by Anne Ursu
“No,” said the old man. He let out a small belch and Philonecron winced. “I have associates who can take care of the other matter. You’ll get your package soon after I arrive.”
“Oh,” breathed Philonecron, his voice betraying his excitement. “Yes, yes.” He clasped his hands together, and as a smile crept across his face, he looked through his window out into the distant horizon, where dreams can be found.
“When do I begin?”
“Oh, right away,” Philonecron said. “Right away.”
CHAPTER 9
Hamsters “R” Us
SINCE THEY HAD GOTTEN BACK FROM THE UNDERWORLD, Zee had been having all kinds of nightmares. Every night his unconscious mind took the threads of the experience and weaved them in a new, more horrible way—and just when he thought there were no more possible awful stories his brain could tell, it found a new one to torment him with.
After a while, though, his mind seemed to get tired of all the relentless variety and instead took four or five of the most egregious dreams and played them in repertoire, a sort of greatest hits of post-traumatic REM sleep. You would think that after the tenth time you dreamed that Harpies were attacking your family while you were chained to a cliff and forced to watch, it would become less upsetting—but, Zee could tell you, it had not.
The night after the ill-fated soccer game, Zee was having one of these familiar dreams. This one began, as it always did, with him coming upon his grandmother in the Underworld. She looked like herself—not like the Dead at all, but as alive as she had ever been, beautiful, comforting, real. Just as he always was, Zee was overcome with happiness when he saw her—she was there, she was all right, it was all going to be all right now.
But just as she was about to enfold him in her arms, Philonecron appeared behind her, grinning his evil grin. He held up his hands menacingly, and Zee was about to yell, to warn her, when Philonecron put his finger to his lips and Zee was silenced, frozen.
In his dream-consciousness, Zee knew what came next. It happened the same way every time: Philonecron would wave his hands over Grandmother Winter and she would slowly fade into a hazy, dumb shadow while Zee watched helplessly. But on that night, after Philonecron put his finger to his wide, red mouth, just as Zee felt the terribly familiar softening of his mind that meant he was falling under the god’s spell, something happened that had never happened before.
Zachary, come over here!
A young girl’s voice, high-pitched and strong. His mind cleared, his head whipped toward the source, and just like that Philonecron was gone.
Zachary! I have to show you something!
Zee was standing at the entrance to a cave with a young girl whom he had certainly never seen before. She was five or six, with long, dark hair and bright green eyes, and she was entirely in control of the situation. As Zee stared at her, bewildered, she pointed into the cave.
In there.
Then Zee was inside the cave, walking through a long, black tunnel. He could see some sort of light source up ahead? No, no, a fire—there was a fire somewhere up ahead. As he moved along, he saw shapes begin to move on the cave walls—images. They seemed important, but something in his head said, Later. You’ll look at those later.
And then the passageway opened up into a small room inside the cave, and right in the center of the room burned a small fire. The flames flickered and danced along the stony walls, and again Zee could see shapes moving behind them.
I have to show you something else.
The dream changed in a flash. The walls were gone, the cave was gone, Zee was gone. His mind filled with an image of a small boat fighting its way through the rough waters of a night-black sea. Inside the boat was a lone figure—a girl with red hair and freckles. Up ahead lurked some giant shadow ready to consume the boat, and Zee wanted to scream at the girl inside not to go any farther, to turn away—but he couldn’t, he wasn’t there, this was just a dream, and all he could do was watch as the girl sailed toward her doom.
Zee awoke covered in sweat, with that image still lingering behind his eyes. The girl was Charlotte—of course. Did it mean something? Was the boat some kind of symbol? Was it a warning? Or was it nothing? Just a dream. Just an ordinary dream.
Zee had been wary of his dreams ever since he’d learned that dreams came from a lake in the Underworld. Philonecron had used the lake to send him messages last year. Charlotte, too, had had strangely prophetic dreams last fall; she’d seen the Footmen well before they’d encountered them. But she and Zee were never able to figure out why—Philonecron must have had them sent, but it didn’t really make any sense.
