The Dream Catcher's Daughter (28 page)

Straight ahead, he decided. And without
hesitation, Jason stood and walked. As he stepped onto the bridge, something
cracked. Fearing it might be the bridge, he jumped back. But the bridge
remained suspended. The final staircase, to his left, had already fallen
halfway out of sight, into the writhing pit of rot below. There was nothing he
could do to stop it, so he turned and steeled himself. Hopefully, Queen Gelen
wasn’t on the fourth plateau. He cringed at the thought, but felt confident the
plateau had been empty.

***

The bridge of rock-hard flesh seemed to
stretch on forever, yet grew narrower and narrower, until Jason was left with
no choice but to turn back. But the bridge disappeared, and only a small circle
remained below him. Was this
Shades’s
mischief? A
trap?

If it was, Shades watched from afar, for
it hadn’t appeared to torture him. Not yet. Everything around him had grown
dark, and he could hardly feel the bridge beneath his feet or hear the
digestive gurgling from the pit’s bottom. Even the stench of rotting hamburger
meat lifted from the air. Shades was out there, he knew it. He turned back in
the direction he had originally set out.
One foot in front of the other,
he thought.
Slow breathing. Think light thoughts. Bird. Feather. Dandelion
fluff.

Then his foot plunged down, and with no
bridge to catch him, the rest of Jason’s body followed suit. Darkness whooshed
by as Jason stared into the void accelerating toward him. He half-expected the
sloshy remains of countless creatures to rush up and embrace him with their
half-digested arms. But no such embrace came. Just darkness, racing past him to
an unknown goal above, while likewise, he plummeted toward his. Then he hit
something. It sucked him in, crawling over his flesh. Cold and wet, yet crusty.
Clumpy. He tried to breathe, but couldn’t; the thing had started crawling
inside his mouth, down his throat. It filled him. All of him—his hands, his
arms. All the way down to his legs, and slowly up to his chest.

He felt the pressure in the back of his
head and realized, too late, that the liquid stone had invaded his body from
the outside. Without even thinking of Tara.

Shades said:

“
you
know this
feeling all too well but not as well as
i
know it.

“
it’s
all
i
can feel the eternal drowning the suffocation the
heaviness filling and filling me.

“
all
because of
you and your words all because of your lies.”

He struggled, but couldn’t. The liquid
stone hardened around him, freezing him in place. His lungs were being crushed,
his heart beating wildly, but weakening ever so slowly.

“
i
will never let you reach her she will stay here and suffer like me.

“
but
unlike her
i’ll
have you forever
i’ll
have
you.

“
because
you
deserve this it’s all your fault.”

A black mouth opened before Jason, the
tentacle-like teeth wrapping about him, shoving him to the back of its throat.
He felt the throat muscles contract around him, and then darkness embraced him.

***

“But it’s not entirely your fault, my
prince.”

The darkness vanished, and Jason stood,
once again, in the day of the parade. Everyone was there—the crowd, the fire
trucks, the clowns, the people throwing candy and shooting squirt guns into the
crowd. He was there, in his spot. Tara was on his shoulders. His smile felt all-too-painful
smile. Painful, only because he knew what happened next.

As the fire truck sirens blared, Tara bent
down whispered in Jason’s ear. It was at that exact moment he felt something
against the back of his head. A pressure, like a thumb pressed against his
skull.

“I should’ve told you,” she said. “I’m...I
was born with both parts.”

“Both parts?” he said. The pressure
against his head pressed harder as Tara adjusted herself.

“Boy and girl parts.”

Jason opened his mouth. And he screamed, bucking
Tara from his shoulders. She landed with a sick thud on the concrete. And
people around them turned and stared. The pressure lingered, burning into his
skull as each moment passed. Jason turned.

“Traitor!

“
bastard
!

“Son of a bitch!

“
you
said you’d love
me no matter what.”

Jason wrenched his eyes shut.
I don’t’
want to see this anymore. Let me drown. Let me die. I don’t deserve to see her
over and over again. I deserve to drown. To sink like she did.

He opened his eyes again.

This time he was at Tara’s funeral. Many
were gathered there, clustered around the hole that would soon host Tara
Engel’s body. But Jason wasn’t there, in the crowd. He stood back, all the way
back by the guestbook table, which rested under a tent. He sat there, his eyes
flicking between the crowd around Tara’s grave and the guestbook.

Next to the filled guestbook were several
articles from the Sheriffsburg and East Clintwood newspapers. Several of them
described who Tara was and her achievements in school. They also showcased a few
snippets of writing gathered by her high school teachers. It was her obituary
that snared Jason’s undivided attention:

ON JUNE 17, SHERIFFSBURG JUNIOR TARA ENGEL
COMMITTED SUICIDE. SHE WAS FOUND DEAD THE NEXT DAY BY A PASSERBY WHO NOTED THAT,
AT A CONSTRUCTION SITE, HE NOTICED WHAT LOOKED LIKE A GIANT DUMMY STICKING OUT
FROM THE GROUND. BEING A MEMBER OF THE SCHOOL BOARD, HE WAS AWARE A CPR DUMMY
HAD GONE MISSING EARLIER THAT WEEK. INSTEAD OF FINDING A DUMMY, HE FOUND ENGEL,
DEAD, HER THROAT AND LUNGS FILLED WITH CONCRETE.

SHE DROWNED HERSELF IN CONCRETE. PERHAPS
THE STRANGEST, AND MOST PAINFUL WAY TO GO. OUR HEARTS HERE AT THE DAILY
REPUBLIC GO OUT TO MS. ENGEL’S FAMILY.

Stop. Stop. STOP.

“You have to face it,” said his mother.
“It’s all part of the feeling.”

