by Megan Hart
“Jennifer must be one smoking hot piece of pussy, that’s all I have to say.” Tovah rubbed beneath Max’s chin. The dog’s eyes closed in ecstasy. “Hear me? Pussy.”
He barked, once, twice, and she shushed him with a laugh, mindful of the neighbors. “You said it. I hope she gave him the clap, too.”
Tovah looked at the table where the papers lay, then down at her faithful pooch. “It’s bedtime.”
Max yawned and put his head back into her hand. Tovah put her face to the dog’s soft fur, smelling faintly of shampoo. She closed her eyes and took what comfort she could from knowing that if nothing else, she was the world to this one creature.
Chapter Twelve
He took her up against a wall, hard and fast. No speaking. Tovah touched the lines of his face, heard the rough hoarseness of his breathing. They climaxed together, him with a shout and her with a sigh.
It was easy to tilt the wall behind her until she lay upon it, easier still to shape hard brick into a soft mattress. They lay upon it together, both still breathing fast. So far, neither of them had said a word.
“Tell me what I needed,” Tovah said. A challenge.
Her lover turned on his side to stretch out along her body. Warmth from his skin kept the chill from her better than any blanket. He ran his hand over her body.
“To feel wanted.”
This perfect answer hit so close to home she gasped with it and sat, turning from him. Tovah pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, pushing back tears. She wished she hadn’t asked.
He touched her hip and drew her closer, back toward him. He spooned against her. His breath caressed the back of her neck and stirred the tumbled length of her hair.
“Is it so wrong?” he asked finally. Softly. “Why should you be ashamed of something so many people want?”
She couldn’t explain to him that she didn’t want a guide. She wanted a lover. A real person to hold her. To want her.
Her lover said nothing when she didn’t answer. He stroked over her hip, then up again, each touch meant to calm her. The subtle tug and pull of his will tried to soothe her, and after a while, she let it. She let him take away the tension and the grief, let him surround her instead with calm.
She turned to look at him at last. “You always have a different face, but I still know it’s you.”
He smiled. “I’m whatever you want.”
She teased his hair from golden to midnight and shaped his eyes from green to gold. “What about what you want?”
He shrugged and kissed her. Against her mouth, he murmured, “I’m not concerned with my physical representation.”
“Why not?” She sat again but without drawing away.
He sat, too. “Because it doesn’t matter what I look like. It matters how I behave. Doesn’t it?”
He cocked his head to look at her. His features stilled, frozen by her will, and he smiled and didn’t fight her. Tovah gave him perfect arched brows and blue-green eyes, a full mouth and two dimples.
“It’s distracting,” she said after a moment, though the result was perfect.
He passed a hand over his face like a mime using the motion to change expression. “Only because you let it be.”
“I thought you were supposed to give me what I want,” Tovah said, annoyed.
“What you need.” Her lover smiled. “Guides give you what you need, remember? Even when you don’t know you need it?”
Tears stung again and she blinked against them. She lifted her chin, stubborn, feeling an urge to argue. “Okay. So give me what I need.”
She thought he would make love to her again. Make her breathless. Make her forget there was a real life that failed her.
Instead, he drew her close and linked his fingers with hers. He held them tight in his, held her against his body, her head upon his shoulder. He embraced her, skin on skin, and though his lips pressed against her neck, the kiss was one of comfort and not seduction.
It was exactly what she needed.
“Where’s your friend?” The witchwoman’s words were not cruel, but her tone was. She leered in the doorway.
The boy said nothing. He watched the dogman pacing, its fists clenching and sometimes creeping to the tools on its belt. Drool, thick white curds of it, curdled in the corners of its mouth. It smelled bad.
“Don’t you know there’s nobody for you?” The witchwoman put herself between the boy and the dogman, forcing him to look at her, instead. “Maybe you’d like it better if I let him have you? Would you like that?”
She snapped and the dogman turned. It squatted by her side so she could pat its head. Like a pet. The boy shuddered and withdrew. He was so tired his eyes felt like he’d rubbed sand into them, but he dared not close them.
“Do you want him?” the witchwoman asked the dogman, who growled low in its throat. Her fingers stroked over coarse fur. “Do you want to bite that boy? Make him bleed?”
The dogman’s growl revved like an engine. Like laughter. It lunged forward, snapping at the boy’s feet.
With a cry, the boy jerked out of reach, his eyes closing and hands thrusting forward. Pushing. Pushing. Wishing he could run and knowing he had no place to go.
Chapter Thirteen
The soft sigh of the heating vents, the feeling of paper against her fingers, those were the sensations Tovah associated with the Ephemeros when she visited Henry. Tovah hovered on the edge of sleep, not really tired enough to doze but forcing herself to try for Spider’s sake. Visiting his waking body didn’t mean much if he wasn’t awake.
“You know,” she said, stretching as she almost always did when first entering the dream world. “I do have better things to do with my Sunday afternoons, Spider.”
“Tovah. Hi.”
Spider’s body had blocked her view of Ben, lying on his back, arms and legs spread. He got to his feet, smiling cautiously. His body left an imprint in the blue grass.
