Venera didn't work in D.C. - she actually did most of her work in Virginia. Her office building was in Tysons, an area that was a sort of mini-metropolis. Kaelen always thought it was ironic that his neighborhood was dying while this one was thriving, the two so inversely correlated they could be charted on a map.

Venera dropped Kaelen off at the local shopping mall and planted a kiss on his head. "You have fun, okay? I'll pick you up when I'm off work."

Kaelen nodded. "Thanks mom, love you," he said, getting out of the car and walking in.

The mall was empty this early in the day, with most businesses not being open. Even the bookstore was still closed. Kaelen decided wandering was as good a use of his time as any, so he just picked a direction and moved.

Over the course of the next chapter, the shops began to open and allow customers. The movie theater began accepting patrons. The food court stalls began setting out food under heat lamps. Coffee shops began brewing for the local offices - Kaelen ended up taking himself up on one.

Kaelen's wandering eventually led him to a courtyard that overlooked the Metro station. He could hear the comings and goings of cars from the hotels and offices around him. The Metro pulled in and out of the station. Kaelen found a stone bench in the middle of the courtyard. The sky was barely blue, with twinges of gold and green from the rising sun. He could smell the freshness of the trees around him - a smell that contrasted with the plastic-and-rubber grass below his feet. Construction cranes hummed to life in the distance, building whatever new "campus" some company needed.

He was alone, on the precipice of nature and progress. Much like his mother.

Last time Kaelen had been here, it was with Lysander, Briar, and Jude. Rain would not be caught dead crossing the river into Virginia unless it was for a modeling gig, and Wynne hadn't joined their friend group yet, so it had just been the four of them. They had gone out for Briar and Jude's birthday a week early, since everyone knew that Edith was going to throw some ridiculously overpriced party for all of her friends, and not any of theirs. It was also as far away from Edith as they could reasonably get via Metro, without her getting angry.

"Kaelen, I need to ask you something," Lysander asked while Jude and Briar were arguing over which Shake Shack shake was superior.

"Yeah, what's up?" Kaelen looked at Lysander with concern. Lysander was not one to get deep over anything.

"Do you ever feel like you are moving towards a goal that isn't yours? Like...you're not actually moving, you're just being put on a path and forced in a direction?"

Kaelen paused, considering the question before answering. "...I don't know. I don't think I've experienced that."

"You're lucky," Lysander said, looking up at the pink sky of dusk. "I have been put on a path so long that I have no idea what I actually want anymore."

"You don't want to go to law school?"

"I don't know." Lysander looked at Kaelen like he was about to cry as he realized that. "I...I don't know."

"MOMMY!" a child screamed, snapping Kaelen out of his reverie. He turned to the playground and saw a little boy standing on top of the slide. "MOMMY MOMMY LOOK! IMA GO DOWN BACKWARDS!" The child proceeded to do so, while his mother clapped emphatically and cheered him on.

Kaelen smiled, thinking of how his mother used to do the same with him and Jude - cheering on their tiny successes.

His smile faded when he realized the vast majority of people he knew did not know that love.

Kaelen finally made his way to the bookstore when more people had arrived. He didn't want to be the only person in a shop at a time like this.

He walked aimlessly for a bit until he found the botany section. He found a book on Mediterranean trees and flipped through, locating the tree that he needed to research.

Strawberry Tree (arbutus undeo) - page 202

Good, he was making progress. He gripped the book tightly as he made his way to the spirituality section he'd seen earlier. If there was anything about dreams, it'd be in there.

Kaelen located it, and...damn.

A lot of people claimed to know what dreams were about. Books from every possible author and decade. There was even one by Sigmund Freud, and for a brief second, Kaelen contemplated buying it, before getting overwhelmed by all of the choices.

Where was he even going to start?!

"Need help?"

Kaelen looked up to see a perplexed teenager staring at him with intense brown eyes.

"Damn, bro, you good?" the teenager asked, brow furrowed.

Kaelen couldn't find it in him to be offended. His eyes drifted to the boy's badge and the myriad of pins on his lanyard. He was mildly surprised that all of them were varying shades of monochrome and purple: a book, a playing card, several Pokémon...he was shocked their wasn't a flag as well.

"...okay, taking that as a no." The boy - Rodrigo, if his badge was truthful - said.

"Sorry," Kaelen said softly. "Not having the best...well, year."

"You're telling me, dude." Rodrigo sighed. "Well, what can I help you with?"

