Fantasy Life (40 page)

Daray used to smile at her, that winsome smile, one that lit his dark, dark eyes, and say, “You love me too much to do that.”

And she did.

So when she woke, startled, out of a very sound sleep, he was holding her. She was convinced the house was going to fall into the sea, but it was a dream. It had to be a dream.

It couldn’t be anything else, not with Daray’s long hair mingling with her own, the musky smell of sex still in the air, the odor of incense failing to cover it all.

“White Rabbit” still played on the hi-fi, Grace Slick’s voice imploring them all to go ask Alice. Daray loved the song, so fascinated by it that he insisted Cassie play it again and again, loving the magical content of it.

She tried to tell him it was a drug song, and he said it didn’t matter. Psychedelic was psychedelic, man, no matter how you achieved it.

She thought, as she awoke, that his eyes glistened in the candlelight, but when she said his name, ever so softly, he didn’t
respond. His breathing was heavy and even, and she wondered how she had ever thought him awake.

She slipped out of bed and went to the window, but didn’t see anything. Then she went out on the widow’s walk and saw the ship.

Daray didn’t wake up that night, not with the storm, the winds, the terrible seas. He slept while Cassie ran blindly toward the stairs, when she met with her mother and Daray’s father, and hurried, to try to save the refuge, the people below.

Daray did nothing, even though his father had asked about him.

He didn’t wake until dawn, then came stumbling through Cliffside House, finally finding Cassie still sitting on the stairs, her heart pounding with a panic she didn’t know how to shake.

His arms wrapped around her, and he rocked her, trying to soothe her. But she had seen something in his eyes, a sadness, an understanding, maybe even a fear.

Something she later tried to forget.

Highway 101
The Village of Anchor Bay

“Grandma?”

“Cassandra?”

The voices came from far away. For a moment, Cassie wondered what other people were doing in the staircase at Cliffside House. Her throat was raw from smoke. Her eyes burned, and Daray had his arms around her.

No matter how scared she was, she didn’t want to leave.

“Cassandra, what are you doing?”

It was the fear in her mother’s voice that brought her back. Athena wasn’t afraid of anything. She was strong and tall and powerful. Even when she had been running to the sea, she was in charge.

Cassie blinked, and the smoke-burning went away. Then she cleared her throat, and the greasy taste of oil, petroleum and fire, was gone.

“How did you do that?” Athena asked, her expression pale.

Emily didn’t say anything. She still clutched Cassie’s hand.

The honking continued, but only one car was doing it now. The road was empty except for an occasional passing car and the slime trail.

And Lyssa had come out of the school, her walk so like Daray’s that it broke Cassie’s heart.

“Cassandra, are you all right?”

Cassie finally made herself look at Athena. Athena, who was three decades older, just as tall, just as strong, but somehow not as powerful.

“I’m fine, Mother,” Cassie said, and even to her own ears her voice sounded strange.

“What was that?” Athena asked.

“What was what?”

“The pictures.” Emily squeezed her hand. “We made pictures again.”

Cassie felt her cheeks heat. They had seen Daray? And her—that night when everything changed?

“The night the
Walter Aggie
went down,” Athena said. “Your headlong rush down the stairs just played for us like a movie. I didn’t know you could do that.”

“I can’t.” This time, Cassie’s voice sounded more like her own. “At least, not alone. That’s me and Emily, together.”

“You and Emily,” Athena said, as if resigned. Then she crouched in front of Emily. “What kind of powers do you have, child?”

“Powers?” Emily’s grip became so tight in Cassie’s hand that the circulation cut off. “I don’t have powers.”

“The ability to make pictures. The selkie hearing. The—”

“Mother.” Cassie’s voice was sharp, a warning. She didn’t want Athena to antagonize Emily—not because Cassie was afraid of Emily, but because Emily was, in her own way, as emotionally exhausted as Cassie was.

Athena gave Cassie that flat, measuring look, the one that she always used when she thought Cassie was being stupid. Athena opened her mouth, probably to ask more questions, when Cassie tugged Emily forward.

“C’mon, Em,” Cassie said. “Let’s go see your mom.”

“Mom?” Emily looked away from Athena. “Mom’s here?”

