Reverie

by Ryan La Sala

  Kane stared at the postcard. There was something he knew here. Something important he couldn’t quite grasp.

  “You think a painter is going to come after me because I burned down the mill?”

  Dr. Poesy pinched the bridge of his nose. “She was set to paint the mill the morning of your crash. She was set to paint it at sunrise, about when the crash happened.”

  Kane tried again. “I’m really sorry. I can apologize to her.”

  “No,” Dr. Poesy said. “You can’t apologize to her, Mr. Montgomery, because she’s dead.”

  Kane’s eyes went wide, dry and unblinking. “She’s…what?”

  “Dead. Deceased. Departed.”

  “I know what dead is.”

  And then Kane realized what Dr. Poesy was saying, and the air went out of the room. The doctor smiled wider, now speaking with deliberate easiness. “Maxine had a small box of supplies she brought with her to her painting sites. Aluminum, with clasps and a handle. In it would have been her paints and brushes. Other artists’ tools.” Dr. Poesy’s eyes were feline in nature. Kane felt that if the lights were to switch out, the cobalt of those eyes would turn to moony disks. “That box was found among the ashes of the mill, melted shut. What’s clear is that you were present for Maxine’s final painting. What is less clear is why.”

  Kane’s eyes stung. He couldn’t resist the compulsion to run his fingers over his burns, to hide behind his white knuckles. Dr. Poesy leaned forward, intrigued by Kane’s reaction, as though he already knew Kane was guilty.

  “Your parents do not know about Maxine Osman. The police do not know, either. I am not your appointed psychologist, as Thistler believes, nor do I answer to the East Amity Police Department. I answer to forces much more powerful. Those forces have an interest in Maxine’s disappearance. Those forces wish to keep this investigation a secret, and your involvement risks that secret, but I do not believe you are a risk yourself, Mr. Montgomery. I believe you are an answer.”

  Kane thought he had known fear, but this new horror recalibrated all the bad he’d gone through so far. This was so much worse than he thought. It must have been a long time before Kane answered, or maybe he never answered at all, because the next thing he heard was a ringing, hammering laugh.

  “Do not look so aghast, Mr. Montgomery. I do not think you murdered Maxine Osman. I’m not sure who did. That’s why we’re here, together.”

  Kane shook off his shock. He couldn’t lose himself now.

  “You need my help figuring out the murderer?” he asked.

  “Ah, so you are smart! Yes, I have a proposition. A bit of homework for you.” From their bag Dr. Poesy pulled a notebook and handed it to Kane. It was thin and had a supple red leather cover so bright Kane thought the color would stain his hands. It came with its own golden pen in a leather loop, and the pages were blank except for the first, which read My Dream Journal.

  “You want me to keep a dream journal?”

  “Of course not.” Dr. Poesy laughed. “I may not be your real psychologist, but you are still under my evaluation, and as long as that’s the case, the police cannot touch you. Keeping this journal, along with weekly check-ins with me, should give you the time and inspiration you need to give me the information I want about Maxine Osman and your incendiary evening together. Do this for me, and I will handle the rest.”

  Kane’s voice was a pale-blue whisper. “But I told the police everything I know.”

  Dr. Poesy smiled. “You and I both know there is more to your story. Perhaps you’ve lied. Perhaps you haven’t. Perhaps your dreams will reveal what your waking mind cannot bear. It does not matter, so long as it makes it onto those pages. No detail should be considered irrelevant. Withhold nothing, or I will know. You have three weeks.”

  “But…”

  Kane stopped himself. What was he doing, revealing how little he knew? Dr. Poesy had just said Kane was untouchable so long as he was being evaluated. If Dr. Poesy lost faith in his ability to be useful, the evaluation ended, and Kane’s freedom winked out like a light.

  Dr. Poesy crossed his legs at the ankle. He draped his hands, one over the other, at the knee, and a flare of gold chain on his wrist caught the lamplight. Kane stared at it, helpless beneath the fear and panic surging through him.

  “Look at me.”

