Vic went next and told us about the time he was in a car smash with his dad. He’d been strapped in the back seat and escaped with bumps and bruises, but when he looked in the front seat his dad wasn’t moving and there was blood all over his face. It turned out he was concussed and had broken his nose, but for those first few minutes until he came to, Vic thought his father was dead.
While the others told their stories I searched my mind for something. I was never much of a storyteller, not like Megan. What frightened me wasn’t anything that had already happened. I had survived my mother’s drinking, and all that mental stuff she went on about didn’t scare me anymore. What I was afraid of was the thought that I’d never be free of her, never get the chance to leave home and make the kind of life I wanted. It didn’t seem like much of a story to tell, so I made up some other bullshit about nearly drowning in the sea that I guess convinced nobody at all.
When it came to Megan I could see by the way her eyes lit up that she wanted to put a good scare on them. She stood in the middle of our small circle. “Once upon a time when I was little,” she began. “My dada disappeared in the wood and never came back.”
“Bullshit,” Jumbo said.
“Shut your face,” Izzy snapped.
Megan avoided my gaze. Troy told her to carry on.
“One night I heard a noise downstairs. It was pitch black in my room and there weren’t any other noises except these voices. I thought it might have been my mam or dada so I got out of bed and snuck to the door and listened. I heard them—strange, soft voices, almost like singing, only there was no music.”
“Singing what?” Troy asked.
Megan turned her palms up. “I couldn’t hear the words properly, but it was weird. I crept out on the landing expecting to see the light on downstairs. There was a light, but it was more like a candle the way it made shadows move on the walls. I started downstairs. Next thing I felt a draft of cold air and when I heard Dada say ‘Wait,’ I froze because I thought he was talking to me.
“Except he wasn’t, because I heard the back door open and then the voices were gone. I ran in the kitchen and saw it was empty. I ran out the door and saw a trail of lights floating in the air. There was that singing again only there was nobody in the yard except Dada, just beyond the dancing lights, and disappearing out the gate. I called after him but the lights vanished and so did Dada. For a moment I could still hear laughing voices and then they were gone. I didn’t understand any of it. I went back upstairs thinking I must’ve dreamed it. As I passed their room I heard snores and knew it was Dada because Mam didn’t snore.”
I listened, conflicted, but not wanting to spoil her moment. She had them in the palm of her hand, it seemed, and no matter the lie, I didn’t want to break the spell.
“I had sleepwalked. That was the only explanation. I went back to my room and buried myself under the blankets so as not to hear any more noises. Then I woke and it was morning.”
Troy leaned forward. “What happened then?”
“When I went downstairs they told me Dada was gone.”
Everyone stared at Megan, trying to decide how much to believe. She finally looked at me, and though I was flustered, I knew that even though she had no real memory of Dada’s disappearance, she believed every word of what she’d told.
“It was them?” Troy asked. “The ones you told us about.”
Megan nodded. “People say the Tylwyth Teg can read your thoughts, especially the bad ones. They feed off them and make bad things happen.”
Jumbo snickered. “Your old man must’ve been bad.”
I started to respond but Troy quickly suggested a game of truth or dare. I wasn’t in much of a humour for it but went along with the flow. The sun had sunk below the trees and a kind of half-light bathed us as a cloud of rooks patterned the sky.
I don’t remember much other than the feeling of a strange calm settling on us. At one point I saw Izzy dancing beside the river, her body black and swaying against the fading light. She hummed a tune to herself, something I half-recognised, and raised her arms over her head and swung her hips like a dancer on TV. I guessed it must have been a dare. A fuzzy, warm sensation gripped my mind, and I imagined dancing beside her, feeling her body moving next to mine. I heard voices from the shadows and thought about the other eyes that were on her and knew they felt the same craving I did. And then Megan was moving alongside her and as I stared at the others watching the two of them, my desire faltered and the spell was broken.
*
The mist fell through the trees and coated everything with liquid heat. A squirrel crossed the path in front of me, slow and uncertain, like it had been stunned. I moved sluggishly along the trail, looking for the Fall of the Fuller, but each time I looked for some familiar landmark, I saw crags and dense growths I didn’t recognise. Since leaving Vic in the hollow I hadn’t seen anyone. It made Annie’s fate seem more uncertain. I figured she knew the woods as well as I did. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t get lost, but nothing about Smee seemed normal. Why hadn’t she waited where I’d told her? She had to have gone home, I told myself. The idea that something else had happened disturbed me.
The trail led to a river below a horseshoe waterfall and I realised I’d come to the Nedd Fechan, much further west than I thought I was. The trail zig-zagged up through the trees and from the top I looked back downstream, disoriented by the way the mist rolled and swelled below the falls.
“Cai!”
I turned quickly. At first I saw nothing upstream, then out of the swirl came Megan with Izzy a few steps behind. The air went out of me in a huge rush like I’d been punched in the gut. My knees sagged and I had to steady myself against a tree. Megan ran up. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and squeezed her arm as though to make sure she was real. “Where’ve you been?”
