Dream Eater

by K. Bird Lincoln

  “Your father is the Japanese one, right?” said Ken.

  Okay, he could have guessed that from my name.

  “I speak Japanese,” he pointed out.

  New to town, no job or place to stay, and experienced with senile, old Japanese men.

  The part of me that was doggedly determined to do well in lab tomorrow pointed out there was no way Ken could have engineered the situation. It wasn’t like he had control over Marlin’s clients.

  “Well, he speaks this really rare dialect of Japanese from Aomori Prefecture and we really couldn’t hire a caregiver who he couldn’t talk to in his less…lucid periods.”

  “I’ve lived in Northern Japan, the dialect won’t be a problem.” He paused, lowering his gaze, giving me room to decide without the pressure of those eyes. His left foot kicked at bark chips that had strayed onto the sidewalk, a movement full of repressed energy. “I’ll watch him just for a place to sleep. I really do have no place to go.”

  This was too temptingly easy, such a tidy solution to my problems. Dad could sleep in my bedroom on a foldaway like usual, and Ken could bed down on the couch, or—he was at least a hafu like me, if not full-blooded Japanese, wasn’t he?—we could roll out a futon on the floor next to the bed, and I could sleep on the couch. Then Dad would trip over Ken and wake him up if he started night-wandering.

  The sane part of me forced my lips open to say no, my tongue ready at the top of my palate.

  Ken’s eyebrow arched.

  I just couldn’t take care of Dad right now. He was the only person I could touch without getting fragments, but every moment I spent with him lucid rubbed me raw. For the past year he’d have these weird, raving fits; crying in a hoarse voice about hiding from sea monsters and burning dark-eaters and other crazy stuff. As if he’d pushed through Alzheimer’s right into schizophrenia.

  I am not considering this. Am. Not.

  Marlin would freak if she found out. Maybe I could pass Ken off as a school chum? I snorted.

  “I’ll give you a two day trial,” I said. Think about uninterrupted sleep. Think about not failing classes.

  “I am at your service, then,” said Ken, holding his bow low at the waist for far too long.

  “Well, yes, then. Here,” I flipped open my messenger bag and ripped a piece of paper out of a notebook to jot down phone and apartment numbers. “I gotta go to class now, for real, but if you could come to my apartment tonight…um, I could give you dinner. Say around 6:30? It’s just ten minutes away from here walking.”

  “I’ll be there,” said Ken.

  “Bye.”

  “Bye, then.”

  Neither of us moved. Like I was a high school freshman waiting for my senior boy crush to move first. I grabbed my bag strap determinedly and thrust past him. Two steps and I had to turn back to see what he did.

  I watched him walk toward Stumptown Coffee. Maybe he really was going to get coffee. Most likely a caramel macchiato type; a layer of sweetness on top, but dark, rich bitterness on the inside.

  Focus.

  I booked it down the sidewalk. It sucked having everyone’s eyes on me when I came in late. Kaneko-sensei considered himself a comedian. I’d laughed along with him when he made snide comments about other late arrivals before, but I didn’t know if I could take his brand of sarcasm today on top of everything else.

  Luckily, Kaneko-sensei must have been having a bad day, too. He was oddly subdued when I rushed in the door, barely giving me a glance as he strode to the podium.

  He slapped a transparency on the projector and a chorus of groans erupted from the students scattered around the classroom. Pop quiz. Mishima and Kawabata. Both suicidal lunatic authors, but at least I’d read the short stories Kaneko-sensei assigned two weeks ago.

  Scratching pencils and frustrated huffs of air filled the room. My mind kept bouncing between shots of the professor’s eerie fragment and my own personal lunatics; Dad and Ken.

  The dribble of latte I’d rescued wasn’t enough to cut through my jumbled thoughts. Maybe there was still Dagoba chocolate hiding in my bag. I’d stashed a lavender-blueberry tasting square package last week when Marlin had taken me shopping at New Seasons. Theobromides to the rescue!

  But a moment of rooting around in my bag squashed all hopes.

  Concentrate. You need to pass this class for elective credits, with or without chemical help. I didn’t have the energy or money to waste on a different class; everything had to go for core classes in my accounting degree.

