by Steven Fox
A thunderous explosion rocketed up Jason’s throat: “Fuck off! You don’t care about me! You want me to lose my memory so you don’t have to see Mom’s face every time you look at me! I bet you never even wanted me!”
Jason leaned against the desk, his legs wobbly. The world felt upside-down. Mr. McKinney’s smile sagged; his shoulders sank. He looked down at his desk, where a spread of framed photographs stood like a personal army. There were several of Jason’s grandma, a strong-chinned, high-cheeked woman with dark hair waterfalling down her back. Arthur picked up the closest photo, which depicted Jason at the age of five with a wide smile. His two front teeth were missing. Mr. McKinney chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” said Jason.
Mr. McKinney set down the picture and looked up at his son, folding his hands together. “You are my pride and joy,” he said. “I’ve always believed in you. But I can’t do anything about the law. I wish I could. But even having the Guardian as my old master won’t get you anything. Even if he did write the law. I’m sorry. I love you.”
Without another word, Jason stalked out of his father’s office. He left the scroll sitting on the desk’s edge.
***
He changed out of his uniform then walked outside. His father didn’t come looking for him. The sun had just touched the horizon, and the moon was waxing in the eastern skyline. He stared up at it, wishing he lived there, on that desolate rock. It wouldn’t be much different than what would happen in only a few days. He started to walk home, but didn’t feel like getting there right away. Might as well get used to anywhere but his own house.
One thought made him stop in the middle of the street: Tara will fade from my memories.
As he muttered ‘forth,’ a car turned onto his stretch of road, and he shuffled onward. He turned onto an unfamiliar street. These houses were recent additions to Sheriffsburg, the kind of houses with a Mercedes in the driveway and a Mustang in the garage. The grass was trimmed and an unnatural shade of emerald. The flash of sun off the chrome-bordered screen doors winked at him with each step.
Jason reached the end of the street and turned left, back in the direction of his house. He still didn’t recognize the street, but it was rundown compared to the previous one. The houses crowded on these blocks choked on crabgrass and dandelions. Just looking at the yards made Jason’s nose itch. There was a one-story house with boarded-up windows. It slumped a bit to the west, its paint crumbling in huge flakes that blew away in the wind. The flakes may have been blue at some point. The front porch sagged a bit. The third step from the bottom of the stairs was missing. This would be his house after he turned eighteen, he thought.
“House hunting? How drab.”
Jason wheeled around. Bootelia and Amor smiled at him from the street corner. Bootelia’s knife glinted in the sunlight.
“Did you miss us?” said Amor. “We missed you.”
“Yeah,” said Jason. “Keep dreaming.”
“Oooh, hard to get.”
“As if!” said Bootelia, wiggling her hips. “He obviously lusts for my curves. Who wouldn’t want this bona fide body?”
“I don’t have time for this,” said Jason. “Give me back the key.”
Bootelia laughed, waving her knife around. “See this? It means your demand-making privileges are null and void.”
Jason remembered the playground, how the little boy screamed as Bootelia placed the blade against his throat. He turned and ran. Their feet scuffed against the sidewalk as they chased him. They were incredibly fast and nearly caught him. Then they came to a corner Jason recognized: his street. He could lose them. All he had to do was make it to the alleyway next to his house.
No, not the alleyway, he thought. That’s a bad idea.
But what choice do I have?
Halfway down the next block, his sides stitched. His breath was uneven, sweat rolling down face. He hadn’t exercised much in the past year, but he was still running. Just a little more. The alley’s mouth lay only ten feet ahead.
Their fingertips brushed the back of his neck.
“Come on,” they said. “Give in to us.”
With an extra burst of speed, Jason peeled away down the alley. His legs wobbled. His heart pounded in his throat. The horizon started to swallow the sun. The alley seemed to stretch before him, the shadows turning into bony, inky fingers.
Bad, bad, bad, he thought. Coming here was bad.
He was halfway through the alley, but slowing. The pounding in his ear stopped him from listening for the twins’ footfall. His sweat turned cold as his legs gave out and he fell against the fence. He sucked the alley’s sour air into his mouth with each gasp. He clutched his stomach, then puked. The acid stung his throat. Tears pricked his eyes. Each heave felt like his spine was being ripped from his body.