  Kane looked. Dr. Poesy leaned over the table, daring Kane to join him in a new, hushed closeness.

  “There is a dangerous truth within you, Mr. Montgomery, that not even the most competent artifice will conceal for long. And, as with all dangerous truths, the trick to surviving it is letting it out in a way you can control.” Dr. Poesy leaned even closer. “People like us? We must tell our stories ourselves, you know, or else they will destroy us in their own violent making. And I assure you this truth will destroy you, too, if you’re not careful. It’ll crack you apart from the inside out”—Kane lurched back, Dr. Poesy’s fingers snapping an inch from his face—“like an egg.”

  Kane’s throat was raw as he sucked in a deep breath. The Soft Room pulsed. He could not believe this person was accusing him of lying and blackmailing him into keeping a journal. A fake dream journal. Absurdly, he was overcome with the urge to tell Sophia she’d been right. He was being told to figure out his testimony through arts and crafts, after all.

  “I understand,” Kane whispered.

  “Grand,” Dr. Poesy said, softening. “I thought you might. Now, when we leave this room, I want the blood back in your face. A pep in your step. We’ve only just been getting to know each other, haven’t we?”

  Kane got the hint. “Of course.”

  Together they left the Soft Room, walking through the station and the doors that buzzed when they were unlocked. In the lobby, Kane and Dr. Poesy exchanged goodbyes, and Kane rushed to the double doors.

  “Kane.”

  Dr. Poesy stood back in the lobby, fiddling with the cuff of his right wrist.

  “Be careful. The things we cannot outrun are the things we must fight, and you are no fighter. You will need help. You will need me, and I do not provide for liars.”

  Kane saw the shadowy monster in the clouds of dust and light. He saw it turning, slowly, its eyeless head stopping to consider him. And of course he had run. And Dr. Poesy knew.

  A pair of officers walked by. Dr. Poesy smiled vacantly, handing Kane something. The postcard. “I want you to have this. A bookmark, so you will always know your place.”

  His face burned as he took it. He held it close as he shoved through the double doors of the police station, fleeing back into the embrace of summer and the singing of cicadas.

  • Three •

  BEWARE OF DOG

  As soon as Kane was outside, his phone erupted in a million messages, all of them from Sophia. They were coming in too quickly to read, so he just called her as he hurried away from the station.

  “Kane? Where have you been?”

  “At the police station. I’m fine. Where are Mom and Dad?”

  “They’re at the house. Didn’t you see my texts?”

  Kane walked faster. He had the urge to run, but people were still out and about in the town center. The sun was still setting.

  “I haven’t read them yet. What happened?”

  “You tell me. I don’t get it. I got home and Mom and Dad pulled in twenty minutes later, saying the meeting was canceled and that you were meeting a counselor for your evaluation, or something. I told them I’d pick you up, but that was two hours ago! So then I told them we were grabbing Froyo. I think I bought us some time to talk.”

  Kane was not comforted by this. He suspected his meeting with Dr. Poesy was unofficial, somehow. No paperwork. Nothing to document what they’d talked about. A blank yawn in his life. Just like the accident.

  “What happened, Kane? Where are you?”

  Kane bit into the flesh of his cheek, try
ing to decide if he should lie or not. Sophia was already overinvolved in this.

  “Nothing bad happened. I just met with a counselor, like they said. I had to write out some answers for a report and talk about my feelings. It was dumb.” The lie left him feeling more alone than ever.

  “Where are you? I’ve just been reading at Roost. I’ll come get you.”

  “I want to walk home.”

  “You’re not supposed to be alone. Mom said I should—”

  “Lie for me again, will you?”

  Kane hung up and turned off the phone. He had the urge to throw it into the rhododendron that bordered St. Agnes, the university at the heart of East Amity. He cut through the campus, speeding toward Harrow Creek.

