Nightmare’s Edge (3 page)
“I . . . I can’t leave her,” Nathan said. “She’s — ”
Cerulean twisted him back. His voice sharpened again. “She’s . . . not . . . real!”
His mind now swimming, Nathan repeated the words in a whisper. “She’s not real.”
Cerulean blew out the candle. As the light faded, Kelly’s voice faded with it. “I’m so cold . . . so cold.”
Light flooded Nathan’s vision. He blinked, trying to focus as the Earth Blue bedroom materialized around him. His mother stood near one wall, her violin in playing position, while Amber, the Earth Yellow supplicant, held a small square mirror in front of her. “Foundation’s Key” sang from the strings, its simple melody wiping away the remnants of the dark nightmare.
On the floor, Kelly lay on a mattress, shivering. “So cold,” she cried out. “So cold.”
Nathan dropped to his knees. He grabbed her arm and gave her a strong shake. “Kelly! Wake up! It’s just a bad dream.”
Her eyes shot open, glassy and wild. “Nathan! Don’t leave me!”
“I’m here.” He scooped her up and cradled her in his lap. “I won’t leave you. I promise.”
She wrapped both arms around him. “But you did leave me! I begged you not to, but you left anyway!”
Cerulean, his hair and skin glowing blue, crouched at Kelly’s opposite side and spoke to Nathan. “Invaded nightmares are the most vivid of all, and now you understand the danger. When you go to Earth Yellow, it will likely be worse. The nightmare epidemic has proven that the veil between dreams and reality is thinner there, and Mictar will also be watching for you. If you lose your grip on reality, you will fall into his clutches, for he can manipulate the dreams and lead you into a trap.”
“But if I think something is real when it’s not, how can I ever be sure?”
Cerulean held the extinguished candle in front of Nathan’s eyes. “You must focus on the light from the real world. It will keep you anchored.”
Nathan set Kelly back on the floor and took her hand, ignoring the pain that shot through his still-injured palm. Kelly’s glassy eyes gave evidence of her damaged vision, a souvenir of an encounter with Mictar. A spot of blood on the white fabric of the Newton High School sweatshirt she had borrowed from Kelly Blue’s dresser told the tale of another wound she had suffered in the fight. Seeing her so afraid wrenched his heart. “I’d never really leave you in a graveyard, you know.”
Tears now drying on her cheeks, she nodded. “I know.”
Nathan’s mother lowered her violin. “What exactly happened in there?”
After explaining his journey through Kelly’s nightmare, with Jack and Cerulean adding a few details he had forgotten, Nathan finished with a sigh. “So that’s why Cerulean’s worried about what might happen next time.”
Amber set the mirror on a pile of matching squares. “We have searched through forty-one mirrors. If we are unable to find one leading to Earth Yellow, then surviving the dream world will be the least of our worries.”
“I don’t want to drive five hours to the observatory,” Nathan said, “not with all the crazy problems going on. Even if we could get gas, who knows what the roads will be like?”
He picked up the mirror with his unbandaged hand, still raw from the burns he’d received sliding down a rope while dangling over the void mysteriously called “Sarah’s Womb.” After playing the violin strings that had been stretched over the chasm and thrusting Earth Red away from the threat of the merging worlds, he had nearly plunged into the womb. Only Kelly’s courageous climb up the rope and her teamwork with Daryl Blue had saved his life, though in the process Daryl had plunged to her death.
A dragging sound drew Nathan’s attention to the bedroom door. Cerulean pulled a wooden chair with a padded seat in from the hallway. “Here, Mrs. Shepherd,” he said, pushing the chair close. “It seems likely that your musical search will take a long time.”
She gave him a thankful nod.
Amber stooped and picked up the slender candle Cerulean had used during the dream world journey. She walked toward the wall where the mirror squares were once attached, her gait so graceful she seemed to glide. With her long blonde hair draped over her simple yellow dress and her skin shimmering like gold, she looked like a storybook fairy. Sitting on the trunk next to the wall, she said, “I will keep this taper for our journey to Earth Yellow. With all the dark places we are likely to encounter, perhaps even I will need this anchor to reality.”
