Then the mist came, quenching the heat and blotting out the fierce and glaring sun. When the first tendrils lapped at her toes, Wendy's arm itched and burned; confused, she glanced down at the four open slashes, surprised that she had brought her real-world injury into the dream with her. When tiny white maggots began squirming from the gaping holes she knew the White Lady was near.
“That doesn't scare me anymore,” she called, pitching her voice as loud as she could. “It's gross but it's not like it's real or anything. And besides, I thought you were done with stupid shit like this. It was too juvenile for you or something?”
“Isn't it?” The White Lady's boat drifted out of the mist, mooring itself in the usual place. It took several minutes for the White Lady to struggle out of her small skiff, her movements stiff and slow. The past months had not been kind; her robes were ragged now, worn through with large, moth-eaten holes that allowed nauseating glimpses of the extent of the rot. Where she stepped on the sand black puddles like oil slicks formed, sticky dribbling ichor that sank slowly into the earth and emitted puffs of scent that smelled like rotten eggs. “You'd be surprised the things that cross over from dreams into the real world.”
“You're falling apart,” Wendy noted, stepping away from the White Lady and shifting so she was upwind. “What the hell is happening to you?”
“One of the mysteries of life…or death,” the White Lady replied, coughing so that Wendy could see the bellows of her lungs fight to squeeze in and out. “Death for the dead, Lightbringer. It comes to us all.”
“Not like that, it doesn't,” Wendy protested. “I should know. Not that I'm complaining. I wouldn't care if you rotted down to dust after all the crap you've been putting me through.”
“You'll care,” the White Lady said. “One day you'll die and you'll see.”
“You know,” remarked Wendy, keeping her distance, “for a crazy lady, this talk's been awfully sane so far. Find a good dead psychiatrist? Freud himself, perhaps?”
The White Lady shrugged. “Eh, it comes and goes with the strength of the decay. As I said before, just wait. One day you'll see.” She clapped her hands. “But enough chit-chat, I don't have time to fuss with your nonsense today. I'm here to talk about our truce.”
“You mean the truce I told you to ram up your ass? The truce we agreed wasn't going to happen? Open war and all that?” Flicking her wrist until her wounds were free of squirming bugs, Wendy crossed her arms across her chest and leaned against the bow of the boat. It was like leaning against a clammy wall, and black slime from the hull worked its way down her back. Wendy grimaced and straightened, annoyed that everything even remotely surrounding the White Lady had to be so unbelievably foul. “Real or not, ugh, this is so disgusting.”
“Yes, that truce. Though perhaps calling it a trade now might be more to the point.” She coughed again, a horrid rattling sound that hurt Wendy's ears.
“A trade?” Wendy rolled her eyes. “Right, sure. I'm listening.”
“I've got something you want, Lightbringer. You've got something I want. So we trade.”
“I sincerely doubt that you have anything I want.” Wendy ran her hand along her shoulder, cleaning off the clinging remains of the muck. “Unless it's a clean towel or maybe a shower.”
“A shower can certainly be arranged as a gesture of goodwill,” the White Lady said and snapped her fingers. “I always like to clean up before beginning negotiations.”
Above the beach, forked lightning flashed and thunder boomed, nearly atop them. A two second beat passed and then rain pounded from the sky, soaking Wendy to the skin almost instantly and obliterating the chilly mist within seconds. Though the foul White Lady had called the rain, the water was clear and cold and wonderfully cleansing, raising huge gooseflesh across every inch of skin. The slime washed away within seconds and the itching eased shortly after.
“Yeah, I guess that works!” Wendy shouted over the downpour, the drumming rain filling the world with noise. She hunched over and rapidly rubbed her hands over her slick arms, seeking friction-warmth.
“I haven't many tricks left,” the White Lady said, her voice pitched low but still reaching Wendy's ears, “but the ones I have are powerful.”
“I can see that.” Wendy straightened, determined to not show the White Lady that the chill was getting to her. “Want to turn off the waterworks now?”
“If you like,” came the negligent reply, and just as suddenly as the rain arrived, it was gone. Clouds dashed across the sky, revealing the hot afternoon sun once more, and rainbows glinted all around the beach, reflecting every direction she looked.
