Memory and Dream n-5

by Charles de Lint

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she said. She dug out an empty crate from a heap of garbage on one side of the alley and dragged it over to the fire escape. “You can be ever so hard to find,” she added as she sat down upon her makeshift stool.

  John shrugged. “I’ve been here.”

  “I can see that now.”

  This time he made no reply. His solemn gaze was fixed on something far beyond the alleyway.

  “Something awful’s happening,” Cosette told him.

  John nodded, but he didn’t look at her. “I know. I started to poke around after we talked the other night, listening to gossip, chasing rumors.”

  “Someone else is bringing people across from the before,” Cosette informed him.

  Now John did turn to look at her. “You’ve seen him?”

  “Her. She has no color to her, John. She’s a black-and-white girl and I think she’s going to kill me.”

  “I’ve heard there’s more than one, but the only one I actually knew existed was my twin.”

  “You have a twin?”

  John shrugged. “Not so’s I ever knew. But I talked to Isabelle and she said he looks just like me.”

  “You talked to Isabelle?”

  “Briefly.”

  The idea of John and Isabelle finally speaking to each other after all these years was enough to distract Cosette from her fear of the black-and-white girl and the danger that her existence appeared to represent. She gave John a careful look, then sighed.

  “Did she send you away again?” she asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  “But still.”

  “But still,” John agreed. “She didn’t call me back either—not in a way I could come.”

  “I’m sorry about what I said to you the other night.”

  John shrugged. “I knew you didn’t mean it.”

  “No,” Cosette said. “I did mean it. I really don’t understand why people bother to fall in love. But I didn’t say it to make you feel bad. It just sort of popped out. I know how much you care about her. I know it’s not your fault that she makes you feel the way you do.”

  “I used to think I loved her so much because she brought me across,” John said. “That it was all tied up with the magic that allowed her to open the gate for me. I didn’t think I had any choice in the matter at all. When I met Paddyjack and realized that he was hopelessly devoted to her as well, that only seemed to confirm it. But then she brought more and more of us across and I saw that it wasn’t so. Some liked her, some didn’t. Some didn’t care one way or the other. After a while I came to realize that while I still didn’t have any choice, it was a matter of my heart, not because of any enchantment of hers. But by then it was too late. She never called me back to her.”

  “Couldn’t you have gone to her?” Cosette asked.

  John shook his head. “She sent me away.”

  “But—”

  “It wasn’t a matter of my pride, Cosette. Isabelle just didn’t want me anymore. I’m not real to her.”

  When he fell silent this time, Cosette didn’t know what to say. She sat on her crate and tapped the toes of her shoes together, picked at a loose thread on the sleeve of her sweater.

  “So this man Isabelle told you about,” she asked finally. “Does he really look exactly like you?”

  John gave Cosette a thin, humorless smile. “Apparently. He has my looks, but not my sunny personality.”

  Cosette digested that slowly. For someone who looked exactly like John to have been brought across meant ...

  “So,” she said. “Isabelle must have made another painting of you.”

  Only when? Cosette made it a point to visit Isabelle’s studio on a regular basis as much as for a simple curiosity to see what Isabelle was currently working on as to borrow various paints and brushes and pencils and the like. She hadn’t seen a new painting of John. Isabelle hadn’t done a portrait in years.

  “Not Isabelle,” John said. “But Rushkin. Couldn’t you feel his hand in the girl you saw?”

  Cosette shivered. John was right. Rushkin had been the first to come to her mind when she saw the black-and-white girl.

  “Can they feed on us, too?” she asked. “You know, the way that he can?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But they could bring us to him.”

  “You said he could only hurt us through the paintings—or in Isabelle’s dreams.”

  “I don’t know everything,” John replied sharply.

  “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. I ... what I am is scared.”

  Cosette started to feel sick to her stomach then. If John was scared, then they were all doomed, weren’t they? They were going to die without ever having the chance to dream.

