Singe

by Casey Hays

“Yes.”

  “To find something.”

  He nods.

  “Someone.”

  A knock. “Jude?”

  The voice again. I turn.

  “Jude, it’s me.”

  Rylin.

  Kane fades out; I can see the bed, the window, the vase of roses right through his ghostly frame. I grasp at him, catch nothing.

  “Don’t leave me.”

  He solidifies. “I will never leave you. But you have to keep me here. I can’t help you do it.”

  I curl my fingers around his wrist, keeping him with me. Rylin knocks again.

  “I’m not supposed to let him in,” I whisper.

  “Why not?” Kane asks.

  “He told me not to. Don’t open the door for anyone, he said.”

  “Not even him?”

  “I guess not,” I shrug.

  We stare at the door together. Nothing but silence stares back.

  My free hand, flat against the wood, waits for the knock. It comes.

  “Jude?”

  I pull back. That isn’t Rylin. I don’t know that voice at all.

  “We need to leave.” Kane pulls on the back of my shirt.

  “But… Frankie is in the bathroom.”

  “You put her in there. She’s safe.” Kane moves to the window. “This way.”

  The window pane dissolves. Together, we peer over the edge.

  “We have to jump.” Kane hoists himself up and over until he hangs by his fingertips.

  “It’s a long way down.” I say. My words seem too calm.

  “I’m letting go now,” he says. He looks at me. “It’s your dream, Jude. What now?”

  He lets go. I watch him fall, and suddenly, the traffic parts and the street shifts. It transforms into… a trampoline. Kane hits the surface with a springy bounce. He flies back up into the air, all the way up to where I still lean out of the window. He grabs my hand and pulls me over, and we fall together, bounce, fly upward, bounce again. It makes me giggle.

  A final bounce. The street hardens, and we land on our feet with a solid thud. We are in the middle of a long empty dirt road. Rylin stands far, far away at the other end. I squint.

  “There he is,” I point.

  We run, racing toward Rylin, but we can’t reach him. The street turns to water. Soon it’s a flowing river, up to our waists. We fight against the current; mud sludges up over our feet. Rylin grows smaller and smaller.

  Corn sprouts up on either side of the river. That’s strange.

  “What should we do?” Kane asks.

  I know what to do.

  “We fly.”

  I should have thought of that before now. My wings flail out behind me, tattered and torn. Kane follows suit, his wings as magnificent as mine are ugly.

  “I can’t fly with these,” I quip. Kane smiles.

  “So? Change them.”

  Right.

  A flash of warmth bursts from my chest and swarms around to spread across my back. I look up. My wings are golden. Brilliant against the dark sky. I raise myself up and zoom forward under the clouds.

  Rylin is right below me. I swoop low and land in the water beside him. It’s up to his neck. He’s sad and tired after so much swimming. He’s about to go under.

  “You should not have come here.” He chokes on a mouthful of water.

  “Why?”

  “They will find you.”

  “Who?”

  “Them.” Gurgling.

  His eyes, still above the surface of the water, shift toward a row of men and women standing on the shore line, black shadows against a setting sun.

  “What do they want?” I ask.

  “You.” He juts one hand above the flood, grabs my bicep. Squeezes. He squeezes so hard. “Don’t let them get to you.”

  “I won’t,” I promise.

  I lift him slightly; he catches his breath. Our faces are so close, our chins bobbing together against the water’s surface. The water teems with the smell of mint.

  “I can’t come back to you.”

  “Why?”

  “They will see where I go.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Follow the signs.”

  I look. I see nothing.

  “What signs?”

  He glances over his shoulder, frightened.

  “Don’t let them see.”

  He vanishes. I blink.

  “Jude.”

  I turn. Jarron stands on the shore. The river begins to flow. Fast. And I’m standing on a dry riverbed, caked and hard. Jarron stumbles toward me.

  “You can save him still.”

  “From what?”

  “His end.”

  Jarron’s mantra tangles in with mine, and I see. Rylin laid flat on a slab, his eyelids sewn shut, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Save him,” Jarron repeats.