“Izzy and me have been hunting all over. We saw Troy and some others but no Smee.”
I glanced at Izzy who stood a few steps behind my sister. There was a weird look on her face, like she’d messed up and somebody had just discovered it. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Just, we need to keep hunting.”
I shook my head. “It’s okay—I’m Smee.”
“Cai!” Megan pushed my hand away. “You’re supposed to stay hid till we find you.”
A look of anger or frustration crossed Izzy’s face. “She’s right. Don’t you understand?”
“Understand what?”
“Jesus, Cai—the rules of the game.”
I sat on the ground. “Look, I was Smee and Vic found me. He won. Isn’t that enough?”
“You’re ‘sposed to wait for the last one,” Izzy said.
We heard someone approaching. Izzy looked rattled. A few moments later Troy and Vic came up the trail, followed by Jumbo.
Izzy stepped toward him. “Troy, we were—”
He smacked her in the face. She staggered back and sank to her knees, clutching her mouth.
“Jesus, Troy,” I said, shocked. “What was that for?”
Izzy held up a hand. “It’s all right.”
Troy glared at me. “What the fuck are you playing at, Cai?”
I stood and faced him. “Why’d you hit her?”
Jumbo said, “Why do you think?”
“It’s just a game,” I said, feeling there was something I was missing.
“Games have rules,” Troy said. “Izzy had her part to play and she messed up.”
“How? I mean, I was Smee. If anyone messed up, it was me.”
Vic nudged Troy. “I told you.”
“So why didn’t you wait for us to find you?” Troy asked.
“You took too long.”
“That’s the game.”
“Fuck the game.”
Megan and Izzy looked shocked. “Don’t say that,” my sister said. “We have to finish it.”
“Why?”
Troy glared. “Because if you don’t, there’ll be consequences.”
/>
“Are you serious? What about Jonathan and Annie?”
“They’re no longer part of the game,” Troy said. He backed off a little and the tension eased. “That was their choice and they’ll be a forfeit. But I expected more of you. I thought you’d show at least as much commitment as your sister.”
I looked at Megan, saw her smile like she’d just won a prize. My head spun and the anger drained out of me. I felt a little shamed and didn’t know what to stay. I looked from one to the other. “Come on, Cai,” Megan said. “Troy wants to play again, right?”
“Too right.” Troy smiled. “Let’s finish it.”
*
We walked home in silence, the dark falling quickly as I tried to shake off the lethargy that coddled my brain. Megan skipped ahead, full of beans still, and I realised the sound I thought I’d imagined, was her humming. It seemed familiar but it was a minute before I recognised it as the same tune Izzy had hummed while dancing. I wanted to ask Megan what it was called but the sound was so sweet in the cool night air, I was afraid to put her off.
The house was quiet. I listened outside my mother’s door till I heard the stumbling rhythm of her breath. I went back downstairs, made two mugs of hot chocolate and carried them to Megan’s room. She was in her pyjamas, sitting on her bed. She asked if I wanted a made-up story or one out of a book. I put the mugs on her nightstand and sat beside her. “Why’d you tell them that story?”
She shrugged, like it was no big deal.
“It was a good story,” I told her. “But it wasn’t yours to tell.”
“They liked it.”
I frowned. “That’s not the point. It never happened to you.”
“Why’d you tell me?”
“You’re my sister. It was private between us.”
“But it was true, wasn’t it?”
“It was a dream. Only the part about Dada being gone in the morning was true.”
“You made it sound real.” She chewed at a piece of flesh around one fingernail. “I thought you believed it was true.”
I wondered why I’d told her about the dream. Putting crazy ideas in her head when it was already so full. It seemed a foolish thing to have done.
She sipped her drink, watching me over the cup. “Jumbo said Dada went because he was a bad man.”
“That fat asshole doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” I tried to remember the night Dada had left but it was so long ago. As for the dream, I remembered no more than Megan had told Troy and the others. I guessed it was more real to her than it was to me. “Dada wasn’t bad. I think he just couldn’t live with Mam no more.”
“What you heard that night, Cai—it doesn’t matter if it was a dream. It was the Tylwyth Teg that came for him.”
I tucked her in and turned off the light. Out on the landing I told myself it made no difference if it was fairies took him or he went of his own accord. He was still gone.
*
The sixth day, Troy and his friends got shot of their parents who went hiking up Pen y Fan. They’d already left by the time me and Megan reached the campsite. I led the gang east to the open country below Fan Fawr, to an old hill fort. It wasn’t much more than a large, circular mound, and though we split into two tribes and battled for possession our hearts weren’t really in it and we soon gave up the game.
It was getting on for early afternoon when we found the sheep trapped in a shakehole. The hollow was only six or seven feet wide, but it was deep and the walls were steep and slippery. The girls were all for rescuing it but I didn’t see how we could get it out, especially after Jonathan slid down and saw one of its front legs was broke. There was a lot of talk about what to do until Troy said the right thing was to put the animal out of its suffering. Everybody fell quiet and looked at him, kind of appalled. Finally, I found my voice. “You mean, kill it?”