  An accounting degree equaled a real life. A job I could do mostly surrounded by papers and computers at a desk, well paid, but with minimal risk of actually touching customers.

  I pressed the backs of my hands into my eyes until the darkness flowed into a little burst of gray static. Right. Mishima quiz. I could picture the row of slim, paperback Japanese books on Dad’s shelf. Mishima’s last works were…Sea of Tranquility…

  “Excuse me,” said a man’s voice from the corridor outside the open door. The professor from Stumptown Coffee. He stepped into the classroom and turned to face the class, staring straight at me.

  Chapter Two

  Kaneko-sensei’s furrowed frown relaxed into a smile. “Professor Hayk. What can I do for you?”

  “I was hoping you’d let me make that little announcement about my research project.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Kaneko-sensei. He gestured at the podium at the front of the class. His fawning attitude was irritating. Snarky pants Kaneko acted like the professor was the university president or something. Kaneko-sensei didn’t even warn us to close our quizzes. His eyes were focused entirely on the professor, on Hayk.

  The girl who usually sat next to me, Elise something-or-other, sneaked a peek at her copy of Kawabata’s Snow Country under the desk. She glared when she caught me looking.

  “Professor Kaneko was kind enough to let me borrow time from his class. I’m doing linguistic research, and I’m looking for Japanese speakers familiar with lesser known dialects.”

  Elise had stopped her glare and was now as focused on Hayk as Kaneko-sensei. Okay, so he is attractive, but can’t she feel how creepy his vibes are?

  “Of course anyone who participates will be eligible for extra credit,” said Kaneko-sensei. He all but wagged his tail at Hayk. What is wrong with everyone?

  Hayk stepped away from the podium and walked down the aisle toward me. My scalp tingled. I shifted back in my seat.

  “Koi, isn’t it?” he said. I blinked at his black-and-red striped tie, unwilling to meet his eyes. He knows my name? Did he overhear Ken’s and my conversation? Had he—worse—asked Kaneko about me?

  My stomach tightened. “Yes,” I said. My hands on my desk, my legs poised to get me up and walking away.

  Simmer down now. Walking out on Kaneko-sensei’s crush during a quiz was a straight path toward failure.

  Hayk put a hand on my desk and I flinched.

  He sniffed.

  I risked a glance at his face. Amused disdain. He let his little finger stray closer to my hand grasping the quiz paper. I scooted back.

  His eyes stayed hard, but the corners of his mouth twitched.

  “Oh yes,” said Kaneko. “Koi, your father is Issei, isn’t he? From somewhere in Aomori?”

  Shut up. Shut up! I wished my Japanese professor’s overpriced Nikes would fly up and strike him in the mouth. Unfortunately, they just walked him closer.

  “Is that so?” said Hayk.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes,” said Elise, pushing her silky blonde hair behind a multiple-pierced earlobe. “Didn’t you so kindly tell the class what was meant by that Northern dialect passage the translator flubbed in the Dancing Girl of Izu?” The full wattage of her smile was solely directed at Hayk. He barely even turned.

  “Great. Then you’ll help me?” said Hayk.

  “Of course. I’ll bring her down right after class,” said Kaneko-sensei.

  Hayk took his hand from my
desk to wave it in a negative motion in front of Kaneko-sensei’s face.

  “No, no, that’s not necessary.”

  Kaneko-sensei’s expression turned from sloppy puppy to hangdog in a matter of seconds.

  “It would really be no trouble,” he said.

  The bitter scent of cardamom layered on top of the rotted-cantaloupe smell of old blood. Gag. The dead girl’s glassy eyes rose up inside my mind and swam over my vision. I gripped the edge of my desk so tightly my pinkie nail bent to the point of breaking.

  “I’m so sorry,” I ground out between clenched teeth. Just breathe. Breathe and it will pass. “I’ve got pressing matters to attend to after class.”

  Someone snorted. Probably Elise, but fragment static still lingered in the corners of my eyes.

  “Oh, it will only take a moment, I’m sure Koi has the time,” Hayk said, and this time his voice was warm and low-pitched.

  Hayk inhaled audibly, and suddenly the cardamom and molasses-sweet oats was overwhelmed by the salty tang of the ocean.

