by Kit Alloway
“But he’s annoying,” Whim said, but he was grinning when he said it.
The crowd was booing, Jaco was cursing them, and Peregrine was sitting straight up in his chair, hands clenched around the armrests, the look on his face one of red hatred and … fear?
“Peregrine looks terrified. If he’s afraid of Jaco, why not just make him disappear?” Josh asked.
“I don’t think Peregrine’s control over this place is completely conscious,” Will told her. “And unconsciously, he might think his father is unkillable.”
And we’ve defeated what he couldn’t, Josh thought. She walked across the sand toward him, put her hands on her hips, and called out, “Is he all you’ve got?”
Peregrine’s stare burned. From behind her, she heard Jaco say, “And you, my so-called son. Daughter is what they should have called you. Pathetic, whimpering little thing, always wanted to be held and kissed and told how good she was.”
Somehow Jaco had managed to jump to his bound feet and was hopping toward Peregrine, sneering and spitting his words.
“‘Daddy, look at me, play with me, love me.’ What was I supposed to love? Huh? Tell me that! How am I supposed to love a weak-chinned little bitch crawling around on the floor with a snotty nose?”
Peregrine’s whole body was shaking, his shoulders convulsing in a way that might have meant he was about to vomit.
“You were a weak little shit, and you grew up to be a weak big shit.”
“No,” Peregrine stammered. “I—I’m—”
“What? A simpering ass-kisser, that’s what you turned out to be. If I could go back in time, I’d kill myself before I fathered you.”
“I feel bad letting him go on like this,” Deloise said.
Peregrine stood up from his chair, but he had to keep hold of the armrests to remain upright. “I’m—I’m the emperor!” he half-shouted, half-screamed.
“You’re a little girl playing dress-up.”
Peregrine began to shriek then. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”
He pointed his finger at Jaco, but nothing happened, and Jaco shook his head. “That finger—that’s about the size of your—”
“KILL YOU!”
Any smugness Josh had felt had long since disappeared. Now she was afraid of the changing mood in the arena, the looks of disgust flickering across the faces of the crowd. Some satisfied, righteous smiles.
Peregrine was shrieking uncontrollably, his body seizing, and Jaco was laughing, louder and louder, louder than was humanly possible, so loud that the arena itself began to tremble, and then Josh could hear nothing but Jaco’s laughter, reverberating in the air like a cannon shot that wouldn’t end.
She saw Will’s mouth move but she couldn’t hear what he said. She stumbled across the moving ground toward him, and they grabbed each other the way they had when they were avoiding the falcon. Josh took Haley’s arm, too, and the six of them hung on to each other, creating their own little island of stability within Peregrine’s throbbing screams.
Deloise had her hands over her ears. A sound like thunder, but a thousand times louder, tore through the air, and when Josh looked up, she saw what looked like another Veil tear, but a tear so much brighter than the others, and golden instead of silver. It started right overhead and then tore down the sphere of the sky in all directions, flooding the arena with yellow light. The crowd began to scream as shapes formed in the light, lumpy and then more distinct, elongated, with rounded tops. Beings. People.
“What’s happening?” Josh shouted. She couldn’t even hear herself, and she couldn’t hear Haley when he replied, but she recognized the word his mouth formed.
Death!
The Veil between the World and the Dream had collapsed. Now the Veil that held back Death was collapsing as well, and the dead were walking—two by two, Josh heard Dustine say—into what was left of the three universes.
Josh’s head filled with a pain so sharp and raw it dropped her to her knees. She tried to open her eyes but the pain sliced through them, and it wasn’t Peregrine’s scream she heard then but Haley’s—and her own—as the memory of what they’d seen in the Cradle tore through them.
Ian. It’s Ian. Ian is coming back, and he’s wrong inside.
She saw Haley’s memories then, everything that had happened to him in Death, everything he had forgotten. He forced them from his mind into hers like a railroad spike. She saw how Ian had refused to let go of his life, how he had coveted Haley’s body, tried to take it, even.
