The Last Dream Keeper

by Amber Benson

  She left the vanity and dragged herself to the bathroom, where she brushed her teeth and washed her face, slathering on moisturizer. This was the same ritual she’d performed for years, eschewing makeup and the other accoutrements of femininity because she was just too damn busy doing other things. Worrying about what she looked like did not rate high on her priority list.

  The late-morning light filtered through the living room windows as Arrabelle made her way to the kitchen for her morning coffee. Unlike makeup, espresso rated high on that priority list, and she was no good to anyone before she’d had her first shot of the day.

  After decades of living among the detritus of her father’s folk art collection, Arrabelle had become almost immune to the West African and South Asian ceremonial masks and ornamental sculptures that decorated her living room—but not quite. Somehow these same collectibles seemed apropos to their environment when they resided in her father’s dilapidated old row house in San Francisco, but here in the Southern California sunshine there was something macabre about them.

  Their brightly colored faces followed her, eyes ogling her back. Her slippers made no sound on the hard surface of the living room floor, no echoing footfalls to carom off the cathedral post-and-beam ceiling. She’d bought the house for its good bone structure, but she’d ended up redoing the whole space, shaping it into a modernist version of a wooden cabin—large plate-glass windows juxtaposed against the original, more traditional, wooden structure. It was an impressive bit of architecture, something she was proud of creating.

  Still, her father’s collection felt strange in the space, like a flea-ridden squatter hiding out in the palatial expanses of Versailles. All those faces watching and whispering from their spots on the wall, their gazes malevolent and hostile. Even the benign ones—the smiling masks with wide eyes and grinning mouths, or the animal avatars with their paintwork stripes and spots and fur.

  And then there were the vertical-eyed monsters with serrated teeth and pointed tongues, the plain wooden masks that seemed like blank slates ready to take on the emotional state of whatever shaman wore them. For some reason, their expressionless faces terrified Arrabelle the most.

  She didn’t think of herself as easily upset, but more and more she found she averted her eyes when she had to go through the room.

  . . . Bella boo . . .

  The words flowed around her as though someone were whispering them inside her head, the imagined fluttering of lips and teeth making Arrabelle shiver.

  . . . Bella baby child . . .

  Her body went rigid, feet stopping her in place. She felt like a bug trapped in amber in the middle of the living room. All the hair on her body stood on end; the voice—and the words it spoke—was not something she’d heard for a very, very long time.

  . . . Bella baby . . .

  It was her dead mother’s voice, calling out the pet name she’d used when Arrabelle was a small child. After that, no one had ever called her Bella. The truncated version of her given name had been buried along with her mother’s bones, never to be resurrected.

  Until now.

  “Maman?” Arrabelle called out—the urge to connect to the voice so strong she couldn’t control her response.

  Tiny pinpricks began to cover her body, starting at her feet and then, in a wave of nerve-tingling sensation, traveling up the length of her firmly muscled body until she was consumed. Her eyeballs burned like coals and she scratched at the searing hot flesh with her nails, trying to rip away the skin as if this action would stop the pain. She flailed around the room, slamming against the edge of the couch and falling forward, her head cracking into the wooden coffee table.

  “Maman!” Arrabelle cried, acid tears scalding her cheeks as they streamed down her face.

  . . . Bella baby, beware . . .

  “Maman?!” she screamed, every inch of her body in pain.

  The foul stench of charred human flesh filled her nostrils and Arrabelle choked back a scream, terror overloading her brain. She prayed she wasn’t smelling her own body cooking, but, of course, she knew that was exactly what was happening. She cracked open a gelatinous eyelid and saw her terror realized: She was roasting like a pig on a spit. Flames leapt from her body and traveled along the couch, engulfing the room and threatening to destroy all the masks and artifacts her father had bequeathed to her upon his death . . .

