by Kit Alloway
“So you’ll keep her?” Whim asked. He held the puppy up beside his face and made an expression that Will suspected was meant to be cute.
“No, I’m not keeping her,” Deloise said, but the words were obviously an effort.
“But she already loves you,” Whim said. “I’ve been telling her all about you.” He held up one of the puppy’s paws in a tiny wave and spoke in a squeaky voice. “Please, Deloise, I’ve been waiting so long to meet you. I know we’re going to be best friends.”
“Oh my God, stop!” Deloise cried. “No, no! Is she even a rescue?”
“Dude, nobody abandons these things. They’re too cute.”
“Send it back!” Del told him.
Whim sighed. “All right. I’ll send her back.” He shook his head. “You don’t know how much I went through to get this one. They said she’s the runt of the litter.”
Deloise bit her lip.
“I’ll call the airline and see if I can get her on a flight back to New York. If the pet store will even take her back.”
“The pet store?” Deloise asked with a gasp. “Do you know where those puppies come from?”
Whim cast an uncertain glance at the puppy. “Bigger puppies?”
“You bought a puppy mill puppy!”
Will was pretty sure Whim’s confusion was genuine. “What’s a puppy mill?”
Deloise took the puppy out of Whim’s hands and snuggled it close. “We won’t send you back to that bad pet store,” she told it, rubbing her face against it as she walked out of the room. “We’ll find a nice family for you. Even though you’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen and you smell like milk and baby powder…”
Whim smirked. “No way that puppy’s going back to New York,” he told Will.
“You really didn’t get anything out of that boundaries talk we had, did you?” Will asked.
“Was it something about geography?”
Will shook his head, then followed Deloise upstairs.
He wanted to play with the puppy, too.
Sixteen
“We should go back,” Ian said for the hundredth time.
After the incident at the castle the day before, Haley and Ian had both been out of sorts, and they’d only walked a few more miles before stopping at a cabin on the side of the road that appeared to be available to anyone who wished to use it. They stayed the night in twin beds beneath hand-stitched quilts, but neither had slept well. Ian tossed and turned, while Haley lay motionless in the dark, kept awake by both Ian’s restlessness and his own fear of going to sleep in his brother’s presence.
Is Ian right? Haley wondered as the night dragged on. Had he made so little use of his life that he no longer deserved it? Maybe Ian did deserve a second chance more than Haley; maybe he would do more for the World than Haley would ever dream of.
In the morning, they started out on the road again, finding it wider and in better repair than the part they had traveled the day before. Despite that, Ian complained about everything: his head hurt, he was tired, he was hungry, he was thirsty, his shoes were giving him blisters, the sun was too hot, they were wasting time, Haley was being annoying.
“What do you want to talk to Dustine for anyway?” he asked midmorning, just after the dirt road turned to gravel.
Unlike most of Ian’s comments and questions, Haley answered this one.
“Josh is having a hard time being the True Dream Walker. Maybe Dustine knows something that could help.”
“She doesn’t know anything. She probably doesn’t even remember who Josh is.”
That is possible, Haley had to admit to himself. But he was keeping his fingers crossed that Dustine would know how to help Josh access her abilities.
The road turned, and beyond the bend, a city appeared. Rows of Victorian mansions gave way to run-down tenement buildings and four-story factories coughing gluts of sooty smoke. The dead, wearing pristine robes and contented smiles, seemed entirely out of place.
“What a dump,” Ian said as they followed the dead down a paved street.
The transition between the rich and poor sections of town was embodied in a single large building. The front half was a beautiful Victorian building with ornate decoration on the window arches and roof edges, painted purple with blue and white accents. The back half was a factory with walls made of dirty windows and numerous smokestacks from which plumes of black smoke emerged.
Ian reluctantly followed Haley inside.
A spectacular library filled the front half of the building. Bookshelves were built into the walls, their cases elaborately carved wood polished to a gleam. Wingback chairs were clustered around marble fireplaces, and the dead sat in them, reading enormous leather-bound books with gilt-edged pages. Sometimes they spoke to one another in soft voices, but mostly they focused on the volumes in their laps.
