She heard the smile in his voice as she stared up at the dark velvet ceiling. The room was like night. There were stars woven into the velvet. The four posters of the bed rose high above it, sashes of red silk draped between them.
“From all your lovers? Did you hear it from all of them too?” Kate asked, only regretting the jab slightly once the words had left her mouth.
It was Will’s turn to be hurt. He didn’t move. But she could hear it in his next words. “I told you that about me, because I trust you. More than I trust anyone. And Kate, you never let me finish earlier. What you and I have is something different. I feel like . . . like you live in my heart. Or my imagination. I don’t know how to say it. Instead, I show you. The things we do together, that’s me showing you.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice sounding small.
“Let’s never talk of it again. It doesn’t even matter. I’m dead, anyway,” Will said with a dark sigh. They were quiet for a moment, and then Will rolled onto his side, and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. He crawled across the bed to her.
As she watched him, a pang of regret tore through her heart into her stomach. “Will,” she said, her voice sounding breathless and desperate. “This feels real. It’s not simply a dream. You’re real. I want you to be real.”
He took her hand and held onto it, not saying anything.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” she said, finally.
“Where?”
“Anywhere. If this is a dream, we can do whatever we want.”
***
“I remember now that you were an actor. We’ve discussed it before, haven’t we?” Rather than answer, Will just nodded as though he hated to discuss the past. Or . . . his life, anyway. “What shows were you in?” Kate asked.
They were on an island in Greece. She didn’t know how that was possible, except that they walked out the door in the room with the bed and there they were.
An open air market surrounded them. Men and women hawked goods, loudly. It felt real, but for all she knew it was some concoction of her mind. Were the shopkeepers behaving the way she thought they should in a Mediterranean village halfway around the world? Was that it? Whatever it was, she knew she’d never been to this place before in real life.
They strolled along, drifting apart and then together again. Whenever they got too far away from each other, their gazes collided from across the busy streets and they moved back into orbit around each other. It was like they belonged together. Like the moon and the Earth. Was Kate the moon or was she the greater celestial body—pulling Will to her?
She watched, as Will stopped and perused a display of handcrafted jewelry, his clear, intent eyes moving across the black velvet cloth. His profile was so familiar to Kate by now. How many months had she been dreaming of him? She lingered beside him, enjoying the feel of the sides of their bodies bumping into each other intermittently like rowboats at a crowded dock. Kate smiled politely at the dark, curly haired artisan sitting on the other side of the tables. The man returned her grin with a short nod. His hands were busy with a wire-bending jewelry tool. He seemed to be fashioning an earring.
“My biggest hit was a cop show on TV. Remember?” Will said it absently, as though it didn’t matter. Their silence had been so long, Kate almost didn’t realize what he was talking about. He cleared his throat and his eyes narrowed, searching the tables of jewelry almost as though he was looking for something specific.
“Really? What one?” Her interest was piqued. Perhaps it was the offhand way Will discussed his past that made her more curious than she’d normally be.
He glanced at her, sunlight glinting in his sapphire eyes before he turned back to the jewelry. “It was called L.A. Bluefire.” He pretended like it didn’t matter. But it did, somehow, to Kate.
“I never watched it, but I’ve heard of it,” she said. It was on during the early eighties, she seemed to remember. Back in her waking life, someone had brought a DVD box set into the store a few days prior to trade in. On the street behind them, a man walked by carrying a giant wine cask over one shoulder. Kate watched him, lifting an eyebrow, then turned back to Will. “Were you the big hero in it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t like to think about it anymore.” A frown creased his cheeks and his eyes continued to scour the jewelry. Kate was getting bored with this table. “I’m sure you can understand that, right? Kate? I didn’t exactly live a stellar life. Not one a guy would love to share with his mother over a reunion dinner, anyway.”
“I’m sure you’re exaggerating. I always do, when I try to assess myself. Anyway, let’s go. There’s nothing interesting here.” She wrapped her fingers around his bicep, ready to pull him away. His arm was sinewy and strong beneath her hand.