Cassie nodded. “Over by the school.”

They walked around Athena, who glared at Cassie. Cassie
ignored her. She didn’t want to think about her mother or her mother’s problems at the moment.

The coroner, Hamilton Denne, was striding up the sidewalk. His khaki pants were spattered with shiny goo from the creature stream, and his hair, which used to be his best feature, was ragged from neglect.

He didn’t look like the same man he had been when he had been married to some Portland society woman. His features had softened, as if he were happier, but his clothing had deteriorated, as if he no longer took pride in his appearance.

“Cassandra,” he said as if he were interviewing her. “What can you tell me about this?”

“About what?” she asked. Emily was gazing at the school, longingly. Lyssa hadn’t seen them yet.

The reporter was still standing at the wayside, talking to Gabriel Schelling, who seemed distracted. And the honking continued on the beach.

“About this stream of fantasylife. This exodus. Do you think they’re acting like wildlife fleeing in front of a fire?”

Cassie put her free hand to her neck. The memory of the flame-vision returned as a taste, an acrid, burning taste that scarred the back of her throat.

“No,” she said.

“You don’t think they’re fleeing?”

“No, I can’t tell you anything.” She slipped past him, tugging Emily with her. Cassie was a bit amazed at herself. It was her day to be rude, apparently. Her day to tell people, as best she could, to leave her alone.

Emily had to run to keep up with her. Cassie slowed down as she approached the wayside. The cameraman was still filming, his hand at the front of his lens, obviously zooming in and out on the creature stream.

Behind her, Cassie heard Denne call to Athena, saying something about how he needed to talk with her.

“Mommy looks scared,” Emily said.

Cassie looked across the street. Lyssa was standing near the slime trail, her head bent, her hands clasped behind her back. She didn’t look so much scared as unnerved.

Then she looked up and her gaze met Cassie’s. In it, Cassie saw blame. She felt herself flush, felt a memory rise—the knocking all throughout her conversation with Roseluna. Cassie had failed to recognize the sound.

It had been Lyssa. Lyssa, asking for help after all those years of silence.

Cassie stumbled into the road, Emily making a sound of surprise as she got dragged along. A car zoomed by, narrowly missing them, but Cassie didn’t care. She ran to Lyssa, who stayed behind the slime trail, watching.

When Cassie reached Azalea Road, she paused. The parking lot was a disaster. It stank of dead fish, and the slime was everywhere.

Not just slime, but bodies too, flattened and emptied as if they had fallen from a great height.

All of the cars were covered in goo.

“That’s our car!” Emily said, pointing. There was real loss in her voice.

Cassie squinted, followed Emily’s finger, and finally saw the Bug. It was pearlish white and green with slime, and many bodies lay around it. Only the back end had any blue showing at all. The roof looked as if it had caved in.

The driver’s door was open, and no alarms tinged. The car seemed dead.

And it was obvious that Lyssa had been inside it. Lyssa, alone while those things crawled over her car. Lyssa, calling for help and unable to get it because their links had been shut off, and Cassie had been too dumb to realize that her only child needed her.

Cassie crossed the parking lot and stayed on her edge of
the slime trail. The stink rose from it, and she thought that an appropriate metaphor, given everything Roseluna had told her.

“I’m sorry,” Cassie said. “I only just realized you were trying to reach me.”

Lyssa’s face flattened, as if she had cleared the emotion off it. “It’s all right,” Lyssa said. “I managed.”

Her voice was slightly hoarse, as if her throat was dry. Emily’s hand slipped out of Cassie’s and Emily stepped closer to the slime trail.

“Mommy?”

“It’s okay,” Lyssa said. “I think it’s pretty safe to cross, but let me come to you.”

Cassie watched her daughter pick her way across the goo. Until Roseluna’s visit, Cassie hadn’t realized just how much Lyssa looked like her father. She had Daray’s dark coloring, right down to the tinge of her skin. Her eyes were slightly rounder than normal, and their irises were wider than most. Her pert nose came from the Buckinghams, but her mobile mouth was Daray’s, just like Roseluna’s was.

