Anchor

by Jorrie Spencer

  She always waited days before she slept after a nightmare. From a young age she’d learned that nightmares could return with the same horrifying monsters if she slept again too soon. She’d thought—once she’d been old enough to think in these terms—that she’d needed psychological distance in order not to revert to the recent nightmare. But the real explanation was more sinister, that whoever she’d dreamed of once was more likely to still be in danger, and that’s why the night terrors recurred.

  “Mala.” This time his tone was insistent. Not commanding, not pleading. More of a this has to done, will you help? tone.

  And it did have to be done, didn’t it? If this woman was in danger from Caleb’s asshole of a father, Mala needed to at least try to save her. She smoothed a damp hand across her jeans. She feared doing it, and she feared failing. “I’ve never dreamed on purpose before.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t know if I can do it. Or if it will help.”

  “I know that too. All I’m asking is that you make the attempt. That’s all anyone can ask.” He paused. “We think her name is Sally.”

  The name clinched it for Mala, made the danger to this woman more real. She glanced at Aileen and Eden who watched her. What if they were about to be harmed? Wouldn’t Mala make the effort then? “No one can wake me up this time.”

  “I’m sorry I interfered with your previous dream. That was wrong of me.”

  A part of Mala was relieved. She’d been awake for too many days and she was exhausted. She would rest before she dreamed. It worked like that for her; she couldn’t change it. After so much time awake, she couldn’t go into a dream until she slept deeply.

  Another part of Mala was curious. Yes, this wasn’t something she would have ever asked for, deliberately being frightened out of her wits. But if she was going to continue to live through these nightmares, she preferred there be a purpose to them. She wanted to learn whether or not she could find someone.

  “I’ll do it,” she told Angus. “I’ll do it now. Truth is, I’m ready to fall over from sleep deprivation anyway.”

  “Thank you, Mala. I owe you.”

  The sincerity in his voice shook her. She didn’t know why she was so affected by him. “It will take me a while,” she warned. “I may sleep hours before I dream. I can’t prevent that.”

  “You do whatever works.” His tone warmed even further, making her shiver slightly. “You’re a good person.”

  Mala huffed a laugh.

  “Hand the phone back to Eden, okay? She’ll be able to get in contact with me after you wake up.”

  “Good night.” It sounded odd saying it, under the circumstances.

  “You take care of yourself,” Angus replied, and Mala passed the phone to Eden.

  Aileen rose from her crouch and, making no effort to indicate she hadn’t heard every word in that phone conversation, announced, “I am going to watch over you.”

  Mala scrubbed her eyes. The idea of Aileen standing beside her bed while she slept was intolerable, but she chose her words, not wanting to offend her new friend. “I need to be alone to sleep or it won’t work. And no one can wake me up.”

  She observed Eden finish her conversation with Angus and drop the phone in her pocket. “Aileen, you take the room next door. Mala, if it sounds like you’re in danger, we’ll have to do something but we’ll try to stay hands-off.”

  In danger? “You don’t understand. I live alone. In a basement. So I don’t disturb roommates when I dream. Nothing ever happens to me in those dreams. I always wake up in one piece.” She couldn’t stand the idea of being taken away from Sally at the worst possible moment. “You cannot wake me up. Please.”

  Solemn-faced, Eden nodded. “All right. We understand.”

  “I’m on my own here,” Mala insisted.

  “I’ll sleep next door.” Aileen pointed to the room one over. “I’ll let people know if you’re awake or still sleeping.” In case Mala had forgotten, Aileen added, “My hearing is very good.”

  Since Mala couldn’t see a way to object to that plan, she gave in. Then Eden was fussing about her eating enough and having clean towels, while Aileen got settled in her own room for the night.

  By the time Mala was by herself in her room, it was past midnight. She’d expected to fall asleep easily, being so tired, but her brain wouldn’t turn off. Plus she worried that she would fail, be incapable of finding the she-wolf again. Self-direction in entering her dreams was a new concept, something she’d yet to practice. At least when it came to locating people. She did make choices once she was inside the nightmare.

