The Last Dream Keeper (22 page)

*   *   *

The moment she stepped foot into the house, Dev knew that things were very,
very
different. For one thing, the interior of the house was darker than she'd ever seen it—and she realized that there was not just one reality contained inside the Victorian, but many. Electric lights were laid over gas lamps, furniture was in one place, yet if you blinked, it would magically reappear in another spot. The rooms shimmered as different varieties of wallpaper fought for supremacy on the walls, as carpets changed color and patterns when you blinked—and the most surreal part of it all . . . the ghostly images of every Montrose woman who had ever lived in the house were there, lounging around the rooms.

They stared at Dev and her mother and sisters but did not speak. They did not appear to notice Thomas's existence, which Dev appreciated. She was starting to really resent his presence among her family.

“This is amazing,” Delilah said, reaching out and trying to
touch one of the living room walls. As soon her fingers made contact, the wall stopped shimmering and the wallpaper from their reality appeared. When she pulled her hand away, the oscillations between the different realities/times began again.

“I guess whatever belongs in our time will stay fixed in place as long as we're in contact with it,” Darrah said, and she plopped down on the settee, putting her feet up on the old horsehair ottoman, pinning both pieces of furniture into permanency with her touch.

“Where are Eleanora and Hessika?” Dev asked, searching the room for the two Dream Walkers.

“They're different than the others,” Thomas said, shrugging. “We can't see them in this dimension.”

Dev frowned.

“Then why did we name them in our spell?” she asked.

Melisande came to stand behind Thomas, her hand instinctively finding his.

“We want them bound to the house, sweetheart. It's the only way we can assure ourselves of their cooperation.”

Dev hoped she'd misunderstood.

“They're here to help us, Mom,” she said. “We don't need to coerce them or bind them to us.”

Melisande brushed Dev's worries aside.

“That's not what I meant,” she said. “It's to help us keep everyone safe. That's all.”

Dev felt bristly after that, but she didn't want to fight with her mom. They needed to stick together in these dark times. It was imperative that they presented a united front in the face of something as powerful as The Flood—because whatever it sought to do on Earth would not be for the betterment of mankind.

“Maybe we should eat now,” Melisande said.

Her mother was right. They'd all been up for hours and none of them had eaten a thing.

“We'll all feel better if we do that,” Thomas agreed, looking at Dev.

Dev nodded.

“I guess that's my cue to go ladle out the soup,” she said, trying to mask her unhappiness underneath a chipper tone.

“I'll help you,” Delilah said, and she followed Dev into the kitchen, where someone, possibly Melisande, had already retrieved a stack of bowls and laid them on the counter.

Dev realized that though the kitchen lights changed back and forth as they shuffled through the different realities, the kitchen itself remained very much the same in each time. Apparently, this room had not often been changed. Only the copper rack hanging from the ceiling above the center of the room appeared and disappeared. But that wasn't so strange, seeing that it was something she and Freddy had added to the space a few years earlier.

“He's a weird guy,” Delilah whispered as soon as they were out of earshot. “I know you feel the same way. I can totally see it on your face. You're not buying his schtick, either.”

Dev let out a long sigh—she didn't even know she'd been holding her breath. It was a relief that she wasn't alone in her thoughts. That Delilah felt the same way she did about her mother's friend.

“There's something odd about him,” Delilah continued. “Do you think we should say something to Mom?”

“Ha,” Dev said, and snorted. “She's so in love that she can't see reality at the moment. I don't think either of us saying anything disparaging about him is gonna help our cause.”

Dev reached for the lid of the stockpot but paused when she saw that it was a little askew. She turned to Delilah.

“Did you take the top off this pot? To stir it or something?”

Delilah shook her head.

“Do I look like I'd take the top off that thing and stir it?”

Dev had to laugh. Cooking was definitely not Delilah's forte.

“It was probably Mom,” Delilah added. “She's gotta be in charge of everything. As usual.”

Dev laughed. It was so true. The Montrose women came by their bossiness honestly.

“You speak the truth,” Dev said, and she removed the lid and placed it on the counter. She opened the drawer next to the sink and plucked a copper ladle from inside, dishing up the soup as Delilah held out the ceramic bowls to be filled.

“It's nice having us all together under one roof,” Delilah said, reaching for another bowl.

“Never thought I'd hear such a sentimental sentence come out of your mouth.”

Delilah laughed and set the second bowl down on the counter.

“I've always been in the Montrose shadow, Devandra,” she said, and Dev knew her younger sister was speaking seriously now. “I had to get as far away as I could so I wouldn't get lost.”

There was a sad truth behind the statement.

“I didn't know that.”

Delilah shrugged, as if to say:
How could you?

“And I probably wouldn't have told you back then, anyway,” she replied, shrugging. “Even if you
had
asked.”

It's funny how strange times bring out the confidences we should've shared long ago,
Dev thought, and put the ladle down. She pushed away from the stove and took her younger sister's wrists, pulling her in close.

“I'm sorry I wasn't there for you more when we were kids,” she began, but Delilah shook her head.

“Please, don't,” she said, and sighed. “That's not why I said it. For you to pity me. I've made my peace with it and that's that. It's fine.”

Dev bit her lip and nodded.

“Okay, yeah. I get it. I'm just . . . glad that you're telling me now. I love you and I don't want us to be so removed from each other anymore.”

Delilah smiled.

“I appreciate that. Which is why I wanted to talk to you about something . . .”

She paused.

“Anything.”

“I . . .” Delilah's eyes slid to the side—a holdover from when she was a little girl and was too shy to ask for something she really wanted. “I want to come home. Back here with you. I know you'd need to talk to Freddy and—”

“Yes,” Dev squealed, interrupting her. “That would be wonderful. I would love it. Freddy would love it. The girls would be beside themselves.”

