In the Dark of Dreams

by Marjorie M. Liu

  Perrin ground his teeth—listening to that hissing roar grow louder, in his ears and inside his head—a rough rumble of water rushing through the forest, breaking and pushing. Made him feel dizzy—but no, that was the earth shaking again. Aftershock.

  “Come on!” Jenny shouted at him, pale.

  Perrin ignored her, watching the bottom of the hill as muddy water swelled through the trees like a swollen river, smashing the rocky incline, flowing around it, searching out flat land and covering leaves, tearing vines, snapping branches. The hungry lips of the wave pressed and pressed higher against the slope of the hill.

  Two feet, three feet—four—until finally, finally, it seemed to stop.

  Perrin leaned away from the tree, and all it took was three steps to reach the water. He swept his hand through it, suffering a tingle in his skin—not from the sea, but from the lingering effects of the energy pulse released from the earthquake. He could feel it—still hot.

  Jenny slid down out of the tree, gripping the trunk as though she needed it to stay upright. “That was no minor wave.”

  Perrin grunted. “Depends on your point of view. Stay there.”

  He slipped into the water before she could protest, sliding completely under the surface. He did not shift his lower body, but his translucent second lids dropped over his eyes. Gills tore open with a brief stab of pain.

  All around him were shadows made of silt and kicked-up leaves. He saw the forest, dark, like massive prison bars—and between them, darts of silver. Fish, carried in by the wave. Slender, glittering in the muddy half-light. He did not have much time before the water would recede and carry them away—though a second wave might crash soon enough.

  Perrin hummed a low, sonorous, Krackeni melody, warm and soft.

  The fish drew near, attracted by his voice. Close, closer, until their movements turned sluggish. When they were directly in front of Perrin, he reached up—grabbed their thick bodies, and tossed them to land. A blind throw, over his shoulder. His hand was the only part of him that broke the surface. He imagined a yelp, muffled through the water.

  Perrin captured five more fish, throwing them to dry land. He would have followed, except for the sudden wavering squeals he heard in the water. The distant sounds chilled him.

  Dolphins. Signal cries of recognition, and alarm.

  Some pod had just sighted something that did not belong.

  Shark, he told himself, but he didn’t believe it. Sharks didn’t rouse that kind of agitation, but only because they were so easy for dolphins to drive away, or kill.

  No. This was something else. Him, maybe. Didn’t matter that he was here on land, and those dolphins were some distance away. He’d learned to appreciate the benefits of a little paranoia. Perhaps the sea witch had told where to find him—though his instincts said no. She had sent Jenny and him away from her island, when she most certainly could have kept them. And he knew this was not her island. No tsunami would have touched her shores.

  Perrin dragged himself from the water. Jenny crouched at the edge of it, her toes digging into the rocks. Her mouth tightened when she saw him.

  “You’re funny,” she said, her tone implying that he was anything but. “I survive kidnapping, drowning, earthquake, a crazy witch-woman, and a tsunami, only to get bashed in the brains by flying fish.”

  Perrin frowned. “Little fish. Where are they?”

  Jenny jerked her head sideways. “I didn’t throw them back if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I’m worried about hunger,” he muttered. “I’m sorry if I . . .”

  Hit you, he almost said. But that sounded more awful than he could bear, given the darkening bruises on her pale arms.

  “Like you said, little fish.” Jenny grabbed his wrist and pulled. She had a strong, sure grip, and his stomach did a dizzy flip at the contact. He let her help him out of the water—pretending he needed help, even though he was a good foot taller and more than twice as broad. Her touch was nothing he took for granted.

  The fish still flopped, gasping. Perrin picked up a rock and smashed their heads, one good blow each to kill them. No remorse. No hesitation. He searched for it but felt nothing. Like that part of him was dead.

  They broke you. Rik’s voice, echoing in his head.

  You would kill again. The sea witch, this time. You are stained with blood.

  Perrin rolled his shoulders, ignoring the ache in the base of his skull. Broken. Yes. His soul, stained.

  But still alive. Alive, and look what had happened. He had found something good. A reason to have kept breathing all these years.

  A miracle, set to break his heart all over again. Jenny stared at that rock in his hands like it was a gun. “That’s not what I expected to see.”

  “Because I’m from the sea?” Perrin couldn’t look at her. “Humans eat cows. My kind eat fish. Some call it inhumane, but hunger usually trumps ideals.”

  She sat down beside him. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “You didn’t.” He flung the rock away. “I used to avoid eating meat. I couldn’t stand the idea of hurting something for food.”

  Jenny didn’t say anything. Perrin glanced sideways and found her eyeing the dead fish.

  “Really,” he said.

  “I believe you,” she replied. “But something changed.”

  Perrin hesitated, feeling naked and lost. Her gaze slid over his scars, then away.

  “I’m hungry,” she said. “I have waterproof matches in the pack.”

  Jenny began to stand. He caught her wrist.

  “I’m not the boy you knew on the beach,” Perrin said quietly, staring at her hand, those bruises, and not her face. “I’m not . . . good . . . like he was.”

  She stood very still. Silent. Watching him with those eyes he was afraid to look at. Those eyes that Perrin had spent a lifetime dreaming desperately to see.

