by Jules Hedger
"Except me," I said. "Me she's stuck with."
"We're all stuck with you," Leof said. "Must be a prevailing theme in your life."
"Did she leave your father?" Lucan said, ignoring Leof.
"How did you know that she left him?" I asked, feeling myself becoming slightly defensive. The thought of my mother as 'too good' for my father made my blood boil, almost as much as the memory of their last fight. The last night in December that set the shitty precedent for the rest of my life. The night when my mom blamed everything on my father and left him sitting on the couch in the dark. And the morning after when we found him hanging from the shower curtain.
Leof whistled as Lucan sputtered through the awkward silence. "No, my father died when I was young," I continued finally, biting off another angry dismissal.
"Death is not something to be ashamed of, honey," Lucan said. "It is either the end of something worthwhile or the beginning. That's what I assume, anyway." This was perhaps the first time he had offered anything resembling sympathy, so I shrugged off the regret I felt.
"I could never be ashamed of my father. I just always thought that he deserved some time after he died to be mourned."
"It's time to forget him, little girl," Leof said snidely from the front. "If he really loved you he would have stayed around."
Lucan bunched up a boot and smacked him soundly in the jaw, sending the cigarette flying across the sand and this time I was glad. That hostility was coming in handy now that I was allowing the darkness to rear its ugly head again.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Lucan stated seriously over the huffs of pain emitting from between Leof's blood soaked teeth. I tried to smile and took a sip of water from the pack. I wished he hadn't brought it up, but I was wishing a lot of things at that moment. Opening up to the potentially unhinged wolverine on my right shouldn't take priority over finding Cirrus. But part of me felt good for sharing a little bit.
When this day ends, there will be two days left.
The sun seemed about to set but lingered above the horizon like a television on pause. The red leaked down a sky saturated with yolk yellow and the air picked up a breeze with an edge of chill. It fluttered our hair around our faces and cooled the salty sweat framing our brows. There seemed nothing else to do but hope Cirrus had taken Leof's bait. If he came looking for us in the Wilds, we could end this. And with only two more days left to go, the tactic of playing ‘chicken' wasn't going to hold up for too much longer. One of us was going to have to let themselves be taken and the chances of stealing the symbol by anything other than force would be nearly impossible.
With Lucan, I stood a chance, at least. Without him, I had about as much possibility as a dragonfly underneath a kid's magnifying glass, plucking my wings off, one by one.
***
It must have been an hour later before I felt the necklace give a sudden pinch of heat. I hissed sharply and pulled the chain away from immediate contact. There was a small swollen patch of skin, tender to the touch, which faded away just as quickly. Either something was happening that was important or the countdown was ticking away in earnest. How could we tell when the sun wasn't moving?
Neither of the guys looked concerned: Leof had his eyes closed and Lucan was reading some letters he had pulled from his pocket, letters he refused to show me. For my own good, as always.
But they were both so unconcerned that I was the first to hear the faint buzzing in the air. "Do you hear that?" I asked softly. Lucan cocked his head and listened intently.
"Yeah, I do. It's very far away, though." He shrugged and went back to his letters. "Cirrus's cloud doesn't buzz. The only thing I can think of is that it's another dream."
"Yes, another dream," I said haltingly. The buzzing seemed to become louder, as if the object making the sound was getting closer. "What type of dream buzzes?"
"How should I know? A dream made of bees?" he said distractedly.
"Something's wrong," Leof interjected suddenly, sitting up. "We're being tracked."
"Excuse me?" Lucan said, rolling his eyes.
"I'm a hunter. I can sense these things. There's an energy and an intent." Leof sniffed the air and nodded. "Adrenaline. The air is rife with it. It must be close."
This had to be a trick. I wouldn't trust Leof any further than I could throw him into a giant pit of molten lava. But then I followed his eye line and saw it. The oncoming dream . . .
Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration. What I really saw was small gray speck, no bigger than a gnat far away in the distance. It wasn't exactly a scary beast. The breeze was silent and the buzzing was gone. It looked as if it was hovering in midair. And it certainly didn't look dangerous.