  When I turn, he’s gone. Kane stands beside me.

  “Did you find him?”

  “I don’t know,” I confess. “He said to follow the signs.”

  “These signs?”

  Kane plucks an ear of corn from a stalk. It’s raw. He takes a bite. The kernels crunch.

  “Dreams are strange,” he says. He takes another bite.

  The water pours back into the empty riverbed and rises to our chests.

  Twenty-two

  “Jude.”

  I bob back and forth as someone shakes me. Batting away at a pair of hands, I roll over and pull the covers up over my head.

  “Wake up, Jude.” Another shove.

  With a moan, I sling the blankets off and sit up.

  “What?” My voice is harder than I meant it to be.

  Frankie kneels in the middle of bed, staring at the floor.

  “What, Frankie?”

  I’m irritated at being awakened so abruptly. The smell of mint mingled with corn sloughs off the rest of my brain as I come fully awake.

  “I think there’s a leak.”

  Frankie slips over the edge of the bed and bends at the waist, disappearing from my sight. Puzzled, I slink over, flat on my stomach, and peer over the mattress. The cumbersome monitor vest pops me in the chin. Another sleepy growl, I push a straying wire out of my face and tug the vest downward. Frankie presses a fingertip into the plush carpet.

  “The floor is soaking wet.”

  It takes a few seconds for my groggy brain to process what she says, but when my feet hit the carpet, it fully registers. I squat next to Frankie, pressing my palm flat. Water seeps up and runs over the tops of my fingers. Wow. It’s a lot of water. I squish a foot deeper into the mushy fibers, crinkling my toes.

  “I guess we’d better call housekeeping.”

  “On it.” Frankie’s already dialing. “Maybe a pipe busted. The bathroom is pooling too.”

  I tear off the vest and drop it onto the bed, turning a slow circle. I bend and run my fingertips along the bed skirt. It’s drenched about six inches up. My Vans peek out from under the end. I scoop them up, dump out water, and toss them onto the dresser. A pipe busted, huh? More like ten. Kane knocks a couple of knuckles against the half open door.

  “Hey.” I work to remove the wires one by one and drop them next to the vest. “Welcome to our flood.”

  “Yeah, I’m aware.” He pushes the door wide and gestures for me to follow, his soaking wet socks sloshing with tiny, suction sounds. “The whole place is flooded. My suite too.”

  “You’re kidding?” I squish across the floor for a look. In the kitchen, the tiles puddle, and the cupboard doors are stained dark with watermarks along the bottom which proves the water rose at least that high at one point. The living area got the worst of it; even the magazines on top of the coffee table curl with water damage.

  This is crazy.

  “Where did all the water go?” I ask.

  “The hall, maybe?”

  I follow Kane to the door. He swings it open. One step outside the suite proves the hallway carpet is as dry as a desert summer.
/>   “Weird.”

  “Maybe the floor soaked it all up?” He pushes the door closed, and we make our way back in. Frankie emerges from the bedroom.

  “The front desk is sending someone from maintenance to check things out,” she says. “I tested all the faucets in the bathroom, and nothing appears to be leaking, but—” She stops as her bare foot hits the floor. Her hands fly up in astonishment. “What in the world?”

  “Yeah, it’s everywhere. Kane’s place too.”

  She blinks at me. “I told maintenance it was concentrated solely in your bedroom area.”

  “I guess they’ll know soon enough you were dead wrong.” Kane thumbs toward his own suite. “I checked my bathroom and kitchen pipes too. No leaks.”

  I open the cupboard under the sink and check the drain pipe. Nothing.

  “This is going to be fun to explain to the maid.” I lean a hip against the bar and survey the place. Even the bottom of the drapes is wet six inches up. “Nothing’s leaking, and there’s no sign of where all the water drained off to. Maybe a pipe is leaking in the walls?”

  “Doubtful,” Kane says. “Unless a pipe in every wall is leaking. This is massive water evidence.”

