by Kit Alloway
“Any idea what that means?”
“None. Who would have sent us? And why?”
Josh was about to mention Feodor’s strange compliment—Then perhaps you have outsmarted someone—when Deloise popped into the library. “Hey,” she said. “Davita just called. She wanted me to let you know that somebody found the origins of the trench-coat men—some British student film.” Deloise smiled, obviously thinking that she was delivering good news. “They’re just mass-media bogeymen after all.”
“What?” Josh asked. She jumped out of her chair so fast Deloise backed up a step. “That’s not possible.”
Josh had told Davita how the men had changed the Dream. Davita, of all people, should know it wasn’t possible for them to be imaginary.
Deloise continued retreating into the hallway as Josh advanced on her, looking confused and like she half expected Josh to kill the messenger. “Well … gosh, that’s what she said.”
Josh brushed past her sister and headed for the kitchen as fast as her knee would allow, a sense of panic driving her. She dug through her family’s cluttered, ancient address book until she found Davita’s phone number. While she dialed, Will watched her from the kitchen doorway.
“It’s Josh,” she said as soon as Davita answered. “What’s going on?”
Davita got straight to the point. “Someone found a four-minute British student film featuring the two men. It got picked up by an American late-night comedy show, and since then it’s been all over the Internet.”
“So what? That just means more people have seen them in their nightmares. Did you tell my grandfather what Will and I saw?”
“I told him.”
“And?”
“He said you were foolish and disobedient and you couldn’t possibly have seen one of those men change the Dream and you must have misheard the name Feodor.”
“I didn’t mishear anything!” Josh felt her palms flush. She knew better than to take her grandfather’s judgments personally, but his words stung all the same.
“Calm down,” Davita said, infuriatingly calm herself. “Peregrine doesn’t want to start a panic, and he’s right that we don’t have any hard evidence that these men are more than nightmares. We’re suspicious, but we don’t know with any certainty.”
I know for certain, Josh’s gut whispered. I know, I know, I know.…
“So now we all just go back into the Dream with no idea what we’re up against,” she said aloud. “Great.”
“Josh, I’m working on it.”
Josh looked at Will, who had come close enough to hear Davita’s voice. For a moment she considered telling Davita what she and Will had done the night before; about Feodor’s war-ravaged universe, his strange youth, that comment he’d made that they couldn’t explain—Then perhaps you have outsmarted someone.
But what good would it do? She hadn’t learned anything for certain that connected him to Gloves and Snitch. Davita was right: she needed hard evidence.
“Fine,” she said to Davita, and then she turned to bang her forehead against a cupboard.
* * *
To celebrate the solved mystery of the trench-coat men, Kerstel made an enormous dinner that included game hens, corn bread, four vegetables, and pecan pie. It also included dry red wine, which got passed around the table like a pitcher of iced tea, and Josh drank far more of it than she should have.
Because she was really, really angry, and because she was supposedly an adult now and drinking was the only adult thing anyone would let her do, but all that she managed to accomplish was to get tipsy and trip while getting out of her chair. Haley caught her and the whole room cracked up.
Josh had never felt less like an adult in her life.
Despite her announcement the day before that she was going to move back into her bedroom, she barely made it to the office. Haley actually carried her part of the way, and when he kissed her cheek before he left, she would have thrown a punch if she could have figured out which one of him to hit.
She flopped onto the futon without bothering to open it. While she waited for the alcohol to wear off, she made a semilegible—but likely incomprehensible—entry in her diary. She was still ranting about the hypocrisy of the adults in her life when Will knocked on the open door.
“What?” she snapped, and he held up one hand to ward her off.
“Just thought you might want some water.”
“Oh.” She did, actually, want some water, and Will was holding a large glass of it with the hand that wasn’t preparing to fend off blows. “Sorry. Come in.”
He gave her the water, full of clinking ice cubes, and then sat down in the chair at the desk, after which he thought to ask, “May I sit?”