“Here it is! Kate, come here, look at this one. Isn’t that something?” He held up a ring fashioned like a life-sized dragonfly.
“No one would wear that,” she said, taking it from Will. “Well, maybe Audra would. She likes gaudy jewelry.” The wings were like silver lace with some type of delicate gauze stretched over them, purple gems for eyes, and green iridescent scales molded around the body. The wings of the dragonfly stretched across all her fingers when she put it on her middle finger. Too big to be practical, but otherwise it fit her finger perfectly.
Will let out a low whistle and grinned at her. “Amazing, isn’t it?” His eyes glittered as she modeled it.
“I suppose. Yeah. But I like understated jewelry. Less cumbersome and irritating.” It looked good, she could admit that. And when she’d put it on, a shiver swept over her. It skittered across the back of her neck and down her spine. A warm feeling settled in the well of her stomach and stayed there.
The problem was that the ring was way too big.
“This one, though, Kate. You can wear it here because this place isn’t real. None of this is real.” He gestured dramatically around them. “We don’t even have to pay for the ring. You made it with your mind. You have a beautiful mind, I might add. Artistic. Crafty.”
She laughed. “Thanks.”
“You created me, and I’m rather fantastic, aren’t I?” He pressed his hand to his chest and one corner of his mouth rose in a teasing grin.
“Right, exactly. But come on, Will. No more talk of what’s real and what’s not, please.” The constant references to himself not being real were starting to bother her. And the fact that they were aware of potentially being within a dream was confusing. Kate was beginning to sincerely doubt that it was a dream, after all. There was something too real and permanent about the place and Will. Who was this jeweler for one? Kate watched him work. He did things that Kate knew nothing about—it was impossible for her to do the things he did. Thus he was real. Or something. Wasn’t he?
And why did Will know her so well? How could that be? And how could she include a man in her dreams that she knew so little of in real life.
Will cocked his head to one side. “Anything for you, baby,” he said, responding to her request to stop talking about him being just a dream. He took her hand and they strolled away without paying for the ring. They were out on the street, lost in the flow of pedestrians, when a sudden commotion behind them startled Kate. She turned.
“Hey! Hey! Hey! Come back! Thieves! Thieves! Police!” The man who made the ring charged after them through the suddenly thick and dense crowd.
“Run!” Will shouted, grabbing her hand and breaking into a sprint through the marketplace.
“Wait!” she protested, chasing after him. “Why don’t we just pay for it?”
“You have money?” Will asked without stopping. She hurried along behind him, dodging between people, too afraid to slow down, her pulse racing.
“No, but—can’t we just think up some money?” Kate asked.
“Does it work like that?” he shouted over his shoulder.
“I have no idea!”
“Then keep running!”
Kate followed him through the crowded streets, passing buske
rs and flower salesmen shouting about discounts for people who purchased bouquets. Suddenly he turned down an alleyway, dodging between large wooden barrels and stacks of empty pallets. Kate’s heart pounded in her throat. This dream was fast becoming a nightmare.
Beyond Will, Kate saw an endless blue sea and sky. Her stomach dropped as she continued to follow Will—there was no where else to go. Why not a warehouse or a refuge of some sort where we could hide? she thought as Will came out of the alley, to a curve in the street and evidently, the island. There was a knee-high barrier between them and the sheer, seventy-five foot drop into pure ocean. Will skidded to a stop and looked over his shoulder. His cheeks were flushed and his face was split by a huge grin as his eyes narrowed and he sized up the threat behind them. Kate stopped at his side and glanced behind herself. Three uniformed police charged toward them, knocking down crates and shouting furiously.
“To jump or not to jump, that is the question,” Will said between breaths. His voice was charged. He sounded thrilled to be in the midst of action. “Makes you feel alive, doesn’t it?” he said, glancing at Kate with a bemused glow in his eye.
“No, it doesn’t. This is awful. I hate feeling like I’m in trouble.” That sounded whiny. Would you like some cheese with that? She shook her head in disgust at herself. He’s going to think you’re boring.
