Between (8 page)

“Silver is prettier.”

“Hmm. Trust me on this—silver isn’t for you.”

She shrugged. The pendant was perfect, and a shiny chain would just draw attention to something she wanted to hide. Just to be sure, she tucked the pendant under her shirt.

Grandfather nodded approvingly. “There you go. Are you ready now?”

“Yes. Let’s go home,” she said.

“See if you can make the door.”

She closed her eyes and thought hard about her room at home—the bed with the blue blanket, the bookshelf with the books she was just learning to read, the stuffed penguin that slept beside her at night. She thought about school and chocolate and ice cream. She thought about her mother and how she needed to be taken care of.

“Open your eyes,” her grandfather said.

There, right in front of them, a door hung in the air. For a long minute she sat and stared at it, frightened. But Grandfather was not alarmed at all. He gave her that half smile again, but she thought he looked tired all at once.

“Well, open it, then.”

She did so.

Behind her were the big tree and the wide green field; through the door, her grandfather’s strange room with the window and the shelf where the marble box had stood.

The shelf was empty now, a dark rectangle marking the
spot in the surrounding dust. Her grandfather stood beside her, and she only now noticed that he held the box in his hands. Isobel, still in Grandfather’s room, half ran toward them. The sense of strangeness grew, Vivian on one side of this door, her mother on the other.

As hard as she tried, Isobel could not come through that opening between the Wakeworld and Dreamworld.

“Give them to me,” she said.

Grandfather’s face looked more wizard than gnome, Vivian thought. Stern, that was the word. “Go home, Isobel. I won’t let you touch them.” It was not the sort of voice one dared to disobey, but Isobel did, still trying to reach through the door, her hands bouncing back from an invisible barrier.

“Give them to me. They should be mine.” Tears tracked mascara down both cheeks.

“Put the marble in the box, please, Vivian,” Grandfather said, and she placed it carefully with the others. He smiled at her, then turned to Isobel again.

“Go home. Take the child with you. She’s created enough mischief for one day.”

Vivian opened her mouth to object, but he winked at her and nodded, and she smiled back, a little warm glow at her heart. Through the door with a skip and a jump, she tugged at Isobel’s hand. “Come on, let’s go home.”

For a brief instant hazel eyes looked at her and the penciled eyebrows rose.

“Take her home, Isobel,” Grandfather said. “Don’t bring her here again.”

One more smile for Vivian, to show that he wasn’t angry, and then he closed the door.

It vanished in the blink of an eye, and she stood beside Isobel, staring at a wall where only a moment ago there had been a door.

“Vivian!”

She startled, guilty. “What, Rox?”

“Helicopter’s landing—”

A huge breath of relief escaped her. They’d managed to keep Brett stable—he wasn’t warming up at all, but his heart was still beating, he was breathing, his urine output was adequate. In Spokane they could warm his blood on a dialysis machine, maybe figure out what it was that she was missing.

Unless what she was missing had something to do with Dreamworld and the Between, in which case there wasn’t anything the medical profession could do to make things right.

But maybe her grandfather could. First thing when she got home, she was going to track him down. The old man had some explaining to do.

T
he apartment door looked different somehow, but Vivian couldn’t think of any reason why. Same old chipped enamel paint in a dull greenish brown. The number 27 in cheap stick-on letters, with the 7 tilted at a drunken angle, caught in the act of falling over backward by badly timed adhesive. A fist-sized dent at eye level, reminder of the previous tenant’s boyfriend, who rumor said was doing time in county jail on domestic violence charges.

Behind the door waited the possibility of a hot breakfast and a comfortable chair. After a drive home through the cold night air, her plan to call her grandfather seemed less reasonable, but it was still on the agenda. In order to get to any or all of these things and the warm bed waiting when they had been done, she would have to open the door.

And she found, for the first time in her life, that she was afraid of this simple and common act.

Fear was irrational.

With quickened breath, she put her hand to the knob. It was unlocked. Every horror movie she’d ever seen flashed through her memory, and like every heroine doomed to death she talked herself out of the impulse to flee. She’d been tired and in a hurry when she left for work, had probably forgotten to lock it. How stupid would she feel if she
called the cops out to show her an empty and perfectly normal apartment? There was no evidence of breaking and entering.

She shoved open the door.

A woman sat at her kitchen table.

Tall, willowy build. Wide hazel eyes under uptilted brows, a delicate nose, a face beautiful but wrong in a way Vivian felt but couldn’t explain.

“Miss Maylor, don’t be frightened, please. We must have conversation, you and I.”

The accent was foreign, the voice pitched low, rich as dark coffee with cream. There was something familiar about the eyes. Vivian felt a slight pressure on her mind, a suggestion that she allow her thinking to be done for her. It was an offer of comfort, of ease.
Let me worry about your officer, and your mother. Be at rest.

She felt herself take a step into the room, heard something crunch beneath her foot, and looked down to see one of the dream catchers broken on the floor.

“What are you doing in my apartment? What do you want?”

