There Will Be Lies

by Nick Lake

  He shakes his head. Some Crone magic, he says. We should be careful. I sense a trap.

  I ignore him and approach the cage. It is building-size, and it stretches as far as a building too. It’s been built around the few trees in the clearing, so that there are trees inside it, like a monkey exhibit in a zoo. As I get closer, the child stops crying and looks up at me, its huge damp eyes riveting mine. The crying that’s coming from far away also stops, so there is only the sighing of wind in the trees.

  The child is sitting on the grass in the middle of the cage, clutching something to its chest. I can’t quite see what it’s holding but there is an impression of fur—gray fur. A squirrel? When I’m standing right by the cage, the child—it’s a girl, I see—stands and toddles toward me, but stops short of the wire and holds out her hands, as if to be picked up, as if to be held. The gray squirrel is still—

  No. Not a squirrel.

  The ears are too long.

  And it isn’t fur, not real fur anyway. It’s plush. A plush bunny.

  It’s like there’s a heavy magnet in my stomach, and the girl is crackling with electricity, like I have to meet those hands and pull her up and into my arms.

  I reach out my hand to the wire, wanting to test it, to see if I can pull it apart, but Mark grabs my arm.

  What are you doing? he says.

  What?

  That’s iron, he says. We can’t touch it.

  But it’s so delicate! I say. The iron cage is like filigree, and red with rust—a soft punch would break it open.

  It’s iron, says Mark again. Those of the Dreaming can’t touch it. Apart from the Crone. It is very harmful to us.

  What about me? I ask.

  You are of the Dreaming.

  Yeah, I say. But I’m from my world too. Maybe I can.

  He makes a gesture that isn’t like crossing himself, but it has a similar effect; it conveys a similar meaning, of warding off evil. It could hurt you, he says. Very badly. The way he says this, it’s like that would be bad for him too, and it sets loose wings inside me.

  But I’m looking at the child reaching out her arms toward me, imploring me with her wide-open eyes and it’s just like in my dream, the feeling of need, of powerless need, and I just want to help her, to comfort her.

  What if it is the Child? I say. Didn’t you say we had to rescue her? All this time I don’t take my eyes off hers, and I can feel her willing me to rescue her, eyes boring into me.

  Yes, says Mark. But … there is something wrong here.

  He’s right. I can feel it. Something subtly but all-over wrong, like when you put on a sweater back to front. But at the same time, there’s the child, and her irresistible eyes.

  I have to help her, I say.

  Mark sighs. But the iron—

  I don’t care about the iron, I say.

  I shake him off, he’s stronger than me but he isn’t expecting it, and I reach out for the cage and at the same he is shouting, No! one long syllable of no, but it’s too late because I’ve got the wire gripped in my fingers and I pull, as hard as I can and—

  It bursts outward, bending, and I feel no pain at all as it rips. I seize the edges of the hole and pull it farther open. As I’m doing it, the child is nodding her head in excitement, bobbing up and down on her toes. I bend down and start tearing open the last section of wire and then get down on my knees and lean to her, throw my arms out ready to wrap them around her.

  For the longest moment, though, she doesn’t move. She stands there looking through my head and into my soul, hands by her side. She opens her mouth and speaks, a sing-song voice, speaking a language I don’t understand.

  Mark takes a step forward, raising a hand, but then stops. His face is pale, drawn.

  What is she saying? I ask.

  He hesitates. She’s saying thank you, he says.

  But there is something in the set of his face; he is holding something back, I think.

  What is it? I ask.

  Nothing, he says.

  She’s definitely saying something else. I can see it now in her eyes as she continues to speak, her tone raw with urgency. Gratitude, but also pity.

  What is she saying, Mark?

  She’s saying she would like to free you also, says Mark reluctantly.

