by Jo Raven
A hand clamps on my arm, stopping me, lifting me up in the air.
Blood is spreading around us.
The bogeyman has a golden tooth. That’s all I see of his shadowy face. A golden tooth gleaming in the golden afternoon light.
Then I fall on my back, and the clouds whirl overhead. The stream gurgles, not far. I get up and splash down the bank. Faces leer at me from behind the trees, someone running alongside me, laughing when I try to run faster, easily keeping up.
The stream turns to blood. The sky turns to night.
“She’s dead,” a young Ross tells me, grinning a gap-toothed smile, rising from the bloody water. Gasping, I stumble back. “You ever seen a dead person before? You think you know it all, Merc, but you know nothing.”
The body of the dead woman bobs up to the surface right in front of me, a silver swan swimming by her head, and as I twist away, in the sluggish stream of blood, I fall and hit something hard.
A howl escapes me, my heart thrashing about in my chest—but I’m not in the stream anymore.
I’m lying on something solid: a floor.
A carpet, in fact, its short bristles tickling my fingers.
Dry. No blood.
No body. No Ross.
I lie there, stunned, waiting for my limbs to stop shaking and my churning stomach to settle, and all I can think of is What The Fuck?
Where’s Cos? I struggle back up on the couch. My back twinges where I hit the floor, even cushioned by the carpet. Where the hell am I?
Oh right, I forgot. She’s not here. She went to pick her things up from Springfield, and I stayed because it’s Cole’s birthday, and he’s sick with a fever. He wanted me here, and Cos insisted I stay.
In fact, I’m lying on Matt and Tati’s couch right now, which explains the unfamiliar surroundings. Though I’m here quite often, playing with the kids, I’ve rarely if ever stayed the night.
What the hell is Ross doing in my dream? Has he been there before?
Somehow I think he has. But he never participated. He stood in the periphery, watching. Holy hell, that’s fucking creepy.
Then again, Ross has always been a creep. That asshole.
I rub my hands over my face. He’s a real asshole, no kidding, a bully and a fucknut, but I should call him.
How else am I going to solve this?
How do you solve a dream riddle?
This is nuts but… it does feel like one. A mystery. And Gigi isn’t telling me something, and I need to know what it is. I need to—
“Uncle Merc!” Cole shrieks, almost giving me a goddamn heart attack, tearing into the living room like a miniature hurricane. “Uncle Merc!”
I sit up so suddenly the room spins. “What is it? What happened?”
“Wanna play?”
Holy fuck. “Scare me to death, why don’t you, you little shit.”
“Language, Uncle Merc,” Cole scolds me, sounding just like his sister, and his mother.
Good thing he can’t hear my thoughts.
“Language? Language? Watch out, my arch-enemy, I am coming for you!” I lunge at him, grab him around the waist and tickle him until he’s rolling on the floor screaming with laughter. “Now what do you say, huh, huh?”
“I surrender!” he squeals. “Please!”
“Please what? Say the magic word. Say it, or I’ll—”
“Pizza! Pizza!”
“Ah.” I let him go. “You’re saved.” And yeah, that’s our secret password. This is how we roll, Cole and I. “Hey, weren’t you super sick? What are you doing up and about? Isn’t it early?”
As in dawn-hasn’t-yet-broken early.
“Mom says my fever broke. So I can play. Let’s play Minecraft!”
“Sure, buddy.” I groan getting up, my muscles stiff. “Let’s go.”
It sure beats sitting in a corner and rocking, trying to hide from the nightmares inside my own head.
“Lin says hi!” Cos says, her pretty face filling up my phone screen. I can’t stop looking at her.
Damn, I knew I’d miss her the moment she walked out the door.
A pretty girl with dirty blond hair gets in front of Cosie on the screen and waves. She has a sweet smile. “Hi, Merc!”
Sweet smile or not, she’s hiding my view of Cos, goddammit.