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I seem to be a cranky drunk.”
“You do. Drink the water, it will help. My mom used to say, ‘A gallon of water the night before will cure any hangover.’”
Suddenly Josh felt like a complete ass. She’d gotten drunk in front of a guy whose mother was an alcoholic. And she was supposed to be his teacher.
“Sorry,” she said for the third time. “I forgot. About your mom. Sorry.”
Will shrugged. “People get drunk, Josh. It happens.” His expression was far away, and even though Josh felt like a jerk, she didn’t see any judgment in his look. “I got drunk a few times, just to see what was so great about it.”
“What happened?”
“It was fun at first. I usually hung out with some guys, playing poker, just goofing off. And then one night somebody offered me another beer, and I said, ‘All aboard what’s going aboard!’ And I realized I was quoting my mother.” He laughed, and although his voice hadn’t been bitter, his laughter was. “After that, I don’t know, the whole thing lost its charm.” He shrugged again. “Doesn’t matter. Just drink your water.”
“I didn’t mean to…”
“I know. You’re pissed off at your grandfather because he doesn’t believe us. Frankly, I’m kind of pissed off at him too. He’s your flesh and blood. He should believe you. I believe you.”
“You were there.”
“Yeah. But I’d probably believe you even if I hadn’t been.”
The room was still spinning. Josh tried to drink the water, but her stomach hurt. “You shouldn’t trust me so much, Will,” she said, rubbing her face.
“Why not?”
Because the last guy who trusted me died.
She kept a hand over her eyes, to shield them from the lights in the hallway, to shield herself from Will. The more time she spent around Will, the more she wanted to confide in him, and the more she dreaded doing so.
He wouldn’t trust her afterward. He wouldn’t respect her. He probably wouldn’t even like her, and that partnership they’d formed the night before would vanish.
“Josh,” he said, and she felt him sit down beside her on the futon. He pried her hand away from her face. “Whatever you’re saying to yourself, it’s the booze talking, not you.”
Not true, not true, she told herself. The voice in her head sounded like Ian’s.
But at that moment she wanted to believe Will—believe in his kindness—so she did, and she put her head on his shoulder so she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye.
At least, that’s why she told herself she put her head on his shoulder, and then sighed and turned to press her forehead against his neck, and let him wrap his arm around her.
But then, that might have been the booze talking too.
Twenty-three
The next evening found Josh and Will tackling the Romanian training circuit again. By the third time through, Josh’s knee was throbbing and Will had lost all his coloring.
“I can’t do that again,” he panted, bending over.
“Me neither. Let’s go get some water.”
They would have been late for dinner by a half hour if Kerstel had been home, but since she had dragged Lauren off to a post-humanist art exhibit, the only meal was the one Winsor and Whim were debating in th
e kitchen.
“We have eaten enough pizza from Roggey-Warren in the last year to fill a truck,” Winsor was saying as Josh followed Will out of the pantry. Winsor glanced at Josh as she emerged, then very deliberately turned her eyes away.
Josh didn’t care. She was limping again, badly. Her knee was engulfed in flames.
“What about Serena’s Pizzeria?” Whim suggested.
“I don’t think so.” Josh sat down hard in a chair, trying not to wince. “Last time we ordered from there…”
“They delivered me instead,” Will finished, going to open the fridge.
Whim lifted his thin eyebrows. “Obviously they have new coupons.”
“That’s when Will got designated as Josh’s apprentice,” Winsor explained. That nasty little note in her voice was back, the sliver-thin knife in her words. She must not have forgotten Josh’s barb the other day. “Because Deloise ordered pizza. If she hadn’t, Josh would have ended up teaching Schaffer Sounclouse.”
Suddenly the pain in Josh’s knee was of no consequence. “What?” she asked at the same moment Will spun around to look at Winsor.