And worse, she saw what Ian would do next.
Somehow she was standing up, Haley beside her, and Ian was walking down through the air toward them, grinning as his feet finally touched the ground, breaking into a run, calling out, “J.D.! Haley!” and Peregrine was screaming, “I am your god!”
Then Josh was running, Haley’s hand in hers, faster than she’d ever run. She forgot her pack, forgot her sister and her boyfriend and her friends, just ran and ran and ran, because she knew what Ian would do if he caught her, and it wasn’t Peregrine’s scream that followed her out of the arena, but her own.
Thirty−eight
Haley knew he shouldn’t be crying, that it would only make Ian hate him more, but he couldn’t stop himself. He ran down through a break in the stands and out of the Colosseum into the city at large, sobbing, Josh beside him, screaming, their hands clenched so tightly that he could no longer feel his fingers, just a pain where their bodies met. From behind them, Peregrine’s laughter echoed.
“Haley!” Whim shouted. “Slow down!”
But Haley couldn’t slow down. He tore down the street like an out-of-control bobsled, careening into walls, knocking people over, dragging Josh when she tripped, then Josh dragging him, and finally she pulled him through an arched doorway and into a building full of hot steam.
Hide, he thought, or maybe Josh was whispering it to him. Before the steam cleared they stumbled into a pool of hot, swirling water, and they began to swim, their hands still clamped together, swimming the butterfly in unison, and they didn’t stop until they simultaneously cracked their foreheads on the pool’s side and came up gasping and choking.
Then somehow they were holding each other, and Haley was still sobbing, and Josh was whispering, “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
Eventually Deloise found them.
“I forgot,” Josh whispered when they were sitting against a wall, water running from their clothes. “I forgot, I want to forget.”
Will was crouched in front of her, his hands on her knees, trying to calm her down. “You’re okay,” he kept saying. “You’re safe.”
But Josh caught Haley’s eye, and they both knew they weren’t safe.
“Was that Ian?” Whim demanded, and Haley hid behind his eyelids. “What the hell is going on?”
“The Veil that protects Death has collapsed,” Katia told him, and Haley was glad he had his eyes closed so he could just hear her voice and not have to look at her traitorous aura.
“Is that even possible?” Deloise asked.
“Until today, I would have said no,” Katia replied, and Haley knew she was about to blow her cover. He made himself open his eyes and glare at her, and she looked down at her crossed arms and fell silent.
“So it was Ian?” Whim asked. “Jesus.”
“It wasn’t Ian,” Josh whispered. Haley felt her shudder beside him. “It’s not him anymore.”
“What does that mean?” Will asked. “Josh, you have to talk to us.”
The bathhouse was full of lavender-scented steam, making the tiled mosaics on the floor slick as Haley stood up, preparing to run again. But Josh still had his hand, and she wouldn’t budge from the floor, and after a moment of struggle he collapsed beside her.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“We have to go,” he told her.
“Go where? There’s nowhere left to go. All the Veils are gone. There’s only one universe now.”
“No,” he whispered, urgently, hearing the panic
in his own voice. “There.”
“This will spread,” Katia was saying, “until there are no Veils left.”
There. The word echoed in Haley’s head. There. The place with the silence and white light and the egg—the Cradle.
“I can’t leave them,” Josh told him, and Haley realized he had forgotten about his friends, about Mirren, about everyone else.
“What does that mean?” Whim asked again.
“It means we were wrong,” Josh said. “I’m not the True Dream Walker—because Peregrine is.”
Silence except for the hiss of stream, the soft splash of old men moving through the water.
“No,” Haley said. “That can’t be right. The first time I touched you—I…”
“You what?” she asked. “You were scared of me—I remember. I was there. I was a weird little kid and you were scared of me.”
“Because I—I felt something. You’re special.” Haley wanted to hand her the memory like he would have a photograph, to give her proof, to express to her something inexpressible, that he’d known from the moment she handed him that nutcracker that she was singularly special.
