The Dream Catcher's Daughter (5 page)

The piercing flute melody ceased. On the
roof of the house stood an old woman with steel-gray hair. She held a flute in
her hands, which she then lowered to her thighs, the sun glimmering off the
polished wood. Something about this woman looked strange, but Jason couldn’t
figure it out. He closed his eyes as a throbbing pain stabbed at the back of
his head. Hot blood thrummed in his temples.

He barely heard: “You okay?”

When he opened his eyes, they fluttered
around, haphazardly trying to find the voice’s owner. He searched the roof
again, but found no sign of the flute woman.

“Hey, down here, dumbass.” There, in the
yard, stood the woman. But she didn’t look like a woman. She did, but she
didn’t. “Come down so we can talk.”

Grunting, Jason sat up. He wiggled down
the windshield, hoping his weight wouldn’t crack it. Using the fender as a
stepping stool, he lowered himself down. Nothing seemed broken. He still felt
sore, and so gingered toward the woman. Up-close, Jason could see it: This
woman wasn’t a woman, but a girl about Jason’s age. With gray hair. He was too
tired to stop his mouth from gaping, which was about as much shock as he could
display. Even so, he quickly apologized: “Sorry, I don’t mean to stare.”

“It’s okay. Most people do.” She smiled,
and it was huge and sunny, catching Jason off-guard. Jason wished he could
return it.

“You helped me,” he said “Thanks. I
would’ve been dead without you.”

The girl shrugged. “No problem. My name’s
Len, by the by.”

“Len? Mine is—”

“Jason McKinney. Sorry, I’ve known for a
while.” She held the flute up, leaning it against her shoulder, as if holding a
dearly beloved. “I don’t mean to sound like a stalker, but I needed to know
your name.”

“Needed to know?” Jason crossed his arms.
With his plain, emotionless face, it may’ve looked like he was growing bored.
“Why would you need to know my name?”

“Well, this is going to sound super bad,
but I can’t tell you. Not yet. For now, you need to be told as little as
possible.” Before he could reply, Len pulled something from her jean pocket: a
key, the large, golden one that had been sitting next to the flowers. She held
it out to him. “Take this. You’ll need it.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“I don’t want the key. I want to know
what’s going on.”

“If you take the key, you’ll eventually
find out what’s going on. Trust me, I can tell you everything. Eventually.
Look, there are things I don’t know, either. But I know quite a bit about you.”

“What do you know?” This sounded more like
a curious child than someone who felt freaked out about someone he’d never met
knowing lots of things about him.

“Will you please take the key?”

Jason did, appearing more calm and relaxed
than he felt. That’s why, when he chucked the key over the van, Len’s eyes
widened.

“Wait! What the
hell’re
you doing?!”

“Exactly what I want to ask you. Showing
up out of nowhere. Saving my ass. You’ve been there before, haven’t you? The
other times Talshe came after me.”

“Talshe?”

“The giantess.”

Her eyes sparkled, as if he had just told
her what her Christmas present would be. Hands behind her back, she leaned in,
smiling wryly. “Oh, you don’t say. And how do you know this?”

“Just do.” And she gave him this look, her
lips pursed, brows cinched.

Before Len could say anything else, a
voice floated up from behind the van: “
Oooh
! A key!
Wonder what it unlocks?”

“Not sure,” said another voice. “Maybe
there’ll be treasure!”

“Or sweets!”

“Or boys!”

“Boys like him!”

“Boys like Jason!”

Len and Jason ran around to the front of
the van. Only a few feet down the road, the black-haired twins were ogling the
key. Jason remembered the playground, the kid separated from his body, and the
knife held at the boy’s throat.

“Bootelia. Amor.” The twins smiled and
waved at Jason.

“Why, speak of the handsome devil,” said
Amor, “and he shall appear!”

“With a scrumptious-looking friend!” said
Bootelia.

“You can have
her
if you want, but
I’ll have Jason. His lips are just so...And his bubble butt...”

“Nothing like mine, of course.”

“Of course not, dear sister!”

Something inside Jason wished he could
slap the twins. He gave them his sternest glare—nothing more than the
halfway-interested stare a student might give his Algebra homework.

“Give us the key,” he said.

They glanced at the key, then back to Jason,
then at each other. They nodded.

“We’ll give it to you,” said Amor,
“because you commanded us so nicely. And we love to be commanded.”

“
He
might,” said Bootelia, “but
I’m
not going to give it away. You have to do something in return.”

“Oh?” said Len. “What’s that?”

“Well...This key’s pretty nice-looking.
The price will be steep.” Bootelia turned around and wiggled her hips at Jason.
“I think a firm smooch on my right cheek should do the trick.”

