Dream Boy (20 page)

Billy turned off the highway and we wound our way through The Town that Time Forgot. The houses looked worn, dusted with coal from the passing trains. My mom would call it “jerry-rigged,” as if everything had been originally intended for something else. The only places still in business were the Dollar General, which looked like it had once been a bank, and the feed store, which looked like it had been a feed store since the days of Billy the Kid. Talon gave directions: Main Street, past the furniture factory—boarded up now—left on the river road.

The streets were bumpy and dark except for the fluorescent glow from a lone convenience store.

“Pull over. We need caffeine,” Paolo said. He slid out of the front seat and returned with four cups of coffee, a few cans of a soda-like substance meant for truck drivers and college students, and a bag of chips, which, last time I checked, did not contain an energy-imbuing substance.

“Take your pick,” he said.

Will, Macy, and I went for the coffee, which, unlike the Trucker’s Delight, contained ingredients I recognized. Talon went for the Trucker’s Delight, of course, and pulled out her cell.

“Anything from Serena?” Paolo asked, quickly, like he’d been downing Trucker’s Delight himself.

“Nothing.”

I checked my phone, too.
New
Message
. The accompanying beep must’ve gotten lost in Billy’s chainsaw symphony.

“YES!” I said. “It’s from Serena. She wrote one hundred seventeen. And then a bunch of question marks.”

“Is that latitude or longitude?” Macy asked.

We all looked at Will. “Don’t ask me,” he said.

“Do we finally have a question you can’t answer?” Talon asked him.

“My people don’t camp,” he said.

“Mine do,” Billy said, turning down the music. “It’s her campsite number, Brainiac.”

“She’s in a cabin,” Talon said.

“Then it’s her cabin number. Whatever. Let’s roll.” He pushed the car into hyperdrive. My coffee was still warm when we arrived at the check-in station.

Billy parked and walked straight to the building, which was deserted. He looked in the window, then stared at the map that was posted outside, tracing a route with his finger.

“This way,” he said, and we followed. The first turnoff was full of RVs. The one closest to us had a sign that said “The Andersons” hanging next to a geranium that had probably visited fifteen states before it died in the Blue Ridge of Virginia. A clothesline hung from the trees, the laundry flapping like ghosts. We stayed on the main path; pant legs whipped in the wind behind us.

We passed another loop, this one with tents. I could hear the strains of guitar, the static from a radio. Billy took the left loop toward the camping cabins.

The cold pierced through my dress and I hunched my shoulders.

“Yeah,” Talon said. “I remember this place.”

“Ditto.” I started thinking about the ghosts of those tiny gray mice and that incomprehensible tree.

Cabin 106.

Cabin 107.

A campfire burned outside 109.

I started to run, Will behind me, Talon behind him, slowed down by Spice and her own ridiculous shoes.

Cabin 115.

In the darkness ahead, I could see a figure sitting on the porch of what must have been 117.

We thundered toward it and stopped, cold, when the figure stood.

“What the hell is going on?”

I don’t know which was more shocking: the fact that the figure rising like the moon from an ancient rocking chair was Serena, or the fact that Serena, who never cursed, had yelled
hell
.

Her eyes widened as she took us all in.

We must have looked like the kind of stuff you find in the scratch-and-dent sale bin a few weeks after Easter. Me in my flouncy dress, Daniel with his wilted boutonniere. Gangly Will, his tie in a loose knot mid-chest. Talon and Macy, the Virginia clay clinging to their pointy-toed shoes.

And the mere presence of Billy.

“Not to be rude or anything, but what are you guys
doing
here?” Serena said. And then she must have realized who wasn’t here, along with who was. “Where’s Martin?”

“Where are your parents?” I countered. I thought I’d better check before I started talking.

“They’re still at the bluegrass jam,” Serena said. “Now what’s going on?”

“While you guys catch up, can we come in?” Talon asked. “It’s cold as a witch’s tit out here.”

Serena opened the door, and our version of the Dance Hall Mafia filed inside.

My voice dropped to a whisper—it didn’t feel right to say this stuff out loud—and I told Serena everything. Or at least the SparkNotes version of everything.

The more I talked, the more she stared at me, nodding at the appropriate moments and saying “Right.” But her eyes said that I’d flown completely off my nut.

“That’s…interesting,” she said once my verbal diarrhea finally let up.

“You don’t believe me?”

She picked at one of her cuticles. “Well, it’s a lot to believe, isn’t it?”

