Past the Size of Dreaming

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Past the Size of Dreaming Page 6

by Nina Kiriki Hoffman


  Julio reached up past Deirdre’s collar and flowed over her ears, covering the car canals so she wouldn’t be able to hear. “Hey!” she cried, clapping her hands over him.

  “Don’t listen,” he whispered in her ear. “This guy can make you do things against your will.”

  “This is creepy,” she muttered, “but okay.”

  “Cast out the other,” Nathan said, his voice as pushy as the stranger’s.

  The stranger’s voice spoke three words full of the power to push something away, then paused. “How skilled you Are for someone so young,” he said. “How lovely and elegant! Now, apprentice.” He spoke words of power again. The young man’s voice joined in, and this time Julio felt the words flow toward them like the sticky lines of a spider’s web.

  “Armor,” Nathan said. Air hummed around them: the harmony of Edmund’s voice combined with the twins’, not a song, exactly, but something they did in concert, to Nathan’s conducting. Julio sensed the stranger’s words webbing around them, but not touching them. “Dissolve,”‘ Nathan said.

  Terry’s voice rose solo above the murmuring chorus of Tasha and Edmund, speaking some language Julio didn’t know, the words acidic and bright. The trapping webs fell away.

  “Formidable,” said the stranger. His voice sounded hoarse.

  “Cast out the other,” Nathan said a third time.

  “But I like it in here,” said Julio’s voice. “Nice skills! Great view! Comfortable body!”

  “Promise you’ll let me talk to you, and I will send it away,” said the stranger.

  “We didn’t come here to make a deal with you,” Nathan said. “Cast that thing out or I’ll do it myself.”

  “Please do. Enlighten me.”

  Silence for five heartbeats. The air around Julio tightened. He remembered Nathan had said he hadn’t had dealings with the tribe of demons. What if he couldn’t cast out a demon? Was Julio going to spend the rest of his life as a coat?

  Maybe the house would let him be a ghost in it.

  There had been all those other songs he heard on the way here. He would find something to be and someplace to go.

  “Thing, go home.” Nathan’s voice held such pushes in it that Julio felt himself responding.

  “Whoa,” he said, and his other voice said it simultaneously, but neither of them could stop; Julio siphoned through Tasha’s hand and fled back into his body even as the other was flowing out of it.

  Yes! Fingers. Toes. Arms. Legs. A stomach that growled for granola bars left behind in the music room; ears that felt clogged with wax after the clarity of the sounds he had heard while he was unhoused. He touched his tongue to the backs of his teeth, tasted ashes. Finally he opened his eyes. He smiled at his rescue party, tall, curly-headed Edmund, Nathan short and neat in his seventy-year-old clothes, the dark-haired, big-eyed twins, and in the center of them all, sturdy Deirdre in her navy blue all-weather coat.

  “Thanks, you guys.” Julio’s voice sounded distant, and tasted swallowed and strange. He stood up and started toward his friends. Two things happened: strange spaces opened in his head, and he bumped into a wall of air. “Hey!”

  “Julio?” Nathan said.

  He put his palms against the wall and pushed, then felt around to find the wall’s edges. It was a perfect circle, smooth and hard as glass; he was caged inside a tube. He looked down and saw the same light lines on the floor that had been there before. The blue inner circle formed the base of the wall. “What?”

  Nathan strode to the silver-haired man in the chair across from Julio’s. “Release him.”

  The man smiled faintly. “I don’t think that’s wise. You don’t know what you’ve got. You haven’t addressed the articles of confinement. If it can be confined by chalkwork, it’s not the boy I brought here.”

  “Let him out.”

  The man sighed, glanced at his companion. The boy executed a series of hand gestures that made Julio think of porcupines.

  “On your head be it,” said the stranger. He too indulged in some gestures. Julio’s skin prickled unpleasantly. Was it some kind of trick? Another trap?

  The man reached into his pocket and fished out some blue chalk, then knelt on the floor in front of Julio and scripted marks across the circle. Nathan watched carefully.