“Hi, Lin…” I should ask her how she is, tell her I heard a lot about her, tease her about keeping Cos hostage, but to my shock what comes out is, “Tell Cos to hurry up and come back home. It’s not the same without her.”
Fuck… I have zero control over my brain-mouth connection today, it seems.
But Lin only smiles wider.
“Aw, that’s sweet,” she croons, and thankfully moves away so I can see my CosieCat again.
It’s not sweet. It’s the goddamn truth.
“When are you coming back?” I ask and bite the inside of my cheek not to beg her to come back today, now. “I mean, are you all packed and ready?”
“Almost. I’m thinking tomorrow, probably.”
Thinking. Tomorrow. Almost.
I bury my hand in my hair and pull, swallowing a groan. “Awesome.”
“Are you all right?” She leans in closer.
And ah fuck, last thing I wanted was to worry her. “Yeah, absolutely. I’m still here, with Cole and the family. I’ll head back home later.”
“You’re tired, Mercury.”
“Oh no. I’m just in retrograde.”
That wins a laugh out of her, but then she sighs. “You’re not sleeping, are you?”
How to put this… “I slept okay. Not as bad as on some other nights.” It’s close enough to the truth to pass muster.
Because some nights are just fucked up. Compared to them, last night was a joyride.
Right.
“Merc…” There’s a shuffle I hear over the phone, and the picture shifts—then it’s Cos looking straight at me, her pretty face serious. “Did you have any more nightmares?”
Damn my inability to lie. “Yeah.”
She chews on her lip, and I groan, needing to kiss her so badly I can almost taste it. “Do you need me to come back sooner? I’ll find a way.”
I look away to hide the suspicious burn in my eyes. Guys don’t cry, dammit, especially not over small acts of kindness from their girl. “Nah, I’ll be fine. I swear.” I get myself under control, make myself not beg her to come back today anyway, and say, “Take your time to see your friend.”
“I can see her another time.” She pauses. “You look like hell.”
“Thank you, babe. Your compliments will get me through the day.”
“Merc.” She snickers, then sobers again. “I’m serious.”
But it’s easier to tease and distract than talk about the dreams. “It’s the lighting in here. And Cole ambushed me at the crack of dawn to play Minecraft. Being an uncle is hard work.”
“Imagine if you had kids of your own.”
“I can imagine it easily. I’d love to have kids.”
She opens her mouth, then frowns. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Never had any doubts about that. I love my family. I love kids. “Don’t you?”
She sighs as she sits down on a bed, gives me a tentative smile. “I never thought much about it.”
“I was waiting for the right girl,” I tell her. “And now she’s here.”
Even with the jumpy phone camera image, I see her blush. “Merc, I’m not…” She brushes her hand over her mouth, and damn, I’m getting hard looking at her. “I never thought…”
“I don’t mean right now,” I rush to say. “Or ever. If you don’t want. Shit, this came out all wrong.”
“It’s not that,” she says, her smile breaking out again, like the moon peeking through clouds. “I mean, that’s the weird thing. I never thought about it… until I met you.”
I stare at her. My nightmares fade as her words sink in. “Girl…”
“I got to go,” she says, and disconnects.
A smile linge
rs on my face, her words replaying in my mind, as I scrape the beard off my face, my hand barely shaking. It’s as if talking to her has steadied me, steadied my rocking world.
Until I met you.
I’m still smiling when Gigi arrives after breakfast together with Jarett, even though Max fussed and wailed all the way through breakfast, his wailing like a hammer driving rusty nails into my aching head.
“Merc.” Gigi makes a beeline for me. “We need to talk.”
I groan and sit down on the sofa. I’m wearing my jeans and nothing else. Haven’t had the energy to shower and dress yet, and I sure don’t have the energy for verbal sparring.
Then again, I said I’d get to the bottom of his mystery, right? The Nightmare Mystery.
Has a ring to it. Fuck, I’m tired if I find this funny.
“Merc?” Gigi waves a hand in front of my face. “Anyone in?”
