A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga)

by Grotepas, Nicole

  “Will,” she said quietly, pleading.

  He kept his back to her. Her knees weakened. She’d ruined everything for certain. How could she be so insensitive? So tactless?

  “I’m so sorry, Will. I didn’t mean it—”

  “It’s OK,” he said, not turning.

  She touched his shoulder, scared that he’d be immovable, scared that she would make it worse by forcing her will upon him.

  “I was trying to lighten the mood—it was stupid. I never meant to hurt you. I would have been by your side through everything. You wouldn’t have died alone if I’d known you when you were alive.”

  Finally, he turned. “Kate, you wouldn’t even have recognized who I was then.”

  ***

  It was the worst way to wake up. Not with the taste of a recent kiss in her mouth or with the memory of holding him fresh in her mind, but the bitter flavor of knowing that she’d hurt Will with her words. It was cruel, what she’d done. And uncharacteristic. She’d never have said something like that to Ty or almost anyone else. But she hardly acted the same in the dream as she did awake.

  The only good that seemed to come from the dream this time was that she still remembered his name. Will. The starkness of reality hadn’t taken it from her. Perhaps finding out who he was before the dream meant that she would hold on to it.

  She swung her legs over the edge of her bed, found a notepad and scribbled information about the dream onto it. William Hawke. Will Hawke. There. In case she somehow, mysteriously forgot it again.

  She grabbed her laptop and clicked on a “William Hawke” Google link from her searching about him before she fell asleep.

  Her stomach did somersaults as she stared at the old picture of him. No doubt about it. It was Will. The Will from her dreams: sapphire eyes with their long dark eyelashes, that dimple like the last line of a haiku, and his perfect satin skin.

  Born in the thirties and dead by the early nineties. He’d been dead most of Kate’s life. If he had lived, he would have been almost ninety. And if he were living, would she care? Would what she felt for him transcend that enormous age barrier?

  When alive, he’d been in a bunch of TV shows, but most of them she’d never heard of, except the one she’d seen at Suga’s—LA: Bluefire. The cop show. He also did movies, but nothing Kate was familiar with. In LA: Bluefire, he played an American hero. Pop culture junkies threw his name out when they joked that someone was going to ride the edge of law and exact vigilante justice. That was what his character in LA: Bluefire did. When the bad guy got off scot free, his character, Logan Craig, found them and exacted out his own justice, which was what a person would call police brutality today.

  Still. People loved him because the bad guys were really bad. Drug lords. Pimps. Human-traffickers. Wife- and child-abusers. The show might have landed a spot on HBO today, and could have been really graphic. But back then it only lasted two seasons on a late spot, and it got away with all the questionable topics by dancing around the subjects, only hinting at them.

  Kate kept reading, filling in the blanks about him. Not that it mattered much: she knew how she felt about Will. He got married once and then divorced a few years later just like he told her in the dream. Details on his personal life were rather scarce. The tidbit about his marriage was the only thing recorded on the wiki about B-list stars. The entry talked about his acting training, which was partially done in London as he had told her. According to some sources, he hated the cop show and only did it for the money. He preferred acting in film or on the stage.

  Kate finished reading the wiki entry and felt strangely unsatisfied. So she went to YouTube and began watching clips from LA: Bluefire. She propped her laptop up on the corner of her desk, curled up, and let it play. Maybe tonight would be the first time she went into the dream twice.

  10: The Gig

  “C, G, A-minor, F,” Kate muttered as she scribbled the chords into the top corner of her notepad with one hand, while the other held her guitar on her lap. She put the pencil down and strummed the chords, trying out various lyrics.

  It was almost eleven on Saturday morning. Kate had been up since dawn, when her roommate, Overachiever Jill, woke and began screeching out a bunch of violin solos. There was no way to sleep through that, so Kate got up too.

  Kate paused in her playing, thinking about the lyrics she’d just sung. They were good. She grabbed her pencil and scrawled them into her notepad on her desk. As she did, her stomach growled—she still hadn’t eaten breakfast. She put her guitar on the bed, stood up, and stretched.