Lyssa moved like her father. She spoke with the same deliberation, and she had the same careless passion that he had, as well as an ability to impress people who needed impressing.

No wonder Cassie hadn’t been able to handle her daughter in those early years. She still couldn’t handle the memory of Daray, and she had seen him every day in her daughter’s face.

Lyssa reached the dry pavement, her shoes covered. She held up a finger, silently asking Emily to wait, while Lyssa went to a small patch of grass and wiped the goo away.

“What is that stuff, Mommy?” Emily asked.

Lyssa shook her head. “Your grandma can probably tell you.”

But
Cassie
had no idea. She sighed, feeling slightly dizzy from all the emotional highs and lows of the day. Lyssa was deliberately ignoring her, and Cassie didn’t blame her.

She didn’t blame her daughter at all.

Gabriel was watching Lyssa from across the street, worry and longing mixing on his face. Cassie had forgotten what a crush he had had on her daughter. She had forgotten a lot about Lyssa—or never really taken notice, not on a deep level.

Cassie had done so much wrong. She was beginning to think she had done even more wrong than she had realized.

The reporter signaled her cameraman and started across the street. Gabriel grabbed her arm, shaking his head, but the reporter just smiled at him. She slipped her arm from his grasp and kept coming.

Cassie’s stomach churned even more. The reporter was coming to see them.

“Do you know what’s going on, Mother?” Lyssa asked.

“Yeah.” Cassie sighed. “The fantasylife has decided to leave the reservation.”

“What?” Lyssa looked shocked. She had probably never heard her mother be politically incorrect before.

Cassie shook her head. She didn’t know how to explain, not in the short period of time they had before the reporter got here.

“Everything’s changed,” Cassie said, “and I’m not really sure how to fix it. I’m not even sure if we should fix it.”

And then the reporter stopped in front of Lyssa, pasted a smile on her too pretty face, and thrust the microphone forward.

“So you’re the woman who was stuck in the car,” the reporter said.

That flat expression covered Lyssa’s face once more. “No,” Lyssa said. “I’m not.”

Cassie felt shock run through her at the lie. Emily looked over at her grandmother, as if she was wondering if Cassie was going to correct Lyssa.

“But we saw you—”

“Did you?” Lyssa said. “I suppose you thought you saw a lot of things today.”

“We have them on tape,” the reporter said.

“Which I’m sure makes them all true.” Then Lyssa took Emily’s hand and led her across the street, not looking back.

The reporter watched her for a moment, then turned to Cassie. “What’s your relationship with that woman?”

“I wish I knew,” Cassie said, and hurried toward her family on the ocean side of Highway 101.

Anchor Harbor Wayside

Gabriel wished he knew Lyssa better. She was walking across the highway, paralleling the slime, her daughter clutching her right hand. They had identical short black hair, as dark as Gabriel had ever seen, but Lyssa’s was spiked from running her fingers through it. Her face was lined with exhaustion, and her clothes were spattered with goo.

She seemed remarkably calm, considering, and she had handled the reporter like a pro. He wished he had been as good. Nicole Drapier had finally cornered him after he had driven back up the beach, leaving Zeke to complete the honking. Drapier had asked Gabriel about his efforts to drive the creatures off the road.

He had said some garbage about the ways that improvisation was important on the coast, and that a person had to prepare for anything. Then she had asked if he thought the creatures they saw were supernatural.

He had smiled at her and said of course not. If they were, they would have just disappeared. She had asked some sort of
follow-up, a rephrasing of the same question, and he had given her his most condescending look.

The Oregon Coast is quite gothic,
he had said.
People not familiar with it see beasties on the waves all the time.

That response had angered her, and that was when she had left him. Now Nicole Drapier was standing in the school parking lot with her cameraman, looking confused, as if the story had gotten away from her again.

If only she would leave. The story was about to get bigger, and Gabriel didn’t know how to keep it from her.

Lyssa reached the parking lot. She held Emily firmly, and Emily didn’t seem to mind. Lyssa’s gaze was on Gabriel, and his breath caught.

He had no idea how she had become more beautiful over the years. Even with the exhaustion in her eyes, and the slime goo on her clothing, she was still the most interesting woman he had ever seen.