  East Amity was an ill-conceived town, a concrete canvas thrown over the sodden greenery of the Housatonic’s flood lands. For that reason the fabric of the suburban grid was eaten through in places, sunken by ravines that filled with rainwater and grew fuzzy with forests. Harrow Creek ribboned through these small forests, hemmed to the land by a running path. It was the least direct route home. But it was safe. No cars could drive alongside it looking for him. No little sisters out searching for their brothers.

  Kane needed time and space to think, and the path had always given him both.

  He looked up through the birch trees that webbed across the dimming sky. By the time he was alongside the creek, night shaded the distance and drew a curtain of shadow right up to the path’s edge. Every few yards stood a glowing lamppost wreathed by moths, neon and frantic. Down a steep bank the creek slid over its bed of worn rocks, silent and unbothered and everything Kane was not. On the path two kids scraped by on scooters, followed by their parents. They stared at Kane, which is how he realized he looked as dismal as he felt.

  Kane took out the postcard Dr. Poesy had given him, his hands shaking. In the corner were the initials MO. Maxine Osman. Smothering dread curled in Kane’s throat as he forced himself to stare into the painting’s pleasant colors. The image wasn’t any different now that its creator was dead, yet it somehow brimmed with new life. It was all that was left of her, and so in a way it was where she existed now. Trapped, in her own watercolor world.

  Kane thought of how he had stood and looked at the mill, imagining it in the dreamy brightness of watercolor. At the time it had felt like just another daydream, but now? He itched with his usual instinct to run, to hide. To stop himself from discovering anything else.

  He knew now it wasn’t a daydream before—it was a memory.

  Waves of anxiety bubbled up from his stomach. What had he done? Who was he? He didn’t want to remember, but he also didn’t have a choice. The truth was his only choice if he wanted to survive this story, Dr. Poesy had said.

  Kane breathed steadiness into his nerves, imagining their frantic energy drifting from his hands as waves of writhing static. He shook himself out, hopping in a small circle, then hopping in the reverse direction to undo the coil. These small rituals often worked for him, and the tension eased from his body. He had made it this far, hadn’t he? He wasn’t going to let himself crack apart now.

  “I’m not an egg,” Kane told the night, pulling out the journal. Into its soft leather cover, he whispered, “I’m not an egg.”

  By now his only company on the path were the clots of gnats around his head, and the moths, and the occasional glimmer of moonlight on the creek’s edges. When he reached a bench beneath a lamp, he slumped into it and opened the journal.

  Experimentally, Kane clicked the pen twice. It made a clean, expensive sound. He clicked it six more times, then drew a few squiggles.

  “What your waking mind cannot bear,” Kane muttered, printing the words in careful letters. He read them over and over, until they no longer looked like words, finally turning to the postcard.

  Whatever had happened to Kane, it somehow connected him to Maxine Osman. This meant he needed to learn everything he could about her. Already he had some details. He wrote down her name. Dr. Poesy had said she was born in 1946, which made her seventy-four. Kane didn’t add when she died, because he refused to know that. Not yet. Poesy had also said she’d always lived in East Amity, but where? And she did paintings for the tourism board, a series for the town’s calendar. One such calendar was hanging in Kane’s kitchen right now, had hung there every year since Kane was little. In a way, he’d known Maxine Osman all his life.

  Now what?

  Kane thought of the frustration that boiled through him—fine and corrosive, like soda bubbles—when he stepped into the water near the mill and felt nothing. He thought of watercolors, and of what Sophia had said about how someone must have dragged him from the fire. He didn’t think an old lady had rescued him, which meant someone else had to have been involved.

  But who?

  Hunched on the bench, Kane penned in a version of what had happened that afternoon at the mill, sanitizing it for Dr. Poesy. When he got to the part where they were running, specifically when he looked back to see what chased them, he stopped. He still didn’t know what he’d seen. The more he imagined it, the more he remembered. It had not moved like a person, one leg at a time. It moved like a spider, every leg at once.

  Chills spread over his body, the night turning cold on his thighs. He tapped his boots against the pavement, eight taps each side then eight taps together. He should go home. Get inside. Dr. Poesy had warned Kane about those that wanted to keep him silent. What did that mean?