  He let her go and turned his back—skin crawling with shame and soul-searing loneliness. He could still feel things, all right.

  And there would be more blood—on land, this time—if he did nothing to stop the events unfolding on the seafloor, amongst his kind. If he even could. What had the witch meant? Where was the kra’a? Was it truly so close?

  If you leave Jenny and you fail, she will die.

  You could protect her, though. If you manage to live long enough, evade your kind, you could keep her alive when the beast wakes and the waves destroy land.

  You could save her life, if no one else’s.

  One woman, against millions.

  We’re all fucked, he thought.

  Chapter Eleven

  I cannot fix on the hour, Jenny recited silently, clinging to lines from Pride and Prejudice, which steadied her, brought her down into the world in ways that the rocks beneath her did not.

  I cannot fix on the hour, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago.

  Too long ago, when she had laid the foundation of what was happening now. And yet she could fix on the hour. She could fix on the look.

  Twelve years old. A morning on a beach.

  Jenny lay curled on her side, in leaves and dirt, her knees drawn up to her chest. She wanted to sleep, but was afraid to. Not that she was going to have much choice soon. Everything hurt, and her eyelids were heavy.

  “How is your fever?” Perrin asked. His voice was low, rough enough to be unfriendly, even menacing. Jenny wasn’t intimidated. Nor was she bothered by the bruises on her arms. Not anymore.

  “Fine,” she replied, which was a lie. She was not fine. She was exhausted, heartsick—and there was a parasite attached to the base of her skull, drinking her blood, burying itself to the bone.

  Kra’a, she named it. The very thing Perrin was searching for. She was absolutely certain o
f that.

  And every time she tried to tell him, some mysterious compulsion kept her mouth shut tight. The impulse frightened her more than the parasite. It made her angry, too.

  Be angry. Anger is good, whispered a dry, almost masculine, voice inside her mind.

  Jenny shivered with fear. Shut up, I don’t want you. You’re not real. I’m losing my mind.

  You are losing nothing.

  Jenny shut her eyes, trying to block out that voice. She had heard it for the first time right before the earthquake. No words. Just an incomprehensible murmur. Not part of her. Something else, a presence inside her head.

  That sea witch, crone, shape-shifter—whatever she was—had a terrible sense of humor. What would it have taken for her to point one claw at Jenny’s head, and say, “Look there?”

  That would be too easy. Think of Grandma and Grandpa.

  Always showing, never telling. A lesson given, they liked to say, was never learned.

  A philosophy they had stuck to every time something new and strange needed to be introduced into Jenny’s life. She’d learned about shape-shifters that way. Eight years old, at the circus. Her grandparents had taken her to see a special performance—a small, elite troupe of actors and performers, who had danced and sung, and done magic that seemed like real magic, and cast illusions so fantastical, so rich and bleeding with life, that Jenny had found her imagination—and heart—bursting with the strength of possibilities.

  Not all the performers, of course, had been human.

  Jenny hadn’t known that, at the time. Her grandparents had planned her introduction to that side of their lives so carefully—arranging the performance as a way to open her eyes. Not with fear. But with love.

  Even so, one performer had stood out above all the others. Serena McGillis. A tall, lithe, red-haired woman with golden eyes—those golden eyes that were so important, Jenny had later discovered. Serena’s act—or genius—had been with big cats. Lions. Tigers. Panthers and leopards. Gorgeous, sleek predators. Prowling and dangerous.

  No jumping through hoops of fire. No standing on hind legs like trained pets. Jenny had seen those kinds of performances on television and despised them. She had been ready to despise Serena, too. No animals like them should be kept in cages, pacing bars or walls, hungry to run. Nothing meant to be so free should ever be locked up, simply for the amusement of people who thought they had power.

  But in the end, she hadn’t despised Serena. Because Serena had understood freedom.

  And Jenny, in her own way, had dedicated herself to making certain that those like Serena remained free, and secret, and safe. Just as her grandparents had known she would. Jenny just wished they had been as clever about the rest of the family.

  She shivered again. Perrin looked down at her. “You’re cold.”

  “No,” Jenny said, still trembling. The kra’a is attached to my head, she wanted to tell him. Hey, look there. Remember what the witch said? It’s with you. I’m with you. Take a closer look.

  He sighed and turned away to the fire he had been trying to start. Jenny wanted to howl with frustration, but her mouth wouldn’t open. Not in any way, and she felt that presence at the back of her mind, tied to her thoughts. Knowing her thoughts, her intentions.

  Stop it. Get out of my head. You don’t want me. I’m human. Perrin will know what to do with you.

  We chose you, it said simply, with chilling calm. And it is not time.

  Not time for what?

  But it did not answer, and Jenny remembered what the sea witch had said, inside her mind: Time is running out.

  Time. Running out.

  For a moment she found herself six years younger, sixteen years younger, knowing something was wrong, unable to make anyone listen. No proof. Just instincts that no one paid attention to because there was no flash behind them, no psychic fire. Just ordinary Jenny, with her obsession with the sea and her silly little notions that something wasn’t right.