  The man sat back on his heels and glanced up at Julio. He cocked his head.

  “Julio, try it now,” Nathan said.

  Julio stepped on the new marks and walked out of the circle, then reached out a hesitant hand, touched Nathan’s shoulder. “Oh, man!” Julio said, and hugged Nathan hard. “Thank you. Thanks for everything.”

  Startled, Nathan laughed, and this time hugged him back, “Anytime.”

  Julio stepped back and held his head. There were things in his brain he hadn’t seen before, unknown thoughts and nerves and muscles, strange tastes and smells and nourishment. “Man, I feel so weird,” he said, but then Deirdre touched his shoulder.

  “Are you okay? Are you really you? Are you okay, Julio?”

  “Yes, yes, yes.” He kissed her swift and sudden, startling them both. “Thanks for helping me.”

  Edmund stood over him. and the two witch girls, Terry the short-haired tomboy, Tasha undeniably a curly-haired girl, both of them just on the edge of adolescence. “Thanks,” Julio said again.

  They all turned toward the man sitting in the chair.

  “I understand you were asking about us,” Nathan said in a chill voice. “Any other questions?”

  “Many. Who are you? Where did you come from? What are you hoping to accomplish?”

  “That’s none of your business. Witches, let’s go home.”

  “Wait,” Julio said. The rescue party turned. Julio went back to the armchair and retrieved the fiddle neck and the bigger pieces of the crushed violin. The ebony fingerboard hummed against his palm. “Okay,” he told the others, wondering how he could hear with his hand now that he was back inside his ordinary self. Deirdre grabbed his other hand, Edmund gripped his shoulder, and they gathered close together.

  A tunnel opened in front of them, and they drifted into it. Julio watched what he had not been able to see on the trip out, how the walls of the tunnel were striped and stippled with threads and flickers of color, how Nathan and Tasha reached out with phantom hands to touch, press, pull this thread or that flash of light, and then the tunnel’s other end opened and let them out into the haunted house’s front hall. Julio glanced back. The tunnel followed on their heels, closing behind them in a swirl of color and light.

  The house looked different to him now. He could see the same surface he had seen before, old dusty boards, fraying wallpaper, a dangling lace of cobwebs, but underneath it all quiet turquoise light lay. Julio knelt and put his palm on the floor, wondering if he would be able to touch that luminescence the way he had before.

  “Who are you?” the house said aloud.

  All he felt under his hand was splintery board. “Julio,” he said, feeling strange and sad. So he had lost the ability to link with the house the way Susan did, but why didn’t the house recognize him the way it had the others, by his feet, his energy?

  “Are you sure?” asked the house.

  Julio rose, still holding the violin neck, trying to force sense into the question. The others stared at him now. Tasha reached out and sketched a symbol in the air with her first two fingers, and the letter flared red in the air between them. “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  “What does that mean?” Julio asked.

  Tasha began chanting something, and he felt an invisible loop like a lasso drop around him, locking his hands to his sides. “Hey? Excuse me?” he said, as a second loop dropped over him.

  “Tasha, stop it,” Nathan said, but she didn’t stop: she added gestures which left flaming letters and unknown words in the air. The loops dropped faster, and they burned.

  Julio struggled with them, and then stood still as something else opened in his mind. A voice spoke to him, almost like his own but wit
h dark harmonic undertones.—She’s young and powerful, but she’s not in complete control of her craft,—it said.—Here is how you break this spell.—

  “Oh,” Julio said out loud, and tried what the voice told him. A short water blade grew from his index finger, and he used it to cut through the ropes. They dropped from him. He lifted his hand and sliced through the glowing letters in the air. They fell apart.

  Tasha cried out. A line of blood welled up across her right palm.

  “Hey. That’s not what I meant to do,” Julio said, and—Who the hell are you?—he thought to the voice. It only laughed.

  “What did you do to my sister?” Terry asked fiercely. “Who are you?