  The girl stops speaking and nods. Then she raises her arms again and rushes toward me, through the gap I have made in the wire, and I lift my own hands, ready to throw them around her, to pull her into my embrace, and …

  and …

  and she vanishes, not instantly, but more like a dissolving, like one moment she is there and physical and present and the next moment she is a soft amalgam of shimmering particles, bubbles or shining grains, and then she is gone.

  My momentum tips me over, and I face-plant on the ground, grass pressing into my cheek. I push myself up onto my hands and sit back on my knees, bewildered.

  A trick, says Mark. I told you.

  But there’s something left behind. I reach down and pick it up, feel its warmth in my hands, and I know that the girl was somehow real, or was a projection of something real, because this is the heat of her blood in the object I’m holding.

  It’s the bunny, its fur polished by age and touch, its eyes scratched and worn, its ears flopping. Up to this moment I haven’t wanted to recognize it, but now the dams in my mind can’t hold the truth back any longer.

  Hold out your hand, says Mark.

  I do, showing him the bunny in my left hand.

  No, he says. The other one. The one you tore the cage with.

  I proffer my right hand and he frowns down at it. You are not hurt? he says. By the iron?

  No, I say.

  He looks stunned, but he gathers himself. Meanwhile I am just staring down at the bunny in my hand, I can’t believe it’s here, in the real world, or in the Dreaming anyway, which is not the same as a dream.

  What is that? says Mark.

  It’s a toy rabbit, I say. I … I’ve seen it before.

  What, here? In the Dreaming?

  No, I say. In a dream. A nightmare, I guess. I’ve had it ever since I can remember.

  What kind of a dream?

  There’s a hospital, I say. And a child crying, and I follow the sounds until I reach it, reach her I should say, and she’s holding a bunny like this one, when I find her. She holds out her arms to me and then … then I wake up. Every time.

  Hmm, says Mark. It may be that the Crone can see into your mind. That she is using this dream of yours to disconcert you.

  Yeah, well, it’s working, I say. I am feeling pretty majorly—

  Suddenly Mark puts his finger to his lips. Quiet, he says.

  I fall silent.

  There, says Mark.

  But I have already heard it—it’s the crying of the Child again, and it’s coming from farther ahead, farther through the forest, carrying on the night air.

  We must carry on, says Mark.

  Yes, I say. I start to stuff the bunny into my pocket but Mark shakes his head.

  No, he says. The Crone left it there. It’s not safe.

  Reluctantly, I lay it back down on the grass. It feels like abandoning something small and helpless and for some reason tears come to my eyes, which I know is ridiculous because it isn’t even alive, it’s a stuffed toy.

  Then I stand up straight again. We’re totally alone there in the clearing, the sound of the crying Child a low constant hum.

  Mark takes a last look at the rabbit and the cage, shifts uncomfortably, then starts to walk off. But as he turns away, his hand brushes the cage; I don’t think he realizes. And … nothing happens. It doesn’t visibly hurt him, no sparks fly. All around us, the crying of the Child, the real one far off in the distance, continues to resonate, just another part of the world, the water in which we swim.

  There are two possibilities, I think: either he lied to me, about the iron. But I don’t really buy it—I saw the fear in his eyes when I said what I wanted to do.

 
Or, other explanation: he can touch iron, he just believes he can’t. But why would he believe that he can’t? It doesn’t make any sense.

  Anyway, whatever: right now I just want an answer to my question about what the Child said. I follow him and grab his sleeve.

  Don’t walk away from me, I say. Don’t you dare. Not till you’ve told me what she said.

  You do not give orders to Coyote, he says, a little haughtily.

  Oh to hell with you, I say.

  His features soften. It’s not important, he says.

  I don’t care. Tell me right now or I swear to God I will leave this place and never come back, and your Crone can go screw herself and that child will have to just keep crying.

  Please, just—

  No. Tell me.

  Mark sighs. She said that you would soon find out what you really were. She said she was sorry.

  What I really am? I ask. What’s that?

  I can’t tell you.

  I stare at him. What? Why not?

  Because it is not for me to say, he says. It is for someone else.