“Is there a reason why the grass is blue?” She was determined this shouldn’t be awkward.
Ben looked down. The grass became green. He looked back at her with an easier smile. “That better?”
“I don’t care what color it is, really. I just wondered if there was a reason it was blue.”
“Ben’s not so good at color.” Spider turned, eight legs moving with precision. “It’s the first to go when he’s got anything else to do. For Tovah it’s the edges.”
He sounded like a parent describing his children’s strengths and weaknesses. Tovah frowned, annoyed. “Are the edges that important?”
“Depends what’s on them,” Spider said.
Tovah looked at them, back and forth. “Was I interrupting something?”
“No.” Spider’s colors swirled. Today he was blindingly blue and orange.
“Psychedelic.” Tovah pointed. “What’s up with the headache waiting to happen?”
Ben had reached to pluck up a handful of the grass that had become blue again. “Spider’s been helping me shape, that’s all. He’s probably tired.”
This was not a good enough explanation. She pushed forward to put her arm around Spider’s thick body. He felt hot. She looked into the topmost pair of red eyes. “What’s going on?”
She felt it again, at once, swift as the crack of a whip and with the same painful sting. The Ephemeros shook around them. The grass vanished, replaced by cracked and sand-scoured rock. In the distance, black mountains surged forth. There was no longer any delineation between sky and earth, nothing to keep them anchored but the small patch of ground on which they stood.
Ben grabbed her and Spider. She grabbed Ben. The three of them clung together, a triangle of resistance against the onslaught. Spider trembled, shrinking until he could fit in Tovah’s palm. She curled her arm against her body, sheltering him from the wind whipping around them. Ben’s arm tightened on her.
“Why is this happening?” she cried over the howling wind snarling her hair into a tangle.
Familiar but long-forgotten terror
sank its teeth into her.
Somewhere:
Somewhere, a child sobbed at the sound of the closet door creaking open.
Somewhere, lovers turned their backs to one another and dreamed of a stranger’s caress.
Somewhere, a sharp blade flashed and brought blood.
“Shape a haven.” Spider’s voice sounded like it came from far away. “Together.”
Ben took her hand, their fingers linking and squeezing tight. She looked at him, his face grim, mouth pressed tight together. She was too terrified to be ashamed of her fear, of the way it had sent her back to every nightmare she’d ever had. Was the entire Ephemeros suffering the way she did? Was everyone in the world?
“Shape with me,” Ben said.
She heard him though his mouth didn’t move, understood what he wanted though he hadn’t spoken. Her fingers clamped hard enough to bruise. But she nodded. And shaped.
Together, the three of them, they made a haven. A small one, barely able to stand against whatever was pushing its fury and terror around them, but they did it. For a moment, at least, until the Ephemeros reared up again, prying apart their shelter and tossing it aside.
It was like being on a ship caught in a storm, no place to go. Nothing safe to hold. Every nightmare she’d ever had rammed at Tovah. She knew they weren’t real but couldn’t stop herself from screaming at the sight of sharp teeth, razor blades, at the feeling of falling. At the memory of screeching metal and heat, the smell of smoke, the sting of a needle.
Of waking to find the bandages on what was left of her leg.
“Wake up,” Spider said from her palm. “Get out of here, Tovah. Wake up, girly! Wake up!”
But she couldn’t. There was no exit light, no portal through which she could escape. Tovah felt Spider in her hand, felt Ben’s fingers against hers, but even those sensations were fading in the face of the images, sounds and smells attacking her.
“Wake up!”
Spider fell, and she screamed for him, clutching, and was unable to find him again.
“Wake up!”
Ben’s hand tore from her grip, and she was alone.
“Wake up!”
Hands shook her.
Tovah came awake with a strangled shout, pushing at the hands on her shoulders. It took her several seconds to realize she was awake, that the shaking hands belonged to Dr. Goodfellow, that she was in Henry’s room at the Sisters of Mercy and not alone in her bed.
She was awake.
Heart pounding, breathing fast, sweat coating her face and palms, Tovah sat up straight on the sticky vinyl chair. Dr. Goodfellow stepped back, releasing her. She clutched her sweater around her, though she was embarrassed, not cold.
“You were dreaming,” he said.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
“Must’ve been a doozy.”
Again, a nod. She swallowed and found her voice. “Yes. It was.”
He looked sympathetic. “You look like you could use a drink. Let me get you some water.”
He was pouring it before she could protest. He pressed the plastic cup of lukewarm water, poured from the pitcher on Henry’s nightstand, into her hand. Tovah sipped it, though her stomach churned in the aftermath. After a moment she put the cup aside and looked up at him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. The terror was fading the way dreams did. She looked at Henry in his bed, unmoving. He hadn’t woken. Was he still living it?
“Don’t be sorry. Dreams happen. It’s not like you could control it or anything.” He stopped. Looked at her closely.
Tovah looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “Thanks for the water.”
“I could exchange it for a coffee, if you’re interested.” He sounded a little hesitant, then got bolder. “We could go across the street again.”
She looked up with a small smile. “That sounds good.”
