He didn’t believe me, but Dean wasn’t an alarmist like Cal. He could play along just as well as I could. “No, doll,” he said. “That was the opposite of a good one. But hey—I brought home those cupcakes you like.”
I smiled and looked at the sugar-spotted pink box tied up with twine. “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll just go wash up.”
“Hey,” Dean said as I headed to a narrow ladder for what I assumed was the attic of the cottage. “I like this, Aoife. Never thought your pop would go for us living in the city, but the money he put up for this place—it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He looked so grave I almost ran back to him, comforted him. It caused a physical ache, from my head to my belly button, to stand still. “Love you, princess,” he said, and came to me and kissed my forehead.
Drawing back, I ducked my head and retreated so he wouldn’t see the tears forming in my eyes. This was worse than any torment. It felt so real.
But it’s not real, I told myself. This isn’t you, and that isn’t Dean.
I found the washroom in the snug attic, off a pocket-sized bedroom painted light blue and full to the sloped ceiling with belongings that were mine and Dean’s: my notebooks; some oversized furniture I recognized from my father’s house; my clothes and Dean’s leather jacket, draped over a bedpost.
I locked the door and leaned against it. I had to get my head on straight before I lost it completely.
First things first: it wasn’t really Dean down there. The Dean I knew was dead, and that pained me just as greatly as it had the moment I’d knelt in the snow, feeling his last breath on my cheek.
Second: this wasn’t Lovecraft. If it were, it would be in ruins and I’d be going mad from iron poisoning.
Third: I didn’t know what Nylarthotep’s endgame was. To make me realize what I’d given up? To break me because I was happy rather than terrified and alone?
Whatever it was, I had to ferret it out before this projection of Dean got suspicious and things turned ugly. I didn’t know how far Nylarthotep would go to keep me here.
I could do that, couldn’t I? Remember what it was like to have my old life? I could be normal for a few hours, long enough to satisfy the curiosity of the Yellow King.
A knock sounded at the door, nearly scaring me out of my skin. “Princess?” Dean called. “Your cupcake is gonna get stale. Come on out of there.”
The doorknob rattled. I waited, gripping the basin edge with all my might. This was it. This was when the illusion shattered and the nightmares began.
Dean rattled the doorknob once more and then I heard his boots pacing around the bedroom. “You sure you’re all right, Aoife?”
I forced my fingers to unlock from the copper basin and grip the doorknob. I threw the door open with some force and Dean jumped back. “Whoa. You’re edgy today. Maybe sugar isn’t what you need.”
He’d gotten Dean almost right, I thought. Almost but not quite. The real Dean wasn’t so close in, so patronizing. Not so much like all the boys I’d known in Lovecraft. He loved me and understood me. That had been what drew me to him.
“I think I know better than you what I need,” I snapped. That was one of the rules of survival I’d learned after the apartment with the hallway: if you stayed angry, they couldn’t touch you. It could be quiet anger, expressed in silent screams rather than defiance, but you had to keep the flame burning. Otherwise, you succumbed.
Dean held up his hands. “I don’t know what’s with you today. I’m going out for a smoke.”
After he’d left I sat on the bed, but I got restless. I explored the house a bit. I didn’t appear to be trapped—I could open windows, and I could smell the salted air of Lovecraft as it blew in from the sea. I even took a bite of the damnable cupcake covered in candied violets but found it cloyingly sweet.
I heard the back door open downstairs—Dean coming in, shaking off the chill—and knew I had to go now or never. The ground wasn’t far, and there was a trellis full of dead roses next to the window.
I swung my leg over the sill. I felt thorns grasp at my pants and then at my skin, and the cool damp of blood against the winter air.