  Energy coiled in the air, tightening around my desk. Hayk slowly lifted his hand to where a jade Buddha tie clip held his tie in place, and pressed his finger to the back of the clip.

  He winced, and I caught a slight smear of red on his thumb. My hackles raised, my heartbeat speeding up. Damn the quiz. I’d make it up somehow. Danger is here. Get away, get away…

  “I’m sure you have a-short-time-before-an-important-errand to lend me,” said Hayk, his voice sonorous, brushing over the skin of my face and neck before sinking in deep. Biting tingles skittered up and down my arms.

  I blinked. For a moment everything in my visual field flickered, like the room spun a faster-than-light 360 degrees and ended up the way it was before, only somehow more focused and sharply clear.

  My fingers unclenched. Puzzled faces of the class surrounded me. Fear melted away like butter on Marlin’s waffle griddle.

  All of a sudden the fact that I had fifteen minutes to spare at the end of class became a glaring beacon in my mind. Of course I had a short time, before my important errand of…of…I swallowed down a strange, salty thickness in my throat.

  “Y-yes, I’ll stop by your office before I leave,” I found myself saying. Unease curled around the edges of my words, making them hesitant and soft. My hands were tingling. I flexed my fingers, and then pulled the band off my braid, running my hands through the tangled strands just to give them something to do other than break nails on my desk.

  “Now that we’ve got that all worked out,” said Kaneko-sensei. “Everyone back to the test.” His words came out a bit pouty.

  Hayk gave me a long, slow smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. His front teeth were pocked, like he’d spent hours sucking lemons or had bad dental care in childhood.

  “I will see you later,” he ordered, and then strode to the door, dropping a crumpled tissue in the garbage by the door.

  The rest of the class passed in a blur. When the clock ticked over to 4pm, I stood and gathered my things.

  “Sure you don’t need someone to walk you down to Professor Hayk’s office?” said Elise. She reached for my books, and I jerked them away.

  “I guess not, then.”

  Not making friends again, here. I already had the Rite-Aid clerk and Ken fragments to deal with tonight, I didn’t think my mind could deal with whatever Elise dreamed about at night. What did such a white-bread, ex-cheerleader type dream about anyway?

  Most people dreamed the same things; flying, missing class, being chased, falling. There was something just a tad off-kilter about Elise, despite her flawless skin and perky smile. Elise probably dreamed of haunted, gothic mansions or axe-murdering.

  I tried to shake off the dark thoughts. Kaneko-sensei told me Hayk’s office number as I left, and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself standing in a deserted corridor in the basement of the Social Sciences building, running a finger over a frayed place on my bag’s strap.

  My calves were strung tight with tension, ready to take me down that silent hall and back up the concrete stairs to the bustling student courtyard. At the same time, a sea-deep voice inside me kept insisting, you do have a short time. The voice was heavy, outweighing all my silly fears.

  The door opened.

  “Ms. Pierce, come in,” said Professor Hayk. His presence was solid and unhurried, standing there as if he’d known I was wavering outside his door. I carefully looked everywhere but his face.

  He stepped back into his office, leaving the door open.

  “Of course,” I said, caught in the spell of polite convention. Too hard to get out of this with him halfway across the room already.

  Hayk’s office was not professorial. Geometric-patterned rugs hung in rich golds and crimsons from every wall. A pair of desk lamps with swirling star shapes painted in dark blue on the shades cast strange shadows under the bare-bulb fluorescent lights. Against the wall behind the desk was a huge chunk of gray, scarred stone, thick as two men and taller than Hayk by a few feet. At the top was a stylized image of some animal with huge, curling horns.

  It was like stepping into the luxurious lair of a sheik from one of Marlin’s paperback bodice-rippers.

  Hayk’s monotone-gray desk and chairs jarred with the sensuous feel of the room.

  The image of that pale, dead girl flashed through my mind, her broad, high-arched nose, and the blood streaking her torso. Just five minutes. What could happen in five minutes?

