“What kind of plans?”
“We don’t know yet,” Matt said.
“Now that you’re here, maybe House will tell us,” said Nathan. “If you choose to stay here, anyway.”
“Don’t you know what House wants?” Matt asked him.
Nathan shook his head. “Not exactly. Lately I’ve discovered that House and I are not as closely linked as I thought. Things happen while I’m away or asleep, and House doesn’t tell me. House has ideas it doesn’t share. I guess it’s mutual. On nights when I escape, I don’t always tell everything I’ve done when I return.”
A door slammed downstairs.
“So anyway, they’re home,” Nathan said. “What are you going to do, Lia?”
Golden fire flickered over Lia’s face and arms. After a moment it faded. She sighed. “Oh, well,” she said. “Let’s go downstairs.”
“Nathan!” Terry’s voice called from below. “Hey? Nathan?” She sounded strangely unsure, almost afraid.
They ran from the room. Nathan dropped down through the floor, though, so he got to the first floor ahead of them. On the way down the stairs, Lia took Matt’s hand. Matt glanced at Lia. Maybe Lia didn’t even know she had grabbed Matt’s hand. Matt held Lia’s hand tight.
Matt and Lia entered the front hall behind Edmund. Fresh salt air had followed Terry, Suki, Deirdre, and Tasha into the house. They all looked windblown and slightly sunburned, and Terry looked upset.
“What is it, Terry?” Nathan asked.
“I ran into this guy at the beach,” she said, “and he gave me this horrible thing. He was one of those two guys who stole Julio way back when. He’s really, really weird. Look at this.” She held out a twisted lump of glass.
Nathan stepped away from her outthrust hand. “Terry!”
She pulled back. “What? Can it hurt you? I know it’s awful, but I didn’t think it could hurt anyone.”
“Do you recognize it, Nathan?” Tasha asked.
“It’s a soul trap.” Nathan’s voice was faint.
Edmund dug into a pocket and pulled out a blue silk scarf. “Wrap it in this, Terry. It’s already sucking on you, and Nathan doesn’t have enough of an anchor to resist it for long. This’ll dampen it.”
Terry paled and wrapped the thing in silk. “I’ll take it far away. I’ll hide it in some forest deep in Siberia or something.”
“No. It’s all right now,” Nathan said. “We need to find out more about it.”
“The guy just handed it to me. He asked me to take care of it for him. He walked around with this thing in his pocket. He’s had it for years and years. He said it was his heart.”
“Terry,” said Matt. “This guy—he was one of the ones who stole Julio?”
“Yeah. Not the old guy, but the younger one who just stood there. What am I telling you this for? What do you know about this stuff?”
“I know,” said Matt. “The younger guy, huh. Wonder what he wants.”
“He said this thing has his brother and sister in it, and he wants them out of it,” Terry said. She stared at the wrapped object in her hand. “He asked me to help him get them out.”
Suki walked past Terry. Eyes wide, Suki came to Matt and Lia. Short Lia let go of Matt’s hand and looked up at tall Suki. Suki blinked. A tear ran down her cheek. “Where’ve you been?” she whispered. “I’ve missed you so much.” She closed her arms around Lia, hugged her tight.
“What the hell?” said Deirdre. She followed Suki toward Lia.
“Where’ve I been?” Lia said against Suki’s chest. “You stopped writing back. I wasn’t sure you were there anymore.”
“Oh, you’re right. You’re right. I was so stupid. Your letters meant everything to me, but I got all paralyzed and couldn’t answer them after a while.” Suki sighed and released Lia. “I pared my personality down to next to nothing. Now I’m picking up the pieces. I would write back now.”
“I don’t have a fixed address anymore.” Lia smiled. “But I can keep in touch.” She took Suki’s hands, lifted them so that Suki’s sleeves slid down, revealing wide gold wristbands. “What are you wearing?”
“It’s magic. Isn’t it great? I’ve got my own magic now.”
“Oh! Right! I guess I do remember that. Matt told me about it.” Lia thunked her forehead twice with the heel of her palm. “This has been a confusing day.”
