by Nick Lake
Ugh. Even saying that disgusts me.
What do you want to do? says Luke afterward.
How about we order room service and watch a movie? says Mom. They have HBO.
Sounds good, says Luke. Shelby?
I just shrug at him and go to turn on the TV. But Mom gets up from where she’s been sitting on the bed and stops me. Why don’t you take a bath, Shelby? she says, with her hands. We could all use a freshen-up.
I look at her. Uh, okay, I say.
I left some stuff in the car, says Luke. I’ll go grab it, get some takeout menus from reception. You two girls do your thing.
He leaves and I bring my makeup bag into the bathroom and Mom runs me a bath. Don’t look at me, I say.
It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, she says.
It’s not the same, I say.
Oh come on, I changed your diaper ten times a day when you were a baby.
I just glare at her until she sighs and closes her eyes as I undress. Then I take off the CAM Walker, and she kind of awkwardly helps me to cover my stitched-up foot in plastic bags while averting her eyes; I notice that one of them is the Flagstaff Wines and Spirits bag. She wraps elastic bands around them to make them watertight and then eases me into the water, her hands under my armpits.
I feel pissed off with her for making my entire life so weird and for bossing me around so much but I kind of forget that as I sink into the warm water because it’s kind of amazing.
I soak in the tub for the longest time, before my foot starts to twinge again and I shout for Mom to come and help me out.
Don’t look, I say.
She crosses her heart and then mimes shooting herself, before closing her eyes and supporting my arm as I get out. I put on a nearly white robe hanging on the back of the door and hobble over to the sink, where my makeup bag is. I look inside and reach for—
Huh.
I could have sworn both bottles of codeine were still in there when I took some pills in the car. I try to picture the scene—the sun setting, the lights of the highway, the panel in front of me saying AIRBAG as I reached into the bag, leaning into the seat belt and—
And I can’t fix the image in my mind. Maybe there was only one bottle then, and the other fell out somewhere. Fell out in the forest maybe? I hope I have enough left in this one bottle.
I count the pills in the bottle. Thirty-six—six days’ worth if I follow the pharmacist’s instructions. Okay, fine. I toss back two of the pills and bend over to wash them down with cold water from the tap.
Then I go into the room, cinching my robe tight around me—I don’t want it slipping off in front of Luke. He isn’t there though; just Mom sitting on the bed reading some kind of tourist pamphlet.
I think the water’s still pretty hot.
Thanks, she says.
I pick up the remote from the bedside table and point it at the TV; press the on button.
It’s not working, says Mom, redundantly, as the TV fails to come on. There isn’t even a red light on it, you know the standby light thing? The set is completely dead and again I could swear I saw that little red light before, blinking.
I shake my head. I’m losing it.
I glance at the table in the seating area—there’s an open bottle of red wine and two coffee cups taken from the sidebar where the kettle is. The bottle is half empty—the rest of the wine is in the cups. So that’s what Mom got in Flagstaff—wine for her and Luke.
I point the remote at the TV again and try to turn it on, even though I’m not expecting it to work.
Just then Mom turns to the door and I figure there’s been a knock because then Luke comes in. He sees me holding the remote.
TV not working? he says.
I shake my head.
I’ll call down, get someone to fix it, he says.
Oh no, says Mom. We can just talk, don’t you think? Get to know each other a little better.
Ugh.
’Course, says Luke. Shelby might want to watch—
But Mom does this eyebrow thing at me and I sigh inside and shake my head, putting down the remote. Mom doesn’t want the TV on, that’s for sure. I am like 99 percent sure she has unplugged it or cut the cable or something, and for the 156th time I reflect on how screwed up my life has become, so quickly.
As soon as we get some proper time alone me and Mom are having a SERIOUS talk. If I can think of how to ask the questions, anyway.
You get menus? says Mom.
Yep, says Luke. He holds up two folded sheets of glossy paper. Mexican or Chinese.
Mexican sounds good. Shelby?
