Reverie

by Ryan La Sala

  The painter and the heiress joined together in a kiss that spared nothing on shame, for they were in their own world now, a haven of their own making, guarded against twists by Kane’s own exertion. He pushed as much perfection into the reveries as he could muster. He filled the honeyed air with weightless petals. He filled their fists with the thin necks of champagne flutes. He raised his arm and every arm raised with him, toasting Helena and Maxine as they stood in the gazebo, talking so softly that their words were lost behind swelling, joyous music.

  Dean took Kane’s free hand and kissed his temple, where the crown still gripped.

  “Why this? Why here?” he asked.

  “It’s a resolution,” Kane told him. “After everything we put these two through, they deserve a happily ever after.”

  Per usual, Dean’s eyes were on the deep distance. They were back to their sea-foam green.

  “But this is a reverie. It can’t last forever.”

  “It doesn’t have to. These two have real love, not imagined love. I think they’re going to be just fine after all this goes away.”

  Helena and Maxine hugged, and the guests broke into riotous applause. The Others cheered, too, toasting the brides as they waded down the steps and into the crowd’s loving embrace to receive all the blessings the world had to offer.

  The applause grew louder, tripling as Kane brought the scene to a close. He found there was little for him to do to unravel this. Resolved, Helena’s and Maxine’s reveries simply dispersed. There was no violence in this collapse. Just relief, and a touch of homesickness as the applause echoed across the stoic walls of the Cobalt Complex re-forming around them. Everything—the garden, the great hall, the mishmash of reveries—was gone now, evaporating against the sun rising over the river. Morning, actual morning, had come to East Amity, and it found a small group of sleep-deprived teenagers standing near a burnt-out mill, clapping and cheering as two old ladies looked around in shy bafflement.

  A swarm of iridescent knots danced through Kane’s fingers—the reveries he’d unraveled. He urged Sophia’s back toward her and, reaching her nose, it flickered into her. He did the same with Maxine and Helena, who held hands in their daze. Then Kane took off the crown, wincing as old scars reopened, and handed it to Dean. The ground glittered with the remaining charms. Ursula picked them up carefully, and Dean handed Kane the broken remnants of Poesy’s bracelet, the whistle still as cold as ever. Adeline was the one to find Poesy herself.

  “You turned her into a cricket?” she asked, showing Kane the small metal bug. The pearlescent wings twitched, like it might take off.

  Elliot cleared his throat. “A cicada, I believe?”

  “He’s right,” Kane said before anyone started with the eye rolling. He didn’t dare touch the bug, in case it pulled upon the magic hiding in his skin. Instead, he closed Adeline’s hands over it.

  “Keep her safe, okay?”

  Adeline had no love for Poesy, but she trusted Kane. She nodded.

  Elliot had his phone out. His eyebrows jumped. “It’s the same day as when we left. It’s only just past seven o’clock. We can still make it before first bell.”

  Everyone groaned. There was no way they were going to school, not when Maxine and Helena were going to need help getting their lives back together. Not when Sophia would snap out of her daze any second and begin asking a million questions. They needed to be present for all of that. School was simply not a reality they could belong to right now.

  Elliot grumbled. Ursula strode up to Dean, pulling him and Kane into a rough huddle.

  “So. Dean,” she grinned, looking between them. “You like diner food? ’Cuz we’ve got a little tradition, and I’m thinking you’re a part of it now.”

  EPILOGUE

  Halloween found Kane seated in Ursula’s kitchen, watching Elliot stare down a set of handwritten instructions splattered in grease.

  “Is it asking me to sift four cups of flour? Or is it asking for four cups of sifted flour?”

  “What’s it say?” Kane asked.

  Elliot put his hands on his hips. Kane thought he looked very dashing in an apron, and he had said so multiple times. He had also suggested Elliot remove his shirt but there was only so much teasing Elliot would endure before he tricked you into thinking you were covered in leaches.

  “It says four cups of flour, sifted.”

  Kane smiled and shrugged. Elliot’s phone rang on the table, and Kane held it to his ear so he didn’t get it covered in flour.