“Hey,” said Deirdre in a fading voice. “Julio? Is that you?”
“Hey, Dee.”
“What the hell happened to you?”
“I changed my name to Lia.”
“Not that!” Deirdre punched Lia’s arm. “The sex change! Why the heck would anybody want to be a girl?”
Matt laughed. She couldn’t help it.
Lia laughed too. “It works better this way.”
“What works better?” Deirdre frowned ferociously.
“Pretty much everything. Think about it. Light may dawn. If not. I’ll give you some more hints later.”
“Wah,” said Terry. She stared at Lia’s face. “Hi there.”
“Hi, Terry.”
“May I touch you?” Tasha asked Lia.
Lia’s eyes widened. “What happened to you, Tash? ¡Madre de dios!”
“Lots,” said Tasha cheerfully. She reached out and put her hand on Lia’s forehead, and the next instant they both vanished and the front hall was full of fire and wind.
Matt stood in the midst of the maelstrom, watched as flame chased wind, wind chased flame, watched colored fire flicker over the faces of the others, who also stood staring up into wildness. Lilac and carrot orange flames brushed across Matt’s shirt, wind fingered her face, brushed her mouth, lifted Suki’s blond hair into a riot; nothing burned. Flame and wind raced across the floor, rippled the rugs, chased across the ceiling, teased Edmund’s curls and flipped up the hem of Terry’s shirt. A passing breeze tugged the tie off the end of Deirdre’s braid, and another unbraided it before she could grab it back and tame it. Even Nathan’s hair seemed to ruffle.
“Hey!” Deirdre yelled above the rush of winged wind and crackling fire sounds. “Stop it! Settle down, you two!”
They separated into a spinning column of colored flame and a pocket tornado, then condensed down into people, laughing and breathless and red-cheeked.
“Don’t,” Lia said when she caught her breath, “don’t touch me again, Tasha.”
“Okay,” Tasha managed. “I get it. You’re unstable too.”
“Good word for it.”
“Sure, that was fun, but we’ve got a real problem here,” Deirdre said. “What about this soul-trap thing?”
Lia sobered. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Dee. Terry, you met the boy on the beach?”
“I met him in a bar in Spores last week, actually. I guess he tracked me there, and then he tracked me here. He didn’t know at first that I’d ever seen him before. He was just looking for some powerful witch to help him with his little problem, or maybe he found me in a crystal ball or on the Internet.” Terry shook her head. “He’s so weird. He has no feelings. But he seems to want to free his brother and sister.”
“Are you sure it isn’t some kind of trick?” Deirdre asked. “They tried to mess with us before. Maybe he just wanted you to bring that thing into the house and snag Nathan with it. Maybe those guys are back again, and they want to mix it up again too.”
“But there really are two people trapped in here, not quite dead.”
Edmund held out his hand to Terry. She hesitated, then handed him the silk-shrouded heart. “Let’s go outside and look,” he said.
Everyone trooped out of the house except Nathan.
Evening sun slanted from the west, struck the few small clouds in the sky with orange-pink. Already the evening was turning cold. Matt danced from one bare foot to the other, until the ground warmed beneath her feet and she could stand.—Thanks, House.—
Edmund carefully unwrapped the glass heart and everyone leaned in to look at it.
A girl’s pale fa
ce, hair, and hands floated against a darkness that could be her clothed body. Matt shuddered.
Edmund used the silk to turn the heart over, and revealed a second pale, sleeping face floating in a second darkness.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Terry said, “and I’ve been studying the dark arts. How do we break a spell like this?”
“Matt?” Edmund said. “Don’t touch it. Can you talk to it?”
Lately whenever Matt wanted to talk to something, she touched it. It was a habit she had picked up from Edmund. It seemed more direct and specific. She remembered, though, walking through the world and talking to things without touching them. When she addressed everything, the ones who wanted to converse would let her know. Sometimes she was astonished by what talked, and always she was astonished by what things had to say. Weird that she’d spent so much time lately talking to people and houses and hadn’t opened herself to many conversations with things.