  And then it hit. Dr. Poesy believed Kane had been with Maxine Osman when she died but had not killed her. That meant two things: someone else had murdered Maxine Osman, and that someone knew who Kane was.

  Why hadn’t Dr. Poesy pointed this out? Kane’s hand tightened around the pen. He was about to stand when a gleam like moonlight on a blade drew his eye across the creek. He squinted into the flat darkness.

  There it was again: an edge of light floating above the creek’s other bank. His heart raced as a portion of shadow shifted, and the glare vanished. Was it a wolf or maybe a bobcat? East Amity was nestled in rolling forests and sometimes the animals got curious, but something about the shadow seemed unnatural in a familiar way.

  He clutched the journal as he crept to the edge of the path, his eyes never leaving the other bank. Whatever it was, he couldn’t see it now, and so he listened for the sound of splashing to determine if it was coming closer. Instead, he heard a needling click, like claws on smooth stone. And it was right behind him.

  Something massive scampered over the bench, knocking Kane’s backpack to the ground. Dimly he registered a great many legs, long and multi-jointed like a gigantic spider, all fused together in a grotesque jumble. It skittered backward, sprawled out, and then leapt straight up into the trees.

  Kane’s heart jammed against the back of his ribs. Too scared to even scream, he grabbed his backpack and sprinted toward the end of the path. Around him the night filled with wind and chanting cicadas, a strange sort of laughter that filled Kane with white-hot dread. Those legs. He couldn’t unsee those legs. There was no cloud of dust this time. Nothing hiding the thing that had chased him and his sister from the mill earlier that day.

  It had found him, and it was going to finish him off.

  Kane hit a bend in the path that sloped up toward the road. He threw a glance backward. The beast swayed from the lamppost, like a cocoon of shadow. A spindly leg separated from the main body and plucked something up. The Witches.

  Kane tripped over himself and crashed to the ground. His hands stung, his fingernails jammed with grit. He was almost upright when he heard that clicking again, ahead of him now. He drew back a second before another mass of legs skittered over the path to block his exit.

  “Leave me alone!” Kane shouted, hurling his backpack at the thing before running toward the creek. He dove into the reeds, muck sucking him down to his knees in the creek’s sulfuric stink. Unblinking, h
is eyes ticked between the two banks, watching for movement. He waited, clutching the red journal for security.

  And waited. The night waited with him, totally silent.

  Then there came a voice: “Hello? Is someone down there?”

  A girl appeared on the path, peering into the reeds. Crickets chirped and water slapped. “Hello?” she called again. Kane knew he should warn her, but he couldn’t breathe. Shamefully silent, he waited for the darkness to grab her with its many legs, but nothing happened.

  The girl jumped down the bank. “Hello? I can see you. Are you okay?” She was much bigger than Kane, dressed in running gear, and she held his muddy backpack. She stopped short when she saw him.

  “There was something…” Kane began. Where did he begin? Should he even try to explain?

  There was a beat of stillness as Kane and the girl realized they knew each other, and then so much dread settled on Kane he felt like he would sink right back into the mud.

  “Kane?”

  “No,” he blurted. “It’s not. I’m not.”

  Ursula Abernathy, another junior at Amity Regional, shifted from foot to foot. Broad and powerful, she was a star athlete on the track team. Or maybe the field hockey team? Kane just knew she did sports often, and she did them well, but that off the field she was super awkward. She’d been picked on a lot growing up. Kane knew because he’d been there for all of it. They’d gone to the same elementary school.

  It was pointless trying to lie now that she’d recognized him.

  “Fine, it is me,” Kane said.

  “Are you…okay?”

  “Yes.”

  Ursula waited, clearly ready for an explanation, but Kane had nothing to give. He was too busy with the realization that by morning it would be town-wide news that Kane Montgomery, local gay miscreant, burner of buildings and crasher of cars, was caught nocturnally frolicking in the muddy tributaries of the Housatonic River. He could already imagine Dr. Poesy making a note of this in that stupid file.