  The kitchen was a mess. Dirty bowls and pans teetered out of the sink. Crumbs covered the floor. The visibility of the countertops was severely hampered by stacks of muffin tins and cooling racks. Kate mumbled under her breath about the incompetency of some people as she removed a blueberry muffin from a tin with a butter knife. Overachiever Jill made them after her insane practice session. Kate smeared a slab of butter on it and began eating.

  At that moment, Jill came screaming into the kitchen, a flurry of business-like efficiency whirling around her. Kate retreated to the rickety card table in the corner and sat down in one of the mismatched chairs.

  “Hi,” Jill said over her shoulder, breathless. Her long black hair was curled and flowed around her square-jawed face like the cape of Dracula.

  “Hey Jill,” Kate said with a polite smile.

  Jill opened and closed cabinet doors, banging through them, looking for something. Kate couldn’t guess what that might be, since the girl had already made muffins and still hadn’t cleaned up.

  “I have to go out of town for a few days for a concert,” the frenetic girl said, still searching through the cabinets.

  “Great! Have fun,” Kate said.

  “Can you take care of Brody while I’m gone?” Jill stopped her frantic searching and turned to look at Kate, resting one hand by her hip on the only clear spot of countertop. Her face was a picture of put-upon self-pity—brows angled up in the center, her forehead wrinkling, her eyes glowing with pity-me light.

  Kate stopped eating. Did Jill think the muffin made Kate indebted to her? “How long will you be gone?”

  “Three days, is all. We have to go to Vegas. It’s a wedding and a concert,” she brushed her hair back with one hand. “I shouldn’t even be going, but my friend who was supposed to do it, well, she had a death in her family. So she called me.”

  Kate didn’t want to strap herself with this obligation, at least, not for Jill. Was there a reason Jill wasn’t asking her mom to watch the dog? “OK, that’s fine. Sure. I’ll take care of him.” But not for you—for him, she added in her head.

  “Oh, thank you so much,” Jill said. “I’m leaving this afternoon. I’ll be home on Monday night.”

  Jill vanished back into her room without ever getting anything out of the cabinets. Kate sniffed, suspicious it was all a ruse to position herself where she could ask Kate to watch Brody. Just for that, Kate ate two more muffins. She would have eaten more if she could have fit them in. She rinsed off the butter knife, put it in the dishwasher, and wiped down the table where she’d sat.

  The rest of the afternoon as Kate continued to work on Will’s song, she heard Jill through the wall, slamming the closet door over and over like she was trying to knock someone out gangster style. It was hard to concentrate, but eventually silence descended in the rest of the house, signaling that Jill was gone.

  Kate was finished composing her song when Audra got home around five and came charging into Kate’s room and collapsed on the bed. “I have great—no, excellent—no, mind-blowing news.”

  Kate put her guitar down. “What?”

  “I got asked out on a date by this older guy. He’s hot and best of all, rich,” Audra said, templing her fingers like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.

  “Nice! But . . . how do you know he’s rich?” Kate asked, lifting an eyebrow.

  “He’s a developer and he comes into the store all the time because he’s con
stantly upgrading his house. He must have a smokin’ house. I’ve seen some of the stuff he’s bought for it.” She rolled to her side and studied Kate with intense brown eyes. “What’ve you been doing today? Where’s Jill? Her car was gone. Crossing my fingers she took off for the weekend.”

  “She did. She’s gone to Vegas and asked me to watch Brody.”

  “You said yes?”

  “Of course.” Kate casually covered the lyric-scrawled notepad with her arm.

  “You are sweeter than I am.” Audra flopped onto her back. “So what have you been doing? Getting ready for tonight?”

  “Totally. And I even just wrote a new song to play. You’re coming right?”

  “Duh. Do you even need to ask that?” There were two loud thumps at the foot of the bed as Audra removed her shoes with her toes.

  “Well, if this rich guy asked you out for tonight, I guess you might have changed plans,” Kate explained, feeling awash with relief.

  “For your information, he did ask me out for tonight. I turned him down because of your thing. So he settled for a date with me next week.”