“You afraid of heights, Kate?” he asked, releasing her hand and wiping it across his T-shirt. He took her hand again.
“Hardly,” she said. “I climb cliffs higher than this for fun. Are you actually suggesting we jump?” She leaned over the edge. Far below, white-capped waves crashed against the craggy rocks of the island.
“What a coincidence! That’s what gets me the most about you: we’re on the same wavelength. No more time for discussion—here they come. Hold your breath Kate!” He pulled her along with him over the ridiculously small rock barrier and Kate found herself moving automatically beside him. She jumped as far from their little launch pad as her legs could manage.
They separated in the air. Kate felt the wind rushing up through her clothes and hair as she plummeted like a seabird toward the water.
“This is a dream, this is a dream,” she chanted to herself. The words were ripped away from her face as soon as they left her lips. She sensed them shooting toward the dark blue heavens even as the sapphire water opened up around her body and let her in. This is what it feels like to be a kingfisher. This is what it feels like to be a falling star. This is what it feels like to be a dolphin. An orca. A starfish. A thing of both sea and air. This is what it feels like to live on the razor’s edge of life.
Kate plunged deep into the water. The current was warm, then cold, then warm again as she sank. She kicked her way back to the surface. Bubbles frothed around her and shot skyward. Light broke through the water. Sweet blessed light. It called to her. Just when she thought her chest would explode and open to the water, a dead thing, a piece of flotsam merging consciousness with the seawater, so much like blood, so much like something that could save her—she broke into the sunlight and gasped air into her lungs. She breathed greedily, gladly, thankfully. Waves swayed and dipped around her. She tread water, searching the sinuous surface for Will.
He rolled into her without warning. They tumbled along, a tangled mass of arms and legs like kelp, floating over the waves until they found a secluded beach where they unraveled and disengaged and lay on their backs, laughing and gasping.
“Huh, I wonder why they didn’t follow us,” Will mused, laughing.
“I guess the danger didn’t match the crime,” Kate answered.
“Probably not,” he said.
“I would almost think you had experience running from the law,” Kate observed, rolling to her side and studying him.
“The other end of it, really. I did a lot of chase scenes in that cop show. I always did my own stunts, though stunts is kind of a grandiose word for what we did.” Beads of water rolled from the neckline of his shirt over the jagged ridge of his collarbone. He squinted at her from the corner of his eye and smiled.
“I’m sure for the time-period, they were stunning,” Kate teased.
“You said you climb rocks for fun, back there, before we jumped. Is that true?” He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his arm.
She shrugged. “Pretty much. But I definitely don’t cliff-dive. That was scarier than any route I’ve done.”
“Route?”
“You know, a line up a cliff. Usually I do climbs that someone else mapped out.”
“I actually don’t know. I’ve never done anything like that. It sounds scary. Thrilling. Obviously I appreciate cheap thrills,” he said with a smirk and a little nod back toward the spot from where they jumped.
“Shall I call you Monsieur Cheap-thrills from now on?”
“Kate, that’s a lovely nickname. And I’ll call you Madame Daredevil.”
“Ick,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Madame sounds so old.”
“Mademoiselle? Ms.?” He furrowed his brow.
“How about just Daredevil.”
“Fair enough. But then you’ll have to drop Monsieur from my nickname. So I’m just going to be Cheapthrill. And you, Daredevil.”
“I like it. We sound like a team. Like Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Sherlock and Watson, Bonnie and Clyde.”
“Abbot and Costello, the Lone Ranger and Tonto.”
“Ok, who?” Kate laughed, raising an eyebrow.
“Too old for you?” he asked, giving a little regretful smirk. “I hate it when I do that. When I show my age.”
“You’re my age. Not much older,” Kate said, giving his arm a little shove.
“Here, I am. But really . . . “
“No, don’t say it.” Kate held up her hand to stop him from pursuing the idea further.
He nodded. “Fine, Daredevil.”
“Stop making me so happy, Cheapthrill.”
“I make you happy?” he asked, sounding hopeful.