Len’s brow knitted up. Jason’s face, despite
the weirdness from Bootelia’s mouth, remained smooth, unaffected. “And if I
don’t?” said Jason.

Bootelia motioned to Amor and he reached
for the waistband of her pants, pulling it back a bit. She dropped the down
inside; Amor snapped her waistband shut.

“Catch us if you can!” said Bootelia, and
the twins bolted off, giggling.

As he watched them run, something inside
him broke. When it did, he balled his fists and ground his teeth. His breath
hitched and he shuddered, his vision blurring a bit. Everything faded into
darkness and a cold veil slid over his body. Air whooshed against him, whipping
his hair up.

The voices came:

Who am I?

You’re my…

No. I’m not. I know about…

You know nothing.

Then tell me.

I created you, so obey.

The air stilled. Light cut into Jason’s
vision, and there he was, just as he had been, staring after Amor and Bootelia.
His heart thundered in his chest. He ground his teeth together, and he pressed
his clenched fists against his sides. From deep within his chest, a boiling
riptide surged through his veins, through his arteries, through his neurons and
nerve-endings. It surged toward his throat, then overflowed into his mouth, and
erupted from him:

“Come back, you
bastards
! Come back
and give me that
fucking
key!”

Len placed a hand on Jason’s arm, and he
jerked away from her. “Why the hell are you touching me?” he said. “I don’t
even know you!”

“Jason, calm down.”

“They just took that key!”

“You’re more important than a key.”

The words halted the vomit of anger. He unclenched
his hands, his fingers aching as he stretched them. He swallowed dryly and
noticed his throat felt bloody raw. His vision flooded with fireflies. His
anger, that sudden burst of fury from deep inside the cauldron of his soul, had
faded. Jason stared at his hands and wondered where the anger had come from. Up
till this point, all of his emotions had been fuzzy. Hazy. Numb. But they were
there. He had just fully tasted his anger, so what of his other emotions?
Happiness? Sadness? Love?

Love.

Watching the twins disappear down the
block, he wondered if love hadn’t done the same.

Len insisted Jason sit back and chill, but
he didn’t listen. Thoughts clustered inside his head and every thought was
painted in an angry, pulsating red. The thoughts throbbed inside his skull,
pounding at his temples like ironsmiths. As Jason crawled back into the
driver’s seat of the delivery van, Len followed him and stood outside the
driver-side window on the tips of her toes.

“You shouldn’t drive,” she said.

He shoved the key into the ignition and
turned it. The engine caught, and the van coughed to life. “I’m going home and
going to sleep.”

“Let me drive you. You’ll get in a wreck
or something.”

Jason gripped the steering wheel—one hand
at ten o’clock, the other at two, just the right way. The standard way. Then he
dropped his hands into his lap, and they sat there like two dead spiders, each
short three legs. He stared at his face’s reflection in the mirror.

Under his breath, he said, “You won’t tell
me anything. Just like my dad.”

“Huh?”

“It’s always someone else telling me where
I need to go. I can’t do this, so I have to do that. And you keep pushing me
further down that way.” He slammed his hands on the steering wheel. “You’re
just like everyone else. Shoving me into a hole that doesn’t fit!” He balled a
fist and punched the dashboard.

Len said nothing.

Jason gripped the steering wheel again and
put the van into drive. She moved away from his window, and he drove off without
looking back.

***

Explaining the scratches and dents wasn’t
hard. When Tom asked, Jason said a crazy old mage mistook him for an undercover
paladin and tried to scare him with Sentry Vase shards. Tom shivered at this.

“God—Sentry Vases suck.
Dunno
why they ever made ‘
em
.
Don’t worry, Jason. I’ll get ‘
er
fixed.”

Then Jason went home. He tried to sleep,
but didn’t have much luck. He didn’t go to school the next day. It was
Thursday, and he had Tara Engel hanging over his head, but not quite on his
mind. If that happened, the liquid stone would come. When he went to work,
despite the free time he’d had from staying home, Jason felt exhausted. He went
to Silver Moon early so he could nap on the couch in his father’s office. He’d
done it before, and Mr. McKinney didn’t mind, especially since he was usually
walking the store.

He found his father’s snoring bulk passed
out at his desk. Jason straightened his work shirt, then turned to leave, but
stopped. He glanced back at his father. Sleeping at his desk—Jason couldn’t
remember Mr. McKinney ever doing such a thing. Jason tip-toed out of the
office.

Before he closed the door, his father
said, “Buddy?”

Mr. McKinney sat up in his chair, rubbing
bags the color of purple smog under his eyes. The stress marks on his forehead
looked more like cuts, and the slight double chin hanging from his neck
reminded Jason of a turkey. “Are you going out to deliver?” said Mr. McKinney.

