Make Willing the Prey (Dreams by Streetlight) (14 page)

“What did you find?” she said, as
she stepped closer to Sandy.

Sandy reached in and pulled out
the yo-yo.

“These are his.  I know it.”

“How do you...”

“I’ve talked with him.  At
length.  In my dream.  Jina, have you been trying to fight him?”

“Yes.  But… I’m sorry, Sandy, it’s
easier to believe all the things around me than it is to believe your theories.”

“Jina, I’m telling you it works. 
That’s how I saved you two.”

“I know Sandy.  It’s hard.”

Sandy sighed.  “I had him cowed,
in my dreams.  I could make him do anything I wanted, just by being stronger
than him.  We can control it.  That’s how I got all the madness to stop, just
now.” 

Jina still seemed doubtful.  How
could she persuade her?  Jina could only fight him if she was thoroughly
convinced.  Sandy paused in thought and looked down at the trove.  After a
moment she motioned at it with the yo-yo.  “This may be our salvation.”

“What do you mean?”

“He said if we had any of his
personal items, he’d have no power over any of us,” she lied.  She stooped down
and plucked the kaleidoscope from its tomb.  Just in case her ruse failed, she
held it tightly, and believed with all her might that it was a magical
kaleidoscope that could defeat the power of fairies.

“Really?  Are you sure this is
his stuff?”

“Yeah.  He’s lived here all his
life.”

“He doesn’t look old enough to
have had toys like this.”

“He’s a fairy, remember?  An imp,
to be exact.  They must live a really long time.”

“So how does it work?”

“Well, I’d imagine you look
through the hole there, and try your best to not believe any weird stuff is
happening to you.  Everything he does is make-believe.  Just like when we were
kids, right?”

Jina raised the kaleidoscope to
her eye.  “Like this?”

“Yeah.  Just imagine S.A. is just
another kid, and he’s playing cops and robbers with us.  So when he says, ‘Bang,
you’re dead’, you say, ‘No you missed!  I have a force shield!’  Kind of like
that.  Only when he makes believe we’re being attacked by bugs and knives, we
remind him it’s only our imaginations.”

Jina panned the room with the
kaleidoscope. The dusty old walls split into a thousand fractal reflections of
themselves.  She aimed it at Lewis, who sat listening with some doubt and
confusion. 

During Sandy’s explanation, the
knife had twitched slightly.  Suddenly it rose from the floor and hurled top
speed towards him.

Just before touching Lewis, the
knife stopped in mid-flight and succumbed to gravity.  It clanged loudly as it
bounced on the floor.  With the sound, Jina opened her other eye.

“What the—”

“The knife...  It came back to
life.  But you stopped it!”

“You mean when I looked into the ‘scope?”

“Yes.  You did it!  It works
perfectly!  Now we’ll be safe.”

Lewis stood drunkenly.  He picked
up the knife and threw it into the other room.  “I don’t care.  I just want
out.”  He began sobbing, and Jina raced to his side.  She held him and
comforted him as she had before.

Sandy felt someone behind her. 
She turned, but saw no one.  But there was something there.  A presence. 
Somebody.

“
Go... away...
” Sandy
insisted.

The presence moved towards the
door they had entered by.  Jina followed it with her eyes.  She lifted the
kaleidoscope.  Through it, S.A. became visible.  “I can see him,” she
whispered.  “Through here... Now he’s gone.”

They all relaxed.  “Really, you
could see him through that?”

“Yes.”

“Huh,” Sandy quipped.  “I guess
it works better than I thought.”

“Come on,” Jina coaxed Lewis.  “Do
you think you can keep going?”

Lewis nodded and wiped away his
tears like a child.

“Ok, good.  Sand, can you still
remember enough of that floor plan to get us to the front door?”

“I think so.  This way.” 

Sandy led them to the next door. 
She cautiously opened it.  “We have to go through here,” she whispered.

The room was dark.  Darker than
dark, but they could still see.  A fireplace burned in the center, long
black-gray flames licked upwards. 

Little black shapes dangled from
the chimney to drop into the fire.  Tiny black legs attached to tiny black
torsos guided thin, silver webs downward.  Sizzling sparked when they fell.

A spider shadow covered the
entire wall opposite the window.  The sun was rising, and the black widow in
the center of the window blocked part of its light.

Sandy froze.  She reminded
herself they were just spiders.  And she didn’t have a fear of spiders anyway. 
That’s what she told herself.  She especially didn’t fear spiders that did not
exist.  She took a deep breath and started the familiar mantra. 
Not real,
this is not real, they’re complete illusion.  I refuse to believe.

Lewis snatched up the
kaleidoscope.  He peered into it with one eye, and slowly the flames turned to
orange.  The spider on the window skittered out of the room.  The black widows
in the fireplace vanished.

He began laughing in hysteria.  “It
works!” he shouted.  “You can’t do anything to us now!  I’m free!  Soon we’ll
be gone!  A child’s toy can defeat your insane power!  Child magic!”  He waved
the kaleidoscope around in the air and laughed again.  He threw his arms around
Jina and whirled in a hug.  Pressing his head into her shoulder, he softly
sobbed, “I’m going home…”

Jina stroked his hair, and Sandy
grinned.  She barged into the room, and motioned the others to follow.

“Not far now,” she said.  “The
main staircase is only a few rooms away, and we’re only one story up.  We’ll be
out within five minutes.”

“Let’s race,” Jina said, nudging
Lewis lightly in the ribs.  “Come on.”

