Dreams of Shreds and Tatters

by Amanda Downum

  “Lailah let me in,” she said. Alex winced at the hoarse scrape of her voice. “She’s outside.” She nodded toward the water. In the shadows of the front room, Blake lay motionless on the sofa.

  Alex opened his mouth and shut it again uselessly. Concern was too clumsy a thing, pity too cruel. The light brightened by inches and the silence stretched.

  “You’re leaving today,” she said at last. He nodded. “So am I. But I wanted to give you something first.”

  She lifted a bag off her shoulder. The same one she’d rescued from the gallery, he thought. He took it, feeling the familiar weight and shape of books through the leather. “What are these?”

  “Nothing I want. They were— I don’t want them. You might not either, but I suspect you’ll take better care of them.”

  “Thank you. I think.” He forced down a cough. “Antja, I’m sorry—”

  She shook her head, a quick, violent, gesture, and he broke off.

  “I wish I could say it was nice to have met you,” she said with a bitter smile. “Maybe some other time. But thank you all the same.”

  He reached to adjust his glasses, but caught himself mid-gesture. His hand curled at his side. “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know. Go somewhere warm. We’d talked about...” She shook her head again.

  Alex swallowed. “Good luck.”

  “You too. I think you’ll need it as much as I do.” She lifted a hand as if she meant to touch him, but dropped it. Her weight shifted and she paused on the brink of turning away. “Rainer always thought that magic was inherited. A birthright. I don’t believe that.”

  “What do you believe?” he asked after a long pause.

  “That it’s contagious. It slips past your defenses and changes you. And we’re all infected now.” She cast one last tired smile over her shoulder. “Good bye.”

  He didn’t follow her out, but he stood in the hall until the sound of her car faded into the distance.

  THE CEMETERY LAY under a white shroud, silent save for the creak and sway of trees. The afternoon sky was the color of milk, while dusk spread violet grey as pigeon wings in the east. Their flight left in three hours. This was the only stop Blake had asked to make.

  Snow crunched under his boots as he crossed the lawn. His hair, still damp from a hasty shower, froze in tendrils against his scalp. That was nothing, though, to the greater chill coiled inside him. Liz thought it was over, but he new better; the shadowy thing was still inside him, parasite or symbiont. His piece of Carcosa. Quiescent, at least, since the gallery burned.

  He frowned at the smooth, rolling grounds as he navigated between graves. Cemeteries should have standing markers, statues and obelisks and brooding mausoleums. Something to remember— not these bland, homogenous stones. Flowers broke the drift of snow over Alain’s grave, wilted and crusted with ice. Someone would come soon to take them away.

  Gone. As simple as that. Nothing left now but memories and nightmares, and a haunting that may or may not have been real.

  Blake swallowed, his throat tight. His eyes were dry, though. All the tears had leaked out of him this morning. He thought he should leave something, but what would be the use? It would be gone with the flowers. Besides, graves were for the living, and he already knew he wouldn’t come back.

  There was nowhere for him to go back to. Not in Vancouver, and not in Connecticut.

  Slow footsteps crunched behind him, pulling him out of his fugue. Blake squared his shoulders, rehearsing what he would say to Liz. She would understand, at least. He could always trust her to understand. But when he turned he found not Liz but Alex. His mouth snapped shut, all his half-formed thoughts dying unvoiced.

  They stood in silence, not quite meeting one another’s eyes. Lazy snowflakes spiraled down, snagging in Alex’s hair, on the shoulders of his coat. He looked half a corpse in the wan light, his eyes sunken and bruised, naked without his glasses, and one cheek spotted with welts.

  “You’re thinking of staying,” he said at last. His breath whistled softly.

  “Not staying,” Blake said. “Not here.”

  Alex flicked a hand in dismissal. “But you don’t plan on coming home.”

  Blake stiffened at his tone. “How can I? It’s too dangerous.”

  One eyebrow quirked. “Is that what you’re telling yourself?”

  Heat rose in Blake’s face. “Alain died because of me! What happened at the gallery—Rae and Rainer—that was because of me. This thing is still inside me, and I don’t know what it will do next. I don’t know what I’ll do. How can you expect me to go home knowing I’d put everyone around me in danger?”

  “It’s easier to be alone. Not to trust. To walk away and tell yourself it’s for the best. I understand that.” Alex raised a hand before Blake could reply. “I don’t know if everything that happened was because of you. Maybe it was. What I do know is that Liz nearly died for you. If you leave now, you’ll throw that in her face. You’ll break her heart. And if you do that I’ll—” He broke off, forcing his strained, angry voice low again. “I’ll do something stupid that will embarrass us both.” He tugged his coat straight self-consciously.

  “It isn’t that simple. What if the next person I hurt is Liz? Do you want that on your conscience? Because I sure as hell don’t.”

  Alex’s eyes narrowed. Then he smiled sardonically. “Push me away all you like. It’s Liz I’m concerned about.”

  “You don’t understand.” Blake’s jaw clenched. Christ, he sounded like a damned teenager.

  “I don’t know what you experienced, it’s true. I can’t know. But I know what Liz went through to find you. Hell. And she’ll do it again. She’s made her choice. I may not like it, but I have to respect it. And you should too.”

  Blake drew a breath and let it out again. It hung shimmering in the air before the wind unraveled it.

  “Liz won’t give up on you,” Alex went on, his voice softening. “And I won’t give up on Liz. We’re bloody well stuck with each other. We might as well make the best of it. Lailah, on the other hand, will probably leave us to freeze if we stand out here much longer. And I’ve had enough of the cold.”

  He turned toward the car. After a moment, Blake followed. He might regret it, but he was tired of the cold too.

  Liz raised her eyebrows in a silent question as he slid into the back seat: are you all right? Blake nodded. It felt less like a lie than he’d thought it would. She reached for his hand, and he returned the gentle pressure.

  “Let’s go home.”

  Acknowledgements

  This novel has been a labor of love, despair, and grim determination, more than any other I’ve written to date. So many people have suffered with me through the drafts. I’m indebted to Steven Downum, Elizabeth Bear, Jaime Lee Moyer, Leah Bobet, Jodi Meadows, Kathryn Allen, Marissa Lingen, Ian Tregillis, Cathy Freeze, Siobhan Carroll, Cory Skerry, Jamie Rosen, Lisa Deguchi, Deva Fagan, and everyone in the Online Writing Workshop and the Bat City Novelocracy. And of course, my indefatigable agent Jennifer Jackson, Michael Curry, David Moore, Jonathan Oliver, and Jeffrey Alan Love.

  I’m also grateful to Matt Andrews for his help with the Bete Noire recipe. I have consumed many of them.