Dreamfire (19 page)

Then a source—someone I trust fully—got in touch with me to say that he had actually witnessed the eleventh victim, Simon Parish, being attacked by the TCM in-Dream. My source only recognized Parish after seeing him on the local news and learning he was the latest victim of CSAD. My source pointed out that the pink markings around Simon Parish's mouth and nose align perfectly with the placement of the gas mask the trench-coat man had fitted him with in-Dream.

I'm starting to think people are on to something.

 

Fifteen

I saw a
gate beyond the arch.

Josh blinked. Ian stood next to the window, his arms crossed and his eyes cloaked by sunglasses. She saw the dawn reflected in the lenses and heard waves splashing outside the cabin.

She was so glad to see him.

She untangled her pendant's chain from around her neck. “I don't remember letting go of your hand,” she said as she reached for his arm.

Then she opened her eyes again.

“Josh?” Ian asked.

He was still standing next to the window, wearing ironed brown slacks and a sweater, but his sunglasses were gone and the room around them had changed.
Wait,
Josh thought.
We aren't at the cabin. We're in the office.
She remembered the night before, stumbling home from the hospital on crutches that chewed at her armpits and finding that Kerstel had made up the futon in the office so that Josh wouldn't have to climb all those stairs to her bedroom.

“Are you awake?” Ian asked.

She nodded and then shook her head. It wasn't Ian—it was
Haley
standing next to the window,
Haley
wearing Ian's green argyle sweater.

The happiness she had felt dropped down through her body like a weight, leaving behind a terrible sense of loss.

“Breakfast is ready in the kitchen,” Haley told her. Then he paused before putting one bent knee on the foot of the futon and leaning his weight on it. If he hadn't hesitated before assuming his brother's stance, Josh wouldn't have been sure he was Haley at all.

“I'll be there in a couple of minutes,” she said. She wanted him gone, needed a few moments to remind herself who was here—she couldn't use the word “alive”—and who wasn't.

“Do you need a hand getting dressed?” he asked.

Josh stared at him. Did she need a
hand
getting
dressed
?

“No, that's all right,” she told him when she could speak again. “I'll be fine by myself.”

He shrugged sheepishly. The gesture was reassuring, pure Haley, and she saw a notepad and pen tucked into his left pocket as he turned away.

“God bless obsessive-compulsive disorders,” she muttered when he was gone, throwing back the covers, but inside she still felt torn up.

Truthfully, she could have used some help getting dressed. “You can be walking again in a couple of weeks if you just don't stress the joint,” the doctor had told her, and to prove the point he had encased her leg in a huge metal and Velcro brace that ran from halfway up her thigh down to her ankle. It was a pain, but she already felt better than she had the morning before.

Of course, the morning before her father had told her that she wasn't allowed to dream walk until her knee was not only out of its brace but fully rehabbed.

“How am I going to train Will if we can't go into the Dream?” Josh had demanded.

“There are plenty of things to study here in the World,” Lauren had replied. “There's dream theory, weapons skills, first aid—”

“But none of that can take the place of real experience, and it could be months before I finish physical therapy.”

“Oh, I'm sure it won't be months,” Lauren said. “
A
month, maybe.”

That had not reassured Josh.

The kitchen was a noisy place.
Must mean Whim's home,
Josh thought, and smiled. Sure enough, he was flipping pancakes while Kerstel cut strawberries. He hadn't undergone a dramatic change since he'd been away, which comforted Josh, and his smile when he saw her was warm. He gave her a hug with his long, wiry arms.

Meanwhile, Deloise was reading the pancake mix's nutritional information, and Laurentius was on his way out the door. Josh had just sat down at the table with a cup of hot chocolate when Will suddenly appeared, out of breath, in the kitchen doorway. “Am I too late?” he asked.

“No,” Josh told him, mystified, “we're still here.” She felt startled to see him at this time of day, and also startled that everyone else was already used to his presence.

“I meant for breakfast.”

Whim handed him a plate. “I'm afraid so. This will have to be lunch.”

“Thank you,” Will said, plopping down at the table. “Good morning, everybody.” He looked down at the plate in front of him. “Who came up with the brilliant idea of putting strawberries in pancakes?”

Kerstel laughed and smoothed his hair down before going upstairs to shower.

Whim joined Will and the Weaver girls at the table and wolfed down three glasses of milk, a mug of coffee, and half a cup of butter with his seven pancakes. He had the metabolism of a puppy and an appetite to match; Josh had always suspected he had an extra thyroid hidden somewhere on his thin frame.

Winsor came down a few minutes before they needed to leave for school, dressed in designer jeans, a button-down poplin shirt, and a men's wool suit jacket. “You guys ready to go?” she asked, hoisting her leather messenger bag over her shoulder with her good arm.

Haley stepped uncertainly into the kitchen and held out a slip of paper to Josh. She couldn't quite look at it, but she pretended to and nodded. Then she jammed it into her pocket.

“By the way,” he said, with perfect and utter confidence, “you look beautiful this morning.”

Will talked through the silence that descended on the rest of the room and then caught himself. Haley smiled at Josh, then blushed and retreated from the room with stubby little steps.

Winsor set her cup of coffee down on the counter and said, “Okay, Whim, tell me.”

Whim lifted his eyebrows. “Tell you what?”

“What is
up
with
Haley
?”

“
Seriously,
” Deloise added.

Whim shrugged and opened a Tupperware container of trail mix, largely composed of M&M's and honey-roasted peanuts. “In ten years, have you ever seen Haley without a piece of paper and a pen? I've still got notes from back when he wrote with a crayon.”

“Not the notes,” Winsor said, “the clothes. The amber-scented cologne. The haircut.”

