Dreamland (24 page)

Stars were exploding in her mind; she was on the Ferris wheel with Connor again. She was floating.

Distantly, she heard someone shouting, “Jesus Christ, do it already. The kid, the goddamn kid—”

And a child, howling.

Connor?

His brother?

No . . . Connor's brother was dead. . . .

She would die, too. . . .

Her lungs were screaming. Darkness ate at the edges of her vision. Her jaw ached and there were fireworks behind her eyeballs and her head would explode. She thought of her mother's face, and the cool sensation of a wind tickling her forehead as she leaned out the window of the old VW, and watched the world whip past.

Give them faces
. Her mother's voice came to her, light and laughing on the wind.

Bitchbitchbitch
, the man was saying. He sounded so far away. Even the pain was passing. She was with her mother on the highway. Then she was climbing the high tower, toward a place of dreams.

No, Dea
, her mother said, echoing around the stone.
Not yet. Not yet
.

In another world, she felt her left hand move. An inch. Two inches. It floated up toward his face, toward the mask pulled taut over his features. She watched it appear in her field of vision and felt nothing but curious detachment, as if she were witnessing the slow drift of a balloon from the ground.

The world was passing in jump cuts. Darkness. She curled her fingers under his mask. Darkness again. And then his mouth open, roaring, enraged: a monster's mouth.

She pulled.

There was the sound of a thousand shattering windows, a scream so high and terrible Dea thought her head would explode. Connor's uncle released her, staggering back from the bed, ducking his head as if he could keep her from seeing his face.

But it was too late.

There was a blast, a tremendous force of wind, and the room broke apart. The bed disappeared; the walls and floor and ceiling, gone. Connor's uncle and the man beside him went spiraling into the darkness.

“Dea!” Connor's uncle was screaming, howling her name, even as he vanished, even as he withered and dispersed, like smoke on a wind.

She let go. She let the wind carry her. She was floating in a dark pool. She just wanted to sleep. But screaming—the screaming kept rupturing the darkness, shocking her into temporary awareness.

“Dea, this is Kate. Blink if you can hear us.”

A huge shock ran through her: it lit her body up all at once, toesfingerschestlungs, and she came awake, gasping.

“Come on. Wake up. Stay with us.” Connor's face was hovering above hers, white and huge as the moon. It took her a minute to realize she was on the floor. Connor was kneeling, holding her head on his lap. Next to him was Kate Patinsky. Gollum was standing, talking urgently into a cell phone. Dea thought that was funny. Gollum didn't have a cell phone. A Styrofoam container of waffles was overturned on the ground, seeping maple syrup into the carpet. That was funny, too.

“Dea?” Kate was practically shouting. “Can you hear us?”

She opened her mouth and rasped a reply. Her mouth tasted like ashes. She swallowed and tried again. “Yes.” Then, a little louder: “Yes.”

“Stay with us, okay?” Connor's voice broke. “You're going to be fine.”

Her head hurt. She could still hear screaming, a high, distant wail. Then she realized: sirens.

She struggled to sit up. But it was like forcing her way into Connor's memory. Her body was iron-heavy.

“You called the cops,” she said.

“We called an ambulance. We didn't have any choice.” Connor kept an arm around her. “You weren't breathing. I couldn't get you to wake up. I thought—I thought you were . . .” He couldn't finish his sentence. She noticed, for the first time, that
he had been crying. His eyes were red and his voice raw.

“No.” She was too tired to fight. She leaned into him. She closed her eyes. She was so tired. “No, not dead.”

The sirens were getting closer. The noise reminded her of the shrill whine of an overgrown insect. But she was too tired to run anymore and she'd done what she had needed to do.

It felt nice to lie in Connor's arms. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry for what she had done, for what she'd uncovered. But she couldn't make the words take shape.

“I won't leave you.” Connor ran his fingers through her hair. “I won't let anyone hurt you. I won't let him take you away.”

She knew he was making promises he couldn't keep, but the words sounded so nice, she let herself believe.

