Reverie

by Ryan La Sala

  Adeline tapped her chin. “It was high silliness, low logic. Weren’t there carnivorous bunnies?”

  “Oh, that’s right!” Ursula said. “I forgot about those!”

  Kane’s head spun with the way these three pinballed among details.

  “Anyhow.” Adeline folded her hands. “It’s better if we handle reveries ourselves. Otherwise, things get weird.”

  Get weird.

  Get!

  Seeing Kane’s face, Elliot said, “Not all of them are as intense as tonight. In fact, almost all of them are harmless at first, but it’s all about how you play your cards. If something goes wrong, even the sweet reveries turn deadly. That’s why it’s important to play along and help the reverie reach its resolution. Otherwise it twists.”

  Adeline’s lashes flickered in poised bitterness. “Like tonight, for instance.”

  She knows I messed it up. They know it was my fault for getting caught.

  “Right,” Elliot nodded. “Tonight’s reverie came from Benny Cooper, who was supposed to save the damsels. Probably would have jumped into the arena at the last second and killed the sorcerer, avoiding the summoning. That monster looked improvised.” The Others nodded. “Lots of hero fantasies coming out of the sophomore boys these days.”

  “But…” Kane was eager to move past his own mistakes, but he definitely didn’t want to discuss the lava lobster, which, now that he thought about it, did look a little silly. “But why barbarians? And why were the girls all dressed like secretaries?”

  Elliot smiled like this observation made him proud. “Every reverie has a premise. An inspiration, right? Well, recently the football team had a party to kick off the season. The theme was ‘Barbarians & Librarians.’ Cooper must have gotten the idea then.”

  “But what about the…Cymo-whatever?”

  “Cymothoa exigua,” said Adeline. “A parasite that attaches itself to its host’s tongue, replacing it. It’s actually a thing. We covered them in bio while you were gone. And I know Cooper hates shellfish. He freaked out last year when we stayed at Claire’s beach house and her dad made crawfish, and someone hid one in Cooper’s cup. He only saw it after chugging the whole thing.”

  “That explains the glowing lobsters in Mrs. Clark’s lab,” said Ursula.

  “Isopods.”

  “We know, Elliot,” snapped the girls in unison. Then Adeline raised her chin at Kane. “Anyways, Kane, do you have any other questions?”

  “Yeah. How come no one, like, knows about all this?”

  Elliot answered again. “You know today in the gym, when we were talking and everyone else vanished?”

  “Yeah. It was like we were in another dimension for a second. Was that a reverie?”

  “No, that was an invisibility trick. They couldn’t see us, and we couldn’t see them. Pretty cool, right?”

  Kane thought it was mostly manipulative, but he didn’t say so.

  “When the reveries started, each of us got powers,” Elliot said. “All of us are stronger and faster than we used to be, although Urs is considerably stronger and faster.”

  Ursula blushed.

  “And we each have specific abilities. For instance, I can bend perception. Manipulate what people see and create projections. I’m the master of obfuscation.”

  “Illusions, Elliot,” Ursula teased. “Just say you can create illusions. It’s not that hard.”

  “Fine. Illusions,” Elliot said, crestfallen. “I create illusions, and I hide the reveries as they’re happening.”

  Kane pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, so you can hide the reveries, but what about the people who just experienced that? Aren’t they going to like, tweet about it?”

  Adeline smirked. “Nah, we’re good. Elliot can manipulate the present, but I’ve got the past. I can mess with memories. Erase them, create them. Whatever it takes so that people don’t remember what they’ve been through. And if I don’t purge the memories, people get super confused, and sometimes it causes them to create their own reveries. I guess that’s what happens when you can’t figure out which of your lives is real.”

  Earlier it had been explained to Kane that Adeline lingered in the stadium to deal with “cleanup,” which meant making sure no one ever knew the reverie happened. “The trick is to erase everything, but not fill in every gap,” she said. “If you leave just enough unknown, the mind lies to itself and fills it in organically. It’s easy.”