—Thing,—she thought.
—Where’s Galen?—Where’s my brother?— The crystal spoke in two voices, both young and plaintive.
—Are you the people inside?—
—Galen, where are you?—
“They’re asking for Galen,” Matt reported.
“The boy told me his name was Galen,” Terry said.
—Galen wants us to get you out of there,—Matt thought.
—We can’t get out We’re stuck here forever.—
—How do you know?—
—We heard the spell. Galen gave his heart to keep us safe and warm forever, and his master put us here. We’re safe. We’re warm. Forever.—
Matt shuddered and repeated what the children had said.
“That’s what the boy at the beach told me,” Terry said.
“So the children don’t know how to escape,” said Edmund, “but what about the container? Matt, can you talk to the crystal?”
She reached out, wanting direct contact. Edmund pulled back, flipped silk over the heart. “Don’t touch it!”
“What can it do? Terry just touched it, and she’s still in one piece. And the Galen guy was carrying it around for a long time.”
Lia gripped her hand, pulled it away from the heart. “Matt, you’re not stable right now either,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Remember your boots? Remember your hair?”
“House told you about that? Jeeze!”
“Try it without touch,” Lia said.
Edmund unveiled the heart. Matt leaned forward until her nose almost touched the crystal.—Heart,—she thought.
—Human.—Its voice sounded warm and furry and, somehow, deep brown.
—How can we open you? How can we get the children out?—
—I am open to any who want to come in. Come to me. I can keep you safe.—
Matt shivered.—I don’t want to go in. I want to get people out.—
—I do not open out.—
—Never? Ever?—
—I am made only to open in.—
Matt reported this to the others. “Maybe I don’t know the right questions,” she said. “What should I ask?”
“How can we break it?” suggested Terry.
—How can we break you?—Matt asked, though she couldn’t imagine anything would answer a question like that.
—I do not break. I am forever.—
“Ask it how it was made,” said Edmund when Matt had relayed the answer.
—I was built from a promise, an exchange. I am bought and paid for. I am complete.—
Matt repeated what the heart said out loud.
“What was the promise?” asked Terry.
“Who made the promise? What was exchanged? Who accepted the promise?” Tasha asked, her voice strangely condensed and powerful.
—Immortality. Eternal safety for the children. Eternal thirst for knowledge for the apprentice. In return, an innocent child’s heart, freely given.—
Matt reported, and added, “It doesn’t say who.”
“Galen’s heart,” said Terry. “Galen’s the other guy’s apprentice, so I bet it’s the master wizard who made the bargain. Eternal thirst for knowledge! The guys a maniac. What a load to lay on the kid.”
“Ask again, Matt,” Tasha said in her strangely doubled voice. “Who took the boy’s heart and gave these gifts in exchange?”
—Monument,—said the crystal heart.
Matt repeated it, and looked at all the witches.
“Sure,” Terry said. “That explains exactly everything, I’m so sure.”
“We’re not going to solve this right now,” said Tasha. She sounded Tasha-normal again. “Put the thing someplace safe, and let’s go to dinner. I want calamari! I think better after I eat.”
Terry said, “It’s mine. Galen gave it to me and asked me to keep it safe.”
Edmund wrapped the heart in silk and handed it to Terry. She stuck it in her pocket, where it made a large bulge. “Is it safe to take inside now?” she asked Edmund.
“As long as it’s wrapped, it should be okay,” he said. “At least for a little while. I don’t think it should be in the house overnight.”
Terry sucked air in between her teeth and pondered. “Guess I’ll sleep in the car tonight, or go to a motel. I have to go get my purse.”
Everyone went back inside for purses, coats, shoes, wallets, car keys.
Lia followed Matt and Edmund into their room, and Matt realized that of course, this had been Julio’s room; where else would Lia go?
Edmund lifted his navy peacoat from the back of a chair and slipped it on.
“How you doing?” Matt asked Lia. “You okay?”
“So far.” She looked troubled. “It went better than I thought it would. I wonder if Dee will keep asking me why.”
