by Ryan La Sala
“In here,” Adeline called, and Kane saw her just barely among the looping, diamond body. She’d been caught, about to be consumed when the whistle froze the reverie. The viper’s jaws were already unhinged, just inches from her head.
“Well,” Adeline said. “Blow it up.”
He tossed two bolts into the beast’s body, exploding it in glittering bursts that quickly froze. Then he pulled Adeline from the levitating rubble, turning them both bone white with dust. She held on to him longer than he sensed she needed to, and then a bit longer after that.
Her voice shook. “It got me.”
Kane squeezed her hand reassuringly. “But you got out.”
Adeline waved her hand around at the stilled reverie. “Did you do this?”
“Kind of. Come on.”
They reached the clearing with the gazebo. Elliot was there, Sophia fastened to his arm. He was breathing hard. “We were running…from the owl, and then…time stopped.”
Adeline pointed at Kane. “He did it.”
“It wasn’t me. It was this whistle.”
“Where’s Ursula?” Elliot asked.
Kane pointed at the spider. Elliot, to his credit, ran toward it and not away, but before he got close an earsplitting frequency fissured the air. It practically cut through them, so harsh it forced everyone to the ground. Kane could feel it in his teeth, in his eye sockets. He fought to hold down vomit and failed.
Was this Helena’s newest twist?
Across the clearing the air dimpled, bending the light into a large, upright rectangle. A swath of the scenery was peeling away, cleanly dissociating like two great doors opening into the reverie.
Kane held his breath. His tongue tasted of blood and bile.
Through the doors floated something completely alien to the rotting reverie—a woman draped in a plush fur coat that was the soft, whipped pink of sunrise on storm clouds. Her wide-brimmed hat and thick-heeled shoes matched as though spun from the same sugary atmosphere, and her octagonal glasses reflected everything in metallic clarity. She fingered the ascot around her neck. On her wrist hung the bracelet thick with charms. The only hardness about her was the muscles of her nude calves and the frown of her glossed lips.
Poesy surveyed the scene. “Oh, what a mess.”
Relief poured through Kane, as thick and sweet as the color of Poesy’s costume. She was power, personified. She would save them all.
Adeline must have felt the opposite. “Who are you?” she shouted.
Poesy smiled but did not answer. She glanced over her shoulder and beckoned something. “Don’t be shy. Come in, my dear.”
There came a sound like the shutter of an old camera, and with a flicker of the moonlight, Poesy was no longer alone. What had joined her in the doorway was a monster unresolved between a horse and a demon. Its twisted body stood upon four elongated legs that ended in hooked hooves. It had no face, only a long, curved beak. It had no eyes or ears, only a pair of spiraling horns. Its skin was glossy obsidian, stretched over sharp bones and an exposed spine. Worst of all was the way it walked, its legs moving with their own, inelegant independence, as though Poesy stood beneath the dark sister of the rose-gold spider.
“Others,” said Poesy, “meet my Dreadmare.”
The Dreadmare curtsied politely.
The reverie’s rage finally broke through the whistle’s suspension. The world unfroze with a wrenching shutter, and the bedazzled creatures—the beetle, the owl from above, and the spider—were all charging the Dreadmare. Above it all were Helena’s screams as her life flowed from the wound in her leg.
“Quickly, please,” said Poesy.
The Dreadmare stormed forward in disjointed harmony, seizing upon the beetle in a black flash. A few ruthless stabs later and the beetle’s shell had been pried from its back, only half a wing jutting straight up.
The Dreadmare charged the spider next. As it galloped, its wiry body melted like shadow. It sank low, its legs peeling apart and multiplying, until it matched the spider in shape. Now two arachnids wrestled, black legs braiding with pink, until the Dreadmare grew many more legs and dug them into the spider’s back. It ended all at once, like a corn kernel popping open.
Like mist, the Dreadmare vanished, and then the owl’s cry drew everyone’s attention upward. Somehow the Dreadmare had materialized around the bird, dragging it right out of the air. The grappling pair struck the ground violently. Kane fell forward, close enough to see the Dreadmare’s beak closing over the joint of the owl’s wing, rending the stone flesh like it was wet clay. The owl’s shrieks died off.
