Dreamland (22 page)

“Connor,” Dea said slowly. “It could only be Connor.”

Kate looked satisfied—as if Dea had, at long last, resolved a complex math problem. “That's right,” she said. “I'll tell you something, Dea. Connor doesn't think he knows who did it, but he does.”

Dea got a sudden shock, an electrical understanding she felt in her whole body at once. “So do you,” she said, knowing as soon as she said the words that they were true.

Kate deflated almost instantly. “Yeah,” she said. Now she just sounded sad. “I do. I just can't prove it without Connor.”

Dea looked at her. “Why do you care so much?” she said.

Kate sighed, as if she'd been waiting for Dea to ask. “The truth is hard,” she said. “But the lies are worse.” Then she put the car in drive again, and started slowly up the hill.

Chapel Hill was a ghost town. No workers, no Realtors, no people: just a network of cul-de-sacs, burnt into the hillside, black as tar, and houses in various stages of construction. Some were no more than skeletons, all bleached wood scraping up to the sky. Others were practically complete, though Dea noticed that none of the houses had curtains or shutters, and the blank windows gave them a haunted look, as though they were on the watch for something.

But as soon as Kate pulled into a parking space boxed out of the land in front of one of the more completed houses, Dea spotted Connor's truck, concealed behind a wall of hedgerow.
The front door was unlocked; Kate explained that she knew a guy who knew the guy who owned the development.

Inside, it was as cold as a refrigerator, with the same faint plastic smell. The house was furnished, presumably for showing. As soon as Dea opened the door, she heard voices. A moment later, Gollum flew out of the kitchen, her hair a bright fuzzy crown around her head, and catapulted into Dea's arms.

“Oh my God, Dea.” Gollum was squeezing so tightly, Dea felt as if her ribs were going to crack. “I've been so worried about you. I swear when you called I almost had a heart attack. For serious. I was convinced you were getting hacked to pieces by some hitchhiking psycho killer or maybe you'd been abducted by a cult or something.
Corn maze!
Like it was some religious message from your leader.”

“I'm all right.” Dea pulled away, smiling for the first time in what felt like days. “No pieces missing, see? I'm still whole. And I haven't been converted to a church of crazy, either.”

Connor had been hanging back a few feet, leaning in the kitchen doorway. He looked exhausted and thin, but he was smiling. Now he came forward.

“Hey, kid,” he said, his voice soft, his eyes warm and bright. “Good to have you back.”

He pulled her into a hug. He was wearing an old fleece so soft it felt like a blanket, and he smelled like he always did, like warm and spicy things, like a brightly lit room. In that moment her whole body felt alive and aware, electric with closeness. How could she ever leave Connor? How could she ever leave the world where he was?

How could she choose anything but him?

Gollum was still babbling. “It's been crazy, Dea. You're, like,
the most famous person in Fielding. You're the most famous person in Fielding
history
. Even I'm famous just for knowing you. Connor practically has his own security tail. You want to know how we escaped this morning? Driving lessons. He's been giving me driving lessons. After yesterday when Briggs had to watch me do three-point turns in a parking lot for four hours, no way was he going to waste his time again.” She took a deep breath, having temporarily run out of air. “I really did do a three-point turn, though. And Connor taught me how to parallel park.”

“She only hit one trash can,” Connor said solemnly. But his eyes were still smiling, softened with color.

Gollum turned serious. “What are you going to do, Dea? You can't really go on the run, can you? I mean, I guess some people do it. My dad used to love this show,
America's Most Wanted
—”

“Hey, Eleanor.” Kate Patinsky was still standing by the front door. Dea had nearly forgotten she was there. “How about you and I head to the diner and pick up some real food? I nearly poisoned Dea with gas station donuts this morning. I'm thinking eggs and pancakes and bacon. You must be hungry, too. And Connor and Dea can have a breather.” Her expression as she looked at Dea was almost pleading, and Dea understood then that Kate wanted something from her. But she didn't know what.

Gollum, who was a trash compactor for food, turned to her, bobbing her head. “Yeah, okay,” she said. Then, as if sensing another meaning behind Kate's words, her eyes widened. “Okaaaay,” she said, drawing out the word. “Yeah. Great idea. Then Dea and Connor can, um, catch up.” She smirked in Dea's direction and Dea glared at her. “Just be careful, okay?” She gave Dea another hug.

