Dreamless

by Josephine Angelini

  All he had intended was to push Helen away.

  But then things got out of hand: striking his father; his mother, bleeding; the blind rage he felt. Lucas knew what anger felt like. He and Hector had been fighting tooth and nail since they were big enough to stand. But this was like nothing he had experienced before. He’d woken something up inside of himself, something that he’d had no idea existed in him.

  The genie was out of the bottle and it wouldn’t fit back in.

  Finishing her run long before Claire, Helen decided that she wanted to walk to work so she could think. She sent Claire a text explaining that she didn’t need a ride to the News Store that afternoon and stifled the suspicion that Claire would probably be pleased with Helen’s decision to go it alone.

  They had never avoided each other before, but things had changed. Their lives were pulling them in different directions, and Helen was beginning to wonder if their friendship would ever be the same again. The thought made her want to cry.

  The temperature started to plummet as Helen walked up Surfside Road toward the center of town. Her jacket was unbuttoned and the straps from the book bag over one shoulder and the gym bag over the other pulled the two sides of her jacket apart so she couldn’t close the front properly. With an exasperated cluck of her tongue, Helen unslung her bags. As she bent over to put them down on the ground, she experienced a strange vertigo. It seemed for a moment that the sidewalk didn’t quite match up to the street, like there was something terribly wrong with her depth perception.

  Straightening up with a gasp, Helen put an arm out to the side in case she fell over, waiting for the rush of blood to her head to end. The vertigo was gone in a moment but an even more disturbing sensation replaced it. Helen felt like she was being watched, like someone was standing right in front of her, staring directly into her eyes.

  She took a step back and reached out, but touched nothing but thin air. Glancing around nervously, Helen spun on her heel, grabbed her bags, and jogged into the town center. Cassandra had foreseen that Helen was safe from attack for the next few days at least, but she’d never promised that Helen would be left in peace. Helen knew someone from the Hundred Cousins was most likely watching her, she just hadn’t expected to feel so paranoid about it. Suddenly, Helen imagined that she could feel someone’s breath on her neck. The thought made her bolt into the News Store like she was being chased.

  “What is it?” Kate asked. She looked behind Helen for whatever had spooked her. “Is someone following you?”

  “It’s nothing,” Helen replied with a phony smile. “The cold gave me the shivers.”

  Kate gave Helen a skeptical look, but Helen ducked around her and deposited her things behind the register before Kate could get into it.

  “Did you eat after track?” Kate asked. “Go to the back and make yourself a sandwich,” she ordered when Helen didn’t respond right away.

  “I’m not really hungry,” Helen began, but Kate cut her off angrily.

  “Is that your final answer? Think carefully,” Kate warned as she planted a flour-dusted fist on her curvy hip.

  Helen shut her mouth and went into the back. She felt like Kate and Jerry were both blaming her for getting so thin. But she couldn’t explain what was really going on to either of them.

  Helen smeared some peanut butter on a hunk of bread and drizzled honey over it before she took a giant, angry bite. She chewed mechanically, hardly noticing the sticky ball of bread and nutty-sweet paste sealing up her mouth. She felt like she was choking on something most of the time, anyway—like there was a wad of words lodged permanently in the back of her throat. What was a little peanut butter compared to that?

  She gulped down a glass of milk and shuffled back out front, still feeling like she was being blamed for something that wasn’t her fault. She avoided Kate for the rest of the night to punish her.

  After an uncomfortable few hours walking on eggshells at the News Store, Helen lied and said that Claire was picking her up. Outside in the dark, sure that no one could see her, Helen jumped up into the night sky and flew toward home. She soared high, pushing herself to go up to where the rarified air tugged at her eardrums and dug at her lungs.

  She had promised Lucas once that she wouldn’t leave the island without more training in transoceanic travel, and technically, she’d kept that promise. She was still over Nantucket, just very high over it. Helen reached up and up until she could see the bright web of night-lights that connected the whole continent underneath her. She flew until her eyes watered and the tears froze on her cheek.