  “Huh, thanks,” Kate said, wryly. “I hate to ruin your love life, though. Next time just take the date. I’ll be pissed, but I’ll get over it.”

  “Don’t be a martyr. You come first. Until I’m sure about a guy, anyway.”

  “Awww,” Kate said, touching her chest, where she actually felt a surge of gratitude.

  “So?”

  “So?” Kate repeated, confused.

  Audra rolled over again, grinning sarcastically. “Hello? Play the new song for me.”

  “You don’t want to wait for the big debut at the tiny coffee shop on the corner?” Kate asked.

  “I’m your sounding board, basically your manager. Play it for me. Now.” Audra snapped her fingers and pointed at the guitar. “Pick it up.”

  Kate followed her friend’s command. “Don’t get your expectations up. It’s nothing special.”

  “Shush. I’ll be the judge of that.”

  Kate began strumming the simple chord progression. The melody was where she embellished. She found herself closing her eyes as the song spilled from her mouth. She could see Will before her, lying in the halo of a candle. His eyes were half closed as her voice caressed him, danced along the shadows outlining his stomach, ribcage, chest. She felt her words find his ears, and sink into his mind, where they penetrated his heart. She saw a ghost of herself stand and fall into his arms.

  One half of me sleeps,

  One half of me dreams

  And where I go, I go for thee

  Don’t wake me because I’ll forget

  The taste of your skin

  The sound of your voice calling for me

  Our ill-fated love, this deadly desire

  I would sleep a thousand nights

  To keep you close

  Dream my days away to share a life with you

  What journey must I take, what dragons slay

  To release your curse, break your chains?

  Lay the gauntlet then unleash the kraken,

  I know the way to turn the beast to stone.

  Kate finished. She leaned the neck of the guitar against her bed with the body on the floor, intentionally not looking at her friend. She was afraid Audra would tease her. Or worse, hate the song.

  “Just as I suspected. Pure crap.” Audra grinned sardonically.

  “Ouch,” Kate said, laughing.

  “No really. I’m kidding. You know inside that I’m screaming in a total fan-girl way, wishing I was your best friend because it was so awesome, just like you are. Oh wait, I am your best friend, as I should be. OK, so it’s totally gorgeous, you jerk. Like early Indigo Girls mixed with Daughter, mixed with Florence and the Machines. I hate you,” Audra said, smiling. She studied a fingernail as she paused for effect. Her eyes flicked up to Kate. “Dream guy?”

  “Yeah,” Kate admitted, blushing furiously. She mentally cursed her fair skin and blonde hair. It was impossible to lie to people and cover up her real emotions with a tell like that. Besides that, Kate was unable to lie to her friend when it came right down to it.

  Still, she withheld Will’s name.

  Audra sat up and crawled to the edge of the bed against the wall where she leaned her back against it. “You’re going to play it tonight?”

  “Probably.”

  “But isn’t Ty going to be there?” Audra raised an eyebrow.

  “So?” Kate cocked her head.

  “Have you told him about the dreams?”

  “No,” she sputtered. “I mean, I hardly know him.”

  “Yeah, it doesn’t seem like something you should tell a guy you’re just starting to date.”

  “No kidding.”

  “So if he asks, what will you tell him?”

  Kate shrugged. “That I imagined some mythical, fictional story and made the song up about it. That’s a pretty common songwriting technique, I think, not that I’m some crazy good songwriter or anything. Just, that’s what I’ll say, as though I am.” She laughed mirthlessly, feeling stupid.

  Audra nodded, gazing into the distance as though she were imagining Kate’s exchange with Ty about the song. She bit her lip. “He’ll buy it, I’m sure.”

  “Probably. I hate to lie, but, the whole dreaming thing is just too weird.” Kate stopped, cutting herself short. She almost told Audra that she remembered his name.

  She inspected her hesitation, curious about it. If Audra knew, then she would look him up. Then she’d have a face for the guy who romanced Kate—every night, now. She’d be able to imagine what they did and she’d be able to joke about him. She would read his life-story. Then inevitably, even though Audra was usually supportive and sweet, she would make comments about the shows he was in at certain moments and the teasing would multiply.

