by Carrow Brown
“If I were a knife, I could’ve cut it for you,” Silence commented, wiggling his fingers at me as I opened the door.
Part of my mind felt uneasy with the opening in the fence, and I closed the door once Silence was through. I lowered the latch and the lock reappeared.
“Neat trick,” I murmured.
Motion caught my eye, and I noted shadowy forms moving about the trees, golden eyes giving away their positions. More and more eyes appeared; the number of whispers in my ear increased as more pairs of eyes glowed from the darkness.
“That’s new,” I said, turning to Silence. “What do you think? Side effect from eating someone’s grandma or stress related?”
He didn’t respond, his own eyes locked in a terrified stare, looking back at the forms, face ghost white. His small hands trembled, and I noticed beads of sweat sliding down the sides of his face.
“Oi, Silence,” I called out. “It’s just a dream. No need to panic.”
Without a word, he turned and trotted up to the building. He managed to open the double doors, and I watched as he peered inside and ran back to me. Grabbing my hand, he pulled me back toward the fence. “Nothing to see here! C’mon, let’s go back.”
I dug my heels into the ground. “Don’t be silly. We just got here.”
His hands shifted, grasping my forearms tight enough to bruise. Silence’s voice was more wail than words as he pulled at me. “Please! Please-please-please let’s leave!”
His eyes were wide as his nails bit into my forearms. I knelt and pulled his trembling body into my arms and rubbed circles gently across his back. “Easy. What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been here before and I don’t like it. I don’t want to be here.”
“Well,” I said, smoothing his hair from his face with one hand. “You can stay here while I go inside if you want.”
He curled into me, arms twining about my neck as he pressed his face to my pulse. “No, let me stay with you.”
I kissed the top of his head. “It’s just a dream, Silence. Be brave.”
“This isn’t a dream,” Silence said into my neck. “I know what this is and it’s no dream.”
“Then we’ll handle it like we do everything else.” I headed toward the warehouse.
“If you go inside, you won’t be the same,” Silence whispered, hands clawing at my back. “You’ll change.”
I frowned, but Badb’s earlier words came to mind. You want the world to change, but it won’t if you don’t.
“Silence, do you trust me?”
“I trust you. It’s them I don’t trust.”
“Who is ‘them’?”
Silence tightened his arms around my neck, shaking his head against my throat.
Sighing, I pulled on the door and stepped inside, dragging the uncooperative boy sword with me. Turning, I scrutinized the forest. The shapes moved closer, prowling about the fence, their yellow eyes locked on us. I closed the doors of the building behind me, blocking them from sight, though the whispers didn’t lessen in volume.
Once inside the room, the lights overhead snapped to life and I blinked until my eyes adjusted. Before me, wooden barrels were stacked in neat rows to the ceiling. They went on and on with no end in sight. Some of the barrels were fresh and new, the wood shining with care, while others laid cracked and broken. In some places, wooden splinters littered the floor, the contents nowhere to be seen. Scattered among all the stacks were smaller barrels. They stood out on the floor, clean and polished.
Silence maintained his death-grip about my neck. His trembling continued, despite my efforts to soothe him.
Stepping toward one of the stacks, I reached out to touch a barrel when a hand clapped down on my shoulder.
I whipped around and felt my heart stop at the sight of the woman. She lacked the oxygen tube under her nose, but the close-cut snow-white hair, the weathered face, and the frail limbs were the same. I stood there staring at the woman whose bones were buried under one of the trees of my forest—Kathy Summer.
Kathy glared in disapproval like I was some errant child she caught making for the cookie jar. In one hand, she held a clipboard close to her chest and in the other a spoon. She pointed the utensil at my nose as she spoke. “You haven’t called!”
“Uh… I’m sorry?”
Kathy walked around, taking in the stacks of barrels in the room. She leaned in to inspect, but never touched them. Her eyes shifted back to me and the lack of emotion in them made me uneasy.
“It’s very ripe,” she said. “Or are you just playing in the fields?”