  “Julio,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would do that.” He shook his hand, and the water blade dissolved. He walked toward them, wondering how deep the cut was. Terry pushed Tasha back and stood in front of her. Julio stopped and stared at Edmund and Deirdre. Deirdre frowned in confusion, and Edmund lifted a hand, two fingers extended. “What?” Julio said. “What?” He looked at Nathan.

  Nathan smiled, “You’ve changed,” he said,

  “Into what?” He held out his arms, looked down at himself. Same five fingers on each hand (one hand still held the violin neck), same clothes he had put on in a rush that morning because he had overslept, same unmatched socks, one brown, one blue. The song of the ordinary; one of these days he should write down those notes, even though he wasn’t sure anybody else wanted to hear them.

  Well. There were burn marks on his T-shirt. Those lasso loops had been hot.

  “Are you sure he’s Julio?” Edmund asked Nathan.

  “Oh, yes,” Nathan said. “His core is still the same. You will have to make some adjustments. Tasha, leave him alone.”

  “But he,” she said, clutching her hurt hand, tears in her voice.

  “He didn’t do it on purpose. He doesn’t know what he’s doing yet. Leave him alone.”

  “All right,” she said.

  “What did you just do?” Deirdre asked Julio.

  “I don’t know.” He turned to Nathan. “Into what?” he asked again.

  “I don’t think there’s a name for it yet,” Nathan said. “I do think there are things I can teach you now.”

  “Please,” Julio said, his heart in it.

  Then he looked at Edmund, one of his best friends, and wondered if whatever had just happened had fractured their friendship. He held out his hand, and Edmund touched it, then grasped it.

  Julio checked with Deirdre.

  “We’re not the same anymore, are we?” she said.

  He licked his lip, thought about forming a water blade, whatever that was, at the end of his finger to cut through a spell, and shook his head.

  “Well, if you can change …”

  Huh. Every day they came here, in the midst of magic, and they had learned to work with and accept it, and then go home to ordinary houses. If he could change … “Thanks for being my anchor,” he said.

  “Sure,” she said.

  He looked at the twins.

  Terry still stared at him with hostility. Tasha bit her lip. “I thought you were still possessed,” she said.

  “I understand that. Thanks. I never meant to hurt you.”

  “It’s okay.” She held up her hand and showed him that the wound had already scabbed over. He reached out. Green fire jumped from the end of his finger to her palm, erasing the wound.

  “Whoa,” he said, as startled as she was. “What?”

  —We need allies,—said the voice in his head, his own voice but not his own.

  Edmund dropped a hand onto Julio’s head. “Julio, you in there?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Julio said. But he wasn’t alone. He better not tell the witches yet, not until he figured out who was in here with him.

  Deirdre checked her watch. “I’ll go and call Susan, let her know we’re okay.”

  “Good. We need to find out more about the wicked witch,” Nathan said. “Who is he? What does he want? Why is he trying to find out about us? Will you come over tomorrow morning and help me research this?”

  “All of us?” asked Deirdre.

  “Everyone. If you actually talk to Susan, ask her too.”

  “Okay.” Deirdre zipped her coat shut and headed out the front door.

  “We like this guy again?” Terry asked Tasha, pointing her thumb at Julio.

  “Until further notice,” Tasha said.

  “Okay. Bye, guy,” Terry said.

  “Thanks. I owe you,” Julio told them.

  They linked hands, smiled at him, and vanished.

  “I have to go get my stuff from the music room,” Julio said. He studied the broken violin. He wasn’t looking forward to explaining that to Mr. Noah. He could pick up extra work and pay Mr. Noah back, though it would take forever, and it wouldn’t bring back a good instrument. He already had a string of small jobs he used to finance his college fund, his car fund, his taste for fancy tennis shoes, records, cassettes, and new strings for guitar and violin. He could get some more jobs, and forget about new shoes for a while. Or maybe he could take money out of his car fund. If he lived in a dorm on a college campus, maybe he wouldn’t need a car. He’d have to talk it over with his mother.

  “You going to be okay?” Edmund asked.

  “I don’t know,” Julio said.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “Thanks.” Relief warmed him. It was confusing inside his head. Edmund might be able to help.