But of course, no one was sending him dreams now, for the Underworld was the one place in the whole universe Philonecron was not—and who else would possibly be sending him messages? Sometimes dreams were just dreams, and sometimes Zee just needed to go back to sleep and stop being such a ninny.
The next morning, as Zee was getting ready to leave for the bus, his mother stopped him. “Zee, we have to talk to you about our trip.”
“All right.” His parents were going back to London in two weeks to take care of some business. They’d invited Zee to come with them, but it was the league tournament and Zee didn’t want to miss it. So he was going to stay with the Mielswetzskis.
“Your aunt and uncle are going on a holiday for spring break.”
“Oh!” Or not.
“So we’re going to have to get you a sitter.”
“What?”
“I know a very nice woman who is going to stay with you. A Mrs. Pennywait.”
“Mum, I can take care of myself.”
“No, you can’t. You’re thirteen, Zee. I’m not going to leave you by yourself for a week. That’s the end of the discussion.”
“Can I stay with a friend? With Charlie Fornara? They’re not going anywhere.”
Mrs. Miller frowned. “Well…I could call and ask.”
“Please, Mum.” Zee didn’t know why he was feeling so desperate about this, but it just seemed that someone who’d been to the Underworld and back shouldn’t have a babysitter.
When he got to homeroom, he was disappointed to find Charlotte wasn’t there. He hadn’t realized how much he relied on seeing her in the mornings; there was something that seemed to steady him about seeing her at the beginning of each school day. Every day when she walked through the classroom door she looked for him, and when their eyes met a message passed between them: We have to live another day of this great big lie of a life, but at least we’re not alone.
Finally, a little bit into math class, Charlotte appeared in the doorway. As soon as Zee noticed her, his eyes went right to Mr. Crapf, who had been none too pleased with his cousin’s time management skills lately. (Charlotte repeatedly said she had trouble getting to math on time because it was all the way at the other end of school from homeroom, but Zee noted that he hadn’t been late once. She said it was because his legs were longer.)
Indeed, Mr. Crapf did not look happy. “Do you have a note, Charlotte?”
Charlotte drew herself up. “No, Mr. Crapf,” she said, her voice full of sweetness. “I’d be happy to get one from the doctor, though. I was in an accident this morning.”
Zee started. An accident? His dream flashed back to him again. As Charlotte walked to her desk, he tried to catch her eye, but she was too busy demonstrating her love of math. So after class, he waved on his friends and waited for his cousin.
“What happened?” Zee asked hurriedly when she reached him. “You had an accident? Are you all right? Is Aunt Tara all right?”
“Oh. No,” Charlotte said, looking around surreptitiously, “I was just late.”
Zee rolled his eyes. “You couldn’t have thought of that one when we were gone all night?”
“Hey, Zee!” Jason Hart’s voice carried down the hall, interrupting them. Zee sucked in his breath. He had completely forgotten that this was Jason’s first day—Zee was supposed to show him around, but he’d been so distract
ed by the dream he forgot. Some friend he was.
“You know him?” Charlotte asked.
“Yeah. He’s on my soccer team. Just moved here.”
“Really?”
Zee couldn’t help but notice that Charlotte seemed quite interested in Jason. He forgot his concern for a moment and let a deliberate grin spread across his face. “Yeah…why?”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “No reason.”
“Uh-huh,” Zee said knowingly.
They walked along through the hallways, talking of everything and nothing. Zee still felt the aftershocks of the vision in his dream. What if it was a vision? What if it was a prophecy? What if he was supposed to warn her? What if he was a complete paranoid prat?
Zee sighed, shook his head, and said, “Look, Char—”
But he couldn’t do it. The words just wouldn’t come. What was he supposed to say—I had a dream where you were in danger? Fat lot of good that would do. And Charlotte would say, “Zee, I had a dream you were a complete twit.” And it came true!
Just then, Zee heard his name floating down the hallway in a decidedly feminine way. He stiffened. Ashleys! As they floated past him, the two girls waved and smiled at him flirtatiously, and Zee felt his face turn red.