“Not even!” Sandy shouted.  “We
are going to stay together.  Follow me.”

She led them to the next room.

“I hope she knows where we’re
going,” Lewis whispered.  Their footsteps echoed through the empty room.

“Of course she does,” Jina
replied.  “She’s Sandy.  She’s a history major.  Good memory.  Has to have, to
get all those dates and placed down.  Say, did I tell you that you look good in
my shirt?”

“Nope.  I don’t believe we had
time for that before.”

“Well, you look great.”  Jina
giggled.

Honestly,
Sandy
thought,
sometimes she is too bold.
  She heard more giggling behind
her.  Lewis laughed this time.  They were tickling each other.

The door in front of her stood
open.  She entered, and stopped.  Hmm, funny.  The room was plain, bare, except
for a spiral staircase that led upwards.  The main stairs should be here, but
they weren’t.  Were the rooms shifting again? 
Impossible!
she
affirmed. 
The blueprints are accurate.  Everything else is illusion.  The
blueprints are the only reality.  These stairs should not be here.
 

Lewis chased Jina back and forth
through the door.  How was she supposed to concentrate with them screwing
around like children? 
Great, now I have to babysit an unstable lunatic
and
a little girl.

“Get back in here, you two.  Stay
together, remember?” 
Fuck.

Bodies hit the wall on the other
side.  The tickling had likely turned into a make-out session.  From the sound
of it, a lot of pent up passion was being released.

“Jina!” Sandy barked.  She
started to step back through, but the door began to close on her.  No unseen
force this time, just two new lovers sweeping it shut in their blind lust. 
Sandy tried to act fast, but it swung completely closed before she could stop
it.  She attempted to open it but they leaned against it.

“Open the door, Jina,” Sandy
commanded in an exasperated tone.  “We have to go back the other way.”

“Uhh... Sorry.”  There was some
giggling, and the knob rattled.  “I can’t... I think it’s locked.”

“Why didn’t you think about that
before closing the thing?”

Jina dropped her bag on the
floor.  “Don’t worry, I can get it unlocked.  I’ll use my magic fingers on it.”

“You have magic fingers?” came
Lewis’s muffled voice from behind the door.  “Do you think you could show me
how they work sometime?”

“Stop flirting and get to work,”
she said.

“I’m on it.”  She heard clicking
in the lock as Jina tried to pick it.

“Lewis?” It was Jina’s muffled
voice.  “What’s wrong?”

Suddenly Lewis was screaming. 
His voice got farther away.

“Jina? What’s going on?”

“Sorry, I don’t know what... I
have to go get him.”  Sandy heard a scuffle.

“No, Jina, don’t you leave me! 
This is stupid!” she shouted, slamming her palm against the door.  “Come back!”

Sandy glanced at the staircase
and then back at the door.  She kicked the door violently but it was made of
solid wood and would not yield.

“Fuck you, Jina,” she muttered. 
She turned towards the stairs.

T
he old
stairs creaked as Sandy ascended the spiral into a washroom.

The floor was tiled in pure white
ceramic.  A porcelain sink with shiny brass faucets posed on one side, and an
old style clawed foot bathtub perched on four feet in the corner.  Sandy ran
her fingers through her hair, craving a warm bath.  But she kept moving.

Aside from the opening for the
stairs, the only egress from the washroom was a dark wooden door to the side of
the sink.  Sandy turned the painted porcelain handle and stepped into the next
room.

The room smelled old, the good
kind of old, like you’d find in your grandmother’s attic.  Unlike every other
room in the house, this one was nicely furnished.  Neat rugs lay on the
hardwood floor.  A matching chest of drawers and vanity sat on opposing sides
of the room.  Light colored doilies contrasted against their dark finishes, and
dried flowers lay carelessly on their surfaces.  A wardrobe stood next to the
bathroom door.  Sandy guessed that it housed Victorian, or probably Edwardian,
dresses.

But the most breathtaking piece
of furniture in the room was the bed.  Dark cherry wood posts supported a lacey
canopy.  Off-white linen draped softly and casually over the edge of the canopy
while brown grapevines twisted around the top.  Interspersed through the vines
sagged little blue flowers.  One of the vines wound down around one of the
posts to the bed.  The bedspread itself radiated soft blue, offset by the laced
antique-white pillows.

Something fluttered.  Some
things
fluttered.

Delicate blue-green butterflies
floated about the room.  They were everywhere.  Hundreds of them, each an inch
long, about the size of a common garden cabbage-moth.  Those that weren’t busy
filling the air clung to the bed, the vanity, the walls.

The air began to smell lightly of
old perfume.

Sandy merely stood, silently
captivated, but flinching inside, waiting for it to all turn horrible.  A
butterfly landed fearlessly on her hand.  She looked at it closely.  It batted
its tiny glittery wings at her.

After looking at it for a moment,
she searched for another door.  Of course there wasn’t one.  The only way out
was the locked door downstairs.  Maybe one of the drawers held a key?

Sandy approached the vanity. 
Besides the flowers and doilies, the top was littered with knickknacks: Three
faded pictures in flowery frames, a powder box, perfume bottles, a
silver-handled hairbrush. 

A medium-sized mirror captured
her interest.  It sat propped at an angle with dried flowers gathered at its
base.  The frame was made of tarnished silver.  Vines wrapped around and
through in an intricate design encircling her reflection.  It somehow felt
familiar.  As if she had stared at it before… or as if it had stared at her.