“It was . . . it was Briggs,” she managed to say. “It was Briggs all along. He lied. . . .”

“Shhh.” Kate put a hand on Dea's knee, patting her gently, as if she were an animal. “That's all right. Just rest.”

She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the sirens, trying to ignore everything in the world but the feel of Connor so close. She felt his lips skim hers—lightly, gently, as if he were afraid she might break.

“I love you, Dea,” he whispered.

I love you, too
, she said, or tried to say. She was drifting again, this time into the warm tide of sleep. She let go of the shore; she let herself be carried into the soft waves; she let darkness reach out its arms and enfold her.

She knew she was back in the hospital even before she opened her eyes. The smell of bleach was a dead giveaway. Distantly, she could hear the
squeak-squeak-squeak
of gurney wheels on linoleum,
and the rhythmic clicking and humming of dozens of machines.

She opened her eyes and saw Connor's uncle sitting in the corner. As soon as he saw she was awake, his expression changed, became concerned and even polite. But she had seen, a split second earlier, his true face: ugly, calculating, brutal, watching her like a frog watches a fly.

“Why are you here?” she said. She wasn't afraid of him anymore—only disgusted. “Where's Connor?”

“Good morning to you, too,” he said, putting both hands on his knees to stand up. His fingers were thick and patchy with hair. She looked away, ignoring the sudden tightness in her chest, the memory of choking. “Connor's at home. He's in a lot of trouble. You both are.”

“That's funny, coming from you.” Dea sat up. She was happy to see she was unfettered this time; no IVs, no tubes, nothing keeping her strapped to the bed. She swung her feet to the ground. “We didn't do anything wrong.”

“You interfered with an investigation. You tampered with evidence.” Briggs crossed his arms. “You ran away. Connor helped you.”

Dea was glad, too, that she hadn't been stripped down and forced into a hospital gown. She was still wearing her own clothes. She grabbed her jacket off a peg in the corner. “Arrest me, then.”

“We're not going to arrest you,” Briggs said, still doing the concerned-parent act. Of course, he didn't know she knew. “I just want to have a talk.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Dea said.

“I'm afraid you don't have a choice,” Briggs said.

They stared at each other. Dea took a step toward him, consumed by a sudden sense of rage. “Connor knows,” she said. “He remembers. He knows all about what you did.”

Briggs drew back an inch. For a half second, the mask fell, and Dea knew he was afraid. Then he was smiling again, easy, condescending. “Connor doesn't know what he remembers,” he said. But his voice was strained. “He's been under a lot of stress, and spending time with the wrong people.”

It was a bluff. Dea knew that. Briggs was afraid because Connor was talking. He was going to tell people what he remembered. Kate would talk, too. And eventually, people would listen.

She felt a sudden ache, a longing to see Connor. She wanted to hear him say that he loved her again. She wanted to say it back.

“He's a good kid,” Briggs said. “He drove himself crazy with worry over you. If you really care about him, you'll leave him alone.”

Dea had nothing to lose. She said: “You should have left his mother alone.”

There was a long beat of silence. A smile twitched at the corners of Briggs's mouth, like a kind of tic. At last, he said, “You're very confused.” It was a struggle for him to keep the mask on, now. She kept seeing flashes of his real face—the face that had panted inches above hers, enraged, cruel. “I don't blame you. You've had a very hard time.”

She was tired of playing games—tired of hospitals, tired of Briggs, tired of Fielding. It was all a big game—Briggs was pretending he wouldn't find the first excuse to chuck her in a mental ward or juvie, make sure she never got within fifty feet of Connor again. There were probably other cops standing guard
outside her room, to make sure she wouldn't bolt.

And Dea was pretending she was going to cooperate.

She pulled on her jacket. “So. When are we going to have our talk?”

“Whenever you're feeling up to it,” Briggs said, obviously relieved by her change in tone. “The doctor's cleared you to go.”

She shrugged. “Sure. Right after I . . .” She nodded toward the bathroom, which was no bigger than a closet, and totally windowless.

