When he finishes, everyone in the audience and several people who have been watching from the wings break into spontaneous applause and Mr. Henry beams and Ryan lifts his head and looks to where he knows I will be sitting, to share this moment with me, and I can tell that he, too, is so very grateful for right now.
Later, while Mr. Iverson is working with the chorus on “At the End of the Day,” Ryan comes to find me backstage.
“Finish that barricade yet?” he asks, pulling me into a hug.
“Don’t rush me unless you want technical difficulties during your suicide scene,” I say into his chest. He smells good, like sanity and safety and clean, sexy teenage boy.
Everything is going really well, and I am so happy, and . . . I still can’t quite relax. Not quite.
But I want to. I try to. I think happy thoughts and I force myself to smile.
“I can feel you smiling,” Ryan says accusingly. I try not to mind that he can’t tell a real smile from a forced one. But then, he’s not actually looking at me. Just feeling the way my face moves against his chest. Feelings can be deceiving.
“That’s because everything is good. And no one is trying to kill us. And Mr. Gabriel is really, finally dead.” I say this like I believe it, hoping it might help.
And I do believe it. I do. Of course I do. I saw him.
But you saw him the last time, too, the panic beetles, still there, always there, whisper hatefully, their hooked beetle feet horribly pierced into the soft tissue of my guts.
“Yes,” he agrees. “All of those things are very true. Also, this show is going to be amazing.”
“That is also very true.”
Out in the auditorium, the chorus is singing about being one day nearer to dying and how there’s going to be hell to pay and I close my eyes and try to focus instead on the feel of Ryan’s heart beating strongly and steadily inside his chest.
“It’s really over, Cyn,” he whispers. “He’s gone. It’s going to be okay.”
“I know,” I say.
But I am lying. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to believe we’re really safe.
After rehearsal, we meet up with a bunch of our friends at the diner. I pause in the doorway, just looking, once more just appreciating the way they are all, against all odds, still here and healthy and alive.
Annie and William went through a bit of a rough patch when we first got back — apparently Annie wasn’t entirely wrong about William starting to wonder if all the crazy demon stuff was really something he was prepared to deal with. But Annie managed to talk him down, and at the moment they seem as blissfully in love with each other as they ever were. As I watch, Annie glances down to take a bite of her pie, and William’s eyes on her face don’t betray the slightest trace of doubt. He looks ready to follow her anywhere. Which shouldn’t ever have to be anyplace too terrible ever again.
Diane and Leticia are sharing fries and making each other taste various concoctions of dipping substances and laughing hysterically. Diane and I had a bit of a rough patch of our own, because she was still mad at me for not understanding how much it sucked for them to have to stay behind while we kept going off to probably die. But last week she came and sat next to me on the floor of the band wing in the morning and reached over and borrowed my pencil out of my hand without asking, and I knew then that I was forgiven. Leticia walked in a moment later and saw what was happening and gave Diane a long and silent hug, and none of us ever spoke about it again.
Ryan has gone over to talk to Jorge and the other guys, and is already helping himself to whatever Jorge is eating, and so I head over to where my girls (and William) are and try to catch the waitress’s eye. Annie manages to give me one of her thousand-watt smiles around a mouthful of pie, and Diane slides the plate of fries toward me, and then Leticia slides over a bowl of what looks like ketchup and mustard and coleslaw all mixed together, waggling her eyebrows suggestively, and I’m so happy and in love with all of them that I would totally sweep them into a giant group hug if it were physically possible to do so without all of us ending up covered in coleslaw and pie.
But underneath the happy I can still feel the panic beetles dragging around inside me with their trails of terror and despair, and I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know how to make them stop. Because I still don’t know how to believe it’s really over.
That night, I have three dreams.
The first is one of the Peter dreams I still have every once in a while. I continue to try to not feel bad about these dreams, and tell myself they are manifestations of that single rogue electron that maintains the tiny secret Peter fan club in some undisclosed location deep inside of me. I tell myself that that electron is entitled to dream its dreams just like the rest of us. I tell myself that I can’t help it, and so feeling bad would be pointless.
We are sitting backstage at camp, and the show being performed is something about giant demons shaped like flowers and insects and mud. At the moment, a blade of grass is singing a solo about the taste of human flesh.
Peter is stroking the inside of my arm. It leaves a trail of tiny sparks, and I can feel them travel all the way down to my toes.
“You know these dreams make me very uncomfortable,” I tell him.
“You don’t seem very uncomfortable,” he says, grinning. He moves his fingers up to the side of my neck, and I shiver.
“But I will be. Later.”
“Oh, well.”
He pulls me close and kisses me, and I kiss him back, because it’s only a dream and doesn’t count.
The second dream is far less pleasant.
I’m running through the demon prison, giant hand-monster pieces of the Craftsman chasing me through the dark, stony landscape. I see a doorway ahead and I dive through it, but instead of leading to another part of the prison, it places me back in the chamber where we killed Mr. Gabriel. All the various demon body parts are still there, including Mr. Gabriel’s severed head, which opens its eyes as I approach.