  Then the Dreaming is flooded with light and the clearing disappears for an instant, is replaced by my small white room, the bed, the basin, and a dark figure standing there, hands clasped in front of him.

  Just a flash—

  And then it’s gone, the stars are back, the forest. Mark standing beside me, looking worried.

  Who? I say.

  What?

  You said it’s for someone else to say, I say. Who?

  Mark winces as the world goes bright again, and the cell pops into being around us, glaring white, fluorescent-light illuminated, the man standing there, looking at me.

  Him, says Mark.

  And then he’s gone and the Dreaming is gone and it’s just me in the brightly lit cell and I look up at the man and—

  0…

  Chapter 42

  —I haven’t ever seen the man standing in my cell before—he’s handsome, with graying hair and a strong jaw. He’s wearing a suit that looks tailored. The same guard as before is with him. I sit up in bed and look at them, without moving or saying anything.

  The man looks—and this is weird—nervous. He comes a little into the room and then stands, fidgeting. I’m nervous too. Everything my mom taught me about men is that this is bad, this is dangerous.

  He must have turned on the light—it’s a bright fluorescent light set in the ceiling above, set in the gray board of the ceiling, and he must have turned it on and woken me and that’s how the Dreaming disappeared.

  This … ah …, he says.

  Oh, yeah, right, I think. Well, that explains it.

  He clears his throat.

  My name’s Rick Miranda, he says. Ridiculously, he hands me a card.

  I look down at it.

  RICK MIRANDA

  FLAGSTAFF CITY ATTORNEY

  Then a bunch of phone and e-mail information.

  I’m the city attorney for Flagstaff, he says, confirming the details on the card, though I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it. I mean, I don’t have a phone or a computer so I’m not going to be calling him or e-mailing him. I just hold it awkwardly in my hands.

  There’s a pause. He seems to be expecting me to say something, but I don’t.

  I … um, he continues, I don’t know if you understand what I’m saying. The psychiatrist thought you were lucid, but you didn’t say anything, so …

  Ah, I think. Not therapist, psychiatrist.

  … It’s … if it were up to me, we would do this differently, continues the city attorney. I don’t know, find some kind of halfway house for you. People to talk to you. But you haven’t committed a crime, and we can’t just hold you forever.

  I stare at him.

  Okay …, he says. He comes closer and hunches down, bending his knees, like a father squatting to bring his kids in on some game.

  I’m now officially and 100 percent freaked out. Is Mom dead or something?

  The city attorney looks at me, and I see pity in his eyes.

  What the—

  Your mother is not your mother, he blurts out. I don’t know—we don’t know—what she told you. Your name is Angelica Watson and you disappeared from Juneau Hospital in Alaska in 1999. You were being treated for burns to your legs.

  This is my mind, right now:

  That’s it. Just blank. Just white, like snow.

  Then: Angelica, I think.

  Shaylene Cooper, we know now, posed as a nurse and took you away. She moved a whole lot—Albuquerque, right? And Phoenix? And I’m guessing she homeschooled you?

  Me:

  He scrubs his face with his hands, as if it’s dirty, as if he wants to pummel off his skin, and find something cleaner underneath.

  Your parents never stopped believing, he says. They paid private detectives. They appeared on TV. They … ah… He turns away, and so I miss the next bit, I don’t catch it. Then he turns back to me. They’re here now, in Flagstaff. They’ve rented an apartment. We … we have to release you into their care.

  I think: you can trust him to take order and replace it with chaos.

  I think of my life with Mom, the routine, every day the same, apart from Fridays, and then every Friday was the same, anyway. Now a stick of dynamite has been put under all that and it has been blown into the sky.

  I think:

  There Will Be Two Lies and then there Will Be the Truth.

  I think:

  Screw you, Coyote.

  And then I don’t think anything.