  Not that Audra was some unsympathetic jerk. It was just . . . something about the thing Kate had with Will was sacred. She didn’t want it touched by sarcasm. She wanted it to be protected and safe.

  “What’s wrong,” Audra asked, her voice pulling Kate back to the moment.

  “Oh, uh, nothing. Just thinking about Ty. And the song,” she lied. If she said Ty, Audra wouldn’t bring up Will. Kate suddenly found herself wanting to shield him from her friend and the rest of her waking life.

  Knowing who the dream guy was hadn’t made anything easier, as Kate hoped it might. No. Not at all. She had this uncomfortable realization that it made everything more complicated and serious, as though she was being ground to dust between two giant boulders, as though two worlds had collided and Kate was caught in the middle.

  ***

  When Kate and Audra arrived at Salt and Sugar, Ferg already had a table. His feet were crossed on another chair as he sipped coffee and read something on his iPad—a gift from his parents he’d told everyone, swearing that he didn’t make enough money for such indulgences. Odors of freshly ground coffee wafted from the shop as traffic streamed in and out through the nearby front doors.

  Ferg put his iPad down, stood up, and gave Kate half a hug in greeting. Audra set the amp down, kicked out a chair and sat down as though she was exhausted from carrying the tiny thing—it was an Orange Crush and barely weighed twenty-two pounds.

  “Why didn’t you guys drive?” Ferg asked.

  “We only live two blocks up the street. We’d probably end up parking further away than we live,” Kate said.

  “Nice of you to be a pack mule, Audra,” Ferg laughed, gesturing at the amp.

  “I know,” she said, shaking out her arms like they were sore from it.

  “Geez, it wasn’t that hard, and we took turns,” Kate said.

  “We know you think you’re a rock star, Kate.” Ferg sat down and put his feet back up on the spare chair. “Have a seat, Kate. Relax.”

  Kate opened her mouth to protest, but changed her mind and shut it. Arguing about it would only make it worse. She sat down at the chair Ferg pulled over for her as a crowd of hips
ters milled by, eating gelato from trendy, small cups. Kate felt their eyes on her and suspected they were judging her a poser because she wasn’t dressed exactly like them.

  “You don’t have to be here, Ferg,” Kate said, deciding it was worth the argument. The last thing she needed was to be ridiculed right before she performed. Nothing like a ribbing to undermine her confidence. “I didn’t ask you to be.”

  Ferg narrowed his eyes. “Well I’m not taking off, so don’t think that tough girl facade will convince me to leave.”

  Kate shrugged. “If you want to be supportive, be supportive. Just don’t tease me right before I’m supposed to go sing in front of a bunch of strangers.”

  “Look, you’re going to rock it, so just calm down, kitty Kate.” Ferg made simmer-down gestures with his hands.

  “Oooh, she hates it when you call her that,” Audra said, pulling her phone out of her pocket.

  “You do?” Ferg asked, studying Kate’s face.

  “No, it’s fine,” Kate muttered.

  Audra shook her head. “It’s not fine. She does hate it.”

  “Why? I think it’s cute. It’s my name for her,” he said to Audra, then looked back at Kate. “It’s my name for you. It’s a thing. For us.” He gestured between them like they had some deep connection. They didn’t. Not the way he was thinking. Or maybe we do, Kate realized, remembering walks they’d taken in the middle of the night when her heart was broken, and once or twice going up on the roof of Suga’s and having a smoke as the sun set. They didn’t smoke, usually. But once in a while was no big deal, especially when Kate was feeling pensive and scared about the future.

  “Whatever, it’s no big deal,” she said, trying to dismiss the whole conversation. She did hate the kitty Kate thing, just because she didn’t like the reference. There seemed to be something sexual about it and she hated being reduced to sex. She didn’t know exactly what Ferg’s purpose with it was, either—to belittle her, endear her, or insult her.

  Luke wandered up from the store with his hands shoved into his pockets, wearing an animal rights T-shirt and a trucker cap. “Hey,” he said, dragging a chair from an empty, nearby table and sitting down.