Among the fresh rubble, the Dreadmare stood and regarded Poesy coolly.
“I believe one still remains,” Poesy said, and the Dreadmare flickered out of sight. Then she turned to Kane. “You called?”
“Excuse me—”Adeline began again, but Kane cut her off.
“Ursula!” he pointed at the pile. “Save her! Please!”
Poesy nodded. “Of course, my dear, but first things first.”
The Dreadmare flickered back into sight next to Poesy. It held the serpent’s head in its jaw, which sent Poesy into a gleeful clap.
“I’ve been looking for this color garnet! How wonderful. Is that it then? No more interruptions?”
The Dreadmare tossed the head atop the carcass of the owl, then stepped back.
“Wonderful indeed,” Poesy confirmed. She picked her way over the rubble, prodding the sparkling gore like a prospector.
Kane limped to the gazebo. Was no one going to help Ursula? And what about Helena? She reached for Kane’s ankle, and he knelt by her side, trying not to look at the exposed bone deep in the gash of her leg. She gripped his arms weakly.
“Willard?” She spoke as though from deep in a dream. “I was…I didn’t…”
“It’s okay,” Kane said. “Help is here. We’re gonna get you back to the real world. But I need you to help me unravel this, okay?”
“Unravel this?” She blinked at her ruined beasts. Guilt and misery shivered through her. “You speak of the real world as though it is salvation, but don’t you see? People like us… Something separates us from the real world. Something makes sure we never belong.” Now her eyes were older than that of a young girl’s. Kane was looking into the lucid mind of the real Helena now. “I belonged here, but even this world has rejected me. Even here, I’m a…a…”
“A monster.”
Poesy’s heels crunched as she stood over them. Helena saw her for the first time, and, through her fear, Kane realized something. Poesy was here to help, but she was not here to help Helena.
“No, no!” Helena pleaded to Kane. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t in control. It was a mistake!”
“A Miss Stake, you say?” asked Poesy. “I don’t know a Miss Stake, but if I did, I’m sure she would resent such an accusation.” Poesy winked at Kane, and he realized again how far beyond this world Poesy was to be making jokes as Helena died right in front them. “Now, come with me. We’ll fix this together, yes?”
Poesy gestured for Helena to get up. When she didn’t, Poesy sighed, gestured again, and this time Helena rose into the air against her will. She clutched at Kane.
“Willard, please! Help me!”
“Wait!” Kane held her hand as she drifted up. “What are you doing to her?”
Helena’s hand went cold. Seismic dread rumbled under her skin. Something horrible was happening and Kane, still attuned to Helena’s mind, felt her understand she would not survive whatever came next.
“Forgive me,” Helena sobbed. “Please, forgive me!”
Poesy reached into her coat and, to Kane’s deepening dread, produced a teacup. Unlike the ones from the library, this one was pale pink with scalloped edges brushed in gold. She flicked the porcelain with one manicured nail and, like a boat running suddenly aground, the reverie jolted.
>
A ringing spun outward from the porcelain like one hundred pealing church bells, flooding the reverie with a sparkling cacophony that terrified Kane. It reverberated within him as much as he heard it around him, and he knew what happened next. The gardens began to shiver apart, their colors dripping into the chiming air. Everything began to break, to spin, to unravel.
It was just like last time, except Kane was not the center. Poesy was. The whirlpool plucked at him as though sampling his taste. His feet lifted off the ground, but before he was sucked in someone wrenched him from the phantasmagoric vortex. Elliot. They huddled together, helplessly watching as Helena squirmed in whatever psychic grip Poesy exerted. Scream after scream tore from her throat as her reverie ripped itself to shreds, as her dreamt youth ripped apart, too, revealing the crumpled form of an old lady in a little yellow sweater and elastic-waist jeans. She kicked at the air with her orthopedic sneakers, the laces neatly tied. And then, as though her world wasn’t enough, Helena collapsed into the teacup, too.
And it was over.
The small backyard refocused. The Tudor house watched them, stoic. They were back in Reality Proper, where the night pulsed with a blustery chill. The gazebo, the château, the beasts—they were gone. Taken.
