Dreamfire (15 page)

“
I
do. You care about people too much not to go back in.”

Mystified, Will said, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to with why we walk nightmares in the first place. You'll see another kid getting attacked by another Meepa, and you'll think about how scared he is, and you won't be able to stop yourself from running in to help, just like the first time.”

Will stared at her, hardly able to believe what she'd said. Despite all the times it had seemed like she was barely aware of his presence, she had known something about him that he hadn't known about himself. Something good, even.

A little thrill ran through him at the knowledge that she thought about him.

“Maybe you're right,” he said.

 

Eleven

Dear Diary (I'm trying to give that opening another try),

I keep thinking of how scared I was when Will was fading away. My voice was shaking so bad I'm surprised he could hear what I was saying. Then afterward, I could barely keep it together. I just wanted to hug him and tell him how glad I was that he'd made it out.

This is exactly what I was afraid would happen—I'd start caring about him and thinking of him as a friend, and then I'd get him killed. Why didn't I think to warn him about dreamfire? Would that even have helped? Once someone gets caught in it, they don't usually get out.

And he trusts me! He proved it today. That can only put him in worse danger. If he trusts me and I care about him enough that I can't think straight when he's in trouble, it's just a matter of time until something terrible happens.

Maybe I could explain all of this to him somehow. Maybe he'd understand that knowing he's my responsibility freaks me out so much that I can't keep him safe. He gets the psychological stuff so much better than I do. He's read all these books, and he throws around terms like “passive-aggressive” and “defense mechanism” like everyone knows them. But I'd have to tell him about Ian then, and I just can't do that. It's stupid. I know he shouldn't trust me, that I should warn him away from putting his faith in me.

But some part of me really likes that he does.

*   *   *

“Relax your shoulder,” Josh said.

Will lowered his gun and used one hand to lift a pair of protective earmuffs from his ear. “What?” he asked.

“I said to relax your shoulder. Think of the gun as an extension of your arm, not as a deadly weapon you use to kill people.”

“That's a big help.”

Josh shrugged and leaned against the wall of their stall in the shooting range. She smiled to see him struggling with the handgun. He was in good shape—he could run forever—but he got nervous around guns.

He fired three rounds and then stopped to examine the paper figure in the distance. “That third shot grazed the left arm,” Josh told him.

“Yeah, I'm sure a flesh wound will stop the Creature from the Black Lagoon from tearing me to pieces.”

“If he's a lefty, it might.”

Will smiled, but Josh could see him getting frustrated. “Come on,” she said. “Let's go find Deloise and call it a day.”

Three stalls over, Deloise had just blown the letter
D
into the cardboard target's chest.

“Hey,” she said, gathering up her shells. “Am I good, or am I good?”

Will gazed wistfully at her mangled target. “We're lucky you aren't an assassin.”

Deloise winked. “No one suspects us blondes.”

Will was still living in the county home and would have to stay there until Lauren and Kerstel were approved as temporary guardians. That was supposed to happen very soon, but Josh was still reluctant to drop Will off at the county home. Over the last few weeks, making conversation with him had gotten easier every day: less tense, less terse, more familiar. Josh had been surprised to realize that she actually
liked
Will, and often after training she found herself thinking,
We didn't get any time to just hang out.

Well, she was meant to be his teacher, not his friend. And it was just as well that they didn't become too close.…

“Don't worry about the shooting,” she told Will as she put the car in park just outside the county home's front doors. “It's not an essential skill.”

He shrugged. He was a guy; he didn't like thinking he was a naturally lousy shot. “Maybe I can learn how to throw a tomahawk instead,” he suggested as he opened the door.

Josh watched him walk into the hospital-like building as Deloise climbed from the backseat to the front. “You think he's all right in there?” Josh asked. “I don't even know what happened to his parents, why he's living there.”

“You could ask him,” Deloise suggested practically.

“If I ask him questions, then he gets to ask me questions.”

“You still haven't told him about Ian?” Deloise asked with a sigh.

“I don't know what to tell him. What would I say? That the house fire was my fault? That someone is
dead
because of me?”

By the time she stopped speaking, Josh's chest hurt. Ian's memory muscle seized up.

“You did what you could for Ian,” Deloise told her.

“And it wasn't good enough. What does
that
say about the girl teaching Will?”

“Nobody blames you for what happened.”

Josh didn't argue, just rubbed the cramp in her chest with one hand; but inside she thought,
Pretending doesn't change the past.

“Winsor blames me.”

“Winsor's dealing in her own way. Plus, these postcards from Whim are driving her nuts. He's always saying he's coming home and then not showing, and she was so close to him.…”

Josh turned onto the highway and said thoughtfully, “Closer to him than you are?”

“Of course. They're siblings. Whim and I are just friends.”

And Josh could have said something about that, but she didn't.

They arrived home to the usual predinner bustle. Kerstel called Josh over to the stove, where a wok full of peppers sizzled. “How's my soon-to-be son? I missed seeing him today. Oh, and there's mail for you.”

“He's fine. Can't shoot the broad side of a barn, but otherwise fine.”

“The lawyer called,” Kerstel said. “Unofficial word is that Lauren and I are approved. We'll probably hear for sure tomorrow, which means we can move Will in on Saturday.”

“Oh,” Josh said, startled. “That happened fast.”

“Your grandfather pulled some strings.”

“In the real government? I thought he could only pull strings in the dream-walker government.”

“Apparently he knows someone in Family Services.”

Does he have his finger in every pie in town?
Josh wondered as she retrieved her card from the mail basket on the counter. Frowning, she ripped open the envelope and pulled the card free. The front cover showed a baby chicken saying, “I know I missed your birthday, but I made you a cake anyway.…” Inside, it read, “One for each day late,” and showed the chick lying on its back, surrounded by dozens of half-eaten cakes.