  “Hey, Urs.”

  He listened, then glanced at the instructions. “It doesn’t say.” He listened again. “I don’t know, why? Is there a difference between ground and minced ginger?”

  This must have been an outrageous thing to ask, because Ursula didn’t even answer before hanging up. Elliot looked even more confused, and Kane hoped he would start complaining again. Watching Elliot’s ceaseless attempts to impress Ursula was Kane’s most recent and favorite hobby.

  Elliot rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. “I will sift the flour, just in case.”

  “Attaboy,” Kane said.

  The next minute was filled with screams as Ursula’s two little brothers rumbled into the kitchen in full costume. Adeline and Sophia trailed behind them.

  “Bang bang!”

  “Vroom vrooom!”

  Adeline made slow grabs at them and they ducked her, overcome with joy at the game of tag. “Run from the cootie queen!” Sophia bellowed. “Her cooties will eat right through your dreams! You’ll never sleep again!”

  “Too soon,” grumbled Elliot.

  One of the boys threw himself at Sophia, his hands thrust out bravely.

  “You can’t!” he yelled. “My armor is magic! Kane said so!”

  He was wearing a firefighter suit. They both were. They wanted to be their dad for Halloween.

  Adeline lunged for them but sprang back, clutching her hand. “Ghastly little trolls!” she wailed. The boys screamed and ran from the room. The girls ran after them.

  “I thought Sophia was helping them with their costumes?” Elliot said.

  Kane laughed. “I’d say she’s doing a splendid job.”

  The kitchen was thrown into shades of jade as Ursula and Dean appeared in the middle of it, toting paper shopping bags.

  “Crisis averted,” Ursula said. She produced several canisters of bright Halloween decorations from one bag.

  “We had to go to three separate stores,” Dean said wearily. “I said we should just go one town over, to the craft store, but Ursula said that would be extravagant.”

  She ignored him. “Are Joey and Mason dressed? It’s almost time to get going.”

  “Adeline and Sophia got them into their costumes but now they’re chasing them around the house threatening to give them cooties that will eat their dreams,” Elliot said.

  Ursula grimaced. “Too soon.” Then she set her attention on the small sugary catastrophe Elliot had produced in her absence. He rushed in front of her. “Do you sift the flour before measuring it, or do you measure it after it’s sifted?”

  A long pause followed Elliot’s question. Finally, Ursula said, “That’s the same thing.”

  They began to discuss. Kane watched, all smiles. They had all been preoccupied with Kane’s drama for so long, and rightly so, but in the time since they’d defeated Poesy there was room and peace enough for new things to grow. Ursula and Elliot now did homework together after practice. They went on runs together before school. They always invited Kane, and he always said no. He watched them from afar, preferring to observe their growing affection from a safe distance. It was the weirdest, best thing.

  Adeline and Sophia had been spending time together, too. Last Kane heard, they were working on a book together about a wealthy girl meeting a scrappy rebel. Kane heard them talking late into the night.

/>   That was a weird, best thing, too, and Kane kept out of it. These stories surrounded him but were not his to explore. You didn’t have to feed every single bird, as Ursula said. Sometimes it was better to trust people to figure it out for themselves and to be there just in case they didn’t. That was their newest approach to unraveling the reveries, and so far it was working well.

  Dean took a seat across from Kane. They held hands under the table, even though nothing about them was a secret anymore, and they didn’t say a word. Since they had escaped the multireverie, their interactions had been full of these silent, pensive moments. Dean seemed to thrive in them, and Kane did enjoy the way Dean flexed beneath the self-control. The quiet between them never felt empty, though. To Kane, it always felt full of a music only they could hear, and these small gestures were his favorite dance. It was the most comfortable Kane had ever been with another person, and sometimes he had to remind himself to say so. Like right now.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Kane said. “Like, really glad.”

  Dean grinned.

  “I didn’t think I’d make it back. Ursula is unstoppable,” he said. “I’ve never met someone with such a knowledge of sweets. Did you know they make sugar that is all big? It’s called ‘coarse sugar’ and for some reason it’s more expensive.”