  Mala tried to find that idea encouraging.

  She shied away from the idea that the woman might already be dead. Her name is Sally, Mala repeated to herself, as if the name itself would help find Sally in the dreams.

  One moment Mala lay wide awake, forcing her eyes closed in a parody of sleep. The next, exhaustion flowed in like a wave and she let it take her down.

  She went deep and for hours she knew nothing, her mind and body catching up on her dreamless sleep. But eventually she rose from those depths, and as she was rising, a part of her became alert to possibility.

  She’d been here so often, in that limbo. Normally she fought to escape her dreams, until their lure became too strong for her to resist. But this time it was different, odd. She was searching.

  Most of her life had been spent trying to avoid this horizon, trying to skim by without being taken prisoner by its forceful pull, and only being dragged along to a beacon when the attraction was so strong she could not resist its call. Now she wanted to explore the dreamworld.

  The attraction being someone else’s fear, which acted like a magnet calling to her…to her powers, she supposed.

  There was no magnet here today. It would have been easy to rise and to wake. But she stayed in this in-between place, floating, searching for anything of significance. Not easy to find what had in the past always been obvious. It took a while for her to observe that the landscape wasn’t clear white but shifting towards color, and there was a shape in the distance that resonated with her. Not really a magnet, but something that called to her.

  Caleb had been safe after the first nightmare, she reminded herself, and she’d found him then because the echo of his fear had been strong. This woman might have better control, better ways to keep herself hidden, but Mala would investigate. She let herself be pulled along towards meaning.

  The way cleared, white turning to fog turning to the real world—and a woman, the woman, materialized as Mala joined her. She was crouched down, her back against the wall, just breathing, like that used up all her energy. Mala took anchor so she could stay. Without the immediate fear and terror, it would be easy to float off and away, rising up to consciousness.

  She was reluctant to make her presence known, as if that would push the woman—it was the same woman, Mala felt the recognition—over the edge. So Mala assessed, sitting with her for long minutes as she did little but absorb the woman’s despair.

  From time to time the woman wiped her face, though there weren’t tears exactly, and she whispered to herself, “It worked. It did.”

  Mala couldn’t put it off any longer. She tried to make contact, using the name she had been given.

  “Sally?”

  The woman jolted, looked around despite sensing that Mala’s voice had come from within her. Questions rose in Sally—what, how, why? But it was better not to offer explanations.

  “Where are you?” Mala asked while trying to project calm.

  Sally slowly shook her head, and Mala looked out through her eyes to observe the surroundings. They seemed to be in a small laundry room, and while smell was not a sense that much made itself known to Mala in her dreams, the scent of bleach and lemon was overwhelming.

  Sally sagged against the wall and thought, not really at Mala but it was easy to catch, “I’m actually going crazy now.”

  “No.” Mala paused, unsure how to be convincing.
“Let me help you.”

  “Sure. I can’t afford to be fussy.” There was a wry note that Mala found encouraging. “I’d take help from anyone, even myself. If it was real.”

  “Where are you?” she repeated.

  After a moment of deciding that she couldn’t do herself harm by telling herself where she was, Sally thought, “An empty house. Starving to death, because if I go out he’ll scent me. Why do you ask?”

  “I’m going to give you a number. You’ll remember it and you’ll phone out.”

  “I have no phone.”

  Mala gave her the number anyway, Angus’s cell, made Sally repeat it, and Sally went along because she was frightened and bored out of her mind at the same time. Even if she believed this conversation signaled her imminent breakdown.

  “Angus. You ask for Angus.”

  Tiredly, Sally nodded.

  “What city or town are you in?”

  “Flint Hill.” This spoken aloud, with Sally sounding a touch annoyed. She pressed hands against her temples. “Now, go away.”

