Reverie

by Ryan La Sala

  Kane backed out onto the stage. There, standing in the center aisle, was the boy Kane had summoned, but not expected.

  “Hello, Kane,” Dean said.

  He stepped onto the stage and handed Kane the crumpled page. He had between ten and twenty freckles across the bridge of his nose. A necklace with a pendant in the shape of a chess piece—the knight, carved in obsidian—hung around his neck.

  “I was wondering when you’d figure this out. Now, don’t do it again,” he said.

  “The signal worked? How did you see it?”

  Dean’s face was unreadable, his eyes as blank as a doll’s. They were the color of coastal sunlight chewed to froth by the lips of the Atlantic.

  Sea foam.

  Kane stumbled through what he’d prepared. “You know me, don’t you? I mean we know each other. You were one of the Others once, weren’t you? You have powers. You can see things other people can’t, and you look out for me. But only me.”

  Finally something stirred in Dean’s eyes: resentment. When Dean brushed by, Kane caught his wrist.

  “I have questions for you!”

  Dean spun, grabbing Kane’s hand tight. “Don’t you know how dangerous this is?” he hissed. “Didn’t I make myself clear?”

  Kane shivered. Nerves. The edges of the crumpled page poked into one palm, and Dean’s nails poked into the other.

  “I just want to know who you are.”

  “Forget about me,” Dean said.

  “Evidently I already did,” Kane shot back.

  Something shifted in those sea-foam depths. He had hit a nerve. Exposed something. Now Dean watched him with guarded eyes, as though the very sight of Kane hurt him.

  Kane knew what he wanted to ask, but he also knew he would never believe a single word that came out of Dean’s mouth. Everyone lied. If he had learned anything, it was that words from mouths could be beautiful and deceptive, but mouths could tell you their truths in other ways. Kane wasn’t going to leave without that one truth. And so, beneath a paper moon and among the false forest of the stage, he kissed him.

  And, taken by surprise, Dean forgot the strict rules that held him together, and kissed back.

  There was applause from the ghostly audience, Kane imagined. When Dean tried to speak, Kane breathed the words back into his mouth, refusing their deceit, until Dean’s hands climbed over Kane in sure familiarity. Kane, hungry to know, took everything he could from the kiss—Dean’s truth and his pain—and when it ended, it was against Dean’s will. And that’s how Kane knew.

  Kane stepped back, leaving Dean’s hand to clutch empty air.

  “You love me,” Kane said. He couldn’t look Dean in the face, so he looked at his hands. Brown skin, smooth palms, perfect nails. The hands of a prince.

  Dean didn’t deny it.

  “What did you do?” Kane asked. “You were one of us once, weren’t you? Why don’t the Others remember? Did Adeline do this?”

  “Not Adeline.”

  “Elliot?”

  Dean clasped his hands in front of him, then unclasped them, leaving them to twitch restlessly at his sides. “You.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You took everything from us.”

  Kane’s throat felt straw thin, one molecule of air sliding into him at a time.

  “Is this about my accident? About Maxine Osman’s death?”

  “Accident.” Dean grimaced. “What happened to Maxine was the accident. What happened to you was on purpose. It was…” Dean searched for a word, his mouth working through his anger. “It was what you wanted.”

  “Do you mean finding the loom?”

  “The loom.” Dean wrapped his long arms around his narrow frame. “I thought that if we found it, we could be free together. But I was wrong.”

  “Free from what?”

  Dean circled Kane. Before he left the stage, he turned.

  “You and the Others were never supposed to find out about me. Those were my orders. But I thought you were worth breaking every rule for, and I thought you’d do the same for me. I was wrong.”

  Kane didn’t understand what Dean had said, but he knew enough about heartbreak to know what he meant. Kane had left him behind in a horrible way. For the loom? For power?

  Dean pulled something from his jacket and tossed it to Kane.

  “Here, this is yours.”

