“What do I need to remember?” Claire asked. She tugged on her necklace, the bumps and ridges familiar against the pad of her thumb.
He looked at her, his gaze slipping from her eyes to her lips, her cheeks, her jawline, her slim throat, to her hand on the pendant, tugging the chain against her neck. He swallowed and turned away. “How should I know? I’m mad.”
She dropped the pendant and clenched her hands into fists. “You are infuriating,” she said, her voice shaking. “If you want me to know something, you should just tell me.”
“I want you to know a great many things, all of which I am telling you as clearly as I can!” His voice shook. “My mind has been scattered into a thousand splendid, glittering shards, dancing before me, taunting me with meaning that means nothing and everything. I cannot remember the things I have hidden from myself, for very good reasons that I cannot, at this time, recall.” He glared at her down his sharp nose, his eyes flashing dangerously. “Where am I? I don’t know. Why have you forgotten? You ate… something. What are you going to do about it, Claire?”
Anger had been flooding her veins, making her tremble, but this made her pause.
“What did I eat?” Eggs and bacon, toast and jam. “I ate fairy food, didn’t I?”
He tilted his head and stared at her, his eyes flicking over her face. “No… but you… something is wrong, Claire.” He sucked in a quick breath and clutched at his left shoulder, pressing his lips together.
Claire frowned. “It’s all fuzzy.”
The king sagged against the window frame. “When you had the mask on, Claire, what made you keep going?” He seemed to have trouble catching his breath, and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. “Remember that, Claire.”
She stepped closer. He’d always been pale, but he seemed an especially alarming shade of white now, with his head thrown back against the wall. He swallowed hard and pressed against his shoulder. Blue ink bled between his fingers.
“Are you bleeding? How can you be bleeding in a dream?”
No, it wasn’t blue, it was red. Why did I think it was blue? Blood is red.
The king gasped, “Remember.”
When she woke, she forgot.
Chapter 26
Claire stared at the eggs and thick, crusty bread spread thick with butter.
“I’m missing something,” she said.
“What could you be missing?” the woman smiled sweetly at her. “We’ll work in the garden again this morning. It’s a lovely day.”
“All right.” Claire pushed the food around and pretended to eat, feeling vaguely guilty for not being honest with such a kind host.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“I feel strange,” Claire mumbled. At the woman’s gentle look, she frowned at the bread. I’m forgetting something. I wish I could remember. I wish I could see.
She reached for the jam, and, not seeing a knife, pulled her butter knife from its sheath. When it touched the jam, Claire’s eyes widened.
Where a fat little jar of homemade jam had stood, she saw a chipped mug full of dirt. The jam did not exist; nothing clung to the blade of the knife.
This is a lie.
She is lying to me.
Claire glanced surreptitiously at the woman, who was bustling around near the door with a little garden trowel. Her golden hair cascaded over her shoulders, lit by the sun streaming through the window.
Then she focused on the bread in front of her.
I need to see the truth.
The bread looked just as before, warm and crusty, with the butter melting into the center. But it was a lie, and Claire knew it was a lie. She focused on the truth, not on what she wanted to see.
The bread became slightly translucent, revealing a scrap of filthy cloth on a cracked plate. The tea in her little jug was nothing but dust.
I haven’t eaten fairy food because there is no food.
The thought gave her a perverse sense of satisfaction. No wonder I’m still hungry and thirsty!
She looked at the woman again, looking for the truth and not the comforting lie.
The illusion faded before her will.
The witch was not beautiful, and her eyes were not warm. She was a wrinkled, filthy hag, with crooked teeth jutting from her mouth, her lips glistening with saliva. She wiped a blue-stained hand on her stinking apron and muttered, “No, don’t finish him yet, not until we find the foinse cumhachta. Stop snacking. Search him again.”
Claire swallowed the taste of bile and pretended to raise the bread to her mouth. The illusion was visible, and beneath it was the reality, the images layered like film.
Like when the nightmare king asked me for his gift back. The memory of his face, sharp and pale, the unexpectedly gentle touch on her shoulder, brought a lump to her throat.
Remember, Claire.
The cottage wasn’t a cottage at all.
It was filthy hovel. The table at which she sat listed to one side, and the top was crusted with various forms of filth. The open door to the room in which Claire had slept revealed that the cozy bed she remembered was only a pile of stinking rags on the floor.
A dark blue liquid streaked the floorboards. Claire’s horrified gaze followed it to a corner where the blue stain disappeared into a crack in the boards. A bronze handle jutted upward from a trap door.
The bronze hinges were heavy, and there was a simple lock on the outside. Why would there be a lock on the outside? To keep something, or someone, from getting out.
Fear slid down Claire’s spine and curled through her chest.
The hag didn’t seem to notice when she looked at Claire. “Come dear,” she said, the two versions of her voice in sharp conflict. The false voice was warm and kind; the true voice was sharp and malicious, as if at any moment she might break out into a terrible cackle. “It’s time to pick raspberries.”