Briggs made a gesture like,
be my guest.

Dea closed the door behind her. It didn't have a lock, but it didn't matter. She doubted she'd need much time.

She ran the water in the faucet, turning the hot water on as high it would go. She barely recognized herself in the mirror. She looked skinnier, and wilder too: like a ghost.

Like someone from another world.

Her image soon began to fade, as steam rose up from the porcelain and clawed its way across the surface of the glass. Soon she couldn't see her features at all, only the vague outlines of a girl. Then even these faded. The steam looked just like fog, like a thin curtain she could pass beyond.

Briggs rapped once on the door. “You okay in there?”

Dea allowed herself to smile. “I'm fine,” she answered. “Be out in a second.”

She placed a palm to the mirror. The glass trembled. She felt warmth, the pressure of a second hand, reaching across dimensions.

“Hi, Mom,” she whispered.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

—Henry David Thoreau

Connor always knew when Dea would come, because the birds preceded her: two vast eagle-like creatures that swooped across the sunshine of his dreams, creating twin shadows. Then he would turn and see her.

“Hello.” She shaded her eyes with a hand. Still, he could tell she was smiling.

“You came,” he said, moving toward her. “I was hoping you would.” She visited nearly every night. Still, he waited in agony all day, wondering whether he would see her, and when.

“Of course I did.” She put her arms around his neck, stretching up onto her tiptoes to kiss him. She tasted like honey, and
her skin was gold-bronze from the sun, and very warm.
No cancer in this world,
she'd told him.
I guess I should take up smoking. Except there are no cigarettes, either.

“You're in trouble with Gollum, you know.” He loved how she felt in his arms, light and heavy at the same time, solid and soft. “She says you haven't visited in weeks.”

Dea wrinkled her nose, which was very lightly freckled from the sun. It was amazing how healthy she looked here, so strong and happy and confident—the same Dea but not the same Dea at all. Like a flower after a good long rainstorm, opening into the sun, full-throated and joyous. “Gollum's dreams,” she said, “involve far too much horse manure for my taste. And Star Wars. Lots of Star Wars. Did you know Gollum was a Star Wars freak?”

“I do now.”

“Tell her I'll come soon.” She kissed him again, just lightly this time, on the very top of his chin. But he ducked, and got one on the mouth instead. She pulled away from him, laughing, but kept her arms around his waist.

“I see you have your escorts with you.” He nodded to the eagles, now perched on a nearby telephone line, preening. They were enormous, but the wire stayed taut beneath their weight—details, Connor knew, didn't matter much here. Neither did physics.

She rolled her eyes. “Escorts,” she said. “More like bodyguards.”

He looped a finger in her hair, tugging gently—loving the feel of her, the smell of her hair, the closeness of her body to his. “Is your dad really afraid of what I might do?”

“He's afraid of what
I
might do.” Her voice was teasing. “He's worried I might go rogue and try to escape.”

He'd promised himself that he wouldn't ask her again, but now he found he couldn't help it. “When?” he said. “When are you coming back?”

“Connor . . .” She sighed and disentangled herself from him, stepping backward. Instantly, she looked much older. Like a stranger, especially in the dress she was wearing, sleeveless and white, different from anything he'd ever seen her wear in real life. “You know I can't give you an answer. It's—”

“Complicated. I know.” He didn't mean to sound bitter.

She looked at him again. When she frowned, her nose pulled slightly to the left. He loved that. “You think I don't
want
to come back?” She shook her head. “My dad keeps my mom locked in a weird tower. My mom is busy plotting my father's downfall. Half my dad's army is rebelling, and now a league of monsters is marching on the city. We're talking major malfunction over here.”

It was crazy how she could talk about things like monsters and towers and still sound so absolutely, so resolutely Dea: sarcastic and funny and logical all at once. All of his anger dissipated. He reached for her again, tugging on the fabric belt that held her dress closed, drawing her into him again.

“So let me come to you.” He kissed her neck and shoulder. “I want to be with you, Dea.”

