“Dad …,” I began, trying to ease his grip on me and reassure him I wasn’t going to go running off, but he squeezed harder, wringing a droplet of sound from me at the pain. “I can’t promise,” I whispered. “You don’t understand. My mom …”
“I told you, Nerissa is going to be all right for a little while longer,” Archie said. “Stay with me, let me show you the ropes, make it so you don’t end up like you did in Lovecraft. Let me help you, Aoife. Stay here for a month or so and promise me you won’t go to the Brotherhood, and then I’ll do what I can about Nerissa, all right?”
“I can’t …,” I started. My mother didn’t have that kind of time, no matter what he said. I couldn’t waste a month learning whatever it was Archie wanted to teach me. If the Brotherhood had actual answers, I had to seek them out, no matter what they thought of my father or he of them.
“Promise me,” my father ground out. Pain flared in my fingers.
“I promise!” I cried, because I could tell by his expression I wasn’t going to change his mind.
I didn’t change my own mind, either, though.
My mother didn’t have a month.
Crunching footsteps over the icy grass made my father finally let go of me, putting his hand back in his lap, and when Dean rounded the corner, Archie looked like himself again. I breathed a sigh of relief, glad it was Dean and not Conrad or Valentina.
“Hey there, Aoife,” Dean said. “Mr. Grayson.” He was smoking the very end of a Lucky Strike, which he stamped out under his steel-toed boot. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” I said, jumping up. “We were just finishing our talk.” Honestly, I didn’t think that talk would ever be finished. The revelation that the Brotherhood might blame me for what had happened, might actually refuse to help, was almost more worrying than thinking about my mother’s fate.
Archie stayed where he was, smoking and running his other hand absently up and down his temple, his index finger leaving a small red mark. He didn’t look strong and self-assured just then, more small and lost, like I felt a great deal of the time. I wanted to do something to make him feel better, but I knew from my own bleak moods there was nothing for it except time.
Before I could say anything else, Dean laced his fingers with mine and was leading me away. The motion aggravated my already sore hand, and I jerked loose without thinking.
“Whoa,” Dean said as we rounded the corner of the porch. “You hurt? Did he hurt you?” Quick as a cloud scudding across the moon, darkness dropped into his eyes. “I’ll beat his hide so hard your granddad feels it.”
“Dean,” I said as he started back toward Archie, realizing what he’d read into the situation. “He didn’t do anything.”
Dean looked down at me, his nostrils flaring and his lips parted so I could see his teeth. In that moment he looked more Erlkin than human, and I took a step back. “You’ve been quiet and glum since we got here, and now I see you looking tore up. Is he—”
“No!” I shouted. “Stones, no. He’s my father, Dean. He’s not hurting me.” The very idea that Archie would be physically abusing me was sort of laughable. To me. But Dean’s life had been very different, and I knew he was just trying to look out for me.
Dean settled back inside his leather jacket, like a predator retreating back into its cave. “Well, okay. Why are you so gloomy, then?” He brushed his thumb down my cheek. “I miss you, princess. I miss your spark.”
I didn’t speak, just leaned in and wrapped my arms around his torso under his jacket. I loved the feel of his ribs under my fingers, the warmth of his skin through his shirt. I put my cheek against his cotton-wrapped chest and let out a breath for what felt like the first time since the Munin had touched down.
“I miss you too” was all I said. All my anger at the Brotherhood and all the worry about my father deflated, and I felt exhausted.
Dean pressed his lips to the top of my head. “Is it that bad?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “We’re stuck here. And everyone in the world wants my head on a spike.”
“They can’t all,” Dean said. “Though it is a very pretty head.”
I laughed, even though it felt like swallowing a mouthful of ash. “You’re the only person who thinks so, I guarantee.”
Dean moved his lips to touch mine. “Only one that matters, aren’t I?”
I nodded, and stood on my toes to kiss him in return. After a minute I tilted my head toward the metal hulk of the Munin. “We could be alone in there.”