  Ursula interjected, “It’s for decorating. Finer crystals don’t look as good on drizzled caramel.”

  Elliot’s face brightened into a stupid smile. “We’re making caramel?”

  “No, we are not making caramel.” Ursula was all business in her kitchen. “I am making caramel. Do you know how easy it is to burn sugar? Here, grab me that candy thermometer. I’ll show you.”

  They got back to work.

  “See?” Dean whispered. “It’s odd.”

  “Oh, be nice,” Kane said. “This is odd? Of all things?”

  This made Dean smile his rare, sheepish smile, an expression Kane went through great efforts to uncover. Dean’s voice grew more serious. “Speaking of which, where is your crown?”

  “Your house,” Kane said. “On the bookshelf.”

  Dean’s irises glowed a translucent emerald as he followed each step.

  “Where?”

  “On top.”

  “It’s not there.”

  “Check the middle shelf. Near The Witches.”

  Dean shook his head, scanning. They kept the crown just in case they needed it again, but so far the reveries had been much easier with Dean helping them out. Still, sometimes Kane sensed something rippling the veil of reality outside the reveries. Things that spoke in chattering drone, like Poesy. Her sisters, maybe. Whoever or whatever they were, if they did come to town, Kane was ready.

  After a pause, Dean nodded. “Found it. Ms. Daisy is cuddling with it again in her bed.”

  Kane smiled. “Let her.”

  Outside, the neighborhood swarmed with trick-or-treaters celebrating beneath October’s final sunset. Two miniature firefighters scampered down the sidewalk. The Others followed, stepping to the side as parades of children ambled past in unwieldy costumes. There were dragons and fairies and princesses and robots. There were ninjas and archers and martial artists. There was the requisite gaggle of vampires, cats, and superheroes, but some children had opted for more cryptic costuming. One such child was wrapped in a cardboard cylinder painted like a can of soup, with nothing but a small window cut out for eyeholes.

  “I love your costume!” Adeline said to this particular child as they waddled by. “What are you supposed to be?”

  “A can of soup.”

  Adeline frowned. The can waddled off, unbothered.

  Kane and Ursula hung back a bit, walking with her little brother Mason, who couldn’t receive a single piece of candy without trying to eat it. Ursula’s stepmom had made Ursula promise she’d budget their sugar intake but, so far, this just meant Ursula was eating half the candy herself. Kane was helping, too.

  “Maxine and Helena seem to be adjusting okay to being alive and like…back in reality, all things considered,” she was saying. “Maxine is working on a new series. Mythical creatures made out of gems. She and Helena keep asking Adeline to let them remember a little bit more. She’s mostly just been telling them stories. It’s so cute, the way they listen. They say they want to go back, but I told them they had to convince you.”

  “I don’t think there’s much I can do. Those reveries resolved. There’s not much left.”

  “What about the charms in Poesy’s sanctuary? Do you think all those reveries are safe there?”

  Kane didn’t know. “I hope so. We have the only key.”

  “That we know of,” Ursula added.

  “Wow, you’re already sounding like Elliot,” Kane teased.

  Ursula shoved him playfully. He threw a piece of candy at her, but it struck a small barrier and fell away.

  “Cheater!”

  Ursula laughed and strode ahead with her little brother, reaching into his bag for something else.

  Kane watched her go. He watched Adeline and Dean chatting while Sophia and Elliot read the ingredients of a candy bar. He felt that strange, new feeling he was only just learning to embrace: contentment. It was immediately accompanied by melancholy, as Kane’s happiness often was. Moments like this were fleeting; they came together in graceful concert, like schools of silvery fish, and drifted apart just as quick. He always had the urge to capture them, to keep them replaying over and over—his own little reverie. His dream, arrested. But sealed off things that steep too long in the human mind are doomed to grow bitter. If the reveries had taught Kane anything, it was the worth of escaping outward, and how to unstitch the seam where fantasies met the wider world. For Kane, it was all about creating something new, something better.

  Poesy was right. They were alike in their goal. Still, they were separated by their methods. And of course, taste. Poesy wanted a clean canvas for her masterpiece. Kane was content to work with what he had.

