The Nothing: A Book of the Between (31 page)

“Where is Weston, then?” she asked. “How did he die?”

Lyssa climbed up onto the bed, flung her arms around the old woman’s neck, laid her head on the thin breast, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

Isobel felt her own throat tighten, and the world blurred a little from tears gathering in her eyes. “He died saving the little one from what she calls the Nothing, if I understand correctly.”

“He grew to be a good man, then. My father did not succeed in destroying him?” The old woman opened her eyes and looked up at Isobel, pleading for something.

“I did not know him,” Isobel had to reply. “Only what Lyssa has told me. People were dying in Wakeworld, including her own father, and he brought her away to make her safe. Who was he to you?”

“My brother,” she murmured. She drew a deep, quavering breath and stroked the little girl’s tangled hair. “There, there, child. He lived a very long life. As have I. And since Weston made you his successor, I guess that what I carry falls to you.”

“Oh, surely not,” Isobel said. “She’s so young.”

“We haven’t time for what would be nice or pleasant.” She looked up at the bird and shook her head, her voice taking on a wondering tone. “Hard to believe you’re still the same old pest of a raven. Going to outlive the both of us, looks like.”

The raven kronked at her. She wiped away tears. “Well, then. I’d had a thought that maybe I need to wait around, lest I become Weston’s heir when he died. I’m free, then, to pass on to whatever comes next. Sit up, Miss Lyssa. I can’t feel my feet and my belly feels cold as ice. My life is running out, I think. We have very little time.”

Lyssa pushed herself up to sitting, cross-legged. Her face was tearstained but the eyes were luminous and bright.

The old woman took the small paw in hers and pressed something into the palm. “There, now. Look, but not too deeply, and make no wish to go to the place you see.”

She withdrew her hand, and on Lyssa’s palm rested a clear crystal sphere. At its center shone a miniature walled city, radiant with the colors of gold and jewels. Only a glimpse, a cry of wonder from the child, and the old woman closed her fingers over the shining thing.

“The city within the sphere is real. And it is a thing of beauty, but the Giants live there and they would eat a little thing like you for lunch. If you gaze at the sphere, it will take you there. Put it away safe.”

Lying back on the pillows, the old woman folded her hands over her breast and closed her eyes. “Now I think I’ll get back to the dying.”

“No,” Lyssa whispered, a small hand touching the old woman’s cheek.

“It is the way of things, child. Let it be.”

A long silence followed, broken only by the sound of uneven breathing. And then the blue eyes flew open one last time. “Have you been to the Cave of Dreams?”

“Not yet,” Isobel began, but a bout of coughing overtook the old woman and drowned out her words. And when the fit was over, there was no more breath.

Isobel smoothed a strand of hair back from the woman’s forehead and folded the old hands more neatly.

“May you have rest,” she murmured. “Lyssa, come, child.”

Only then did she realize the little girl had slipped off the bed and was not immediately to be seen. It only took an instant to find her, sitting on the floor at the far side of the room, Bob perched atop her head. Set into the wall, where it had no business being at all, was a door. Isobel had seen doors into the Dreamworld before. Her father’s had always been heavy oaken constructions, banded with steel and set into a framework of fitted stone. This was a child’s door, so low that an adult would need to stoop to pass through it. And it looked like something out of a fairytale, rounded at the top, with cutout carvings of a moon and stars.

Isobel cleared her throat. “Come away, child. You have no idea what lies behind that door.”

“It’s the cave,” Lyssa said. “I need to go.”

“Too dangerous.” Isobel ran her fingers over the door, then wondered how she had come close enough to touch. Last she remembered, she’d been standing on the other side of the room. This frightened her. The curse Jehenna had bestowed on her by stealing the role of Dreamshifter meant that the only hope of sanity she possessed lay in staying away from the Between and the Dreamworlds.

“Make it go away.” She spoke harshly, needing to enforce compliance.

But Lyssa had been called. There was something new in the child’s eyes now, a glow of whatever lay beyond the door. “I have to go.” She put her hand in Isobel’s, looking up into her face. “You could come with me.”