  Adeline can manipulate memories, Kane thought. He went cold, connecting her gruesome power to his own messed-up mind.

  “Adeline is the security,” Elliot said. “I’m the strategy. We each can fight, but Urs is the true soldier. She channels force, taking it in through her barriers and turning into pure strength. She’s our offense and defense. She’s a beast.”

  Ursula smirked. “Thanks, Elliot.”

  Kane grew colder still. Security, Strategy, Soldier. He directed his icy gaze at Ursula.

  “So what’s my S word?”

  The three of them froze while Kane waited, each second lasting a lifetime, for an explanation that wouldn’t come. Exasperated, he just decided to be frank.

  “I overheard the entire conversation in the boiler room. I know I used to be part of this group. The Others, right? That’s what you call yourselves?”

  Ursula shifted. “Yeah, we needed a name to refer to each other by in any reverie, no matter the plot. It’s a code name.”

  “A code name? Whose corny idea was a code name?”

  “Yours.” Adeline’s hand struck the table, silencing Kane and the tables nearby. “Your idea. You. Our leader.”

  Kane went red-hot, his hairline prickling and his clothes itching on his back.

  Leader?

  “Same with the term Reverie. And Hero. You said it’s hard to handle a problem if you don’t know how to talk about it, so you made up terms.”

  White heat burst at the edges of Kane’s vision. Sweat dotted his lower back. How could they not feel the heat?

  “You were the first to explore the reveries. The first to get powers,” Elliot said. “You, then Urs. Eventually Adeline and I got dragged into a few reveries, by accident, and when our powers developed it seemed like a natural thing to form a team. So we became the Others. We’re the only ones who stay lucid, and if we don’t unravel them properly, they leave damage behind. People get hurt. We learned that the hard way.”

  It was a subtle movement, but Adeline’s eyes closed a fraction longer than a blink.

  Elliot continued. “And recently, the reveries have been getting worse. More…elaborate. Like whole entire worlds instead of just one story. And then around two months ago, we thought—” He swallowed. “You began talking about the energy of reveries. The stuff that creates them. You said there was a source of power that the heroes were tapping into, somehow, and if you could find it you could control it, too.”

  Adeline picked up. “We told you not to.”

  “Not to what?”

  No one answered.

  “Not to what?”

  Adeline lowered her voice to a menacing whisper. “You went nuts, Kane.” Elliot and Ursula flinched. “What? It’s true. You became obsessed with finding the source of the reveries, the source of our power. You were convinced it was a weapon that you had to have, or else it was going to be used against you. It’s all you talked about for weeks, and then, in the middle of a reverie, you… I don’t know. Lost it? Like actually, truly lost your grip on reality? You basically tore the whole thing apart in this psychedelic explosion, and we thought you died. Like died died.”

  “What about the car crash?”

  Adeline picked at the crusts on her plate. “The police saw the explosion and showed up. We needed something quick, so Ursula threw your car into the mill and Elliot created a bunch of fake evidence to make it look like a fire. I filled in the
rest with some fake memories while we made sure you got to a hospital. Not our best work, but we needed to use you as a diversion.”

  “You threw my dad’s car?”

  Ursula had never looked more ashamed, not even when Adeline talked about her mermaid shell bra. “Underhand,” she squeaked.

  “And this was a diversion? From what?”

  The chill in the booth was back, and now it wouldn’t thaw. It settled resolutely onto Kane’s skin, a frosted lather. He squared his shoulders toward Adeline, who was the most forthcoming, but it was Elliot who spoke up.

  “The hero of that night’s reverie was an old painter, and her reverie was a watercolor reimagining of East Amity. It developed as she was setting up to paint the mill, we think. It was huge and intricate, but we never got to its resolution. When you tore the reverie apart, the hero vanished. We don’t know what happened to her. Her name was—”

  “Maxine Osman,” Kane said. He didn’t see their reaction. The diner’s fluorescent lights buzzed in the silence. Neither time nor feeling could reach him as the sense of betrayal he’d felt about his past earlier that day returned, filling him to the brim with a pulsing, dark truth. You are a killer, you are a killer, it said. He shoved it down. Kane barely knew these people, and he definitely did not trust them. What if they were creating this story, just like they’d created the crash? Just like they’d created everything else?

