Dreamwalker (4 page)

I
t was almost nightfall two days later when he returned to the cellar. The last few rays of light beamed in through the window and fell on the girl who sat in her magic cage, watching the entrance as though she had been waiting all along. She watched as Ander entered and, ignoring her, went immediately to the table at the far edge of the room and began looking over his papers. It was the first time he had ever reread any of his notes. He combed his fingers through his hair and sighed heavily, convincing himself that he must have missed something. He did not let himself look at the girl.

It was she who broke the silence. “You’re awake. I’m surprised. I know how you like to dream.” She sat up, arching her back in a slight stretch.

Ander could not contain his sigh. “Don’t speak as though you know me.”

She smiled her sly smile. “Why not? Don’t you remember? I do know you, Dreamwalker.”

Ander let the pages in his hands fall to the table as he turned. His movements were stiff and slow, and his eyes sunken from lack of sleep. He had tried to sleep without his draughts or brews and would not let himself believe that his body had forgotten how. “How do you know that name?”

She shrugged. “I know your kind. You dwell on things that have already happened, or things that might. You spend your short years, and yes, they are always very short, walking in worlds that humans were not meant to touch and seeing things not meant for your eyes.” She broadened her smile. “You are a fleeting people, with no true purpose to the world. Yes, I have known many of your kind. You are all the same.”

“That is quite the description.”

“And only a scratch on the surface. I know all of you. Not one of you is without a loss that drove you to your path. Who did you lose, I wonder? My long nights are filled with questions.”

“The answers to which are none of your business.” Ander turned back to his papers. His hands pressed down over the words with enough force to turn his knuckles white. This was the demon, right in front of him. The object of his obsession and his torment for so many years was finally within his grasp, yet he could not bring himself to reach for it. Was it guilt? Was it mercy? Surely the demon deserved neither.

The girl's voice persisted, each syllable ringing in his ears. “Perhaps they are. A parent, perhaps, or a lover?” She never took her eyes from him. Ander could feel her watching, though he could not make himself turn. She - it - would not break him so easily.

Ander closed his eyes. “Perhaps you should try sleeping instead of wondering about my affairs.”

He heard her laugh, the sound low and mocking. “You must know that I do not sleep. So I ponder, and you are the most interesting thing about this quaint village. Did you know I’ve been here for months? I was drawn to you, Dreamwalker. I heard your sweet screams as you called out in your sleep.” She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. “Mmm… I can still hear them.”

Ander did not respond at first. He closed his eyes, remembering the black shape from the Otherworld in his mind’s eye. Was this thing before him the girl or the demon? He looked at her at last, searching for any sort of answer in that defiant stare. The urge to strike and to kill rose and then vanished. The ease of revenge passed him by in a fleeting moment he barely noticed. He decided to take a chance.

“Then we are three of a kind. I can hear both of you.”

The girl’s mocking expression melted into a frown. Ander resisted a smile, but the rush of elation washed over him, driving away the exhaustion. His bluff had been correct after all.

“Something wrong? I thought you wanted to talk.”

“You’re lying.”

He was right. He knelt close, staring at her now like a wolf preparing to lunge. There was something beneath the surface, something he had missed before. Layers of doubt fell away before his eyes like the waters of a receding tide. The eyes, her eyes—there was something there. The impossibility of it all fascinated him and urged him to continue. The driving need to end the demon once and for all had been stifled by a new obsession. “I am not. I can hear the both of you now, screaming at each other from the inside.”

He reached forward and tapped two fingers against a symbol beside her eye. The girl flinched and turned away.

“Liar. Don’t touch me. You Dreamwalkers are all alike, twisting lies from spirits and trying to make the waking world what you want it to be.”

“That may be so, but not all the time. Will you tell me your name, girl? Do you even have one?”

They were struggling now, not just through words but through display of power. A faint humming sound emanated throughout the room. Both lashed forward without moving an inch, testing their strengths against one another in a battle few had the ability to recognize. Once, Ander might have allowed the challenge to consume him, pressing forward with everything he had until he was lost in the euphoria of raw magic and pure will, but today he remained a steady force, silently victorious over the girl's own lack of restraint and the demon's failure to regain its full hold.