Kate jogged the keys in her hand. “We'll be back in less than
an hour,” she said. “No need for good-byes just yet.”

But Gollum still squeezed Dea tightly, as if worried she might vanish. Her hair smelled like mint. “Be careful anyway,” she whispered. Then she followed Kate outside. Before shutting the door, Kate shot Dea another cryptic look.

For a moment, she and Connor stood in awkward silence. Dea felt suddenly shy.

“I'm sorry,” she blurted out. “For dragging you into this. For making such a mess.”

He shook his head. “Don't apologize.”

“I want to,” she said. “I
need
to. I—”

“Dea.” The way he said her name—as if it hurt, almost—made her shut up. And before she could respond or ask him what was wrong, he crossed the distance between them, took her face in both hands, and kissed her.

For a split second, Dea froze, terrified that if she moved at all, this wouldn't be true, he wouldn't be true, and the moment—Connor, so warm, so real, the safety, the simple fact of being held, touched, cared for—would break apart. Then he shifted, barely, and she shifted with him. They moved together, finding each other through the soft pressure of their tongues. She brought her hands to his head; she leaned into him; she wanted to taste him and become him and be carried in these seconds forever.

It was different, and better, than anything she'd imagined.

It was perfect.

Then it was over. He pulled away. But she felt no sadness—only a sense of lightness and floating. He kept his hands on her face, his thumbs warm against her cheeks.

“I've been wanting to do that for a long time,” he said.

“Me too,” Dea said. This was where she belonged: not a dream-place of monsters and wars, but with Connor.
Kissing
Connor.

He smiled huge, a smile she hadn't seen from him in a long time. No one had ever looked at Dea like that, as if she was an unexpected present, and it made her feel happy and different and
more
. She wanted desperately to kiss him again.

“I thought I might never see you again,” he whispered.

“I'm here.” She nearly told him she loved him; the urge to confess it was overwhelming. Instead, she found his hand and interlaced their fingers. “I'm not going anywhere.”

Connor closed his eyes. They were standing so close she could count individual lashes. Then he pulled away. His smile had vanished.

“What will you do, Dea?” he asked quietly. “Where will you go? If your mom doesn't come back—”

“She's not coming back,” Dea said. All at once, the reality of what she had decided—the impossibility of it—hit her. She couldn't stay with Connor, not without getting harassed by the police, maybe stuck back in the hospital again. She had no relatives here, in this world, and barely a thousand dollars. She'd have to move, get a job, maybe even change her name. She'd lose Connor anyway. And how long would she even survive without returning to a dream? She took a deep breath. “I know where she is. And trust me, she can't come back.”

Connor stared at her. He screwed up his mouth, as if he wanted to ask her a question but was swallowing it back. “Are you sure?” he said finally. Dea was glad he hadn't asked
point-blank where she was. She just nodded.

“I don't want to lose you,” he said quietly. And then, in a rush: “We could run away. We could get in the car and just keep driving.”

Dea let herself imagine it: escaping with Connor, riding through the dark as she had done so many times with her mother. Ditching the car, changing their names, showing up in a town halfway across the country with a made-up story they'd agreed to in advance. Sleeping side by side in dirty motels, like they'd done in Wapachee Falls. But she knew it was fantasy.

“My mom spent all of her life running,” Dea said. “I don't want to be like her. Besides, sooner or later we'd be caught.”

Connor dropped her hands and moved to the window. When he spoke again, his voice was bitter. “You're right,” he said. “Roach won't give up.”

“Roach?” Dea said.

“My uncle.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Old football nickname.”

Dea felt a small chill run through her. She thought of walking Connor's summertime dream, how she had looked up and seen his mother, naked, with an enormous cockroach embracing her. It couldn't be coincidence.

“Are you . . . are you close to your uncle?” Dea asked carefully.

Connor turned back to her and stared. “I'm on your side, Dea.”

“I know,” she said quickly. “That isn't what I meant.”

Connor sat down on the sofa, rubbing his eyes as if they were burning him. “I don't know. I used to be, I guess, when
I was a kid. Before . . .” He didn't have to finish his sentence. “He used to come around a lot more, when my mom was alive. He was living only a few blocks away. Will, too. We were best friends when we were kids. Now he won't even look at me.”

