Girl of Nightmares

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Anna and I sit at a round wooden table, staring out at an expanse of long, green grass, untouched by the blades of a mower. The white and yellow blossoms of weeds and wildflowers wave in a breeze I can’t feel, clustered together in spotty patches. We’re on a porch, maybe the porch of her old Victorian.

“I love the sun,” she says, and it is definitely beautiful, a bright, sharp white that strikes the grass and turns it into silver razors. But there’s no heat. No sensation in my body, no awareness of the chair or bench I must be sitting on, and if I turned my head to look any farther than her face, there would be nothing there. Behind us there is no house. There is only the impression of a house, in my mind. This is all in my mind.

“It’s so rare,” she says, and I can finally see her. My perspective shifts and she’s there, her face in shadow. Dark hair lies still on her shoulders, except for a few stray strands near her throat, twisting in the breeze. I reach my hand across the table, certain that it won’t stretch enough, or that the damn table will lose its spatial dimensions, but my palm runs up against her shoulder, and her hair is black and cold between my fingers. The relief when I touch her is so strong. She’s safe. Unharmed. The sun is on her cheeks.

“Anna.”

“Look,” she says, and smiles. There are trees now, bordering the clearing. Between the trunks is the shape of a stag. It blinks in and out, a dark shape, and I think of charcoal being rubbed out of a drawing. Then it’s gone and Anna is beside me. Too close to be across a table. The length of her is pressed against my side.

“Is this what we were supposed to have?” I ask.

“This is what we do have,” she replies.

I look down at her hand and brush away a crawling beetle. It lands on its back, legs wriggling. My arms wrap around her. I kiss her shoulder, the curve of her neck. On the floorboards, the beetle has become a flaking, empty shell. Six jointed legs lay disconnected beside it. Her skin against my cheek is cool comfort. I want to stay here forever.

“Forever,” Anna whispers. “But what will it take?”

“What?”

“What will they take,” she repeats.

“They?” I ask, and shift her in my arms. Her flesh is hard and the joints relaxed and dangling. As she clatters to the ground I see that she was just a wooden marionette, in a dress of gray paper. The face is uncarved and blank, except for one word, burnt in deep, cracking black.

ORDER.

I wake up dangling most of the way off of the bed, with Thomas’s hand on my shoulder.

“You okay, man?”

“Nightmare,” I mutter. “Disquieting.”

“Disquieting?” Thomas grasps the edge of my blankets. “I didn’t even know it was possible to sweat this much. I’m going to get you a glass of water.”

I sit up and switch on the table lamp. “No, I’m okay.” But I’m not, and from the look on his face, that much is clear. I feel like I might throw up, or scream, or do both simultaneously.

“Was it Anna?”

“These days it’s always Anna.” Thomas doesn’t say anything, and I stare down at the floor. It was just a dream. Just a nightmare like I’ve had my whole life. It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t. Anna doesn’t know anything about the Order; she doesn’t know anything about anything. Everything she sees and feels is pain. Thinking of her there, locked there with the ruin of the Obeahman, makes me want to hit something until there are no more bones in my hands. She suffered decades under a curse and somehow remained herself, but this will break her. What if she doesn’t know who I am, or who she is, by the time I get there? What if she isn’t human?

What will it take? A trade? I’d do it. I would, I—

“Hey,” Thomas says abruptly. “That’s not going to happen. But we’ll get her out. I promise.” He reaches out and physically shakes me. “Don’t think that shit.” He sort of smiles. “And don’t think it so loud. It gives me a headache.”

I look at him. The left half of his hair is smooth. The right half is sticking straight up. He looks like a Sabretooth movie. But he’s completely serious when he promises that we’ll see it through. He’s scared, practically piss-his-pants scared. But Thomas is always scared. The important thing is that his kind of fear doesn’t run deep. It doesn’t stop him from doing what he has to do. It doesn’t mean he’s not brave.

“You’re the only one who was really behind me on this,” I say. “Why is that?”

He shrugs. “I can’t speak for the rest of them. But … she’s your Anna.” He shrugs again. “You care about her, you know? She’s important. Look.” He runs his hand roughly across his face and into his standing-up hair. “If it was—if it was Carmel, I’d want to do the same thing. And I’d expect you to help me.”

