Reverie

by Ryan La Sala

  He was the Elliot that Poesy had told Kane not to trust.

  “It’s okay,” Kane found himself saying, even though it certainly wasn’t okay.

  Elliot exhaled, relieved. “Can you do me a favor, then?”

  When Kane shrugged in response, Elliot scooted forward. “I just want you to know that none of this was Ursula’s fault. She was always for putting you first, you know that, right? I don’t like that she messed with the plan, but I respect her, and I know she was just trying to be a good friend. I think you should ease up on her.”

  The weed of guilt that had already taken root grew even more, slowly pushing through to his heart. Elliot had named what Kane wouldn’t let himself believe: Ursula was innocent. That meant Ursula deserved a better friend than Kane had ever been.

  After Elliot left, Kane turned his request over in his head like inspecting a smooth stone before hurling it across smooth waters. Why had Elliot talked to him like this? What did he want? Was it possible his agenda had only been for Ursula? That made Kane question his distrust just long enough for him to grow curious, and Kane’s curiosity had just about enough of being told no.

  He tossed his stuff into his bag before chasing after Elliot, smacking a palm on the hood of his car as he was pulling out. Elliot jolted in the driver’s seat.

  “Wait,” Kane said. “I need your help. And call the Others. We’ll need them, too.”

  They drove toward the Cobalt Complex. At some point the sweltering Saturday had tipped into a stormy afternoon, and the humidity had unleashed a violent rain that lasted only six minutes. It happened when they were on the bridge, sweeping over the river in golden and gray waves that bundled the distance into a hazy closeness. By the time they reached the complex, the rain was done, and the trees shuddered with new weight. They found the girls in a cracked lot, the pavement already drying in patchwork.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Elliot asked again.

  “Yeah.”

  Elliot waved the girls over. They piled into his back seat, and then Elliot turned out of the lot as Adeline read directions off her phone. A few minutes later they arrived. Elliot, ever cautious, parked a street over. The same caution is why they’d left the other cars at the complex. The less to hide, the better, Elliot said. And then the four of them were in front of the house, Maxine’s house, which meant Kane had to explain why he’d brought them all here.

  “Who else knows about Maxine Osman?” he asked.

  Adeline and Elliot exchanged a look. “No one, yet,” Adeline said. “We imagined she’d be reported missing by someone, eventually. But she doesn’t have any family. No kids or anything.”

  “She has a friend named Helena Quigley,” Kane said. “And I think she’s in that house.”

  More glances were exchanged.

  “And I think she’s in trouble,” Kane added.

  “What sort of trouble?” asked Ursula.

  “Reverie trouble,” Kane said.

  Kane expected eye rolls and anger, but what he got was direct concern from the three of them as they peppered him with a million questions. He waved them away so he could explain.

  “This is going to sound so weird, but I remember hearing this whispering after I unraveled Benny Cooper’s reverie, right before I gave it back to him. And then I heard that sound when I called Maxine’s house and someone picked up. And I think that someone was Helena.”

  Adeline dialed Kane back with her index finger. “You called Maxine’s house?”

  “Just once,” Kane said, a little ashamed. Again he waited for doubt and criticism, but the Others just nodded.

  “In the past, you’ve been the best at figuring out where the next reverie was going to hit,” Elliot explained. “Probably part of that energy you can manipulate.”

  “Etherea,” Kane said automatically.

  “Is that what we’re calling it now?” Adeline asked pointedly, like she knew Kane hadn’t just made up the term. He looked away from her quickly.

  “Just a name,” he said.

  “And you feel like you can sense…etherea from inside that house?”

  “Something like that.”

  The Others had a silent conversation with only their eyes, perhaps deliberating how to handle Kane’s new, strange mission. Ursula was the one to step forward and say, “All right, the least we can do is take a look, right? If someone’s in trouble, it’s up to us to help them.”