Claire nodded. “Of course.” She stood and slipped the knife back into its sheath, pretending to stuff the last bite of bread into her mouth.
She worked outside for several hours. The horror faded, replaced with a vague sense of unease. She straightened to stretch her back. The woman was pushing stakes into the dirt around the tomato plants.
“I’m a little thirsty. I’m going to get some water,” she said.
The woman glanced at her. “Of course, dear. When you get back, I’d like your help with the raspberries.”
“Of course,” Claire said.
She meandered inside. Her head felt like it was simultaneously buzzing and filled with cotton balls, loud and yet muffled somehow.
She looked around, finding the pitcher of cool water on the table and a cup. She was so very thirsty. Her hand shook a little as she poured a cup of water.
Remember, Claire.
With the cup raised almost to her lips, she looked for the truth. The truth was green-tinted water in a chipped cup, a listing table, and a blue stain across the floor leading to the trapdoor.
Claire put down the cup with a disgusted frown and stepped toward the trapdoor. What was down there?
A sound near the door made her whirl.
One of the imps stood there, rubbing his hands together. “There you are,” he giggled. “Can’t see me, can you? Can see you, though!”
“Must have been the wind,” Claire said, trying to keep her voice steady.
The imp’s eyes widened. “Ooooh, that’s different! Is it the foinse cumhachta?” He sidled closer, sharp little teeth flashing in an ugly smile.
Not knowing what he meant, Claire smiled vacuously and pretended not to notice what he was doing.
One small hand shot out and seized the handle of her butter knife.
His scream split the air.
Claire clapped her hands over her ears, grimacing.
The imp fled, still screaming, clutching his hand to his chest.
He would be back with the witch, of course. She looked out the window, and the witch was already turning toward the cottage, her hands clenched.
She knelt to open the trapdoor.
Charcoal! If she found the king, he’d ask her whether she had her charcoal. She darted to the hearth and picked up a piece of coal, then ran back to the corner.
Claire flipped the latch and strained to lift the heavy trapdoor, and as the cottage door began to open, she hurriedly shimmied down into the darkness. She let the trapdoor close as quietly and quickly as she could, hoping the witch or her vampiric beasts wouldn’t notice that the latch was now open.
When she reached the bottom of the ladder she turned and stepped onto something that twitched under her, and she froze.
“Where did that snippet go?” said the witch. Her voice sounded deeper and scratchier, laden with malice and danger rather than friendly hospitality. “She was just here!”
“Burned my hand! Burned my hand! Nasty burning shiny,” wailed the imp.
“Stop your squalling! It’s nothing! Find her.”
“Is something! Fingers are gone!”
There was an instant of silence. “Why, so they are.” The witch’s voice sharpened. “I don’t think the foinse cumhachta would do that. I wonder what it was. Find her.”
“Must have run outside,” said the imp resentfully. “No where else to go. Didn’t see nothing.” Something shuffled, and he grumbled, “Was distracted.”
The voices moved away, and the door above shut with a thunk.
Then there was a movement beside her, and Claire bit back a shriek, scrabbling away.
“Do you have your charcoal?” The king sounded odd.
“You’re here!” Claire whispered.
“More or less. Do you have your charcoal?”
“Yes. I knew you’d ask me, so I got a piece out of the fireplace.”
There was a brief silence, and then the king murmured, sounding inordinately pleased, “Thank you, Claire.”
After another silence, he said, “It’s almost dawn.”
“No, it’s not. It’s almost noon. I was outside working in the garden when I came in.”
“In the dark, Claire.”
“No…” She frowned and thought back, remembering the truth beneath the lie. “What a nasty trick,” she muttered. “It was dark. But why?”
“The morrigan’s pets, the fomoiri, can’t abide sunlight. I’m not sure the morrigan can, either. They’ll come back to sleep at dawn.”
“Come back?”
The king made an odd hm sort of noise, then murmured, “You’d best work quickly.”
“Me? What can I do?” Her voice squeaked a little with fear, and then a tiny thread of resolve formed in her heart. “I have the knife. They don’t like that much.”
She felt around in the dark with careful hands, cautiously exploring the confines of the pit. One wall was brick; the other three were lined with little cubicles.
“What are these for?” she asked.
“When they’re full, they sleep. Sleep, perchance to dream, of death and blood and all the stinking tortures they might devise. I didn’t explore their dreams; my own have been unreliable of late, and I didn’t want…” His voice faded.
Claire listened for a minute, hearing only the faint rasp of his breath. Was it her imagination, or was it irregular? “Are you awake?” she whispered. “What should I do?”
“Remember the cats.”
“What?” Claire cried. “What cats?”
“‘Give them teeth and claws!’ They killed the rats. Remember?” The king’s voice was almost inaudible, the layers stripped away, leaving only a thin, pure thread.
Claire’s questing hands felt only air, but her toes felt something on the floor. She bent to discover the king’s uninjured shoulder, his arm bent up behind his head as if he were relaxed. She pulled away, not wanting to brush her fingers over his face by accident.