He nodded and pulled a penknife from the pocket of his shorts, a smart thing with a number of blades. “We can’t save it and it would be cruel to leave it to suffer.” He said it was an act of mercy, something sacred. I saw nothing sacred in it but the idea excited me and set my veins to thrumming. The others looked at the blade and I saw their qualms melting, except for Annie who suggested we find a farmer and tell him.
Troy said she could if she wanted but it would just mean more suffering for the animal. His tone was pitiless and hard enough to shut down any further dissent. “Think of it as a sacrifice,” he said.
“A sacrifice to who?” Megan asked.
Troy stared at her. “To the fairies you’ve been telling us about. Maybe it will appease them.”
Megan glanced down at the sheep. I could see she felt sorry for it but there was something about what Troy said that got to her. “The Tylwyth Teg?” She looked at me. “Is that what they want?”
“Yes,” I said, grabbing the knife from Troy and sliding down in the hole. The sheep sensed what was coming and started to panic, butting up against my legs. I stuck the knife in its neck and felt a gout of warm blood on my fist. I stood there, dazed, until someone took the knife from me. I crawled up out of the hole and let the others play their part in the ritual.
Afterwards, Troy led us south across the uplands and into the wood. By the time we reached the Hepste the blood had dried on our hands and faces and we looked like a bunch of cannibals. We ran into the river in our clothes, wailing and chanting as we splashed about in the rocky shallows. We dried out as we marched on to the Falls of Snow, where, behind the curtain of water, Troy had us all swear a solemn oath to never tell a soul what we’d done. The ritual had transformed us, he said. We were bonded together now, like a tribe. I stared out through the falls, feeling the truth of what he said. For the first time in my life I felt a loyalty to others beyond myself and Megan. It was a grand and mysterious sensation. I knew that the others shared the feeling, saw it in the way they looked at each other and when we joined hands and laughed, it was like we’d created our own world.
*
I found Izzy hiding below a rock shelf that overhung the Nedd Fechan. Her knees were drawn up to her chest as she tossed stones in the water. “What are you doing?”
“You’re supposed to say the word.”
“Smee?”
She smiled and nodded. I sat down beside her. “See any of the others?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Why is it good?”
She threw another stone. “Do you want us to be discovered?”
“You have been.”
“Only by you.”
“You wanted me to find you?”
She picked at a scab on her knee. “What do you think?”
“I guess.” I knew what I felt and I guess she knew it too. My mind was drunk on stupid, lustful thoughts, but I was clueless as to what came next.
“You wanna kiss me?”
“Maybe.” My mouth was dry and I was hesitant, but she leaned over and mashed her lips against mine and stuck her tongue in my mouth. After a while she pulled away and asked how was it. I was aroused but something didn’t feel right.
“What?” she asked, sensing my uncertainty. “Don’t you want to?”
“Want to what?”
“Screw me?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s okay. I’ve done it before.”
“You have?”
“Don’t tell me you’re a virgin.”
I turned away, flustered. She put her hand on my knee and moved it up my thigh. I wanted her to go higher but when I turned back I saw a hesitancy in her eyes, like she was forcing herself. Whatever she was saying, her face told another story. When her hand slid further up I stopped her.
She looked at me, startled. “Are you shy?”
“Why’re you doing this?”
“I thought you liked me.”
“I do, but—I don’t know—you act like you’re afraid of something.”
“I’m not afraid.” She said it was no big deal but she struggled to make eye contact wh
ile she spoke. I got the feeling she was lying but I didn’t know what the lie was.
“Why were you so keen for me to find you?”
“You know why.”
“You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie?”
“You were throwing stones in the water. After all that shit you and Troy gave me, you weren’t making much effort to hide.”
“I wanted you to find me.”
“How’d you know it was me?”
“Who else would it have been?” As soon as she said it her expression told me she knew she’d let something slip.
She tried to make light of it but I cut her off. “You just said it couldn’t have been anyone else—why was that? What’s going on, Iz? Where are the others?”
“I don’t know. I’m Smee.”
A chill crawled over my flesh. “Where’s my sister?”
“What you asking me for?” She stared at the water. Her hand shook as she reached for a stone.
I grabbed the hand and squeezed. “Tell me?”
She looked panicked. “What are you doing? You’re hurting me.”
“Tell me where she is, else I’ll break it.” She struggled and I hit her across the mouth with my free hand. She fell back, frightened. “Where’s Megan?”
I raised my fist and she cried out, “She’s with Troy and Jumbo.”
“Why?”
I saw the fear and guilt in her eyes. “I don’t know. They just went off with her.”
I grabbed both arms and shook her. “Stop lying to me.”
“You know why,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “You fucking know why.”
A strange pounding filled my head. “Where’d they take her?”
“I don’t know—they didn’t say.” As she spoke she glanced across the river, then turned quickly away.
My hands shook when I let go of her. “What have you done?”
She slipped past me and ran out into the river. “Nothing, Cai. It’s just a game.”
The Dream Operator Page 10