  Kane moves to the glass door and pushes back the drapes to let the morning sun in. Frankie follows, examining the area in the extra light. The couch cushions look like they’ve been floating in a swamp. So do the throw pillows. She picks one up and wrings it. Water runs in a muddy stream, leaving a splatter of brown drops all over her legs. She squints at me as a thought hits her.

  “Did you dream about water?”

  “Yeah, I did actually.” Her question surprises me. “How did you know?”

  She tosses the pillow back into place, not answering. The pillow hits the couch with a heavy squish. “Did you find Rylin?” she asks.

  “He was there.” As usual, I have no idea which way her mind is traveling. “Talking in riddles, like he tends to do. Telling me to follow the signs.” I huff. “What signs?”

  “Exactly. What signs?”

  Frankie props her hands, examining the room as she pops off her questions.

  “Did you see anything of significance?”

  “I saw a lot of things. How significant they were is another matter.”

  “What about you, Kane? Were you there?”

  “I was there.” He presses on the cushion of a chair. A stream of water drains out the side. “And I saw some things.”

  “Well, let’s make a list.” Frankie moves to the kitchen and rummages through a couple of drawers until she finds a pad of paper with the casino logo at the top—a pair of fire wings in bright orange—and a pen. She pops the lid free and tosses it to the side, poised and ready. “So… you let Rylin in?”

  “I’m not sure.” I run the parts of the dream I remember through my brain. “Maybe. I mean, I dreamed about him. That doesn’t always mean I let him in.”

  “Assume you did. The signs?”

  “Okay. There was knocking.”

  “Knocking.” Frankie writes. “Elaborate on this.”

  “Shouldn’t we be worrying about the water?” Kane asks.

  “Do you want to find Rylin or not?” Frankie pins him with a steeliness that seems to shoot lasers right through her lenses. Kane pops his lips shut with a whole lot of theater and plants himself beside me, shrinking to his elbows. Probably not the best question to ask him.

  “Yes,” I answer for him, giving his arm a nudge with my shoulder. “We do.”

  “Then forget about the water for a minute and tell me about the knocking.”

  I begin to relay everything related to the door, the knocking, Rylin’s voice on the other side, then someone else’s.

  “He never wants me to open that door.” It stands wide open now, the crumpled bedsheets in plain view.

  “I’d call that significant, then.” Frankie taps the end of the pen against her lower lip. “And now let’s talk about the water. When did it enter your dream?”

  “Well, it started in there.” I point at the bedroom. “You were in the bathroom, and water was running out from under the door.”

  “That’s the first thing I saw,” Kane interjects. “The tunnel began to fill up with water.” He checks that I understand the reference. “And the water smelled like roses. Then, I was in your room.”

  “The tunnel?” Frankie starts to write.

  “Yeah, but that’s not important.” He waves off the image. “Jude doesn’t dream it, but I come through a tunnel. Every time. Don’t ask why.”

  “I won’t. What else?”

  “We jumped out the window,” he says.

  “Yes,” I agree. “And the street turned into a river.”

  “Wow.” Frankie’s eyes dance back and forth between us. “Amazing how you two can do that.”

  “Lots of things we do are amazing,” Kane answers with a wink at me. I roll my eyes. Really?

  Chill, Romeo.

  He stifles a laugh when he hears my voice in his head. Because he secretly enjoys when I call him this.

  “Okay, so let me get this straight.” Frankie takes a seat on a bar stool totally missing the innuendo and examines her notes. “Are you implicitly stating that your dream began right here in the suite with knocking…” She spreads her hands wide. “And then a flooded room?”

  “That’s the gist of it,” Kane offers

  I stare at them.

  “I didn’t do this, you guys.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No,” I quip. “There’s a leak.”

  Frankie studies her list, and I feel the scowl embedded in my forehead deepen. This is so frustrating. Here we are piecing together clues to find Rylin when I should be focused on rescuing my brother, and I’m angry. Because Rylin should be here. I expected him to be here with us every step.