What did they want from him, anyway? They didn’t know him. They thought he was cool because he was new and an athlete and had a British accent, but they didn’t have any idea what he was like. They barely even knew Outside Zee, let alone Real Zee.
And what was he supposed to do? Just walk up to them and say hi? He was never going to do that. He couldn’t do that. Because then they would say hi back and expect him to say something else. And Zee had absolutely no idea what that would be. What in the world do you say after hi? And without some kind of plan, some kind of meticulously plotted, carefully researched, thoroughly considered plan, he would just stand there, frozen in time, while the girls slowly realized that he was not at all what they thought, that in fact he was clearly socially—and quite possibly mentally—disabled. Then they would shake their heads slowly, sigh with some combination of disappointment and pity, and walk off, while Zee stood there, still trying to come up with something to say, for a good two or three more weeks. Then he would have no choice but to move to a lonely mountaintop, where he would spend the rest of his days with no one to keep him company but an eagle and a cranky mountain goat named Mr. Thimbles.
When it was all over and the Ashleys had passed, Zee and Charlotte walked on, as if in silent agreement that they would pretend the whole thing had never happened.
“So, what was it you wanted to tell me?” Charlotte asked when they arrived in the hallway outside the locker rooms.
“Look, Char,” he said, shrugging, “this is probably nothing, but…I saw something….”
Charlotte leaned in. “What?”
“Well, I didn’t really see it, but—”
“Char! Zee!” Zee and Charlotte both instinctively broke apart as Maddy came hurrying toward them, wide-eyed. Zee gave Charlotte a dismissive shrug. Clearly the Fates were telling him he was off his head. “Char, are you okay?” Maddy breathed. “I heard you got hit by a bus!”
Maddy he could talk to. She was Charlotte’s best friend, and of course she didn’t think of him…in that way. They were just friends, plain and simple. He could talk to girls as friends all day long. He wasn’t mental—it was just when there was a threat of something else that he was doomed to an eternity with Mr. Thimbles.
In England there had been a girl Zee had liked very much. Very, very much. Samantha Golton was a forward on the F&E girls’ football team, and Zee would have liked very much to scrimmage with her. But, as you might expect, he had never spoken to Samantha Golton—at least not until she showed up in Exeter last summer, where he was staying with his grandmother and playing on a regional team. It was she who spoke to him; she came to one of his matches and invited him to a Grecians game, and then she fell ill and he never saw her again.
They’d taken her shadow, of course, and when Zee was down in the Underworld he found himself wondering which one was hers. He wanted to say something to it, something comforting, something protective, as if it would somehow carry the message back to her. She wouldn’t hear it, of course—but it would get to her, and every time her shadow stretched out on the sidewalk in the afternoon sun, Zee would be with her. He had never been able to speak to Samantha, but he thought of all kinds of things he could tell her shadow.
Samantha was gone from his life forever, and there was no point in his old feelings anymore. But he still thought of her sometimes—she would linger behind a thought, flash by in a dream—Samantha Golton streaking down the soccer field, at once ferocious and graceful, her long ponytail streaking behind her.
Perhaps it was Maddy’s ponytail that he noticed a half hour later while sitting cross-legged on the rubbery gym floor watching the gymnastics routines. As she was going into her cartwheel, she whipped her head around, and the flash of the hair flowing behind her head made Zee take notice. But it was not Samantha Golton he thought of, watching Maddy do her routine; for Maddy’s grace was different from hers—controlled, elegant—and so was her strength—steady, quiet—but grace and strength nonetheless. Maddy was calm, confident, skilled, fluid, and…beautiful. Maddy was beautiful. And as Zee watched her, he felt a sense of contentment pass over him, a feeling that he could watch her all day, a feeling that he wouldn’t mind if Maddy taught him how to cartwheel, and somersault, and even pirouette if she really wanted to.
And then Zee’s heart dropped. His breath caught. His stomach flipped.
