by Kit Alloway
“Dear God,” Will whispered.
Josh turned the television off and crawled over the covers to lie beside him.
“In the morning,” she said, “we’ll go home.”
They had been gone four days.
Thirty−two
Josh arrived home defeated.
I failed.
Her house was still standing, but she passed a tear in downtown Tanith as they drove through. It was only a matter of time before the nightmares reached her family.
The reunions were less than joyful. Everyone felt guilty being happy, except the Bolognese puppy, Posey, who ran in circles for ten minutes when she saw Deloise.
Josh was just happy Deloise hadn’t gone permanently insane from the Veil dust.
While they’d been gone, Josh’s father had broken his arm, burst an eardrum, and burned off both eyebrows. He’d retreated to the house. Collena had also gone home after dislocating her hip on the first day out; all the hospitals were filled beyond capacity. Alex and Saidy, however, had gone to join Kerstel’s brother’s team in Savannah.
“I think they’re actually getting along better,” Lauren told Josh.
“Crisis,” she said absently. “It cuts through all the bullshit.”
Lauren lifted the part of his forehead where his eyebrows should have been. “I mean crap,” Josh said hastily.
Josh wanted to drive straight to Feodor’s, but Will wouldn’t let her. She gave in without a fight; either she didn’t have the energy to argue with him or she didn’t really believe there was anything worth fighting for left, and she was too tired to know which. Mirren, however, came to the house as soon as she heard that Haley had returned.
Josh, Will, Whim, and Haley were sitting in the living room of the guys’ apartment in complete silence when she arrived. Whim had handed Deloise off to her stepmother to watch over; she was still kind of loopy. Whim himself had flopped down in the beanbag chair and hadn’t moved in almost an hour. Haley was half-dead in the armchair, and Josh was curled up against Will on the couch. None of them even had the strength to shower.
“Oh my,” Mirren said, surveying the room.
Josh opened her eyes and watched Haley drag himself off the chair to hug Mirren. “I got gored,” he said, like a little child, and then he pulled up his shirt to show her where a baby unicorn had gored him.
Mirren gave his bandage a kiss, and they sat down together in the oversized armchair. “You all look … a little worse for wear,” Mirren said.
“No shit,” Josh said, and Whim began laughing.
Josh knew she should ask about the VHAGs, how many they’d made, how many people were using them, but she was afraid to know the answer. The specifics didn’t matter, after all. Obviously, the number wasn’t enough, just like she hadn’t closed enough Veil tears.
“How’s Feodor?” she asked instead.
“He seems to find it impossible to downplay how interesting he thinks all of this is.”
“What about the VHAGs?” Whim asked.
“We’ve quit production,” Mirren admitted. “The problem is distribution. We simply can’t deliver them all around the world as quickly as we need to. Especially since all the package services have shut down. So…”
She hesitated, and Josh wondered why. Was she embarrassed? What did it matter that she’d failed? Hadn’t they all?
“So I did something … I may have acted out of turn, but I didn’t see any other way. I tried to call you a number of times, but the tears are affecting cell coverage. If I made a mistake—well, then I’ve changed the course of history in an unforgivable manner, but I truly didn’t know what else to do.”
“Just spit it out already,” Whim told her.
“All right then. I made an instructional video explaining how to build and operate the VHAG. And then I put it on DWTV.”
Josh sat straight up then, her fatigue, her aching side and split lip, all forgotten. DWTV was a super-encrypted television station made by dream walkers for dream walkers. Although it only aired in English-speaking countries, there were foreign equivalents all around the world.
Mirren seemed genuinely surprised when Josh said, “You’re a goddamn genius.”
“I would slow clap,” Whim said, “but my hands hurt.”
“Haley?” Mirren asked, and he smiled at her. “You knew I was going to do this, didn’t you?”
“Not exactly,” he said, playing with her hand. “But I knew you’d think of something.”
Josh was still staring in awe when Mirren said, “I’m just afraid we don’t have enough time. Dream walkers are translating the video into every language imaginable—the ones who aren’t calling me an evil heretic for enabling staging on a massive scale, that is—but the devices take time to build. Maybe if I had thought of it sooner…”
We should go back out there, Josh thought. Every tear that gets sealed buys us a little more time.
Then, quite unexpectedly, Will said, “Is there anyone here who thinks Peregrine isn’t behind this?”
Josh hadn’t even been sure Will was awake, truthfully. He hadn’t moved since he’d sat down.
“I don’t know,” Whim said, “but I’m going to blame him anyway.”
“No,” Will told him, “I’m serious. Assuming Peregrine has put his soul in Snitch’s body and he can control the Dream, staging nightmares could have destabilized the Veil, right?”
“If he was creating emotional turmoil it could,” Josh admitted, at the same time Mirren said, “What?”
Everyone looked at her. “Peregrine has switched bodies with Snitch?” she asked.
“Probably,” Josh said. “Did we forget to tell you that?”
“Yes! He could be staging dreams on a tremendous scale!”
“Yeah,” Whim said. “We know.”