“Special,” Josh said bitterly. “Yeah, I’m super special. Look at me, cowering on the floor of a Roman bathhouse. Running away from my ex-boyfriend. Letting my friends fight my battles for me. I’m really special.”
“Josh,” Will began, and she cut him off.
“The prophesies said that the True Dream Walker would re-merge the three universes. I’m not the one who did that, am I?”
No one could argue with her about that, not even Haley, not even when he felt so strongly in his heart that she was wrong, that they were missing something.
“Does that make you the False Dream Walker?” Deloise asked.
“I don’t think it makes me anything,” Josh said. “I think it means I just happen to be really good at dream walking, and that’s it. The prophesies are wrong. Haley’s wrong. My scroll’s wrong. I’m nothing.”
Haley shook his head but didn’t speak. No one spoke, until …
“I don’t care,” Will said abruptly. “I don’t care.”
They all looked at him.
“I don’t care if you’re the True Dream Walker or the False Dream Walker or a coward or just some random girl I go to school with,” Will said. “I love you. Do you hear me? I love you.”
He was trembling then. Josh touched his cheek with the backs of her fingers, gave him a sad smile.
Outside the bathhouse, people began screaming. Haley felt a chill go through him despite the heat of the steam, and he saw Josh shudder.
“What’s happening?” Deloise asked.
“The dead are coming,” Josh whispered.
“What do you mean?” Whim yelled at her. “Why would Ian kill us all?”
“He’s not Ian anymore,” Haley tried to say, but suddenly Josh was on her feet, screaming at Whim the way Peregrine had screamed at his father.
“Because he’s ruined! His soul is ruined! He wouldn’t move on and he wouldn’t let go, and now he’s nothing but the worst parts of himself, and he’s going to make what’s left of the universes far worse than Peregrine ever could!”
Whim cursed. He caught Josh before she could stumble back into the pool and handed her off to Will, who held her gently but firmly.
Whim sat down on a marble bench, and Deloise went to sit beside him. “So,” she said calmly. “It looks like we need a new plan.”
Whim laughed, then said to her, “You’re amazing, Del, you know that?”
“I do,” she said, but she gave him a smile Haley hadn’t seen in a long time. “Let’s start with what we know. Peregrine has destroyed the Veils—all of them—and merged the three universes. He has near-total control over everything now. And Ian is back from the dead and—not quite himself. Our original goal was to stop Peregrine and repair the Veils. Is that still possible?”
“No,” Josh said.
“If you had the Omphalos…” Haley began, but the look of failure in Josh’s eyes stopped him.
“What’s an Omphalos?” Whim asked.
“It’s an all-powerful egg-rock that Josh can use to control reality,” Will told him.
Whim blinked. “Why don’t I ever find stuff like that?”
“Anyone can use it,” Josh mumbled. “There’s nothing special about me.”
“Where is this Omphalos?” Deloise asked.
Josh finally unburied her face from Will’s shoulder. “It’s in a place where the three universes overlap. It’s called the Cradle.”
“Can you get back there?” Whim asked.
“We reached it together,” Haley told her. “Remember? We were there together when we saw…”
He couldn’t finish. He’d meant, When we saw what Ian’s going to do, but he couldn’t say it. That would make it too real.
Josh nodded, but he knew she was afraid. “Ian will find the Omphalos before we do.”
“How do you know?” Will asked.
“We saw it.” Briefly, she explained what she and Haley had experienced a week before in the basement. “We saw the future. Haley and I were running toward the Omphalos, but Peregrine was running toward it, too, and so was Ian. And Ian got there first.”
“Then what?” Deloise asked.
Josh met Haley’s eyes, and he saw his own sadness reflected in her gaze.
“He’s not Ian,” Haley insisted. “He’s … distorted.”
“Then it isn’t Peregrine we have to worry about,” Josh said.