She laughed and rolled away, into the sun, feeling it hot on her face. Soon his arm closed around her stomach and she felt his chin nuzzle warmly into her neck.
***
Kate gasped awake. She took several deep breaths before settling back into her pillow. It was the middle of the night. The window above her bed let light in as cars passed on the road outside. The sound of their passing struck a chord in her that sounded like loneliness.
He was gone. She touched her finger where the dragonfly ring had been in the dream, but even holding her breath didn’t make it appear there. All of it was a hallucination. A delusion. Wishful thinking.
She sat up, swung her legs over the side of her bed, and flipped on her lamp. The sudden glow singed her eyes and the hardwood floor was cold beneath her feet. Outside, the fan of the air conditioner rumbled to life and settled into a humming, monotonous drone. A deep breath brought in the familiar smells of her room—old Nag Champa and that of a musky, scented candle she had found at Whole Foods. She rubbed her eyes, feeling halfway tempted to go wake Audra up to tell her about that dream. What could it mean? Anything? There had been a dragonfly. The thing that made her run. Did that translucent-winged insect signify something in dreams?
She stared at the floor, tired and lonely, reliving the dream in as much detail as possible. When she fell asleep again, would she dream of him? And if she did, would she remember him or would it be like last time, where it took her a while to remember?
Already she had forgotten his name.
The blue-eyed stranger had given her a dragonfly ring. She put it on and stole it from the artisan. He ran after them, screaming that they were thieves.
Chills clung to her bare arms.
Kate touched a key on her open laptop resting on the desk next to her. The screen woke up and she pressed play on the keyboard. A mellow song began. She switched off her light and flopped back onto her bed and snuggled down under the covers. With her eyes closed, and the song playing quietly, she could almost
relive the good parts of her dream.
But she kept coming back to the dragonfly ring.
That ring meant something. It had to. Why keep dreaming of the same man if the whole thing meant nothing? Somehow her mind fixated on the ring, as though the entire structure of her dreams rested upon that metallic insect. It had such a heavy pull for being such a tiny object.
Kate sighed, her eyelids growing heavy. Her mind swirled recklessly in a jagged whirlwind around the idea that the dragonfly held meaning. That it symbolized something made sense to Kate, there, in the middle of the night . . . because it was the middle of the night, where everything made sense. Even recurrent dreams about a gorgeous stranger.
5: Too Many Surprises
“When you see Ty,” Audra said as they sped through the winding industrial section of the city, “don’t get all quiet and self-conscious. Have some confidence that you’re desirable, OK? Men like that. That’s an attractive trait. Not timidity.”
“I don’t get timid,” Kate protested with a scowl. “I’m the most confident person I know.”
Self-storage units, warehouses, and distribution centers flew by, and then Audra came to a screeching halt in a parking spot outside a building that used to be a warehouse itself. Given a facelift and dubbed Boulder Crazy, it was now the hot hangout for all the outdoorsy, Pilates, and yoga people when they couldn’t make it to an outdoor location to climb or boulder.
Audra finished telling Kate how she should behave to land a date with Ty as she put the Subaru Impreza in park and engaged the brake. Kate sighed and smirked.
“Audra, I’m not completely inept at this. I just know when a guy is out of my league.” Her seatbelt whipped back into the wall panel as she released it.
Audra leaned toward Kate and grabbed her arm before Kate could hop out of the Subaru. “Hang on, chickadee, he’s not out of your league. Thinking like that only makes you behave like he is. No guy is out of your league. You’re a princess!”
Kate laughed darkly. She wasn’t. She knew that much. Unless they were talking about princesses like Grace Kelly or Princess Di—chicks who were proactive Mother Theresa types—then princess was not for Kate. She never had Disney princess fantasies growing up. She had planned to be a doctor at one point, when she innocently thought she could stand the sight of blood and the thought of cutting into a person. And then she was going to be a vet, until she realized she couldn’t cut into an animal either. And then she thought an astronaut, because what could go wrong in space? When she saw Apollo 13 with her dad on a random Saturday night, well . . . anyway.
A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga) Page 5
