Exit Light (26 page)

Three faced three with one between them.

“He says,” Edward pointed at Ben. “He says they are all one.”

Tovah, each of her hands held tight by someone she loved, nodded. “Yes. I think that’s true.”

Edward looked over his shoulder at the boy, the woman and the beast, all silent. When he looked back at Tovah, she saw understanding in his eyes. Blue eyes, the color of a summer sky. “You really do want to help him?”

“Yes, Edward. I really do.”

It took him a moment more, but Tovah saw him break. Whatever he had done or meant to do, he’d attempted it for noble reasons. Edward stepped aside, his hands spread flat, palms up.
Mea culpa.

“Then stop him,” Edward said.

Three faced three.

The boy didn’t move, but neither did his previous tormentors. Both knelt beside him, tethered to him by his hands and also a physically palpable tangled skein of his will. He held them close to his body and, for the first time ever that Tovah’d seen them, the woman and the beast were quiet and still.

“Shape a haven.” Spider’s quiet voice. “Shape it big enough for everyone.”

Ben’s will nudged hers, and Spider’s next. They threaded together, a collective desire to push away the darkness and the fear. Black sand shimmered, becoming golden in one spot, emerald green grass in another, smooth white stone in a third. No good. They had to shape together.

“Together,” Tovah murmured.

She’d only guided by accident before, or against her judgment. She’d never sought to help dreamers face their troubles the way Ben and Spider had. Hell, the way Edward had, in his own manner. Shaping this way took more effort than anything she’d ever done in the Ephemeros, but with her friends beside her, Tovah pushed forward, up and out. She opened herself to the world around her and sought to respond to what filled her. She shaped.

Somewhere and everywhere, fears became real. Horror and anger warred, swirling. The boy, face without expression, was pushing harder than they were.

“Just wake up, son,” Spider said.

The boy shook his head. The woman and the beast shuddered, but remained silent. “I can’t! Don’t you know, I can’t?”

“You have to try!” Ben’s grip tightened on Tovah’s. “You don’t want this. We know you don’t.”

The boy shook his head again, harder. He looked at the woman, then the beast, held tight in his grip. He looked up at Tovah, his blue eyes swimming with tears.

“I can’t wake up! I can’t. I can’t do it. They’ll be there when I wake up. And they hurt me…” He broke into sobs.

He wasn’t lying. Truth outlined every word, giving each a rim of gold as they passed through his lips and hung in the air between them. He looked again at the woman and the beast, this time crying out, shaking them.

“I can’t let go. I can’t wake up. I can’t let go!”

Tovah’s heart broke, watching him, but she didn’t let go of Ben’s or Spider’s hands. “Let us help you. Let us guide you. You have to face your fears.”

The boy shook his head so hard his hair whipped around his cheeks. Tears flew from his face and turned to glittering ice when they landed on the sand. The woman and beast in his grasp were shrinking, becoming smaller versions of themselves. Puppets. They squirmed and wriggled but couldn’t get away.

The mountains dissolved and reformed to become damp gray cinderblock walls. Concrete replaced black sand and cobweb-laced beams filled in above their heads, blocking out the night sky. One narrow window had been covered with black paper, the edges hinting at sunshine but not letting it through. The only light came from a small camping lantern settled on a table askew on three legs.

The boy sat on an army cot covered with a blanket of undetermined color. He held his red-and-white ball in both hands. His feet dangled, barely able to touch the floor. In the dim light, his eyes looked dark, not blue, and white tear-trails snaked through the grime on his pale face. He stared past Tovah, Ben and Spider, still holding hands. He wasn’t looking at them.

Tovah looked over her shoulder to the wooden door set into a wall that looked newer than the rest of the basement, as though it had been built especially to enclose this space. The door itself was battered but solid, with a crystal handle of the sort found in very old houses. The keyhole beneath it winked with light, showing no key filled it from the other side.

“Where are we?” Ben’s murmur turned her head toward him.

“This is where he is in the waking world, I think.”