“But even if Ian is changed, or different, or whatever,” Whim said, “he’s not evil. He won’t hurt people.”
“You don’t understand,” Josh said. “He will destroy the evolution of souls—he’s not who he used to be.”
“He tried to steal my body,” Haley said, and Whim blinked.
“He wants what everyone wants: control,” Josh said. “And if he gets ahold of the Omphalos, he’ll be able to control everything in existence. Good-bye, free will.”
“Okay,” Will said. “If the boundaries between the three universes have collapsed, has whatever boundary around the Cradle collapsed, too?”
“Not yet,” Josh said. “But it won’t be long. The Veil around the Cradle will be the last to fall.”
Haley had a strange feeling then, that it was his job now to take the next step. He reached out for Josh’s hands, surprised at how used to touching her he had grown, and he tried to stop shaking, to be strong for her.
“Remember what it felt like to hold the egg,” he said. “Not the part where we saw Ian, the part before that.”
Will kept his arms around Josh, encouraging her to lean back against him, and that was good. She was steadier when Will was touching her. Her hands were cold and small, but they were strong, too, strong enough that she could hang from a chin-up bar for fifteen minutes, and Haley wanted to remind her of that.
“We were looking at the map, remember? We could see all the souls’ paths. Some were long, and some were short. Do you remember whose was whose?”
Josh’s eyes had fallen shut, but her shoulders were sinking down as they relaxed. “Will’s was long. And Del’s was even longer. And yours”—here she opened her eyes again, and smiled unexpectedly—“yours was the longest.”
Haley nodded. “And yours?”
“Mine was the shortest. Because I’m new.”
“You’re new. Maybe you aren’t the True Dream Walker, I don’t know. But you’re here for a reason.”
“Because Mom and Grandma—”
“No, Josh. Close your eyes. Quit telling yourself what to think. Just listen.”
He used one fingertip to touch a spot just above and between her eyes—her third eye. He set the energy there to swirling. “Just listen.”
The lines in her face softened; her jaw loosened. She let herself fall back against Will, and he held her weight; he was the rock he had always wanted to be for her. Her skin beneath Haley’s fingertip warmed, and he prayed.
Haley had always believed in God. Not in a man with a beard or a paternal figure of judgement, not in a spirit that defied science or set down rules, but as something good. Something good and pure at the heart of the universe, something loving inherent to all life that connected all things. He had never doubted this belief. He saw it in the auras around him, in the way Will stood behind Josh and carried her weight, the way Deloise put a hand on her sister’s shoulder in silent support.
Haley had always considered himself lucky to be able to sense that source of love. So many people couldn’t feel it. They were so caught up in the flotsam of their lives that they couldn’t stop and listen, just feel. The older their souls were, the more times they had seen their lives rise up and then slip away, the easier it became for them to remember that the only thing that was eternal was this connection, but Josh was so young, so new … It was perhaps harder for her than for anyone else Haley had ever met.
Except Ian, now.
We remember and forget, remember and forget.
Josh needed to remember.
Will and Deloise had their eyes closed. Whim was pacing anxiously at the edge of the pool. Only Katia was watching him.
Haley winked at her, and Katia tilted her head. That momentary confusion was all the distraction Haley needed. He wrapped his free hand around the chef’s knife in his pocket, pulled it free, and plunged it into Josh’s chest.
Thirty−nine
Josh woke up with her hand on the egg.
I’m dead, she thought. Haley killed me.
She was confused about why until she realized where she was: back in the bright white light space, standing before the black basalt pillar with the egg on top and the water pouring down the sides.
Haley knew I needed to come back here, she thought. The peace and comfort that came with touching the egg surrounded her again, like the stone walls she had always imagined keeping her safe from the dreamers’ fear.
I’m safe here.
The egg was warm beneath her palm. She picked it up, weighed it in her hand. Such a small thing, and yet so full of possibility.
What do I do now? she wondered, and she knew to wait for the answer.