“You’re dead,” I tell him firmly. “You’re really dead this time.”
“Am I, though?” he asks, his human voice speaking clearly through his Minotaur mouth. “Will I ever really be dead? Maybe I will live on forever in your dreams.”
“No,” I say, because that is a horrible idea. “Anyway, my dreams don’t count. Nothing that happens in dreams is real.”
Mr. Gabriel raises an eyebrow at me and says nothing.
I turn and walk away, looking for the exit, but I can’t find it. I stumble over something, and I look down to see a Frisbee-size version of Mr. Crunchy’s smiling face. As I watch, it grows two long crab legs and rises up from the ground. I back away, and it comes smiling after me.
“You’re dead, too!” I tell him, and he tilts his face inquisitively as if to silently echo Mr. Gabriel’s “Am I, though?”
I feel around for the piece of him I used to stab Mr. Gabriel but I forgot to bring it, and I don’t have any other kind of weapon, and Mr. Crunchy is getting closer. I turn around and run, still looking for a way out. Instead I find myself headed for a shimmery curtain of light. I push past it, and I see Mr. Gabriel’s overturned cart and the golden urn lying shattered on the ground. I see the cart-demon caught between his two forms, sporting several truncated tentacles and oozing purplish-black blood onto the floor. He stretches some of those tentacles toward me, his eyes bright white in the otherwise dim and shadowy space.
I glance back to see where Mr. Crunchy is and I slam into something hard that scrapes my skin and clutches at me as soon as I try to pull away. I look up and the Craftsman’s fox-like face gazes down at me, his eyes burning like coals. “You stole from me,” he says. “I haven’t forgotten that.” His twig-fingers dig painfully into my arms.
“You’ll never really be free,” Mr. Gabriel says from behind me, and I struggle to turn around. He is standing in his attractive human form, all in one piece again. Mr. Crunchy’s head on its two crab legs stands to one side of him, bounc
ing slowly up and down in place, and behind him I see the prison flower monster, its leaf-hands clenching rhythmically around nothing. There are more demons behind him, countless more, so many, and the Craftsman’s grip grows tighter and tighter until everything goes black and the shadows have swallowed me whole.
In the third dream, I am sitting across a table from the demon queen. The table is small and round and covered with a pretty pastel tablecloth. She is in her mostly human form, looking like the sexy replacement Italian teacher she had briefly impersonated last year, but her long and twisty horns stretch up and out from her gorgeous thick dark hair, and her hands extend into bright-red claw-nails that come to shiny points. The amulet rests snugly atop her impressive cleavage, hanging from a new silver chain. (The chain, I notice, is a lot tougher-looking than the delicate one Mr. Gabriel had. I can tell it’s reinforced with a good deal of magical energy, too. Ms. Královna is no dummy.) The red stone glows with what seems like immense satisfaction. I guess it’s happy with its new mistress. Aaron is serving us tea. He’s wearing an apron that says DEPECHE MODE. His shoulder fins seem larger than I remember, and his striped eely tail lies in a long, lazy coil behind him.
“Aaron believes I owe you a debt,” the queen says, wrapping her nail-claws around a floral teacup. Aaron pours again and the scent of jasmine now floats enticingly out of my own cup, which is adorned with tiny musical notes and green finches. I pick it up in my own normal human hands. It’s pleasantly warm between my palms.
“I did help you when I didn’t actually have to,” I say. “Even after what Aaron did to Annie.” He looks away, ashamed, but I don’t care. I want to punch him again, but I don’t want to put down my cup.
“True,” she says, taking another sip of her tea. I take a sip of mine, and the taste is exquisite, more delicious than tea has any right to be. I wonder what’s in it.
“I do not generally concern myself with repaying debts,” she continues, “and it’s possible Aaron only feels lingering human guilt for having betrayed you.” She smiles at him, momentarily distracted. “His human feelings are so . . . peculiar. We will grind them out of him eventually, of course, but I find I am rather enjoying them for the time being.”
Aaron blushes, seeming both embarrassed and pleased and also possibly slightly aroused, and I want to get this conversation back on track before they forget I’m there and start doing whatever unimaginable things they do together when they’re alone.
“Wasn’t it Aaron’s fault that Mr. Gabriel got out in the first place?” I ask.
Aaron jerks his head up, glaring at me, but the queen only laughs.
“Yes, of course. But he has more than redeemed himself. And in the end, I seem to have come out even further ahead than if your Mr. Gabriel had never escaped at all.” She caresses the amulet absently with one red claw-tip.
“Why does everyone always call him my Mr. Gabriel?” I demand. I really hate when they do that.
She only looks at me, still smiling.
“More tea?” Aaron asks her, and she holds out her cup for him to pour. I remember to take another sip of mine, and again I’m amazed by how good it is.