Winsor’s eyes moved playfully between the two of them. “Don’t you remember? Less than a minute after you two went down to the archroom that night, Schaffer Sounclouse showed up at the front door. You probably saw him when you came upstairs again.”
There had been so many people there that night that it was impossible for Josh to recall everyone in particular.
“Who’s Schaffer Sounclouse?” Will asked.
“He’s Young Ben’s great-grandson,” Winsor replied. “Didn’t you realize he was here, Josh?”
“No, I…” Her voice was choked, tinny. “I didn’t think anything of it.”
“He came over to meet the apprentice,” Winsor said. “He left pretty quickly, but I figured that if Will hadn’t showed up…”
“If Deloise hadn’t ordered pizza,” Whim added, seeming to enjoy the unfolding puzzle.
“He would have been the apprentice,” Will finished. “You would be training Schaffer.”
“He’s not terrible,” Winsor put in, “but everybody says he needs a decent teacher.”
Josh couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t decide what this new information meant. It had been one thing to believe that someone else might have arrived in Will’s place, but to hear that the intended apprentice had actually arrived at the house …
Josh realized her mouth was hanging open. She closed it and looked at Will, who was standing with his back to the open refrigerator, staring at her.
He looked terrified.
Whim, who was either oblivious to what was happening or else creating a reason to leave the room, picked up the phone and carried it into the hallway, and Josh heard him place a carryout order for Thai food.
“Are you two okay?” Winsor asked. She added innocently, “You didn’t have another training accident, did you?”
Something in Will’s expression was pleading for Josh to speak, but she didn’t know what to say. How could she reassure him when they now had proof positive that fate had intended someone else to be her apprentice?
Tell him that it doesn’t matter how it happened. Tell him it doesn’t matter if we screwed up fate—he’s here now. Tell him that you don’t wish he was someone else.
“I, um, we—” She coughed while trying to get the lie out. “We’re fine. That’s weird, with Schaffer. I didn’t realize he’d come by.” She stared at the floor for a while longer. She couldn’t keep looking at Will; his desperation burned her like acid. “But, um, like Dad says, fate doesn’t make mistakes.”
“Deloise does,” Winsor quipped, and Josh wanted to punch her. It was one thing to try to hurt Josh, but it was quite another to be cruel to Will.
“Stop it,” Josh said, but all she could think to do was repeat herself. “If fate doesn’t make mistakes, then Deloise calling for pizza is what was supposed to happen.”
Winsor snorted. “Tell that to Schaffer Sounclouse.”
Josh got up from her chair and, despite the pain in her knee, staged a pointed and dramatic walkout.
She was halfway down the hall before she realized that Will hadn’t followed her. He probably thought she had walked out on him, too.
I should have said, “Then God bless Deloise for ordering pizza,” she thought, letting herself into the office. Or, “It’s a good thing Will showed up first.” Or just, “Schaffer Sounclouse sucks.”
The words had come to her too late. But it didn’t matter—she had already lied.
She was fairly certain fate could make mistakes.
* * *
She didn’t come out for dinner. Will felt sick to his stomach and didn’t think Thai spice would help, but Deloise insisted he eat and the food did calm him. Distantly, he recalled Kerstel asking him to make sure Josh ate something.
He had known almost from the start that his arrival at the Weavers’ home had been unexpected. But it was different now, knowing that not only should he not have been there but another dream walker should have had his place. Maybe working with Schaffer would have been less stressful for Josh, since he knew what it was she was struggling with. Maybe she would have taken his raw talent and molded him into someone skilled, instead of having to start from scratch with an outsider.
When Will had believed he had accidentally taken Louis’s place in the scheme of things, it had bothered him. But comparing himself to Louis was far kinder to his self-esteem than comparing himself to the naturally inclined apprentice Josh could have had.
He felt guilty for taking that opportunity away from her—and hell, from Schaffer, too—and he knew she must be disappointed. Still, it stung how she had just walked away.
