Dreamfire (31 page)

Despite everything else between them, Josh felt bad for Winsor. “How did it even get out at school?”

“Oh, it was Whim, I know it was. He loves gossip more than he loves any of us.”

Josh wanted to say she was sorry again, but she didn't know how Winsor would react. She put an arm around her friend's shoulders instead. “I wish you'd come and talked to me.”

Winsor laughed grimly. “When?”

“Whenever. Through all of it. I know I'm not good at talking, but I could have at least listened.”

Winsor's jaw relaxed a little. “Well, I'm talking to you now.”

“Do you…” Josh began, and then started over. “Do you want to keep talking, and maybe eat a bunch of ice cream?”

“You and your sweets,” Winsor said, but a ghost of a smile had crept onto her face. “Take your laundry upstairs. I'll go get the ice cream and meet you in your room.”

“All right.” Josh hesitated an instant, then hugged Winsor quickly before rising. “I'll see you upstairs.”

Josh both smiled and sniffled as she carried the clothes basket up to the third floor. She knew that this was still going to be a hard night, that she and Winsor had a lot of difficult things to say to each other, but at least they were talking again.

As she crossed the empty apartment, she paused outside the open door to Will's bedroom.
Is Winsor right?
she wondered, peering into the dark room.
Is he lonely here? Have I let him be lonely?

She set down the laundry hamper and turned on the overhead light. Will's room was unnaturally tidy for a teenage guy's. He'd made his bed perfectly. The clothing in the hamper had been loosely folded. Stepping inside, Josh realized that he'd put all his self-help books back in the cardboard box with his name on the side that he'd brought from the county home.

He still thinks I'm going to send him back,
she thought, and a fresh wave of regret washed over her. Absently, she ran her finger down the spines of the books.
I am the worst tea—

Her body hardened as though iron had cooled in her veins.

On the spine of one book, written with a felt-tip permanent marker, was the name
Hianselian Ambrose Donovan Micharainosa.

Josh yanked the book out of the box. She snapped the journal open and saw the note taped inside; for a moment, she didn't recognize her own handwriting.

How dare you, Will?

Journal in her arms, she flew out of his room and into her own, determined to drive to the high school right then and confront him. This was beyond a betrayal of trust; it was an insult; it was—

She flipped on the overhead light in her bedroom and stopped short on the threshold, faced with such a sight that she stopped thinking entirely.

The bedroom was strewn with clothes. They appeared to have exploded out of a duffel bag in the corner like lava from a volcano. Her dresser drawers were open, and her things had been taken out, rearranged, dug through. School papers that had been rotting in her desk for years were scattered across the floor.

From behind her, Winsor said, “I see Haley didn't inherit Ian's organizational skills.”

Josh turned to see Winsor holding two pints of ice cream, two spoons, and a squeeze bottle of chocolate sauce. Her throat was dry, making it hard to speak. “What the hell happened in here?”

“Well, between your messiness and Haley's, your room is”—Winsor shrugged—“a mess.”

“Why has Haley even
been
in my room?” Josh demanded, stepping over an open shoebox of loose photographs.

Winsor frowned. “Didn't Del tell you? He's been staying in here.”

Josh was shaking so hard her voice trembled. “You let Haley stay in my room?”

“It wasn't my idea,” Winsor told her. She set the ice cream on the dresser like a peace offering and then stepped back. “But there's no furniture in his apartment and you were staying downstairs.”

“I don't care! Look at this, Winsor. He didn't just stay here—he tore the place apart like he had a search warrant. He even moved the furniture!”

Winsor looked around thoughtfully. “No, he moved it back to where it was before Ian died.”

Josh gawked at the room. She reached out to steady herself against the dresser and then noted that it had been moved two feet farther from the window—to where it had sat a year before—and she wrenched her hand back. “God, Winsor—why is he acting like this?”

“He's gone mad.” Winsor picked up a glass bottle from the desktop. “Here's what's left of Ian's cologne.”

Reluctantly, Josh followed Winsor's lead and began putting the room back in order. Her belongings appeared to have been rearranged at random, as if Haley had tried to put them away but had forgotten where they went. She found a blouse in her nightstand and a deck of playing cards under her pillows.

“There's something really wrong with Haley,” she said, wondering how her friend had become so out of touch with reality.

“Yeah,” Winsor agreed. “He was always weird, but at least he was consistently weird. This is just crazy.”

A few minutes later, Josh found the journal she'd discovered in Will's room. She'd forgotten all about it when she saw her bedroom and must have set it on the bedside table unconsciously. Now she picked it up again and rubbed her thumbs against the cover. The fabric felt like sandpaper against her skin.

“What's that?” Winsor asked.

Josh swallowed as she held it out. “I think it's Ian journal. I mean, it must be his. It has his name on it.”

Winsor took the book hesitantly. She turned it over but didn't open the cover. “You read this?” she asked.

“No. I found it in Will's room a minute ago.”

For a moment Winsor looked like she was going to smile again. “That boy's got guts,” she said instead.

“Well, he's going to regret that once I get a hold of him.” Josh glanced around again, debating whether she still wanted to go to the high school to find Will. In the end, she decided that she did. Haley would have to be dealt with, but she wanted to talk to him when she wasn't furious. He was a fragile guy, and she knew that if she started yelling, he would just shut down.

“I'm going to the dance,” she said, taking the journal back from Winsor.

“To yell at Will? Tonight?”

“Yeah. Want to come?”

Winsor shook her head. Josh shrugged and started stepping back across the wreckage toward the door. Halfway there, her knees buckled, and she sat down hard on a sweatshirt and a latch-hook rug.

“Josh?” Winsor asked. “Is your knee okay?”