There were a few seconds of quiet . . . and then the buzzing started up again.
Leof reeled around with wide eyes. A grin stretched from side to side across his face like a knife gash. "Ok, fucks. Time to either untie me so I can run with you or throw me over those hulking shoulders. We need to move, and fast."
"What is this?" Leof sighed, throwing me an amused look. I shrugged.
"No time! I will explain on the way. Unless you want to wait and see if it's simply asking for directions?" Leof threw his head back with manic laughter and the buzzing got faster, but this time with a definite purpose.
In that same moment my dreamcatcher erupted in a fury of heat, and I shrieked. My muscles seized up in pain and my knees hit the sand. I had no control. It was like the gold was burning a hole through to my heart.
"Come on, don't make it easier for him!" Leof said, still grinning. I gasped as the fire died down and looked up at Lucan disbelievingly. Without saying a word Lucan scooped Leof up in his arms like a sack of potatoes and started to run across the sand. I threw myself after them, keeping pace as best as I could with the buzz a faint electric current around my ears.
"So what if you're right? Can you explain . . . a bit more . . . about why we're running away?" I yelled with difficulty at Lucan's retreating back. Leof had been tossed over Lucan's shoulder and could hardly draw breath as he bounced up and down with each stride. "If it's a dream we want to stay and meet it!"
"Not this one," Leof huffed. "It looks like Cirrus rose to your challenge, after all." The buzzing grew even louder. "But he sent a third party to do his dirty work. Take a little look-see, honey."
I slid down the side of a sand dune and glanced back. The dream, or whatever it was, was indeed close. I could see its shape and how much faster it was than either Lucan or me. And as it drew nearer and nearer, I could also see that it was terrifying. Actually, terrifying was an understatement. Try shit your pants, crawl into your parents' bed after watching Ringu as a grown-ass woman type of terrifying.
Its skin was slate gray and corded in wiry muscle that glistened, shone with a sheen of slime like a maggot under a rock. Arms thick as small tree trunks stretched forward in the beginnings of a lover's embrace and the fingers were clenching open and shut, open and shut. Worse still, the body tapered down into a worm's point with no legs to speak of, carried forward on huge, translucent insect wings.
But on the hairless, glistening gray head there was no face. None at all. Whatever creature this was had risen out of its horrifying muck with no eyes. No mouth. No ears and no nose. Its features seemed to have been sanded down until nothing was left. And yet still it flew at us, fingers grasping at the air, itching to grab someone and squeeze until their face turned the same cold gray as its own.
And if I could see as much as that, we needed a hell of lot more room between us.
"It's too close!" I screamed, pumping my arms harder on either side. Lucan cursed and grabbed my hand to pull me faster, but we both knew that there was nowhere to go. The Moth was relentless and the sand just went on and on, reaching far off to meet the bottom of the horizon.
"Lucan, I can take this bastard!" Leof yelled. His eyes were wide and crazy. I suddenly wondered who I should be more terrified of: the monster behind us or the lunatic in front?
> "And why would I trust you?" Lucan huffed. I was inclined to agree, although I didn't want to waste any breath saying it. Leof whooped with laughter and slapped Lucan's ass.
"This has nothing to do with trust. I want his severed head for my bedroom wall."
"You have got to be kidding me," Lucan said. His breath was harsh and his grip on my hand loosened. He stopped, skidding a shower of sand into the air, and threw Leof to the ground.
"Wait, Lucan, what are you doing?" I screamed. Ignoring my loud protests, he grappled through the man's kicking legs to the ropes that bound up his hands. With one swoop of his knife he cut through the cord like a hot blade through butter and stood back to let Leof scramble up.
"What in the hell –" but before I finished my argument Lucan picked me up and kept running. It was all over in less than five seconds.
"I can't believe you fell for that shit!" I cried.
"This is a war," Lucan grunted defensively. "If anything the monster will take him first."
"And what if the next heads on his wall are ours?" I shouted as Lucan hoisted me higher on his shoulders. "Did you ever think of that?!"