Lifting her head, she gazed upward, her face dreamy and her eyes far away. “I have been so long in my supplicant’s dome, I feel lost already. It is as if I am a goldfish released into a massive lake, one still trying to swim in a tight circle. While in prison I could watch and pray for my beloved as I listened to the music of her soul, but here the songs are many, and most are dissonant and troubling. If I do not find my beloved soon, I think I will drown in this sea.”
“We’ll get back to work on that,” Nathan said. “The right mirror has to be around here somewhere.”
His mother sat on the chair and laid the violin in her lap. “Do you see anything in that one?”
He turned to the mirror in his hand. The reflection, altered by his mother’s performance of “Foundation’s Key,” showed a terrified boy, maybe five years old, standing with a shivering beagle on a snow-covered sheet of ice in the middle of a raging river.
Nathan shook his head. Another crisis. Should he even tell everyone what was there? With all the terror on Earths Blue and Yellow caused by the approaching collision of the two worlds, they couldn’t afford to travel to each place and rescue every endangered person.
He set the mirror back onto the stack of rejects. “Probably another Earth Blue scene.”
Kelly pulled another square from the mirrors that hadn’t yet been tried. “How many more before you need a break?”
Nathan looked at his mother. She had played “Foundation’s Key” more than forty times. He was beginning to regret smashing one of the mirrors in Mictar’s face, even if his action was probably the only reason the stalker hadn’t shown up at the bedroom door yet. Because that mirror was missing, they weren’t able to get the entire mosaic of mirrors operating, forcing them to pry off every square and play the tune for each one in order to find a portal to Earth Yellow. But what was done was done. “Mom? What do you think? Need a rest?”
“Let’s make fifty mirrors our goal for now,” she said, lifting the violin again. “If they don’t show anything we can use, we should try to contact Daryl again.”
Kelly sat next to Amber and propped up a mirror. Looking at Nathan, she asked, “If we find the right one, have you decided what to do with the others?”
Nathan shook his head, his eyes focusing on the rejected stack. Assuming Mictar recovered from his wounds, this would be the most likely place for him to show up. Since he now knew that any of the squares a gifted person had used would work for his purposes, he would probably tear the house apart trying to find one. But they certainly couldn’t take almost four hundred mirrors with them to Earth Yellow.
Nathan turned back to the mirror in Kelly’s hands. As his mother played the key, he watched as the mirror displayed a deserted city scene — closely packed multistory buildings, street lights illuminating empty sidewalks, and vacant newsstands with magazines and papers rippling in the breeze. A young woman, maybe twenty years old, dressed in a long coat, scarf, and ski cap stood at a corner. As windblown snow buffeted her face, she clasped a bundle close to her chest.
He drew closer to the image. Could that bundle be a baby? Was she waiting for someone? Maybe a bus or a taxi? With the streets so empty and the snow mounting, it looked like she might have to wait for a long time.
Jack leaned over and peered at the mirror with his newly restored eyes. “That’s Michigan Avenue in Chicago. I was a cab driver, so I know every corner in the city.”
“But which color Earth is it?” Nathan turned toward the window on the far side of the bedroom. Outside, windblown snow raced across the front yard, blending with yellow leaves that had fallen from the now naked cottonwood tree next to the driveway.
Jack pointed at the mirror. “Is there any way we can help this woman?”
“Won’t she just go inside if she can’t get a ride?” Nathan asked.
“Maybe not.” Jack ran the brim of his hat through his hands. “If she could go inside, why would she be standing in the snow with a baby?”
“I don’t know, but we have to move on. While we’re standing here, Earth Yellow’s time is probably zooming by.”
“But is there a choice?” Jack’s thick eyebrows bent toward his nose. “Is there a way to go there?”
“Well, if we flashed a light, we could travel there.” Nathan touched the top of the reject pile. “But any one of these mirrors could lead us to a problem to solve. If we’re going to save the entire world, we can’t jump through every mirror that shows us a cold woman on the street.”
“I suppose not.” Jack put his hat on his head. “Can you send me there? I’m not of much use in this world-saving business, but I want to do what I can to help in my little corner.”
Kelly touched the glass near the woman’s face. “That’s strange. I can see her clearly.”
“Then it must be Earth Yellow.” Nathan eyed the image. The woman was standing still and the snow was whipping across the viewport, making it impossible to figure out whether or not time was flying by. Should they go there? At least they would be on the right Earth, and then Amber could take them to the dream world. Or would it be better to search for a portal in the bedroom or maybe the future site of Earth Yellow’s observatory?