“Ian's ring,” Deloise added. “Ian's car.”

“The way he's hit on me twice this morning,” Josh put in.

Will was wearing the expression that meant he was paying very careful attention to what was going on around him, and Josh was aware that she didn't really want to talk about this in front of him. But the situation resolved itself when Whim said simply, “Nothing's going on. Ian left all his stuff to Haley and he's using it.”

“You don't think that's just a little strange?” Winsor asked, at the same time Will said quietly, “He didn't inherit
Josh
.”

Whim put the trail mix back in the cupboard and rummaged around for something else. “I just got used to it. He's still Haley.”

“We have to get going,” Josh pointed out. “We're going to be late for homeroom.”

But minutes later, sitting in the backseat of Winsor's car with her leg propped up across Will's lap—he insisted he didn't mind—Josh dug Haley's note out of her pocket. The page, torn from a steno pad, began to shake in her hand as she read.

January 25th
To: J. D. Weaver
From: H. McKarr

   
1. Accident—You

a. An aboveground swimming pool collapsed on top of you on Sat.

b. You were treated for bruised cartilage in your right knee, internal bruises, and a lightly twisted neck Sat. night at St. Dymphna's Hospital.

c. You were released Mon. night.

   
2. Accident—Others

a. W. Kansas—concussion (released Sun.)

b. Wi. Avish—broken wrist (treated and released Sat.)

c. D. Weaver, H. McKarr, and Wh. Avish—unharmed

   
3. Continued Treatment

a. Your knee brace can be removed Fri.

b. For pain, take Advil as prescribed.

   
4. Schoolwork

a. Make-up work for Mon. will be due on Thurs.

   
5. Love

a. I still love you.

 

Sixteen

“Deloise.”

“Deloise Marigold Laurene Weavaros.”

“Kerstel. And you have to spell it.”

Will stared across the library table at Josh. “
Spell it?
Kersteleinaly Yseult Hyacinth Weavaros?”

Josh grinned. “Just because we can't dream walk right now doesn't mean I'm going to take it easy on you.”

To avoid actually trying to spell Kerstel's name, he said, “I suppose your name is just as complicated.”

Josh shrugged. “My name is a piece of cake compared to Kerstel's. Although not as easy as yours, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he agreed, but what he noticed was that she didn't actually give him her name.

“You should also know the full names of my father, Whim's parents, and my grandmother, because you live with them and it's respectful to learn.”

Will sighed. “I think I liked training better when my life was in danger.”

Josh frowned as if she didn't agree, but she said, “You could do some more of that Romanian circuit training.”

He was still sore from the first time through the circuit. “Never mind, spelling is great.”

Josh considered, then said, “There is one thing we could do. Come with me.”

They headed for the basement.

“Can you make it?” he asked as they reached the top of the stairs.

“Hold my crutches. I am so sick of this brace!”

The Velcro straps on her knee brace protested as she peeled them back. She tugged the brace off and limped down the stairs. Will expected that at any moment her knee would buckle and she'd go tumbling, and he wondered if he should have tried to carry her. She probably wouldn't have appreciated the offer.

Safely on the basement floor, she took back her crutches and said, “You know, you should think about adding to your name. People might think you're holding out on them if you just say, ‘Will Kansas.' They'd be offended.”

“What would I add?” he asked, moving slowly to match her pace as they began the long trek across the basement.

“You're missing a member of your mother's family and a role model.”

He thought of his mother's family and winced. Would he rather call himself after his shoplifting uncle Mitch or his disgruntled moonshiner grandpa Hank? “A family member's going to be tough.”

“What about the role model?”

A name popped into his head. “Sigmund.”

“Sigmund?”

“After Freud. Don't laugh. He might be outdated, but I would have ended up an alcoholic dropout if I hadn't discovered psychology and self-help books.”

Josh smiled, but not in a mocking way. “Where did you get all those books?”

“Somebody gave my mother
How to Take Back Your Life
when she was in rehab one time, and she left it lying around the house. I wouldn't have read it except that Mom didn't pay the electric bill and we lost power for three weeks, and I didn't have anything else to do. Then I found a bunch more at this social worker's yard sale for a quarter each, and after that I was pretty hooked, so I started getting them at Goodwill.”

“You want to be a psychiatrist?” Josh asked.

“Well, I hadn't planned on it because I didn't think I could afford to go to college, but…”

“Dad told you how much money he makes?”

“Yes. And basically that if I want to spend ten years in college and medical school, he thinks that's great.” Will got nervous just thinking about the idea, which he knew from his reading was a result of his insecurities about admitting he wanted something because subconsciously he thought it would be taken away. Somehow, the knowledge didn't reassure him; he just wasn't sure he deserved any of this.

“What about you?” he asked.

Josh tucked her crutches and knee brace under one arm while she typed in the code for the vault door to the archroom. “There's a three-year college for dream walkers in Scotland called Kasari Academy. I thought maybe I'd send in my application and see what happens.”

“You're worried you won't get in?”

“Sort of. They're pretty selective, and heavy on dream theory. My great-aunt Lasia went there. But even if I don't get in, I'll still dream walk full-time.”

That she had never wanted to do anything besides dream walk was one of the few things Will knew about her. “You'll get in,” he told her confidently as the archroom door swung open.

Inside the round room with its stone arch and metal chair, they came across Haley. He was sitting on the floor with his chin on his knees like a four-year-old, staring at the archway. One hand held a small steno pad and the other gripped a pen, but he hadn't written anything.

Josh stopped short in the doorway, and Will bumped into her from behind. “I'm sorry,” he muttered at the same time she said, “Oh!”

Haley lifted his head. The pen slipped from his hand and rolled across the floor.

“We didn't mean to intrude,” Josh said.