“I hope you get to meet Big Daddy soon. He’s gonna love you.”
“Big Daddy?” I remembered Hanna using the same absurd nickname. It sounded like something out of a gangster movie. “You can’t be serious,” I said. “You actually call him that?”
“You’ll find we’re not big on formalities down here,” Yeats continued. “Just one big happy family.”
“Sometimes we call him Papa Luce,” Eloise chimed in as she downed the contents of her wineglass. “Maybe he’ll let you too when you get to know him better.”
“I have no intention of calling him anything,” I proclaimed.
“That’s a shame,” said Yeats. “Seeing as you’re here at his behest.”
What did that even mean? I glowered at Jake to show him I demanded an explanation. He smiled at me wanly as he sipped his wine. He held my glass out to me, indicating I should do likewise.
“Why don’t we talk about this later, darling,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. He wrapped a proprietary arm around my shoulders and tucked a strand of hair that had come loose behind my ear. “Tonight’s about having fun; business can wait.”
The demons eventually lost interest in me and focused their attention on eating and drinking themselves into a stupor. Their appetites were voracious given their svelte forms. After an interval of several hours a few guests rose to excuse themselves. I saw them stagger and disappear behind a stone partition leading to an inner chamber. Sounds of retching and grunting followed by the sound of running water filtered out, but no one seemed to take any notice. Then the guests would return to the table, dab delicately at the corners of their mouths with their napkins, and resume eating.
“Where did they go?” I said, leaning in to Jake.
Diego overheard and answered on his behalf. “To the vomitorium, of course. All the best eateries have them these days.”
“That’s disgusting,” I said, looking away.
Jake shrugged. “Many cultural practices seem disgusting to outsiders. Beth, you haven’t touched a thing. I hope the vomitorium thing hasn’t put you off.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Rejecting the food was a symbolic gesture, but I knew that I couldn’t keep it up indefinitely. I was fading away and sooner or later I would need sustenance if I planned to survive. Jake frowned with displeasure.
“You really should try a little something. Are you sure I can’t tempt you with anything?” He lifted a fruit platter and placed it in front of me. The fruit looked plump and delicious, like it had just been picked and drops of dew still clung to the skin. “How about a cherry?” He dangled one in front of me invitingly and I heard my stomach growl. “Or a persimmon. Have you ever tried one?” He cut one open with a knife, exposing the juicy yellow flesh inside. He slid a piece onto the end of his knife and offered it to me.
I wanted to turn my face away, but the scent was intoxicating. I was sure ordinary food didn’t smell this tempting. The smell seemed to lodge inside my head, taunting me. Maybe one little mouthful of fruit couldn’t hurt? I felt a dizzying sense of relief at the idea. But that wasn’t normal. Food was supposed to serve as sustenance, as fuel for the body. That was how Gabriel had always described it. I’d experienced the sensation of physical hunger many times on earth, but this was like a craving. Hungry or not, there was no way I was going to share food with Jake Thorn. I pushed the plate roughly away.
“In time,” Jake said, almost consoling himself. “You’re strong, Beth, but not so strong that I can’t break you.”
When the feasting was over, the party wandered in a different direction to an open candlelit space where cushions and lounges were scattered across the floor. The mood seemed less languid now as the guests began to stroke and caress one another with growing urgency. There was no coupling off, just a press of bodies with the single intent of seeking gratification. One man leered at Eloise, who responded by tearing off his shirt with her teeth. I turned modestly away when she began licking his chest and he responded with moans of excitement. Jake and I were the only ones still seated.
“Not joining them?” I challenged him.
“Debauchery gets a bit old after two thousand years.”
“Trying celibacy for a change?” My tone could not have been more caustic.
“No, just looking for something more.” He gazed at me in a way I found disconcerting and almost a little bit sad.
“Well, you’re not going to find it with me,” I said sternly.
