Dreamfever (17 page)

Whim rubbed his mouth and chin with his hand. “Okay, all right, just … hold your horses for a minute. Stop freaking out.”

“I'm not freaking out,” Will said indignantly. “And if you think I am, then that tells me exactly how little you care about Deloise, because you ought to be freaking out over what you've done to her.”

“Oh, my God, Will, calm down. Can you hold off your next nervous breakdown for five minutes so we can talk about this like reasonable people?”

“What the hell does that mean?” Will shouted, even as his mind said,
It means you're shouting
.

Whim threw his hands up in the air. “It means you've been so high-strung and judgmental lately that there's no point in trying to have a rational conversation with you!”

Whim turned and strode away across the back lawn, which stretched for several acres. Will was too stunned and hurt to even think of following him.

I haven't been judgmental,
he told himself.

Yes, I have. But I've had to be, because everyone else is being so careless!

No, that's a ridiculous thought. Whim's right—I'm becoming really high-strung. I can't even think clearly.

He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly aware of how tight and painful it was.

Everything needs to stop, if it would just stop for a couple of minutes, if I could just catch up …

The thoughts were coming too fast for him to keep up, and he realized he was actually holding his head in both hands, digging his fingertips into his scalp the way the disembodied hands in the nightmare had. He let go, cursing himself.

I can't think, I can't think.

“Will.”

Will opened his eyes and saw Whim was standing in front of him, and the concern in Whim's expression far outweighed the anger.

“Will, man, what is going on with you?” Whim shook his head. “Let's talk for a minute.”

Will silently followed him across the lawn to the run-down gazebo, where they sat on wooden benches with peeling white paint.

“Spill,” Whim said.

Will shrugged. “I don't know.”

“You can do better than that, psychology boy.”

Will knew he'd meant it as a joke, that his friend was trying to lighten the mood, so he forced a tiny smile.

“I just … I used to feel like people needed to make their own mistakes and learn from them. And now I feel like I have to stop them, at least from making terrible mistakes, because they don't understand that— I don't know. There are repercussions for things, right? I'm just trying to keep it all together.”

Whim listened to this shoddy explanation and then said, “But it isn't all falling apart.”

“I don't know how you can say that. You're cheating on Deloise. Mirren's probably going to be assassinated. Josh can't even sleep through the night without waking up screaming. I mean,
somebody's
got to step in and fix things.”

“No, they don't,” Whim told him. “You're blowing all this out of proportion. Peregrine won't kill Mirren because everyone would know it was him. Josh needs to go see a doctor and get some sleeping pills or a massage or something. And I'm not cheating on Deloise.”

Will gave him a look that he hoped conveyed a skeptical-bordering-on-scornful question. “Really?”

“I'm
not,
” Whim insisted. “Bayla and I are just working through some emotional stuff from the past.”

“With your hands?” Will asked.

“Don't talk about it that way,” Whim said sharply, surprising Will. “Bayla and I went through a lot. We're still going through a lot. So, no, we shouldn't have fooled around today. But if I don't get her out of my system, I'm never really going to be able to
be
with Deloise. She'll never have all of me, you know? I want her to have all of me.”

That's not how love works,
Will thought, but he managed not to say it.

“Besides, even if I was cheating on Del with a dozen girls, it still wouldn't be
your
problem, Will. You aren't responsible for me.”

“I know that.”

“Are you sure? Because during that little demonstration back at the car, you looked a lot like my mom.”

Will laughed ruefully. Saidy was known for her temper.

Whim grinned. “You feel a little better?”

“Yeah. I'm sorry I went off on you.”

“It's okay.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I grew up with my mom
and
Winsor
and
Ian. I'm not afraid of the strap.”

“You're so nuts, Whim.”

“I know it. Look, about Bayla … If you feel like you have to tell Del, I can't stop you. And I'll try not to get pissed off at you. But all I'm asking for is time. You don't have to cover for me, you don't have to lie for me, I'm just asking you not to say anything, and I promise, a month from now I'll have Bayla out of my system for good.”

I'm going to regret this,
Will thought.

But Whim was such a good friend to him, and it wasn't like he was trying to make a fool out of Deloise.

“Okay,” Will said.

Whim clapped him on the shoulder. “You're a good man, Will Kansas.”

Will sighed. “I hope so.”

 

Fourteen

Mirren's kamikaze attitude
vanished after she nearly choked to death on the hand. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had assumed that hers would be a swift death carried by an unseen bullet. One second she'd be talking, or eating, or laughing, and the next … nothing.

Her near murder by the hand had been the opposite: visceral, messy, agonizing. She didn't want to die like that.

The next day, instead of going into the Dream again, Mirren let Haley take her to the pool to teach her to swim.

Josh had been appalled when she'd learned that Mirren couldn't swim, even after Mirren explained that the only body of water in the Hidden Kingdom was a foot-deep creek. Mirren thought that the swimming lessons were a waste of time—what were the chances she'd need to swim in one of the nightmares the junta chose for her trial?—but she was glad to be with Haley and away from the Dream.

Tanith's outdoor swimming pool was packed with vacationing children, but the indoor pool was nearly deserted except for lap swimmers. Haley led Mirren to the shallow end, where she forced herself into the cold water. “I'm freezing,” she said.

She was also very nervous about being in a swimsuit, although the one-piece she had picked out had come from what Deloise referred to as “the old-lady bathing dress” section. So far, though, Haley had politely refused to look at anything except her face.

Despite her attraction to Haley, he was not a good teacher. His patience seemed to be infinite, but he couldn't explain worth a damn. While teaching her to float, he kept telling her to “just lie back,” but every time she did she went under. They'd been in the water less than fifteen minutes when she began to miss Josh's ordering her around.