“I can’t.” She swallowed, feeling the draw of the Between as she always had, knowing what would happen should she follow. All of the years of shifting, sliding time and jarring angles of reality. The hospitals and the pills and the constant attempts to make it all stop with the help of a sharp blade.

And yet.

“Is the cave very big? And dark?” The child’s face was pale and tight with worry.

Isobel dropped to her knees so as to be at eye level. “I’ve never been. Once it was full of light, but now, I think it may be very dark.”

“I don’t like the dark.” The voice was very small now, and Isobel put her hands on both shoulders.

“So, don’t go. Stay here with me.”

Lyssa shook her head. “If I don’t go, it will be all dark everywhere. And it’s calling me.”

Gods. Before Isobel could think of another thing to say, the little girl grasped the handle and pulled the door open. Isobel knelt on the threshold, staring at her destiny. In place of fear and paralysis, a wild thing fluttered in her chest, free and exuberant. A fragment of dream emerged from all of the other remnants, clear and shining. In the dream, she stooped and passed through this doorway and the feeling in the dream was triumph and love.

“Come on,” Lyssa said, tugging at her hand.

And with a deep breath and a last long look at the safety of Surmise, Isobel ducked beneath the doorframe and entered.

Z
EE
WAS
there, waiting, the instant Vivian shifted back to human skin. His hands gentled the transition, eased her vulnerability. She buried her face in his chest, her still-heightened senses taking in the smell of him, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart.

“I’ve got your clothes.” Zee’s arms tightened around her, his cheek pressed against the top of her head, and he made no move to release her.

Nakedness was not a concept understood by her dragon nature, and it took a few more breaths before the self-consciousness kicked in, heightened by the knowledge that beyond the protective bulwark that was Zee, a small company was watching and waiting. As she began to pull out of Zee’s arms so she could dress, he whispered, “You should know that your mother is here.”

“My what?” She peered around his shoulder. Poe and the griffyn were engaged in a stare-down, mediated by Kalina, who kept a tight hold on the leash. Kraal kept one hand on Jared’s shoulder, as if expecting the blind man to bolt at any moment. And Isobel stood quietly waiting, holding the hand of a wide-eyed child.

“Maybe you should close that door,” she said. “You never know what might come through.”

“Mother? What in all the worlds? Wait, just a second.” Vivian scrambled into her clothes, secured the dream door with a thought, and went to give her mother a hug. Isobel’s body felt thin and frail, the bones too close to the skin. There were new lines in her face and her dark hair had given way to gray. But her eyes were clear and her lips set in lines of determination.

“Did something happen to Surmise? Is Landon…” Vivian broke off, unwilling to say the words.

“Surmise is fine—for the moment. Crammed to bursting with refugees from the other worlds. Landon is busy.”

“Then what on earth are you doing here?”

“I brought Lyssa,” Isobel said, as if this was an answer.

Vivian’s eyes went to the child, who stared up at her out of eyes of an extraordinary shade of blue-green, clear as a mountain lake, and demanded, “Are you going to stop the Nothing?”

A familiar raven clung to the little girl’s shoulder, hoary with age. With a cold dread, Vivian saw the pendant hanging from a leather thong. She looked from the child to Isobel. “Where’s Weston?”

The little girl’s eyes welled up with tears. Isobel didn’t answer.

There was a tightness in Vivian’s chest that made it difficult to breathe. Oh, Weston, oh, my dear. She’d made the wrong choice then, taking him back. Now he was trapped in a half-life with her grandfather and all of the other dead Dreamshifters, waiting for her to free them.

“He died saving Lyssa,” Isobel said. “She’s important.”

Of course she’s important. Every child is important.
Vivian bit her tongue on the words, taking another good look at the child, who was surprisingly calm given how strange this must all be for her. And those eyes, the way the raven had adopted her…

“I didn’t know what to do with her,” Isobel went on. “So, I brought her here. I never expected to be lucky enough to find you. Now you can teach her.”

