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Memories. Why was it always memories of bad things that always resurfaced? Why couldn't it be of the time that Wynn spent an entire day meticulously carving his snow goggles from a caribou antler? Or the memory of his first time seeing trees on a trip to the southern villages? Or even the day that he spent making a miniature igloo for himself in the snow hedge just behind the general store? Why couldn't he dream of those memories? Why couldn't Micajah dream of beading? Why was it always the terrible memories, the things best forgotten, or the things he tried to run away from? Wynn didn't understand the logic of it all and a bit of himself wanted to blame it on some forgotten ritual that made the spirits mad which, in turn, caused them to invoke nightmares, but his smarter side simply didn't debate it. He felt the heaviness of the questions sink down on his shoulders and he hardly noticed as the bed shifted when Micajah set his weight down upon it.

The young Inuk glanced over his shoulder at the other boy as he recalled his own nightmare and he screwed his mouth into a frown. Micajah had nightmares too...But which was the dream and the reality? Wynn was about to say something about spirits and their dealings with dreams, when Micajah pointed something out above his bed. Wynn adjusted himself on the bed so he could better see the strange thing on the wall. It looked like a spider almost, and then it looked like dangling branches of pine. It was feathers, and a ring made of leather and string. Quite honestly, Wynn didn't know what it was, but he could immediately tell that it was made by the hands of his distant relatives, the other Native Americans, like Cane.

"No," the Inuk said shortly, eying the object in interest. This was a chance to learn something new.

When posed with this simple question, Wynn found himself unable to answer. Good dreams? Well, Wyn could thing of possible good dreams, but they were memories, not dreams that he had had before. Now that he thought about it, Wynn couldn't remember any of his good dreams. They were often forgotten in the first moments of sharp cold mornings or lost in the thoughts of things to do. They weren't remembered like the nightmares that turned his skin into ice and his heart into fear. Wynn struggled to remember and his gaze veered off into the darkness, an unrelenting darkness that gave way to nothing but more black.

Unfortunately, the more he tried to remember, the more Wynn was sure that he couldn't recall anything from his sleep that was good. It was like the harder he tried to remember them, find them, the more they hid. His gaze rested past Mica's shoulder to the dream catcher and he stared at it for a moment, lost in the whirl of its laces.

Stumped, the Inuk turned back to Micajah and shook his head helplessly, "No," he responded, struck by this yielding answer, "No, I do not. Only bad."

Watching Micajah as he spoke, Wynn slowly digested his words, coming to an eventual understanding of what he was offering. It made sense, for him to stay there, and quite honestly, Wynn didn't even stop to think of what would happen once he got to Micajah's dorm or how he would return to his room. He only thought of getting to something real, to someone that would help him, to someone who's anchor him to the awaking world from the dark sea of sleep. He thought of just leaving, but when he thought of the dark lonely trek back to the student dorms, Wynn shuddered. It was not an attractive option.

"Please," Wynn said softly, glancing warily back at the locked bedroom door was if the lock would suddenly snap open and drown the room with icy cold ocean water. He pursed his lips as he stared at the door and then glanced back, glad to have someone near.

"I'm always cold," he continued, "I'd like to try the dream catcher. Let it eat my bad visions."

For more than one reason, Wynn was planning to decline Mica's good intentioned offer of sleeping on his bed. First of all, Wynn didn't want to sleep in someone else's bed when he would be perfectly fine on the floor. He lived in the frozen tundra of Alaska, for goodness sakes! He once slept on snow and ice, on trips with hunters where he had to bury himself underneath snow in order to keep himself warm. He could withstand a little hard flooring and carpet. In fact, he would rather it over the bed. The bed was a place that belonged to someone, not someplace like a couch.

Wincing as the light filled the room, Wynn slipped off the bed and onto his knees, laying himself possessively against the floor. He blinked against the light, his eyes becoming moist, and hid his face underneath his arms, "I sleep on floor," he muttered underneath the muffle of his pin-striped pajama sleeve. "I like the floor. Umm...Light, yes. But I want the floor."

Wynn made himself comfortable on the ground, giving out the message that he wouldn't be moving any time soon.

Wynn thought over these unfairly provided principles, his tired nightmare-soaked brain trying to sort through the cause and effects of each possible scenario. He knew that he didn't want to sleep in someone else's bed, for it was their place, not his. It wasn't the same concept as a couch. And now he was faced with the idea of forcing Mica to sleep on the ground with him out of politeness. Which didn't make sense to Wynn. But, Mica did have a point: If they were both sleeping on the ground without the dream catcher, then wouldn't it be the same thing if they were just sleeping on the bed and within the dream catcher's protective sphere? Yes, this made a weird kind of sense to Wynn, and, being Inuit, he was completely fine with sleeping near someone else. That's how he kept warm on the coldest nights on the tundra. He would scamper over to the Bentley's underneath Mr. Bentley's protective arm and sleep between the adults, his frail body protected by their warm from the negative temperatures of the icy air.

So, his eyes bleary and tired, stinging with weariness, Wynn grabbed a majority of the blankets and pillows as he crawled up onto the bed, looking rather like a young seal that was trying to clamber out of a breathing hole. He spread them out as best as he could on the mattress again, and tilting slightly to the side, the Inuk said, "Okay...Sleep up here. Like in winter ice storm, just...Protect from nightmares, not cold," Wynn took a pause, glanced around at the frigid bedroom and corrected his statement, "Well...Nightmares and cold."

Already quite intent on warding the cold away, Wynn had moved over to the side as much as he could to allow Micajah to climb on beside him. Movements slow and hesitant, the young, quite exhausted, and still nervous Inuk lifted the blankets and crawled underneath them, wiggling his toes in the socks Micajah gave him until his feet were nicely snug underneath the blankets. He rolled onto the side, that way he'd take up less room, and watched as Micajah crawled in as well.

Now, faced with the prospect of closing his eyes, Wynn became a little more scared, losing the calm that Micajah had bestowed upon him. The darkness behind his eyelids threatened to return the nightmare. As soon as he blinked them shut, teasing them, testing to see if the nightmare was still there, the Inuk was surprised to find that the icy ocean water engulfed his head and dragged him under. Wynn startled a bit and snapped open his eyes, trying to rub the images out of his memory. Then he looked at Micajah.

Micajah was there.

If Micajah was there, then Wynn knew that he should be okay. And with that dream catcher, the nightmares should go away soon, right? Things would be fine. And if he started to drown, then there was someone there to pull him out of the ice. Wynn would be able to sleep.

Taking a deep breath, Wynn gave a small smile of gratitude to the older student, a rare sight to behold.

"Thank you, Mica," he said, pronouncing Mica's nickname as "Mee-kah", "Thank you very much."

When Wynn closed his eyes, nestling to the warmth of the blankets, he imagined himself back at the Alaskan tundra, bundled between the figures of Mr. and Mrs. Bentley, two people that he wished were more than just the owners of the small general store. At the corners of his mind, the terrible imagery of ice from underwater struggled to ruin the image of comfort from underneath heavy furs and woven blankets, but when Wynn opened one eye from the veil of his tired mind, he could see the nearby dark shape of Mica's shoulders. Wynn closed his eyes again and he released a heavy sigh of relief. He was safe.

So, mumbling with a voice that was fast retreating with the weariness of sleep, Wynn said blearily, "I try. Safe now." And with those few words, the young Inuk let his eyes close and allowed himself to drift into sleep, a sleep much needed from a night of nightmarish oceans of ice.