“Yeah.”

“All right. Don’t forget we have a new
recruit. Make sure she feels at home.”

“Right. Okay.”

They stared at each other. Jason’s slight
annoyance boiled into anger. Why? His father hadn’t done anything. But that was
exactly the point.

Mr. McKinney frowned. “Are you okay,
Jason? Have you been getting enough sleep?”

“Kind of, not really.”

“Oh, well. Is it...Have you...been
having...?”

“No. I just haven’t been sleeping well.
That’s all.” He tried to sound sincerely carefree. Instead it came out clipped,
annoyed bordering on mad. His father only nodded. “I’ll be okay,” said Jason.
“I’m not going to fall asleep at the wheel.”

Mr. McKinney laughed at this. “Well, I
hope not. If you worked at a desk like I did, you could afford that every once
in a while. Anyway, you should get going.”

“Okay. See you at dinner tonight?”

“Afraid not, buddy. Got a few things I
need to work on. If you want, I’ll give you money and you can order in.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Jason walked out, shutting the office door
behind him. He looked down at his stomach, the slightly round paunch pushing
out from under his shirt. This would make the fifth day in a row he’d eaten
take-out. He slid his hands down his slight jelly belly, then headed for the
garage.

***

Jason let loose a yawn as he entered the
garage. As if on cue, feet padded toward him. He recognized the heavy, echoing
footfall of Tom, who rounded one of the vans, beaming. Just under the sound of
his footsteps, like the gentle countermelody of a ballad, Jason could hear the
walk of another.

“Welcome, Mr. Jason!” said Tom, a wide
smile stretching his mustache and goatee. “Are you ready for a grand day of
discovery? Our new friend is!”

Jason rolled his eyes. If this person
could make Tom, who was usually mellow, this bubbly at the end of his shift,
Jason wanted nothing to do with her. She rounded the van and stood beside Tom.
And Jason was right.

“Jason, meet Miss Lenmana!”

“Len for short,” she said.

***

They loaded into the van in silence and
drove around, doing all the routine Thursday deliveries—nursing home, downtown
bakeries, and day cares. Neither of them said anything. It was strange because
Len had seemed like such a talkative individual. But, secretly, he was glad she
didn’t say anything.

About an hour into the job, Len broke the
silence. “We have to get the key.”

Jason glanced at her. “Key?”

“The one you tossed. The one, you know,
that girl stuck down her pants.”

“And you want it back?”

“For you.” Jason rolled the van to a stop
at the four-way intersection in front of Silver Moon. The light turned from
yellow to red. Len resumed, “It’s like you don’t believe me or something.”

“Do I have a reason to?”

“You don’t know me. Why would I lie to
you?”

“For that very reason. Didn’t your mother
ever tell you not to talk to strangers?”

“My mother’s dead.”

“
So’s
mine.”

Len narrowed her eyes at Jason. “You’re
lying.”

The light turned green, and Jason jerked
the van forward. He pulled into the empty parking lot of an American Legion. He
turned off the van, unbuckled his seatbelt, and turned toward Len, puffing out
his chest slightly, hands white-knuckling the arm rest.

“My mother died when I was a kid. Why
would I lie about that?”

“Sympathy,” said Len. “People always say
their mom’s dead, and then others say, ‘Oh, I know your pain. My so-and-so died
not too long ago.’” She pounded her hands on the dashboard. “They don’t care.
All they want is to hear themselves talk and have a pity party and...
and
...”

She cupped her face and snorted back a
glob of snot. Tears rolled down her face. Jason’s anger fizzled. A girl, crying
in front of him. That hadn’t happened the last time.

Tara just disappeared,
he thought.

Len sobbed and snorted. Jason reached out
to her. She didn’t draw away from him but didn’t push into him, either. He
moved his hand to her back and rubbed, hoping Len wouldn’t choke on her own
mucus. No feelings came to him, just a lack of anger. After a few minutes, the
back rubbing felt mechanical and forced.

A knock came at the window.

Jason looked up and expected to see cops
or a concerned bystander, but instead saw Boone and Ronnie, with their wide
smiles and sharp glares. Boone waved his cell phone—the popular choice of wand
for today’s magical generation. His mouth formed words that Jason recognized
from times with Darlene: an incantation. A dome formed over the van, cutting
off the outside world. Jason gulped. Ronnie raised his cell phone and pointed
it at Jason. His door popped open and banged against the front of the van, the
mirror scraping against the hood. The door’s hinges were black.

“McKinney!” said Ronnie, punching
something else into his phone. “See you’re enjoying the job you stole from us.
We want to give you a pat on the back. Then we’re going to kill you.”