  They approached Maxine’s house, which was a narrow Tudor set back behind a court of hemlocks. Kane knew from the videos that if they walked to the top floor, they’d find one bedroom and one room full of light and watercolors. As they rounded the back, he knew they’d find an overgrown garden with two ski poles pinned in the dirt. And they did, though the garden was beyond neglected. Withered vines hung off the poles from twist ties. Unharvested vegetables sat in the dirt, soft with rot. No one had been back here in a while.

  “Hear anything?” Adeline asked Kane.

  Kane wasn’t sure just yet. He heard a faint din, just beneath the warm breeze, but it could have just been his heartbeat in his own ears.

  “I don’t see any lights on,” Ursula whispered.

  “Urs, you don’t have to whisper, I’m keeping us invisible,” Elliot said, his eyes shining an inhuman gold.

  “Part of his illusion magic,” Ursula explained to Kane, still whispering.

  Creeped out, Kane drifted toward the back door, but Elliot’s voice stopped him.

  “Come on, Kane. We can’t just walk in.”

  “I want to check on her.”

  “But this isn’t even her house.”

  “Then why did she answer the phone?”

  Kane was acting sure, but he didn’t know. All he knew was the helplessness he’d heard in the old woman’s voice as she called out for her lost friend. And right now the din in his head was rising. Something was wrong.

  Ursula let out a small yelp.

  “I saw something! In a window! Something moved!”

  They backed up to look into the stoic face of the house. Nothing in the windows moved, but Kane was sure something was off about the house. Something about its black presence against the gray sky seemed to bend the air, like the house was a weight slowly sinking backward, pulling the world around it taut. And again he heard that shushing din. Faint and ephemeral, but there. The house whispered with dark promise, urging them to come closer.

  Then, from the top floor, there was a scream. At the same time a window exploded outward, releasing a strange pressure from the house and blowing over the desiccated garden. Around them the plants came back to life, turning from gray to green. Flowers uncurled new buds that bloomed in seconds, reinvigorated by what had to be magic.

  “Kane was right.” Adeline sounded stricken. “It’s a reverie. It’s already forming!”

  “We have to help her.” Kane charged toward the door. Before he’d made it, just as he was passing a propped-up wheelbarrow, he collided with a person attempting to hide in the garden.

  They both fell to the ground.

  “Sophia?”

  Sophia straightened her shirt as she stood. She picked up her phone, the screen showing it was recording a video.

  The Others approached from behind.

  “Great work, Elliot. Super invisible,” Adeline said.

  Kane dragged his sister away by the elbow. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Sophia shook him off. “I came to Roost to see if you wanted to get food. A peace offering, but you were with that guy. And then I saw you race after him, so I followed. And…” Her voice trailed off as she watched the garden grow wild around them. “Kane, are you seeing this, too?”

  “You were spying on me?”

  Sophia’s eyes darted between Kane, the Others, and the garden. “No, I mean, I guess. I was spying on all of you. Who ar
e they? More ‘tutors’ of yours? What is this?”

  “You need to go, Sophia. It’s not safe for you here.” Kane shoved her away. Golden pollen floated in the air now, and it had grown unusually sunny just over the house. The reverie was building itself all around them.

  Sophia pushed past Kane and addressed Adeline. “You! I know you. You do dance at the conservatory, right?”

  “Ballet,” Adeline said.

  “And you!” Sophia put a finger toward Ursula. “You play field hockey, right? I know I’ve seen you before. And you!” She had reached Elliot, but clearly had no idea who he was, and so she just squinted at him with menace.

  “Kane,” Elliot said gravely. “You have to get her out of here. And we can’t let her remember any of this.”

  Kane moved between them. His anger was instant, rising in him just as a flare of etherea rose from his hand.

  “If you touch my sister, I will kill you.”

  Elliot’s eyes filled with fear as he backed away.

  “Kane, we don’t have time for this. Think about what you’re doing.”

  “I am thinking about it. And I wouldn’t have let you guys erase my sister’s memory the first time if I’d been able to think about it then, but—oh wait! I was in a fucking coma, or did you forget your little plan?”