“Ew!”
“Awh, poor Jason got a little sick! Wanna kiss ‘im now?”
A chuckle. “I’d much rather you punish him, dear sister.”
“Well, that can certainly be arranged.”
Jason tried to struggle, but fear paralyzed him worse than any venom. Through his blurry vision, the sun had set, but he still made out two figures. Not the twins, but another man and woman. The man fell. Someone screamed. And the woman wheeled around.
Amor gripped Jason about the shoulders, holding him in place. Amor’s breath lay warm on the back of his neck, his lips smooth against Jason’s jugular. He forced Jason’s head up and exposed his neck. Towering over him, Bootelia flashed a smile that would make the devil nervous. She wiggled her hips, playfully fingering the tip of the knife. “Remember what I said, a long time ago? I said, ‘If you aren’t a good boy, I’ll cut you.’ Well, you haven’t been a very good boy. So guess what? Time for your well-earned punishment.”
She stooped down and leaned in. She kissed Jason on the forehead, settling the blade’s cold steel on his Adam’s apple.
Light flooded them from behind. Bootelia’s eyes widened and Amor turned; they gasped. Jason smacked against the ground. The twins’ footfall echoed and faded into the distance. And as Jason lay there, his face only inches from a puddle of his own vomit, a train whistle pierced the air. The man and woman reappeared above him. The man fell, and the woman turned around to face him.
Mom, he thought.
SEVEN
“Sleep and forget. Forget and sleep. Sleep and forget. Forget and—”
“Wake.”
The darkness around him was heavy and stifling. It reminded him of a breezeless summer day, as though he were packed inside layers upon layers of cotton. His eyes darted around, trying to focus. His arms were starting to trickle with stone. The choking heat closed in on him, the stone in his arms pouring with the steadiness of water from a tap. He barely coughed up a ‘Forth.’ Not only did the liquid stone recede from his limbs, but so did the suffocating darkness and heat.
Broken tiles spattered with what looked like black paint flickered before his eyes. The paint smelled like iron, or wet copper—definitely not paint. He focused his eyes, adjusting to the dim floor. Then he noticed a wall where a single, flickering lamp jutted out like a horn.
With wobbly legs, Jason stood. The ceiling was tall and vaulted, but infested with mold and riddled with cracks. Something about this place stuck in his head like a pin: important, but not quite noticeable in the slop of his mind. He walked toward the wall, hoping to get a hold of his woozy body. Each step took Herculean effort and balance. Jason flopped against the wall, his back sliding along the cracked, dusty cement, gritty through his shirt. Even the wall felt warm against his neck.
“Maybe, this is hell,” he whispered.
He noticed a chunk of cinder block next to him, grabbed it, and turned it over in his hands. Solid. Slightly cool. Jason hurled the brick straight in front of him, into the deep blackness where the lamp didn’t reach. For a few moments, he didn’t hear the brick land. When it did, a metallic clang rent the air. Then echoed.
He pushed himself up from the f
loor, crawling forward a bit and standing. He squinted, but still couldn’t see where the brick had landed. This dark spot seemed to stretch from one end of the room to the other, from floor to ceiling, except on the wall directly across from him.
He took another step, then, as he put his foot down, realized what the darkness was. It swallowed his foot. Off-balance, Jason nearly fell, but clutched the floor, hugging the left half of his body to the tile and cement. Carefully, he scooted his body away from the darkness, and lifted his right side up onto the tile floor, away from the darkness.
A train whistle pierced the air, and a light sliced through the darkness.
The light revealed the dark’s true nature—a tunnel, long and deep, extending from one end of the room to the other. In the pit of the tunnel the cinder block lay across two of the tracks. Everything shook as the train thundered along in a blur, its slipstream kicking up dust and flecks of black from the floor. Jason coughed, wrenching his eyes shut, covering his mouth. The train’s wheels screeched and the train’s slipstream slowly subsided. The dust and flecks settled on the floor and Jason. He opened his eyes. The train was yellow with a red streak down its length. It looked like one of those old passenger trains from the 1920’s. The windows were glowing like beady yellow eyes, all staring at Jason.