Spider made no comment on that. His hand twisted in Tovah’s, pulling her with him as he stepped forward. Ben moved, too, at the tug of Tovah’s hand in his.

“Son. We want to help you. If you wake up—”

Now the boy gave them his attention. He clutched the ball to his chest. “They’re coming.”

For the first time since she’d learned the truth of the Ephemeros, Tovah felt she was watching from the outside instead of being a part of the action. They were there, all of them, but only the boy had control of the scene. She was an observer, only, could shape nothing but was affected by nothing, either.

Their trio had moved back along the wall, away from the bed and the door, which opened. The boy cringed, drawing his legs up to move back along the cinderblock wall behind his cot. He made no sound.

“Heya, little bastard.” The man who came through the door wore dirty work trousers and the sort of shirt mechanics wore, flapping open over a stained white T-shirt. A leather leash wrapped itself around his fist several times, the end of it attached to the collar of a large wolfish dog that growled immediately and lunged toward the boy.

The boy still didn’t cry out, just retreated. The man, laughing, moved forward, letting the dog lunge close enough to snap at the boy’s feet before yanking the animal back hard enough to make it yelp.

“Leave him alone,” said the woman who came through the door next. She carried a tray and edged around the dog, making like she meant to kick it. The dog backed off. The man did, too. “Look what I brought for you to eat.”

She settled the tray on the bed next to the boy. On the tray was a bowl of what looked like vegetable soup and a hunk of Italian bread, along with a glass of water.

“Now all you have to do is make a message for your mom and dad and tell them you want to come home. You know how we like you to do it.”

She pulled a hand-held tape recorder from her pocket and held it out. The boy scooted away. Quick as spit, the woman grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and yanked him closer. The man laughed. The dog went into a frenzy of barking, its jaws snapping. It lunged closer until the man jerked it away by the leash.

The recorder clicked on. The boy said nothing at first, until the woman’s fingers dug deeper and the dog was allowed closer. She held him still while the dog barked and snapped inches from his face, until his terrorized screams filled the room.

“Mommy, Daddy! I want to come home! I want to come home! Please!”

“You know,” said the man when the woman had tossed the boy back to the bed, “you could just
tell
him to scream. He prolly would.”

The sneer she gave him said it all. “But that wouldn’t be as much fun, would it, asshole?”

Together with the dog, they left the room and the boy sobbing alone on his cot.

Tovah’s stomach lurched to her throat as the scene unfolded, and her heart went out to the boy. He sat and reached at once for his ball. The food was left ignored. He bent his head over the toy, his small shoulders hunched. Empathy swept over her and Tovah made to let go of Spider and Ben, but Spider clamped his hand tight around hers.

“Don’t, Tovahleh. Don’t let go.”

“Everything makes so much sense, now,” she murmured. “Poor, poor boy. No wonder he doesn’t want to wake up.”

“Tovah.” At Ben’s murmur she turned to look at him. He met her gaze with his, then looked back at the boy, who was staring at them in silence. “I don’t think he’s asleep.”

“If he’s not asleep, what is he?” Her hands inside the others’ sweated and cramped, but she didn’t let go. “Is he like Spider?”

Spider sighed softly. Together they watched the boy on the cot. He’d stopped crying and turned his face to the wall. Tovah looked at Spider, whose gaze was fixed intently on the boy.

“Spider? Is he like you?”

“He’s not really here,” murmured Spider. “I mean…I think he
was
here, but this is still the Ephemeros. We’re all still dreaming. He’s dreaming us.”

“Whoa,” said Ben with a flash of the dry humor Tovah found so appealing. “What a mindfuck.”

“Am I a man who dreamed he was a butterfly? Or a butterfly who dreamed he was a man?” Spider’s husky chuckle lifted Tovah’s spirits. If he could joke about this, maybe it meant they weren’t so bad off.