  Kane had caught a book. The Witches by Roald Dahl. Hadn’t he lost this, recently? Yes. But where? The path. When he was being chased by the Dreadmare.

  “Where did you get this?” Kane asked.

  “Found it. I’ve been looking for a chance to give it back.”

  Kane flipped through it. Nowhere had he written his name in this book, but he knew it was his by the way it fit in his hand, and the dog-eared page he’d last left off, and the worn spine from all the times he’d lost himself within it.

  Dean said, “I read it. I can see why you love it. You should try a little harder to hold on to the things you love.”

  He left. Kane peered at the shadows that had folded over him. He didn’t know what had just happened, but he knew it was important. And he knew that Dean had given him more than a book. He’d thrown Kane a key.

  Kane waited to see what it would unlock within him. Waited, like he had waited in the river, among the bishop’s-weed and silvery fish and swirling pollen.

  Sure enough, something clicked.

  • Twenty-Four •

  HUNCHES

  The St. Agnes Center for the Arts—or as Sophia and Adeline called it, the conservatory—was all right angles, stone, and glass. It was newer than the rest of the campus, and good thing. So much discordant music filled its hallways in the late afternoon that Kane imagined the previous building, which was probably an old Victorian like many on the St. Agnes campus, had vibrated apart.

  Elliot had driven Ursula and Kane over. They were meeting Adeline, who refused to skip ballet unless there were, “urgent, ethereal catastrophes afoot.” An emergency meeting called by Kane was evidently not an urgent, ethereal catastrophe, so they were here waiting for her break. She’d only have a few minutes.

  While Elliot peeked into a tap-dancing class, Ursula and Kane sat on a bench, savoring the music from every angle. Ursula had made homemade granola, and it was great. She and Kane munched on it, comfortable being quiet together. Among all the tension, their friendship had become a fragile but surely growing thing, and Kane was thankful to have at least that.

  “I wonder what it’d be like to walk around on your toes like that all the time,” Ursula said as the girls in the studio spun on their pointe shoes.

  “Very tall,” Kane said.

  “They look like flamingos.”

  “Is that a good thing? Flamingos are birds, you know.”

  “Yeah, but like—” Ursula tipped the last of the granola into her mouth, then crushed up the bag and tossed it toward a trash can. “They’re like, funny birds. Dinosaur birds.”

  The bag missed. She stood to grab it off the floor.

  “And dinosaur birds are somehow better?”

  “No, dinosaur birds just aren’t native to Connecticut.”

  The piano music cut off and the routine ended. Girls dressed in skirts and tights fled to the perimeter of the room to grab water and check their phones. Adeline pushed through the doors and walked right by them. After a beat, they followed her to the stairwell and out into the back parking lot.

  “Welcome to my house,” she said, a sarcastic hand tossed up at the conservatory and the dumpsters they hid behind. “Thanks for popping in. What can I do for you?”

  Kane hadn’t shaken the shivers from this morning yet. They’d rolled through him all day, fitful and jagged, and they skittered through his palms now. To steady himself, he reached into his backpack and pulled out The Witches.
<
br />   Everyone looked at it, then at Kane.

  “Who is Dean Flores?” Kane asked. “Don’t lie to me this time.”

  Ursula, Elliot, and Adeline exchanged glances. They all looked back at the book, then Kane again. They were confused.

  “He’s a new student at school,” Ursula said. “He’s a diver on the swim team—”

  “I mean who is he actually?”

  More glances. Adeline took a swig from her water bottle, then twisted to stretch something in her back.

  Kane grew frustrated. They weren’t taking this seriously.

  “Is he an Other, too? Was he?” Kane looked at Adeline. “You know, don’t you? You know something about him.”

  If she did, Adeline betrayed nothing. She shrugged and began picking at her gossamer skirt blowing in the October breeze. “We don’t know, Kane. We were going to ask you the same thing when the timing was right. We think he might have something to do with your accident.”

  “Why?”

  “A hunch.”