The girl snarled, growing more desperate. “You know my name. You’ve been shouting it to the dark for two decades.”

Ander shook his head. “That is not your name. It belongs to the demon, but not to you.”

“Don’t start this, Dreamwalker.”

“The sooner you accept that the sooner I will set you free.”

She clenched her fists. Ander saw the glow of the cage-runes flicker and fade. He placed a hand over the markings, lending his own strength into them. The thought of actually releasing her never crossed his mind; she was far too dangerous. The idea of it, however, seemed only to strengthen the presence of the girl and further suppress the demon within.

“You wanted to talk about knowing me, so let me return the favor. You and I both know these bonds have no real ability to hold you back. I’ve exhausted my energies for days trying to maintain them and I know you know that. What is holding you here, then? It’s you, girl. You’re not the demon they brought in to me.”

“Leave me alone.”

Deciding to be bold, Ander cupped her face in his hands, tracing the tattoos with his thumbs. “These have been your cage, girl, but you’re the cage now.”

The glowing runes began to pulse. A ringing sound emanated in the little room, growing louder by the second, drowning out all other sensations. Ander clenched his jaw, forcing all his power against hers, knowing he would collapse if he lost even a second of concentration. Sweat streaked down his face, stinging his eyes, but he never flinched. The girl cringed and tried to pull away from his hold.

“Look at me.” He shook her once. Muscles, sinew, skin—his entire body screamed at him as he struggled to match his power to hers. The air in the room had become hot and thick. “Look at me!”

The ringing escalated until he heard a snap, like the shattering of glass. The runes on the floor and walls were in pieces, reduced to meaningless black lines burned into the wood and stone. The air was cold again and the girl was gone. Ander gasped as though he had been holding his breath, falling back on the palms of his hands as exhaustion overcame him. He looked around, his ears still ringing and his head swimming, drunk with power. She could not have gone far.

The wind whipped rain-drenched hair across her face but she did not care.  She lifted her head and looked up to the sky, her eyes hot from the tears that mixed with water and streaked down her face. Then she screamed. It was an animal sound – one of deep inner pain and rage and loneliness that very few experience. Instinct was all she knew and she gave in willingly. Thunder rolled across the sky. Far in the distance a pack of wolves answered her call with soft howls. The girl sank to her knees on the rain-soaked ground. She stayed there until the sun began to rise.

Ander approached with caution at first. A part of him still wanted to see Ambrosine, the monster he had hunted and could destroy so easily now if he allowed it. This girl had the same powers and the same spirit inside of her. The only difference was who held control. He fought against the urge and knelt beside the girl, staring at the sunrise with her. For a long time they both kept the silence.

“Are you going to kill me?” she whispered at last. There was a tremble to her voice.

“If I meant you any harm I would have caused it by now. No, I’m not going to kill you.”

The girl ducked her head, hiding the relief in her eyes. Ander tried not to look at her, both out of courtesy and his own need to convince himself of the difference between this woman and the thing that he had been hunting for so long.

“Does it hurt?”

She nodded. “Everything is sharp. My footfalls are heavy. Even breathing is—how is it I do not forget to breathe?”

“Trust your body, you aren’t used to having it to yourself. Some things will come naturally, like breathing. There are needs you don’t have in the spirit world, which is where you’ve been held while you were dragged about. Do you know how old you are? How many winters have you seen?”

She closed her eyes, touching fingertip to thumb and moving her lips without words. “Twenty, maybe more. Time is everything and also nothing. Everything is… fleeting here, but so permanent at the same time. The sounds and sights and the feelings. How does anyone keep track of it all?”

“One day at a time. Focus on the smaller things first. Have you thought of a name?”
             
She nodded. “Jaqueline. I don’t know where I got it. Just a name, I suppose.”

Ander swallowed. “It is a good name.”