  She stretched out and let her body float until her mind emptied. This must be what it was like to swim unafraid in the ocean, but Helen preferred to swim in an ocean of stars. She floated until the cold and the loneliness became intolerable, and then she drifted back down to earth.

  Helen landed in her yard and ran in the front door, hoping her dad wouldn’t notice that there hadn’t been a car in the driveway to drop her off, but Jerry wasn’t in the kitchen. She poked her head into her dad’s room just to make sure, but he wasn’t there, either. Helen reminded herself that it was Friday night. He and Kate probably had plans. Since she and Kate hadn’t spoken for most of the evening, Helen hadn’t thought to ask if Jerry would be spending the night at Kate’s place or not. Now she regretted holding a grudge. The house was too empty, and the silence seemed to press painfully on her ears.

  Helen washed her face, brushed her teeth, and went to bed. She kept her eyes open for as long as she could, willing herself to stay awake despite the fact that she was so tired she was near tears.

  If she fell asleep, she knew she would descend into the Underworld and plunge herself into a loneliness that was even more complete than the loneliness she felt in the real world. But the longer she lay in bed, the closer her thoughts drifted toward Lucas. Helen rubbed her hands over her face and tried to push the stinging tears back into her eyes. The unbearable weight began to settle on her chest again.

  She couldn’t allow herself to wallow, or in a few moments she’d be wallowing in the filth of the pit. Then a thought crossed her mind.

  Maybe this time she wouldn’t be alone in the Underworld.

  She knew that her savior was probably a mirage, but Helen was desperate. Even talking to a mirage was preferable to wandering through hell alone.

  As she focused her thoughts on the deep voice she’d heard, Helen allowed herself to fall asleep. She pictured the flash of gold, the beautiful mouth, and the sound of him saying her name as he held out his hand for her to take. . . .

  Helen was on a prairie-like plain with lots of dead grass and undulating hills. She’d been to this part of the Underworld before, but something had changed. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but everything felt a little bit different. For one thing, there was noise. Helen couldn’t remember ever hearing any sound in the Underworld that she hadn’t made herself—not even the sound of wind on the grass.

  Somehow, the Underworld felt real, and not just part of a terrible nightmare. Helen had experienced this before, if only briefly, when she was miraculously pulled from the pit. As jarring as this new perspective on the Underworld was, it was also a relief at the same time. Hades seemed less hellish for some reason. Looking around now, Helen was reminded of that moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy sees in color for the first time.

  She squinted into the distance and saw dancing flashes of gold, coupled with the sound of shrieks, grunts, and clangs. There was a fight going on, and it sounded like a brutal one. At least Helen could be certain of one thing. The guy with the warm hands wasn’t a mirage.

  She ran as fast as she could toward the commotion.

  When she crested a small rise she saw a big guy with an overgrown mop of loose chestnut curls using a long dagger to hack away at the tattered vulture-bat thing that was flapping around his head. As Helen ran closer, she heard the harpy snarl and cuss, trying to rip at the young man with her talons. Even though he was fighting for
his life, Helen couldn’t stop herself from noticing that he really needed a haircut.

  “Haircut” got the upper hand for a moment, and Helen saw him grin in a half-surprised, half–self-congratulatory way. Then, as he realized that he was still losing, Helen watched the grin quickly turn into a self-deprecating grimace. Even though he was battling away, he seemed to maintain a good sense of humor.

  “Hey!” Helen shouted as she neared the struggling pair.

  Haircut and the harpy paused awkwardly in the middle of the fight, each of them still clutching the other’s throat. Half of Haircut’s mouth lifted up in a surprised smile.

  “Helen,” he managed to croak out, as if he always had a pair of talons wrapped around his neck. Helen was so taken aback by his nonchalance she almost laughed. Then everything changed again.