She had that same creeping cold sensation
. Someone must be walking over your grave.
She remembered that expression, suddenly, from her short time in Nashville, Tennessee. For the first time, she understood it. “Briggs—Roach—used to live in Chicago?”

Connor nodded. “He helped out a lot after my mom and Jake—well, after they got killed. He was Chicago PD, pushed the whole investigation forward, told everyone I didn't do it. It didn't help much.”

Something was skirting the edges of Dea's consciousness, an idea or association. It was like reaching for an object in dark, slick water: every time she seized the connection, it slipped away just as quickly. Roach and the window and Connor's mother. The faceless monster and the break-in that wasn't. Kate's funny expression, as if she knew a secret too terrible to say out loud.
Connor's mother wasn't killed by a stranger.

“He's not a bad guy,” Connor said, as if anticipating Dea's next question. “He's just . . .”

“Just what?”

“I don't know.” For a second, he looked troubled, and Dea wondered whether somewhere deep in that ocean of unconsciousness, the tidal spit of memories and dreams, he was seeing something he had learned to ignore. “He just wants what he wants. He fixates on things, you know? Right now, he's fixated on catching your mom. He thinks he can get to her through you.”

“He thinks wrong,” Dea said.

“I told you, I'm on your side,” Connor said sharply. Then he looked away, exhaling. “Sorry,” he said. “I haven't slept in days. I keep seeing—I keep seeing horrible things. My mom. My little brother. They told me it would get better with time.” His voice cracked. “They told me the nightmares would stop. But they never stopped. They only got worse.” He shook his head. “Kate—she thinks I know who did it. But I don't. And you know what? After all this time, I'm not sure I even
want
to.”

“The truth is hard,” Dea said, reflexively parroting back what Kate had said to her. “But the lies are worse.”

“Are they?” When Connor looked up, his expression was so anguished that Dea went to sit next to him and put a hand on his back.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I think so.” She thought about what she knew now: about her mother and father, about where she'd come from, about the city with its pickers and slaves and giant beasts yoked into service. It was terrible—but better than not knowing. Better because she could try to understand. “It's like . . . if you had to fight someone, it's better to know what you're getting into. Even if you still have to fight—if you know, you can do it with your eyes open.”

As soon as she said the words, Dea knew. She what her mother had meant when she said she must give the monsters faces, and understood, too, what Kate had been trying to communicate to her. It wasn't about Kate or some book or even about Dea—it was about Connor. Connor needed to know the truth so he could be free.

And Dea could help him. More, even, than Kate knew. What
she could do—where she came from—wasn't just a burden. It was also a gift.

“I think . . .” Dea swallowed the sudden dryness in her throat. “I think I know a way to make the nightmares stop.”

Connor's expression turned guarded. “What do you mean?”

“You'd have to let me in again,” she said. Dea took a deep breath. She didn't know whether what she was about to suggest was even possible; still, she had to try. But an idea was blooming: if she could walk a dream that was like a memory, why couldn't she walk a memory like she did a dream? “Into your memories.”

“No.” Connor stood up. He backed away from her, looking afraid. “Forget it.”

“It's the only way for you to know,” she said quietly. And she thought that maybe this had been the point and the purpose of dream-walking all along: so that she could help the boy she loved. “Don't you want the truth?”

He watched her for a long time without saying anything. “Who are you?” he whispered at last.

Dea took a deep breath. She stood up. There was no longer any point in hiding or pretending. “You want the truth?”

Connor nodded.

“There's a world of dreams,” she said. Saying the words out loud felt like releasing air from a balloon that had been stopping up her chest. “A world even older than this one. That's where I come from. That's where my mother comes from, too. And now, she's gone back.”

Dea could hear the ticking of a clock loudly somewhere in another room. Or maybe she only imagined it, a rhythm synced to the heavy pounding of her heart. She waited for Connor to
flip out, or accuse her of being out of her mind. A troubled expression passed over his face, a fast ripple.

“Are you going to go back, too?” he asked.

Dea's heart broke for him, then. He must be freaking out—he must have a thousand questions—but all he cared about was whether she would stay.