“Maybe not tonight. But perhaps one day I’ll win your trust. I can afford to be patient. After all, I’ve got all of eternity to try.”
Eventually my glumness proved too much even for Jake because he mercifully let me retire early and I was returned to the relative safety of Hotel Ambrosia via a limousine. Tucker was already waiting for me in the lobby, ostensibly there to escort me to my room.
“How do you stand it?” I fumed as we got into the elevator.
“How does anyone stand being here? It’s so horrible and empty.” Tucker gave me a meaningful look and then pressed a button I guessed wouldn’t take us to the penthouse floor.
“Follow me,” he said simply.
We got out of the elevator and walked in silence through a deserted corridor until we reached a rich tapestry hanging on the far wall. The colored silk threads had been deftly woven to depict a flock of demons as feathered and clawed birds of prey, descending on a mortal man chained to a rock. Some tore at his flesh while others disemboweled him. Even through the fabric, the expression of agony on the man’s face was so vivid that I shuddered. Tucker pulled the tapestry aside to reveal a flight of steps chiseled into the stone. They seemed to lead deep underground, into the very core of the hotel. The air smelled different here, musty and dank compared with the perfumed lobby. There were no lights so I couldn’t see more than a hand’s breadth in front of me.
“Stay close,” Tucker said.
I descended after him, clutching the back of his shirt to make sure I didn’t lose sight of him in the suffocating darkness. The staircase was narrow and winding, but we managed to find our way to the bottom. When Tucker stopped, a brazier on the wall flickered into life. We seemed to be in an underground canal, filled with murky, green water. A breeze swirled around my feet and if I pricked my ears and listened very carefully, I thought I could hear the sound of voices whispering my name. Moss covered the earthen walls and water dripped from the roof of the tunnel. I noticed a wooden dinghy was moored by a platform near the steps. Tucker untied it and tossed the rope aside.
“Get in,” he said. “And try not to make any noise. We don’t want to disturb anything.” I didn’t like the way he said “anything” rather than “anyone,” and it unsettled me.
“Like what?” I asked, but Tucker focused his attention on directing the boat and refused to elaborate further. While the oars sliced silently through the muddy water of the canal I sat rigidly, my knuckles white from clutching the sides. I sensed movement far beneath us. Suddenly the surface rippled as though someone were skimming stones from the embankment.
“What’s that?” I whispered in alarm.
“Shh,” he replied. “Don’t make a sound.”
I obeyed but let my eyes wander back to the water. Bubbles appeared beneath the surface just as something pale and bloated became visible. Pale moonlike disks surrounded us, floating like buoys on the surface of the river. I leaned out of the dinghy, squinting to make out what the queer shapes were and clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle a scream when I saw they weren’t buoys but disembodied heads. All around us cold, dead faces bobbed in the water, their hair fanning like seaweed, their vacant eyes staring straight at us. The one closest to me had once been a woman, but now her skin was puckered and gray like she’d spent too much time in the bath. The severed head knocked ghoulishly against the side of the boat. I swallowed back the questions on the tip of my tongue when Tucker threw me a warning look.
When he moored the boat near a flat outcrop of rock, I le
apt out gratefully. We were standing in an alcove that was about the size of a small inlet. In the center was a body of water shimmering like diamonds. It flowed into several tributaries to an unknown destination. It was so clear I could see straight through to the pebbled floor. The rocks where we stood had been worn smooth as silk. I gave Tucker a questioning glance, unsure whether it was safe to speak yet or not.
“This is the place I was telling you about,” he said. “This here is the Lake of Dreams.”
“The one that will take me back home?” I asked, remembering our last conversation that had been cut short by Jake’s arrival.
“Yes,” Tuck said. “Not physically, of course. But you’ll be able to go there in your mind.”
“So what now?”
“If you drink a mouthful, you’ll be able to see what your heart most desires. The water acts like a drug, only it stays in your bloodstream for ages. You’ll be able to project anytime, anywhere.”
