Dreamfire

by Kit Alloway

  Will was glad he wasn’t the only person who had experienced this side of Josh.

  “When Jona pushed her, she didn’t know how to push back. If Jona criticized her—even for something small—all Josh heard was, ‘You’re a failure.’ And I think that’s why Josh needed Ian. She’d get so upset by how much her mom was asking, and Ian would just say, ‘Stop freaking out. You’re fine. Get over it.’ He didn’t really make her believe in herself so much as tell her that she was stupid for not believing in herself.” Whim paused. “I think that difference is important.”

  So do I, Will thought.

  “Josh talked to him the same way. If Ian started to get into something with somebody at school, Josh would tell him, ‘You’re being an ass. Knock it off.’ Sometimes, honestly, I didn’t like the way they talked to each other. But like I said, there was also something really solid about them. They liked their relationship. They were happy with it.

  “Ian and Haley’s seventeenth birthday was last May. Seventeen is a big deal around here. Young Ben gave them their scrolls. I don’t know what happened to Haley’s, but Ian opened his. Opening your scroll is a toss-up—it might be full of great things, it might be full of terrible things, it’s written in verse so you can’t figure half of it out anyway, but if you don’t open it you’ll never know. I opened mine, and there were shocks. There were things I hadn’t anticipated and things that upset me, but I didn’t—and I don’t know anyone who did—freak out the way Ian did.

  “His scroll said he would fall in love with Josh. No big deal, right? It had already happened. But his interpretation of the scroll’s prediction was that what he felt for Josh wasn’t real. That somehow he only loved her because the scroll said he would. You know those movies about witches who cast love spells and then don’t know whether the men love them because they love them or because of the spell? That’s what Ian was afraid of, and from there he spiraled into this whole identity-crisis thing.

  “He broke up with Josh. Just called it quits after … I don’t even know how long. Even before they were old enough for it to be a romantic thing, they were together. They needed each other. And he just broke up with her.

  “Josh went into total shock. It’s one thing if a guy dumps you because he doesn’t love you—it’s another if he dumps you because he loves you. For about three weeks she walked around like she didn’t know right from left. And then she just started working again. She worked twelve, sometimes fifteen-hour shifts, even if she had to miss school.

  “But Ian was the one who really lost it. He got into some sort of shouting match with a teacher and ended up suspended for three days because he threw a staple remover at her. I started hearing things about him at school—that he was going to wild parties, hooking up with strange girls, drinking like a fish. I know for a fact that he beat the crap out of Elliot Meyers. When I pointed out that he was doing all the stupid things Josh used to stop him from doing, he told me he was making up for lost time.

  “And then…” Whim winced. “This is where it gets weird. I don’t want to present this the wrong way. Winsor is my little sister, and I love her. But she did some pretty sick stuff, and I don’t want to present that the wrong way either. About a year before Ian died, Winsor started dating Haley.

  “You’re into psychology. Am I wrong that it was totally weird of her to date the identical twin of the guy she was in love with?”

  “It’s totally, completely, utterly weird,” Will agreed.

  “Thank you. I thought it was weird. I never understood why they were together. But it’s not like Winsor could have pretended she was with Ian when she was with Haley. They were so different they were practically fraternal. And I don’t know exactly when Winsor fell in love with Ian, because she kept that to herself. I don’t think she wanted to hurt Josh. So maybe she fell in love with him and then gave up on ever being with him and then got interested in Haley, all on his own merits.” Whim grimaced. “I doubt it, but I like to think that way.

  “But then Ian dumped Josh, and Winsor got her chance.”

  He hung his head. Will had never seen sorrow or regret on Whim’s face, but he saw it then. The emotions aged Whim and destroyed his easy manner.

  “I wasn’t as aware of what was going on as I should have been,” Whim said. “I should have realized that Josh was completely obsessed with escaping into the Dream and Ian was a wreck without her. But when I tried to talk to him—all of his fears seemed so irrational to me that I didn’t even know how to listen to him. He acted like he thought the scroll had seen through him, figured him out or something, and he was trying to prove it wrong. I don’t know. It was all I could do not to say, ‘What the hell is wrong with you, man?’ and hearing that just would have pissed him off. But even so, I was his friend, and I should have stopped him from self-destructing.