  A familiar slice of fear stabs me through, reminding me that I’m not so much angry as I am worried. It just feels easier to be mad. But in the end, Rylin didn’t come back for a reason—probably for a real bad reason, and my nerves flare up again. I peer at Frankie’s list.

  Rylin, what are you trying to tell me?

  “So we have a river in your dream.” Frankie takes up the pad and pen again. “Rylin’s knocking on a door he doesn’t want you to open. And corn.” She jots down each item.

  “So what is your take, genius?” Kane asks her. “I know you’ve got one.”

  “Initially, I’d say these are all symbolic representations.” Frankie studies her list. “But if Rylin is sending a message, then perhaps we are looking for real things. An actual cornfield. A literal river. Rylin is telling you where to find him without actually telling you.” She lifts her eyes. “Clever.”

  We absorb the conclusion in silence. Someone bangs on the door; we all jump.

  “Maintenance!”

  “Geesh!” I breathe a long sigh of relief that ends in a silly giggle. Frankie blows air through her lips. With a half-hidden snicker of his own, Kane heads for the door. Even he was startled.

  “For a moment, I thought we were going to hear Rylin’s voice on the other side,” Frankie fans herself with an exhale of relief. She read my mind.

  I straighten as a heavy man with a thick mustache traipses in. He wears a standard jumpsuit, a toolbelt fastened around his waist. He pauses just inside the entryway and tosses a stern glance across the floor.

  “Good grief.” He presses a heavy foot into the carpet. The water floods up around his sole and runs across the tip of his boot. “Where did you say the leak started?”

  “Well, I might have misjudged exactly where the problem originated.” Frankie comes to her feet, a small cringe in her voice.

  “Okay? So, point me to the leak.”

  “That’s the problem,” Kane offers. “We can’t find one.”

  “Hmm.” The man scans the carpet again, scratching at his head. “The source of this much water would be noticeable.”

  “One would think,” Frankie says.

 
With a scowl, he steps in. We watch him as he checks the sink, pulls the refrigerator away from the wall to inspect the waterline, then disappears into my room for a few minutes.

  “He acts like this is our fault,” I whisper.

  “Not all of us,” Frankie replies.

  I stick my tongue out at her; she remains as serious as can be.

  “Did you notice how he didn’t even balk at the fact that your skin is lit up like a Christmas tree?”

  I hadn’t actually.

  “He works at Singe.” I grab a water from the fridge and twist the lid open. “I’m sure he’s seen his fair share of Fireblood weirdness.”

  The maintenance man reappears, makes a sweep of the living room and disappears through Kane’s adjoining door. We can hear him talking on his phone. We hear him shuffling and banging doors open and closed for a few minutes. We keep quiet, tense, until he returns.

  “I don’t know what you kids did in here, but I can find no source of this leak.”

  His voice holds an accusatory edge that burns me, and I have half a mind to say something until Kane’s fingers twist around my wrist, keeping me silent.

  “We don’t know what happened,” he offers.

  “That may be, but housekeeping is going to have to clean up your mess, and they aren’t going to like you after this. And then I’m not going to like you either, because one of them is my wife. I’ll be listening to her complain for weeks to come.” He peers at us through a couple of unpleasantly beady slits. “Maybe once it’s dry, I’ll have better luck locating a source.” He shoots a frown at us. “I called the boss lady up to have a look.”

  Again, the accusations lace the words. He trudges across the room with all his heavy tools clinking and opens the door. Petra is already in the hallway. She enters with Joshua on her heels.

  “Albert.” Petra lifts her chin, her voice every bit resembling the “boss lady.” “What seems to be—” She stops short as her shoe hits the carpeted area with a squish. “Oh, dear.”

  “The whole place is flooded, ma’am.” He leans in and speaks as confidentially as his loud voice will allow. “Just like last time.”

  Last time? Oh… there was a “last time.” No wonder he called her.

  Petra says nothing more, clearly stunned by the scene. Behind her, Joshua lets out a low whistle.

  “I don’t think this can be compared to last time,” he whispers.