  The song of the ordinary played through his mind, but while he listened to it, trying to memorize the notes, the song of the extraordinary joined it, counterpointing, harmonizing, introducing notes of discord.

  —You can sing,—he thought to the new person inside.

  —I learned from you,—it answered in almost his own voice.

  Chapter Five

  More Past

  nothing strange happened at school. Edmund watched Julio gather his things and lock up the room and then the building. “Do you need me?” Edmund asked when they stood outside.

  “I don’t know,” Julio said. “I know things are changing, but I don’t know what I need.” I need a new violin, he thought, looking down at the case in his hand. Inside was only wreckage. He couldn’t ask Edmund for help with that, though, could he?

  Why not?

  What about the new person inside him, who could do so many strange things? Maybe he could help himself.

  “Call if you need me. I better get home,” Edmund said.

  “Thanks. A lot.”

  Edmund punched his shoulder and vanished.

  When Julio got home, his mother wasn’t there yet. He set his things down and went to the piano. He checked the clock his mother had put on top of the piano to remind him that during certain hours it was okay to practice and there were others when it wasn’t. Five-thirty: he’d be bothering Mrs. Hawkins, to the right. But as long as he didn’t do it every day and finished up by six, she could stand it.

  His fingers remembered songs he didn’t immediately recognize. While they sought out music, his mind wandered.

  What had just happened?

  He kept drawing blanks, while his fingers found the Rachmaninoff Prelude in C# Minor, the pounding big dark piece with octaves that stamped up and down the keyboard like looming thunder.

  What just happened?

  —Wow. I like this noise,—something in him thought. His foot came off the damper pedal and the music rang louder and louder, something augmenting it until he lost himself in a sea of sound. He played it way too loud, ignoring all the pianissimo marks. Music crashed like surf over him, shook, swallowed, engulfed him, washed away thought and worry.

  Someone shook his shoulder.

  He started so wildly he fell backward off the piano bench. His head thwacked the ground. He lay on the floor and blinked up at an equally startled Mrs. Hawkins.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. Her face was pale as sourdough. “It was ju
st so loud.”

  “I’m sorry. Guess I got carried away.”

  “Did you get a new piano?” She looked at the black upright, the same old chipped, overly ornamented painted wooden façade, its brass pedals tarnished except on the ends where his feet kept them polished. “How did you make all those new sounds?”

  “What?” Julio slid his legs off the piano bench and sat up, rubbing the back of his head. “What are you talking about?”

  “It sounded like an orchestra.”

  “Julio?” Mr. Marino, from the apartment down the hall, shuffled into the apartment through the door Mrs. Hawkins had apparently left open. “It’s nice to know a young man with good taste in classical music, Julio, but what have we told you about the volume on your record player?”

  “Record player, shmecord player,” said Mrs. Hawkins. “The boy was making that noise on the piano.”

  —Who are these people?—

  —They’re the neighbors.—

  “Dear lady, no one could get sounds like that from a simple piano,” said Mr. Marino.

  “Maybe he put in a synthesizer,” Mrs. Hawkins said. She bent and peered under the keyboard. “He must’ve. Not there, though. Julio?”

  “Yes?”

  “How did you make those sounds?” She lifted the lid of the piano and stared down at the strings. “Where’s the synthesizer?”

  “I must confess I have a strange longing to hear the rest of the piece.” Mr. Marino headed across to the little cassette-radio Julio’s mother had given Julio for his sixteenth birthday, more than a year ago. “Who conducted?” He popped the lid on the cassette player, stared at the empty slot. “What? It wasn’t a tape?”

  “What did I tell you? The boy did it,” Mrs. Hawkins said. “Why won’t you ever listen to me, Emilio? Julio—”

  “Are we having a party?” asked a new voice.

  Julio glanced toward the door. A petite dark woman stood there, her arms around bulging grocery bags.—Who’s that?—

  —My mother.—

  —Mother?— Movement in his memories, not directed by himself.—Mother. Ah.—Julio found himself staring at his mother with a hunger and longing foreign to him.—Can we touch her?—

 

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