After dinner he found himself cleaning up the kitchen with Whim. Winsor and Deloise had gone downstairs to walk, and Haley was in the living room, watching television and writing endless notes. Earlier he’d given Will an itemized list of their delivery order.
“So you and Josh didn’t realize Schaffer had come by like two minutes after you, huh?” Whim asked, bundling up the trash.
Will glanced at him from the sink as he scrubbed dishes. “No,” he said. He hadn’t meant to say it so quietly, but he barely heard himself.
“And since Josh bolted like a bank robber when she found out, you’re thinking horrible things?” Whim grinned at him, not unkindly. “The thing with Josh is,” he went on, opening the back door and pitching a bag of garbage in the general direction of the bins, “you can’t ever assume she’s saying what she’s thinking.”
“I’ve realized that.”
“It’s not that she’d rather have Schaffer as her apprentice—it’s that she’d rather not have known she was going to have an apprentice at all.”
Will considered that, shutting off the water in the sink. “Go on,” he said.
“Josh doesn’t want to know what her scroll says,” Whim explained. Now that he had finished cleaning up dinner, he began making himself a snack. “It’s because of Ian and all that. I think that after what happened to him, she’d just as soon let fate run its course in her life without her awareness. I don’t blame her—and I say that as a guy who opened his scroll.”
Will was sick of being polite. “What exactly happened to Ian?” he asked.
Whim stared at him incredulously, a cracker halfway to his mouth. “No one’s told you?” he asked.
“Everyone seems reluctant to talk about it.”
Whim rolled his eyes and let the cracker drop to the table. “That’s why I hate this family,” he said, bristling. “Too many things they don’t want to talk about, or pretend not to notice, or act like never happened.”
Will closed the dishwasher and turned it on. Kerstel had spent half an hour with him one evening, showing him how to use all the appliances that had always been broken during his childhood.
“So,” he said, sitting down in a chair across the table from Whim’s, “what happened?”
Whim considered, growi
ng calm again. “Did Josh flat-out refuse to tell you?”
“No, but I never actually asked Josh. She avoids the subject.”
“Yeah, that’s not surprising.” Whim tapped the cracker on the table as he thought. “She probably doesn’t want me to tell you.”
Frustrated but determined not to be a jerk, Will said, “I don’t want to pressure you to break confidences.”
“Hell, Ian was my best friend; I have every right to tell you how he died. The question is how much about Ian and Josh I should tell you, and how much of what happened before he died. How much do you know?”
“I know they were together for a very long time, but they broke up shortly before Ian died. I know he died in a fire at a cabin up in Charle.”
Whim nodded slowly. “All correct. What else?”
Will hesitated before saying, “I know that Winsor was in love with Ian.”
Whim broke into a slow smile. “You’re sharp. That’s half the story right there. But I may as well tell you the rest. So, keeping in mind that all truth is subjective, here’s my version of what happened:
“I thought Ian and Josh would be together forever. I thought they were one of those couples who would have a seventy-fifth anniversary. It was weird, because they weren’t exactly perfect people, and I didn’t think they had the healthiest relationship. But it was the kind of relationship that usually lasts, you know?”
Will nodded, even though he didn’t know. He couldn’t imagine Josh with anyone.
“Ian’s dad abandoned him and Haley when they were six. That’s when Haley started to get weird, and Ian always had to stick up for him. It made Ian … prickly. He was a good guy—funny and full of ideas, sort of gallant in a way—but he had this temper that could get completely out of control. He acted real overconfident, but I always thought he was pretty insecure underneath.”
“A lot of guys are like that,” Will agreed.
“Yeah, well, Josh, on the other hand, had no confidence. No disrespect, but her mom was crazy hard on her. Jona was crazy about dream walking to begin with, and then when she found out that one of her kids was a dream-walking prodigy, she just drove Josh like a workhorse. And Josh is Josh, right? She’s awkward. She never knows what to say. She doesn’t really believe she’s good at anything.”