A door to Jason’s right hissed open. Clunking footsteps rattled the metal stairs. A broad-shouldered man stepped down from the steps. He wore a denim button-up jacket and pants. An ivy cap sat atop a mess of brown hair with ends that brushed the base of his neck. He adjusted his glasses and looked around, but didn’t seem to see Jason.
“Boarding,” he said. “Now boarding for Visonia.”
Visonia. The word stuck to the inside of Jason’s ear, echoing in his eardrum—an irritating itch, one his brain couldn’t quite scratch. I know that name, that place, he thought. But from where? He stood, and suddenly he realized this tunnel, this way station were connected, in some way, to Talshe and his other dreams.
When Jason walked in front of him, the strange man finally noticed him. He grinned with yellow teeth. His blue eyes glimmered dangerously beneath his ivy cap.
“Decided to come back, eh?” said the man.
“Come back? I’m not sure I follow.”
The man crossed his arms, tilting his head a bit. His smile shrank. “Don’t recognize me? Well, can’t say I blame you. Not many people give the conductor and host of this train much thought.” He held out a hand. “Ticket?”
Jason shook his head. “Sorry.”
The conductor’s smile faded to a smirk, and he grunted, straightening his cap. “Well, you don’t belong here then, do you? Be on your way.” He turned to leave.
“Hold on, where am I?”
The man stopped. “If you don’t remember, then there’s no use telling you.” Slowly, he turned back to Jason. His eyes flashed. “Sleep and forget. Forget and sleep. Sleep and forget…”
So Jason did.
***
“Wake.”
Crickets chirped. The air was cool on Jason’s cheeks. The stars winked at him from their bed in the sky. Underneath it all rested the sour stench of the alley. He sat up from the fence, his back crackling. He rubbed the base of his neck. How long had he been there? He searched for his phone, but couldn’t find it. Dropped it somewhere, perhaps. He tried to trace his footsteps, but his mind was so fuddled that he gave up.
Something shifted next to him.
His eyes darted in every possible direction, but couldn’t pick out anything. The moon’s glow flooded the alley in neon light, so Jason could see everything. He told his pounding heart to calm itself. Nothing was there. He turned and met the gaze of two red, beady eyes—eyes of the mannequin he and Darlene had chased.
Before Jason could draw breath to scream, the red-eyed shadow snatched Jason’s neck in its fingers. Half-inch claws dug like cold metal hooks into his neck. Blood trickled warmly down his neck. Any sudden movement, and Jason would have no windpipe to breathe through. The shadow phantom drew him close, its breath rattling. Each exhale smelled of sour dairy. Jason wanted to gag, but resisted, afraid the slightest movement would force this creature’s hand.
“you wanted this now accept me,” growled the shadow.
And the creature pressed itself against Jason. Its shadowy lips rubbed against his like sandpaper. Two pressures mounted, one against the back of Jason’s head, the other against his pelvis. The latter didn’t originate from his own body. The liquid stone began to fill his arms. Quickly, now. And a terrible sound split the air—a metallic screech, like exploding glass and collapsing skyscraper: Jason’s scream.
Now music floated through the air. And the hand fled his throat. The red eyes and dry lips and pressure against his groin all melted into the night. Jason fell back, slamming into the ground, his body nearly overcome by the liquid stone inside him. As his vision blurred, he looked up. A familiar face bent over him, shaking her head.
“Can you only scream?” said Len.
***
“Wake.”
He gasped like someone who had been underwater too long and flailed, gripping his raw throat. There were no wounds. No dried blood. But he clearly remembered the shadow-monster and its whispery words. He also remembered Len.
“Ah, you are awake.”
He looked to his right, but didn’t find Len there. He scowled as he curled his fingers into fists. “What the hell are you doing here?”
The Guardian’s piercing green eyes drove the anger right out of Jason, and Jason bobbed his head, muttering an apology. “I do not mean you harm, Son of Arthur. I only wished to see that you recovered.” Jason looked around, but still didn’t see Len. The Guardian waved his hand. “Your friend has gone.”
