Nevermor (14 page)

“Why are we
going back there?” she asked.  “I don’t understand.”

“To do what we
do most every night,” Rifter told her.

“And that is?”

He smiled, his
face lighting up and his teeth brilliant in the glow of the fairy, who came
back to circle around him once before shooting off again.

“You’ll see when
we get there,” he assured her, and took up her hand to lead her on.

She was pleased
that he was holding her hand again, but there was uneasiness in her stomach as
she followed them along.  The boys were not even bothering to be quiet, talking
amongst themselves and making loud animal-like cries into the woods, baying
like wolves.

What is going to
happen now?
 
She wondered. 
What have I gotten myself into?

1

When they set
out through the woods, guided by the light of the wisp as if she was a lantern,
Wren was certain they had headed off in a different direction than the way she
and Rifter had come into the forest.  She was a bit confused by this.  Wasn’t
the beach the other way?

Perhaps we are
going to a different stretch of beach
, she reasoned to herself.

Nix was out in
front, no doubt because he was sullen and didn’t want to associate with the
rest of them.  The smaller boy named Sly was sometimes there and sometimes not
– drifting off into the woods at times before falling back in line with the
group.  Finn and Toss were chatting together, keeping the forest alive with
their voices.  The twins were behind her, and they were not quiet either, but
she could not hear what they were saying as they talked together.

It was unusual
to her that the boys spoke differently than she did.  She had noticed it right
away.  They all spoke English, but in different dialects, and even the sound of
Rifter’s voice had been unusual to her.  She suspected that they had all come
here as she had after Rifter had chosen them, perhaps years before, lifted from
different parts of the world.

She wanted to
ask.  The questions were burning in her chest.

Rifter walked
next to her, which made her feel content, but the fairy never did go very far
away from him, sometimes swooping low just to remind Wren that she was still
there, as if to say:
I’m watching you.

They walked on
for a while, and though Wren was glad for the way the others cleared the path
ahead of her, she was getting tired, convinced that she had already been up all
night.  Why were they going to the beach now?  Couldn’t it wait until morning?

“Don’t you boys
ever sleep?” she asked them, and their boisterous conversation died down at the
sound of her question.

“We sleep when
we want,” Finn said.  “We’ve been known to stay up for days.”

“And sometimes
sleep for days,” Toss added, but he wouldn’t look at her, too embarrassed.

“That can’t be
good for you,” Wren commented.  “Not getting enough rest will make you old.”

At the sound of
that, they all began to laugh at her.  She hated to say that she was starting
to get used to it.  Apparently, none of them thought she knew much of anything.

“We won’t ever
grow old,” one of the twins said.  She thought it was Mech, but she couldn’t be
sure.

“That’s part of
the Vow,” the other twin added.

“What vow?”  Of course
she had to ask, and once again there was silence after her question.  She
decided on a new tactic.  “I’m very sorry that I ask a lot of questions.  It’s
just that I’m so fascinated by this place, and all of you, and I want to know
everything I can.”

She waited for
the flattery to take hold of them – could already see a few of them smiling –
and then Sly spoke up from the shadows.

“If one desires
to stay here with us, he must take the Vow of the Never-Ones, in which – among
other things – he must promise never to grow even the slightest bit older.  We
have all taken it and, well, we
don’t
.”

Wren couldn’t
help herself.  She laughed.

“But that’s
impossible.”  None of them were laughing with her.  “Isn’t it?”

She looked up at
Rifter, who returned her gaze and spoke tolerantly.

“I’ve been here
for as long as I can remember,” he said.  “I only remember the day that I woke
up here and nothing before that.  I figure it has been a hundred years or so.”

A hundred!

“And you’re
still…”  Wren couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it.  To live that long and
never age?  It seemed fantastic – unreal!  “And the rest of you as well?”

“We’ve not been here
quite so long,” Finn said.  “There were others before—”

“We’re nearly
there,” Nix interrupted from up ahead, and their conversation faded.

The trees were
getting sparse, giving way to the beach, and finally they stepped free of them,
out onto an unfamiliar portion of the coast.  The boys were all silent now, and
Wren kept quiet with them, feeling they did so with good reason.

They went out
onto the sand anxiously, drawing their weapons as they peered around.  Some of
them had blades; others had ranged weapons of war – some more modern than
others – but there did not seem to be anything to fight.  The sight of the
weapons had her a bit worried, however.

“What are we
doing here?” she asked Rifter, who was standing beside her, peering toward the
sea.  “Are you going to call someone?”

“No, I’ve
already called you, and that’s enough for now,” he said.

“Then what?”

“I told you this
is a place of dreams,” he reminded her.  “The sea is there, and it brings the
dreams in from different places, all across the universe.  Some of them die
before they get here, but the purest of them survive.  With that also comes the
blackest of things.  Sometimes, there are
nightmares
.  The sea has many
monsters, and it is always best to kill them when they first come on shore –
before they are fully formed.  This is what we do.  It is what we have always
done.”

She thought he
had mentioned this to her before.  He’d said something about using his sword to
fight the nightmares, but knowing it ahead of time didn’t make it any more pleasant
for her now.

“As I said, I’ve
never brought a girl here,” he went on, “so I’m not so sure of what to do with
you now, but I always give the new boys an initiation.  They are supposed to
kill at least one nightmare.  That’s my rule.”

A chill seized
her when she realized what they had come to the beach for.