Kaelen turned back to the multicolored book shelf, the labels all dizzying him. "So...I'm going through something. Figured that I'd look in the section on dreams."

"...well, you're not gonna find shit in there," the teen said flatly.

Kaelen looked at the teen, confused. "Aren't you supposed to...sell me books?"

"Well, that depends. What weird dreams are you having?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Rodrigo sighed and rolled his eyes. Again, Kaelen should have been offended, but he was too damn tired to pick a fight with a child. "Because, you're not gonna find answers in books on dreams. It's all pseudoscientific bullshit. You're going to find answers in books about what the dreams are about."

...the kid was right. Taking another look at the shelf, Kaelen realized that most of the books had author photos on the sides with men and women with the exact same amount of lip and cheekbone injections. Their hair dyed such unnatural colors he was shocked it was staying on their heads.

Kaelen muttered, "Snow. I see snow in my dreams."

There was a prickling on his neck, as though he'd said something wrong. He turned back to Rodrigo, and Rodrigo's brow was furrowed even deeper, trying to read him.

Finally, the teenager said, "Come with me." He then turned on his heel and walked away. Kaelen followed.

Before he knew it, he was in the art section. There were books of every type of art, every era.

"Dreams are abstract," Rodrigo mused.

Well, no shit.

"Mine look like this." He pulled a book off the shelf of Greek sculpture art. He opened it so Kaelen could see the marble sculptures. He flipped through and pointed at a page in the middle of the book. "Look."

Kaelen looked. It was an image of two women holding hands, leading each other along the side of the wall. The caption read: Ancient Greek marble relief of nymphs or Graces dancing.

"Your dreams look like women dancing?"

Rodrigo rolled his eyes again. Kaelen wondered if they would roll back so far they'd fall out. "No, dude. They look like sculptures. Reliefs. Take another look."

Kaelen looked back, and tried to see what the teen was trying to say. Out of curiosity, he squinted his eyes, and tried to imagine what the dreams would be like.

And...yeah.

He could understand.

"Your dreams are in black and white...and...moving."

Rodrigo slammed the book shut, triumphant in making his point. "Exactly."

"So, what does that mean? Like, what does it mean that your dreams are--"

"Stop." The teenager held his hand up. "You're not thinking about it right. Don't try to discern meaning like it's some sort of criteria they need to meet to be dreams. That's not how dreams work. They're images caused by your brain firing off while you sleep, right? Are your thoughts always logical? Are their meanings completely set in stone? If they were, we wouldn't need therapy."

Kaelen nodded. Where did this kid get these ideas?

Rodrigo continued. "You can't logic them into making sense. Not really. You can try any number of subconscious theories, but that shit's not going to work. You can't apply logic to something that's, by its nature, abstract. You have to interpret them like you interpret art. So, find the book that reminds you most of their dreams. Of your dreams."

Silence fell between them.

"...damn..." Kaelen said, finally. "How the fuck did you come up with that?"

The boy shrugged, though Kaelen knew enough to infer it was a deflection. "I don't know, man. I've been around."

Kaelen nodded solemnly.

"Well, I'll leave you to your book hunt." Rodrigo turned on his heel and started to walk away.

"Wait."

Rodrigo paused, not turning around.

Kaelen asked the question that was burning in his throat since their first interaction. "You've...you've seen the snow, haven't you?"

Rodrigo said nothing at first. That told Kaelen everything.

"...how do I beat it?" Kaelen asked.

The boy turned to look at something near him, before looking at Kaelen with a despondent expression.

"You don't beat it," the teen said. "You just keep moving until it beats you."

The kid ran off, like a bat out of Hell. Kaelen wondered if that's where he'd been.

Kaelen turned back to the shelf of books. Hundreds, if not thousands, of artists' names stared back at him, begging him to find answers within their pages. If every single one represented a dream someone had, he thought, that mean that there might be thousands of people who had seen what he'd seen. He shuddered at the thought.

His eyes fell on the green binding of a book, and some familiar looking leaves. He reached and grabbed the spine, which felt cold to touch for a moment - but only for a moment.

The book slid easily off of the shelf. BOSCH was written in big letters across the front. The book was about the dutch painter, Hieronymus Bosch. Kaelen opened the book to the index, and almost immediately, found what he was looking for.

The Garden of Earthly Delights - Page 125
↳ Painting of the Strawberry Tree

"Found you," Kaelen whispered.

His phone rang. He checked the Caller ID - it was Rain. He answered.

"Hey Rain, what's up?" he asked.

The answer almost cause him to drop his books.

"Wynne's awake."