There was the sound of crushing, and then Poesy plucked something small and glittering from the teacup’s belly. She hooked it onto her bracelet with the rest of her charms, then swiped the bottom of the teacup with a finger to sample the residue.
“Sweet. Grasping. A floral whimsicality and a full-bodied escapism. Hmm. Notes of nostalgia for times she never lived, homesickness for places she’d never been. Oh! And what an aftertaste. Undertones of envy and desperation, accented by several harsh desertions. Hints of obsession and—oh, gross—such saccharine self-pity! Smacks of mania.”
It was Adeline who finally protested. “You can’t do this! You can’t just steal her away!”
Poesy’s smile was wide and self-assured.
“Finders keepers,” she said, her nails clicking against the Dreadmare’s beak as it bowed to be pet.
And they flickered out of sight.
• Twenty-Two •
STILL
There would be no going to the diner tonight. No one even seemed comfortable looking away from where Helena had been. It was like standing over a grave, watching the dirt settle atop the space where someone had been swallowed up by the earth. Leaving felt like losing them for good.
Then, one by one, the Others looked to Kane. Where there had once been annoyance and pity, a new expression tinted their eyes. Fear. Adeline spoke in a soft, slow voice, as though to a rabid animal.
“What did you do?”
Kane moved to his sister, who sat shaking on the ground.
Adeline tried again. “Kane, leave her, I can help her. First just tell us what that was?”
“She doesn’t need your help,” he said.
“Just let me soften the memory a little. It’ll ease the shock. We need to talk about this.”
Kane couldn’t face what had just happened, and he wasn’t going to let them hurt Sophia. He hugged her to him as he guided her from the garden. They left the Others staring after, putting the small house squarely between them, as though its new emptiness was vast enough to swallow any bridge the Others might devise.
But as they reached Sophia’s car and Kane took the keys from her stiff hands, he had to wonder: Was she better off with him? Was anyone?
He buckled Sophia into the back seat and drove them home, turning to check on her every couple of minutes. Her eyes were fixed on the distance as though she could see right through this world and into the next. When Kane got her in the house, she waved off the hello from their parents in the living room and climbed the stairs, stepping as light as smoke from a snuffed candle. Her door shut softly.
“Are you two fighting again?” Kane’s dad asked. He wasn’t mad. In fact, he sounded relieved that Kane and Sophia were talking at all.
“We’ll figure it out,” Kane promised.
His parents exchanged a look, then went back to their reading, though Kane knew they were waiting for him to leave so they could talk. He gave them both quick hugs, which he was sure alarmed them, and then went to his own room. But he didn’t close the door. He kept it ajar, so that he could hear if Sophia needed help, so that he’d know if anyone tried to enter their home and erase her memories. Focusing on Sophia meant he didn’t have to think about Helena.
Kane listened all night, until he didn’t even know he was falling asleep, and in his dreams the burning form of Maxine waited. Only this time, Maxine didn’t wait alone.
Helena burned, too.
It was two days later. More than that, actually. It was sixty hours later. It was twenty-three cold glances from Adeline later. It was six missed calls and five voicemails from Elliot later. It was nine notes from Ursula later, each stuffed into his locker and each left folded. Kane couldn’t respond to any of it. He could only count, and keep counting, wondering how much longer it would take the world to forget about him.
And then Elliot kidnapped him.
“I’m sorry for the trap,” Elliot said as he drove them toward an unspecified location. A moment ago, Kane had gotten into his mom’s car, with his actual mother, to head home from Roost. And then, suddenly, his mom was gone, replaced by a teenage boy. Elliot. Kane’s mom’s Subaru was gone, revealing Elliot’s car. It had been an illusion. “A necessary illusion,” Elliot said. “We really, really need to talk to you.”
Kane texted his mom. Grabbing food here. I’ll call when I’m ready to go.
They pulled up to an unfamiliar house.
“Urs’s place,” Elliot said, leading them up the driveway. “And, just a quick warning before we go in, don’t say anything about the mess. Urs goes on baking rampages when she’s stressed.”