“I've got to learn how to do that,” Wendy mused. “Is that trick super handy or what?”
“Dreams are not the absolute realms of the Lightbringers,” the White Lady said, reclining on the damp sand and drawing her moth-eaten shift carefully across her legs, “but they can learn a trick or two. Prophecy, a nice neutral zone for a talk, a little spying, or even a bit of glamour; your kind can become quite adept here if they need to be.”
“You say that like you've met people like me before.” Now that she was clean and no longer revolted by the way the dreamscape bent in horrifying ways when the White Lady was near, Wendy was back on her guard.
“I told you that I've been watching for a long time,” the White Lady said, irritated. Where the hood slipped back Wendy could see long strips of essence that had been sewn together with wide, thick-stitched loops of thread. Where the strips tapered off, darker patches of skin had been carefully set with a crosshatch stitch. Examining these marks, Wendy realized that they had to have once been tattoos, but were now too badly marred to make out.
Her fingers brushed her own collarbone tats. Would the same happen to her designs when she passed over? The White Lady noticed the gesture. “Protective ink only takes you so far in the Never.”
“It's worked pretty well so far.”
“That's because a Walker is the worst thing you've come across. There are much, much worse things out there. Things that don't even blink at your ink.”
“Yawn. Bored. Is there a point to all this?”
“My point is that your mother didn't train you well enough. In fact, she hardly trained you at all. Letting you reap only Shades for years? Until her little accident, your mother had you only reap one ghost. One. So why do you think you are coming to this talk from any sort of position of power?”
“I'm strong enough to tell you to go to hell. And I go through your Walkers easily enough. Or did you forget all that begging you were doing on their behalf earlier?”
“So you can reap a few Walkers. Yippee. I'm much worse than a Walker and I know that, for all your bluster, you've figured that out by now. And there are beings far, far scarier than I am wandering the Never.” She held up her rotting horror of a hand so that the light filtered through it, casting a holey shadow on the sand. “Did I ever tell you that I knew your mother? In the living world? I knew what she was.”
“Shut up,” Wendy whispered through lips gone numb from shock. “That's impossible and I don't have to listen to this bullshit.”
“It's not bullshit if it's true.” The White Lady clenched her fist, skin flaking down. “And you? You are really starting to irritate me, Wendy.”
“Good!” Wendy snapped. “Anything that gets your panties in a twist is fabulous!”
“Stupid, idiot child,” the White Lady snapped. “Normally the ones like you, the Lightbringers, are sent on their first dream-walk at seventeen. But your mother was gone by then, wasn't she? She never even bothered to tell you that you woke too early. Just thirteen,” she sneered. “It's a miracle you didn't go insane from the shock.”
Shoving against the sand for support, Wendy started to rise. The White Lady waved a hand. Hard pressure pressed against the tops of Wendy's shoulders and she toppled back down, her tongue ring popping smartly against the back of her teeth when she hit the ground.
“I said, sit down.”
&n
bsp; Pressing her hand to her mouth, Wendy drew back fingers dark with blood. The sudden jolt had ripped the hole in her tongue wider open. It would heal by tomorrow but until then her mouth would be filled with the copper-rust-salt taste of her own blood. Wendy leaned to the side and spat a wad of bright red that sank into the sand. “Haw doh yah now all thish?”
“Oh for god's sake,” the White Lady groaned, exasperated. “You just had to get a tongue ring, didn't you?” She crawled to Wendy's side and grabbed Wendy by the face. Wendy tried to struggle but the White Lady, rotting apart or not, was still far stronger in this dream realm than Wendy could ever be. Her long and bony fingers, the last flaps of skin flaking apart at the knuckles, forced past Wendy's teeth.
Then the White Lady grabbed for the barbell and ripped it out.
Shrieking in pain, Wendy gripped the White Lady's wrists and tried to force the filthy hand away from her face. It was like trying to push a brick wall.
“Stop struggling,” the White Lady snapped and pinched the tip of Wendy's tongue. Immediately an icy chill filled her mouth, so cold her teeth ached and the molars with silver fillings began to protest the sharp shooting pain.