  “We went to Josh’s mother’s cabin in Charle for the Fourth of July, like we did every year. Lauren had to work, so it was just all us kids and Kerstel. I thought things were going well. Ian and Josh were at least being cordial. He wasn’t bolting every time he saw her.

  “Then Winsor and Ian disappeared on Saturday afternoon, and when it started to get dark, Josh and Haley went to look for them. And guess what state they found them in?”

  Will winced.

  “Exactly. Josh looked utterly shocked when she got back to the cabin. I think that, until then, she’d been hanging on to some hope that Ian would come to his senses. But not after that. Ian and Winsor got back after dark, and I still remember how Winsor blushed when she realized we all knew exactly what they’d been doing. She had all these leaves in her hair. It wasn’t really my business, but I was pissed off at her anyway. She didn’t need to get involved in Josh and Ian’s mess.

  “Del was like, ‘Anybody want to play Monopoly?’ and Kerstel and I pretty much just fled upstairs with her. None of us wanted to watch them duke it out. But I should have stayed. I realize that now. They were way too upset to be reasonable—they needed a chaperone. I mean, they were shouting so loud we could hear every word from upstairs with the door closed.

  “Maybe three hours later—I wasn’t really watching the clock—the smoke detector in the living room went off. Like, nine times out of ten a smoke detector goes off because it needs a battery or somebody overcooked a chicken, but for some reason, that night, Deloise and I just knew it was the real deal. We didn’t even say it out loud, we just looked at each other and then started running. She ran to get Kerstel, ’cause she’d gone to bed, and I ran to call 911.

  “There was nobody in the living room. I thought maybe they’d all left until I saw the basement door open. Smoke was pouring out of it. When I ran down there, the whole room was on fire, the walls, the ceiling, the furnace, and the air was so thick with smoke that everyone was choking, but Winsor and Haley and Josh were still down there. Winsor was screaming at Josh, ‘What did you do?!’ I’d never heard her scream like that before, and Josh just kept repeating, ‘I didn’t let go of his hand; I didn’t let go of his hand.’

  “Even after I pulled Winsor to the floor and Haley dragged Josh down, she and Winsor kept arguing. Finally, I grabbed Winsor by the shoulders and shook her, like in a movie, and I said, ‘You’re gonna die down here!’ She sort of snapped out of it, but Josh just looked at me and fainted dead away. The three of us dragged her up the stairs and out the back door. Deloise and Kerstel were already outside, but nobody knew where Ian was—then, out of nowhere, Winsor said that Ian was dead. That was the first time anybody said anything about Ian being dead, but Win couldn’t tell me how, or where his body was, and Deloise started demanding that if he wasn’t in the house, where was he? And nobody could say.

  “The firefighters arrived, but the cabin was a lost cause. It burned right to the ground. We all went to the hospital to get treated for smoke inhalation, and because Josh had turned blue from shock, and while we were there Kerstel called Davita and made Winsor tell her what had happened.

  “Apparently the fight in
the living room was pretty epic, and Josh got upset and went down to the basement. I asked, but I never could get out of Winsor how they went from fighting to deciding that they were going to open a new archway into the Dream.

  “I suspect it was Josh’s idea. She’s the only one who would have gotten upset and tried to run to the Dream. Opening a new archway is dangerous, which is why it’s only done by groups of older dream walkers. Josh’s mother died doing it in that same basement, and the dream walker she was working with was lost in the Dream. I don’t know why Josh thought she could do it, but maybe she thought she had something to prove. None of them know exactly what happened next, partly because they all took in a lot of Veil dust. All Josh could say was that something had gone wrong. Winsor thought the archway opened straight into Death, even though that isn’t possible. Somehow Ian fell in, or Ian couldn’t get out, or he’d been attacked. Nobody was sure of anything except that Ian was dead. Davita went over that point again and again with Josh until she was crying with frustration, because there was a possibility that if Ian hadn’t died, then he might still be caught in the Dream. But Josh and Winsor and Haley were all absolutely certain that Ian was dead.

