Free Gateway to Fourline (The Fourline Trilogy Book 1) by Pam Brondos

light filtered over the stage and seats. She looked up and gasped at the delicate flying buttresses floating above them.
    “Interesting choice,” Estos said as he perched on the edge of the stage. He gestured for her to sit.
    “What just happened?” she asked him with her eyes still locked on the floating ceiling.
    “You filled your dream space. Please sit, Natalie.”
    “My dream space?” she said in a confused voice. She ran her hand over the edge of the wooden stage.
    “It’s a place that protects you from dream manipulation.” Estos leaned forward and placed one hand perpendicular to the other. “My left hand is your dream.” He wiggled his fingers. “The dream stops where it meets my right hand. Above my right hand is your consciousness, still in a state of sleep, but out of the dream. Only you can find the access point to your dream, and only you can invite others in.” He clapped his hands together as if the explanation were obvious.
    She settled onto the stage next to him. “Your explanation doesn’t make sense. You’re part of my dream, so you shouldn’t be here,” she said, trying to follow his logic. She thought back to her dinner. She must have eaten something weird that was causing this dream. The walls around them grew transparent.
    “Focus, Natalie. Think of the theater.” The walls took shape again. “I’m not a figment of your dream. I have training that enables me to interject myself into a dream and move about freely.” He leaned closer to her. “I’d like to show you something.” He pulled a small folded paper from his pocket and smoothed it against the stage floor. A three-dimensional map appeared. Nat’s eyes widened when she looked at the tiny snow-covered mountains, forests, and a rust-colored river that cut through the heart of the map and poured into an ocean.
    “That’s amazing.” She ran her fingers through the clouds swirling above the map.
    “Would you like to see it up close?”
    She nodded, hoping she would remember at least a fraction of this dream. He took her hand, and a forest of ancient pine trees towered above them. She brushed her hand over a bough. The needles felt pliant, almost soft.
    “Run with me.” He clasped her hand in his, and they stepped onto a faint path covered in short grass and tiny blue flowers that grew low to the ground.
    “Fast, Natalie!” He dropped her hand. She chased after him. Her feet fell onto the narrow, overgrown path that wound its way past a red boulder, then an enormous tree trunk. Long branches formed arches over the path and let in only thin shafts of light. She ran and jumped over roots and fallen branches. Her feet were light. Even in her best race, she’d never run this fast before. Estos flew past the trees in front of her until he disappeared. The forest became less dense. She slowed her pace and found him leaning against a crooked tree at the edge of a wide field surrounded on all sides by the forest. He took her hand and brushed it over the rough bark.
    “Do you feel that?” he asked. She traced an elongated hole in the bark and nodded.
    “Remember it,” he said, then vanished.
    Nat whirled around. “Run back to the rock cliff where we started.” His voice was a whisper in her ear, but she couldn’t see him. She searched the branches of the tree, but only its leaves fluttered in the wind. She backed away from it and found the path into the forest. Her breath was easy and relaxed as she made her way along the trail. She could see Estos’ figure in her mind as she traced her way over the faint path. Her mind and feet were in perfect harmony.
    “Easy enough, then. I expected nothing less from you.” Estos hopped off the rocks as Nat came ripping around the red boulder and stopped at the base of the cliff. He took her hand and in one step they were back in the imagined theater. “Have a seat, please.” He placed his hand on the small of her back and gestured to the front row.
    I have to remember this, Nat