  Something wasn’t right, now. In so many different ways.

  Except for Perrin. Her touchstone in the chaos, and she couldn’t even explain why. Those instincts, again. Her heart and gut, moving in together.

  “Safe,” was the word she thought, watching him fuss with the fire.

  And then, shockingly, another word filled her.

  Mine.

  Jenny had never felt possessive about a man. Never. But the need to make him hers, to keep him, rose up and overwhelmed.

  He is yours, whispered that dry voice. You are his. Your hearts have rested too long on the edge of dreams.

  Jenny closed her eyes. Who are you?

  But the parasite did not answer.

  She opened her eyes and found Perrin watching her. Stole her breath. There was nothing kind about his face, not one thing soft. His scars, the slant of his mouth, those sharp bones. He wore his face like a mask, but she suspected that he had seen enough to warrant all the hard lines. She hurt for him.

  I know what it is to be alone, she wanted to tell him. I know heartache.

  “How did you learn English?” she asked him, needing a distraction. “You don’t have an accent.”

  Perrin hesitated. “I couldn’t speak English when I came to land, but I understood the language when I heard others use it. I credited our . . . dreams. Perhaps I absorbed something from you. I don’t know. Just that in under six months I could speak and read. But that was the only language I learned with any real fluency.”

  Jenny had other questions—so many—but Perrin frowned at the smoky patch of wood he was trying light, and she said, “Tinder. Dry leaves, grass. Something small and easy to burn. Place small twigs over that.”

  Perrin followed her instructions, and she watched him work, unable to look away. His scars were silver against his pale skin. So many scars. His long hair shimmered in the half-light, skimming muscles that were hard and lean, and powerful. He had carried her easily, and she was no lightweight.

  Her gaze dropped to his hands, rawboned and large, his fingers moving with surprising delicacy as he plucked small vines, leaves, anything that would be easy to burn. Her bruises ached, shaped like his hands.

  Nightmare. Screaming. Begging. Gunshots.

  Jenny didn’t remember what Perrin had seen inside her head, but knew that dream, or one variation of it.

  The bruises seemed like a sign. She’d been frightened when she’d opened her eyes and found Perrin holding her down—desperate wildness in his eyes. Once she had calmed down, though, a small part of her had begun to take strange comfort in those bruises he’d left behind. As though they were proof she had not been alone in that dream.

  Fucking twisted, she told herself. And maybe it was, but so what? All of this was nuts. Her own life, not just what was happening now.

  Perrin finally started a fire. Small. Not much heat, which was fine. The air was oppressively hot. Hard to breathe. Sweat made her thighs stick together, and her clothing was soaked through. Not that it stopped her from shivering.

  Perrin gave her a long, grim look. “This is my fault.”

  “I don’t know how,” she told him, but all he did was sit near her, not quite touching. He dragged the fish close and began cleaning them with a gentleness he hadn’t shown earlier. Jenny could smell their bodies. Made her nauseous. She didn’t say a word about it, though. Just closed her eyes and shifted closer to Perrin until her arm brushed his bare leg. It was stupid, but she needed to touch him.

  Needed to. Had to.

  What you’re looking for could be right in front of you, Les had said, just days and a lifetime ago. And she understood now, the double meaning in that statement. She had been looking for mermen. Someone like Les.

  But not him.

  Just this man. Perrin.

  He stiffened when she touched him, then relaxed. �
�Rest, Jenny. I’ll watch out for you.”

  He still sounded angry. No pleasantries. Nothing soft about him.

  But Jenny believed him. She believed him in that deep place inside her heart that believed in magic, and mysteries, and boys on beaches who were born from the sea.

  Perrin. His name is Perrin.

  She closed her eyes and fell asleep.

  Jenny dreamed, and when she opened her eyes inside the dream, she was on the beach, sitting in the sand, watching the waves crash from far away. The old house was on her left, windows dark, slumping on its foundation. Blood trickled down the sagging porch steps. It was just as far away as the waves, but she could see the blood as though it was right beside her.

  And it was. On her hands. On her legs.

  “Don’t look,” said a deep voice, and strong pale fingers slid around her jaw, guiding her until she stared at a broad, scarred chest and strong throat. “It hurts you, so don’t look.”

  “You don’t know,” she murmured.

  “I know blood,” he said. “I know trouble. I was in your other dream.”

  Jenny wished she could see his eyes. She had never in the dreams been able to see the face of the boy—and later, the man. It would have helped now, though she couldn’t say how. She felt free to say things here that she couldn’t while awake; but there was new uncertainty in the air around her, a sense of things falling apart.

  “We never spoke of our troubles before,” she said, feeling lost. “It was always safe here. The only place in my life where I had peace. Where I belonged.”

  “You belonged with me,” he said, and there was no mistaking that rough voice, or the possessiveness of his hands sliding over her shoulders. “I belonged to you. I always did, from the first time I saw you.”

  “It was fifteen minutes. I barely touched you. And here in these dreams . . . all we did was hold hands. Watch the sea. Talk.”

  She had loved talking with him. She had loved holding his hand. Feeling that presence beside her, solid and strong. She had loved it so much. In her dream, she had loved him.

  She still did.