“I have a break coming to me.” He looked at Henry, then put a hand on the man’s shoulder for a moment. Henry didn’t move. Dr. Goodfellow looked back at Tovah. “If you don’t want to—”
“No,” she said, surprising herself. “I’d like to. Across the street sold me.”
His laugh sounded like it surprised him. “Good. I mean…that’s good. I’m glad.”
They shared a smile, and she stood. She hadn’t checked for the pins and needles tingling, and the floor slid under her. Dr. Goodfellow caught her and kept her from falling.
“Thanks,” she said, embarrassed again.
Finding himself with an armful of female seemed to embarrass him too. Pink crept up over his cheeks as his arms tightened around her for a moment. He set her firmly on her feet and then let her go.
They didn’t talk much on the way across the parking lot, though she caught him giving her surreptitious glances. She smiled when he reached to take her elbow as they stepped off the curb to cross the street. It was a brief touch, meant to steady, and he seemed to make it automatically. The pressure of his fingers remained even after he’d taken his hand away.
He held the door open for her, too, and waited until she’d scooted into the diner booth before he took the seat opposite her. He let her order first and when the food came, he waited until she’d lifted her fork before he picked up his own. Tovah noticed his consideration but tried not to let herself think it meant anything more than good manners.
“I’m worried about Henry.”
Tovah paused with her fork of macaroni salad halfway to her mouth, then put it down. “Something’s changed?”
Dr. Goodfellow shook his head. “Nothing’s changed. That’s why I’m worried. He’s not responding to anything any longer. Treatments and medications that used to have an effect on him are doing nothing. He’s remained in a catatonic state for the past two weeks without any sign of acknowledging his surroundings. And yet I feel…I know he’s in there, somewhere. If I could just get to him.”
His conviction touched her. “He’s in there, Dr. Goodfellow.”
He looked up at that with a familiar look of faint surprise. “I wish you’d call me Martin.”
The offer pleased her, and she nodded. “Okay. Martin.”
He added sugar to his tea by tearing open each packet precisely along its short side and tipping the contents into the glass. He did it three times, each the same way, his motions so exact as to be almost hypnotizing.
Tovah looked up. He’d caught her staring. Their eyes met and held for a moment, and he was the one to break the sudden silence.
“Can I call you Tovah?”
“Of course. Absolutely.” She nodded and fought the urge to duck her head.
Martin’s smile moved from tentative to certain. “It means good.”
“Yes,” she said, surprised.
“Martin means warrior,” he offered. He stirred the tea until the sugar dissolved. His glance was amused. “My parents were optimists.”
He’d charmed her. “Your parents wanted a warrior?”
Martin put aside the spoon and stacked the empty sugar packets neatly. “I think they wanted a fighter. Yes.”
She studied him a moment before answering. “Why do you think they wanted a fighter?”
Martin shrugged, looking away. “Isn’t that what boys are supposed to do?”
“It depends on what sort of fighting you’re talking about, I guess.” Tovah sipped from her own glass.
He looked back at her. “I wish your friend would fight.”
Tovah didn’t have to think twice about answering that. “Me too.”
Martin nodded then, as if her answer pleased him, and the conversation turned to other things.
Chapter Fourteen
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m off Justin Ross.” Kelly swigged water as she walked a little faster on the treadmill.
Tovah was adjusting her own program and paused at the revelation. “What? I thought it was true love!”
“Well…you’re going to think this is weird, but ever since I had that dream about him, I just can’t loo
k at him the same way.”
Tovah didn’t laugh, though she could tell Kelly was expecting her to. “Why not?”
“Well…I just feel bad. We were all chasing him. He’s just a kid, really. All those women running after him, wanting to dive into his pants like we were ravening wolverines? Mmm…Wolverine.”
Tovah laughed this time. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Encouragable. You know it.” Grinning, Kelly shook her head. She sighed after a second. “Anyway. He’s adorable and all that, but now when I look at him I just sort of want to pinch his cheeks. The ones on his face.”
Tovah snorted. “Dreams aren’t real, Kelly.”
Kelly swiped sweat from a furrowed brow. “Yeah. I know.”
Tovah gave her a curious look. “Are you all right?”
“Sure. Just…bad dreams. I’m tired today.”
Tovah’s treadmill slowed, nearing the end of her workout, and gratefully she stepped off. Her thighs ached. “What sort of bad dreams?”
Kelly, too, got off her machine and swigged more water before answering. “Did you ever have a dream that didn’t seem like it should be scary but really was?”
Together they headed for the locker room. Tovah didn’t have to think hard about her answer. “Of course. Something that seems sort of silly when you wake up but scares the bejesus out of you when you’re under? Yes.”
Kelly nodded. In the harsh fluorescent light of the locker room, she looked pale, eyes circled with shadows. She laughed, but it sounded forced. “Well, I had a dream like that last night.”
Tovah paused in taking out her shower basket as Kelly sat abruptly on the low bench in front of their lockers. She sat too. “Want to tell me about it?”
Kelly nodded again, slowly, her expression guarded. “It’s silly.”
“Try me.”
“I was at the beach,” Kelly said. “Swimming. Somehow, I knew there could be no sharks in the water, because they’d strung up those nets. You know, like they do in Australia?”