The world wasn’t shaking, at least not here, and the terror that had battered them before had relented. It hadn’t disappeared, not exactly, but it had faded to a manageable amount. Tovah found she could breathe again, and hadn’t realized she’d been unable to, before.

The cinderblock walls got fuzzy now and again, a sign the boy’s concentration was with other things. Tovah took the chance to try and catch his attention. She moved forward, her arms pulling Spider and Ben with her, though they resisted hard enough to keep her from getting close enough to touch the boy.

“Hey,” she said gently.

He lifted his head, took in the sight of their clasped hands. “You want me to stop, I know.”

“Can you?” Tovah’s voice stayed gentle. “Do you want to?”

The boy said nothing for what seemed a very long time. In one hand he held the woman-puppet, in the other the beast-doll. He clutched them hard and drew his knees to his chest, burying his face. His thin shoulders heaved.

“I want my mom and dad.”

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know!” The boy’s fingers linked around his knees. She could see he’d bitten his nails down so far they had to be sore.

The walls around them faded entirely, leaving only the cot and the boy with his toys. They were back to black sand and sky. The screams, this time, weren’t so far off. The club Tovah had always been so fond of shaping surged and seethed just beyond the boy’s cot, but instead of writhing in ecstasy the occupants squirmed and wailed in terror.

Edward stepped from the shadows. The boy looked up, sniffling. He threw a gaze of sheer desperation toward Tovah and lifted his puppets.

“No!” Tovah’s cry turned his head, stopped him for a moment, but it wasn’t enough.

The boy lifted his puppets higher, holding them out to either side of his body. “I’m sorry.”

In the club, the screams got louder.

Without speaking, without even thinking too much about it, Tovah opened herself to the threads of Spider’s will and Ben’s. The boy pushed. They pushed back.

It was like trying to shape water, fluid and slippery, without form. The world around them whirled in the way only dreams could, flashing bits and pieces of scenes and sending emotional currents washing over them. Tovah drew strength from her friends and knitted it with her own, sending it out to force away the bad.

Beside her, Ben groaned. His eyelids fluttered. But Ben was stronger than she was, wasn’t he? She looked at Spider, who stared impassively at the boy. Only the vein ticking in his temple gave away his strain.

“I…can’t.” Ben’s mutter nudged Tovah’s ear. “This isn’t like making an oasis…”

“You have to.” Spider’s voice allowed no argument. “It’s coming apart at the seams.”

He was right. The fabric of the Ephemeros was unraveling around them, and what would that mean? No more dreams? Or something more dramatic?

“Is it something you want to risk?” Spider snapped, answering the question she hadn’t asked aloud.

Clutching her friends tight, Tovah used every bit of skill she had. “Remember what you told me, Spider, when I needed to find the way out. Exit light. Do it now. Exit light!”

The mantra wasn’t working. Beside her, Ben’s hand flared hot and the force of his desire rubbed her like sandpaper. On the other side, Spider’s grim determination tasted like gasoline, burning her tongue.

“I can’t let you do this, son,” Spider said. “I can’t let you take this place away from me. It’s all I got.”

Tovah turned her head to look at her friend. “Spider, that’s not true!”

He didn’t look at her. “It’s all I got, Tovahleh. It’s more real to me than anything else. And I won’t let this kid break it into pieces.”

The boy cried out, backing up a step and dragging his puppets with him. Spider’s will pulsed and throbbed, pushing outward. A hint of blue sky edged the darkness the boy’s fear had created. It was a start, but not enough.

Tovah’s stomach lurched. “Listen to me. They’re a part of you. They can only hurt or scare you if you let them, just like any other dream. I’ll teach you how to get out. But you have to trust me.”

The boy looked at the woman and the beast. The earth shook. The sky opened and lightning flashed inside the rent. “I’m scared! I’m scared to get out.”

“I know you are.” Strength and compassion filled Tovah’s voice.

“Leave him alone.” Edward, feet bare and hand reaching, appeared. He stepped toward the boy, who looked up at once.