I shrug. This is basically my signature move at the moment.
Mexican it is, says Luke.
Mom swings herself up from the bed and walks over to the little table. I got us a little surprise, she says. Grand cru Bordeaux from chateau [ ]. I thought once Shelby had gone to bed we could share it. It needs to breathe anyway, to ox[ ] the [ ].
Luke looks pained; embarrassed. I’m … I’m sorry, he says. I don’t drink.
Something flashes across Mom’s face. Embarrassment too? No. It looks more like … anger? Or frustration? It’s weird, anyway. But it’s gone quickly and she smoothes her sweater and smiles. Oh well, she says. More for me.
Luke passes around the menu and we each choose what we want, then he calls up and orders the food.
When it comes, we eat our burritos and chips in silence, and then Mom does this really theatrical yawn. I’m so tired, she says. Shelby, you must be exhausted too.
I look at her, and Luke is not in my sightline so I raise my eyebrows sardonically.
She narrows her eyes back at me.
Fine, I think. Fine, I’ll leave the two of you to whatever sick game you’re playing.
Sighing, I get up and CAM Walk over to the door to my little annex room. I wave good night to Luke and go in and shut the door behind me, drop another couple of codeine tabs, then lie down on my bed, knowing that I will NEVER be able to sleep with the knowledge of what is going down in the room next to me.
There is only one source of solace.
This is an AMAZING time to be deaf.
I lie there and I can’t hear a thing, can’t hear Mom and Luke making out which I’m 1,000,000 percent certain they’re doing, and I’m so grateful for it I have no words. I’m also surprised to find that I AM tired, even though I have so many questions, have so much to ask my mom, so much to try to understand.
Like: Why would my dad even want us dead?
What kind of psycho is he?
And what the hell is the Dreaming? Am I just going crazy?
I am thinking about that, my eyes closed, random fragments of the day spooling behind my eyelids—the streetlights, the cowboy hats, the rows of boots, the pizza from lunch, the way Mom smiles at Luke, when all these images fall away and there are only—
Stars, Behind My Eyelids
Chapter 20
—And I’m standing in the forest, Mark beside me.
Keep running, he says. Then takes off, the howling of the wolves loud behind us. Even though it’s a scary sound, I’m glad to hear it, I’m glad to hear, period.
The leaves and twigs crunch beneath my feet, every rustle an explosion of pleasure in me. My feet free and swift without the CAM Walker. And if the wolves chew on my flesh at least I will hear them do it.
Another howl, even closer.
Hmm.
Maybe hearing them eating me wouldn’t be such fun after all. I start running faster, my breath heaving in my chest. The smell of sap and decaying vegetation is in my nostrils.
Eventually the forest runs out, just like that, suddenly. In front of us is a vast prairie, spreading to the horizon. Mark holds his hand up for us to stop and we stand for a moment, still in the shadow of the forest. The prairie is dry, I see now—all the grass is dead.
Mark isn’t even breathing hard, and I’m gasping for breath. Then he steps out onto the prairie, leaving the forest behind.
Co
me, he says. The wolves don’t like to leave the trees.
I follow him, out onto the brown, dry grass. The landscape reminds me of the place we went to with Luke, the reserve—a vast landscape of grassland, stretching out to the horizon, creased with thin gullies and canyons. Above us, a dark mirror to the lightness of the grass, is an enormous bowl of night, studded with millions and millions of stars.
I look up, stunned, forgetting about the wolves behind us. I have never seen a night sky like this. The scale of it is just … I can’t describe it. It’s like it’s the first time I have ever seen stars, really seen them, I mean. There are so many of them, it seems impossible.
I start to walk farther out onto the prairie, wanting to look at the stars, and to get away from those hungry, hungry wolves I can still hear behind us, wanting to put as much space as—
but Mark reaches out a hand and closes it over my arm and I stop, stunned by his strength; it’s like being held by a concrete pillar.