“No, you don’t.” Mirren got up and went to look out the sliding glass door to the porch. “I’m going to be all out of secrets by the time this is over,” she muttered, and then sighed and turned around. “All right. I see no other choice. You asked me once, Will, why the monarchy outlawed staging.”
“And you dodged answering.”
“Well, today is your lucky day.” In a low voice, as if she were still worried someone might overhear, she said, “The reason staging is so dangerous is that if enough people dream of the same thing, it will become real.”
Josh felt less shocked than confused. “How?”
“Whatever they’re dreaming of will literally form in the Dream, pass through the Veil, mixing with Veil dust and becoming real, and settle in the World.”
“How can a nightmare pass through the Veil?” Will asked.
“The harmonic mass reaches a critical point and overwhelms the Veil. It’s like … Have you ever stuck your finger through a soap bubble, and then pulled it out, and the bubble didn’t pop? It’s kind of like that.”
The soap bubble explanation might have been enough for the guys, but it wasn’t for Josh. “You’re saying that the polarization of the barrier breaks down under migrant harmonics.”
Mirren replied with an acquiescing nod. “That is what I’m saying.”
“That will eventually erode the Veil,” Josh pointed out.
“Theoretically. It’s never been tested, as far as I know.”
“I think we’re seeing the test right now. You’re talking about an alteration of the frequencies in the parabolic dimension. That’s going to lead to nonregional destabilization sooner or later.”
“Can we skip to the part where you explain it to the rest of us?” Whim interrupted.
“Sure,” Josh told him. “If you can stage the same dream for enough people at once, that dream will become reality. And if you keep doing that, you’ll screw up the Veil on a massive scale and cause a failure cascade, like what we’re seeing now. If Peregrine did manage to swap bodies with Snitch, then he can probably stage enough dreams simultaneously to cause all that.”
“But he’d know better, right?” Whim said.
&
nbsp; “Of course not. He doesn’t actually understand any of the science. He’s working with Feodor’s notes and Snitch’s memories, and he might have been able to cobble together the information he needed to switch bodies, but he doesn’t understand the ramifications of what he’s doing.”
“Okay,” Will said. “Let’s assume that Peregrine’s staging is the root cause of what’s happening. If we can stop him from staging, will that stabilize the Veil?”
“Not on its own,” Josh said, and Mirren nodded her agreement. “We’d still need people to run around with VHAGs closing tears. But it would go a long way, and it might—might—buy us time until enough people have VHAGs.”
“So?” Whim said. “This sounds like a plan. I’m already feeling slightly less suicidal. Let’s get our stinky carcasses back in the van.”
“There’s a problem,” Mirren said. “We still don’t know where Peregrine is.”
For a few minutes, Josh had felt a growing kernel of hope, but it was fading now. She flopped back against Will, who wrapped his arms around her.
“Haley?” Whim said hopefully.
He shrugged. “I don’t know where he is. But … I think the bigger question is, what is he using staging to create?”
That is the bigger question, Josh thought.
“We need guidance,” Whim said. “Let’s do Trembuline’s thing.”
“What’s Trembuline thing?” Josh asked.
“Who’s Trembuline?” Mirren asked.
“He’s this guy we met. He’s a genius.”
“Whim,” Will said, “you realize he helped Peregrine screw up the Veil, right?”
“He’s a slightly evil genius,” Whim revised. “But he taught us this meditation thing, and it’s awesome. It makes you feel like everything’s going to work out. Let’s try it.”
“I feel like it’s kind of close to what made Josh and Haley freak out,” Will said. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”
“Does it involve seeing the future?” Mirren asked.
“No,” Whim said.
“Then I think it will be okay.” She glanced at Haley, who nodded, a bit uncertainly.
Josh didn’t know what they were talking about, and meditating bored the hell out of her, but she felt a curious desire to try “Trembuline’s thing.”
“I’m game,” she said, and Will looked at her with surprise.
“Will, you lead it,” Whim said.
“Why me?”
“Because you have that soothing therapist’s voice.”
Will shrugged. “All right.”
Whim turned off the lights and drew the curtain over the sliding glass door. There was still more than enough light by which to see, but the living room felt smaller, cozier.
“So,” Will said, “Trembuline taught me and Whim to do this, but I don’t think he invented it. In fact, Haley probably already knows how to do it.”
He instructed them to rub their hands together and then hold them close. Josh was surprised that she did actually feel as if something were between her hands, pushing them apart.
“I think Haley and I have played this game,” Mirren said, and she and Haley exchanged a sweet glance.
“Now close your eyes,” Will said, “and imagine something you love between your hands.”
The first thing that came to Josh’s mind was dream walking. She loved dream walking. She had since the first time her mother took her into the Dream. Nothing in her life was more satisfying than saving people from their nightmares.
“Open your eyes,” Will said.
Haley released a little cry. “It’s beautiful!”
Everyone’s hands had moved farther apart—especially Josh’s. There was almost a yard of space between them.
“Is this for real?” she asked Will, astonished.
“You tell me,” he replied with a smile. “Now close your eyes again, and draw that big ball of love energy into your chest.”