  “Can’t we do anything to stop him?” she asked in a small voice.

  She wished she weren’t so scared. She wished she could be brave, but it was so hard. Just thinking of the dark man made her want to curl up into a small ball and hide away, far away. Maybe courage was something the red crow gave you along with dreams. She’d never thought of that before, but if even John was scared ...

  “We could kill him,” John said.

  Cosette looked at him in surprise. She couldn’t imagine killing anyone, couldn’t imagine silencing the beat of their red crow’s wings, spilling their dreams and blood. Not even a monster such as Rushkin.

  “Have ... have you ever killed anyone?” she asked.

  John hesitated, then slowly nodded his head.

  “I don’t know if I ... if I could do it,” Cosette said.

  “They mean to kill us,” John said.

  “I know, but—”

  “They mean Isabelle harm. They mean us all harm. You and I. Rosalind and Annie Nin. Bajel and Paddyjack. All of us who are left. There’ll be no more gathering in the birch woods to sing and dance then, Cosette. There’ll be no more chance than we can ever learn to dream. We’ll all be gone.”

  Cosette gave him a strange look. “You’ve been to the island?” she asked. “You’ve seen us dancing?”

  John nodded. “And listened to the stories that Rosalind tells. I’ve watched you paint. I’ve read Bajel’s poems and heard Annie sing.”

  “Why did you never make yourself known? Why didn’t you join us?”

  “I didn’t feel I belonged.”

  “Paddyjack was always talking about meeting you in the woods but I thought it was just another one of those stories he likes to tell. You know, the way he makes something up because that’s the way he wishes it could really be.”

  “I remember,” John said, smiling. But then his features grew serious once more. “I’d give my life for him. I’d give my life for any of you, but especially for Isabelle.”

  “Even though you don’t feel you belong with any of us? Even though Isabelle sent you away?”

  “None of that changes the way I feel,” John said. “Knowing you are safe makes my exile bearable.”

  “But you never had to be an exile.”

  “You don’t understand, Cosette. You’re more like Isabelle is. All of you are. You sing and dance and paint and tell stories. I have only one talent. I’m a hunter, a warrior. When Isabelle sent me away I realized there was no place for someone like me in your lives. But I could still watch over you. I could still protect you.”

  “That’s what you’ve done all these years?”

  “Partly. I’ve also tried to teach myself gentler arts.” A sad smile touched his lips. “I haven’t been particularly successful.”

  “But neither have I,” Cosette said. “With my painting, I mean. We need the red crow to be any good.”

  John shook his head. “A red crow will let you do what Isabelle and Rushkin can do—bring others across. You don’t need it for your art to prosper.”

  “You can’t have looked very closely at my pictures then.”

  “What you lack is patience, Cosette, not a red crow.”

  Cos
ette ducked her head so that she wouldn’t have to look at him.

  “But none of that matters now,” she said without looking up. “Not with the dark man’s return.”

  “I won’t let him hurt you,” John assured her. “I said I would give up my life for you. I would also take a life.”

  Cosette lifted her gaze until it met his.

  “Me, too,” she said, surprising herself because she realized it was true. She didn’t feel any braver than she had before. If anything, she was more scared. But she knew she would do it. Isabelle and the others were the closest she had by way of a family. They were bound by deeper ties than blood and dreams. She would do anything to protect them.

  “It really is true, isn’t it?” she added hopefully. “What Rosalind always says. We are real.”

  John nodded. “The lack of a red crow only makes us different.”

  “If we weren’t real, we wouldn’t care so much about each other, would we?”

  John gave her a long thoughtful look. “I think that’s what makes us real,” he said finally.

  He stood up and wiped the palms of his hands on his jeans.

  “How will we find the dark man?” Cosette asked.

  “Isabelle will know where he is. He left a piece of himself in her when he went away. It’ll tell her where he is.”

  They closed their eyes, waking their own connection to Isabelle. Cosette opened her eyes in alarm to find a similar worried expression in John’s. “She’s already found him,” Cosette said.