  “Tell me what you know,” Kane demanded.

  “You called us all here. You first.”

  Adeline took another swig. They were all waiting for Kane. His resentment simmered just below the surface. He knew Adeline would be like this, insulting and petty, after he’d left her in her car the other night. He couldn’t let that distract him. Kane knew Dean was part of his lost past, and therefore crucial in unlocking the mystery of how to recover the loom. This might be the answer to all the questions, the thing that would bring the reveries to an end for good.

  “The last time I had this book was when I was attacked by the Dreadmare on the Harrow Creek path. Remember that, Urs?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, today Dean Flores gave this exact book back to me.” Kane held it up high. “Ms. Daisy the Doberman isn’t the Dreadmare. Dean is.”

  The reaction was slight but instant. Eyebrows raised, spines went rigid. Again all eyes fell to the book, then Kane.

  “This is…” Adeline began.

  “Silly,” Elliot said.

  Kane’s jaw dropped.

  Adeline continued. “You think because Dean gave you a book, he’s a gigantic nightmare horse-spider?”

  “No, I just—” Nervous laughter bubbled out of Kane. He shoved it down. “I mean yes, it’s the book, but he also had a charm like the ones Poesy has, and also…”

  Kane cut himself off, wondering again how easily Adeline could peer into his memories. He wanted to tell them everything, but in the past Kane had decided to keep whatever relationship he had with Dean a secret from the Others. He didn’t think the reason was shame, because there wasn’t shame in the way Dean had kissed Kane back. It was a kiss bitter with loss. It made Kane believe Dean was good. Or he wanted to be good. But something bound him to Poesy, and so whatever Dean and Kane had together had to be kept secret for Dean’s sake. He had so much more to lose.

  At least that was Kane’s theory. He had to learn more, but he couldn’t give more to the Others than he already had, and so Kane said, “I just think that Dean is maybe on our side. And that we should talk to him.”

  Adeline let out an incredulous laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding. If Dean is the Dreadmare, how could he be an ally? That thing literally tore through Helena’s reverie.”

  “It saved us.”

  “It executed Poesy’s orders. There’s a difference and you know it.”

  Kane felt himself turning red. Of course Adeline called out this contradiction right away.

  “Wait,” Ursula said. “I mean it’s possible, right? It’s not the strangest thing we’ve seen.”

  Adeline shrugged and pulled out her phone. “I’ve got to get back.”

  Ursula gave Kane an encouraging nod. “Kane, what do you think we should do?”

  Kane’s knuckles were white around the edges of the book. “Talk to him. Learn more. We could get his file from school and see where he lives and…go there. And talk to him.”

  “That’s a bad plan,” Elliot said. “We don’t know enough.”

  “Exactly,” Kane said. “That’s why we need to investigate, dumbass.”

  “He’s not on Insta,” Adeline said as she scrolled through her phone. “Not on Snapchat.”

  Kane kept his voice level. “Isn’t that weird? And you said it yourself. You think he has something to do with my accident.”

  Adeline shrugged again. “That was just a hunch.”

  “Well, this is a hunch, too!”

  “Both of you stop it,” Elliot said. “We can’t be operating off hunches. It’s too dangerous. And what if you’re right, Kane? What if he is the Dreadmare? Do you really plan to fight that thing?”

  Kane absolutely did not want to fight the Dreadmare. He wanted to kiss the Dreadmare. Maybe. He slumped, defeated.

  “Well, this has been great,” Adeline said, still on her phone. “Urs, did you bring me the you-know-what?”

  Ursula looked around furtively, then pulled another bag of granola out of her windbreaker. She passed it to Adeline with cool discretion, like it was an illicit substance. Adeline took it with just as much drama, winking at Ursula.

  “These girls get grabby after hour two, and I don’t share my snacks. You guys should leave soon. Kane’s sister is going to show up in about twelve minutes for her string ensemble.”

