In Dreams (18 page)

Back at his side, I press the wet T-shirt against his face, dabbing away at the caked-on blood. He winces.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

One eye is swollen shut, but he looks at me with his other eye. “You look beautiful tonight, Iris.”

I shake my head. “And . . . I can’t say the same for you.”

He offers me a feeble laugh, and I lean up to kiss his lips, as gently as possible.

“I wouldn’t call for you. I didn’t want you to come here, Iris.”

“I felt you.”

“I felt you as soon as you came in the door from the dream hallway. I ached for you.”

My stomach does the flip-flop I always feel when I hear him talk or see him.

“I don’t know how much time we have,” I whisper hurriedly. “Where there’s one of those evil souls, there are many, and now they know where we are. We need to go, Sebastian. Help me. How do I find my father? I need to speak with him. He has to know my mother and grandfather have been taken.”

“Taken?”

I nod. “Violently. In my world. By Epiales or his men.”

Sebastian’s lone good eye flashes like lightning. “I will bring a message to him. They will pay for this.”

“You’re in no condition to go.”

“I’m immortal. My wounds will heal quickly. I felt every blow. I didn’t suffer any less. But I will heal. Soon.”

Even as he says this, I see bruises receding. I touch his cheekbone softly. “Amazing,” I whisper.

I keep dressing his wounds and cleaning him up. Eventually, he feels well enough to stand.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he says.

“Let’s go.”

We walk to the cabin door and step out onto the porch. The forest looks no less uninviting. I don’t want to go into its darkness, which has grown eerier. A fog has settled near the ground. The moon is shrouded.

He takes my hand with his good arm, and we start out the way I came. Again I hear the wolves howling. But the bear is nowhere in sight.

We walk deeper into the forest’s depths. Branches slap my face. A soft, freezing drizzle starts.

“Great,” I mutter. “Just what we need.” The icy rain pelts my arms and face, stinging me.

And then I hear growling, rumbles. I look at one of the pine trees and see pairs of eyes glowing yellow in the underbrush.

I stop. I hear panting.

“Sebastian,” I whisper, “it’s a wolf pack.”

The beasts snarl, baring their teeth. One emerges from the underbrush. I assume it’s the alpha male. It snaps its teeth and lowers its head, and the black fur on its back stands on end. The wolf’s tail is lowered. The rumble is deep in its chest.

“On three, we run,” Sebastian whispers.

“Where?”

“To the door.”

But I know the door disappeared as soon as I walked into this nightmare. I will have to do what I did at the museum. And after the trauma of this night, I don’t feel confident that I can.

But there’s no time to discuss it.

“One . . . two . . . three,” he says.

The two of us break into a run. He grunts in pain beside me.

It’s time for me to let my instincts take over. I stop thinking and just move.

The beasts snap at our heels. I hear them, their snarls and snapping jaws.

“Turn left,” I scream, trusting my gut, trying to think but then just reacting. There is no time to think. The wolves are too close.

We race to the left. I feel blood on my face, sharp branches blinding me to what little I can see in the darkness, scratching me.

“Iris, you
must
come back now. Immediately.” Dr. Koios’s voice is insistent.

“Please,” Aphrodite says. “Or you’re grounded!”

A wolf is at my side, its fur brushing against the back of my hand. It bites at my leg. My pants rip open, and its teeth puncture my calf.

I can make out a clearing ahead, and when we get there, the wolves surround us. I know I made a promise to Dr. Koios, but I can’t leave Sebastian. Not hurt. Not to face them alone.

Sebastian stops, pulling me to him. “Go!” he urges me.

And there, carved in an immense tree, as wide and thick as a redwood, is a door.

“Go through it with me!” I say as he tugs me to the door.

“Not until Epiales is defeated. I need to get your message to your father.”

I start to argue with him, but instead he kisses my mouth, hard and hungry. Then he opens the door and pushes me through it, even as I hear him roar in pain as the first wolf attacks.

I hurt so much, at first I can’t move. Even my eyelashes hurt.

Dr. Koios says, “Open your eyes, Iris.”

I do. I’m in my home, in my grandfather’s chair. And the reality that I didn’t find Morpheus, that I am no
closer to bringing back my mother and grandfather, sits on my chest like a heavy stone.

“I wasn’t sure you would come back,” Annie says. “I’ll go get you some water.”

She goes to the kitchen and comes back with a Diet Coke instead. She pops the tab and hands it to me. When I lift my hand to take it, I see bruising on the back of my hand. I sip the soda and then touch my face. It’s puffy. But unlike Sebastian, I don’t heal quickly. It’s getting harder and harder to cover my misadventures in the dreamworld with makeup.

“I’m freezing,” I whisper. “Can you get me a blanket?”

Annie runs to fetch one. She returns and covers me with a soft quilt. I still shake from a chill. I’m so cold I wonder if I will ever feel warm again.