I didn’t need further encouragement. I moved quickly to kneel at the lake’s edge and scooped the crystal-clear water into the palm of my hand. Without hesitating I raised my cupped hand to my mouth and drank eagerly.
A gentle hypnotic hum began in the air like the whirring of cicadas. I leaned in closer scanning the surface of the water for a sign. Looking into the lake made me feel disconnected from my body, as if I were falling under a spell. Suddenly I had a sensation very much like being hit in the chest with a punching bag. When I exhaled, I saw my own breath like a glowing orb. It hovered in front of me just inches from the water. Inside it, thousands of tiny balls of white light skittered furiously. I watched the orb descend slowly and disappear.
“Don’t worry,” I heard Tucker whisper. “The lake is reading your memories so it knows where to take you.”
For a while nothing happened and there was only the sound of our combined breathing. Tucker was talking to me, but his voice was muffled. Then I couldn’t hear him at all and realized why. I was looking down at him from above. The lake and its surroundings began to dissolve although I knew I was still physically there.
A panic began to rise as a new location formed around me. At first it appeared pixelated, like a photograph someone had tried unsuccessfully to enlarge. But when it came slowly into focus, I was no longer afraid.
Instead I felt a rush of emotion so powerful it felt like tumbling headlong into a whirlpool. I was going home.
11
Reunion
THE kitchen at Byron Street was exactly as I remembered it; large and airy with views of the frothy ocean on every side. I was standing in the middle of it with all my senses functioning and yet I knew I was only a spectator watching from the sidelines. I could move freely in the space and yet I wasn’t part of it. It was like watching the opening of a movie from inside the screen. It was early morning. I could hear birdsong as well as the whistling of the kettle on the bench top. The French doors were open and someone was mowing the grass at Dolly Henderson’s place next door. There was a tiered cake plate with iced cupcakes that I remembered Ivy baking some days before I’d disappeared. They hadn’t been touched and looked stale now. A vase of wilting cornflowers also sat on the bench, a reminder of the cheerful place the kitchen had been just a few days earlier.
In the next second the scene burst into life. Xavier was sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, just a few meters from me. His posture drew my attention because I’d never seen him slumped over like this before. He was wearing a familiar fitted gray T-shirt and sweatpants, but the stubble on his face suggested he hadn’t made it to bed that night.
I willed myself to move closer to him and was excited to find I could do it without too much effort. The proximity was dizzying. I wanted so badly to reach out and touch him, but I couldn’t. My ghostly self had no substance and my hand passed straight through him. Xavier looked different. I couldn’t see his face properly, but his shoulders and the muscles in his forearms were tense. I could feel the sense of grief hanging in the room.
The scent of freesia wafted past me, a fragrance I knew only too well. My sister appeared in the doorway and looked at Xavier with concern. Ivy appeared as angelic and composed as ever, but the uncharacteristic crease in her brow betrayed her. I could see she was overcome with worry.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked Xavier gently.
“No, thanks,” he replied. He sounded distracted, as if his mind were far away, and he barely raised his head.
“Gabriel’s gone back to visit the Knox place,” Ivy continued. “He thinks he might pick up some clues.”
Xavier was too lost in his own brooding thoughts to reply. Ivy came to stand beside him. Reading his mood, she placed a tentative hand on his arm. He jerked at her touch, not allowing himself to be comforted.
“We mustn’t lose heart. We’ll find her.”
Xavier raised his head to look at her. His face was paler than I’d ever seen it and there were circles under his bright blue eyes. His lips were pressed into a hard line. He looked forlorn, consumed by his grief. I wanted to reach out and take his face in my hands, to tell him that I was okay — trapped, lonely and miserable but otherwise unharmed. I might not be in his arms where we both wanted me to be, but I was coping. I was surviving.
“How?” he said after a long interval. He struggled to keep his voice even. “We have no idea where he’s taken her … or what he’s doing to her.” That last thought proved too much and his voice cracked.
