”

“Then what?”

Quietly, under her breath and feeling the warmth and pressure in the air around her, Sara whispered one of the words toward the toothpick held between her fingers. She felt the pressure gather for a moment, then dart toward the toothpick. The toothpick shuddered, and Sara released her fingers.

Balanced in the air an inch above the table, the toothpick floated, spinning lazy circles. “What the fu…” Tim started.

“Magic,” Sara whispered, directing the toothpick to spin and slowly dance. “I need to find the magic. We need to find the dragons.”