“Miss Maylor, please. You have no cause to be alarmed. I come on behalf of your grandfather.”

“My grandfather?” She felt slow and stupid. Her free hand found its way to the pendant, smooth and familiar to her touch.

“I am his representative. His—attorney, if you will. And you are his executrix. So, as you see, we have much in common, and much to discuss.”

“I don’t understand.” The bottom dropped out of her stomach, leaving a dizzying emptiness. Her vision warped and tunneled, everything fuzzy and out of focus except for the woman who sat at her kitchen table. The woman herself was extraordinarily vivid, as if she were the only three-dimensional thing in the room. Her delicate eyebrows rose in a question mark.

“I’m sorry, did nobody tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Your grandfather met his end early this morning. I see this is a shock to you. Come, sit. Surely you have many questions.”

“He’s dead? When? How?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have the details. Perhaps you can speak with the coroner later.”

Vivian’s mouth felt like the Sahara. She was dimly aware of closing the door behind her, stumbling across the room to the table. “Why? Why me, I mean?”

“Your mother is not fit. There is no one else.”

Vivian’s head cleared. She was sitting at her kitchen table across from a strange woman who had entered her apartment without permission. A woman who was telling her that her grandfather had died, now, just when she needed him to be there. She reached into her pocket and clutched the cell phone. It would take only a moment to dial 911.

“What are you doing in my apartment?”

“I apologize for that. It is cold outside—I asked your landlord to unlock for me.”

“And she did it, just like that.”

“Of course, once I explained who I am, and why I am here. She said to tell you she is very sorry for your loss.”

Vivian rubbed at the kink in her neck. “Why exactly are you here, Ms.—?”

“Call me Jehenna.”

“Jehenna, then. It’s not exactly the usual practice for an attorney to personally break the news.”

The woman reached into a shapeless leather bag, her eyes never leaving Vivian’s, and drew out a set of papers, which she laid on the table between them. “You will find here your grandfather’s will. You inherit everything. His home, his possessions.”

Vivian set the phone on the table and scanned the document. It seemed authentic. The language was right—difficult, obscure legalese; all of the signatures were there, including George Maylor, her grandfather, and a scrawl that might say
Jehenna
if you looked at it with your eyes crossed. But this was uncharted territory and she was definitely not
thinking clearly. She needed Jared. “I’d like to call someone—”

“Why would you do this?”

“He’s an attorney. I’d like to have his advice—”

“What is his name? Perhaps we have met.”

“Jared Michaelson. He’s with Baskin and Clarke—”

Jehenna waved a dismissive white hand. “I am sure he is occupied now with other things. You have plenty of time to contact him. He can probate the will, if you wish. I am here only to explain some things and to bring to you some bequests.”

Jehenna reached again into the bag and pulled out an envelope, laying it on the table on top of the will. It had been sealed and then neatly sliced open. Vivian’s name was written in a spiky black hand.

“You’ve opened it,” Vivian said, taking the envelope and drawing out a single sheet of loose-leaf paper.

“It was left with Mr. Smoot with instructions for him to get it to you at once should Mr. Maylor pass on. Mr. Smoot thought it best he should understand any bequests so he can offer you his best assistance.”

The note was written in the same bold, black hand as her name on the envelope:

Vivian reread this missive twice, then folded it and put it back inside the envelope.

“He says his attorney is Mr. Smoot.”

“Mr. Smoot was unavailable,” the smooth voice answered. “Your grandfather’s death was sudden. Mr. Smoot believed it would be best for you to know at once.”

“He might have called.”

“He felt a face to face would be more productive and has scheduled you in for Tuesday next, if you will be available then? In the meantime we had promised to deliver the bequests immediately upon Mr. Maylor’s death.”

“I really think I’d rather wait and talk with Mr. Smoot.”

“Ms. Maylor, you are being stubborn. Mr. Maylor was getting old—he had a hard time accepting that times change. When he was young, Mr. Smoot would have been available to personally deal with all of his needs. Now Mr. Smoot himself is aging. He also runs a busy and successful law firm. He must use his staff, or he cannot get his work done. Mr. Maylor did not understand this, but I’m sure that you will.”

The wide eyes were serene and steady, but Vivian felt a growing unease. Memory ghosts swept her mind with cobwebby fingers. She had seen this face before, feared it, somewhere, in Wakeworld or Dreamworld.

Jehenna set a package on the table. It was wrapped neatly and precisely in brown paper, corners creased and symmetrical and secured with clear packing tape. Vivian’s name was written in the same black hand as the envelope and the letter.

Time slowed as she put her hands to the paper—smooth beneath her fingers, except for the places where it had once been folded; here there were little ridges, the edges of the tape snagging on the skin of her fingertips. When she tore the paper away, everything in her world came to a sharp focus.

This moment.

This act.

In the middle of the torn paper sat a wooden box with
dragons carved into the top, dark with age. A box big enough for secrets, small enough to carry with you. A box she had seen once before.