Somewhere, somehow, Weston had found another Dreamshifter. Vivian’s heart leaped at the thought that she was not the last, and then the reality hit her. Only a child. Another life become her responsibility.

“You have to go back,” she said. “The cave isn’t safe now. Last time we were here, all of our worst nightmare fears came alive.” She shivered at the memory.

Isobel shook her head, a stubborn set to her jaw. “This is where she’s supposed to be. There’s a reason.”

Vivian took both of Isobel’s hands and looked into her eyes. “I know you meant well. It means a lot that you brought her. But it’s going to take blood magic to get through into the Forever. I don’t know if any of us are going to survive that, or what waits for us beyond if we do. You’re right about Lyssa. If something happens to me, you’ll still have a Dreamshifter. But we have to keep her safe.”

“She can make doors,” Isobel persisted. “She can help you.”

“She’s a
child
. You don’t know what that means. You never did. Do her parents even know you’ve brought her here?” The rush of bitterness surprised her and she regretted it at once. Not fair. Her lack of a childhood was not her mother’s fault. She was about to apologize when Lyssa tugged at her hand.

“Is that a Giant?”

“Yep. His name is Kraal.”

“The Nothing got Daddy,” Lyssa said, matter-of-factly. “I have a marble with a Giant in it. The old lady in Surmise gave it to me.”

“It’s a dreamsphere,” Isobel said.

“With Giants in it?” Kraal thundered. “That dreamsphere belongs to me. Let me see!” His footsteps shook the earth as he strode over, hands outstretched.

Lyssa screamed and wrapped her arms around Isobel’s hips, hiding her face. “Don’t let him get me!”

“Kraal’s not going to hurt you, honey,” Vivian said with a warning frown at the Giant. “He just wants to see.”

The little girl tightened her hold, shaking her head. “Grace said the Giants were mean and not to show it to anybody.”

“Wise woman,” Jared muttered.

“The sphere belongs to my people,” Kraal said. “What idiot put it in the hands of a child? Give it to me.”

“Don’t you dare touch her.” Isobel knelt and wrapped both arms around Lyssa, staring defiantly up at the Giant who loomed over both of them.

“Kraal,” Vivian ordered. “Stand back. You’re scaring her.”

Kraal hesitated. Zee’s hand went to his sword.

“Just use the Voice,” Kalina said. “The longer we stand here, the more likely it is that one of us will stir up the dream matter. Make her give it to you.”

But the child had obviously been through a great deal already. Vivian remembered the very first dreamsphere she’d had in her own possession, and how hard it had been to give it back to her grandfather. Surely, there was no need to use force. Sinking down on her knees, she looked directly into Lyssa’s eyes.

“Since I’m the Dreamshifter, I think maybe Grace wouldn’t mind if you show the dreamsphere to me.”

“Grace is dead.”

Another grief. Weston had come so close to finding his sister again after all these years. Vivian closed her eyes and took a slow breath. Grief upon grief. What could she say?

She had underestimated the child, though, who reached out for the pendant she wore around her neck and examined it, gravely. “I dreamed about you and the pendant. You’re supposed to stop the Nothing before it kills more people. Will it help you to have the dreamsphere?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“You can keep it for me if you want. Maybe then the Nothing won’t get it.”

Lyssa dug into the pocket of her jeans and produced a small round sphere, which she held out to Vivian on the palm of her hand. Kraal took a step forward. Vivian reached out, but before she could touch it, she felt a sharp spasm of warning that nearly made her cry out. Lyssa screamed. Jared fell to the ground and curled up into a ball, both hands pressed over his eyes. “Dark, dark, it’s all gone dark,” he moaned.

“I killed it,” Lyssa wailed. The dreamsphere was now only a small heap of black dust on her palm.

A heartbeat later, she began to scream. “Get it off me! Get it off!” She whipped her hand back and forth through the air, flinging bits of dream sand to the ground, where they began to eat away at grass and dirt, turning it into empty space, into Nothing. A flower vanished. A grasshopper, as a black nothingness opened up at Lyssa’s feet.