I strained my neck up where I expected to see Leof screaming bloody murder. What I actually saw made my mouth drop open like a broken oven door.
Leof hadn't run; he was facing off the Moth like a god damn rodeo cowboy.
"Come on, you big ugly thing! Over here!"
A surge of admiration swept through me, or perhaps it was the adrenaline Leof spoke of before – I mean, I was pretty sure I still hated him; but either way, the bastard was braver than we were and that was worth a mention in my history books.
The creature reared up in front of Leof furiously. Somewhere from out of its body rose a horrible clicking sound, so insect-like it made me retch. It reached forward to make a snatch, but Leof dodged backwards, pulling a large knife out of his boots. Slightly worrying we hadn't found that when we searched him . . .
"You gray son of a bitch, what are you gonna do? I'm gonna skin you alive and let your flesh dry tacked to the side of my barn. Good thing you can't look in a mirror, you're so ugly. But you can smell me, can't you?" Leof do-se-doed nimbly around the Moth and it was all too surreal to take in.
Lucan looked back at the commotion and his feet ground to a halt. He stood frozen in astonishment as together we watched Leof lead the monster in circles. The Moth grasped wildly at the air, always at the place where Leof had just been. The clicking grew faster and more angry.
"My scent is aniseed. And tobacco and a good fuck, so let's make this fun. Come on, you repulsive bug, where am I now?!"
Its faceless head turned towards me and my blood froze. All sounds stopped. Its neck jerked.
Claccccckkkkk . . .
"Lucan, you asshole, stop distracting the game!" Leof yelled at us. "Get a move on!" Lucan swung around, his feet finding footing in front of us at last, and ran again across the sand.
"Lucan, it's not working!" I yelled. The moth had given up on Leof and was gaining ground behind us. Lucan roared and pushed his legs harder up the approaching slope but the escape becoming laborious. The sand under Lucan's feet began to make us slide down and I squealed as we pitched dangerously backwards.
"I'm sorry –" Lucan heaved and dropped me onto the ground. He pushed me forward and I struggled up, my fingers digging into the sand as I neared the top of the hill. I was about to reach the top, triumph bursting from my ravaged lungs, when Lucan snatched my ankle tightly and shouted.
"Maggie, watch out!"
I reeled back and nearly hurled us both back down the slope. Quickly swallowing my heart in a painful gulp, I scrambled out of the Lucan's arms and crept up the few remaining feet.
There was nothing. I mean literally, nothing. The sand ended five feet in front of me and fell off an overhang. The sky was cut off above my head and seemed to change to a backdrop that hung on the other side of the pit. Looking down all I could see was a deep and endless white; a void that was more dooming than the monster closing the distance behind us.
"The horizon . . ." I whispered.
We stood stuck on the edge of the drop, Lucan holding his heaving ribs and the necklace pulsating softly on my chest. The Moth was only twenty seconds away, its fingers clawing in desire. It sensed we were trapped.
"Lucan, we could just let it take us," I murmured. My fingers found the gold circle and held it tightly.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Lucan wheezed.
"Cirrus sent it to find me. Fine. It will carry me to him and I can end this."
Leof threw his boot and it bounced harmlessly off the Moth's head. But it succeeded in slowing it down for a few seconds. He whooped in triumph and did a little jig.
Lucan turned to me and grabbed my shoulders.
"He would have the upper hand then, Maggie. We need to meet on neutral ground. And I need to be with you!"
"We're running out of time!" I said through gritted teeth. The dreamcatcher spiked in temperature and I reeled again at the sudden stab.
The heels of my shoes touched the edge of the cliff, pushing sand off into the gloom where the whiteness swallowed it.
The Moth was ten seconds away and a breath of air pushed against my face. It blew more sand off the cliff and my hair away from my eyes.
This was it, then.
"Maggie, no," Lucan whispered and laced his fingers through my own.
Five seconds away and I saw the beginnings of a purple cloud gathering in the distance.