  The burbling of the espresso maker and the smell of percolating coffee replaced the stink of her own fiery death. She shuddered, tension pouring off her in undulating waves, until she felt limp and wrung out.

  She was standing in front of the stove, one gas eye lit up in iridescent blues and oranges, the flames licking along the angular aluminum bulb at the bottom of the espresso pot. She reached out to pluck the pot from the gas burner but thought better of it and pulled her fingers back before she burned them.

  No more burning today, Arrabelle thought, shivering as she remembered how real the lucid dream had been. What else could it be but a lucid dream? Her mother wasn’t a ghostly voice in her head, and she wasn’t burning to death. Shit like that only happened in dreams.

  Arrabelle’s Cornish Rex kitten, Curiosity, brushed past her ankles, and Arrabelle could feel the thrum of the kitten’s purr against her skin.

  “Hey, little one,” she said as she picked up the skinny beast and pulled her close.

  Ordinarily, Curiosity didn’t care to be held. But she must’ve sensed Arrabelle needed the closeness and so the kitten allowed it.

  “Nothing bad will ever happen to you, baby girl,” Arrabelle said as she gave the kitten one more cuddle, then let her go. “I won’t let it.”

  But who will protect me? Arrabelle thought. Who will protect us all when the end comes?

  She shook her head, not liking the words that had just come unbidden into her head. She was not a woman who kowtowed to hysteria, but the strange intensity of the lucid dream had freaked her out. As much as she enjoyed the privacy that came with living alone, at that moment she would’ve given anything to have someone there to hold her like she’d held the kitten.

  Dev is the luckiest. She has those little girls at her feet and that flirtatious scamp of a man in her bed. She’s never alone.

  She turned the eye of the stove off and poured the sludgy brown liquid into a small ceramic espresso cup. She took an orange from the refrigerator and sliced it into four sections, then cut off a wedge of rind from one of the quarters and placed it on the saucer next to her cup. She took her coffee and orange sections to the scarred wooden table and sat down at one of the long benches, wishing it were cold enough to set a fire in the stone hearth that took up the entire back wall of the kitchen.

  The heady scent of sage and lavender lingered in the air, a remnant from the poultice she and Lizbeth had been working on the day before—but underlying those enticing aromas were other smells: the pungent manure stench of asafoetida or Devil’s Dung, the cinnamony heat of betel nut husk, the crisp mint of pennyroyal, the foul-sweetness of valerian root, the spicy warmth of clove, the decaying odor of cuttlefish bone. Usually, the scents infiltrating her kitchen, via the two Chinese apothecary cabinets that housed her herbal collection, put Arrabelle into a Zen state. But as she drank her espresso, she discovered she just couldn’t relax; the strange lucid dream permeated her thoughts, making it impossible to calm down.

  To try to change the flow of her thinking, she got up and grabbed a stack of mail she’d left lying on the kitchen counter and brought it to the table. There, she found the requisite bills and junk mail clamoring for her attention, but buried underneath the unwieldy pile was a padded manila envelope simply addressed to Bell.

  The delicate, looping script was immediately familiar to Arrabelle—and its presence was completely unexpected, filling her belly with both excitement and dread.

  Evan, she thought, the name both a blessing and a curse—because the sender of t
he letter was none other than Evan Underwood, the only man she’d ever loved.

  She tore open the envelope, slicing her palm on the metal clasp so that bright red blood smeared across it. A Rorschach of color against the plain beige of the wrapping.

  “Stupid,” Arrabelle hissed, annoyed with herself for being so clumsy—and for the way her hands were shaking.

  Just the thought of Evan was enough to make her heart start to race. It had always been this way. The calm, cool, collected woman she’d worked so hard to create was instantly washed away by a flood of emotion, and she was left as naïve and vulnerable as she’d been when she was eighteen.

  I’m like a golden retriever puppy, so excited, tail wagging, tongue lolling out of my mouth like an ecstatic idiot, Arrabelle thought as she pressed her palm to her lips, stanching the trickle of blood with her mouth.