“I don’t like this place,” Ian muttered, walking close behind Haley. “It smells like smoke.”
“That’s probably just from a fireplace,” Haley assured him.
“Who wants to spend eternity reading, anyway?”
Stepping close to one of the bookcases, Haley noticed that each handsomely bound edition included a name in gold lettering on the spine. CAITLYN CALDWELL. MEGAN CAMPBELL. LUNEITA COTTON.
They’re alphabetical, Haley realized. He followed the cases backward toward the door, traversing thick floral carpets, until he found the Bs. Border, Borkin, Borst.
Dustine’s volume wasn’t there.
What did that mean? Had she already been here and taken the book with her? Had her book been removed?
Haley didn’t know how much farther he could convince Ian to go with him. Then again, he needed more time to convince Ian to let go of his old life. He hadn’t even really started.
Maybe now was the moment to do that.
“Let’s look over here,” he said, following the cases toward where he suspected the M section would be.
They walked toward the back of the library, where they encountered a glass wall that separated the two halves of the building. On the other side of the glass was the interior of a factory. A huge furnace sat directly beyond the door, and within it burned a fire so hot the flames were tinged with blue. The dead were throwing their books into the furnace and watching the pages burst into sparks. The details of their lives were burning up, too, and the dead, ever lighter, passed beyond the furnace to a rear door.
“Jesus,” Ian said, his voice breathy. “Like cows to the slaughter.”
Haley bit his lip. He knew Ian was terrified of this letting-go process, but it wasn’t something he could put off forever. At least, not without damage to his soul. To Haley, the process was beautiful and freeing.
He tugged Ian away by the arm and led him through the stacks until they reached the M section. Ian’s volume was right there, waiting for him, a thick red book with a stylized M on the cover.
Haley pulled it out. He began to open the cover and then stopped, not sure it was his right. Instead, he held it out. “This is your book,” he told his brother. “The story of your life is inside. But it isn’t all you are. What you truly are is unkillable. Putting this book in the furnace won’t hurt you—it will free you.”
Ian’s aura darkened as though the light within it had dimmed. “Yeah?” he asked. He grabbed another book from the shelf. “What if I throw this one in the furnace?”
He held the book so that Haley could read the spine.
HAELIPTO MICHARAINOSA.
When Haley looked back at Ian, his twin was smiling, but it wasn’t a smile Haley had ever worn. The corners of Ian’s mouth were tucked too deeply, his teeth clenched, his lips pulled so tight they lost their color.
“Ian—” Haley said, but Ian was already running.
Stunned, Haley lost a moment before following him back through the stacks. He ran through the doorway to the factory as Ian reached the side of the potbellied furnace. With another sick, gleeful smile, he held the book of Haley’s life just within the furnace
door.
“One more step,” he warned.
The dead who had been standing in line to visit the furnace looked between Haley and Ian, but their faces were serene. Please, Haley thought. Help me. Help him.
“Please,” he said to Ian. “Please don’t.”
He didn’t know exactly what would happen to him if Ian threw the book in the furnace, but he knew it would ruin his chances of ever returning to the World.
“You thought you could trick me,” Ian said. “You want me to forget who I am.”
“No,” Haley said. “It isn’t forgetting. It’s letting go.”
“Letting go of what? Myself? You want me to forget that I was on the lacrosse team, that I had a girlfriend who was crazy about me, that everybody at school thought I was awesome, that I had awesome friends—”
“That’s not who you are!” Haley cried, before realizing he’d raised his voice. “That’s just ego stuff! It’s an illusion! The real you is indestructible. It’s your soul, Ian. You have to let go of all that stuff from your life so that your soul can enter the Dream to be reincarnated.”
“You think I’m gonna fall for that?”