  She left, leaving Elliot and Ursula to talk Kane down.

  Elliot said, “I’m sorry Kane, but we need to focus on what we know. We know we need to unravel the reveries before Poesy does, or else she’ll take them away. We know she used you to break into Helena’s reverie, so unless we really mess up again, we’re good.” He didn’t say it, but he meant Kane blowing the whistle. “We need to prioritize our security first before we go on the offense against Poesy to get back Helena’s reverie, and hopefully Helena herself. People are going to start asking questions any day now, and we need to make sure we don’t come up as the answers or else we can’t help anyone. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah,” Kane mumbled.

  Elliot ducked to look Kane in the eye. “Yeah, as in you’re good?”

  A plan was forming in Kane’s mind, a daydream he had entertained in the event the Others didn’t agree. He looked at Elliot and attempted a perfectly resigned smile.

  “I’m good,” he lied.

  • Twenty-Five •

  HANDS

  It was a clear and bright night in the Cobalt Complex. Moonlight drenched everything, icy and pure, so that the gutted buildings were carved from luminous ivory and encrusted in silver. The fog of Kane’s breath wreathed his neck as he pedaled over bleached concrete. Frogs and loon-song told him he was nearing the river. It was one o’clock in the morning.

  Kane skidded to a stop. A second later, so did Ursula.

  “I can’t believe we’re here,” she huffed. “I can’t believe you tricked me into doing this.”

  “I didn’t trick you. I just told you I was doing it one way or the other, and you’re a good enough friend to recognize a request without making me beg.”

  “Yes, Kane, that’s what we humans call a trick.”

  Kane gave her a wry smile. It had actually been Ursula who called Kane after their meeting, which had left them both restless. And as soon as Kane knew Ursula also felt the need to do something, to take actual action, his mind was made up. Ursula’s mind, he sensed, was made up, too, but she’d complained the whole way here. Probably to balance out the guilt she felt about sneaking behind Elliot and Adeline’s backs. That, and her usual nervousness. This was not a great idea, and they both knew it.

  They weren’t being stupid, though. Kane had left a note for Sophia with instructions to call Adeline and Elliot if he wasn’t back by sunrise. Then he’d packed a bag with his red journal, The Witches, some chalk, and an old aluminum baseball bat he found in t
he garage. Just in case. Then he and Ursula met near the bridge, dressed in all black, the reflectors on their bikes taped over as they careened toward the complex’s eastern edge.

  Biking through it, Kane thought about how the complex was, in some ways, its own reverie. An entire city imagined into being, then abandoned to the slow melt of neglect, then forgotten altogether as the world folded over it. Connecticut was full of these lost worlds, and the more Kane thought to look for them, the more certain he was that they slumbered everywhere. Just across this river, or beyond that hill, or behind that curtain. In many ways, the Cobalt Complex was the perfect place to bait nightmares into the light.

  They reached the mill, Kane’s chosen spot.

  “You sure he’s gonna show?”

  “I’m sure,” Kane said.

  Kane drew a huge number eight into the tilted pavement, big enough to stand in each loop. While he did, he thought of Helena. He owed her and Adeline for a lesson learned too late: sometimes a person’s dreams are all they have and taking them away can break a heart or even stop a body. The act of crushing a dream can’t be minimized. At best, it’s mean. At worst, it’s murder. Either way, Kane had let Poesy take what was not Kane’s to give, and it was time to set things right. To get Helena back, and help her heal, if that was even possible.

  And they needed Dean’s help to do just that.

  Kane stood back from his work. The moon winked at them from the river, and the few cicadas that remained this late in the season sang beneath the silence.

  Minutes passed. Nothing happened.

  “This worked before?” Ursula whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Does he like, get a notification or something?”

  Kane imagined Dean’s phone lighting up on his nightstand. Kane Montgomery would like to send you a direct message.

  “Dean?” Kane shouted. “Either you show up, or we call Poesy. I’ve got the whistle.”