  The world started to slow down and thicken around her, and Helen knew that meant that in the regular world her body was waking up. A part of her brain was beginning to register an annoying bleating noise coming from a universe away, and she knew that she would never make it to Haircut before waking. Helen looked around frantically, then bent down and picked up a rock at her feet, straightened up, and chucked it at the monster . . .

  . . . and the rock from the Underworld went right through her bedroom window, breaking it into about a hundred pieces.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Helen sat up in bed, listening to the annoying blare of her alarm clock. The one night she actually wanted to stay in the Underworld, and she’d woken up. It was still dark, but even in the predawn gloom she could see the mess she’d made.

  Jerry was going to kill her. No matter how much Kate pleaded with him that Helen had a rare “sleep disorder,” this time Jerry was actually going to murder her.

  Her dad had this thing with conserving heat—like the house’s thermostat had a direct line to his psyche—and chilly gusts were already blasting directly through the gigantic hole she’d made in her window. Helen smacked herself on the forehead and fell back onto her mattress.

  She was as good as grounded, that flying monstrosity had probably eaten Haircut, and it was all because Helen had to wake up at ugly-o’clock-in-the-morning to get to a track meet on the mainland.

  High school sports are complicated for people who live on tiny islands. In order for island athletes to compete with other schools they have to travel by boat or by plane, and for Helen and the rest of her teammates, that meant getting up before the crack of dawn. Sometimes she really hated living on Nantucket.

  Stifling a yawn and trying to push the image of Haircut dying a vicious death from her mind, Helen pulled herself out of bed. She duct-taped a blanket over her broken window, gulped down some instant oatmeal, and left for the island’s airport. Ironically, she flew there. But of course she couldn’t fly all the way to the mainland. Missing the plane and then showing up at the meet on time would raise all kinds of questions, so she did the responsible thing.

  Landing a cautious distance away, she started jogging toward the tarmac just as the sky turned a shy pink. She saw Claire parking her car in the lot and ran over so they could go together to the waiting prop plane. Helen was excited to tell Claire about Haircut, but before she could open her mouth, Claire was rolling her eyes and grabbing Helen by the shoulders.

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” Claire mumbled in exasperation as she undid the misaligned buttons on Helen’s pesky jacket and then redid them correctly. “You look like a dyslexic five-year-old. Am I going to have to come over every morning and dress you now?”

  “Hamilton!” Coach Tar shouted before Helen had a chance to think up a reply, let alone tell Claire what had happened the night before. “You’re sitting with me. We need to talk strategy.”

  “I have something to tell you,” Helen blurted out to Claire as she backpedaled toward Coach. “I saw someone there, you know, last night.” Claire’s eyes widened hopefully as Helen got dragged away.

  The rest of the flight, Coach blabbed excitedly about how Helen should draft this runner and then pull out in front of that runner—all useless advice considering that if she wanted to she could break the sound barrier. Helen half listened and tried to not worry too much about Haircut.

  He was big, tall, and powerfully built, and he looked like he knew what he was doing with that long dagger he had been using to defend himself. Helen tried to convince herself that he was probably fine, but she wasn’t entirely convinced.

  Whoever Haircut was, he certainly looked like a Scion. But maybe he was just a six-foot-four, muscle-y, unbelievably good-looking mortal with a great smile. And if that was the case, the poor thing was definitely dead. No mortal could fight off that harpy.

  All morning, Helen tried to find an opportunity to talk to Claire, but she didn’t have a chance. She ran her first race, trying not to win it outright, but she was distracted, wondering whether or not it was possible to get killed in the land of the dead. The useless internal debate ruined her concentration, and she ended up running way too fast. Helen pretended to pant when she realized that all of the spectators were staring at her with their mouths hanging open. All except one.

  Zach Brant didn’t look the slightest bit surprised as Helen ran past at jackrabbit speed. In fact, he looked almost bored. Helen had no idea what Zach was doing at the meet—he’d never come to one before. From the way his eyes seemed to be glued to her, Helen could only assume he had come to watch her, but she had no idea why. There had been a time when Helen would have assumed Zach was watching her because he had a crush on her, but that time was long gone. Lately, it seemed like he wanted nothing to do with her.