  “How do I know you’re not lying? How come I don’t remember?”

  No one would look at Kane. Adeline seemed miles away when she finally spoke.

  “After you unraveled Maxine’s reverie, we found you with this thing on your head. An artifact that was definitely not from the reverie. We think it’s what set off your powers, but we don’t know. It sort of looked like a crown, but it was burning you.” She gestured to the burns etched in Kane’s scalp.

  Dread squirmed in his chest.

  “I tried to remove it, but touching it did something to my powers, too. I couldn’t control them. It was like my powers turned inside out or something, and the whole mill decayed. So did your car. Elliot and Ursula would have died if it wasn’t for Ursula’s shield. But I held on, and it worked. I got it off and it threw it away, and when we looked for it later it was gone. Vanished.” She said this with the weight of a verdict. “You survived, but whatever I did destroyed some of your memories. When I checked in the hospital, everything from the summer was gone, and everything about us and the reveries with it.”

  The booth was as still as a graveyard. Kane waited to see how he’d react. He waited for the dread to break apart and for an emotion to crawl out. He thought it might be betrayal again. Or doubt. Instead, what hatched within Kane was none of these things. It was fear, but he was smart enough not to show it. Outrage was a handy cover, and it flowed as quick as hot oil.

  “You erased my memory?”

  Adeline thrust out her chin. “Kane, I didn’t have a choice.”

  Kane pushed from the booth.

  “You put me into a coma? You crashed my dad’s car? You turned my family and the police against me?”

  The clatter in the diner stopped, everyone focused on the boy shouting.

  “She saved you, Kane,” said Elliot. “She’s been saving all of us ever since. Just after you went under, your family opened a police report to look into foul play, but Adeline got to them in time and made it so that they didn’t remember who we were, either. She’s the only one keeping us a secret.”

  Kane backed away, horrified. “You erased my family’s memory?”

  Adeline crossed her arms and glared at the dark windows. Kane’s stomach turned. Elliot followed Kane as he backed away. The eyes of everyone in the diner followed them, too.

  “Kane, listen to me. It’s not perfect. None of it’s perfect. But you’re here now. You found your way back. And we need to work as a team now more than ever. You need to prove you can control your powers, or else—”

  Kane lunged into a punch, catching Elliot in the cheek. His head snapped sideways and he fell, sweeping a stack of dirtied plates to the floor in a jagged crash.

  In the gasp that followed, Kane addressed the other patrons.

  “None of you will remember this. She’s going to erase your memories, too.” He looked at the Others. “If you come near my family again, I’ll kill you.”

  The bells clattered as Kane ran from the diner. They rang again as someone followed.

  “Kane!”

  It was Ursula.

  Despite his rage and fear, Kane halted. “I’m going.”

  “You can’t. Not with those things out there. At least let us give you a ride.”

  “I’d rather take my chances.” It was true; he would rather face the horrors of the night than spend another minute with these three.

  Ursula shrugged off her flannel.

  “Here. It’s cold.”

  Kane took it. The warmth that seeped into his fingers felt intrusive. It smelled like her smell of soap and deodorant, and that felt intrusive, too. A million Trojan horses, a million betrayals trotting through his senses.

  “Kane, before you go—”

  He stalked off, listening for the bells that meant Ursula had left him behind. They never came, which meant she was still in the cold, watching his back, watching him forget her again. Hating himself, he slipped on the flannel.

  Because Ursula was right. It was cold, and it was a long walk home.