“I don’t know where I got it.” She looked down at her hands, flexing them slowly. She tilted her head, each movement new and alien. “A thousand names. People, demons, stars and wind. It all belongs to her. I don’t know what I am. Everything I was… is her. Ambrosine.”

Ander cringed at the name. “Not anymore.” He placed a hand on Jaqueline’s shoulder, but drew away when she flinched. “You--
she
was a monster. You are something new. Decide what that means.”

Tears fell from her eyes again as Jaqueline leaned forward and whispered two desperate words. “Help me.”

T
hey helped each other for one winter. Ander taught Jaqueline the careful methods of study and control that he had abandoned so long ago. The demon was still inside her, but it was she who had control now. Ander saw to it that she learned how to keep that control. He burned his old lists and spent evenings mapping out each tattoo on Jaqueline’s skin. After a time, Jaqueline offered to explain the meanings of each mark, each dedicated to the harnessing of some rare power that she now possessed. After the first month she offered demonstrations and lessons of her own. Ander was as eager to study during the long evenings as he was to teach during the day. He learned discovered things about his own powers he had never known. He could not remember when he stopped needing the sleeping draughts, though each night he still dreamed of his wife’s death.

Ander came to realize as the days grew longer that Jaqueline would leave soon. Their lessons had grown fewer and farther between as Jaqueline proved the control was hers now. She spent long hours walking alone in the woods, sometimes as a shadow or a creature of the wilderness. He noticed she liked to change shapes, to shed her human form. He guessed that it helped her distance herself from her time as the demon’s vessel. This was necessary if she was to heal and become whole. She spoke often of the power she held, of the places she had been and the things she had seen, but she never offered to speak about the fact that she had been a prisoner inside herself for her entire life, forced to watch herself carry out unspeakable deeds and endure terrors few could imagine, and Ander did not ask about them. But he could tell she did not feel right being a part of the world and would seek to distance herself from anything that she might become attached to, even him. Sometimes she would not return for days and he wondered if she had gone for good that time, but each time he was wrong.

She confirmed his thoughts on one warm afternoon as they sat together on the hillside that overlooked the valley. “I’m leaving.”

Ander nodded, looking ahead. “I know. You know I’m not keeping you here.”

“Yes. But I was. I needed your strength.” Her words were distant, as they often were. Something about Jaqueline was always elsewhere, wandering. Ander smiled a little.

“You are always welcome here.”

She looked down at her lap. “There is one more thing I must do. I want to give you something.”

Ander raised a brow in question.

Jaqueline turned to him and leaned forward, closer than she had ever allowed him to be. Before he could react she framed his face with her small, delicate hands and kissed him deeply on the lips. Ander closed his eyes and felt himself drift into sleep.

She had been sick. Dying, in fact. Ander knew. Youth and desperation made him believe that he could fix her, that he could set things right. He would drive the sickness from her. All will be well again by morning, he assured her. Just sleep and dream. I won’t let you go. He arranged the ritual in their bedroom, drawing the circle of white runes on the floor at the foot of their bed. He laid her sleeping form in the middle and began shaping the words that would banish her sickness. But he was too young, too new at this. He misspoke.

White lights flashed from nowhere, blinding Ander. An unseen force pushed him on his back. A formless shadow seeped out of nothingness like fresh blood from a wound and descended over his wife. She gasped as her final breath was stolen from her. Her eyes opened one last time to look at him.

Ander felt himself drift again. Now he was in a forest clearing, miles away from anywhere he had ever known. On a stone dais covered in red, glowing runes, a woman was giving birth. She had black hair that clung to her body, which was drenched with sweat. White lights flashed from nowhere. A shadow hovered above her heaving form, but in the instant the child drew its first breath, the demon was gone. It had been summoned elsewhere by some folly, and by that same folly the child had an instant to be her own person. Although that other self was soon stifled as the demon returned and marked her body for its own, she would never have existed otherwise
.

Ander opened his eyes and sat up. The moon was high overhead. As he stood he noticed a single set of wolf tracks lead away into the forest that bordered his land. He smiled to himself and went inside for his first dreamless night.