Dreams of Shreds and Tatters (3 page)

She found him puttering in the kitchen, still in boxers and a T-shirt, his dark blond hair tousled from bed. Steam coiled around one bony wrist as he poured water into two mugs. All elbows and knees and Adam’s apple, but he moved with a lanky, water-bird grace. She paused in the doorway, letting the familiar sight of him take the edge off her nerves.

This is real,
she told herself. Alex, school, friends. A life. This was real—not the dreams.

Laughter answered inside her head, soft and wet and mocking.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked when Alex set the kettle down. The clock over the stove said it was just after two in the morning. Neither of them had been asleep for long.

Round glasses flashed white as he looked up. “After repeated application of your knee to my spleen, no.”

Her cheeks warmed. “I’m sorry.”

He bent to kiss her forehead. “It’s not a mortal wound. I thought you might like some tea, if you woke up.” Years in the States had worn the crisp edges off his Queen’s English, but his accent was always stronger when he first woke up; he must dream in Received Pronunciation.

Liz leaned into his warmth, breathing in the smell of his skin— must and grassy sweetness, like tea leaves and used bookstores. The silver saint’s medallion he always wore shone in the hollow of his throat. “Thank you.”

Blue eyes narrowed as he traced a thumb over her cheekbone, below the bruised circles that branded her eyes. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it? The same dream?”

“Yes.” She sank into a kitchen chair, pinching her nose against the ache building between her eyes. “But not exactly worse. Just the same.” Every night the same—darkness and cold, water bitter as blood. Blake’s pale face sinking into the depths, always out of reach.

Outside, branches creaked in the wind, rattling their fingerbones against the walls. Much too quiet for a Saturday night, but with finals over the neighborhood around campus was a ghost town. Even her neighbors had vanished—she hadn’t heard the thump of their bass through the walls in days.

“Have you called him?” Alex sat beside her and slid a steaming mug across the table. Books and notes and graduate catalogues buried the nicked Ikea veneer, the carnage of another semester past. Only one more until her Master’s and still no plans after that. Maybe that was a good enough reason for falling out of touch with Blake, but it certainly didn’t feel that way now.

“And emailed. No one answers.” She stared at the cup, at the leaves drifting dark as silt in amber fluid. No symbols to read in their eddy and swirl, no visions in the chamomile fumes.

“You think something’s happened,” Alex said, not a question. He never dismissed her dreams or hunches or magical thinking outright, but his eyes tightened whenever she mentioned them.

Liz lifted her cup, but her hands shook and hot tea slopped over her fingers. As she blew on her scalded knuckles, the unhappy chill in her stomach crystallized into something sharp and certain.

“I do. Something’s wrong. I haven’t heard from him since October.”

She turned toward the wall beside the table, where framed photographs lined the worn white plaster. Her gaze settled on one of the newest, the three of them on Halloween two years ago—Liz as Alice in a starched apron and witch boots, Blake the Mad Hatter in a red leather straitjacket. Alex had dyed his hair orange and black but resisted all her pleas to be the White Rabbit.

“Something’s wrong,” she said again. “I need to find out what happened. I have to go.”

“To Vancouver?” Alex’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline. “In December?”

The skepticism in his voice woke all her own doubts. The money, the time—where would she go when she got there? What if Blake didn’t want to see her?

“What if it’s a false alarm?” Alex said, taking up where her secondguessing left off. “A new phone number and he forgot to tell you?”

“I need to know,” she whispered, to Alex and herself. “Whatever it is, I need to know.”

She didn’t look at another photograph. Another Halloween, years before. Three Alices in that one, blonde and brunette and ravendark, all their cheeks soft with adolescence. Liz on one end, Alis Park on the other, and Alice Ransom between them. Alice, whom Liz hadn’t been able to help. Alice, whose drowned voice still whispered to her in the dark.

Her neck ached with the effort of not looking at the dead girl’s shy smiling face. Instead she lifted her mug and took a determined swallow, exhaling steam from burning lips. “I have to go.”