“And because I
am here, you want
me
to…”  She couldn’t finish, partly because she could
not come up with a way to describe it.  If Rifter expected her to magically
know how to fight – as he had killed those pirates – he was mistaken.  She was
a common girl, and didn’t know about anything except sewing and washing.  She
was not a warrior.

Rifter shook his
head, looking back to her eyes.

“I already know
you can’t fight,” he said with a laugh, and she didn’t think she would ever be
so grateful to have him laugh at her.  She sighed with relief.

“Just stay back
and you should be fine.  But just in case…”  He reached down to the top of his
boot and drew out a short knife.  He held it out to her in his open palm, but
she did not take it.  She didn’t
want
it, but she wasn’t sure how to say
that.  Wren looked at the shining knife with the crude handle and then raised
her eyes back to him.  He saw her reluctance.

“Not all of the
time, but sometimes, Nevermor is a dangerous place.  You should at least have a
weapon in case you need it.”

Rifter took her
hand in his and curled her fingers around the dagger handle, perhaps knowing
that she wasn’t going to take it otherwise.  He was right.

“Do you see
anything, Sly?” Finn was saying from across the beach.

Sly had
withdrawn a sort of telescope that had been lashed to his belt, which he used
to look out over the sea.

“Hm.  I think… 
Yes, there’s a dark mass incoming!  Just a few waves out.”

“Excellent!”
Finn exclaimed.  “And at that, we are ready to pray.  May we have our blessing,
please, Whisper?”

The fairy kicked
up a terrible commotion, which led Finn to roll his eyes.

“Rifter, Wisp
isn’t being very cooperative.  I think she’s refusing to bless us.”

“She is,” Rifter
confirmed.  “She doesn’t want to give Wren a blessing and is refusing to give
the rest of you one either.”

Wren just looked
on, the dagger stuck to her hand.  What were they talking about?  She was,
however, beyond being insulted by the fairy-thing.  There was only so much
tolerance she could have for something that had attempted to murder her.

“I don’t have
time for this, Wisp,” Rifter warned, leaving Wren’s side to approach the
irritated pixie.  “It’ll be dawn soon.”

The fairy went
on again, spitting out those terrible whispers that scratched at the ears. 
Rifter argued with the wisp for a few moments, and eventually it seemed that he
had reminded her who was boss.

“Gather around,”
he instructed.  “All of you.  Make it quick.”

Wren wasn’t sure
if she was included in that, but she guessed she wasn’t.  She watched the boys
gather and no one invited her in, so she stayed in place.  They all stood in a
cluster – except Rifter, who backed away – and then Whisper hovered over them,
pulsing with light.

Wren heard the
fairy speaking in her quiet way, and she believed it was some sort of
incantation.  She was reminded of the Lord’s Prayer being murmured hurriedly by
someone who was devote and troubled, but of course this was not the same
thing.  The boys had their eyes closed as the blessing fell on them, and once
it was done, they came back to life.

“That’s much
better!” Finn declared.  He threw his arms up and stretched as if he suddenly
felt much more relaxed and lightweight.

Nix hopped up
and down on the balls of his feet, shaking himself out.  Sly jumped into the
air and turned a flip – then another directly after.  Wren knew she wasn’t
nearly nimble enough to do that, but somehow didn’t notice that he lingered in
the air a little longer than he should have.

Above them, the
wisp was still muttering about something, but the boys had forgotten her,
heading down to the edge of the water.  Wren watched them, feeling nervous. 
Beneath the light of the enormous moon, she could see what had been spotted on
the ocean.  There was definitely something coming.  It was like a black blanket
riding the waves.  It did not glisten in the moonlight as the water did, but
was thick and black as tar.

What is it?

“Do you see it?”
Rifter asked.  She hadn’t even known he was beside her again, and she
shivered.  “That’s what a nightmare looks like when it’s on the sea.  After it
washes ashore, it will grow, and it can become its true form, sent from the
dreamer who dreamed it.

“There are three
things that may happen, the best of which is that we are able to kill it. 
Otherwise, it will get past us and run free on the island – until we manage to
hunt it down and kill it later.  Or, it will go back out onto the sea, where it
will return to the dreamer and probably stay with them for a while.  Either
way, it will be here soon.”

Wren gulped. 
She could not even feel her fingers around the knife anymore.  She wondered if
it would do any good to ask to be excused from this – at least this one time –
but before she’d gotten the words arranged in her mind, the first oily bulk had
washed ashore.

She only watched
to see what would happen as the boys gave their attention to it.  As she
observed from a safe distance, she saw the glob shifting there on the beach –
clearly alive, though it had no features.

A couple of the
boys moved toward it, and she could hear them talking.

“Oh don’t kill
it yet, Sly,” Finn complained.  “Let it get a little bigger first.”

There was no
fear in their voices.  If anything, they were
excited
.  They stood by
with their weapons and, in fact, a couple of them were not even looking at the
thing.  This was commonplace to them.  They were not horrified by the
prospect.  It was a
game
.

Is it really
that simple? 
She
hoped that it was, though she had reservations about killing anything, even a
simple bug.

A bug…
 Yes, that was
what the blob looked like now.  It had changed before her eyes, having sprouted
spindly legs.  It was able to stand, rising up to be around the size of a large
dog.  Eventually it grew a head and several round, red eyes formed on its
face.  Still, the boys did nothing.  Instead, they seemed fascinated to watch
what it would become.

Wren was trying
to keep herself steady – to not scream or show any fear – but she was having a
difficult time with that.  She knew they would laugh at her anxiety and so she
strived to keep it to herself.