"I am not worth your personal vendetta," I whispered back.
Three seconds away.
Two seconds away.
"You're worth a lot more than you think."
One second away and I let Lucan's hand go, reaching up my arms towards the sky. My fingers stretched to touch the blues and grays of the dry, painted heavens.
Come and take me, you blond bastard. Give it your best fucking shot.
The end was nearly upon me when the heavy weight of Lucan's entire mass pitched my body backwards as he threw us both off the cliff. And as we fell, the desert dropped away and receded above my head until there was nothing left.
And as the shock let go of my lungs, I screamed out into the white.
***
Leof watched the nightmare claw into the empty air as I fell down the horizon. He picked up his stray boot and listened to my terrified scream grow distant and give way to the muddled buzzing of a failed Moth.
"Well, I'm going to make this fun," Leof murmured, feeling the chaos boil in his veins. And he gave no resistance as the Moth swept him up in his strong arms and flew him up towards the purple cloud and into the clear cold of the higher edge of the sky.
Chapter 20
Silence followed my initial screaming hysteria. It took a few seconds, but the initial shock of being pushed into a potentially fatal fall eventually gave way to anger and I started to hit out against Lucan's arms violently, like a panicked baby bird. We grappled for a minute or two until I realized that a minute or two was all it likely would have taken to hit something solid and be squashed into a bloody pulp. So I chilled out. It must have been somewhat safe, unless Lucan had a crazy suicide bid. Which didn't seem to match his general habit of keeping me alive.
I took a second to twist my head around and look into the air past Lucan's shoulders. He had his eyes closed to the wind and his head ducked down into my neck. Beyond him was only white. It was an extremely surreal feeling, like we were falling down a blank page. The wind whistled up and over my ears and filled my jean legs with a cool wind.
Eventually, as we slowed down, hues appeared in tiny drips of paint and merged together as they had the last time I found myself falling through the quiet. The colors found contrasts and depths and finally shapes until I felt my feet land gently on solid ground. As my stomach settled and I took a long, relieved breath, the sounds and smells of a warm, sensuous forest enveloped my senses.
Lucan gingerly removed his arms from around my body and st
epped back. His face looked white, definitely ill, and his hands shook as he drew them through his brown locks. I watched him lean against a tree and slide down to sit on the roots. His knees trembled like leaves in the wind.
"Just . . . give me a second," he shuddered.
I raised my face to the sky and fought back a wave of dizziness at the height of the trees – which were, to say the least, epic. The tallest one could have been the middle camping point of a mountaineering expedition. The leaves were large and thick enough to float a small child and tinged with traces of blue, reminiscent of a butterfly's wing under the sunlight or the ethereal beauty of a stained glass window.
Running my hands along one of the trunks, I allowed my fingers to follow the vines of their own accord, green spirals that crept up the bark so intricately that in places the tree was completely concealed in a covering of French lace.
The top of the jungle prevented me from seeing any sign of Cirrus's purple cloud. It must be hovering somewhere above me, between the beginning of the horizon and the edge of the Wilds. But unless the Moth decided to follow us down here, there went my chance of a free ride to Cirrus.
"What did you think you were doing?!" I said suddenly, turning back to Lucan. He raised his head and regarded me tiredly. "If you hadn't pushed us both off that cliff, we could be stealing his symbol right now."
"We're in the Middle Canvas, Maggie. We're out of the Wilds. Stuck up there, you would have been helpless."
"Have I ever come across to you as ‘helpless'?" I spat, kicking a tree and pacing back and forth across our small clearing. I fumbled angrily with my jacket and threw it roughly onto the leaves. "When did I ask for your help, by the way?"
"When you got me down off that pole," Lucan answered. His eyebrows knitted together slightly and I could see I wasn't that far off from touching a nerve. Well, fine. I was going to poke the dog until it bared its teeth.
"Yeah, when I got you down off that pole. When I saved you. And remember when I saved you a second time, when I shot somebody?" I stilled to face him. "You couldn't even beat up a man with the intellect of a three year old."