“Uh... no playing here,” I said, looking at the barrels with her. What did she mean by fields?
“You need to call,” Kathy snapped. “We are all concerned. I had to ask Dreamer to help us.” She extended her hand, holding out a smartphone. “Call soon. We can only wait so long.”
“… sure,” I said, holding out my hand.
Kathy placed the phone in my hand and I brought it to my face to inspect it. The screen came to life, showing four different icons, none of which had a clear function or meaning. Frowning, I tried to tap one, but the screen went blank.
“What am I supposed to—” I started to say, but when I looked up, Kathy was gone. I turned around trying to find her, but I didn’t see any hint of the soul-dead woman.
With her absence, Silence’s trembling lessened. I tucked the phone into my back pocket and used my free hand to keep rubbing soothing circles on his back, while trying to ignore the thundering in my chest.
“You may be an undigested bit of beef,” I muttered, “a blot of mustard, a crumble of cheese. There is more gravy than grave about you, whatever you are.”
Silence lifted his head to meet my gaze. “Is this really the time to quote Charles Dickens?”
My eyes and ears picked up nothing, but the nagging feeling of someone watching me never ceased. “This is the perfect time.”
Two options presented themselves to me.
One, I could remain and try and dive into the message my subconscious was trying to tell me. Silence’s remark that this wasn’t a dream could also be part of the dream. Perhaps I’d developed a resentment to barrels I needed to come to terms with.
Leaving, or trying to, was my second option. Thoughts of leaving brought images of the shadows along the fence. The ease in picturing the shadows, as if I were seeing them directly, made the hair along my arms and neck stand on end. Their shapes came to mind instantly. Some humanoid, others not. Bodies pacing back and forth, glowing eyes never leaving the warehouse, bodies pressed up against the fence to find a weak link.
No, I couldn’t leave. Not right away. Whether bad dinner, stress, or something else, leaving the dream wouldn’t work. I patted Silence’s back. “I’d like my hands free.”
He wiggled out of my grasp until his feet touched the floor. Moving to the barrels, I pried the top of one open with a hand. Inside, an inky black liquid rippled off the sides of the barrel.
Another hand grasped my arm and I whirled around for the second time.
A tall lanky man stood with a shock of white hair about his sun-bronzed face. His weathered features lacked the kindness I’d known during his life. I couldn’t help but picture him as a child, running about the trees while laughing. The memory brought an ache to my heart as I stared at the aged man. My first foster. My little Merlin.
He still stood there, a field scythe resting over a shoulder. I fought off the urge to reach up and touch his face, but something in those blue eyes didn’t sit well with me. My Merlin, serious and dutiful to a fault, had remained kind and giving until the end. Seeing the hard and jaded glint in place of the warmth and compassion made my heart sink.
The nostalgia and longing faded, replaced with a bubbling rage. I jabbed a finger into the man’s chest. “Don’t you dare wear his face,” I growled, my vision tinting to red. “Don’t you fucking dare, whatever you are.”
The room rippled at the end of my words, and not-Merlin’s eyes wi
dened. His appearance shimmered and shifted until Carl the Waypoint Keeper stood before me with a scythe still resting over his shoulder.
He gestured to the surrounding barrels. “You’re trying a new vintage? When will you drink it?”
I took deep breaths, trying to calm myself and push the effects of my fleeting anger to the side. “I’m not going to drink any of it. I’m more of a mead fan.”
He jerked his attention back to me, eyes ablaze. “Then it will all spoil! Why must you be so wasteful?”
The muscles along my jaw twitched. “Don’t be stupid. I use all of the buffalo.”
Carl’s face tightened. “But you don’t call.”
“Well, you don’t call me, either!” I snapped. “What do you want from me?”
“Responsibility,” he said, fading away and leaving me alone in the whispering winery once more. The sensation of numerous eyes on me never eased as I stood there.
Silence hovered at my side, a small hand resting on me. “Can we go?”
“No.” I turned back to the barrel I’d opened and reached my hand toward the dark liquid. The substance shimmered as my hand drew closer. “Not yet.”