No, says Mark. They don’t like to leave the forest, but they will if they have to. And we should not be on open ground when they come.
He turns and nods toward the forest. I look where he wants me to and see the glinting eyes again, the hard eyes of the wolves lurking there at the edge of the forest.
We stand here or not at all, he says.
Then he adopts a stance somewhat like the one I use in the batting cage. Hawks, he says, and his voice has gone strange again, has that echo in it. Foxes. Badgers. Will you stand?
His voice is urgent too. The words coming out fast, but with a strange kind of authority and shimmer. Like a tuning fork after the first bright shine of the note.
Nothing happens, but there’s another feeling around us, like when Mark spoke those words when I first entered the Dreaming, like the whole air is asking a question.
Mark nods.
And … and, well, movement happens.
It’s not dramatic—it’s more like there’s a sense of feathers in the air, in there among the leaves, and the undergrowth is suddenly alive, and suddenly those gleaming eyes of the wolves are flicking around in panic, and it’s as if the forest is eating them alive.
Then everything is still.
The wolf eyes are gone.
Mark waits for a moment, tilts his head, and nods again. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten, he says, but who he’s saying it to, I don’t know. I don’t see anything moving anymore.
What the hell? I say. Who are you? How come you can talk to badgers and hawks and foxes and whatever?
This is the Dreaming, he says.
I can only shrug in response to that. I mean, yeah. Okay. It’s the Dreaming. It figures. And anyway I’m weirdly glad to be here with him, with Mark—to be talking to someone who isn’t my mother, even if it’s someone who might not actually totally technically 100 percent exist.
At least tell me what I’m doing here, I say.
I was trying to, he says. When the wolves came. You see the grass? The trees?
I look at the brown grass, desperate for water. At the trees, with their shriveled leaves. I crouch down and touch the grass. It’s dry as straw, colorless. There’s a drought? I ask Mark.
It never rains, he says. Not anymore.
Really, never?
Not anymore. It used to be said, the Dreaming has a face of sunshine and fingers of rain, and it holds us all in its arms, and we will never want, for everything will grow. But now—
Wait, I say. What did you say?
But now—
No, about the rain.
He blinks. A face of sunshine and fingers of rain …
That, yes. Where did you hear that?
It is said.
Yes, but when?
Forever. Since the beginning of time. Since the Dreaming began.
I turn away from him. Whatever, I think. But I’m feeling pretty majorly unsettled by this whole fingers of rain thing. By the fact that this is almost exactly what my mom said about leaving Alaska.
Why doesn’t it rain? I say.
Because of the Crone, he says. And it’s getting worse. She will not allow it to rain. This is why we need you, in the Dreaming. She has stopped the rain and she has also captured—
Just then Mark whirls around, and I’m about to say, oh come on, you have to be kidding me, but then I follow his acute gaze, and I see a movement in the forest. Then there’s a rustle of sound, the sound of leaves being parted by bodies, of twigs cracking underfoot.
Get behind me, says Mark.
We watch the leaves, trembling. We see branches pushing out toward us, a section of the forest seeming to bulge, as something begins to emerge. I begin to edge around behind Mark, my eyes always on the trees, and the wolves that are about to come out.
Then …
A spiked stick appears, I think for a moment it’s a weapon, and then I realize that it’s an antler. The branches part, and an elk moves out of the shelter of the trees. I recognize it from the rock paintings Luke took us to see.
Mark breathes out a sigh of relief and his body relaxes, a fist unclosing. Oh, he says.
The elk approaches us, big gentle eyes full of fear, its step trembling. It’s afraid, but curious too. It stays a safe distance from us, but keeps its eyes on us.
People, it says, its words echoing within the walls of my head. In the Dreaming.
Yes, says Mark. Greetings, elk.
Greetings, man. Greetings, woman.
Uh, greetings, I say. To an elk. In a dream world. While my mom is screwing Luke in the real world. Then the elk comes a little closer and I look into its huge brown eyes and I am back in the moment again.