“In any case, I have decided to give you a small gift in return, Cynthia.”
“Are you forfeiting the third visit?” I ask hopefully.
“No. But I am granting you some time. A guarantee that I will not call in that final favor anytime soon. Certainly not within the next few years, probably not for the next ten or fifteen.” She looks at me, and her eyes seem to penetrate right down to my core. I don’t know what she sees there, but it captures her attention for several long seconds before she continues. “Perhaps not for decades. I will grant you as much of a reprieve as I can. You . . . have spent enough time in the demon world for now, I think.”
Yes, I say in response, not with my lips but with my entire being, and I can tell the demoness has heard it just as clearly as if I had spoken it aloud.
“That is all for now,” she says. “You should probably be getting back. Finish your tea.”
I drink the rest of what is in my cup, wanting to remember the way it tastes, the way it embodies so much more than what it should, and then Aaron is gesturing for me to follow him.
“Thank you,” I whisper to the queen.
She nods once, slowly. I rise, placing my cloth napkin on the table, and follow Aaron to the door.
“Thank you, too,” I tell him. “I guess I don’t really hate you.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I get it if you do. I’ve done some pretty terrible things to get what I want. But I know you understand what it’s like to want things.”
I reach for the door, which is glowing softly, but before I can go through he calls my name and I turn back.
“The panic beetles are all dead now,” he says. “Relax already.”
I step through the door and wake up in my own bed.
There is just the faintest hint of morning light beginning to filter through the window shades. I lie there quietly, still tasting the tea on my tongue, feeling lighter and more hopeful than I have in a very long time. Distantly, I think I hear something, and then I laugh out loud as I realize it is my own brain, playing “Any Dream Will Do” from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as what it seems to feel is appropriate accompaniment to this glorious new morning. I’m not sure if it’s the line about the breaking dawn or the obvious dream connection or if that’s just what coincidentally decided to come up via shuffle on my internal playlist at that moment.
My good mood falters slightly as I contemplate whether the last dream being real — which I have no doubt it truly was — means all the dreams were real. Maybe not; maybe my brain was just running the full spectrum: one nice dream, one nightmare, and one that wasn’t really a dream at all. That seems possible. It’s not like everything always has to be all or nothing.
I’ve never really liked that about the world; mostly I want things to be all or nothing. I want up and down, good and bad, right and wrong all to be clearly defined with solid boundaries and no leaking of goodness into badness and wrongness into rightness or any other disharmony of concepts. But I think about LB, and Peter, and even Aaron, and I don’t know how to reconcile what I want with the realities of who they are and what they’ve done. And I think about Ryan, and Annie, and how I don’t always love their choices but how that won’t ever stop me from loving them. And I think about me, and how my own right-and-wrong boundaries have gotten more than a little muddy and how maybe in the big scheme of things it’s not really the very worst thing that can happen.
I mean seriously, have I learned nothing from Les Misérables? Try too hard to hold on to all of your rigid ideas about black and white and the next thing you know you’re jumping off a bridge because you let a good man who did some questionable things go save another good man instead of dragging him off to jail where you’ve been sure he belongs for seventeen years and you just can’t handle all of those contradictions. I mean the lesson is really pretty clear.
I do know that real life is not always exactly the same as musical theater. (More’s the pity.)
I also know that it’s probably always going to be a lot messier than I want it be. But maybe I can learn to be okay with that.
I decide that I don’t have to figure all of this out right this second. Maybe I’ll tell Ryan about the dreams and ask him what he thinks. Well, I’ll certainly tell him about the Ms. Královna dream, because I know it will put his mind at ease as well. Probably I will not mention the Peter dream. Because there wouldn’t be any point, and because a girl’s subconscious is her own business, and so almost entirely no more secrets means still some very tiny secrets, sometimes.
My tiny electron of Peter-fandom twinges knowingly somewhere inside me.
But then it is drowned out by all the other electrons that are in love with Ryan, and I smile thinking about getting to see him in a few hours, and of all the many hours after that. Years’ worth of hours. With no demons. And no
more trips to the demon world.
At least not for a very, very long time.
As usual, writing this novel was not a solo journey. So much gratefulness goes out to awesome draft readers Brent Felker, Bridey Flynn, and Jenny Weiss, who provided crucial notes and reassurance, and to Jaz Ellis for sharing his stage-lighting savvy and his heart and for generally making my life better in every conceivable way. Thanks also to everyone who answered my random questions about things like school schedules and personal injury experiences; to Kristin Cartee for sentence-wording opinions, punctuation discussions, and occasional panic management; and to all my friends for their abundant support and encouragement when I needed it, which was often this time around. And of course, none of this would be possible without my agent, Jodi Reamer, and my editor, Sarah Ketchersid, who remain amazing and wonderful and for whom I am still so grateful, always.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2019 by Michelle Knudsen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2019
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2018963114
Candlewick Press
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Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
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