  “Davita called the junta and they sent search parties into the Dream anyway. It’s almost impossible to find anyone there, since it’s constantly shifting, but they had to look. After a week, when it became clear that they weren’t going to find Ian, they didn’t have any choice but to give up. We never even had a memorial for him.”

  * * *

  The kitchen was very quiet. The dishwasher had finished its cycle, and the only sound from the living room was the soft burble of the laugh track on television. Whim was hunched over the table with his forehead in one hand, his cracker smeared with peanut butter still uneaten.

  Will swallowed very slowly and waited, hoping Whim would continue. There had to be something else to this story, some end, some clue as to what had happened in that basement. But when he couldn’t wait any longer and started to speak, Whim shook his head.

  “That’s it,” he said, holding out empty hands. “That’s all I know. Maybe Josh could tell you more, if you could ever get her to talk. But I didn’t open the archway with them, so I don’t really know what happened. The Gendarmerie, which is like the dream-walker police, did a full inquiry, and even they couldn’t figure out what happened.”

  Will sighed. Were the specifics so important? He’d wanted to know how Ian died, and now he knew as much as he was ever likely to. “Thank you for telling me all of this.”

  Whim nodded. “You’re Josh’s apprentice, you have a right to know what happened that night. Or at least as much as I can tell you. Josh seems like she’s doing pretty well, all things considered. There’s a lot of guilt left, I think, and sometimes she looks … I don’t know. Trapped. But she’s better than I thought she’d be.” Whim finally ate his cracker while Will got up from the table and opened the dishwasher. “Part of why I insisted that we come back now is that I wanted to be here for Valentine’s Day.”

  Valentine’s Day was less than a week away. Will glanced over at Whim as he began drying the dishes. “Why Valentine’s Day?”

  “It was Josh and Ian’s anniversary. Not their real anniversary, but they’d been together so long they didn’t know their real anniversary. I just wanted to be here for Josh.”

  Will decided that Whim was a good guy, even if he did torment his sister at times. “What about Haley?” Will asked. “Everyone seems to think he’s changed since Ian died.”

  Whim’s voice was soft. “Haley’s sick,” he replied, but he said it so delicately that Will recognized his frustration.

  “Haley hasn’t gotten over it?”

  “Not even close.” Whim sighed. Maybe it was just the light, but Will thought he saw deep shadows form under Whim’s eyes. “I’m not sure Haley’s ever going to get over it.”

  The back door opened and Kerstel and Lauren walked into the kitchen. Whim’s manner changed instantly; the shadows beneath his eyes vanished, he stretched out his long legs and crossed his ankles, and he clasped his hands behind his head. Suddenly he was smiling and casual, and Will realized for the first time how much of Whim’s easygoing demeanor was a front.

  After an impromptu feast of cookies and milk with his adoptive parents and Whim, Will headed upstairs. The office door was open when he passed, and he paused in the hallway outside it. He could see Josh lying on the futon, her shoes and watch still on as if she hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She’d probably gone down to the archroom after she walked out on him earlier.

  He wondered how many more nightmares she had forced herself to enter before she’d finally collapsed. She looked so tired, so drained, that Will’s lingering anger for how she had treated him vanished. She’s doing the best she can, he thought, stepping into the office and reaching down to gently brush a lock of hair away from her eyes. She always does the best she can. I should know that by now.

  He covered her with an afghan and went upstairs to bed.

  Twenty-four

  Josh forgot all about the Valentine’s Day dance until she saw Deloise’s tickets on Friday night. She stood in the kitchen and stared at them until Deloise asked, “Do you want to come after all?”

  Deloise looked stunning. Her light-filled brown eyes stood out even more than usual thanks to a fawn-colored suede dress that fell just below her knees. A cloth headband and low wedge sandals made it not just clothing but an outfit, and for once even Josh admired her style.