He could feel her shiver when he moved his mouth toward her jaw. “I want to be with you, too,” she whispered. “But you know it doesn't work like that.”

He'd asked her a hundred times to take him to the city, to
show him the palace where she now lived and the slave pits she was determined to close down; to see the mirrors through which she could keep watch over him (“Just as long as you stay out of the bathroom,” he'd said); to see the strange hybrid monsters and animals that had crawled out of or been recruited from other people's dreams. Her answer was always the same:
It doesn't work like that.
This, here, in Connor's dreams, was the only way they could be together. For now. Dea always said that,
for now
, although he didn't see what could possibly change.

“Come on.” Dea kissed him again, leaving a lingering taste of sugar. “Let's be happy, okay? Let's walk and be happy and forget about all the bad stuff.”

They walked through the ruins of an old fort—a place Connor remembered, vaguely, having gone to as a child.
Before
. Dea held Connor's hand, occasionally squeezing tighter when she needed to navigate uneven ground or hop over a stone. Wildflowers grew between the splintered foundations, and moss cascaded from the ramparts, half-buried in the ground. But other, random features had intruded: telephone poles, a water fountain like the kind found in school hallways, and, in the distance, a carousel. He hadn't dreamed of Chicago again, not since Dea had walked his memories.

“How's your dad?” Dea asked. She'd been avoiding the subject, letting Connor talk about it only when he wanted to, which he never did. Connor knew this was her subtle way of reminding him of his place—that there were things in his world, people, he couldn't just abandon.

“Better.” For days after Connor had first said the unthinkable—
Uncle Briggs did it
—Connor's father had floated
through the house like a ghost, pale and undirected. But a month later he was doing all right. He was functioning, maybe better than he had in a long time. It was as if he'd been cured of a deadly disease, something that had been eating him slowly from the inside. “He didn't want to reopen the case at first. He just couldn't deal. My stepmom convinced him. And Patinsky, of course. Turns out there's all this crazy shit—police cover-ups, misplaced evidence, all of it. My uncle's partner was the one who helped him—who stood watch. Conspiracy all the way up the chain. Or the other cops turned a blind eye.” He shook his head, feeling the anger, the old sense of grief, grip his chest. “I actually feel sorry for Will. I think . . . I think he knows, though, deep down. You know he told me one time his dad cracked him over the head with a guitar? Will was playing too loudly. He didn't even take Will to the hospital. His mom did, later, because he started puking. Turns out he had a concussion.”

Dea squeezed his hand so tightly he could feel all the bones in her fingers. “I heard,” she said.

He looked away, toward the horizon, where the carousel had started to turn. For a moment he imagined he saw a boy there—a boy with dark hair and a wide, laughing mouth, just like Jacob's would have been, if he'd lived—but then the carousel kept turning and he realized it was just a trick of the light.

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be just like him.” The anger had clawed into his throat, strangling him, making his voice sound high and tight. “He was the one who let me hold my dad's gun, you know. So I could be a real cop, like him.”

Dea stopped. She turned to him and put a hand on his chest, fingers splayed, as if she was feeling for a heartbeat. “It's going
to be okay,” she said. “
You're
going to be okay.”

He was overwhelmed by the feeling that he was going to cry. “I miss you, Dea,” he said.

“You don't have to miss me.” She smiled. She was so beautiful when she smiled. She was beautiful all the time. “I'm right here.”

“But . . .” It was so bright outside: the kind of brightness that exists only in dreams, where the sun comes from everywhere all at once. He blinked quickly. “But it isn't real.”

“Don't be stupid.” Dea had to tilt her head to look up at him. He could see himself reflected in miniature in her eyes. “It's real enough.”

Then promise me
, he nearly said.
Promise me I won't wake up
from this
.

But he knew she wouldn't—she couldn't. And maybe she was right. Maybe it didn't matter. They would be together here. They would be together forever.

She was real in his arms. Her hair smelled like lilacs.

So he kissed her again.