  Elliot’s jaw worked, his eyes never leaving the light in Kane’s fist. The whispering was all around them now, a roar slowly saturating the air.

  “Sophia, you need to run,” Kane commanded. For once, she listened, darting out of the garden and back toward the street.

  “We’ll leave her,” Elliot said. “We promise. But right now we need to get out of here, too.”

  Kane dropped the fire, letting the light burrow into the thickening grass. He took deep breaths, caught between wanting to run away with his sister and needing to follow through on his original goal. He had been right. The next reverie had come to East Amity, and it had found its home in Helena Quigley. They were the only people who knew, and they were the only people who could save her from whatever horror had just burst from her head.

  “We’re not leaving,” Kane said, thinking of Poesy’s words. Helena could not run from this, and she couldn’t fight it herself, either. It was up to them, the lucid. The powerful. Kane marched toward the back door, knowing he’d find it ajar, just like the locker rooms. The mouth of the reverie left slightly agape, a tantalizing trap for anyone curious enough to enter.

  Ursula caught him, her grip like concrete.

  “Helena is in there,” Kane shouted at her. “We can’t just abandon her.”

  “You’re not going in there,” Ursula said as Adeline and Elliot joined her. “Not alone. Not without us.”

  • Sixteen •

  A BEAZLEY FAMILY AFFAIR

  This time, entering the reverie wasn’t as simple as running through a door. Or it was, but it didn’t feel that way. Kane’s vision went black the moment he entered the house, and Ursula’s grip was wrenched away. His senses darkened one by one, until he couldn’t feel anything at all. Then, like a computer rebooting, the world slowly came back to him. A different world than the one he had just left behind.

  Music from a string quartet threaded the warm breeze, weaving together with birdsong and bursts of far off laughter. The air was perfumed with honey and wine, and though the world felt bright upon Kane’s eyelids, they stayed decidedly closed as he awoke.

  “The rich throw such tedious parties. It’s because they only know other rich people, and money makes people boring. I don’t blame you for trying to escape it all, Willard.”

  A hand cupped Kane’s own. He tried to move, to respond, but only a croak scraped from his throat.

  “You’ve always been such a good listener. I’m sorry we didn’t talk more when you could.” The voice was that of a young girl, maybe around Kane’s age. “I bet you could tell me so many things about the world away from here. Maybe one day I’ll get to tell you things.”

  Kane finally got one eye open, then the other. He sat on a bench in a ribbon of shade created by a row of poplar trees that overlooked a manicured courtyard. Through the trees loomed a shimmering château, so large that it seemed to draw up and crest over them like a great wave. In the midday glare it glowed, every window ablaze with such radiance that the garden beneath—a vast and complicated maze of hedges, fountains, and channels that wrapped around where Kane sat—was submerged in golden light.

  Guests drifted through the garden—Kane knew they were guests in the same way he knew this was a party; all the women wore sweeping dresses, soft and thousand-layered, like blooming peonies. All the men wore coats with long tails and shoes glossed to match the sheen of their oiled hair. There were a great many hats.

  The reverie exuded Victorian elegance, but in a way that looked costumed to Kane, like dress-up.

  Beside Kane was a young girl with chubby cheeks and large teeth. She was dressed in a satin gown the color of red roses and had on a hat piled with fake birds. She looked into the garden. Her eyes were brown, full of a dreamy hunger. She was real, and unless the reverie had drastically transformed one of the Others, Kane was sitting next to Helena herself.

  “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Kane followed her gaze to a massive gazebo. Before it sat rows and rows of white chairs. Ivory ribbons trailed in the breeze and petals littered the ground. Helena was staring at a particular couple who Kane assumed had just been married, for the man wore a gorgeous black tuxedo and the woman was swathed in such an intense amount of tulle that to assume she was anything other than a bride would be absurd. As the bride turned, sunlight caught in the coronet of orange blossoms woven into her crimson ringlets, illuminating a wide and pale face.