“I’m serious. Death isn’t heaven. You can’t stay here forever.” Haley pointed to the lofty dead, at the sweetness in their faces. “Look at them. They’re letting go. See how peaceful they are? You don’t have to be scared.”
“I’m not scared!” Ian hollered, and he stretched his arm so far into the furnace that Haley lost sight of the book. If the heat hurt Ian, he didn’t show it. “All I see is a bunch of retarded hippies with amnesia!”
Haley trembled. The charred spots in Ian’s aura were surrounded by rims of fire, and they were growing, eating away at his energy field. The sight of them made Haley feel hopeless.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked miserably.
“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong is I’m not supposed to be here! Why can’t you see that?”
Haley stared at his brother.
“I’m not supposed to be dead!” Ian stalked toward Haley, the book forgotten in his hand. “I had a life, Haley. I was going to get a scholarship to college and get my MBA and run my own business. I had a whole life planned out.” By then, wicked orange rage had filled his aura to its edges. “I wasn’t the one who was supposed to die!”
He stalked closer and closer, and even though Haley knew he was taller, Ian seemed to tower over him.
“What did you ever do? Nothing, that’s what. You wasted your life hiding under the bed.”
Ian’s aura fractured at its edges, losing its spherical shape and becoming a spiked mace. Haley tried to shield himself energetically, but Ian’s rage tore right though, piercing Haley with arrows of fury. He actually felt the pain, in his chest, in his throat, but he didn’t feel his knees weaken until he’d already hit the floor.
“Look at you,” Ian said. “You’re balled up like a baby, because you are a baby. You’ll always be a baby.”
And that, Haley knew, was true.
“What have you got to go back to?” Ian asked. “Nothing! You dropped out of high school. You’re so terrible with girls that you have an imaginary girlfriend. Your friends barely tolerate you.”
Ian’s fury cut through him, tearing Haley apart like a sheet of paper. He began to nod convulsively, and he felt his own aura breaking down, fracturing.
“Your own father walked out on you. You’re stupid, you’re bad at sports, you look like a homeless person. I mean, what’s the point of your life?”
“I don’t know,” Haley whispered.
“You don’t deserve life.”
I don’t deserve life. Haley heard himself sob.
“You’re the one who should be letting go.”
I’m the one who should be letting go.
“Say it!” Ian grabbed Haley’s hair and jerked his head up. Through his tears, Haley saw a horrible, blotted mask that vaguely resembled his brother’s face. Flushed red cheeks made him look like a demon.
An arm snaked out and a hand wrapped around Ian’s wrist. “Ow!” he shouted, and released Haley. “Let go of me!”
Haley wiped his eyes just in time to see a man with a pulsating, plum-colored aura pull the book from Ian’s fingers. He held it out to Haley, his other hand firmly clamped around Ian’s wrist, and said simply, “Run.”
Sobbing, Haley took the book and ran.
Seventeen
When Josh and Mirren arrived for coffee, Feodor was in a ridiculously good mood.
“Your Highness,” he said, bowing as he opened his door. “I’m honored. Please, please, come in.”
Josh followed Mirren into the chair factory. Mirren hadn’t been there before, and she wore an amused smile as she glanced around at the books and dirty windows. Feodor appeared to have made some effort to tidy up; the papers were mostly in stacks, and he’d thrown a white sheet over the coffee table.
“I made makowiec,” Feodor said. “I so rarely entertain. Please, make yourself comfortable. Coffee?”
“Please,” Mirren said as she sat down in one of the battered leather armchairs.
Feodor bustled into the kitchen area—which was separated from the sitting area only by a bookshelf. “You never make me makowiec,” Josh accused him through the books.
“Is it customary to serve refreshments to one’s parole officer?” he asked, returning with a coffee service on a silver tray. “I had no idea.”
Josh rolled her eyes, but secretly, she didn’t appreciate his comparison. Hadn’t she let him buy this crazy factory and fill it with books and computers and whatever else the Internet could offer him?
“Where did you get that?” she asked, gesturing to the coffee service, and then said, “No, don’t tell me—eBay.”