“To answer your question,” she said, fingers probing the wet, open meat of Wendy's wounded tongue, “I just know. Do you think I was always like this? Falling apart, piece by piece? I told you that Lightbringers were a hobby of mine. I watched your mother call Walkers from three miles away. I knelt at the knee of your grandmother in these dream realms, learning how to manipulate the ether. Compared to the likes of them you are alone, a toddler wandering in the woods. You know nothing of what your kind can do.” She released Wendy's tongue and crawled back, wiping her hands against her shift. “That should do it. I know that you won't say thank you, so you're welcome.”
A gritty taste like rotten milk and salt permeated her mouth. Wendy staggered to the shoreline and scooped up dipperfuls of saltwater in her hands. It tasted fishy and rank but was better than the texture and taste of the White Lady that lingered foully through several rounds of rinsing and spitting.
“You bitch,” Wendy gasped, spitting out the last mouthful of gritty, salty beach water. Tender probing of her mouth revealed that her tongue had closed up and the blood had ceased its sluggish flow. “You ripped out my ring!”
The White Lady, ignoring Wendy's outrage, held the hood close to her face and tipped her face to the sky, gauging the sun. “We're almost out of time. I must conclude my business.”
“What business is that? Being a crazy bitch?”
“Our trade. Will you meet with me in the Never or not?”
“You've got nothing I want.” Wendy turned her face away, running the tip of her tongue along the back of her teeth. Her entire mouth felt swollen and sore, tingly in all the wrong places. She just wanted this obnoxious dream to end.
“Oh really?” The whisper of her cloak was all the warning Wendy got as the White Lady snuck up behind her and grabbed Wendy by the back of her neck. “Does this look familiar to you?” She shoved an object in Wendy's face. At first Wendy couldn't make out what it was but then she gasped, both confused and furious. It was Eddie's phone.
“What the hell is this? Is this some sort of dream trick?” Then she laughed. “What the hell am I talking about? Eddie's alive. He's fine. You can't touch him.”
“Oh, the things you don't know about your own power or mine,” the White Lady sneered, throwing Eddie's phone into the surf where it sank beneath the surface with a quiet plop. “I was quite surprised when my spy reported in last night. Despite how badly you were wounded, you simply bandaged your arm and didn't think twice about it, did you? Even after what I told you at that decrepit old house. It didn't matter what your memories told you; you brushed off my words just because they came from me.”
“Last time…”
“I can't touch your friend Edward? Oh really? If I can't touch your dear Eddie, how could my Walkers have harmed you? You're alive, after all.”
“But when I'm like that…I'm not exactly alive,” Wendy protested. “I'm in between.”
“Even in between, it shouldn't hurt your physical body as deeply as it did,” the White Lady chuckled. “Poor, poor lost child. So very ignorant, even after I warned you, even after I damn near handed you the answer at that house. Some spirits can reach into the living world, Lightbringer. Some spirits can interact with the living. The Rider does. My Walkers did.”
“When I find my mom—”
“Enough of this. Your precious mother? She's with me,” the White Lady snapped.
“No.” Wendy shook her head. “No-no-no.”
“I warned you what would happen if you mucked around with my plans and my people, didn't I? And I always keep my promises. Always.” Her hand on the back of Wendy's neck clenched tighter, bone tips digging in. “I finally caught her last night. Trapped her not four blocks from your school. While you were busy with him.” She waved something in front of Wendy's face. It took her several long seconds to comprehend what her eyes were showing her and when she did, it was the most horrible thing she'd ever seen in her life.
A flap of essence with tribal tattoos carved into it; ink that matched Wendy's own.
“No!” Wendy shrieked and struggled in her grip but the White Lady was impossibly strong. Raising Wendy high, the White Lady shook her by the back of her neck like a kitten until all the fight drained away. Wendy hung loosely, weeping silent tears.
“There's still a way to get your mother and your boy Eddie back,” the White Lady said, her voice dim and quiet behind the ringing in Wendy's head. “I'll even show you how.”