  “Sit down,” he commanded. I found myself obeying his order, taken off guard by his impatient tone, so less smooth than he’d been in Kaneko-sensei’s class. The folding chairs in front of his desk seemed to be there to discourage sitting. I squirmed, the metal seat-edge biting into the backs of my knees through the soft cotton-spandex of my workout pants.

  Hayk lowered himself onto the edge of his desk, his presence filling my field of vision; on purpose, I was sure.

  “I’m looking for a list of words in an obscure Aomori dialect, the one spoken in Herai-machi.”

  I blinked. Coincidence that the dialect he was looking for happened to be Dad’s native tongue? Or had he checked me out somehow before, did he know?

  Frown creases appeared around Hayk’s mouth. He looked unpleasantly surprised I hadn’t just gushed out my impatience to help him.

  Yeah, there’s a crack in that hot professor façade. Deal with it.

  The last thing I wanted to do, no matter the urge to come here, was to tell him anything about Dad or my background.

  I shivered. Despite the boiler-overheated spicy air in the room, a damp feeling pressed in on all sides, like I was swimming in Hayk’s smarmy regard.

  I couldn’t just sit here, silent. My left leg jittered on the floor. Tension coiled in the air. I would rather sit through a Leverage marathon with Marlin than tell the professor anything about myself.

  “My father’s from Herai-machi,” ground out through clenched lips.

  Hayk’s frown eased into that disdainful smirk.

  “Of course he is,” he said. “Then you will help me.” It wasn’t a question. He swiveled, and took a sheaf of papers from a neat pile. A quick glance showed the papers on his desk were lists; words in multiple languages, some that didn’t look Indo-European or Romantic or Germanic.

  Prickles moved down my arms. Hayk totally creeped me out for no reason at all I could justify. Just say yes to anything he wanted and get out of here. I had dinner to worry about, and Dad and Ken the not-a-stalker…

  “What can I do for you?”

  Hayk held out the papers, clearly intending for me to take them. I did, carefully. Even so, that molasses-oat bran scent, tinted with cardamom hit me full in the nostrils. I coughed behind a clenched fist.

  “I need some translations, the Herai Dialect equivalent of these Japanese vocabulary. It’s all explained on the paper.”

  Why did he need Aomori dialect translations? What kind of research was he doing? If I asked it would only prolong this encounte
r.

  “Okay, then. I’ll take a look,” I said. I couldn’t stand up with him sitting on the edge of the desk like that without running the danger of brushing against him. He made no move.

  Narrowed eyes pricked my skin. A thousand questing needles. I met his eyes this time, willing myself to look innocent. Like oh-so-helpful Elise. An ex-cheerleader, completely free from any images of dead girls in hallways.

  “There’s something about you,” he said. He reached forward and grabbed my wrist.

  He is touching me. Touching me! My brain gibbered, helpless. A fragment washed into me like an arctic wave. I was sinking…sinking…down into the depths of an endless aquamarine.

  Breathe. Get a hold of yourself. Patterned rugs and the gray-metal desk swam back into view.

  “Something different,” he said, his voice taking on a tinge of that sonorous otherness I’d felt in Kaneko-sensei’s class. I’d thought his eyes brown, but thin rings now glowed bluish-green around his pupils.

  “No, sir,” I said, gulping for air. His fragment filtered all the way down to the pit of my stomach. A feeling like I’d eaten too much wasabi all at once burned just under my navel. I stood up abruptly, kicking the chair back. I felt the heavy presence of the dead girl, her cold, glassy eyes.

  Hayk looked at his hand on my wrist, frowned and then released my arm, rubbing his hands together as if he’d bruised his palms instead of my wrist. I hooked my hands in my messenger bag strap, wanting the sharp points of my elbows between us. I took another step back, my head roiling with scents and sights I couldn’t process.

  I should never have left my house this morning.

  “I’ll…just be going, then,” I mumbled. All of sudden I felt a strange, irritated energy. Like I’d downed Greg-ever-chipper’s favorite concoction of espresso and Red Bull. Hayk’s blue-ringed eyes drilled into me, but he stayed intensely still as I made for the door. Like the coiled power of some predator content to let its prey escape…for now.

  My back prickled, my skin expecting the sharp slash of the knife from his fragment any moment. I turned the knob, relief flushing through me in a hot wave. Escape.