“We don’t want to hurt him,” Tovah protested. She looked from Spider to Ben and back again. “Do we?”

“Tovahleh,” Spider said, “he’s got to be stopped.”

“You don’t mean to hurt him,” she said, understanding. “You want to kill him.”

She looked at Ben. “You knew this, too?”

He had the grace to look guilty. “Spider told me.”

This was a betrayal worse than any she’d known, and Tovah fought to keep herself from reeling with the shock of it. “You both decided this without asking me? Why wait, then? Why not just do it?”

“Because we need you, Tovahleh,” Spider said. “We couldn’t do it alone. You’re the only one—”

She shook her head. She would not listen to this half-assed rationale. “You should have told me. He’s just a kid! Look at him!”

“It’s a representation, Tovah!” Ben cried. “He’s not a boy any more than Spider is a spider.”

Tovah did not believe that. She’d seen the truth in the boy’s words, and in the scene he’d dreamed for them. “He’s a boy. And he’s in trouble. Is this why you wanted me to become a guide?”

Ben’s guilty look gave her an answer, but Tovah fixed her glare on Spider. “Is it, Spider? To do things like this? To decide who gets to play and who doesn’t?”

Spider’s expression turned grim. “You have a lot of power, Tovahleh. You need to use it for something other than selfishness.”

A slap would have hurt her less and been more easily forgiven. “Were you just using me?”

“No, Tovahleh. Never that.”

Tovah wished she could believe him. She looked at Edward. “I don’t want to hurt him, I swear to you. But you have to trust me.”

“Tovah, don’t do this,” Ben warned, but she yanked her hand from his anyway. Then from Spider’s.

The instant she did, the terror and pain their mingled will had held at bay surged forward. It knocked her, clutching her gut and screaming, to her knees. Behind her she heard Ben and Spider doing the same. In the club, the screams rose to an insufferable pitch, and she clapped her hands over her ears.

And then she got to her feet.

She faced the boy. “You have to trust me.”

The boy shook, his face white as bleached sheets, eyes two dark coins. The dream creatures in each of his hands rippled and writhed. Tovah stepped toward him. She began to shape.

Spider had told her to shape a haven, and that’s what she did. Green grass, a butterfly, the sweetly spanning limbs of a shade tree. She shaped a haven for herself and the boy, in all his forms. Spider had said she could do it, and she did.

She was sweating by the time it was half-finished, gritting her teeth with effort a moment after that. Never had she needed to work so hard to shape anything, not even in the beginning. For everything she shaped, she had to unshape something else. Even then, when it was done, she stood inside something as fragile as a soap bubble with the world outside pressing against it, trying to make it break.

The boy looked better, not so pale, and he didn’t shake. The puppets in his hands dangled, ignored for the moment.

“Where are we?”

“I made this place for us,” Tovah said. “It’s a safe place. And any time you’re scared, you can come here, okay? You don’t have to…do what you did, before.”

The boy looked around with wide eyes. “You did this for me? Even though I did those bad things?”

“Yes.”

He looked back at her. “Why?”

Tovah wanted to weep for this broken soul. “Because I know you didn’t mean to do it.”

“Your friends wanted to kill me, didn’t they? Like Angie and Stan?” The boy looked at the dolls he still clutched.

Grief at how Spider and Ben had tried to get her to take part in such a thing made her stutter. “Angie and Stan?”

“That’s their names.” He shook the dolls and looked up at her. “They want to hurt me.”

“They can’t hurt you here.”

He nodded, looking around, then back at her. “What’s your name?”

“Tovah.” She smiled, moving closer. Though outside the haven she could still feel the push and pull of a world on its edge, fighting with itself, she thought it might be fading. “What’s yours?”

The boy looked shy and ducked his head. “Eddie.”

“Well, Eddie—” Tovah stopped, stunned.

They’d tried pushing against this boy, three on three, and had been unable to stop him. Because, though it had become clear the woman and the dogman were manifestations of his fear, there had been one piece missing. Not three on three.

Three on four.