  “Or he’s found her,” he said grimly.

  Cosette’s newfound courage faltered. “We really have to kill him, don’t we?”

  “We have to try,” John said. “Though I don’t know if it’s possible for us to actually kill him. He’s a maker and makers will always wield a certain power over our kind—even if he didn’t bring us across himself. Maybe only Isabelle can kill him.”

  Cosette shook her head. “Isabelle could never hurt anyone.”

  John gave her an odd look. Then, without waiting to see if Cosette would follow, he set off down the alleyway at a brisk pace, heading north toward the burnedout tenements and abandoned buildings that made up that part of Newford known as the Tombs. Cosette hesitated for only a moment before hurrying off to join him.

  X

  Across town from her numena, Isabelle was as frightened as Cosette, but for another reason. She had no idea where her captors were taking her, or what was going to happen to her. All she knew was that it would involve Rushkin, and seeing him again made her feel even more afraid.

  Cowardice, she remembered Rushkin telling her once, was a crime like any other. “The difference is,” he explained, “is that it’s boring. You don’t so much commit cowardice as surrender to it. We live in a world that seems to celebrate cowardly behavior, Isabelle, except we call it compromise. We call it getting along. Not making waves. We don’t stand by our convictions anymore because we’re too busy trying to make sure that we don’t upset anybody. I don’t care if it’s with our art, or confronting injustice, nine out of ten times the average person will let the world run roughshod over them because they’re too intimidated to make a stand and stick to it.”

  “But where do you expect people to find that kind of courage?” Isabelle had asked. “This is the world we live in. If we didn’t get along with each other all that would be left would be chaos.”

  “Who wants to live in a world where you have to be a coward to get along?”

  “The world isn’t so black and white,” Isabelle had said.

  “No, but it could be if we stopped compromising our values. We have to confront evil, no matter where we find it, and then stand up to it.”

  Isabelle had shaken her head. “The world isn’t like that. People aren’t like that. How are they supposed to become brave when the best most of us can ever seem to to manage is to avoid a confrontation?”

  “By not surrendering,” Rushkin replied. “It’s that simple. If you believe in the truth of what you’re doing, why in god’s name would you want to compromise?”

  “But—”

  “We owe it to our art to face the truth without flinching. We owe it to ourselves. Every so-called advantage that evil has can also be used against it. The world isn’t fair, in and of itself. We have to make it fair.”

  Rushkin had always remained true to his ideals, but at what cost, Isabelle had remembered thinking more than once when she saw the way he lived. Alone and friendless, with only his art.

  Kathy had always remained true to her ideals, as well, though unlike Rushkin, she was willing to compromise when necessary. Still, there were some things that remained forever sacrosanct to her.

  She’d fought injustice wherever it confronted her; she’d never compromised the vision that drove her to write; she’d created the Newford Children’s Foundation and worked on its front lines, dedicating herself to what she called the four C’s necessary for successful guerrilla social work: cash, contributing, counseling and consoling. You gave what you could. Money, if you didn’t have the time.

  Kathy wouldn’t have found herself in her own present situation, Isabelle thought. They’d both taken a self-defense course, but here it was, the first time Isabelle had found herself confronted with actual violence since taking that course, and she’d surrendered. Kathy wouldn’t have. Kathy would have booted Bitterweed between the legs and made a break for it. She wouldn’t be sitting here, allowing herself to be driven to god knew where.

  Isabelle sighed. But she wasn’t Kathy, was she?

  The car pulled over to the curb in front of an abandoned tenement and Scara killed the engine. She turned in her seat and leaned her arms on the backrest, hunger glittering in her eyes.

  “End of the line, sweetheart,” she said.

  Isabelle shivered. I could still try to stand up for myself, she thought as Bitterweed pulled her from the car. I could still fight them. But what was the point?