For the rest of the day Zee tried to avoid Charlotte. He couldn’t face her. What was she going to think? How dare he develop feelings for her best friend? That’s the exact sort of thing you’re not supposed to do, because then Charlotte would feel excluded, and you can’t exclude your cousin, because your cousin saved you from an eternity of Philonecron-induced mind control, and besides, it just isn’t nice. And when, at the end of English, Maddy called out to him and he saw the two of them standing there, together, everything inside of him just froze up, like a hiker who encounters a bear in the forest—a very angry bear who had developed a taste for human flesh during a genetic engineering experiment that went horribly awry. Except there were two bears, and one of them was his cousin, and the other one was a girl, and he was going to open his mouth and something absolutely ridiculous would come out. Except he couldn’t open his mouth—it had locked shut, and he was going to spend the rest of his life like that so he would have to be fed through a tube and instead of speaking would have to develop a highly involved grunting system—which would still be better than anything he could say to Maddy. So Zee mumbled something incoherent, and then turned and fled for the hills.
As he walked out of the front doors that afternoon, he decided he’d never been so happy to have the school day be over. He’d thought he had problems before, what with the whole obsessive evil demigod running loose in the Upperworld, but this—this he did not need. He was simply going to have to try to talk himself out of it, for what was the point, really—Maddy would never like someone like him. She was steady, together, the smartest girl in school. So smart, really—in science she always got things right away when everyone else was blinking dumbly at the teacher. Maybe she could come over in the afternoons and help him with covalent bonding—
No, Zee.
“Hey, Zee, wait up!”
Zee stopped just in front of the school bus. Jason Hart was running toward him. Again, he felt a pang of guilt. Tomorrow he’d make it up to Jason, tomorrow he’d show him around, tomorrow he’d introduce him to everyone. All the boys, anyway.
“Listen, mate,” Zee said, “I’m sorry I forgot to show you around today.”
“Oh, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”
“But I should have introduced you around, and—”
“No, I met everyone. Charlie and Dov and Sam and Jack. They were all really nice.”
“Oh!” Zee was impressed. Those were his best friends at school, and Jason had managed to find all of them. “Well, I’ll show you around tomorrow anyway.”
Something passed over Jason’s face, something Zee couldn’t quite identify. “Sure,” Jason said, looking at him oddly. “And, uh, you know. Good luck.”
“What?” But Jason had already turned and left.
On the bus on the way home, Zee sat next to Jack Liao, who was gabbing on about a basketball game he’d gone to the night before (Zee did not understand basketball; you dribbled with your hands), and Zee tried his best to put ponytails and gymnastics out of his mind. Eventually Chris, who was sitting behind them, joined in, and Zee let his attention waver.
Suddenly, a burst of laughter interrupted Zee’s reverie. He turned his head to look at his friend. “What?”
Jack blinked. “What?”
“What were you laughing at?”
“I wasn’t laughing.”
“Oh.” Zee looked around at the kids sitting behind him, then shrugged. “All right.”
Zee got off the bus slowly, thinking reluctantly about the long night ahead of him. He always felt so restless on the days he didn’t have soccer, like a hamster without his exercise wheel. Today, especially, he needed to be running back and forth down a field kicking things—but instead he had a long night of homework and angst ahead of him. Maybe he needed to get a human-size wheel installed in his room. It would fit in perfectly with the rest of his life—run fast, look absurd, go absolutely nowhere.
Out of the corner of his eye, Zee saw a flash of movement across the street a few houses away from him. He wouldn’t even have noticed it—for, after all, sidewalks do tend to have people on them—had not something in the back of his mind registered a familiar color. Zee glanced over and saw, standing next to a big oak tree, a very old man wearing an old-fashioned three-piece suit and bowler hat, all in the most striking shade of aqua. In the light of day, the color looked even stranger, no less so because it exactly matched the color of the man’s eyes. His skin did not seem quite right to Zee. It was so pale and thin as to look translucent—indeed, there seemed to be shadows moving just underneath the surface. And while he gave off the impression of being terribly old, as thin and fragile as a glass skeleton, his face was as smooth as Zee’s.