“Who's it from?” Kerstel asked.

Someone had taken a red pen and drawn guts exploding from the chick's torso, as if its stomach had ruptured violently. “This could only have come from Whim. It says, ‘Dear Josh, Hey! I hope you and Del and Winny are doing well. I'm sorry I couldn't make it back for your birthday, but I'm sure you had a great time and your scroll gave you winning lottery numbers.'”

Josh choked on the next word and fell silent.

Haley and I are heading back in your direction. I know I've written to Winsor a couple different times that I'm on my way home, but this time I mean it. Not sure about the date, so expect us any time. Happy birthday!

Love and peanut brittle,

Whim

“That sounds like Whim,” Kerstel agreed, unaware that she hadn't heard the entire message.

“Yeah.”
What is he doing with Haley?
“He just wrote to say happy birthday.”

Josh looked again at the exploding chick and felt a strange kinship. The discomfort she had lived with ever since Will came into her life closely resembled having eaten too much cake. She closed the card and put it back in the envelope, and moments later, she was in the Avishes' apartment, knocking on Winsor's bedroom door.

“Come in!” Winsor called.

Josh entered and found Winsor in her connected bathroom, removing a squishy pair of shoes. “Kiddie-pool nightmare,” she explained.

“You have carrot shavings in your hair,” Josh pointed out as she shut the bedroom door.

“Oh.” Winsor peered at herself in the mirror. “There was also a Dumpster involved.”

Josh sat down on the padded bench at the foot of the bed. The room was crowded with a bedroom set from the early 1900s, complete with a four-poster bed, a rolltop desk, and a wardrobe large enough to fit two grown men inside. Heavy red drapes had been pulled back around the bed and window.

“I got a card from Whim today.”

Winsor glanced at the floor near Josh's feet, momentarily caught off guard. “Really,” she said, and turned back to the wardrobe.

“Yeah. Did you know that he and Haley are traveling together?”

“He might have mentioned it at some point.”

Josh waited while Winsor kicked off her garbage-soaked pants and stepped into a pair of white cotton shorts. As usual, she looked effortlessly sophisticated.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Josh asked. She didn't mean it to come out as an accusation, but it did.

“Why would I?” Winsor said, her tone growing sharp and narrow.

“Because they're my friends.”

“Which is exactly why it's
your
job to keep up with them.” Winsor gathered up her dirty clothes and chucked them into the bottom of the wardrobe.

“But you're the only one they write to.”

Winsor shrugged.

Frustrated, Josh said, “I don't understand why you're being so…”

Winsor leaned both hands atop the dresser. Looking at Josh in the mirror, she said, “So
what,
Josh?”

Josh felt the knife in Winsor's voice as if the tip were just poking into the skin above her breastbone. “Nothing,” she said, but she was angry and she knew her voice revealed it. “I just don't know when you're going to be finished punishing me.”

Winsor shifted her eyes to her own reflection and began putting on a pair of gold earrings.

“I know you're still mad at me about Ian—” Josh said, trying one more time.

“
Still
mad about Ian?” Winsor demanded. Her eyes flew back to Josh. “Is Ian
still
dead, Josh?”

Josh shrank back on the bench, her anger turned to devastating shame. “I didn't mean it like that.” She couldn't look at her friend. No matter what Winsor had done to Josh, she wasn't responsible for a death, and Josh was.

“Whatever you say,” Winsor snapped. She picked up a brush and began whipping it through her hair.

Winsor's knife had torn into that sore spot in her chest where Ian's memory resided. Josh felt a droplet of something wet run between her breasts and assumed it was blood before realizing she was sweating.

“Sorry,” she said in a half whisper. “I shouldn't have said anything.”

“Probably not,” Winsor agreed.

Josh got up from the bed and walked out of the room, trying to make her footsteps soundless, closing the door as softly as she could. But she couldn't help pressing one hand over the wound in her chest as she walked away.

Through a Veil Darkly

More bad news. The total number of people who have gone into comas while they're sleeping is up to seven. Some of them have heart arrhythmias, too. Now the Centers for Disease Control is investigating. A source says that the CDC can't decide whether or not what's happening is a communicable disease, because it's regional, but the victims don't know each other and have nothing in common.

Basically, everybody is at risk.

 

Twelve

Josh picked Will
up from the county home for the last time that Saturday. After a leisurely lunch at the Grape & Leaf, Josh, Will, and Deloise went to an upscale department store and embarked on a shopping trip of such magnitude that Josh began to wonder exactly how many bedrooms Deloise thought Will planned to occupy.

“Don't look, don't look,” she whispered to Will as they stood at the checkout. The cash register kept beeping, and the numbers on its screen kept growing larger. When Will's eyes got so big Josh was afraid his vision would suffer permanent damage, she grabbed his arm and forced him to turn away. “If Del doesn't buy it all, Kerstel will just send us back.”

At the house, they unloaded the new furniture and spent the next two hours hauling and arranging and putting everything away. Josh sat on the walnut desk chair with its new cushion and watched Will hover while Deloise made the new bed. She'd chosen maroon and navy blue as the motif, right down to the contact paper she used to line each dresser drawer.

Afterward, the room looked as if it had come straight out of a catalogue. A deceptively idyllic photograph of Will's family—his parents and an older brother, taken when Will was around four years old—sat in a black frame next to the alarm clock on the nightstand. Will's books, which were all psychology or self-help, were propped between blue geode bookends on top of the dresser. The top desk drawer held a pack of lighters and two compacts with the powder knocked out. (Deloise kept the powder in a plastic box; it was, after all, her shade.)

“Well?” Deloise asked. “What do you think?”