  She willed her body to chill out, to just take a moment to process the excitement it was feeling and then to calmly put that excitement away. Compartmentalize was her mantra where Evan was concerned—otherwise she could get very, very hurt by expectations.

  It wasn’t as if there were anything she could do to change things. As much as she loved him—and always would—they didn’t work. Not as a couple, at least. They were like night and day, oil and water . . . all those ridiculous idioms that basically implied she and Evan were polar opposites who did not combine well. But their attraction to one another defied their differences. Arrabelle didn’t know another human being who could light up her life the way Evan did. Just his voice set her ablaze, made her feel alive. Her world was cast in grayscale, and his presence turned everything Technicolor.

  Just stop it, she chided herself, inhaling deeply. She held the breath—the lack of oxygen calming her down—then slowly released it through her nostrils in one long exhale.

  She slipped her hand into the manila envelope, removing the small leather-bound book that was tucked inside. As she lifted it up from its nest of padding, a folded square of paper fell out and landed on the tabletop. She set the book down and picked up the paper, opening it with shaky hands. A sense of foreboding, so deep she could literally taste its metallic tang, overwhelmed her. She had the bizarre urge to stuff the paper and book back into their envelope and burn them. Even with the horrible feeling swirling around inside her gut, she knew she would read whatever Evan had sent. Her curiosity was too great.

  Dear Bell—

  This sounds so trite, but if you are reading this it’s because I’m gone, or near to it. Niamh will take this to the general store and post it to you. She’s trustworthy—and my last remaining blood sister. She won’t let either of us down.

  You will know what to do with its contents.

  I should have said this to you twenty years ago, but it just never seemed like we were in a place for it to not be misconstrued: I love you. I always will. You are my soul mate. Now and forever.

  Be careful. The Flood is coming . . . no, The Flood is already here. We were all just too stupid to realize.

  All my love,

  E.

  Arrabelle stared at the letter, her brain disbelieving its contents. She reread Evan’s words again, trying to process what he was telling her.

  Evan was gone? How could that be? Wouldn’t she have felt it?

  Nothing in the letter made any sense.

  Except the part where he told you he loved you, Arrabelle thought, her throat tight as she fought back tears. All these years and only when the world is ending, only when he’s gone does he say it . . .

  She hated him in that moment—but hate was just the flip side of love.

  Arrabelle pushed back the wooden bench and got to her feet, her body off balance, legs unsteady. Her heart was slamming in her chest, banging against her rib cage, begging to be let out. She laid her palms flat on the scarred tabletop, feeling the deep grooves her knives had made in the wood. Her life’s work as an herbalist had created those scars, and once upon a time, they would’ve reassured her. But in light of what she’d just read, she felt untethered . . . lost.

  Her work meant nothing when her heart was broken and the man she loved wasn’t there, standing beside her. All these years she’d lied to her heart, telling the poor hardworking muscle that it was superfluous. She didn’t need it. She could choose to be cold and unemotional, tough as nails. That way she’d be safe.

  Ha! What a joke. Only in this moment could she see just how big an idiot she’d been.

  She needed love just like everyone else.

  She wasn’t immune.

  She wanted Evan.

  * * *

  She pressed redial, but the outcome was the same. The number was no longer in service.

  “Damn,” Arrabelle muttered, ending the call and setting her cell phone down on the table. It had been so long since she’d spoken to Evan, she didn’t know for sure if this number was even his most recent one. She should never have let it go so long between phone calls.

  She and Evan would always be connected, no matter the time and space that physically separated them. And even though she’d always felt inextricably drawn to him, she’d been able to stuff those “love” feelings away. Because there were just so few people you met in life who really got you, and so when you found one, you held on to them for dear life. Even if that meant you weren’t honest with yourself about how they really made you feel.