  Helen won her race, then she cheered while Claire finished one of her own before they finally met up by the triple-jump sand strip.

  “So what happened?” Claire puffed, still winded from running.

  “I saw . . .” Helen broke off. “Let’s go over there,” she continued, pointing to an empty expanse of field at the edge of the track. There were a lot of people milling around, and Zach was standing a bit too close.

  By this point, Helen was nearly bursting to tell Claire what she had seen. While they walked she whispered under her breath, “I saw a person. A living person.”

  “But, I thought you were the only one who can go down there in your body—not just as a spirit.”

  “Me too! But last night there was this boy. Well, not a boy. I mean he was ginormous. A guy, around our age, I guess.”

  “What was he doing down there?” Claire asked. She didn’t sound convinced that Helen had really seen someone.

  “Getting his ass handed to him by a harpy?” Helen said. “But the night before last, he pulled me out of the quicksand. One of his arms is all shiny, like it’s covered in gold.” Claire looked at her dubiously, and Helen realized just how nuts she sounded. “Do you think I’m going crazy? Sounds crazy, right? And it’s not even supposed to be possible.”

  “Do you mind?” Claire said suddenly. She glared over Helen’s shoulder at Zach, who was following them. “Private conversation here.”

  Zach shrugged, but he didn’t walk away. Claire took his defiance as a challenge. She yelled at him to go away in her most authoritative voice, but he wouldn’t budge. Eventually, she had to take Helen’s hand and steer her toward the edge of the open field where the woods began. Zach couldn’t very well follow them without Claire causing a scene about it, but he didn’t turn away, either. He just kept staring at them as Claire dragged Helen into the scrub.

  “Is this necessary?” Helen asked as she straddled a scratchy bush and untangled the end of her braid from the brittle, lichen-covered branch of a small birch tree.

  “Zach’s been acting really weird lately, and I just don’t want him to see us,” Claire said with narrowed eyes.

  “You mean he didn’t go away when you ordered him to, and you dragged me in here because you don’t want him to win,” Helen corrected with a chuckle.

  “That too. Now tell me exactly what happened,” Claire urged, b
ut they were interrupted again, this time by the sound of rustling leaves. It came from deeper inside the woods.

  A large man stepped out of the undergrowth. Helen shoved Claire behind her and stepped toward the intruder, ready for a fight.

  “Don’t you knuckleheads know that some seriously sketchy men hang out in the woods around high school track meets?” the blond giant said testily.

  “Hector!” Helen gasped with relief and jumped into his open arms.

  “What’s up, cuz?” he said with a laugh and hugged her tight. Claire joined them and gave Hector a big squeeze before she pulled back and punched him on the chest.

  “What are you doing here?” Claire demanded disapprovingly. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Relax, Five-Two,” Hector said as he broke eye contact and looked down, the smile on his face fading fast. “I spoke to Aunt Noel this morning. She told me none of the family would be here.”

  “They aren’t, and we’re really glad to see you,” Helen said quickly, giving Claire a little pinch for being so insensitive.

  “Of course we’re glad to see you!” Claire exclaimed as she rubbed her pinched arm. “I didn’t mean it like that, Hector, you know that. How’ve you been?”

  “Not important,” he said with a shake of his head. “I want to know how you are. And how Luke is doing after last week,” he asked in a low voice.

  Helen tried not to flinch, but it was impossible.

  “It’s bad,” Claire said sadly.

  “Yeah, I know. I talked to Aunt Noel. I still can’t believe Luke would do something like that.” Hector’s voice was harsh, but he looked at Helen sympathetically.

  Helen tried to concentrate on Hector’s pain instead of her own. She had lost Lucas, but Hector had lost his whole family. He was so worried about them that he was willing to wait all day crouched in the bushes outside a stupid track meet just to make contact with someone relatively close to them.