Alex stared at her for a long moment, thin mouth turned down at the corners, eyes blind and unreadable behind a glaze of light. Finally he sighed and lifted one long hand in a shrug. “It’s been a while since I had a vacation.”

She swallowed. Her throat had gone dry despite the tea. “You mean—”

“That I won’t let you fly across the continent chasing another man by yourself?” He smiled wryly. “Yes. If you want me to come, that is.”

“Of course I do.” She reached out to catch his hand, a quick pressure of fingers. “Let’s start packing.”

R
AE FLEW
.

Thermals swelled, ruffling black wings. The city sprawled below, a web of glass and steel and concrete, softened along the edges with green, bounded by black water, and all of that enfolded soft and safe by layered clouds. Between those clouds the sun sank toward the sea, trailing veils of color—violet-grey and salmon and sticky marmalade orange. The cracks in the world that let the light in.

Above the clouds the stars burned. The stars called her and she flew higher, shredding vapor with every wing-stroke. East, where Taurus snorted and heaved himself over the horizon. Her blood itched, driving her farther, faster, closer to the blazing stars, where the Hyades sang wild cradle songs to their wild god. The god who waited for her in the heart of the Bull’s eye.

Faster, farther, higher than she’d ever flown before, but her wings weren’t meant for the icy void between the stars, for the solar winds that gusted around her. Pinions cracked, wax melted, and she fell screaming, a flurry of black feathers blinding her as she tumbled down.

Rae moaned, her face buried in a mattress that stank of old sex and sweat, the cloying honey-sweetness of mania filtering through her skin. Human skin, wrapped around clumsy flesh and heavy bone, limbs so much dead weight. Wings clipped again.

She rolled over and wiped her nose with the back of her hand; three fingers tingled pins-and-needles as feeling returned. The room was black except for a glowing stripe under the door. She blinked watering eyes and turned away until her vision adjusted.

Shadows wept down the walls, puddled and bubbled on the floor. They whispered. Rae bit her lip to keep from whimpering, to keep from calling out. Only shadows and synesthesia. She pulled a pillow over her face and counted from zero to ten and back again. Only shadows. They couldn’t hurt her.

Voices from the other room filtered through her frantic thoughts, drowning the whispers. These voices were worse and she hugged the pillow tighter against her ears, but they snaked inside anyway. Jason and Stephen, the conversation a blur of profits and costs that made her head hurt, that dragged her back into the cold, ugly world where one friend was dead and another in the hospital and her boyfriend was selling drugs to pay the rent. As often as she’d wished for Jason to find a decent job, she’d rather go back to busking and waiting tables to support them than have him working for Stephen York.

Very bad karma, her mother would have said.

She sat up, wrapping a sweaty sheet around her and waiting for the shadows to stop seething. If she stepped on the floor now they might stick to her feet, or crawl up her legs like spiders, and then she’d definitely freak out.

A little longer was all she needed. If the mania only lasted another hour, maybe she could reach the singing stars, understand their voices. The drug lingered warm and liquid in her veins, but she wouldn’t fly again tonight. The curtains were pulled tight against the hiss of rain, no clock in the room to tell her how long she’d been out. Her bladder ached and her mouth tasted like old socks.

When the shadows finally stilled Rae stood by the door, almostclean clothes bundled in her arms, waiting for the voices to stop. The cold floor sent goosebumps crawling over her skin, tightening her nipples around silver hoops. Her desire not to see Stephen overshadowed her need for the bathroom, especially when she was grimy and strung out and mostly naked. She’d nearly started to potty-dance when the front door opened and closed again.

Hinges creaked as she peeked out of the bedroom and Jason turned, matte-black hair falling over his eyes. “Hey, babe. Finally awake?”

“Maybe.” She glanced past him, making sure the living room was empty. The curtains gapped here, showing black beyond the rain-fogged glass. Her broken-tailed Kit-Cat clock told her it was a quarter to eleven, which meant she’d been out nearly eight hours.

Longer and longer every time. But never long enough.