I dropped the last ten feet, feeling the impact all the way up to my molars, but I didn’t let it stop me. I wasn’t as familiar with Uptown as I was with Old Town, the district that held most of Lovecraft’s madhouses, where I’d visited my mother, but I could find my way. If this dream mirror of the city matched the real one, I’d be gone in no time, out of the main city gates and on my way back to Arkham. Those memories were murkier, and I figured Nylarthotep would have a harder time keeping me trapped there.
My hope lasted until I turned down one blind alley, doubled back and promptly found another. I didn’t think it was any sinister design, either—the tiny streets, lined with stone cottages so close they could have touched had they elbows, were simply a warren only residents could navigate.
I’d had no reason to come here before. This was a place for content people, for families, for couples living normal, predictable lives. That was never going to be me. Before I could try to find my way to one of the main roads, I heard footsteps and shouting. “Aoife!”
Dean was chasing me, shirttail flying, boots half unlaced. “Aoife!” he shouted again, catching me by the back of my shirt. “What in hell do you think you’re doing?”
I wanted to fight, to lash out, but I forced myself to stay calm. “I’m sorry,” I blurted, the only thing I could think of to say. “I just—”
“Where were you going?” Dean demanded.
“I don’t know,” I lied, looking at my feet. “I’m sorry.”
Dean merely sighed, and wrapped his arms around me. “Come on, darlin’,” he said. “Let’s get out of the street before the police see us.”
“Police?” I said. “Don’t you mean Proctors?”
Dean laughed. “Sure don’t. You know the Bureau was disbanded months ago. Nice to be able to walk around your own city without worrying somebody’ll lock you in a dark hole, isn’t it?”
“Sure,” I agreed. I was getting better at pretending nothing shocked me.
“Dean?” a familiar voice called through the fog. I felt my eyebrows rise as Bethina appeared on the front steps of another neat cottage. She looked good, wearing a fashionable dress, her neat copper curls tamed.
“Everything’s fine,” he called back. “Nothing to worry about.”
Bethina lifted her skirt and came running down the street, fluttering her hands around me but not actually touching. “I saw you fly by like a nightjar was on your tail. Are you sure you’re all right, Aoife?”
Aoife. No Miss or any title attached. That was new.
“I’m fine,” I said with a wide smile that felt insane but I hoped looked normal. “Just getting some air.”
Bethina crinkled her nose. I could tell she wasn’t the least bit convinced. “Well, maybe I’ll have Cal stop by when he gets home from his classes at the university.”
Cal going to a human university? I didn’t even have to ask if he’d told Bethina the truth about what he was. This whole place was a lie, so why should I be surprised?
“You do that,” I said. “I’ll be going back inside now.”
I practically dragged Dean away, back toward our cottage. Our cottage. So odd to think of it that way.
“I know Bethina can hover a little bit,” he said. “But she means well. It’s nice to have someone motherly around, I think. Especially after what happened with your mother.”
I flinched but disguised it as a deep breath. “Of course,” I said. “It’s … wonderful.”
That was the icing, the final touch on this little test of my mettle. It couldn’t be too perfect. There had to be a tragedy to remind me how lucky I was.
I didn’t ask after my mother. She could be wearing an apron and running a bake sale every weekend for all I cared. It wouldn’t be real. None of this was real.
Though that was the hardest thing on earth to believe when Dean w
as so close. Close enough that I could smell him, feel his heat, the pressure of his arms as he wrapped them around me.
“I know we have good days and bad days,” he said into my hair. “But I’m not giving up on you, Aoife. Not giving up on us. I’ll never let you go.”
I couldn’t bear to be stiff in his arms. I let myself relax into his embrace, press my face into his neck and breathe in his scent of soap and tobacco. “I’ll never let you go either,” I choked out, feeling the tears build in the corners of my eyes. They spilled over, absorbed by the worn linen of Dean’s shirt. “Never. Not in this life or any other.”
“Love you,” Dean whispered, and gently let me go.
I think it was the release that broke me. I couldn’t simply run out again—I’d only get lost, and he’d catch me. I had to think. And would it be so bad to plan my way out of here in the comfort of the cottage?