For a second I’d forgotten about all the others in the room. Macy was sitting beside Daniel on Serena’s bunk, and Billy was pacing the far end of the cabin like a caged bear. Serena’s eyes locked for a minute with Paolo’s and then fell away.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” said Will, who was standing with Talon behind me. “You just need to think about—”

“Shit! What are we even still doing here?” Billy barked. He strode over to where Talon was standing and glared at her. “You said you saw Stephanie. So where is she? Where’s Zirkle? People don’t just disappear!”

“Back off,” Will said, putting himself between Billy and Talon.

Billy half growled and returned to his pacing.

“So this is happening,” Serena said.

“Wait, you don’t believe me but you believe BILLY?” I said. “It’s real. Remember that tree with the bottles? We need to get her there, the little nightmare girl. In my dream, she was in that clearing, where we buried the mice. She was sitting in the middle, sewing a little doll and then she—”

“The girl was sewing a doll?” Serena interrupted.

“Yeah, an old rag doll,” I said.

She walked over to the built-in box under the window, reached inside and pulled out a small, stained rag doll with tight red stitches at its neck. It had the same limp yarn hair, the same broken button eyes. Only now the doll was wearing a ragged pink dress. At first the gauzy fabric seemed to be embellished with red sequins, but when I looked closer I saw they were flecks of dried blood.

“Where did you get that?”

“It was on my cot when we got here,” she said. “I couldn’t stand looking at it so I put it in the trunk.”

Talon took the doll from Serena. It was no bigger than her palm. She squeezed it. “Freaky,” she said.

“She knew I’d come here.” My voice started rising to an octave that I’m pretty sure could only be heard by dogs. “She left it here—”

“It’s okay,” Will said.

“How do you know?” I snapped.

“I’m going to make it okay.” He took the doll from Talon and shoved it in his pocket. “It’s nothing,” he said.

Will never lied to me. I searched his eyes.

“It’s nothing,” he said again.

“We should look around,” Billy said. “There could be something else, maybe. Something from Stephanie. A clue.”

“Right-o, Sherlock,” Talon piped in a fake British accent. “You and Watson drag the lake, Miss Marple and I will head up to the haunted castle.”

“Seriously,” Billy said. “Bite me.”

“He’s right,” Macy said. “Maybe there’s something we’re missing.”

She stood and shrugged, then glanced around the corners of the cabin. There wasn’t much to see. Bare walls, a few bunks, the Mendezes’ bags, two windows, empty windowsills.

Billy walked over to the box where the doll had been and wrenched it open. He pulled out a wadded-up blanket and a rumpled plastic grocery bag. He dug his big hand inside the bag, then grinned. “Jackpot!”

“You found something?” Will asked.

Billy nodded and pulled out a six-pack, the cardboard carrier splotched with mold. “Sealed,” he said. “They’re safe.” He grabbed a bottle and set the carton with the rest in the middle of the room. “Any takers?”

“It’s not a good idea,” Macy said. “For any of us. We need to stay sharp.”

“I’m sharper when I drink.” Billy rested the bottle against the edge of the bed, then came down hard on it with his right hand. The top rattled on the ground. “A little skunky, but what the hell.”

He took a gulp, then picked up a second bottle and threw it to Daniel. The remaining four beers, he jammed into his coat pockets, two on each side.

“So, you guys ready? We should head out,” I said to everyone, and then turned to Talon and Serena. “Remember the way?”

Serena nodded. “I can find it again.”

Will bristled beside me. He put his hand on my back and tapped out “N-O-T-Y-E-T.”

Aloud, he said, “Annabelle, could I talk to you, alone?” as he opened the door. “I’ll be quick.”

“Stay close,” Serena called. “Keep one hand on the cabin.”

Will pointed. “We’ll be right by that tree. Five minutes. I swear.” He walked and I followed, the air sharp on my bare arms.

“What the hell are you thinking? Running after a sociopath in the middle of the night? It’s crazy. You don’t have to do it.” He stopped short. “I can’t lose you.”

“What choice do I have? And besides—”

“You don’t get it.” His voice seemed to have grown moss. “I
can’t lose you
.”

We were silent for a second, looking at one another across the darkness. Unexpectedly, the lines of his face were easier to read in the dim light, like the chiaroscuro paintings Ms. Sage had shown us in class. She’d said the dark helps us notice the light, and it’s true. In the brim of night, the slight uneven cast of Will’s cheekbones blurred into shadow, while his eyes almost gleamed.

“It’s like that for me, too,” I finally said.

“I doubt it.” His voice was so quiet that I felt his words more than heard them.

“What do you mean? Of course it is.”