Dean’s smile came slowly, but it warmed me from the inside out. “I like the way you think, princess.”
“I am the brains of this operation,” I said, and then shoved him lightly and took off across the grass at a run.
“Oh, you are gonna get it when I catch you,” Dean called as I darted away from his grasp, feeling lighthearted for the first time that day. He followed me until we’d climbed the ladder into the Munin, both of us out of breath and shivering from the cold.
Dean snapped his lighter and illuminated our way into the cabin, where he shut the hatch and then turned to me, stripping off his jacket. I sat on the edge of the bunk, feeling the satiny brush of the fine linen on the backs of my legs. Valentina had given me fresh stockings and a garter belt to replace the ones I’d destroyed on the beach, and suddenly I could feel every inch of them against my skin.
I couldn’t leave the Crosley house, I couldn’t fix what was happening outside it, but I could be myself with Dean. Never mind that my hands shook when I gripped Dean’s biceps, his wiry muscles moving under my hands as he lowered me to the mattress, the length of his body pressing against mine. I could feel his weight and smell his smell—cigarettes and leather and woodsmoke. It covered me and pushed away all the helplessness and the choking feeling of being caught in a spiral of events that I had as much control over as an oak leaf over a hurricane.
“I like being this close to you, Dean,” I whispered.
“And I you, princess,” he whispered back. “What do you want to do?”
“Honestly?” I propped myself up, looking into his eyes, and bit my lip.
“Honesty is good,” Dean said.
“I want to take a nap,” I confessed. “I’m exhausted, and that house is so echoing. I can never really drift off.” I was self-conscious all of a sudden. Would he get mad that I didn’t want to just make out until we either got caught or had to go in to supper? Would he go find someone who would, when we left here, if I kept putting him off? “Or we could just go inside,” I rushed. Dean stopped me moving.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t leave.”
“I-I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “I just …”
“Hey, calm down,” Dean said, and I managed to stop my frantic babbling long enough to look into his eyes. As always, the calm gray seas within soothed me. He stroked my hair, pulling me back to his chest so that I could hear his heartbeat. In that moment, I never wanted to move. “So lay yourself down and sleep.” He grinned at me. “How many guys get to sleep next to somebody who looks like you?”
“Just you,” I murmured, eyelids already fluttering now that I knew he wasn’t upset with me.
“Damn right,” Dean said, pulling a blanket over us. “And in my book, that makes me the luckiest guy on this messed-up planet.”
“Good night, Dean,” I whispered. I planted a light kiss on his chest before nestling my head against him. His arms went around me, and I was so warm and calm that I never wanted to get up.
“Good night, princess,” he said softly. “Sweet dreams.”
The figure didn’t seem surprised to see me, and I wasn’t as shocked as I had been in the past to see him.
All the skies were red, bleeding sunsets and throbbing, bruise-colored sunrises. The black things that drifted above were close now, close enough to cast shadows.
I no longer even bothered asking what he wanted from me. I just stood, watching the great gear tick off the heartbeats of this place.
&n
bsp; “You are unhappy,” the figure said.
I shrugged, watching absently as, one by one, the suns winked out, replaced by stars, and listening to the glass bell that made up the figure’s domain vibrate as the great shapes passed back and forth overhead.
“You have regrets,” the figure said. He reached out a hand to me. His robe fell back, and it was a disappointingly common hand, pale but not too pale, as if it had once been a darker shade and had spent a long time in the dark, leaching pigment into the nothing around it. “Please don’t look that way,” he said. “I do like your visits, you know.”
“Unless you can bring back my mother, mend my father’s life and turn the world back to how it was before it got ripped apart,” I told him, “then you’d better get used to this expression on my face.”
The figure withdrew like I’d burned him, hand disappearing into the black miasma of his body. Eyes glittered at me from under his hood. “I shouldn’t,” he said. He looked at the shapes overhead. “But it’s a new day, not an old day. This is a day never before seen by the universe, by any spoke of the wheel.”