Feodor nodded briefly, but if he understood her implication, he didn’t show it. “Shall I be mother?”
Josh knew he’d picked up the expression from his lover, Alice, during the two years after the war when they’d lived together in England, but she was surprised Mirren recognized it. “Please,” Mirren said, and Feodor poured them each a cup of coffee, prepared Turkish style with the grounds in the bottom of the cup.
Josh normally hated coffee, but the way Feodor made it gave her a rush of comforting déjà vu. He’d grown up drinking tea, and only when he reached America had he really discovered coffee. After that he’d drunk little else, eventually graduating to the Turkish style.
He served the makowiec, a poppy seed cake with nuts, on gold-edged china plates. “What are the chances I have the recipe for this in my head somewhere?” Josh asked, digging into her slice. That, too, brought back happy memories of home—Feodor’s home, and Feodor’s mother, and their apartment in Warsaw.
“If you don’t, I’ll write it down for you,” Feodor offered magnanimously. He pulled up a chair and sat down near the coffee service, ready to wait on them.
“This cake is delicious,” Mirren told him. “And congratulations, to both of you, on your VHAG invention. You’ve made a huge contribution to dream walking.”
“I don’t suppose my name will appear on the announcement,” Feodor said dryly.
“I’m sure Josh will find some way to credit you,” Mirren assured him.
He shrugged. Josh knew he didn’t really care one way or the other. He was far more interested in making sure Mirren’s coffee had enough cream.
They talked about the VHAG and its possible applications—which, ostensibly, was why Feodor was throwing this little tea party—and debated whether or not to distribute it. “It’s dangerous,” Josh pointed out, “giving people the power to control the Dream.”
“We could limit distribution to Veil repair teams like Zorie’s,” Mirren suggested. “But that’s still a lot of VHAGs out there. One is bound to fall into the wrong hands.”
Josh wanted so badly to see the universes balanced. “But if we distributed them, it’s possible that we could bring the three universes into perfect balance, at least temporarily.”
<
br /> “Inevitably, that balance would be broken by people using the VHAGs to stage nightmares,” Feodor said. “Temptation makes slaves of all men.”
Mirren set her cup and saucer down on the coffee table. “I’m afraid I agree with Feodor. It’s too risky.”
Josh stared glumly at the crumbs on her plate. She knew Mirren and Feodor were right, that the risks didn’t outweigh the benefits, but that didn’t stop her from feeling deeply disappointed.
Strangely, some part of her was also proud of herself. She’d made a smart decision this time. She’d told others what she was doing; she’d taken their advice. If she had acted like this with the circlet and vambrace six months before, her life would be very different.
“One True Dream Walker is enough,” Feodor added. “Billions of them would be problematic.”
Josh gathered the crumbs with a fingertip. “That’s the thing, though. Without the VHAG, I’m not the True Dream Walker. I can’t do anything useful. We can either have a World full of True Dream Walkers or none at all.”
“You have made excellent progress—”
“At losing myself in dreamers’ fears? Yeah, I’m great at that. But how is me getting killed going to bring balance to the universes?”
Mirren frowned as Feodor poured her another cup of coffee. “How certain are you that Josh is getting closer to controlling the Dream, Feodor?”
“Quite certain. She must merge with the Dream before she can control it. The dreamer’s fear is a bridge she can walk to that merger.”
“I just don’t know if that’s going to work,” Josh said. Feodor offered her more cake, and she waved him off. “I mean, what if we’re going in completely the wrong direction? The prophesies about the True Dream Walker are old, they’ve been translated over and over, and they’re prophesies. What if I’m not supposed to be able to control the Dream? What if there is no True Dream Walker?”
“Haley told you that you were the True Dream Walker, didn’t he?” Mirren asked.
“Yeah. He said it’s in my scroll.”
“Haley wouldn’t lie.”
“Of course not. I’m just saying maybe he’s wrong. Maybe Young Ben is wrong. Maybe the prophesies are wrong.”