  “I’m going. Wait three hours, then get out and make the phone call.”

  Sally smiled and it was bitter. “John is going to kill me. I know he is.”

  Mala repeated the numbers, repeated Angus’s name, while Sally tried to ignore her. Mala could feel her anchor in Sally losing strength, given the way Sally wanted to push her out, combined with Mala’s body’s own need to wake up. “I have to go, Sally.”

  Sally’s voice was all weariness. “It’s better that you do.”

  But despite wanting to leave immediately, wanting to warn Angus, Mala found herself in a state of inertia, hovering in Sally, unable to move off.

  She sighed and drew some of Sally’s fear towards her.

  “What’s going on?” Sally asked out loud, but Mala didn’t answer, simply used that energy to swing herself out of Sally’s body and into the light.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was difficult to wake up and Mala felt like she was scraping her way back to consciousness. She didn’t know how long it took before she could open her eyes, and even then, she wasn’t quite sure if she was really opening her eyes or dreaming of doing so.

  But she wasn’t in that laundry room with its sharp, toxic smell of bleach. It was the B and B, in the room she had rented from Eden—small, tidy, homey.

  Weakly, she pushed herself up to sitting, then slapped the wall that stood between her room and Aileen’s.

  Seconds later, someone knocked and Mala said, “Come in.”

  Aileen crossed the room to take Mala’s hands, which was sweet. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “Sally wasn’t being terrorized right then. She was alone. But very frightened.”

  Aileen’s eyes widened and her hold on Mala’s hands tightened. “You succeeded? You found her?”

  Through her dry throat, Mala said, “I have to talk to Angus. Right away.”

  “I have Eden’s cell.” Aileen hit a button, presumably the one that dialed Angus, and handed the phone to Mala.

  While she listened to it ring once, Aileen sprang from the bed to the doorway to bellow, “Mala’s awake, she’s calling Angus.”

  “Hello,” came Angus’s voice in her ear. Mala gripped the cell tight, momentarily tongue-tied, unable to tell him what had happened. Describing her dreams in the past had always been disastrous.

  Focus, Mala. This wasn’t the past. This was Angus who knew so much about her, about wolves, about dreaming.

  “Eden?” Angus asked into the silence, concern in his voice.

  She pulled in a breath and got control of herself. “It’s me, Mala, and I found her. Sally is in Flint Hill. Hiding in what looked like a laundry room of an empty house.” Mala wasn’t sure what that meant, hadn’t thought to ask at the time. Was it on-sale empty? Or no-one-was-in-the-house empty? “The room smelled of bleach and lemon. She’s frightened of John.”

  “She’s trying to conceal her scent.”

  “Does that work?”

  “Not for me.”

  “I gave her your number.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Apparently. Or, I think I did that.” Mala was waiting for this all to crash down and her to be consigned to the crazy bin. At the same time, the rush to find this woman before it was too late felt very, very real. “Get to Flint Hill. If she comes out of hiding to phone you, then you can reach her before John does. I told her three hours, though I don’t know if she’ll call. She thinks John is going to kill her.”

  “You’ve done good, Mala,” Angus said.

  At the compliment, warmth flowed through her. She nodded, unable to speak for that moment, then she heard a dial tone. He was gone. Of course. He was a man of action and he was acting on her information. Information gleaned from one of her nightmares.

  Mala was finding the entire situation hard to process. She must have appeared stunned, for Aileen was still watching her, sympathy in her gaze.

  Mala smiled up at her faintly. “Do I look that bad?”

  “Like you’ve gone through the wringer.” She turned on her heel. “I’m going to get you some food. And coffee.”

  Once she was gone, Mala rose on rather shaky legs and made her way into the bathroom. A shower helped clear her mind, but she wasn’t going to relax until she heard back from Angus and learned of Sally’s fate.