“I mean—” But he never finished. Instead he leaned down and pressed his lips, his breath, against mine. The shock of it filled my lungs. This was Will.
My
Will. Kissing me.

But when he wrapped his arms around me, I couldn’t help it; I leaned against him, kissing him back. At first it was like drawing nectar from honeysuckle, light and unbelievably sweet. I felt a trill of warmth, the green of willow, even though as we shifted, I could hear the crunch of dead leaves below our feet. He pressed deeper, with more insistence, and I pressed back. Something clicked inside me, a key opening a door.

I pulled away, struggling to calm my breath, to find my voice, but all I found was a whisper. “My God, Will. You like me?”

He shook his head.

“You don’t?” It didn’t make sense. Not after a kiss like that.

He shook his head again.

And then it hit. My throat was full of dust. “You—?”

I couldn’t say the word out loud, but he knew what I was thinking.

He nodded, and lowered his lips again to mine.

All the comfort that Will had ever given me was in his kiss, but there was this new thing, too, unfathomable, undeniable, true. There, as if it had always been. I loved him back.

I loved him as if—I don’t know how else to explain it—as if he
were
me. Like in my mom’s romance novels, which had always seemed totally bogus before. It was bone-deep, soul-deep. But this was
Will
, not some bare-chested stud in cowboy boots. Best. Friend.
Slow
down
, I told myself.
Breathe.

I pulled my face away, but his arms still encircled me. “So, that was…” I trailed off, looking into his chest, feeling something I never felt with Will—shy.

“What?” he asked, his voice as soft as his lips. “What was it?”

“I don’t know,” I said, which was of course a lie.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and this time it was the truth. “What about you?”

He nodded, and grinned his crooked grin.

I cleared my throat. “It’s just a little…”

“…weird.” He finished for me.

“Seriously weird,” I said. “How…? When did this…?” I knew I wasn’t making sense, but I also knew he’d understand.

He shrugged. “When
didn’t
it?” he said. “I’m sorry, Annabelle. I know this probably isn’t the time. I just couldn’t keep acting like it wasn’t there.”

All those times, in the darkroom, in the car, at my cousin’s wedding even, there had been something running between us, a pulse. I had pretended not to feel it. I didn’t know how to act, now that I’d stopped pretending.

“So, what happens—?”

But he was kissing me again, shutting off the question I was bound to ask. He didn’t care what came next, he wanted now, and I couldn’t blame him. With the nightmare out there, now might be all we could have.

I shut my eyes this time, giving in to the space inside me that had always loved Will. But what I saw when I closed my eyes was not darkness, but light. The same pale light I’d seen in Billy’s car when I’d slipped away for that moment. The white space.

“Martin?” I thought, and Will’s kiss felt muted, distant, like I was truly a million miles away, at some border between dreams.

Martin
is
there
in
the
whiteness, standing in his dark suit, the boutonniere I’d given him still crisp on his lapel.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says.

“Neither should you,” I say. “Where are we?”

“I’m in the locker room at school. My body, anyway. She got us. Me and Steph, both. She put us under.”

I
imagine
their
bodies, long and beautiful, lying side by side on the cold floor.

“We’ll go back,” I say. “We’ll wake you up.”

“You have to finish her first. Before she gets you, too. Go to the tree.” His voice is firm. “You have to—”

An
earsplitting
screech
blocks
his
words.

I
focus
on
Martin’s lips, trying to read in them what I can’t hear. I remember learning once that on TV, the extras mouth the words “peas and carrots” in the background to look like they are talking when they aren’t. That’s all I am getting from Martin. Peas and carrots. The screeching intensifies. Martin’s expression is eager, desperate—and gorgeous, even more gorgeous than before he disappeared. Inside the space that is not space, Martin is luminous. The Prince of Nowhere.

Dream
Martin
takes
me
by
the
shoulders, but instead of drawing me to him, he shoves me away.

I
feel
myself
stumbling
backward. Tumbling, tumbling down and down, I hear the screeching fall away and what sounds like Ernshaw’s voice, distant, as if it were coming from a tunnel, “matter over mind, matter over mind…”

Then I hit land again. My eyes jolted open. Awake.

• • •

Will wasn’t kissing me anymore; he was staring at me.

“You left,” he said, his voice accusing.

“We have to go,” I said.

I looked down at my hand—my hand in Will’s hand—and then up into his eyes. There was something there, not fear, not resignation…but something hard. Determined.

“Will, I want you to know…” But I couldn’t finish. Instead I stood on my toes and kissed him quickly on the lips.

The leaves rustled. Will tightened his grip on my hand. Together, we turned to face the night.