We are well met, says Mark to the elk, in that weird formal voice he used with the foxes.
Yes, we are well met, says the elk.
But where are your kin? says Mark.
The elk turns back to the forest. There’s a loud sound of hooves passing over twigs and through leaves, and then a whole herd of them step out onto the dry brown grass of the prairie, some small and some large, their antlers twisting up into the night sky.
The wolves were chasing you, says the first elk, who seems to be the leader. Then they were gone.
Yes, says Mark.
You used some kind of human magic? says the elk.
Something like that, says Mark.
We are grateful, says the elk. The wolves were preying on our young.
Mark frowns. But why were you in the forest, where the wolves have their home? he says. Why do you not run on the prairie, as elks should?
No grass, says the first elk. We entered the forest because we thought we could reach the leaves of the trees … But elks do not climb.
The elks look up at the brown leaves of the trees, and their eyes are big with sadness. I notice then that their ribs are showing through their flesh, striations of bone, so each elk is like a punctuation elk, like this:
:“))))?
They are terribly, terribly thin. I didn’t see it so much with the first one, because he was close to us, and facing us, but when they turn to look at the forest and I see them from the side it is unmistakable. These elks are starving.
See? says Mark to me. It is because there is no rain. They have nothing to eat.
I look up and see green leaves in the trees above us. Leaves the elks cannot reach. Can they eat those? I ask.
Mark nods.
Well, I can climb, I say, surprising myself.
Your leg—
We’re in the Dreaming, though, right? I ask.
Mark sighs. You have more important things to do. It’s dangerous to—
As dangerous as bringing me to some world where there are wolves that want to kill me?
His shoulders slump. Be fast, he says. Be careful. Use your knife. I reach into my pocket and it’s there, with its bone handle, the shape of an antler still imprinted in it. I test the edge with my thumb, and the knife slicks with blood. It’s so sharp it’s like it’s greasy.
Ouch, I say.
I walk over to the nearest tree. I lean back, looking up—there are leaves right at the top, in the, what do you call it, the canopy. It’s a long way up. I put my hands on the raspy trunk. There are easy holds, thick branches at even intervals. It doesn’t look like any tree I know; an oak would be closest, maybe. I’ve never climbed a tree before, but how hard can it be?
Hard.
It can be hard.
I slip, about twenty feet up, and fall—
Crunch
Crash
And … catch.
I swing from a branch, my hands and arms burning. Muscles tense, I pull myself up until I can get my left knee over the branch, then I straddle it, panting. I can hear Mark calling from below but I ignore him. I keep going, hand over hand, trying to use my right foot as little as possible—it isn’t hurting, but even in the Dreaming, it must still be broken.
Finally, I look up, and I’m in green, starlight filtering through; the feeling it gives me is something like the word “sacrosanct,” made into a picture. I slow my breathing, and start cutting the branches above me, choosing ones that will fall without striking me. The knife goes through them like a steak knife through meat.
The green leaves fall softly down, turning and bouncing, and some get caught but most reach the ground, I think. I cut and cut until my hand is aching and there’s another wolf howl, from far away in the woods, and Mark shouts in my head, enough.
There’s a tone I haven’t heard before in his voice, and I choose to obey.
Climbing down is even worse, but finally I step down onto the ground. There are leaves all around me, green on the ground like emeralds in the starlight, and the elks are already noses down, eating.
About time, says Mark. We’re no longer safe. There are more wolves coming. We must go.
Go where? I say.
To the Crone’s castle.
What for?
Mark glances at the knife still in my hand. To rescue the Child, and to kill the Crone. He says this like it’s a perfectly normal thing to say.
Who’s the Child?
Mark is watching the elk eating the leaves I cut for them. He turns his head when there’s another howl from deep in the forest. But he must figure it’s far enough away, because he nods to himself. All right, he says. We have a little time. Sit. He motions for me to sit down on a tuft of grass.