“Just leave a message after the beep,” I mutter.
She laughs, sits down beside me and we both look at where Jarett is lifting Max into the air so he can pretend to be a plane. My sis has a weird, dreamy expression on her face.
Hm… Maybe Cos and me weren’t the only ones talking about kids these days?
“How are you?” she asks, turning back to me, flicking her long hair over one shoulder and toying with the ends. “How’s Cosima?”
“Good. I…” I hesitate. “I asked her to move in with me.”
But Gigi only beams at me. “Aw, that’s great. That means you guys are getting along great.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“You’re not excited?”
“I am. I’m just—”
“—tired.” Gigi frowns. “That’s why we need to talk. Cosima called me.”
“She what?” My wandering attention snaps back into focus. “What about? Is she okay?”
“Yes, she’s fine. Worried about you.”
“Goddammit. I’m fine.” I get up from the sofa, not even sure where I wanna go, or try to. But black dots crowd in my vision, my balance wavers, and I sit back down hard.
Shit. My face feels hot and cold. The room spins.
“Merc? You’re—”
I lift a hand. “Said I’m fine. Just a bad night.”
But a hush has fallen on the room. From the corner of my eye I see Jarett pass the baby to Octavia, see them nod at each other. Mary and Cole are staring at us in a sea of scattered toys, eyes wide. Octavia herds them out of the room, and they obey without a word of protest.
That alone, in itself, is worrisome.
I turn to my other sister. “Gigi—”
“This can’t go on anymore, little brother,” she says quietly, and to my shock, her eyes are red and shiny with unshed tears. “You’re falling apart. We need to talk about this.”
“About what exactly?”
“The nightmares, and what happened so many years ago.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say stubbornly, even as the room spins in lazy circles.
“Oh, come on, Merc! I kept your secret for so long. It’s bad for me, and worse for you. It’s time to talk about what happened that night.”
I swear I’m gonna throw up. “Gigi…”
“What secret?” Octavia whispers, sitting down across from us. “What are you talking about?”
“That night Merc went missing,” Gigi hisses. “Don’t act so surprised. God!”
“But you found me,” I protest.
“It was dawn by the time I found you. You insisted nothing had happened to you, and I believed you. I wanted to believe you, even though you were covered in blood. And then the dreams started.”
“Blood?” Octavia has gone white as a sheet.
I’m shaking my head as if it can stop this train wreck. “Gigi…”
Jarett comes around to sit beside Gigi and put his arm around her. “I didn’t know about this.”
“He made me promise not to tell he’d been gone all night. I never even told Mom or Octavia about it for years.” She looks at me, her gaze raw and wounded, going through me like a bullet. Tears glitter on her cheeks. “It wasn’t just the promise, you see. I felt so guilty for losing you. I walked all over Destiny that night, crying and looking for you. I was terrified that you were gone forever.”
“You were a little kid. I was four. You were five. You shouldn’t have been expected to be responsible for me.”
“But I was.” She shakes her head. “When I found you, you were all wet and muddy, and your arm was covered in blood. You said you fell and cut yourself on a rock. At first I believed you. I thought that was all there was, but it wasn’t, was it?”
“Dammit, Ginger. Goddammit.” I pull on my hair until I’m sure I’m taking out chunks. “I don’t remember what happened.”
“You must.” She leans against Jarett, wipes at her cheeks. “Try, Merc.”
“Fuck. I can’t fucking remember. You think I’m lying?” I hunch over, close my eyes.
Why the hell did I think I could do this without Cos?
“Your dreams,” she says. “If you suppressed those memories, your dreams must be the key.”
Memories.
No fucking way. I don’t wanna know.
My reaction makes no sense. I can’t remember what happened that night of my childhood, and yet I’m sure I’d rather not know.
“You have scars from that night,” Gigi says. “On your arm and hand you had cuts, shallow and bleeding a little. You were covered in mud. Said something about the river and a temple.”
“The Pagoda,” Octavia whispers. “That why you asked me about it the other day?