  • Thirteen •

  THE FEMALE ANGLERFISH

  When Kane slipped through his kitchen door it was two hours later. His feet ached from the six-mile walk. His shoulders hurt where his backpack dug in. His hand was swollen, his bruised knuckles split and seeping as though punching Elliot had curdled the bright magic hidden just beneath his skin. Now it rose through him darkly, like oil pushing up through layers of pressure and rock. Kane shook his hands again and again as he walked in tight circles in his kitchen, listening to the still house for any sound of his family. It seemed impossible that Sophia would have kept a lie going for him this long, yet he’d arrived home to peace, darkness, and quiet. Too much quiet. The way things had been, Kane was surprised the police weren’t here waiting for him. Yet his phone sat sleeping in his pocket. He had vanished from this world for an entire afternoon, and it hadn’t inspired so much as a text.

  Kane was too relieved to question it. Being in his own room wasn’t an option, so he made for the living room couch. Right before he dove onto it, a lamp snapped on, and up stood Sophia from the recliner.

  “Late night at school, I see.”

  Kane hid his bloody knuckles behind his back while his sister studied him sleepily, pushing her glasses up her nose and adjusting her blanket. She must have nodded off waiting for him.

  “I covered for you,” she said finally. “Mom and Dad think you’ve been asleep since you got home right after school. Made me bring dinner up to your room. I dumped it out the window and brought back the plates. Make sure you clean that up.”

  Kane pursed his lips. He knew he should thank her, but it hadn’t exactly been his choice to be abducted into a rogue nightmare. He stopped himself from saying anything at all, knowing it’d be used against him.

  With a curt nod Sophia dragged herself off the recliner, her blanket sweeping behind her like a rich cape. Halfway up the stairs she stopped. “In the morning, you’re going to tell me where you’ve been. If you lie, I will expose you to Mom and Dad. I’d rather have you in jail than lost again, Kane. Those are my conditions.”

  And then he was alone again. His backpack slumped to the floor, and soon he was there alongside it, just sitting in the pool of golden lamplight.

  He was still there an hour later, and an hour after that, too afraid to sleep, to dream. He was too afraid that if he looked away his house might dissolve into the ether, like the arena. He felt like he did whenever he glimpsed th
e Cobalt Complex through the thin forest that hid it from the roads; like he was flirting with a hidden vastness folded into the fabric of reality, like if he stared for too long, he’d lose himself within it, belong to it, and he’d never find his way back out.

  What the hell was he going to tell Sophia?

  Oh, I put on a magical device in a dreamworld and it caused my powers to go haywire. Oh, also, I have powers.

  He kept his hands decidedly clenched.

  When morning arrived, it arrived in fringes, just a rosy nuisance tickling Kane’s bloodshot eyes. Then the light was somehow everywhere. Soon the house would be awake.

  Kane stretched his stiff legs, then flopped back onto the carpet, crushing his backpack in the process, and that’s when he remembered the red journal.

  It took only a second to dig it out of the bag. He eyed it like it was edible, like he was about to flay it open and devour its pages. In the rush of escaping the Others, Kane’s mind had kept itself purposefully blank. Now the memories of Dean Flores burst like fireworks, one after the other. Boom, boom!

  “‘You must never tell your friends about me,’” Kane recited. “‘If you do, they will hurt you, then they will hurt me.’”

  Well they had already hurt Kane, which meant half of Dean’s prophecy was already true. And Dean was not simply a civilian. He had been lucid, like Kane. Like the Others. Yet he was not one of the Others. He was the one constant of Kane’s first day, yet he was the one thing that had yet to fit.

  Drawings of shoes danced across the journal pages. What he now knew were Elliot’s sneakers and Adeline’s flats. Kane flipped, looking for another clue. Another photo. He was sure Dean had guided him this far. Kane was desperate to go farther.

  An alarm went off somewhere in the house. His parents. Sophia rose second. She’d want answers. Kane needed to think of more lies.

  Something in the pages flashed. Kane flipped back but it was gone. He shook the journal upside down, and it fluttered out.

  It was a card of heavy paper, bordered in golden filigree. The font was elegant and sparkling. It said: