Dream Boy (19 page)

“We’ll split up to cover more ground,” I said. “Billy, Daniel, you can run. Hit the practice fields, the—”

“Who are we looking for, again?” Daniel asked.

“Talon Fischer, Stephanie Gonzales, Martin Zirkle,” I said. “And a demented little girl in a white dress.”

“I know what Macy said and all, but seriously, this is for real?”

It made me feel better to quote Martin. “It appears so.”

Daniel nodded, his face uncharacteristically grim. “And Talon Fischer is—?” He tried to remember.

“My
friend
,” I said, as if the emphasis would jar something loose in his brain. When it didn’t, I added, “Lots of piercings. You thought she had a cute butt.” A little something he had shared with me while we were dating. Will was right. Why
had
I gone out with that guy? At any rate, the mention of Talon’s butt seemed to do the trick.

“What the hell are you people talking about?” asked Billy.

“Talon Fischer’s butt,” said Daniel.

“And a crazy girl who’s trying to kill Annabelle,” Paolo added.

“
All
of
us
,” Macy piped in. “She won’t stop with Annabelle. She’s a—”

“Psychopathic nightmare,” I finished, just so Billy was clear.

“Wait, I know what this is, this is one of your geek games, like Dungeons and Dragons or something?”

Paolo bristled until Will whispered, “You get to be Dungeon Master.”

“Yeah,” Paolo told Billy. “Stephanie and Martin are playing, too, and it’s our job to find them before…”

“Before the other team,” Macy concluded.

Daniel gave us a confused look. “So I know what to do if we find Stephanie and Martin and Talon,” he said. “But what if we find
her
?”

Run
, I thought. I swallowed hard.

“Tell her I’m looking for her,” I said, hoping Martin showed up with his ropes in time. Were we seriously basing our plan on a dream and an entry in Wikipedia? “Yeah. Tell her that. Now go.”

The rest of us paired off, dreamer and dream. “I’ll go with Paolo,” I told Will. “You and Macy check the tennis courts.”

“But—”

“I’ll take care of her,” Paolo said, patting me on the head like a puppy. “Don’t worry, Dude. I wore my gambeson.”

Paolo’s shoes were soundless as we walked around the building. Mine clopped. The more softly I walked, the louder they seemed to get.

“So I talked to Ernshaw,” Paolo said, his voice quieter than my shoes. “He’s tight with Masterson. You know?”

“I didn’t.” It suddenly dawned on me why Martin had once asked me if I knew anything about the coach’s closet and if it was really big enough to live in.

“Ernshaw’s a science genius and he still doesn’t know what the hell we’re supposed to do,” Paolo said. “He started muttering,
mind
over
matter
and
matter
over
mind
. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Matter over mind?” I said. “Maybe Will would know. Or Martin.” Where
was
Martin? I said a quick prayer that he hadn’t turned back into vapor.

“You didn’t hear from Serena again, did you?”

“In the last two minutes?” I said. “No.”

“Right.” He walked a few more steps. “How about now?”

“Paolo. You’re hopeless,” I said. And it occurred to me that he really was.

“I can’t help it. I worry about her,” he said. “The nightmares. They’re not like us. They have powers you can’t even dream of.”

That was so
not
what I needed to hear.

We reached the area behind the band room. It was too dark to see much more than the rough-cut version of the universe, but I knew what was there: the rock where Talon had seen Macy kissing Daniel that time, and next to it a low, Japanese maple tree that would have been red had there been enough light to give it color. The leaves made a perfect dome and the inside was like a cave.

A low branch shook, too strong for just wind. Paolo and I froze—body, breath, heartbeat.

The branch trembled again. I waited for the blond hair, the white dress.

I cut my eyes over to Paolo’s. He shook his head slightly.

My pulse throbbed in my neck. The night was inky, with just a sliver of moon still low in the eastern sky, but even its slim light was blocked by the flank of the school.

Game
face
, I reminded myself, and took a few steps toward the tree.

At the edge of the branches, I crouched down low, trying to peer through the leaves. Ever so gently I reached down and raised the bottom of a branch like a veil. A dim form, much too small to be a girl, moved under the maple branches. Then I felt something like damp hair press against my fingertips.

Jerking my hand away, I toppled into Paolo and knocked both of us onto the ground.

As I started to scramble to my feet, I felt a wetness rasping my cheek and smelled an unpleasant, but familiar, stink.

Nothing else in the world could smell quite like that combination of singed tar and coffee pee. Except maybe singed tar and coffee pee.

“Spice?”

In response, the little dog danced onto my chest and gave me a full-tongue kiss on my chin.

“Oh, oh.” I sat up and held her in my arms, giving in to that sort of hysterical laughter that only comes when you’ve been scared out of your mind.

“What is it?” Paolo asked.

“Talon’s dog!” I said. I rose to my feet, still holding the wiggly little animal in my arms. Talon had to be close. I started to call for her, when Paolo pointed to something in the grass, just outside the tree’s canopy.

I pulled out my cell phone and let its light cast a dim glow toward the ground. It glinted off a spiky, black pump with a silver heel.

And just under the leafy fringe of the tree, a pedicured foot with skull and crossbones painted on the big toe.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. But neither would help.

“Here.” I shoved Spice into Paolo’s arms and stooped over Talon.

I touched her bare shoulder. She was cold but she didn’t feel dead.

“Is she breathing?” Paolo asked, the dog wriggling in his arms.

I lowered my ear. At first I could only hear my own heart pounding in my head, but then I heard hers, as steady as…as steady as Talon.

“She’s knocked out. Or maybe she’s—”

“Asleep.” The way Paolo said it, being knocked out would have been better. “It’s your nightmare. Get her up. Now.”

I shook Talon, wishing Paolo hadn’t called the girl
my
nightmare. Martin had said she wanted control—of everything, of everybody. But no one controlled Talon Fischer.

“TALON!” I shook harder. “Can you hear me?”

Her eyes rolled back in her head for a second like somebody possessed, but then they straightened and focused.

“Talon?” I said.

“You were expecting Snow White?”

I choked out a stale laugh. Talon was awake. She was here. She looked a little shaken, but she was still Talon.

I typed into my phone: “Found her behind the band room,” and hit send.

Will reached us first, with Macy not far behind him.

“How is she?” he asked, panting. They must have run.

“I’m right here, you know,” Talon said. “You could just ask me.”

“Cheeky. That’s a good sign.” Will took off his suit jacket and wrapped it around Talon’s shoulders. He tilted Talon’s chin and looked into her eyes. “Really, you’re okay?”

Billy had rounded the corner of the school with Daniel a few steps behind. “Where the hell is she?”

“Right here,” I said.

“Where?” He’d caught up with us now and was looking around like he expected to see the ghost of Davy Crockett.

“Here!” I pointed to Talon.

“He’s not talking about her,” Macy said in a stage whisper, “He’s talking about Stephanie.”

“That’s what the text said.” Billy waved Daniel’s phone around like exhibit A. “Found her.’”

“I guess she meant the other her,” said Daniel.

Billy ground his shoe into the dirt and stared in the direction of the football field. “We’re at a dance with like a million people and not one of you has seen Stephanie!”

“I saw her,” Talon said quietly.

“Martin?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Where?” Billy grabbed Talon by the shoulders and shook her a little.

“Hands off,” Will said in that protective way he usually saved for me. “She’s not a football.”

“It was all white,” Talon said. “Everything. Like a coloring sheet that hadn’t been colored in yet.”

“What the hell is she talking about?” Billy asked.

“A dream, I think,” I told him.

“A freaking dream?”

“One person’s dream is another person’s reality,” Paolo said simply. It would have made a good T-shirt. Even I would have worn it.

“Sometimes it gets hard to tell the difference,” Macy added.

“Sometimes there
is
no difference,” Will said.

Billy looked at us like we’d just beamed down from Pluto. “What is wrong with you people?”

I turned back to Talon. “So what happened?”

“I saw Martin and Stephanie; they were running.”

“This is bull,” Billy said.

“It’s possible Martin and Stephanie are still in the gym and we missed them,” Will said in the kind, yet firm voice he generally reserved for his cousin, who was four. “Why don’t you go back and check?”

“Maybe I will.” Billy turned away from us. Then he froze.

“Found you!” called a little girl’s voice. “Want to play again?” She was shrouded in darkness, but the moonlight caught her eyes, turning them iridescent, like opals. She came toward me, sizing me up. I was taller, but even though one of my hands could have easily fit around her slender arm, we both knew she was stronger.

She
has
powers
you
can’t even dream of.
That’s what Paolo had said.

“I don’t like games,” I told her.

“Except football,” she said, winding a lock of flaxy hair around her finger. “And poker.”

“I don’t like
your
games,” I said.

Her laughter was bubbly, little-girl laughter that ended in a hiss. “I don’t care if you like my games or not. You still have to play. Follow the leader. Catch me if you can!”

She began to skip, her arms out to the side, and I moved to follow, wondering, like Daniel had, what I’d do if I caught her, wondering if she was more dangerous in my head or out of it.

Bottle
tree
, I thought again. That was the plan my subconscious had dreamed up. My conscious wasn’t helping, Martin and his rope were gone, and Will’s encyclopedic mind hadn’t come up with an ancient Mesopotamian way of getting rid of nightmares. There didn’t seem to be another choice.

“How about I be the leader?” I said. Now I was glad Will had driven, since Martin hadn’t left me his keys. “Why don’t
you
follow
me
?”

“I’m
the leader,” the girl said. She looked like flesh but her voice had the quality of an echo. “Wherever you’re going, I’ll already be there.”

She ran in the direction that she’d come from. I ran after her, but I wasn’t surprised to find that when I turned the corner, she’d disappeared.

“Where’d she go?” Billy said.

I let out my breath.
Wherever
you’re going, I’ll already be there.
“Black Beak Mountain, I hope.”

Will looked at me, an assessing, I-hope-you-know-what-you’re-doing look. “I assume that’s where we’re going, too.”

“Why?” Billy asked.

I put it in terms he would get.

“If we go to the woods, we find the girl. If we find her, we find Stephanie.”
And
Martin
, I added silently.

“Syllogism,” Will said automatically. “I’ll drive.”

“I’ve seen that matchbox you call a car,” Billy said. “I’ll drive. We can all fit.”

“What do you drive?” Paolo asked him. “A cruise ship?”

“An Eminence,” Billy proclaimed. It says something about the tension of the moment that neither Will nor I cracked a smile.

We piled into Billy’s SUV, which really
was
like a cruise ship. We were higher up off the ground than I was used to being. As he pulled out and headed for the highway, the road seemed more open. But the mountains, backlit by the slivered moon, were just as large as ever.

Once we hit the interstate, almost no one spoke. We slipped into our own little pods, all seven of us.

The stereo throbbed. The singer’s voice, over a grind of guitars, sounded like a chorus of chainsaws.
“Evasive maneuver! I think I’ll remove her!”

Ugh. “What are we listening to?” I shouted, coming out of my pod, just for a second.

“Steroid,” Billy said.

Figures.

The mountains rose, and we rose with them. The engine’s drone and the grind of the music merged with the curving landscape; it was hypnotic, and I felt increasingly spacey, like I’d overdosed on cold medicine. I rested my head against the cushioned backseat and shut my eyes.

I was only gone for a second, and not even really gone. It was more like hovering. I sat there in the pulse of the Ecstasy? Enterprise? Prominence? Whatever,
car
. But I was also on the edge of something else, some
place
else. A pale white space, like Talon had described.

“Hello,” A voice breaks the still air and a hand touches my cheek.

“Martin?” My lips feel dry. “Where are you?”

It
is
Martin, but not. An altered version, watery around the edges.

“The bottle tree—” he says.

Then
another
voice. Stephanie’s. Sharp, from a distance. “Hurry.”

I
watch
as
Martin
takes
the
almost-Stephanie’s hand just before they dive into the whiteness.