Jason crossed the room and bent his head to kiss her. She was still manic enough to see his aura without trying, a faint nimbus of color circling his head and hands. Murkier than usual, dull brown wicking through the blues and greens, but maybe that was just her imagination.

“You want to go out tonight?” He trailed a thumb over her collarbone and she shuddered as sensation rippled across her skin.

She shook her head, which made the colors swirl. “I’d rather take it easy. Maybe I’ll busk a little if I’m feeling up to it. We can go out tomorrow.”

His hands settled on her shoulders, pale against her wintersallow skin. “I’ve got money, babe. You don’t need to do that anymore.”

She shrugged and smiled. “I like it.” More importantly, she wanted money that Stephen had never touched. She wasn’t hypocrite enough that dealing bothered her, but Stephen’s smiles and generosity made her flesh creep. He was hard and slick as hematite behind the charm, cold as sharkskin.

Jason frowned but nodded. “Okay. I’ve got some errands to run, if you’re going to go out.”

“Sure,” she said, forcing a smile she didn’t feel. “We can hang out tomorrow.”

He leaned in and kissed her neck. “We don’t have to leave right now.”

Her hands slid down the front of his shirt, skin tingling, craving touch. Worn-soft cotton and cracked paint shivered through her fingertips. And below that, flesh, warm and solid.

Rae sidestepped even as her stomach tightened with want. “I really gotta pee.” She ducked into the bathroom before Jason could reply, turning the rattling old lock behind her.

After she flushed, she turned the shower as hot as it would go, until steam clouds roiled through the narrow room. Stinging spray pounded the chill from her flesh. Her limbs grew heavy as the last of the mania wore off, joints aching.

Minutes later she heard the front door close again and sighed. Rae scrubbed her long tangled hair and tried to ignore the guilt she felt at that relief.

L
IZ DREAMED OF
a dark forest, of a stone road nearly swallowed by trees and earth. A canopy of branches held the ground in a perpetual twilight that smelled of moss and loam and decay. Weeds cracked the paving stones, and roots thrust them aside. The underbrush was alive with sounds—skittering feet, slithering bodies, huffing breath. Shadows shifted around her and wind hissed through the treetops.

She knew this road, though she hadn’t walked it in years. It had never been so dark and overgrown before. If she kept going the forest would end soon, giving way to hills and fields and the city.

Liz jumped, throat closing. She looked up to see a girl sitting on a tree limb, feet dangling. Her striped stockings were torn, and mud and leaf-litter clung to the soles of her patent leather Mary Janes. Water dripped from her skirts, a puddle spreading across the cracked stones below.

“It’s been a long time,” Alice said. A thread of water ran between her bloodless lips, splashing her already-soaked pinafore.

Liz shuddered but didn’t look away. She’d never seen Alice after she died; the casket had been closed. Her friend’s puffy white face and bruised-violet eyelids were her own invention. “You don’t belong here,” she whispered.

“That isn’t very nice. You used to tell me all about your dreams. You said you wished I could see them too. I remember your stories— the stairs, the city of cats.”

“What are you doing here?” Liz said.

“I was going to ask you the same thing. Trying to save someone else?” The dead girl smiled. Her eyes were black wells. “Maybe you’ll have better luck this time.”

“Alice—” Her voice broke.

Alice shook her head, flinging water. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. I know you tried. But you’re down the rabbit hole now. Beware the King.”

“Don’t you mean the Queen?”

But the dream slipped out from under her. Wakefulness returned in layers: cold, stale air; the vibration of engines; a dizzying sensation of movement. A hand on her arm, a gentle shake. She blinked and lifted her head from Alex’s bony shoulder, rubbing the pebbled, cable-knit imprint his sweater left in her cheek.

“We’re landing,” he said, pulling off his headphones. He sat folded like a marionette, knees brushing the tray table in front of him despite the airline’s alleged six inches of extra leg-room. Over ten hours in transit had left his hair lank and tangled, and a film of oil and dried sweat clung to Liz’s skin and itched at the nape of her neck.