Aphrodite is trembling. “She wasn’t the only one worried you weren’t coming back. Now that you have found me, I can’t lose you, Iris. Don’t ever do that again. You can’t. I forbid it.”

“I wouldn’t have come back if Sebastian hadn’t pushed me through. . . . I didn’t find Morpheus.” Tears press against my eyes. I picture Sebastian being mauled by the wolves. I remember the pain of just a single blow from the man in black and feel
anguished by the thought of what happened in that cabin before I got there.

“And Aunt Aphrodite, you were right. Epiales tormented me with something that will scar me forever.”

I shut my eyes. But the images of today are seared into the memory of my soul mate suffering for me.

15

Between living and dreamingthere is a third thing. Guess it.

ANTONIO MACHADO

A
nnie helps me up. Limping, I go to take a hot shower. I stay in there until the water runs tepid, and I finally start to warm up, my fingers no longer icicles. When I step out, after the mist clears, I look at the bruises in the mirror. A short time ago, I was insomniac girl. An ordinary girl with an ordinary problem.

And now I am someone different. A demi-goddess with a very, very big problem.

I dab on some cover-up, hoping, somehow, it will make Aphrodite worry a little less. I change into yoga pants and a tank top, and put my softest, most comfortable cardigan on over it. Before I go out to
Annie and the others, I walk into Grandpa’s bedroom. He has a king-size bed with yet another of my failed mattresses on it. The room is him—his computer is perched on an architect’s drawing table. On the wall are framed prints of buildings he admires, like the Chrysler in Manhattan. He has a couple of framed autographs of Yankees players, including a Roger Maris. The room smells of Grandpa’s cologne. I slide open his closet doors and touch his neatly pressed shirts—he always sends them to the dry cleaner; aside from not being able to cook, laundry isn’t his thing, either. I miss him so much I feel as if I can barely stand.

When I come back into the living room, I tell them everything that happened in the Underworld. Including the line that I was a “pawn.”

Aphrodite and Dr. Koios exchange looks. “Hmm,” he says. He taps his index fingers together like he does when he’s thinking. “That’s very interesting.”

“I know,” I say. “All this time, I thought Epiales just hated me for my existence. But now I think it’s something more.”

Aphrodite bites one corner of her mouth. Her eyes do that fireworks thing again.

The doorbell rings. We all jump.

“Think we’re a little freaked out?” Annie jokes.

“I’ll answer it,” Dr. Koios says. He grabs the fireplace tongs. Just in case.

But when he opens the door, it is not Epiales or one of his menacing sidekicks.

There, standing on the doorstep, is my father.

“Morpheus,” I exhale.

Dr. Koios ushers him in. My father stares straight at me, as if no one else is in the room. He looks just like the painting, with thick locks of curly hair and an ageless, porcelain face like Aphrodite’s. I stare back at him, looking to see what features he has that are like my own. I have his nose, and I guess his curls. I think I may have his cheekbones, too. But I have my mother’s mouth, and the curve of her neck.

“Iris . . .” His voice is husky.

I don’t want to cry. I don’t even know, for sure, what to feel. I always had Grandpa, but there were times when I was at Annie’s house when I would see the way her dad was with her. It was usually something simple, like the times he’d come upstairs to her room, admonish us with “Don’t tell Mom,” and hand us these amazing ice-cream-sundae creations. Or when stupid Mike O’Malley broke Annie’s heart, and he just sat with her and me, and let her cry. Those times, I longed for a father.

I used to imagine that there was something
complicated to my birth. That my father wasn’t a sperm donor and that someday he would come looking for me. But right now, I’m just a jumble.

Aunt Aphrodite is standing next to him. “Come here, Iris,” she says.

I stand and walk to her, feeling numb, and she envelops me in a hug. Not one of her boob-crushing, over-the-top hugs, but a mom hug, as if sheltering me like a baby bird under a wing.

“It’s okay,” she whispers in my ear. “He’s your father, and he loves you.”

She releases me and tucks a stray curl behind my ear. Morpheus steps to me and hesitates, but then he puts his arms around me. I lean my head against his chest. All the years of being a fatherless girl melt away. It is like the times I would watch Mr. Casey hug Annie after a soccer match, and I would think that there was a spot—right there—just so, for her head to rest. This is what it feels like.

We stand there for a few minutes, and then he pulls away.

“Tell me about your mother and grandfather.” His voice is stronger and deeper than I thought it would be. But it is reassuring.

“Did Sebastian tell you?”

He nods.

My throat constricts.

So I tell him everything, about coming home to the mess and Mom being gone. At the word
gone
, I choke up so badly I can’t speak. He takes both my hands and holds them in his, which are strong.

“I stayed away for so many years, wanting to spare you from the treachery of the Underworld. It can be a dangerous place, and my brothers and the Keres are among the most dangerous of all. I never wanted to draw attention to you or your mother.”