He shook his head, even though he couldn’t
move it. The stone had set in his neck, and quickly closed in on his heart and
lungs. Soon, he’d be dead. Buried in the same liquid stone Tara had tossed
herself into.

“You aren’t going to die. At least, not
without seeing what truly happened.”

Jason blinked and there he was again,
lungs and body clear of the stone. Tara was on his shoulders, bending over. He
felt her moist breath on his earlobe.

“I was born with both parts.”

“Both parts?”

“Boy and girl parts.”

And as the pressure climaxed against the
back of Jason’s head, a vision flashed before his eyes. A pair of lips appeared
before him. The lips parted in a wide smile. Perfect teeth rimmed with green
flesh glimmered at him.

A mouth with green flesh.

The nightmare’s mouth.

“
no
!”

Like a pulse, the vision cut out.

“
it’s
not fair
even in death
i
can’t have justice!”

Another pulse, and the Sheriffsburg crowd
and street cut away. Everything rushed by him, as though he were being
propelled forward. He heard a wet pop, and he landed on something solid, his
shoulders crackling with the impact. Something hit the ground next to his head.
He looked up and saw the key, the one Len had given him. Beyond it lay the
five-way fork; he’d never left. Jason looked above him. His eyes widened.
There, with her hood down, stood Shades, better known as Tara Engel. Her face
was just as he remembered it, except grayer. Dead.

“
it’s
not fair
not fair!

“
why
is it you
always wiggle your way out of things?

“
you
never even
felt a bit of regret as you tossed me off your shoulders!

“
you
just kept on
living!

“
and
then you met
that Indian girl!

“
and
Darlene…how
could she be your friend how could you have friends?”

Her eyes, while still red, didn’t glow
with the fury they held before. They seemed watery, better resembling ketchup
than blood. Her nostrils flared with each breath. Jason had never seen her this
angry, this hurt. Except on that day when the nightmare made him buck Tara from
his shoulders. His eyes flicked to the key, and he grabbed it. Tara didn’t seem
to see this.

“
why
?

“
why
can’t
i
have justice?

“
why
can’t
i
have what
i
want?”

He pursed his lips, clenching the key in
his hand. “I wanted to kill myself. I didn’t want to live anymore.” Tara’s eyes
narrowed on Jason’s face, as though seeing it for the first time. She didn’t
say anything, so he stood, gripping the key to his chest.

“A hole opened up. And it wanted to
swallow me alive. I nearly let it. More times than I can count. But I thought
to myself: ‘Maybe Tara wants me to live. Wouldn’t that be what she wants?’” He
shook his head, looking up at Tara with a lop-sided grin. “But look at what I
did to you. How could you rest in peace after committing suicide? A suicide I
caused.”

“
you’re
right you
did cause it traitor bastard son of a—”

“But listen, Tara. It’s a problem I
inherited. That doesn’t excuse it. But it makes it harder to deal with.”

She eyed him warily, her nostrils still
flared. Even though she was dead and angry, Jason still found her beautiful.
The most beautiful. Everything he ever wanted.

But his want and desire were the problem.

“Please. Allow me to do something for you,
Tara.” He held out his hand and uncurled his fingers. The key sat in his palm. Tara
stared down at it, then flicked her eyes back up to him.

“
what
about it?”

He tilted his head in the direction of the
final fork—the bridge. “We both know what’s at the end of the bridge. I’m going
there, but I need something first. I think you have it.”

“
so
?”

“I’m asking you to let me have it.”

“
i
will give you nothing.”

Jason crossed his arms. “You just
wanna
take, take,
take
,
don’cha
? But Tara, it’ll help both of us if you do. You
want that.”

“
how
do you know
what
i
want?”

Jason lowered his face, staring at his
feet. A moment passed as he mustered the thought. It was hard. He didn’t have
everything intact yet. He’d spent the entire night trying to sew everything
back together. Thanks to Trevor and the story. The one he and Tara had written
together.

“To love yourself, ‘tis the most important
thing.”

Tara’s face slackened, and Jason thought,
instead of red, her eyes flashed the hazel they had been when she was alive.
The moment passed and her face hardened, her eyes changing back to red. Though
she didn’t look quite as intense.

Tara pulled back her shadowy cloak, and
out flew the sniffling orb of light. It snorted at Jason, fluttering about his
head. He held out his empty hand, and the orb landed there, snorting and
sniffling happily. Jason smiled down at it. He felt warm, and discovered it
wasn’t coming from him or Tara or the orb: The key in his right hand was
glowing. No longer did it look old and rusty, but as though it had just been
forged and shined. Jason held it up to his face, scrutinizing it. His eyes
flicked back to the orb of light, and noticed that a keyhole had appeared on
the orb’s face. Jason gripped the key, and gently inserted it into the orb. He
turned the key, and as he did, the words from Len’s letter reverberated inside
his head—
it will let you inside
.

The orb exploded, light piercing the dark
corridor of Shemillah’s stomach. The fleshy walls trembled, and the floor
quivered beneath them. The cries reached a climax, then cut off. All was silent
as the light faded. He looked over to Tara, and froze.

Her flesh was pink and healthy. Her eyes
were hazel and the shadows hanging from her arms melted away. In their place,
armor appeared. On her face Tara now wore a mask that covered only her nose.
She stared down at it, fingering the snout-like mask. She glanced down at the
armor, and the questions rose in her eyes. She looked back up to Jason, and
went erect.

“Jason?” she said. “King Lukoje?”

Jason nodded, grimacing. “Do you
remember?”

Tara nodded. “I remember...I’m S.”

“Yes. But I think Tara’s a better name.
Very pretty.”

She grunted. “You said that already…when
we first started dating.” Her eyes widened, and she fingered her mouth.
“Pickle. Catfish. Sushi! My voice…it’s returned to normal.”