“Len was here?”
“Indeed. She called for the paladins to assist you. I so happened to be at the paladins’ stronghold when they received the message and came instead. I would never let offspring of my apprentice befall harm.”
Jason grunted. “Yeah, bet you won’t be saying that in a few days.”
The Guardian shook his head. “It is not my choice to erase your memories. I, unfortunately, am subject to those same laws. For who, if not me, would willingly erase your memories? Such powerful magic exacts devastating costs upon the user’s body.” His eyes flickered to Jason. “Of course, you would know this, if you could use magic.”
“Haven’t been able to. Never will.”
The ancient mage didn’t respond. And the silence passed like a decade. Jason tried to keep his breathing steady, to keep his mind from wandering. He wouldn’t let the stone harden his arms now, not in front of the Guardian.
“I know someone who can teach you,” said the Guardian.
Jason frowned. “Teach me? My dad bought me half a dozen of those stupid scrolls, and I still haven’t learned. It’s impossible. I don’t have magical talent. I think the sooner we accept this, the easier my birthday execution will be.”
“You speak as if erasing your memory would be the end of you.”
“It will be.”
The Guardian smiled. “You let your youthful sense of identity misguide you. There is so much more to an identity than what you are now. Even I think back to when I was young. I am a much different person now. This is a fact: we change. Some things remain the same, but other things are shed. And most of the time, they are shed for good reason.”
“Does it matter?” said Jason. “Either way, I can’t learn.”
“Anyone can learn. You must want it.”
“And you think I don’t?”
“Do you want it?”
His eyes trailed away from the Guardian, down into the dirt of the alleyway. A chilly wind brushed over him, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling. Then that face, heart-shaped, light brown hair and hazel eyes—it smacked his mind’s eye without any warning. But the stone didn’t flow. Nothing hardened inside him, even though something should have. He felt horrified that, in this instant, he felt nothing.<
br />
Maybe Tara would want me to feel nothing. Maybe she’d want me to move on. Get over it, he thought.
But he wished the stone would harden and drag him through the earth, to the planet’s core. It would feel right. How could he get his arms to harden and grow heavy? With magic, you could turn anything to stone. Jason wondered, if he could do magic, whether or not he could turn his wand on himself and do such a thing. As he thought this, the Guardian was watching the sky, hands folded together in his lap.
The Guardian peered down, and Jason looked away. “I apologize,” said the Guardian. “I did not mean to startle you. Were you finished thinking?”
Jason ignored the question. He needed to get his mind away from wherever it was right then. So he said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you carry a wand, sir. I know wands are very different in this age. Mages my age use cell phones as wands.”
The Guardian looked at Jason, then back to the sky. “I am my own wand. For someone my age and power, this is only one of many abilities I have acquired. I can also shift my form—change my face and body, if you will. Of course, I am not alone. There are others with these rare talents. But they are a scarce breed of mage, although there was a time when one of them could overpower me.” Jason’s eyes widened. As far as he knew, the Guardian was the most powerful mage. He couldn’t imagine a mightier one.
“Who were they? What made them so powerful?”
“The Dream Caller, and the Dream Catcher. One could bring dreams to life and control them. The other could capture or destroy dreams. But she never completely destroyed them. She only returned them to their home—Dreamrealm.”
“Wow. Why haven’t I heard of them? Being so powerful, I would think I’d hear my dad or Darlene mention them.”
“Sadly, there is no living Dream Caller. And there is only one Dream Catcher left.”
“Why are there no more Dream Callers?”
The Guardian shifted, rubbing his hands together.
“Hundreds of years ago, the first Dream Caller decided she was tired of bringing happiness to others. If she could bring dreams to life, why should she waste her talent on those whose dreams were lesser than hers? So she started killing those with dreams she deemed unworthy. Eventually, she was captured and killed. But not before she had borne a child. And that child, despite not having a mistress to teach her, learned how to use the power of her mother. And this continued for many years. Until forty years ago, we thought the chain would never stop.”