Kelly held the mirror closer to her eyes. “She’s kind of far away, and there’s snow all around, but . . .”
“But what?”
She grabbed Nathan’s hand, making him wince. “Come with me. I’ll need your eyesight.”
As she pulled him out of the bedroom and down the hall, Nathan had to jog to keep up. “Where are we going?”
“To my dad’s bedroom. I know this house well enough to find it, but I’ll need you once we get there.”
After turning right and hustling through a second corridor, they entered a spacious bedroom. Still holding the mirror, Kelly slowed and blinked in the dimness. Nathan flipped the wall switch, but the twin ceiling fan lights stayed dark. “Forgot,” he said. “Still no power.”
Kelly tiptoed around a king-sized bed and stopped in front of a dresser sitting against the far wall. Its attached mirror reflected their shadowy forms and the smaller mirror in Kelly’s hands. On top of the dresser, under a jumble of socks and old receipts, was a large leather photo album.
Kelly laid the mirror next to it and lifted the cover. Inside, photos covered the pages, each one neatly inserted in a protective pocket. “I can’t see them very well. Can you look for one that shows a woman holding a baby?”
Nathan flipped a couple of pages, then pointed at a photo. “Here’s one.”
She slid the mirror over the album, stopping it next to the picture. “Does she look like this woman?”
He stared at the two images. The woman in the mirror swayed from side to side much faster than normal, like a movie playing at high speed. With her distance from his viewpoint and blowing snow veiling her body, he couldn’t get a good look at her face.
“I’m not sure. I think she resembles — ”
“Shh!” Kelly raised a finger to her lips. “Listen!”
Nathan kept quiet. Although he couldn’t hear anything, he knew better than to say so. Kelly’s gift of interpreting sounds from other worlds was at work.
After several seconds, her finger hovered over the woman’s face. “She’s singing to the baby. It’s real fast, but I can pick it up.” Her voice now trembling, Kelly sang the song in a whisper. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird won’t sing, Mama’s gonna buy you a ruby ring.”
“Ruby ring?” Nathan said. “I thought it was a diamond ring.”
“My mother always said
ruby
. I know, because she used to help me babysit.”
“Your mother?” Nathan pointed at the photo. “So that’s you she’s carrying?”
Kelly nodded. “We must be . . . I mean, they must be freezing. We have to help them.”
“Ahem!”
Nathan looked
Nathan looked up. Jack stood at the door. “You had better return to the other room,” Jack said. “We have a visitor.”
Nathan closed the photo album over the mirror and picked them up. Then, taking Kelly’s hand, he rushed past Jack. When they reached the bedroom, Nathan slowed and peered in. His mother stood with her violin at her side while Cerulean and Amber gazed at a mirror square.
Nathan helped Kelly through the door and gave her the photo album. She opened it and slid out the mirror within.
“What’s up, Mom?” Nathan asked.
His mother nodded toward the mirror in Cerulean’s grip. “See for yourself.”
Cerulean turned the square toward Nathan. A narrow, pale face filled up the entire image — Patar, his eyes glowing red, though a softer hue than usual.
Nathan swallowed. Seeing this vision stalker meant a tongue lashing was probably on the horizon. “I’m here.” He cleared his throat. “What do you want?”
“It occurred to me,” Patar said, his voice more pleasant than usual, “that my earlier instructions were much too vague. Once you reach Earth Yellow you must find a way to travel back to my world to finish your task.” His eyes shifted from side to side, apparently looking at each of the supplicants in turn. “Because of Scarlet’s plunge into Sarah’s Womb, the portal from your world to mine has closed. The only way to enter my world now is to use the observatory.”
Nathan pictured the Earth Yellow observatory mirror, anchored in the foundation at the future site of Interfinity Labs. Nathan knew they’d need more than violins to play “Moonlight Sonata,” the song that opened the portal to Patar’s home in the misty world. Once in the past, Kelly had persuaded a radio station to play the song, but that wasn’t likely to work again. And with Earth Blue in chaos, there was no way they could drive to the observatory here. Still, since Yellow’s time was zooming along, things might be a lot different there now. “Any idea how the Interfinity construction is coming along on Earth Yellow?” he asked.