I felt a cold lump of dread rise in my throat. If they had no idea where I was, what hope did they have of ever finding me? Neither Gabriel nor Ivy had actually witnessed my disappearance so all they had to go on was Xavier’s sketchy report of what he’d seen before Jake had run him down. As far as they knew I might be held hostage in some remote corner of the globe.
“Gabriel’s working on it,” Ivy said, trying to sound confident. “He’s good at figuring things out.”
“Shouldn’t we be there with him?” Xavier said helplessly.
“He knows what to do, what signs to look for.” There was an awkward lull in their conversation when all that could be heard was the ticking of the hall clock.
“It’s my fault,” Xavier said finally. Saying the words out loud seemed to offer him some relief. “I should have been able to protect her.” His eyelashes looked wet with tears, but he brushed them away before Ivy could see them.
“No human stands a chance against that sort of power,” said my sister. “You can’t blame yourself, Xavier. There’s nothing you could have done.” Xavier shook his head adamantly.
“Yes, there is,” he said through gritted teeth. “I could have stayed with her. If I hadn’t been fooling around down at the lake, none of this would have happened.” He curled his hands into tight fists and swallowed hard. “Don’t you see? I promised I’d look after her and I let her down.”
“You didn’t know. How could you know? But you can help Beth now by not falling apart. Be strong for her sake.”
Xavier squeezed his eyes shut and nodded.
“Gabe’s back,” said Ivy, way before the key even turned in the lock. Xavier rose from his chair and seemed to falter forward. Minutes later Gabriel appeared in the kitchen. Even though he was my brother and I knew him as well as anyone could, his radiance still made me gasp. His perfect, marblesculpted features were severe. His silver eyes were solemn and his face grave.
“Any luck?” asked Ivy.
“I think I found something,” Gabriel said hesitantly. “It may be a portal. I could smell sulfur on the highway near the Knox house.”
“Oh, no.” Ivy moaned and sank into the nearest chair.
“Why is that important? A portal? What’s a portal? A portal to where?” Xavier asked his questions in rapid succession, but Gabriel answered in a measured voice.
“There are openings in this world,” he said, “that lead directly into other realms. We call them portals. They can appear randomly or they can be conjured by someone powerful enoug
h.”
“What kind of realms? Where’s Beth?” There was a rising panic in his voice. I’m right here, I wanted to call out but my voice failed me.
“The asphalt on the highway was burned,” Gabriel observed, sidestepping the question. “And everything around it scorched. There is only one place that can leave behind marks like that.”
Xavier took a breath as if to steady himself. I could see the moment when the truth behind Gabriel’s words dawned on him.
“That can’t be true,” he said weakly, his rational mind still struggling to comprehend.
“It’s true, Xavier.” Even Gabriel had to turn his face away in order not to witness the effect he knew his words would have. “Jake has dragged Bethany into Hell.”
Xavier looked as if his worst nightmare had been realized. The news hit him like a slap in the face. His jaw dropped and his eyes stared fixedly at my brother, as if he were waiting for him to burst out laughing and reveal the whole thing was a bad joke. He stayed that way for several long minutes, as though he had turned to stone. Then suddenly his whole body seemed to shudder with anguish. My ghostly self, as insubstantial as vapor, grieved alongside him. We made a sad and sorry pair — the human boy and the apparition he could not see but who loved him more than anything in the world.
Everyone it seemed was behaving out of character in my absence. Gabriel did something then I’d never seen from him before. He crossed the room and knelt down before Xavier, his hand resting lightly on his arm. It was a sight to behold — an archangel kneeling before a human in an expression of humility.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” Gabriel said, looking him directly in the eye. “I’m not sure how to help Bethany now.” These were the words I most dreaded hearing. Gabriel never glossed over the harsh truth. It wasn’t in his nature. What he was doing now was preparing both himself and Xavier for the worst.
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