“You’re remembering things,” Gigi says, straightening. “I knew it.”
“I’m not, okay? That’s…”
“From a dream?” She’s still giving me that wounded look, and I gape at her.
Oh fuck. It’s true, isn’t it? I can’t hide from it any longer.
“Tell us what you dream about,” Octavia says in her Mom-voice, the one she used when we were kids to get us to make our beds or gather our toys. “You dream of the Pagoda and Little River. What else?”
I see them in my mind’s eye. The temple. The water, running red with blood.
The pain behind my eye spikes. “I’m… not sure. I see a body in the mud.”
“A body?” Jarett’s voice is sharp. “Are we talking a dead body?”
“Yeah. I mean, I think so? So pale.” My stomach twists in revolt. “Blood. A lot of it. An ax.”
“An ax? Like your ink?” Gigi asks. “So you were remembering all this time. It can’t be a coincidence you got that tattoo.”
“No, that’s from a book. I…”
“Seriously. What book?”
I don’t even bother to tell her I don’t remember. Because that’s bullshit. There’s no book. And I barely remember getting the tat. One morning, waking up with an image of that ax stuck in my mind, I got off my ass and went and had it inked on my skin.
Because in my dream, the ax was… it was…
Sourness fills my mouth. I get to my feet, swaying a little. “Excuse me.”
Stumbling across the living room, I make my zigzagging way to the bathroom, hearing my name being called behind me and ignoring it.
I barely make it to the toilet. Everything I’ve eaten today—hell, this past week—comes back up. The acid burns my throat, my mouth, making my eyes water. I heave until my stomach is empty and my body drenched in sweat.
“Merc.” Gigi is standing at the door.
“Gimme a minute,” I croak.
“We’ll be in the living room.”
I say nothing, and her steps move away. Bent over the toilet, my pulse ricocheting inside my skull like a lead ball, I think about getting up, returning to the living room and dissecting my nightmares with my siblings.
No way. Not today.
Wiping a hand over my mouth, I get up, run water in the sink, wash my mouth, my face, stare at my bleary-eyed reflection.
Fuck this.
“I can’t,” I tell them, and I hope they can hear the truth in my voice. “Not today. I’m beat. I’ll go home, sleep, and then I’ll talk about this. Okay? Ginger.” I shake my head when Gigi starts saying I need to stay. “I need to sleep. And I think… I need to call Ross.”
“Ross? Why?” Gigi frowns, turns to Octavia. “What did you tell him?”
“I told you before, nothing,” she says. “Well, apart from my dream.”
“What dream?” Jarett asks.
“About him and Ross.”
“And you told just about everyone about that except me?” Gigi cries out dramatically.
“Only Matt. And Merc.” Octavia juts her chin out, ready for battle.
See? I don’t have energy for this today.
I clear my throat, hoping to defuse the situation. “Look, guys, we’ll talk tomorrow. I promise.”
“Will you?” Gigi shoots me an accusing look. “I’ve been trying and trying to get you to talk—”
“Yes, I will. I want to stop the fucking nightmares more than you do. And if any of this is real, any part of that dream… I need to know.”
To know who that dead woman was. Who killed her. Who the bogeyman is.
“I’ll drive you home,” Jarett says, and I nod. I’m too wiped out to drive, anyway.
“Lead the way,” I mutter, kinda horrified when I slur the words.
I guess ‘wiped’ is an understatement. Grabbing my jacket from the hook at the entrance, I slip out of the house following Jarett, and don’t even think of saying goodbye.
Jarett’s old blue Nissan Versa rolls smoothly, more smoothly than you’d expect from a car almost as old as me. Then again, Jarett’s a decent mechanic, even if he doesn’t work at Matt’s garage anymore, so not that strange after all.
What’s strange is that he’s helping me escape from my well-meaning family, and I’m letting him. That once upon a time I told my sister not to date him, to keep away from him, and now he’s like a brother to me.