The day after she’d made her decision and bought plane tickets, Liz had slept, deep and dark and dreamless. She’d known it wouldn’t last, but Alice’s white face hanging behind her eyes made her stomach clench.

The plane banked and turned with a rumble. Leaning across Alex’s lap, she saw the last violet and apricot glow fading in the west, and airport lights bright against the black water of the Pacific. She stretched, kneading a knot in her neck.

Alex adjusted his glasses, glancing at her out of the corner of one eye. “Do you feel better now that we’re here?”

“No,” she said, her voice nearly lost in the low hum of the plane. Action may have bought her a night of rest, but had done nothing to dislodge the feeling of
wrong
that stuck like a bone in her throat. “But thank you for coming with me.”

He shrugged. “I’ve already turned in my lesson plans for the spring. And it’s better than going home to see my parents.” His fingers tightened around hers, belying the lightness of his words. Liz held his hand as the
Fasten Seatbelt
light blinked on and they spiraled down and down.

T
HE SKY HUNG
low across Vancouver, spitting rain and veiling the night in grey haze. Liz’s eyelids sagged as Alex drove the rental car downtown. She stared through her reflection in the window and tried not to think about how tired and lost she looked.

Fog clung to the streets, turning wet asphalt and trees into something distant and otherworldly. Christmas lights glowed through the brume, muted shades of red and gold and eerie underwater blue. Fairy lights to lead travelers astray—where would they take her if she followed them? But the road carried them safely through, to Granville Island and the glass-and-steel forest of downtown. The mist swallowed skyscrapers, softened sharp-angled condos and bled halos of street lamps and jeweled neon. The brightness of clubs and coffee shops faded as they turned onto the quieter side street that led to their hotel.

A crowd gathered on the sidewalk in front of the lobby, a glistening half circle of umbrellas and raincoats. A man shouted to the onlookers in a deep preacher’s voice.

“I have seen the King! He is coming for all of you. Aldebaran is his star, and its light will burn your eyes out.”

Liz’s hands tightened on the handle of her suitcase. Icy drizzle stung her face as she moved closer, snaked frozen fingers under her collar—she hadn’t thought to pack an umbrella. Between the shoulders of the crowd she glimpsed a seamed, chill-reddened face and tangled iron grey hair.

“I have seen the yellow sign!”

A pair of police officers pushed through the crowd. “I’ve seen a sign,” one of them said. “It says No Loitering.”

The old man tried to pull away. “I have to warn them!”

“Warn them after you’ve slept it off, Yves.” The audience broke apart as the police flanked the preacher.

“You’ll see him,” Yves yelled as they led him away. “You’ll all see him.” For an instant Liz met his wild eyes. “Le roi jaune vient!”

Alex caught her shoulder, steering her gently toward the lobby doors. “Come on. I’m sure there’s something more entertaining on cable.”

S
LEEP WAS A
long time coming that night. Liz lay still on starch-stiff hotel sheets, listening to the rhythm of Alex’s breath and trying not to toss. Wind sighed past the balcony, rattling the windows with spatters of rain. Citylight fell in a pale stripe across the foot of the bed.

She was amazed sometimes how comforting the warmth of another body beside hers could be. She’d spent years thinking she would sleep alone for the rest of her life, after she outgrew childhood slumber parties and realized that the heat of lust and sex that drove the world was something she would never experience. To have found someone willing to look past that, to settle for the negotiation and compromise of a relationship without the haze of pheromones, felt like a dream from which she was constantly afraid of waking.

But no amount of comfort or companionship could soothe her tonight.

Patterns and correlations. Coincidence and hindsight. She wanted to believe that. Wanted to believe that there was nothing she could do, could ever have done. If her dreams and anxiety were only that then she couldn’t have done anything to prevent Blake’s ominous silence. Couldn’t have stopped Alice from lying back in a bathtub with a belly full of pills. Couldn’t have kept her parents from getting on a plane destined to fall out of the sky.

What was better—to be helpless and therefore blameless, or to have had the chance to change events and failed?

Sleep stole over her before she found an answer.