Pages 100-103 [Dylan Faden & Casper Darling]
Dylan watches a short red book standing over a wood table underneath a cherry blossom tree. Alignments were done out of a rush, he thinks, and the very thought of it disrupts the flow of the scenario for milliseconds, a small twitch in wind and petals falling erratically. Too dreamy. Too strange. Sand comes in a breeze with the leaves and drags across his feet in a slow current. The book stands—it is the only immutable object in this room.
“Sorry for the fuss,” Darling appears behind him in a closing door. Dylan looks back and sees nothing. Casper sits, removes his glasses, and picks the book. “I had to come to an agreement with Tommasi about matters that—” And he sees the boy, finally. “That doesn’t matter at all, right now.”
He watches Darling open around pages 100 and 103; sand clutter around their ankles. As Casper searches the place he’s stopped in the story, Dylan swallows the feeling down his throat and asks: “Why are we always doing these meetings every Friday night?”
Casper looks up, brown eyes gleaming in a way Dylan can’t yet understand; or prefers not to if only to not raise expectations. “Call it tradition,” he answers. “It’s not any different from a normal movie night, if you think about it.”
“We are meeting in a dream. How is that normal to you?”
“I have been living in the Oldest House for over fifteen years and I never left it.” He finds himself and places a finger upon a paragraph. “At this point, nothing is strange to me anymore.”
But the answer itself doesn’t quell the uncomfortable—or relieving—sensation swallowed down. “So I keep dragging you into this.”
“I wouldn’t say that. You’re not the only one with tricks, Dylan.” And he smiles, fatherly, the way Dylan loathes. “Ah, but—let’s keep it a secret, okay?” The boy says nothing in return. “Now, where did we stop…”
Sand stops coursing, and ebbs down to the grass, becoming one with it. Their feet become uncovered. The story goes by.