Josh obeyed. For a moment, she didn’t feel anything, and then a tremendous sigh poured out of her. Her shoulders dropped an inch. She felt lighter and less exhausted.
“Now ask yourself a question,” Will said. “Any question. Even the hardest question in your whole life, and wait for an answer.”
Even though Josh knew her brain or her imagination or whatever she was feeling couldn’t answer this question, she asked, Where is Peregrine?
You have to follow it, her heart said.
I should have anticipated that, Josh thought, despairingly. Follow what?
Your inner wisdom.
I don’t have any wisdom.
No? You’re listening to it right now.
Where is Peregrine?
You will find him if you are kind. Remember others.
I don’t underst—
“That was lovely,” Mirren said, and Josh opened her eyes. Everyone seemed to be finished already.
“Right?” Whim said. “It’s amazing.”
Will looked at Josh and raised his eyebrows. “It was … interesting,” she said.
Her friends began to share their experiences, but Josh’s mind kept coming back to what she had heard.
Remember others.
Is there someone I’ve forgotten? Josh wondered. Someone I haven’t been thinking of?
Only one person came to mind.
Thirty−three
“Am I not going to PT today?” Winsor asked her brother the next day.
“Nope,” Whim told her. “You get the day off.”
“Good,” Winsor said. “My head hurts.”
Will wasn’t entirely certain how much Winsor understood about what was happening, or how much her parents wanted her to know. As far as he knew, Saidy and Alex hadn’t told her anything at all.
The day before, the question Will had asked during the meditation had been: How can I help?
The answer he’d gotten had been simple: Be yourself.
He didn’t know what that meant—besides the obvious—yet, but he wondered if the meditation practice would have been beneficial to Winsor. Maybe Whim would teach her.
When Winsor asked about her physical therapy, she was sitting in the first-floor living room with Whim and Deloise and Will. Whim and Deloise were trying to narrow down the area where Peregrine could be and Whim—always the newsman—had come up with a not-completely-stupid idea. He figured that people would have noticed something unusual when the dreams Peregrine staged began turning real, and that one of those events might have made the newspaper, so he and Deloise were combing through online papers for peculiar stories.
“‘Drug Dealer Eaten by Pet Tiger,’” Deloise read.
“That’s actually pretty common,” Whim said.
“How about ‘Rain of Frogs in Asheville, North Carolina’?”
“No, that’s a proven scientific phenomenon.”
It is? Will wondered, but he didn’t want to distract Whim.
“Okay, ‘Officers Murdered by Redneck Cult’?”
“What? No. Peregrine didn’t go join a cult.”
“How’s it going?” Josh asked, walking into the room with a manila file in her hands.
“Not well,” Whim told her.
“I had an idea,” Deloise said. “But I don’t know if it will work.”
“Try me,” Josh said.
“You said Peregrine was in touch with this guy Trembuline through e-mail, right? What if you hacked into Trembuline’s e-mail and found out where Peregrine’s e-mailing him from? You could trace the IP address or something, couldn’t you?”
Will didn’t think it was such a bad plan, but Josh looked unconvinced. “Whim, can you do that?”
“Ah, no. My computer powers do not extend to hacking.”
“But can’t you?” Deloise asked Josh. “You have Feodor’s memories now.”
“Feodor was exiled in 1962. Steve Jobs hadn’t even dropped out of college yet. Why do people think that anyone with any sort of scientific knowledge can hack computers?”
“Josh,”
Will said softly.
“I’m sorry,” Deloise told her, and he saw Josh soften.
“Sorry. It’s a good idea, we just don’t have anybody who can pull it off.”
Slumped in her wheelchair, Winsor said, “I know a guy.”
Everyone looked at her.
“You know a guy?” Whim repeated. “What guy?”
“His name is … Phil.”
Maybe because she seemed to have difficulty recalling the name, no one particularly believed her. Whim gave her an affectionate smile and went back to the map he was marking.
To Will’s surprise, Josh sat down on the ottoman close to Winsor’s wheelchair. “Tell me about Phil.”
Winsor pushed her hair out of her eyes, as if she, too, were surprised by Josh’s response. “You said you need someone who can hack.”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
Whim shot Josh a warning glance, but she said, “Remember Peregrine, the guy Del and I grew up believing was our grandfather?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s a crazy, terrible person. He’s doing something to the Veil that’s caused it to tear in hundreds of places—”
“Josh!” Whim said.
“Is that why everyone is so upset all the time?” Winsor asked.
“Yeah. They’re all scared because the Veil is collapsing, and the Dream and the World might merge.”
“Josh, enough,” Whim said, rising.
“If the World’s going to end, she has a right to know,” Josh told him. “She’s not a child.”
“I’m not a child,” Winsor agreed.
“I know,” Whim said. “But you aren’t well yet. You don’t need to be worrying about things like this.”
Will agreed with Winsor; she had enough mental capacity to understand what was happening, and she had a right to the truth. He was proud of Josh for standing up for her friend.
Winsor frowned. She removed her glasses and rubbed at her eyes. “What if I never get better? Are you just not going to tell me anything ever again?”
Will could see how much that question hurt Whim. He tried to hug Winsor, and she pushed him away.