Delilah shook her head, surprise written across her face.

“Really?” she said, eyes narrowing in disbelief. “You're serious.”

Dev threw up her hands.

“Of course, I'm serious. It's a done deal. Whatever, whenever you want or need—you're part of the family.”

“Okay,” her sister said, still looking a little shocked. “If you're sure . . . ?”

“One hundred percent,” Dev replied. “We'd love to have you. You can stay in the guest room downstairs. It's perfect.”

With that settled, Dev grabbed Delilah in a bear hug and squeezed her tight.

“I'm so excited,” she whispered in her sister's ear.

“Me, too,” Delilah replied, returning Dev's enthusiasm.

She released her sister from the embrace, having to stop herself from reaching out and stroking Delilah's head as if she were one of her daughters. Delilah, shying away from being mothered by her eldest sister, ducked out of further reach and backstepped over to the round oak table with the yellow damask tablecloth. The tablecloth was another item, along with the copper pot rack and the small appliances on the counter, that kept flickering in and out of existence as it fought for supremacy with a red gingham one and cornflower blue one.

“Shall I set the table, then?” Delilah asked, already reaching
toward what used to be the cutlery drawer when this was their mother's kitchen. Dev shook her head.

“Two drawers over and, yes, please.”

The sisters worked in harmony, the room shifting in and out of time like a carnival house of mirrors. While Dev ladled the last of the soup into the bowls, Delilah brought them to the table, where she'd already laid out soup spoons and napkins—and both sisters tried to ignore the pinwheel effect of color and patterns going on around them.

“I'll go get them,” Delilah said, leaving Dev alone in the kitchen.

As soon as Delilah was gone, Dev's stomach began to rumble. She really hadn't eaten anything all day and she was starving. She picked up the ladle and swallowed a huge mouthful, not caring if she burned her tongue. The soup tasted sweeter than she'd expected, but it was still delicious.
Or maybe that's just my hunger talking,
she thought.

Behind her, Dev could hear the others enter the room and take their places at the table, or, at least, it sounded like that was what was happening. She could've sworn she heard the scraping of chair legs as seats were pushed back from table . . . but when she turned around, there was no one in the room with her.

That's not right,
she thought, frowning.
I know I heard something.

But there was only an empty table staring back at her, its tablecloth shifting from gingham to yellow to blue so quickly that it was hard for her to focus on it. The whirling of the different fabrics abruptly sped up, and as much as she wanted to drag her eyes away from the frenzied cotillion of colors, she could not.

Stop it,
she thought.
Stop it.

She fought whatever force was trying to hijack her brain. Screamed at her body to do as she wished, her world spinning out of control—and with the greatest of effort, she was finally able to drag her eyelids shut.

The darkness she found there was calming after such a riot of color. She relaxed, wanting to stay in this placid place for as long as she could.

Something's wrong,
she thought.
You know it. You just have to open your eyes to see what it is.

The part of her that always did the right thing was trying to make her leave the darkness, but the rest of her was dead set against it.

The girls are coming,
she thought.
Open your goddamned eyes!

The image of Marji and Ginny walking into something bad, something she could've prevented, drove her to listen to the still-rational part of her brain. She opened her eyes:

Everyone was sitting around the kitchen table . . . Eleanora, Hessika, Melisande, Darrah, and Delilah. They were eating her soup and talking together—and not one of them had even looked up to acknowledge her presence.

“Hello?” she said, a little peeved that they were acting like she wasn't even there.

They kept their own company, and it appeared that Dev was not going to be included in the conversation.

“Excuse me? What gives here? Am I invisible—” She stopped talking as she noticed for the first time that there was an empty seat between her sisters. “Oh, is that for me?”

At this, the conversation stopped and they turned as one, finally looking in her direction. Dev screamed when she saw that none of them had eyeballs . . . just gaping black holes where their eyes should've been. She took a step back, wishing she could erase the horror she had seen, and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, the scene had shifted:

Melisande, Darrah, and Delilah were facedown on the table. The bowls of soup Dev had made were mostly untouched, but it appeared that they'd consumed a few spoonfuls each. Dev began to inch toward the table, holding her breath. When she reached Darrah's chair, she placed her hand on her sister's shoulder and Darrah's head lolled to the side, revealing a blacked tongue protruding from shriveled lips.

Dead.

“No . . .” Dev moaned, clutching her hand to her mouth.

She couldn't believe what she was seeing, didn't want to believe it.

“Mommy?”

She whirled around at the sound of Ginny's voice—but the doorway leading into the kitchen was empty.

“Ginny?” she called out.

“Mama!” Now it was Marji calling out for her.

She spun around, searching for her daughters, but there was only an empty room.

“Devandra, come with us.”

She stopped spinning to discover that the scene had changed one more time:

Now Hessika and Eleanora had joined her mother and sisters again, but they were all wearing long black dresses and pointed black hats. Each woman carried a homemade broom in her right hand.

“You look like witches,” Dev blurted out before she could help herself.

“We
are
witches,” Eleanora said. “We're going to ride our brooms to the other side.”

Dev nodded as if she understood what this meant.

“Can I come?” she asked, itching to hold her own broom.

Eleanora shook her head.

“You didn't take enough to join us . . .” She looked at something behind Dev and smiled sadly. “. . . and now Freddy's here to get you.”

Dev felt a pair of strong arms encircle her waist and she was being pulled backward, away from the women.

“No!” she cried, not wanting to be parted from them as they hopped onto their broomsticks and were lifted up into the air.