“I’m sorry about Carmel,” I say, and he still sort of waves it off.

“I didn’t see it coming, I guess. It seems like I should have. Like I should have realized that she didn’t really…” He trails off and smiles sadly. I could tell him, that it had nothing to do with him. I could tell him that Carmel loves him. But it wouldn’t make things any easier, and he might not believe me.

“Anyway, so that’s why I’m helping,” he says, and straightens. “What? Did you think it was all about you? That you just make me so emotional?”

I laugh. The traces of the nightmare are fading from my blood. But the wooden face, and the burnt letters scrawled across it, are going to hang around for a long time.

I think the only thing Jestine does in this house is make breakfast. The smell of buttery eggs pervades the entire lower level, and when I round the corner into the kitchen there’s a smorgasbord of food laid out across the table: a pot of oatmeal, eggs done two ways (scrambled and over-easy), sausage and bacon, a basket of fruit, a small stack of toast, and Gideon’s entire stock of jellies (which includes the vegetable jelly they call Marmite. Disgusting).

“Are you and Gideon running a secret B&B?” I ask, and she smiles lopsidedly.

“Like he would allow so many strangers through his door. No, I just like to cook, and I like to keep him fed. But don’t you sit down just yet,” she says, and points a spatula at my chest. “He’s in the study getting ready to leave. You should probably wish him well.”

“Why? Is he in danger?”

Jestine’s eyes don’t give me any clues, and nothing about her flinches. My head says that I’m not supposed to like her. But I do anyway.

“Okay,” I say after a second.

The study is quiet but when the door slides open he’s there, behind his desk, softly opening a drawer and walking his fingers through the contents inside. He spares me only one glance, and it doesn’t interrupt the deliberate and focused movement of his hands.

“You’ll be leaving tomorrow,” Gideon says. “I’m leaving today.”

“Leaving for where?”

“The Order, of course,” he replies tersely. But I knew that. I meant where, like, where on a map. But then again, he probably knew that too.

Gideon opens another drawer, and gathers up the dummy athames from their case of red velvet. He slides each one into a leather sheath, then into a silk pouch, which is tied off and tucked into his open suitcase. I hadn’t even noticed it, propped up in his chair.

A weird kind of relief is unknotting muscles that had been weaving together for weeks. For months. It’s the relief of having a chance, catching a glimpse of even a tiny shred of light down the pipe.

“Jestine’s made breakfast,” I say. “You’ve got time to eat before you go, don’t you?”

“Not especially.” His hands are shaking as he places a few folded shirts onto the top of his suitcase.

“Well—” I don’t know what to say. The shaking makes me nervous. It shows his age, and the way he’s leaned down over his chair while he packs isn’t helping; it gives the impression of a stooped back.

“I promised your father,” he whispers. “But you would have kept pressing. You don’t give up. You get that from him. From both of your parents, actually.”

I start to smile, but he didn’t mean it as a compliment.

“Why aren’t we going together?” I ask, and he looks at me from under his brows. You started this, says that look. So I won’t buckle, or fidget around. I won’t let him see that I’m nervous about what I’m going to step in.

“So how do we get there? Is it far?” Once they’re out, the questions sound ridiculous. Like I’m expecting to get on the Tube and ride through four stations to arrive at the doorstep of an ancient druidic order. Then again, maybe that’s what it is. It’s the twenty-first century. Arriving to find a bunch of old dudes in brown robes would be equally weird.

“Jestine will take you,” Gideon replies. “She knows the way.”

Questions are ripping through my mind and racing quickly toward daydream and conjecture. I’m imagining the Order as I might find them. I’m imagining Anna, reaching for her, through a gate torn between dimensions. The wooden face of the puppet flashes in between, the carved black letters springing toward my eyes like the rip-off squeal-shot in a horror movie.

“Theseus.”

I look up. Gideon’s back is straight now, and the suitcase is clipped closed.

“This would never have been my choice,” he says. “The moment you came here, you tied my hands.”

“It’s a test, isn’t it?” I ask, and Gideon lowers his eyes. “How bad is it? What’s going to be waiting for us, while you’re in some private train car, or in the backseat of a Rolls, ordering around a chauffeur?”

He doesn’t make a big show of caring. He actually winds his pocket watch.