Finally, Haley put his hands under her back while she stretched out, and she managed to rest comfortably on the water's surface—although she was fairly certain Haley was holding her up.

“Relax,” he told her.

She tried, but it caused her to sink down, and only Haley's hands kept her from going under. “S'okay,” he assured her. “You're okay.”

After that, Mirren tried to keep her body rigid. The effort threatened to exhaust her.

All of this is exhausting,
she thought.
Why am I putting myself through this when I'm going to die anyway?

“Haley, have you seen my scroll?” she asked. She assumed that, at some point, he might have seen it when he touched her.

He hesitated, then nodded.

“So you know I'm going to die.”

He looked away, and Mirren felt herself sink into both despair and the water. So he
had
seen it.

Then Haley turned back to her, and his face had changed. He looked older, more awake, and he straightened his perpetually slumped shoulders. “No future is certain,” he told Mirren. “I know that better than anyone. And I'm tired of being afraid of what will come.”

“Have you been afraid?” Mirren asked. “I never knew.”

“I have been afraid every day of my life,” he admitted, still moving her gently through the water. “I've been afraid of what I know, what I don't know, of trying to change things.”

“How do you live like that?” She didn't mean to challenge him, but she had gotten her first real taste of fear these last few weeks, and she couldn't imagine living a whole life that way.

“I haven't. I mean, I've done nothing. I've been so passive. I've hidden. And people have gotten hurt.”

She'd never heard him say so much or express himself so intimately. With a little thrill, she whispered, “Tell me about it.”

His hazel eyes turned distant with memory. “I sat back and watched my brother fall apart. Maybe I could have saved him from himself, but I was so afraid he'd turn on me. And instead he hurt Josh, and he hurt Winsor, and then he got himself … Maybe I could have done something. I never felt like I had the right.”

“And now?” Mirren asked, in awe of the ease with which he spoke and the strength that had come over him.

“And now there's you.” He smiled, without ducking his head. “You're so strong. My friends—my family—it's easier for them if I'm weak, if I'm just backup. But you make it okay for me to be strong, too.”

“Oh, Haley,” Mirren said. She didn't try to hold back her tears; she wanted him to see how much she admired and adored him, and she was about to hug him when he held up his hands for her to see.

She was floating all on her own.

“I'm doing it!” she cried, and Haley laughed, and then she did hug him, hard.

Thank you, gravity,
she thought,
for drawing me to someone who can both help me and be helped by me.

Gravity had known what it was doing.

*   *   *

Three weeks after she left it, Mirren returned to the Hidden Kingdom.

Returning involved none of the difficulty or trauma that leaving had required. Mirren's family had two faithful servants who functioned on their behalf in the World; their primary duty was to procure supplies—food, medicine, complete DVD sets—and deliver them to the Hidden Kingdom, which they accessed through a special archway secreted in a furnace room. Mirren had never been allowed to know to where in the Hidden Kingdom the archway opened, and she was surprised to pass through and find herself in the stables. She had checked for archways there a dozen times.

“So, if you came through this archway,” Josh said, “why didn't you come out in the furnace room? Why did you end up in the Dream?”

“Because,” Mirren explained, brushing hay off her skirt, “this isn't the archway I found. There's a second one under a bridge in the woods, and it leads to the Dream. That's the only one I could find, so that's the one I went through.”

“Wait,” Will said. “Your family didn't tell you where either of the archways were? What if something terrible happened to your aunt and uncle?”

Mirren shrugged and petted the nose of her horse, Natasha. The animal sniffed suspiciously at Haley's hand but finally decided to lick it.

“Then Katia and I would have been stuck here forever,” Mirren said.

She rubbed her nose against Natasha's so she didn't have to see the looks being exchanged behind her back. “I missed you,” she whispered, and Natasha licked her hand.

“That was insanely brave of you,” Josh told her as they left the barn. “I mean, to jump into the Dream for the first time by yourself?”

Mirren smiled and accepted the compliment. She decided not to bother adding that she'd had no way out of the Dream, since her aunt and uncle had never allowed mirrors or fire-starters in the Hidden Kingdom.

Walking with Haley behind Mirren and Josh, Will said, “I have to admit, I wasn't expecting a universe Feodor designed to look quite so much like Disney World.”

Mirren followed his line of sight to the castle, and her time away allowed her to see it with new eyes, all peaked red roofs and white stone walls, guarded on all sides by evergreen trees and the steep face of the hill it had decapitated. They'd arrived just before dawn, hoping to slip in and out before Mirren's family woke. Beyond the castle, orange light encroached on the horizon like dust kicked up by the horses of an approaching army.

“It's huge,” Josh said. “I didn't know it would be so huge.”

“According to Aunt Collena, Feodor based it on Moszna Castle in Poland,” Mirren said. With a grin, she added, “Except this castle has one hundred turrets, and Moszna Castle only has ninety-nine.”

She had been the one to suggest they visit the Hidden Kingdom and look for Feodor's papers. She knew Will had been biting his tongue to keep from bugging her about it, and besides, if she was really going to die, she wanted to go home one last time.

She'd forgotten how steep and long the steps to the castle door were. Her legs were used to the discipline, and Josh seemed unfazed, but Will and Haley were panting by the time they got to the top.

“From here,” Mirren warned, “we need to be very quiet.” She wondered if she should make them take their shoes off—Aunt Collena was very strict about shoes in the house—and decided not to bother.

As she led them through the dark castle, noting how the gold and silver in each room caught the early light, she found herself wanting to stop and tell stories—the year they'd celebrated Christmas in the library, how Katia had once gotten stuck under a claw-foot tub while playing hide-and-seek, Uncle Fel's obsession with Post-it notes. How could she have had such a wonderful childhood and been a prisoner at the same time?