Josh's hand trembled as she reached out to push away another piece of clothing. Distantly, she noticed that it was the skirt she'd worn on her seventeenth birthday. Beneath was a piece of parchment weighted down at either end with a textbook to battle seventeen years of being rolled up.

“Josh?” Winsor asked again, leaning down next to her. When she saw the scroll, she immediately looked away. “Oh!”

“Win,” Josh whispered, “I didn't open this.”

“What?” Winsor's surprise overrode her manners, and she slid down next to Josh.

Josh couldn't stop her eyes from reading the words.

Joshlyn Dustine Hazel Weavaros

Eldest of her family's five,

she'll only live to see one die.

One mother lost to the Dream,

One lover lost in between.

Avishara and Weavaros:

two families' flags that still fly close

until sundered by betrayal

of each other and the Veil.

Half-past her birthday, seventeen,

an apprentice to spoon-feed.

Blessed with talent majuscule,

she'll earn a scholarship to school.

Among the dream-walking elite,

a love to gladden her heartbeat.

Home and children, girl and boy,

a family that brings her joy.

A happy life, a good career,

only her grandfather to fear.

The falcon is e'er a threat,

but within her epithet

she'll read her fate desired:

“'Twas in the Dream that she expired.”

“Josh,” Winsor said, “did Haley open this?”

Josh shook her head, then nodded, then shrugged. “He must have. I didn't.” Her mouth tasted like chalk dust. She ran her finger along one edge of the parchment. Anger was beginning to seep through the numbness again. “I have to go,” she said, and stood up.

“Don't you want to … I don't know, absorb this for a minute?”

Josh stopped in the doorway to look back at her. “What's to absorb? I mean, I'm going to get into Kasari Academy; that's great.”

“But he … Haley
read
it. He broke the seal on your birthright.”

“Yeah, I know. I'm so angry at him I can't even feel it.”

“He's sick,” Winsor said. “He's really, really sick. Be angry, but don't be angry at him.”

Josh swallowed. One rage at a time—she had Will to hate just then. “All right.” She heard how numb her voice sounded.

Winsor reread the scroll as she rolled it up. “The wording in this is so odd. And the rhymes seem so … simplistic. I know each scroll is different, but this doesn't sound like Young Ben. Maybe someone else wrote it.”

Josh barely heard her. What did she care who had written the scroll, or if the rhymes were lousy? Good or bad, she had never wanted to see them at all.

Winsor reverently held out the scroll. “Here.”

Josh didn't want to touch it. She didn't even feel like it was hers anymore. “Just put it in the desk or something,” she said as she left the room, and she pulled the door shut hard behind herself.

 

Twenty-five

Another night, the
gym might have looked nice to Josh, but tonight, she found the streamers and stage lights cheesy and somehow deceptive. She didn't see either Haley or Deloise around. Louis noticed her and called her name, but she ignored him as she headed for the drink table, where Brianna Selts was slipping something acrid into the punch.

“Bri,” she said, “is the guy taking pictures still here?”

Brianna pointed to the far corner, where an arbor decorated with fake flowers had been erected for couples to stand beneath while being photographed. “I think he's packing up.” She examined Josh's jeans and gray sweater with a critical eye. “Interesting fashion statement,” she said, her voice laced with derision, but Josh was already cutting through the crowd.

She passed Jay Appleton, who was nursing a bump on the back of his head with a bag of ice, and Alece Vernon, who was breaking up with Evan Lovett right there on the dance floor. Somebody had spilled a drink, and the janitor was trying to rope off the mopped area. The latest boy-band release—coincidentally, from Josh's father's label—blared.

The photographer was just locking the case for his flashbulbs when Josh reached him. Will was rolling up a backdrop, but he stopped when he saw Josh.

For a moment words failed her. She almost punched him, but the photographer happened to walk in between them. Besides, it would have been irresponsible; she knew how to break his nose and drive it backward into his brain, killing him instantly.

“What's wrong?” Will asked.

She still had the journal. It had rested on her lap throughout the drive like a live coal. She held it up for Will to see in the colored carnival lights.

He swallowed, then set the backdrop on the floor. “Alan, I've got to go. Can you give me a call tomorrow?”

“Sure,” the photographer said. “Good work tonight, Will.”

“Thank you,” he replied, already walking away.

He tried to take Josh's elbow and she shook him off, but she held him with her gaze as if with a clenched fist. Without a word, she followed his lead out the double doors to the lobby. He glanced nervously at her several times as they exited the gym, but even when he was looking away she stared at the back of his head. She wouldn't have been surprised to see little red sniper-rifle dots appear in his hair.

The doors swung shut behind them. The noise in the lobby was muted; only the music's bass line could still be heard. There were no streamers here, no harlequin masks or sweet scents of punch and soda. A few security night-lights splashed into the lobby, but mostly it was dark.

Josh took advantage of the lobby's emptiness by putting at least a dozen steps between herself and Will. She clenched Ian's journal in one hand.

Will exhaled slowly, waiting for her to speak. She said nothing, just let him stew while she ground her gaze into his eyes. When he took a step forward, she stepped back. He got the message.

“I know that—” he began, and before he could finish, Josh hurled the journal at him.

It hit him in the forehead, hard, and then fell to the floor in a rustling of pages. Will stumbled back, his expression shocked. Josh closed the space between them and darted down to pick the journal back up.

“How dare you,” she hissed, poking one corner of the journal's cover into his chest like a finger. “This was
not
your business, and it was
not
your place to go into my family's private history and take it.”

“It
was
my business,” Will told her, and she didn't know whether to be surprised or infuriated that he had the guts to speak back to her.

“You wouldn't tell me,” he went on, “what happened to Ian.”

“And you wanted to hear the gossip,” she snapped.

“No, Josh, I didn't. That's not what this is about.”