  She’d never felt responsible for someone like this. Before the past week, her night terrors had been all about her and her whacked-out mind. But now? Now she was affecting other people’s lives, possibly saving them, possibly failing to save them. Her mistakes might cost others dearly, and that responsibility was sudden and shocking.

  Mala just prayed that John didn’t get to Sally before Angus.

  It took Angus eighteen hours to locate the she-wolf. In its way, the discovery was anticlimactic, thank God. Davies wasn’t in the vicinity, and eventually, going from house to house—easier to accomplish in the dark with its shadows—he’d picked up the faint smell of a Sally covered by bleach and lemon.

  She was still there. Some wolves might not have been able to scent her within that stink bomb, but he had. First, they’d secured the house. It was empty, as Mala had said. One of those new townhouses on sale and not yet bought. He’d gone in with Veronica, both of them human, along with two wolves to guard and protect them. Once they’d established there was no danger within, Veronica had called out Sally’s name.

  The first response was silence and stillness.

  “We’re here to help.” Veronica rapped on the closed laundry-room door in the basement. “I’m coming in, okay?”

  She’d signaled Angus to stay back as she opened the door. He couldn’t see, but from the angle of Veronica’s neck, she was looking down.

  Then she crouched, keeping her body loose and non-threatening. “Hello, Sally.”

  Angus heard Sally let out a long, shaky breath.

  “I’m Veronica. Werewolf, as you can tell. We learned you were in a bit of trouble.”

  “How do you know my name?” There was suspicion, but more than that, weariness, in the woman’s question.

  “We’re a group of wolves concerned about John Davies’s activities. We’ve been following him for a while.” They’d decided talking about dream wraiths wasn’t the best way to introduce themselves, whereas this explanation was suitably vague without veering away from the truth. He hoped it sounded reassuring to Sally.

  “John Davies is trying to kill me,” she said flatly, with little emotion. She could have been describing the weather.

  “And that’s why we’re here. To prevent that.” Veronica disappeared from Angus’s sight as she approached Sally. “We want to take you somewhere safe. Have you heard of Wolf Town?”

  The mumbled response was something not even Angus could make out, but the conversation continued between the two women. After a while, it was a matter of coaxing Sally out of the concrete, strong-smelling room that would one day be someone’s laundry room. She want
ed to know if Veronica was the only female here.

  “Yes, I am,” Veronica answered.

  Sally wanted to know if Veronica lived in Wolf Town.

  “No,” Veronica admitted, but it didn’t prevent her from convincing Sally to come with them. There were brief introductions to Angus and the other two wolves while Sally staying pasted to Veronica’s side, after which they climbed into the minivan.

  Angus put in a call to Jancis as they made their way to Veronica’s house. By the time they arrived, Jancis was en route and would meet up with them before they headed back to Wolf Town together. Veronica herself had a family to stay with, not only a husband but children to raise. So Jancis would be Sally’s reassurance instead of a car filled with unknown men.

  In the meantime, Veronica and her older daughter kept Sally company. And everyone, drained by the past few days, slept.

  Trey stayed away from the women. He was intimidating, didn’t know how not to be, and while Angus played his laid-back, easygoing leader role as hard as possible, he kept to the background too.

  All the while in the back of his mind, he continued to go over the fact that without Mala, they would never have found and saved this woman. Would never have known about her. Something critical had happened, something that could affect more wolves, and he needed to make sense of it in the larger scheme of things. He strongly felt that Mala had a role to play in the lives of those he cared about.

  But before he could understand what Mala could accomplish, he had to get back home and bring Sally with him. Like a lot of weres, especially female, Sally had stayed in the shadows even after Wolf Town was founded. Not trusting humans, and not trusting other wolves.

  She was late thirties, bedraggled, too thin and fragile. Veronica couldn’t get more than vague background information out of her, though she didn’t push for it either. It wasn’t the time. Mostly they focused on making Sally comfortable before they traveled to Wolf Town, where she could learn to feel safe.