“What are you talking about?” I sighed. “I hate your damn riddles.”
“This is the day and the night and the place in between,” the figure told me. “You can see it when you sleep. You cannot cross into it via magic or machine, but you can dream your way into it. Dreams are in every world, Aoife. In everything. Time. Dust. Your blood. The things you can’t remember when you wake.”
“Meaning?” I spread my hands.
“The nightmare clock can find your dreams,” said the figure. “It can weave them and unravel them. It can make your dreams real and allow you to cross not just worlds but time. If you can dream it, the nightmare clock can give you the ability to make it a reality, no matter where or when or how impossible your dream may seem.” He stretched his hand out once more and grabbed mine, and I realized that he was as cold as I knew the airless space outside the glass was. “Aoife,” he whispered. “The nightmare clock can undo what you have done, what plagues your dreams. The nightmare clock can set you free.”
Footsteps woke me, all at once, like breaking the surface of icy water. I sat upright and knocked Dean’s arm off me in the process. He grunted and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Not awake yet,” he muttered.
“I heard something,” I insisted. Before Dean could respond, the hatch swung open and Valentina appeared, aether lantern in hand. The sky had gone dark while we’d been asleep, and the blackness inside the Munin’s cabin was near absolute.
“There’s that mystery solved, then,” Valentina said, lowering the lantern. “We thought you’d been devoured by something.”
“No such luck,” I said sarcastically, trying to cover for my embarrassment at being found here. Valentina looked me up and down, and I could see her eyes pause on my mussed hair. Never mind the fact that Dean was lying next to me.
“Get up,” she said shortly. “Your father is in a mood, and I have a feeling none of us wants to have this conversation.”
Dean got up, grabbing his jacket and pulling it on. “We weren’t doing anything you need to be worried about,” he told Valentina. I nodded vigorous agreement, glad it was mostly dark in the Munin and she couldn’t see that my face was on fire.
“Fine, but I doubt Aoife’s father will believe that,” she told him. She didn’t look angry, but she sure wasn’t happy, mouth compressed into a thin line. She jerked her free hand at me. “Come along, Aoife. Your father is waiting.”
I made sure the buttons on my dress hadn’t come unfastened and the seams on my stockings matched. I slipped my shoes back on and went as far as the hatch, drawing even with Valentina. I knew she was doing me a favor, letting me know she wasn’t going to tell my father how she’d found us, even if we hadn’t been up to anything. I couldn’t help wondering, though, what I was going to have to do in exchange for her silence. “Thanks,” I mumbled. “I swear I wasn’t doing anything.” Not entirely true, but not entirely a lie. Half-truths seemed to be the order of the day.
Valentina sighed. “Aoife, I was sixteen once. Just go find your father. And quickly. He’s terribly worried.”
Worried that I was dead or worried that I wasn’t doing exactly as I was told, even if he hadn’t told me yet? I decided it didn’t matter right now—I’d gotten away with sneaking off, and if Archie wanted to yell and rant at me a bit, I’d take it.
I crossed the lawn back to the main house and found Cal sitting at the table in the sunporch, playing a game of solitaire, his greasy hair falling in his eyes.
“You might want to check a mirror,” I told him. “Before Bethina figures out you aren’t just afraid of bathing and that patchy skin is hiding something.”
Cal looked up and gave me a glare. “Nice mouth. What’s gotten into you?”
“I’ve been summoned by Mr. Grayson,” I told him. “I’m pretty sure he’s going to read me the riot act.”
Cal grimaced. “Yeah, he was stomping around the library a minute ago, before he went out with Valentina to find you. He’s pretty steamed.”
“Of course he is,” I said, feeling the heavy dread of a punishment, a holdover from my days at the Academy. Meals, things like hot water and clean clothes, even our shoes, were taken away sometimes, for the smallest things. I didn’t think Archie was going to switch me, but the residual twinge of fear was still there.