  But now she wasn’t sure what to think. Evan was unreachable, gone—as he’d said in his letter—and all that was left of him was a leather-bound book. Whatever information it contained, she knew it would only upset her.

  She picked it up, weighing it in her hands. It felt very light. The plain leather cover was dark with dirt and ash, and when she lifted it to her nose, the scent of burnt paper leapt out at her. There was a thin brass hasp where a lock had once been, but it was long gone.

  It took Arrabelle a moment to realize this was someone’s journal.

  All those private thoughts on display and now it’s available to anyone who cares to read it, Arrabelle thought, feeling guilty for even holding the book in her hands. But Evan wanted me to have it and I trust his judgment.

  With a silent apology, Arrabelle flipped open the cover. Inside, someone had written: Property of Niamh Gunderson.

  Arrabelle smiled when she saw the small red heart Niamh had used over the i in her given name—but the smile faded when she saw that a number of pages had been ripped out of the beginning of the book, jagged chunks of lined notebook paper left behind in the gluey binding.

  “Damn,” Arrabelle murmured, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew something terrible lurked within these remaining pages.

  Arrabelle stared down at Niamh’s journal. With trepidation, she began to read from the first intact entry, the girl’s halting voice slipping into her head like the beginnings of a dream.

  And then Niamh’s past became Arrabelle’s reality.

  Niamh

  They came tonight. This time there were so many I couldn’t count them all. The first time they knocked on Yesinia’s door, there had only been two—and I had already predicted their arrival with my tarot cards. They identified themselves as belonging to the enforcement arm of the Greater Council, but they didn’t give their names.

  In retrospect, they never gave their names to us.

  At her urging, I opened the door of Yesinia’s small cottage, a found-wood structure by the beach she’d built herself over one spring and summer, and there on her driftwood porch stood two people I didn’t know. They reminded me of census takers. The man wore his hair so short that I could see the pink of his scalp under his brown hair. He was in his middle age, the paunch of his belly hanging low over the waist of his pants, so that even his black suit could not disguise it. He was so big the suit seemed too small, the buttons straining to stay closed.

  “We’re looking for Yesinia Arroyo. We’
re here on official Greater Council business,” the man said. He indicated the woman beside him, who nodded coldly. “May we come in?”

  I turned to Yesinia, and she shrugged.

  What could we do but let them in?

  They sat at the square kitchen table with the yellowed linoleum top, their presence filling the room. I stood in the corner, watching, having quickly scooped up my tarot cards from the tabletop. My instincts had told me to remove the spread—one I’d pulled three times that morning, and the impetus for coming to Yesinia’s house—before the man and woman could see it. The World, The Magician, The Hierophant, The Devil, and The Fool . . . the message was clear: The advent of these two was only the harbinger of worse things to come.

  Yesinia looked small in comparison to these two strangers. And Yesinia had always been the biggest personality I knew.

  “We have a writ from the Council,” the woman said as she spread her stubby, ringless fingers across the tabletop. She lifted her chin and the man took this as his cue, retrieving a folded piece of parchment from the inside of his coat pocket and tossing it at Yesinia.

  I watched the woman pick up the paper, a sneer curling her lips. She was a large creature with hungry gray eyes and thick, fleshy lips that bore no sign of ever having seen a tube of lipstick. The off-putting sneer stayed curled in place for the rest of the conversation.

  “Read it,” the woman said, greedy to watch—but Yesinia didn’t oblige her.

  The woman reeked of camphor, as if she’d spread muscle liniment all over her body and then hid her glistening skin underneath her clothing, so no one could see it. Even if they could smell it.

  “What kind of business is this you bring to me?” Yesinia asked, looking down at the parchment in her hands.

  I knew the clipped cadence of her voice as well as I knew my own. She was born in Guadalajara, and her first language was Spanish. English came to her slowly, her brain forever searching for the correct word or phrase, and often failing. But she’d found that the slower she spoke, the fewer grammatical errors she made.