With a final click, a blue flash jetted
from the phone and slammed into Jason. His body seized and he fell out of the
van, barely managing to land on his back. The wind rushed out of him, and his
head buzzed and ached. His shoulders scraped the pavement as Ronnie and Boone
dragged him away from the van. Len was still hunched over, sobbing.

Boone glanced to Len, then back down to
Jason. “What? Tell her she’d lose her job if she didn’t blow you?” He chuckled,
then spat on Jason’s face.

Ronnie punched in another number. “Hold
on, I got a good one. Just downloaded from
iSpellz
...‘Makes
whoever’s inflicted break their own fingers then try to reattach them.’” He
sneered at Jason. “Payback in full.
Traitor.
”

Something flared inside him, licking like
a flame at the back of his head, and Jason jerked up and snatched the phone
from Ronnie’s boney fingers. Ronnie’s eyes grew wide as Jason chucked the phone
into a nearby puddle. The screen turned black as the phone sparked. Ronnie’s
mouth fell open, then screwed shut as he cocked his leg to kick Jason. But
Jason rolled away, past one of Boone’s outstretched, grasping hands. His other
hand fumbled with his cell phone. Jason stood and when Boone wheeled on him,
pointing the cell phone at him, he smacked the phone from Boone’s grasp and out
into traffic, where a semi-truck crunched it beneath half of its eighteen
wheels.

“Son of a bitch!” said Boone. “My parents
paid half a fortune for that!”

He stalked toward Jason and swung,
catching him just across the cheek. Before Jason could recover, Ronnie tackled
him to the ground. This time, Jason couldn’t save his head from smacking against
the pavement. The world seemed to flip upside-down, fireflies veiling his eyes
and thrumming in his temples. Something clawed at his face, nails scratching
down his cheeks and neck. Someone’s B.O. wafted into Jason’s nose like a cloud
of garbage on a sweltering summer day.

“MOMMY GAVE ME THAT PHONE FOR MY
BIRTHDAY!” shouted Ronnie.

Jason tried to struggle, but Boone had
pinned his legs and the fireflies were still swarming around him. And as Ronnie
clawed his way toward Jason’s eyes, Jason wondered where the police were, where
the paladins were. Didn’t anyone see them?

Of course, normies couldn’t see anything.
The dome that had risen around the van was a concealment spell. Boone and
Ronnie were going to have Jason for as long as they wanted. At this rate, he
wouldn’t need his memory erased—these two meatheads would make it so he
couldn’t recognize himself. He was tempted to lay still and take the beating,
but Jason remembered there was a crying girl in his van. If Ronnie and Boone
would attack him, who knew what they would do to Len?

Jason threw up his arms, getting in the
way of Ronnie’s claws. Ronnie balled his fists and started raining hammer
blows. He grunted with each strike, flesh smacking against flesh and bone.
Already Jason’s arms ached.

The fireflies started clearing away, and
Jason could see, albeit fuzzily. He waited until Ronnie drew back his left hand
for another strike, then shot with his right, his knuckles cracking against
Ronnie’s left cheek. Ronnie’s head snapped back and he rolled off Jason. Boone
loosened his grip on Jason’s legs and Jason kicked up, catching Boone in the
groin.

He tried to reach his feet, but Ronnie had
recovered and kicked Jason in the jaw. Something popped. Loudly. Searing pain
tore along Jason’s jawline. He screamed. But it wouldn’t make a difference;
normies couldn’t hear him. He stumbled back and slammed into the van. He felt
the icy metal through the back of his shirt. Ronnie loomed over him, cracking
his knuckles. Boone lumbered over to join him. Both of their eyes were filled
with hate. And there was something else about their eyes...

But the flute music distracted him.

As the music pierced the air, Boone and
Ronnie slowly shook their heads. They blinked, rubbed their eyes, and yawned as
if they’d just woken up from a nap. Then their eyes fell upon Jason and their
mouths dropped open. They looked around.

“Where am I?” said Ronnie.

“What was I doing?” said Boone.

“Oh my god. What’s up with him? He looks
like he was mauled by a tiger.”

The music stopped, and a familiar voice
cut the air: “You two did that.”

Len appeared around the front of the van,
holding up both her flute and cell phone. Her eyes were red and puffy, but
other than that, she looked normal. As normal as a pissed-off, gray-haired teen
girl could look.

Ronnie’s mouth dropped open, his lips
forming an o. “What?! No way!”

“Trust me, you did. And I have proof.” Len
held up her phone and clicked something. A video played on her phone’s screen,
repeating everything from the last few minutes—the screaming, the cell phone
flying out into traffic. The punching. The scratching. The sickening kick to
Jason’s head.