  There’s nothing in my head, just air, but air can build to a high pressure—it’s Boyle’s Law, I learned it with Mom, or with WHOEVER MOM REALLY IS, it’s P1V1=P2V2, which means that if the volume of something contracts then the pressure goes up, and right now the volume of my mind is a tiny tiny thing because there are NO THOUGHTS IN IT, and so I guess that means the pressure is going crazy, needle pushing into red, because—

  Chapter 43

  When I wake up, I’m lying on the bed. Did they put me here?

  There’s no one else in the room, and I feel groggy. As if I’ve been sedated. It’s possible: my memory is all fragments, like something delicate dropped on the floor.

  For a second I look at the ceiling, the thin gray panels, whorled with dust. Then I think:

  My mother is not my mother.

  Something like goose bumps, or like the evil twin of goose bumps, goes through me. It’s as if I’m a ghost, because I don’t know who I am anymore. It’s like I’ve died.

  I suddenly realize:

  I don’t even know if my name is really Shelby. I am standing now though I don’t remember doing it, and I think that I’m naked on this floor, naked on the surface of the earth, with nothing to protect me or name me. Nothing to claim me. I’m insubstantial; a wraith.

  The door opens and the city attorney comes in, Rick Miranda, a detail I remember, absurdly. I half expect him to walk through me, as if through droplets diffused in the light by a garden hose. But he doesn’t. He walks right up to me and kneels down on the floor.

  I blink at him, surprised, but it’s smart of him too, because I had blades in my mind, turned toward him, and he has taken them from me with that gesture.

  I’m sorry, he says. I told you too suddenly. I’m new to this. I’m … He winces, but stays down on one knee. I’m part of a response team. We had training. But no one said … no one said how you … how you tell. Someone.

  I don’t say anything.

  I mean, he says, like he doesn’t need me to provide the other half of the conversation, you figure the child knows, right? That they want to go home? That’s what you think when you’re in training, learning how to handle these cases.

  He sighs.

  I lead this city’s CART, he says. Child Abduction Response Team. There’s a bunch of people on it. Fire department; obviously not needed in this case. Police. Child Protective Services. Me. But we don’t … I mean, this is our first case.

 
Another sigh.

  What will happen, we’ll try to manage the transition as best we can. Your parents will stay here in Flagstaff for some time, we have yet to determine how long. CPS will visit with you, to make sure you’re okay. There’ll be counseling, which the state will provide.

  The truck that just powered through my chest is halfway through the wall behind me now, there is brick dust and plaster and debris raining all over us, turning us gray, turning us black and blue with bruises, but he doesn’t see any of it.

  Slowly, peeling them off my tongue because they don’t want to leave it behind, I say two words with my mouth.

  My parents?

  He looks at me, and I can see how out of his depth he is, because his eyes are very clearly saying, oh crap.

  Ah … yes, um, your birth parents. Custodial parents, we call it. He’s babbling now. They’re, ah, here and—

  And nothing, because at that moment something snaps inside me, some essential restraining elasticity, and I am on the other side of the room as if there were no intervening space between, banging on the door, it hurts my hands but I don’t care, and the door won’t open so I hit it with my head, and then there is blood on my fingers, I guess it’s mine, and I fall over because I ran on my bad leg, forgot my CAM Walker was there, the bulk and unfamiliar-still weight of it, and the city attorney is shouting for help, I think, anyway, because of course I just see his mouth moving—

  and then there’s a gap in what I’m aware of, and there’s a guard in the room, moving toward me, and I—

  I must hit the guard or push him or something because then he is kind of powering at me and wrapping his arms around me, then spinning me around to drag me out the door, but before he can I whiplash my head back and feel something crunch, and the guard staggers back and now my hands are free so I shout at the city attorney, I shout,

  What are you doing to me? What gives you the right? What gives you the fricking right?

  And here’s the thing:

  I don’t think. I shout it with my hands.

  The guard circles around so that he’s in front of me. There is blood running down from his nose, but his eyes are wide, wide open with shock and his jaw hasn’t dropped because that doesn’t happen in real life, but it’s pretty close.