I walked as slowly as I could, following the irregular lamplight to the library. It wasn’t anything like Graystone’s magnificent collection of books, not even close. This was small and cozy, stuffed with the sort of reading material wealthy people like the Crosleys put on display to prove they were educated. The potboilers and cheap romances were probably tucked behind the Proctor-approved classics and the fashionable novels.
“You think you can just run off whenever it suits you?” My father was sitting in one of the twin leather armchairs, the oxblood deep and slick by the glow of the fire in the grate. He was drinking, a bottle half empty and a glass more than that.
“I’m sorry,” I said, figuring contriteness was the first and easiest route to take. My father looked much angrier than Valentina, all the lines in his face deep and stark.
“I told you how dangerous the world is now,” my father said. “And I know you’re not stupid enough to not listen to me about that. So what is it, Aoife? Typical teenage willfulness? Or something else?” He picked up the glass, drained it and slammed it down. “I’ve got enough problems without my daughter sneaking off to canoodle with some useless greaser and letting me think she might be nothing but rags and bones in a ghoul’s nest for hours on end.” He poured and drank, and the glass landed again. Clank. “Maybe if we were a regular family we’d have the luxury of learning boundaries and setting rules. But we don’t, Aoife.” Pour, drink, clank. “Let me make this perfectly clear—disobey me again, go outside these four walls without letting me or Valentina know it, or sneak off with Dean again, and I’ll tan your hide.” He examined the bottle, now within a millimeter of empty, and gave a regretful sigh. “Do we understand each other, child?”
I stayed where I was until he glared at me. “Something you want to add?”
I chewed my lip for a moment and then decided he couldn’t get any angrier if I just asked. “Do you know anything about the … something called the nightmare clock?” I said softly.
Archie stopped moving, glass halfway to his mouth. “Where did you hear that?” he asked, in the same soft tone I’d used.
“It’s not important,” I said quickly, seeing his alarm. At the same time, though, his alarm told me this was real, or that I wasn’t the only person who’d had the dream. Not the only one the dream figure had talked to, not the only one to visit the strange room. With my father’s reaction, I couldn’t write the bleak figure off as a product of iron poisoning, the human world making the Fae blood in me boil with insanity. The dreams were more than my own fancies. The figure’s words echoed in my head. Set you free. A device I coul
d use to cross not just space but time—one that would set me free. I could return to the moment when I’d destroyed the Engine. I could stop that Aoife from listening to Tremaine’s lies.
I could go further and make a reality my oldest dream, awake or asleep—that my father had never left us. That he, Nerissa, Conrad and I were a family, together.
“Well, I never heard of such a curious phrase,” Archie said, and tossed back the last of his drink. “No idea what you’re talking about. Sounds like some story in a cheap magazine.”
That was one way Archie and I weren’t alike, I realized. He was a terrible liar. He couldn’t even look at me, and fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat, as if a colony of ants had taken up residence under his shirt.
“All right,” I said. “I suppose I’ll say goodnight, then.” I started to walk out, then stopped and looked back. “And I am sorry. For going off like that and worrying you.”
I sped out of the room before Archie could reply. His lie had told me a lot.
He had heard of the nightmare clock. And what my father knew about it scared him enough to make him lie to me about it. If he knew, someone else knew. Someone who might be willing to tell me the whole story, explain the cryptic riddles of my dream figure.
His knowing about the clock also meant that I’d been right: the dreams, the black figure and the endless skies, the great gear, all of it—they were at least partly real.
I felt a swell of happiness in my chest like a soap bubble, fragile but there. As I climbed the stairs to my room, my thoughts were racing. The nightmare clock could set me free—if the dream figure was telling the truth. Could I use it to undo what I’d done in Lovecraft? I had to think so. Otherwise it was just another dead end, another dashed hope. It was like a Gate, but with the power to move time and events already set. That, I could use. That would set me free, free of everything I’d let Tremaine make me do.
While I got ready for bed and crawled under my blankets, I decided I needed to find out, and fast—because if I had a chance to set everything right, I was taking it, no matter what.
The Nightmare Garden ic-2 Page 18