  Increasingly, he realized he had a lot to work with already.

  A hard candy struck Kane’s shoulder.

  “Hey, Montgomery, get your head out of the clouds,” called Ursula. “Dad called to say the cookies are done. By the time we get back they’ll be cool enough to decorate.”

  Kane blinked away the daydream and ran to catch up with his friends.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The fact of this book’s publication, in all its eccentric indulgence and conspicuous queerness, will never not amaze me. And I have many people to thank. If my gratitude could create a world, we could all live within the loop of my infinite appreciation forever. But, you see, reveries are something I made up, so some acknowledgments will have to do.

  First, I need to thank the LGBTQIAP+ community, both past and present, the countless queer people who boldly exist any way they can, who had to exist in order for someone like me to write a book like this. I am hyperaware that I write at the edge of a legacy created by people with far less than me, who had so much more to lose, and who fought anyway. I am incredibly proud and thankful to be part of this community. And it’s no mistake that Kane’s expression of salvation takes the form of a drag queen. Many might see Poesy as just a showy villain, but I see her as Kane does: power personified. I can’t thank the queens of my life enough for creating a world to which I could belong, being the wildly flamboyant child that I was (and still am). What I do, I do for us.

  And, of course, my family, who I adore, and who have always surrounded me with grace, love, and humor. Dad, your sense of eccentricity and exploration (and the compulsion to bring back small souvenirs from each place) runs deep in this book. Mom and Larry, your choice to let me confront drag queens in the streets of Provincetown has had lasting ramifications. Blase, David, Julia, Shoko, and Colin, thanks for putting up with all my antics. I love you all!

  To my agent, Veronica Par
k, for her endless humor, savviness, and smarts. I can’t imagine any of this without you at the start of it. And to Beth Phelan and the whole #DVpit crew. Best origin story ever.

  To Annie Berger, my dauntless and amazing editor, and to the entire Sourcebooks Fire team, including Sarah Kasman, Cassie Gutman, Todd Stocke, Beth Oleniczak, and Heather Moore. And, of course, a special thank-you to Nicole Hower, who designed a cover so magnificent that I cannot wait to have it embroidered upon a floor-length cape, and to the super-talented cover artist, Leo Nickolls, and to Danielle McNaughton, who made the inside of this book feel like home. And thank you to my publisher, Dominique Raccah. Working with the entire Sourcebooks Fire team has been, pun fully intended, a dream come true.

  I have been lucky enough to make some fantastic friends in the book world, too. To my darling cherubs: Phil Stamper, Claribel Ortega, Kosoko Jackson, Shannon Doleski, Adam Sass, Caleb Roehrig, Kevin Savoie, Zoraida Córdova, Jackson MacKenzie, Mark O’Brien, Gabe Jae, and so many others. THANK YOU for all the support, advice, and well-earned shade. And to Brandon Taylor, who snapped me out of some bad doubt. I owe you.

  And, of course, to my dear friends; Candice Montgomery, who is also an insightful sensitivity reader; and Tehlor Kay Mejia, whose editing services shaped Reverie early on. You were both integral in helping me tell the story I wanted to tell. TJ Ohler and Taylor Brooke, your notes were invaluable, too. Amy Rose Capetta, Cori McCarthy, and Queer Pete (who is not a person, but a group of people) and the Writing Barn fam, you lifted me up when I needed it most.

  Kat Enright, Rachel Stark, and Michael Strother, your early support of Reverie made a world of difference. Sarah Enni, your work on First Draft gave me focus, drive, inspiration, and laughs that totally changed how I wrote (for the better).

  And to my glorious, absurd, usually screaming family of friends. It’s a wonder this book ever got written with people as hilarious and captivating as you in my life. In no particular order whatsoever, I want to thank: Ryan and Ryan, Jess, Daniel, Tamani, Shams, Leah, Justine, Aurora, David, Tom, Jossica, Will, Fernando, Jess + Cody, Ben, Pam, Emily, Rachel, and, of course, Sal.