Chatoyant College Book 7: Upon What Soil

Chapter 10: Dream Posters

Tuesday, October 28

Edie felt fine when she woke up in the morning, and she had no trouble eating a normal breakfast, a bowl of cereal—though she did choose a particularly sugary one. The having-a-cold theory didn't hold up. Maybe she'd averted it by eating all her vegetables and no dessert.

After breakfast, she, Annie, and Corrie headed for their English class like usual. Edie was still thinking about Corrie's poster. They'd both checked it this morning, and it was still on "happy." And Corrie did seem to be her usual happy self. Still, Edie wondered about it, so she didn't waste any time when Troy turned up in class. "Hey, Troy. Random question. Did you happen to get anything at the poster sale at the beginning of the year?"

Troy looked startled, but then, Edie had begun to suspect that "startled" was just his standard facial expression. He didn't seem to expect most of the things that happened in the human world. "Uh, no, I didn't. Link tried to get me to go, but I was still in freaked-out-by-everything mode that early in the year."

Edie grinned sympathetically. If it hadn't been for Corrie, and to a lesser extent Dawn, she probably would have been in the same mode for most of the semester. "Did Link get anything?"

Troy shook his head. "He already had some posters, I think. At least, there's stuff on his walls."

"I got a poster there," said the girl sitting on the other side of Troy, a redhead with copious amounts of freckles. She leaned forward to see past Troy at Edie. "Edie, right? Why are you asking about posters?"

Edie nodded (though she couldn't remember the other girl's name at the moment), trying to come up with an explanation that wouldn't give away the secret of faeries, but her mind was completely blank. Thankfully, Corrie swept in to explain. "Some people are having weird dreams with their posters. And you never know what's going on at this school."

The other girl nodded. "That's definitely true. I honestly didn't believe magic existed before I came here but I've seen enough that it almost seems normal."

Edie managed to drag up a smile. "It was the same for me. So I wouldn't be surprised if some of the teachers put spells on the posters or something."

"Dream spells?" the redhead laughed. "Well, that would explain a lot."

"So you've had weird dreams too?" Annie asked, her voice soft as usual but still loud enough for the other girl to hear, over—or perhaps under—the sounds of everyone else in the class talking.

"Well... not weird, exactly. I mean, they're actually kind of less weird than my usual dreams. But, um, Russell Crowe has been in a lot more of them than usual."

"Ah," said Corrie, with a grin. "See, that's not fair. I have a Labyrinth poster and David Bowie is totally failing to show up in my dreams."

Edie frowned as a thought occurred to her. "Where did you stick your poster?" she asked the other girl. Julie, that was her name. She even lived in Gilkey, so she would have the same dorm room configuration as they did.

"On the wall over my bed," said Julie. "Do you think that has something to do with it?"

Edie turned to Corrie and nodded. "Your Bowie poster is on a different wall. Maybe that's why it doesn't mess with your dreams." She was careful not to mention Annie; it didn't seem like she wanted other people to know about her weird dreams, at least not yet.

"But my mood poster doesn't mess with my dreams, either."

"Well, I didn't say it was a perfect theory."

"Are any of you taking magic?" Julie asked. "Maybe you could ask the magic teachers."

"Professor Lal does not like explaining things outside of class," Corrie said.

"Neither does Professor Rook," said Annie. "But you're right. I'll ask him later today. If it's not something they did on purpose, they'll want to look into it."

"I'll ask Link about his posters," said Troy.

"You know," said Julie, "Halloween is coming up soon. That could be why things are acting different than they usually do."

"I hadn't thought of that," said Edie. She hadn't realized how close it was to Halloween, but it was in just a few days. She'd never thought much of Halloween before, but now that she knew magic and faeries were real, well... maybe the veil really was thin that day.

They had to stop talking about posters and magic at that point, because Jasmine started class, but the conversation clearly wasn't over. Troy slid a note over to Edie's desk when Jasmine's back was turned. What is Halloween?