“I think I need to lie down for a bit,” I told Dean. “Get myself collected.”
“Sure, princess,” he said. “Go ahead. I’ll put something together for supper.”
I went upstairs and stretched out on the bed. I intended to pretend to nap, and figure a way out, but I ended up falling asleep.
Dean woke me, and we ate cold sandwiches for dinner while he talked about the job he’d gotten as a dockworker down at the shipyard. It beat steel work, which his father had done and which Dean had despised with every bone in his body.
I was noncommittal, just enjoying speaking to him, even if it was an illusion. I was doing this for Dean, wasn’t I? The real one, trapped in the Deadlands. For Dean and every other soul across all the living Lands. Even Tremaine, even Grey Draven—much as I hated them, I didn’t want to see them suffer at Nylarthotep’s hand.
We went to sleep, and I woke up, and the next day proceeded much as the first.
As did the next.
And the next.
When nearly a month had passed, I had to admit to myself that it wasn’t just a matter of finding a way out. Not that it was easy, by any means—Dean rarely left me unwatched, either by himself or Bethina, and the neighborhood, the few times I’d walked it, was definitely bewitched. Streets folded back on themselves, houses duplicated as if they were being copied with ink on printers’ plates, and everyone watched me from their gardens and behind their curtains with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
But there was more to it. Life with Dean was everything I’d ever wanted. It was calm, normal, free of all the fear and uncertainty that had plagued me since the night I’d run away from the Academy to search for Conrad. Really, since I’d been old enough to realize our family wasn’t usual, that people regarded us differently.
I kept coming up with little excuses—even if I could find my way out of the neighborhood, I had no idea what I had to do to convince Nylarthotep I’d passed his test.
I knew this world wasn’t real. I still had all my memories. What more could he want from me? How could this be amusing, other than to watch me suffer, trapped in a perfect life I knew I could never really have?
That was it, I realized one bright morning. The plain, unadulterated suffering as everyone else in this little fantasy went about their business while I knew none of it was real and never would be.
It didn’t change the fact that I saw no way out and was running out of brainpower to solve the puzzle.
Another month slipped by. And another.
When blossoms appeared on the trees, I finally realized that I wasn’t getting out of here by passing some test or answering a riddle. This wasn’t the Thorn Land. I wasn’t playing a game of wits with Tremaine. I was amusement for an ancient evil, and I existed or perished at his whim.
That, I decided, feeling some of the old stubbornness left over from my living self creep into my thoughts, was going to change starting this moment, this second. I was nobody’s mere amusement, and it was time the Yellow King saw that for himself.
“Dean,” I said. He was sitting listening to the aethervox. It was the first baseball game of the season, and the Red Sox were losing, though not as badly as usual.
“Yeah, darlin’?” he said, looking up.
“I’m going,” I said.
His brows drew together. “Going where?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll start with outside and take it from there.”
He was up, and it was impossible to walk away all over again. Concern flooded his face, a flash flood that swept away all reason, and I knew in that moment it was now or never. This was a wonderful life. A beautiful life. A perfect life.
And none of it was real. Not Dean. Not even how I felt as I looked at him.
“Don’t,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, and then bolted for the door.
I expected another run around Nylarthotep’s maze, but instead I ran into blinding bright light.
I stopped short, the energy to run shocked out of me. I realized after a moment that I wasn’t in a pure white void, but standing on an arctic ledge, snow stretching out behind me and glaciers rising to meet a shining pale sky.
In the distance, a white city pierced the clouds, carved out of the ice, the entrances to tunnels little more than black periods on a page at this distance.
Across the plain, a line of figures in white moved to and fro from the city. I made out the squamous, glimmering backs of shoggoths, huge gelatinous creatures that were a holdover from the days of the Great Old Ones, and the tall, many-jointed limbs of some kind of life-form I didn’t recognize, another creation of the Old Ones.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
I whirled around, recognizing the voice before I took in the robe, the lank black hair and the skin whiter than the glacier behind us.