“You're lying,” Wendy whispered. “You always lie.”
“I'm not,” she replied. “I want your mother back in the land of the living almost as much as you do. Think I want a Lightbringer walking around the Never? Even dead, your kind is a bother. If you knew even half of what your mother knows you'd be like a dangerous wolf loose among the sheep. I can't have your mother here. So I'm sending her back…if you help me. If you agree to my trade.”
“Fine,” Wendy whispered. “Anything. What do you want?”
“Bring the boy,” the White Lady said. “Piotr. Tomorrow night at the park. You know the one. Around midnight. I'll take care of binding him, just bring him. Alone, if you please.”
“What are you going to do to him?”
“Do?” The White Lady threw her head back and laughed. “What do you think I'm going to do? Serve him tea and cakes, of course. Impress him with how my watercolors have improved. Maybe take in a show.” She shook Wendy again, lightly this time, and Wendy moaned. “It doesn't matter what I'm going to do. If you ever want to see Eddie's soul again, or see your mother out of that bed, you'll do as I say. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” the White Lady snapped, dropping Wendy to the ground in a tangle of limbs. “Now wake up.” She reached down and before Wendy could react, the flat of her palm cracked against Wendy's cheek, snapping her head to the side.
Wendy awoke on the floor with a stinging cheek and damp, fishy-smelling hair. The sun had just breached the top of the trees and down the hall Chel's alarm blared to life. Running her tongue along her upper teeth, Wendy winced at the sudden and unexpected pain.
Her tongue had closed up; the barbell was gone.
Eddie didn't answer his phone. It rang and rang and the fifteenth time it went to voicemail Wendy screamed, flinging her own phone at her vanity where it smashed corner-first into the mirror. The phone, thin to begin with, snapped in two. The mirror shattered into a thousand slivers of glass.
“Wendy?” Jon tapped on her door. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Wendy sobbed, sinking to the floor and burying her face in her hands. “I'm not.”
The door creaked open and Jon poked his head inside. Jabber hissed at the sight of him and slunk beneath the bed, tail puffy and back arched. “Wanna talk about it?”
Scrubbing the heels of her hands against
her eyes, Wendy wiped her frustrated tears away. “I can't get a hold of Eddie,” she said by way of explanation, though Eddie's absence wasn't the only concern preying on her mind. “I've been trying for hours.”
“So you threw your phone? Crazy much?” Jon crossed the room, picking his way carefully over the splintered shards of glass, and settled beside her on the bed. “Maybe he forgot to charge his cell. Or maybe his mom made him turn it off. You know what a big control freak she is.”
“He's super anal about charging his phone,” Wendy said, shaking her head. “And his mom wouldn't be weird about Eddie getting calls over the holidays, especially around her family. Appearances mean a lot to her.”
“Maybe,” conceded Jon. “So what's all this about? Did you guys get in another fight?”
“No, it's nothing like that.” Wendy swallowed thickly. “I had this nasty dream. Something was wrong with Eddie in it so I just…I just have a bad feeling, okay?”
Jon whistled. “That must have been one heck of a dream.”
Wendy couldn't help but laugh. “Yeah, it really was.”
“Well, I know this probably isn't the time, but Chel and I were hoping to go see Mom today. Nana said this is probably our last Christmas, you know?”
“The insurance is about to run out,” Wendy murmured. “Right, I almost forgot.” It was just one more terrible thing to add to the list of never-ending crap. If their mother didn't wake up soon there was a chance Dad would have to decide whether to keep her on life support…or pull the plug. If she could rescue her mom from the White Lady, it would be a decision he'd never have to make.
Stretching, Jon used the edge of Wendy's bed to rise to his feet. “I know you're worried about Eddie, but do you think you could chill out for an hour or two and drop us off? Dad gave us permission to use the car if we're visiting Mom.”
“Let me guess: Chel wants to go to Milpitas afterwards and swing by the mall?” Wendy struggled to keep from sneering but failed. Emotionally she was wrung dry and too edgy to be fair about her sister's foibles. “Maybe catch a movie with her buds or do some last minute ‘holiday shopping’?”
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