“Aren’t you even worried about Jestine?”

Gideon picks up his suitcase. “Jestine,” he humphs, moving past me. “Jestine can take care of herself.”

“She’s not really your niece, is she,” I say quietly. He pauses just before opening the sliding door. “Then who is she? Who is she really?”

“Haven’t you figured that out yet?” he asks. “She’s the girl they’ve trained to replace you.”

“This sausage is unbelievable,” Thomas says around a mouthful.

“Bangers,” Jestine corrects. “We call them bangers.”

“Why the hell would you call them that?” Thomas asks, looking disgusted even as he inhales the rest.

“I don’t know,” Jestine laughs. “We just do.”

I’m barely listening. I’m just robotically shoving things into my mouth, trying not to stare at Jestine. The way she smiles, the easy laugh, how she’s managed to win Thomas over despite his suspicions, all of these things juxtapose with Gideon’s words. I mean, she’s … nice. She hasn’t held any information back, hasn’t lied to us. She hasn’t even acted like we’re worth bothering to lie to. And she seems to care about Gideon, even if it’s obvious that her loyalty is with the Order.

“I’m stuffed,” Thomas declares. “I’m going to go take a shower.” He pushes away from the table and hesitates with a mortified expression. “But I’ll help you clean up first.”

Jestine laughs. “Go,” she says, and slaps his hand away from his plate. “Cas and I can do the washing up.” After making sure she’s serious, he shrugs at me and bounds up the stairs.

“He doesn’t seem too concerned about any of this,” Jestine observes as she picks up plates and carries them to the sink. And she’s right. He doesn’t. “Is he always so … reckless? How long has he been with you?”

Reckless? I’d never think of Thomas as reckless. “A while,” I reply. “Maybe he’s just getting used to it.”

“Have you gotten used to it?”

I sigh and get up to put the jams and jellies back into the refrigerator. “No. You don’t really get used to it.”

“What’s it like? I mean, are you always afraid?” Her back is to me as she asks. My replacement is pumping me for information. Like I’m going to mentor her or something, train her in before my two weeks are up. She looks at me over her shoulder, expectant.

I take a breath. “No. Not afraid exactly. It keeps you on your toes. I guess it’s sort of like crime-scene cleanup. Just interactive.”

She chuckles. She’s tied her hair back to keep it out of the sink, and it hangs down her spine in a long, red-gold rope. It makes me remember how she looked the night we got here, when she jumped us. I might have to take this girl down.

“What’s that smile about?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “Don’t you know about ghosts already? The Order must’ve taught you.”

“I’ve seen my share, I suppose. And I’m ready to tangle, if they come at me.” She rinses a coffee cup and sets it in the strainer. “But not like you are.” Her hands plunge back into the sudsy water, and she yelps.

“What?”

“I cut my finger,” she mutters, and lifts it up. There’s a slice running between her first and second knuckle, and bright red blood mixes with the water, lacing its way down her palm. “There was a chip out of the butter dish. It’s not bad; the water makes it look worse.”

I know that, but I still grab a towel and wrap it around her finger, pressing down. I can feel her pulse through the thin cloth as the cut throbs.

“Where are the Band-Aids?”

“It’s not as bad as all that,” she says. “It should stop in a minute. Still, you should probably finish up with the dishes.” She grins. “I don’t want it to sting.”

“Sure,” I say, and grin back. Her head dips, to dab and blow at the cut, and I can smell her perfume. I’m still half holding her hand.

The doorbell buzzes shrill and sudden; I jerk away and almost pull the towel with me. I don’t know why, but for a second, my brain was sure that it would be Anna, that she’d be pounding the door down off its hinges with black-veined fists, ready to catch me with my pants down. But we were just doing dishes. My pants are firmly affixed.

Jestine goes to answer the door and I put my hands in the soapy water, fishing around carefully for the broken butter dish. I’m not interested at all in who’s at the door. The only thing that matters is it isn’t Anna, and even if it were, I am completely innocent, just scrubbing the egg pan. But Jestine’s voice is rising about something, and the voice that answers is a girl’s voice. Hairs that I never knew I had stand up on the back of my neck. I crane back to peer around the corner, just in time to see Carmel burst into the entryway.