  Kane nearly scoffed. The guise was brilliant. The only unfinished bit of the costume was Ursula herself, who steamed with discomfort in her huge dress.

  Kane couldn’t help it. He laughed.

  As soon he did, he knew it was a mistake. His throat closed, like he’d inhaled sharp smoke. He wheezed and gasped until the constriction melted away. This reverie wanted him silent.

  Helena rubbed his back. “Oh Willard, you mustn’t strain yourself. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t be talking on and on like this, as though you care at all. But, I must confess that your silence is a relief.” She leaned in close, champagne and strawberries on her breath. “I have a secret for you, Cousin Willard. There is a very important man here. A Mister Johan Belanger, who everyone believes will propose to Katherine Duval tonight.”

  Kane wished he could push her away. Gradually, his body was awakening to his own control, and as it did he found that his hands stung with something cold.

  The whistle! It was still nestled in his palms. Focusing on it brought a deluge of sensation back to Kane’s body.

  Helena went on. “And I know everyone gossips about my rivalry with Katherine Duval, but the truth is I know her better than anyone else. She truly believes that Johan loves her, and it makes her weak. She is distracted by this lie, as is everyone, but not me. Which is why I shall prevail.”

  She leaned closer to Kane, eyes darkening with determination. She placed her hands upon his.

  “What’s this you’ve got here, Cousin Willard?” She pried open his fingers.

  No!

  “Come on, let me see. Is it a toy? What’s gotten into you?”

  She got one hand open, then the other.

  “Sister!”

  Helena sprang back. Ursula suddenly towered over them, monstrous dress and all. She was flanked by her husband, who looked frankly surprised to find himself dragged so quickly across such a wide lawn.

  “Augustine,” said Helena, referring to Ursula. “You look positively lovely! I was just fetching our cousin Willard to come and say hello. You remember Willard, don’t you? We used to summer together as children at the camp upstate, before Mother di
ed.”

  Ursula nodded. “Why yes, of course. How do you do, Willard?” She extended a hand, which Kane knew not to take.

  “Augustine, please, you must remember he prefers to keep quiet.”

  Ursula peered at Kane. “Yes, of course.” Her face brightened. “Well, perhaps he would enjoy a tour of the gardens? I’m sure he would appreciate them, and it’s been ever so long since we summered together in…” Ursula clearly did not know where she had spent her fictitious childhood summers, and so she finished awkwardly with: “The summertime.”

  Helena bowed dutifully. “Of course, sister.” She turned to Ursula’s husband and said, “Robert, come, show your new sister-in-law to a refreshment before that Katherine shows up and ruins our good time.” And they left.

  Ursula hooked her arm into Kane’s and heaved him up. With her help they walked through the shade. Kane’s other hand remained fasted around his talisman.

  “So you can move, but you can’t speak? Shoot. This reverie is a doozy. It wouldn’t even let me loosen this freaking corset. I tried when I first woke up, but it just got tighter. And have you seen these gardens? It’s like we’re trapped in Versailles! Massive. At least there’s no fantasy element, right? I just hope that the Others are okay. We need to find them as soon as we can and figure out what Helena is after. She’s who you were sitting with, right?”

  Kane nodded.

  “And I’m her older sister, Augustine Beazley, although I just got married, so who knows what my last name is now. Okay, strong start so far.”

  They circled the gazebo’s manicured courtyard and then doubled back along a glittering channel choked with lily pads. Koi slid beneath them, scaled in gold and citrine. On the walk through the elaborate hedge maze they passed hundreds of guests—some upon the small stone bridges, some raking sand in a Japanese garden, some chasing after the many bejeweled peacocks—all of them sporting the same, clear white irises. They chatted with audible deportment about things like trade, taxes, tea, and horses. Cartoon topics of wealth. On the whole it felt awfully artificial, but Ursula was right: a rigidity saturated the air—the same strictness that had choked Kane—and though he knew he could speak if he needed to, he didn’t dare incite any plot twists. Not after last time.