They entered through the kitchen door.
“I got him!” Elliot called, his footsteps crunching. The floor was covered in grains of sugar. And then Kane saw what Elliot meant. By the looks of it, Ursula was very stressed. Baked goods covered the entire kitchen. Cupcakes, cakes, pastries, cookies; they littered every surface of her kitchen in a sugary clutter, as though they’d washed up in the low tide of some mania.
“Down here!”
Footsteps stomped up from the basement, and Ursula rushed in holding a battered muffin tin. She casually popped out its dents with her bare thumbs. When she hugged Kane he could smell the vanilla in her hair. Adeline was with her, and by the looks of it she’d been helping all evening. Flour smattered her arms like dusty bruises, and instead of hugging Kane she simply gave him a cool nod.
That counts, Kane thought. Twenty-four cold glances from Adeline.
“Dad and the boys are home but we should be fine in here,” Ursula said.
They sat at the kitchen table, among stacks of cookies and bowls of scraped-out frosting. Elliot and Adeline seemed anxious to hear what Kane had to say but Ursula was desperate for anything else.
“I made apricot scones today,” she said. “I don’t even like apricot. Does anyone want to try one? Oh, wait, actually try this batch instead. Elliot, do you still keep kosher? I can pull out the ingredients if you want to look at them. I’ve learned it’s important to ask beforehand, because one time a girl on the field hockey team said she was a celiac, which I thought was a hobby. Anyhow, I almost poisoned her. But kosher is different, right?” Elliot nodded. “Right, well then, let me find a plate. You might have to clean one yourself. Dad and Gail have been using paper ones, I think, which makes me feel bad. I guess this is a big mess, isn’t it?” No one confirmed this outright, but Ursula explained anyway. “My mother and I used to bake when my father had shifts with the fire department. Always calmed me down. Probably a focus thing? I don’t know. It’s a habit. After she died I didn’t bake for years, but this past year got me back into it. Don�
��t know why.”
Ursula had told Kane that her father was remarried, with two new kids. Toddlers. He could hear them elsewhere in the house, clapping and singing. Their mother, Gail, was a nurse, and she worked nights.
“Kane,” Elliot said finally, “don’t worry. We’re not mad. We just have a lot of questions.”
He didn’t expect that. He didn’t know what to expect anymore.
“I’m a little mad,” Adeline said, smirking. A joke. She went on. “I had ballet at the conservatory last night and jeez, Kane. Your sister. She is persistent. She nearly did all of warm-ups with us, trying to get my attention.”
Kane sat up straighter. He had totally forgotten that Adeline and Sophia both went to classes at the conservatory associated with the university.
“Don’t worry,” Adeline said. “I’m not messing with her head. She’s smart. She knows what’s real, what’s not. I keep telling her to ask you all her questions, but it sounds like that’s not going great for her.”
It was exhausting finding new ways to evade Sophia now that she’d come out of her stupor, the reverie fully cemented in her memory. Kane shrugged. “I don’t want her any more involved in this than she has to be. She never should have gotten caught in a reverie.”
“Then we’ll leave her out of it,” Adeline said. “But we need to talk about what happened. Helena is gone. Same as Maxine. And I think we know who to blame. I think you can tell us all about who’s to blame.”
Kane took a deep breath. He was shaking. In an effort to comfort him, Ursula slid a ceramic plate of scones toward him, real slow. It reminded Kane of a detective sliding gruesome photos across a metal table toward the person they were interrogating. He took another deep breath, then two more, and then he talked for a long time.
He told them about his first conversation with Poesy, in which she promised Kane safety from the police in return for his cooperation. So far, that had been true. He told them about the invitation that had appeared in his journal, and the strange furniture that had appeared in the abandoned library, and the conversation he could barely recall beneath layers of floral vapor that curled the edges of his memory. He told them about Ms. Daisy the Doberman, and as he did he realized the dog, like everything about Poesy, shifted forms. Ms. Daisy was a dog, but she was also Poesy’s pet nightmare, the Dreadmare, which he now recognized as the same many-legged shadow that guarded the old mill from him and Sophia, and then followed him on his walk home.