Images flashed in my mind’s eye when my fingers touched the liquid. Holding hands with someone while rollerblading down a sidewalk. The sunset left me in awe of its beauty, its primal colors. Its fading light reflected off the ocean. The sound of laughter pulled my eyes back to the sight of the woman moving effortlessly on her own skates. My heart swelled at her smile.
Sucking in a breath, I pulled my hand away from the substance. The images and feelings faded, leaving a deep longing in their place.
Silence still squeezed his hand on my arm. “You okay?”
“I’ve felt this before,” I whispered. “When I eat.” My eyes shifted over the black liquid. “This is a soul?” I stepped back, looking at all the barrels filling up the room. “Odin’s eye....”
I stepped out into the hall, feeling a weight on my arms, and glanced down one way and then another. So many rooms. Rooms full of barrels. Full of the living essence of people?
“What does this even mean? Are these souls I’ve eaten? Souls to be eaten? Souls that could be?” I rubbed my throbbing head with a hand. Even in the dream, the headache would not leave me. “Fucking dreams.”
A velvety giggle bounced off the walls. It caused Silence to press into me, his small hands bunched up in the fabric of my pants.
Seeing and feeling his fear made my hair rise. It slithered about my neck and shoulders, tickling my skin. “I am getting tired of this,” I called out, my voice a bouncing echo all around me. “Where are you?”
Only the stillness of the room answered me. Being toyed with was not a thing I enjoyed. I looked around, trying to locate the source of the laugh. Front. Left. Right. Behind. My instincts told me to think like a predator. When I hunted, I always pounced from the same direction. Eyes narrowed, I tilted my head up.
A petite, tanned woman stood upside down on the ceiling, her long black hair flowing about her, trailing behind as if made of smoke. Or silk in water. Ever graceful, ever moving. Rich purple garments clung to her chest and hips, the fabric moving akin to her hair as if entirely submerged in water. A gold glint caught my eye, something long and thin moving about her neck and arms with serpentine grace. Something about her face nagged at me. I’d seen her before, but hard to say when, like an image on the edge of my memory I couldn’t place.
“Excellent,” she cooed, her voice still echoing all around me. “You don’t mind, do you, Walker? I always enjoy keeping things interesting.”
I tilted my head toward Silence, speaking low, “What’s happening?”
“She’s playing with us,” he said, red eyes locked on her. “It’s what she does.”
I nodded. “It’s not like I have a choice, so why ask if I mind?”
Her body melted and reappeared before me, her smile soft and warm like a summer’s day. The slithering gold I’d seen from a distance lifted its head from her arm to study me. A snake, but not a snake I’d ever seen before. Scale patterns like diamondback snake, the colors a shimmering variation of gold. Black eyes, all six of them, stared at me.
The woman’s head tilted as she smiled. “You seem different. Not sure if I like it.”
“I am what I am.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Your thoughts on it don’t matter to me.”
Her eyes shifted from green to black, gaze locking with mine. “Where is your lantern? I found your cloak floating about.” She pointed to a nearby wall where shadows clung. They shifted under my attention, leaving the walls to reach out to me with smoky arms.
The woman’s chiding tone pulled my attention away from the limbs. “You are not being tidy.”
“I don’t know who you think I am, but let’s not make assumptions about what I do and don’t do. It’s annoying.” I grabbed Silence’s hand. “You’re in my way.”
“But you have Walker’s Edge,” she said, speaking me as if I were a toddler. “To have Walker’s Edge is to be Walker.”
“No.” I glared at her. “I’m Ghost. I don’t know where your ‘Walker’ is, but it’s not here.”
She pressed a finger to her lip as she studied me. In the next eye blink, her shape became a smoky shadow on the floor, sliding away from me.
With her no longer blocking my path, I decided to explore. My limbs felt heavier the farther I ventured from the main door and it slowed my progress. Every room I passed appeared the same in its basic layout. Barrels everywhere and stacked to the ceiling. Small differences to the barrels set them apart. The material differed from room to room: English oak, Chinese ash, cherry blossom, and pine, to name a few.