“You’re not much help,” she muttered. “So it’s up to me, I suppose.”
The king’s breath caught for an instant, and then continued more steadily.
The cats. What does he mean by that?
She’d drawn the cats, and they’d come alive to kill the terrifying rats.
A sound on the floor above made her heart jump into her throat.
“Taibhseach has the entire force looking for them! If you can’t find it, I’ll give him to Taibhseach and let him dig out where it is. He promised me much if I found the foinse cumhachta, but even without it, Taibhseach will reward me for the capture.” The witch stomped around the tiny hovel. Claire crouched beside the king, one hand on his chest as she reached for the knife at her hip.
“But won’t he know we lost the girl?” The fomorach’s voice was scratchy; Claire couldn’t tell if it was the one who had grabbed the knife or a different one.
“We won’t tell him. He won’t care anyway. The foinse cumhachta is the prize, and after that the king. If the king knows where it is, Taibhseach will make him talk.” The witch cackled with bitter satisfaction.
“What if the girl has it? Burned my fingers, she did! Was that it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Humph. If she has it, we need to find her. If we can’t, then we tell Taibhseach that we captured them both, but she got away before we could get word to him. She won’t be able to travel fast. Will take her days to get to the other side, and he can catch her before then. Better if we have them both, though. Think. Think!”
The stomping continued irregularly, as if the witch paced angrily above their heads; the smaller skittering sounds of the imps made Claire’s hair stand on end.
“Hungry,” grumbled one of the creatures.
“Shut up! This is important!” snapped the witch. “Taibhseach will skin us all if we play it wrong. We can take a little while to look, just until sun up. It’s too close to dawn to travel far now, but unless we find her trail, we have to send word to Taibhseach as soon as it’s dark enough to travel. Everyone, go look. Send word to me here when you find her trail. Oh, and be careful not to get your fingers burned off like Scabbit here. Don’t attack her until you’ve sent someone back to me with word of where she is, then attack all at once. No need to keep her alive, I think.”
Fear slid down Claire’s spine, but she pushed it aside, trying to consider her options logically. The witch apparently planned to stay in the hovel above awaiting word on which direction Claire had fled. It would have been hard enough to get out even if the room above were empty, but if she tried it with the witch up there, all the hag had to do was stand on the trap door or use the latch. Even if Claire could somehow get out, the witch was probably stronger than she was, and with magic. Would her knife be much good against her spells? Besides, if the king could get out that way, he probably would have already. What good would it do to get out herself if the king were still stuck in the hole?
Charcoal. The king seemed to know things he couldn’t, perhaps from dreams, or perhaps from some other magic. He seemed to think the charcoal was critical.
She had the charcoal. Now what was she supposed to do with it? Draw cats to fight the fomoiri? Could cats do that, or were cats specific to fighting rats? She didn’t know enough about magic or cats, or magical cats, to be confident in that plan. Even if they could fight, the cats, the king, and Claire would still be stuck in the cellar with the fomoiri… and the boy had hidden her away when the cats were summoned before. She couldn’t imagine it would be safe to be in the cellar in the middle of a fight, even if she could summon the cats in the first place.
If she were going to attempt a magical solution, fighting was probably not the right idea.
What about hiding? The fomoiri would spend all day down in the cellar. Wo
uld it even be possible to hide from them in such a small space they were so familiar with?
No, hiding wasn’t a good idea either.
So it was escape. Could a bit of charcoal help there?
She’d come to Faerie through a mirror. Perhaps a magical door? The idea felt right somehow, despite the strangeness of it. Anyway, she couldn’t think of anything else.
“Could I draw a door to get us out?” she whispered, feeling strangely tentative. “We can’t hide here, and I doubt we can fight our way out.”
“I can manage a little magic, I think. Enough to open a door for a moment.”
Claire tried to interpret the strange tone in the king’s voice. He sounded surprisingly coherent, which was reassuring, but also weaker than he had before.
“You sound… better, I think.”
He made a soft, noncommittal noise. Then he murmured, “Your presence is invigorating.”
Claire glared in the direction of his voice, then remembered he could see in the dark. “Sarcasm is not appreciated. Try to focus on the task at hand.”
“I was not being sarcastic,” he said mildly.
Claire rolled her eyes. “If it’s a magic door, can you make it come out somewhere else? Like back at your palace?”
“It’s a door, Claire. It’s not a tunnel.”
Right. Of course. If that were possible, surely they would have traveled that way before now. There would be none of this long hiking from place to place if zipping from one place to another were so easy.
“So it can only take us from one side of the wall to the other? That’s not much use.” She frowned. “We’re underground. There’s dirt on the other side of those bricks.”
“The other side of the wall doesn’t necessarily mean opposite where you are standing. The wall extends above the ground also, and the door can open on the other side of the wall above ground. In effect, it would be a door to the outside of the morrigan’s hovel.”
Claire’s frown deepened. “That won’t help much if the whatever-they-are swarm us.”
The Lord of Dreams Page 15