  “No.” Josh had never been a fan of dances, but she especially didn’t want to go to one that would only remind her of Ian. “You look great, though.”

  “Thanks. Let’s hope I can get out of here before Dad sees me and makes me wear something else.” Deloise finished transferring her stuff from one purse to another and called into the living room, “Haley? You ready to go?”

  Josh lifted her eyebrows. “You’re going with Haley?”

  “No, he’s just driving me and Will.”

  Josh nearly choked on the soda she was drinking. “You’re going with Will?”

  Deloise chuckled. “Don’t look so jealous, Josh. No, I’m not going with Will. I’m meeting Neil there and the photographer is paying Will to be his assistant.”

  “Will can’t drive you?”

  “Will can’t drive. As he put it, ‘No parents, no car, no drive.’”

  Suddenly feeling guilty, Josh realized that this was something she should have known. The information would have come out in conversation if she’d ever actually spent any time talking to Will about something other than dream walking.

  I’m such an awful teacher, she thought, sighing aloud. She hadn’t thought the evening could get any more depressing.

  Haley appeared in the doorway, and Josh dropped her soda can.

  Haley had never looked more like Ian. He was wearing Ian’s Brooks Brothers suit, black on black on black, with Ian’s Roman-coin cuff links and tie tack. His black curls had been trimmed and soothed with a minimal amount of soft gel. He smiled the confident smile Ian always wore. Even from six feet away, Josh could smell Ian’s amber-scented cologne. She stepped backward, and her heel crushed the aluminum can she had dropped. Soda pooled on the floor.

  “Evening, J.D.,” Haley said. He caught her eye and flashed a bold smile.

  The hurt muscle in Josh’s chest began tearing itself apart.

  He’s here, she thought. Three steps and I’ll be in his arms.

  But she knew that wasn’t true.

  “You look nice,” Deloise told him slowly, and Josh could tell that it was taking every ounce of her good manners to overcome how creeped out she was.

  “Thanks. I thought I’d go in with you for a little while, maybe say hi to some of the guys from last year.”

  But you don’t have any “guys,” Haley, Josh thought. You didn’t have any friends except us, remember?

  “Del,” Haley said suddenly, “heads up.” He grabbed Ian’s leather jacket off the back of
a chair and tossed it to her. Deloise barely had time to pull it on and cover her bare shoulders before her father entered the kitchen with Will.

  The sight of Will was somehow a relief to Josh. As casual as the other two were formal, he had on navy-blue slacks and a thin black T-shirt. He was wearing Whim’s sports coat, and it was too big and very rumpled, but at least he wasn’t in costume. At least he was recognizable. “You’ll be home by eleven?” Lauren asked Deloise.

  “Absolutely,” Haley said, and Lauren glanced at him, then did a double take.

  “Um…” he started before trailing off, too startled to speak.

  “We’ll be home on time,” Deloise promised. She grabbed the tickets off the kitchen table and opened the back door. Alex called from the living room that the news was starting. Before Lauren went to join him, he glanced at Josh and noted, “You’ve spilled your soda.”

  Alone together in the kitchen, Will helped Josh mop up the mess on the floor. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?” he asked her.

  “I’m sure,” she said. She stopped him before he knelt down in the puddle. “Are those Whim’s pants?”

  “Not this time. Deloise ordered them out of a catalog. She says they’re helping me define my ambitions and climb my inner mountain.” He shrugged. “They’re machine washable; I like that.”

  Josh felt like smiling for the first time that evening, so she did. “They look good.”

  “Thank you.” They both stood up, and she carried the paper towels to the trash can. “Are you going to walk tonight?”

  “Probably.” When he didn’t reply and didn’t leave, she asked, “What?”

  “You should come to the dance,” he said. “You should get out in the real world.”

  She thought it was a strange thing for him to say, and she was a little afraid he was asking her to the dance. “Why?”

  “Because…” He sighed, then shook his head. “Try to do something fun tonight,” he said. “Try not to … let the season get you down.”