The floors differed like the barrels. Some areas presented me with my own reflection, polished to shining mirrors. Shattered barrel parts and debris littered other rooms. The rooms with the damaged floors tended to contain barrels with the most wear and tear.
After what felt like endless ages of walking, I came across a worn rocking chair. I sat and leaned back in it with a sigh while Silence hovered by my side.
The dream was a dream—bizarre and surreal—but still a dream. I didn’t believe in dream interpretation. Outside of divine influence, dreams meant nothing. Just a person’s head decompressing. I also had to consider the effect of Kathy’s Alzheimer’s on me, since my food always left a short-term effect after consuming it.
Once, I’d eaten a man with crippling OCD and couldn’t stop sorting things by initial letter alphabet and size for a week. Vainya had been so furious he’d sent me to live with the frost giants for a month.
“I’d like to wake up now,” I muttered, my hand massaging the bridge of my nose.
“She won’t let us leave until she’s done,” Silence said from my side.
I exhaled a breath before speaking, “You know, I don’t understand all this.” I waved a hand to the hall. “Like, is the woman my subconscious saying I need to embrace my femininity? The barrels representing my enjoyment of booze and relating it to food? Am I longing to raise another orphan so much that I picture you as a kid?” I leaned over him, adopting a playful tone. “Wanna play a game?”
“Is this a game?” The voice sounded off to my side, causing my heart to leap up into my throat.
My eyes shifted around until I saw the fluid shadows sliding toward me.
Once within arm’s reach, the shadows shifted. I watched, mesmerized, as the shadows coalesced until a human face took form. The darkness faded to perfect skin that you could only find in photoshop. The woman faced me, lips forming an equally perfect pout. “You didn’t invite me? You know I like games.” Her vibrant green eyes shifted to Silence. “What have you done to your Edge, Walker?”
Silence tightened his hands on my side, and I rested a palm on his head as I spoke to the woman. “Nothing. Would you stop calling me that? I’ve told you my name.”
Her eyes sparkled. “But you’re Walker. Where there is no path, you will forge one for us to fo
llow.”
I leaned back into the chair. “Anyone can forge a path. Even you.”
“Ooh,” she cooed. “I never knew you thought so highly of me.”
I waved a hand at her, impatience welled up inside of me. “Is there a reason for this?” I gestured to the room around us, the barrels, the liquid sloshing in them.
She sauntered off to the side with a hypnotic sway of her hips. It drew my gaze along her shapely legs down and down until I noticed she wasn’t walking on the floor. The woman floated, toes an inch or so above it.
Her voice brought my attention back to her face as she turned to look at me. “I was curious. You don’t call and when we find you, you are...” She licked her bottom lip and winked. “Well, I won’t be rude.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “No, but being coy isn’t winning you any points.”
She pouted, floating toward me. “Can’t you humor me? Just a smidgen?”
I narrowed my eyes. “No. Not today, anyway.”
The woman sighed. “You’re always mean to me.” She floated off toward the barrels and sat atop one, her green eyes leveled on me. “Why do you wear those?”
“Wear what? Clothes?”
“No.” She slid to my side, hand cupping at the air by my arm and pulled upwards. I watched as chains phased into existence. They started from the tattoos on my forearm and led off toward the entrance to the warehouse. The weight I felt in my arms increased as the chains became corporeal. Inspecting myself, I found more chains on my other forearm and shackles about my ankles.
Da fuck? I thought.
“These do not suit you. Have your Edge remove them.”
“No!” Silence’s childish protest echoed off the walls. He placed himself between the woman and me. “They look great on her. She is keeping them!”
The woman grew, her entire form filling up the vast space of the room. The walls and barrels faded away, replaced with a glowing vortex of space and color. Universes surrounded us, their glowing swirls the only brightness in the forbidding dark. I saw stars scattered about, their lights drawing together like a constellation map. Only they weren’t the constellations I’d known. Something in their shape and form was twisted.