  She knew where she was now: in the Tombs. That vast sector in the middle of the city that consisted of derelict buildings, burnedout structures and empty, rubble-strewn lots. Streets that were often little more than weed-choked paths, most of them too clogged with buckled pavement and abandoned cars to drive through. Deserted brownstones and tenements that served as squats for Newford’s disenfranchised, those who couldn’t even cling to the bottom rung of the social ladder. The area stretched for a few square miles north of Gracie Street, a ruined cityscape that could as easily have been Belfast or the Bronx, East LA or Detroit.

  She could fight her captors, Isabelle thought. And she could run. But to where? The streets of the Tombs were a dizzying maze to anyone unfamiliar with the rubble warren through which they cut their stuttering way. Many of its inhabitants were easily as dangerous as her present captors: wild-eyed homeless men, junkies, drunken bikers and the like. Desperate, almost feral creatures, some of them.

  Sociopathic monsters.

  So once again she surrendered. She let the two numena lead her into the building. They stepped over heaps of broken plaster and litter, squeezed by sections of torn-up floor. The walls were smeared with aerosoled graffiti and other scrawled marks made with less recognizable substances. The air was stale and close, and reeked of urine and rotting garbage. It was the antithesis of her home on Wren Island.

  And the opposite of those worlds once brought to life by the paintbrush of the man into whose presence she was led.

  She saw him in a corner of a room on the second floor, lying on a small pallet of newspapers and blankets, his bulk dissipated, his features sunken into themselves. No longer the stoop-backed, somewhat homely mentor now. Not even a troll. More like some exotic bug, dug up from under a rotted log and left to fend for itself in the harsh sunlight. An infirm, helpless thing, weakly lifting its head when Bitterweed and Scam led her into its room. But there was still a hot light banked in the kiln of his eyes, a fiery hunger that was even more intense than what burned in the gazes of his numena.

&nbs
p; “It’s time to make good the debt you owe me,” Rushkin said. Even his voice was changed—the deep tones had become a thin, croaking rasp. “I don’t owe you anything.”

  The wasted figure shook its head. “You owe me everything and I will have it from you now.”

  Isabelle knew all too well what he wanted. She just hadn’t wanted to believe it.

  “John was right,” she said. “All along, he was right. You really do feed on my numena.”

  “Numena,” Rushkin repeated. “An interesting appellation. Effective, if not entirely apt. I never bothered to give them a name myself”

  “I won’t do it.”

  Rushkin indicated his own numena. “They will kill you if you don’t.”

  “They’ll kill me if I do. I heard as much before they brought me here.”

  Confronted with Rushkin, Isabelle’s fear was swallowed by the anger she felt toward her old mentor.

  She looked at him and saw a hundred painful deaths, the fire that had licked away at canvas and flesh, consuming all in its path. Never again, she had promised herself, and then she’d stopped painting gateways that would allow numena to cross over from their before. Never again, she repeated to herself now. Any of her numena that still survived, any that she might bring across with her new work, she would protect with her life. Where she couldn’t be brave for herself, the courage was there for those who had died before, for those who would die if she gave in to him.

  “You have my word that you’ll be safe,” Rushkin assured her. He hid the hungry fire in his eyes behind an earnestness that Isabelle didn’t accept for a moment.

  “Until the next time you need my ... my magic.”

  Rushkin shook his head. “Once I have ... recovered, I will find myself a new protege. You will never see me again.”

  “A new protege?” Isabelle said, startled.

  All she could think was, how could she allow him to continue to spread his evil? But Rushkin, intentionally or not, mistook her shock for something else.

  “I doubt we could work that well together anymore,” he said. “And besides, I’ve taught you all I know.”

  Isabelle gave him a look of distaste.

  “Oh, I see,” he said. “You thought you were alone.” He shook his head. “Hardly. There were many before you, my dear, and one since. Her name was Giselle, a lovely French girl and very, very talented. I met her in Paris, and though the city has changed, discovering her and working with her rendered my relocating there worthwhile all the same.”