Crow was the only dark spot on this landscape, which was fitting. He was in darkness always, trapped in the world created by humans’ dreams. If dreams ceased, so did he.
“Where are we?” I said. The last time I’d seen Crow, he was where he’d been since the beginning of his existence, in a small glass bulb at the center of all the Lands, a space outside the laws of physics or time.
“We are at a place out of space, out of time and distance,” Crow said. “This was once your world, Aoife. It’s the only safe place where we can speak.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “One minute I was … well … trapped in another sort of dream, and now I’m here?”
Had I woken up? Or was this something worse, some other layer of Nylarthotep’s game?
“You’re not dreaming,” Crow said. “What he’s done to you is a perversion of a dream, using your own happiness and desire to forge prison bars.”
“I got that much,” I said. “But I left. I passed his test.”
Crow sighed. “No, Aoife,” he said. “You didn’t.”
I felt the void again, and I was plummeting through it, guts-first. It was the same sinking feeling I’d gotten when I’d realized Tremaine had tricked me, and again when I’d realized that the cost of setting right what I’d wrought would be freeing the Old Ones.
“He tricked me,” I said matter-of-factly.
“More like sidelined you,” Crow said. He reached for me and drew me into his robe, which was a welcome relief from the cold.
“He trapped you here to study you, to exploit your weakness. When you return he will present you with the only choice you can make: allow him his freedom from the Deadlands in exchange for your life, Dean’s life and the lives of everyone else in the Lands. He’ll try to scare you—”
“He does scare me,” I snapped, pulling away from Crow. “He made the Deadlands to amuse himself by damning souls. He’s evil, Crow. He’s the root of all evil.”
“I don’t disagree,” Crow said. “But he cannot be allowed to leave that unholy playground he’s created. You cannot accept his bargain, because if you do, the Old Ones’ coming will be the least of your worries. Nylarthotep is more than a creature of evil. He is a force of nature. He is the end of all things.”
“Th
e one who waits,” I murmured.
“Who waits for the end of the world,” Crow said, “and for his chance to dance on the ashes.”
I looked back at the city. I still felt nauseated, but unlike the last time Crow and I had met, I didn’t scream and cry and try to wrap myself in denial as thick as his robes. I just sighed. “What do you need me to do?”
“The Old Ones trapped Nylarthotep the first time with the same power that turns the Gates,” Crow said. “The same power that flows in your veins. They created the opposite of a Gate, a lock so strong not even the first evil could break it.”
He pressed an aged piece of paper into my hands. “It’s called an Elder Sign—a representation of the Old Ones themselves, or at least their light half. The good they can bring to a world, the flip side of the devastation. The same minds that built this city here, this first place where living things crawled from the mud to begin what would become humans and Fae and even me, they created the Elder Sign. But the Old Ones have lost their way, and the knowledge has faded. Not even I can locate it.”
“What’s this?” I asked. I didn’t open the paper. I felt beaten-down and hopeless. I should have known that an impossible bargain with Nylarthotep was still too good to be true. That it wasn’t a bargain at all but a setup to permanently rid himself of the one person who could harm him, a person who would only be released when she was compliant and desperate, ready to free him instead.
“It’s the only clue to the Elder Sign I’ve been able to locate,” Crow said. “It was written down in the twelve hundreds by an Arabic scholar. He went mad, but he was the last to directly communicate with the Old Ones.”
“Probably why he went mad, then,” I said. Crow allowed himself a small smile.
“Likely. Good luck, Aoife.”
“Because I’ve had so much of that so far,” I muttered.
“Listen,” Crow said. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to bring back your dead friend. There’s nothing wrong with loving someone so much that you would cross oceans and distances and over from life itself to look into his eyes again. You did what you had to do for Dean.”
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