“I get the feeling if she wants to know something, she doesn’t let go. Why don’t you just tell her?”
“Because this change was the result of a succession of choices which each made sense at the time, but if I list them now, I know they’ll sound stupid. Increments creep up on you, and before you know it, you’re far away from where you were, without really knowing how you got there.”
“Tell her it’s none of her business,” Matt said. She dug socks out of her black garbage-bag luggage, pulled them and the riding boots on. “You got any shoes?”
Lia pointed to her feet with both index fingers. Yellow flame shot from her fingertips and formed slim yellow shoes that matched her dress. She waved her hands in the air, trailing streams of flame, and a silky orange-and-red shawl spun into existence. She draped it around her shoulders.
“That is so cool!” Matt said.
Lia grinned. “Want something?”
“I got a jacket.” Matt glanced at her full-length army jacket, which was olive green, frayed in places, and many-spotted from years of encounters with whatever Matt spent time with. “It’s a good jacket,” she said.
“I know,” said Lia. “I remember. Just the same …” She stroked her fingers over Matt’s shoulders, down her arms, down her front, and down her back. Flame played over Matt, warm but not scorching. It flickered different colors. Greens, silver, blues, and light purples flashed through it. Suddenly it turned from flame to fabric, soft as alpaca, fine as silk, warm as wool.
Matt’s cheeks tingled. She had never had anything as beautiful as this jacket, with its streaks of sea and sky and cloud colors in the shapes of flame. It fitted tight to her figure above the waist, then belled out like a full skirt to just below her butt. The sleeves were snug but had large turned-back cuffs, and there were pockets she could bury her hands in.
She stood up. She stroked her hands down the fabric. Soft, fuzzy, so warm, as beautiful as a really good sunset. Her eyes felt hot, and blood prickled in her face. She glanced at Lia.
“Oh, Matt! I’m sorry. Do you want me to take it away again?”
Something hurt under Matt’s hair. She shook her head no. “It’s great,” she said, her voice wavery
. “It’s the first girl clothes I’ve had in years.”
Lia glanced at Edmund, who shook his head, smiling.
“Seriously,” Lia said, “I can send it away again if it makes you uncomfortable.”
Matt sniffed. “Hey. You walked out there like that, I guess I could stand to walk out there like this. They’re not going to laugh at me, are they? This is so pretty. I have to see it.”
—Matt.—
She turned and found a mirror on the wall by the door. She stared at herself.
She hadn’t seen herself in a while, certainly not since she stepped out of the wall and asked for a different haircut earlier that afternoon. She looked different. She had short curls on top of her head, but the sides of her head were close-cropped. Her face was the same, but this strange haircut shifted the focus somehow: she could definitely tell she was female, something no one used to be able to do just by looking at her face. The jacket was brighter than anything she usually wore, beautiful and tailored to show that she actually had breasts and a waist, and her jeans and shirt were brighter blue than they should be. The riding boots changed everything too. They looked elegant. She didn’t look like a scruffy sixteen-year-old soldier in these clothes and this haircut. She looked like a misplaced princess.
She met Edmund’s eyes in the mirror, waited for a comment.
“You look great either way,” he said.
She watched herself smile, and that, too, disturbed her so much that she instantly frowned. What if she was attractive? She didn’t mind being acceptable, or even pleasant-looking, but she didn’t want to be attractive.
Lia touched Matt’s shoulder. “Come on. Stop thinking about it. Let’s go.”
Everyone else was already waiting down in the front hall.
“Woo hoo!” said Terry as Lia, Matt, and Edmund came down the stairs. “Don’t you know this is the beach? Nobody dresses up around here.” She was wearing jeans and a purple windbreaker, and looked as stylish as ever.
Suki smiled, her usual J. Crew self in olive slacks and a sand-colored blazer, her hair perfectly restored since Tasha’s hurricane.
Deirdre wore the same rumpled clothes she’d showed up in, sneakers, jeans, a blue blouse, and a navy hooded sweatshirt. “Holy shit,” she said. “What happened to you guys?”
Past the Size of Dreaming Page 22