Dreaming Awake (7 page)

Later, after we’d each found our quiet strength, I told him about his mother’s fervent wish for us to double-date that weekend. He seemed to think we should go along with her, something about keeping your enemies close. The best way to protect my father was to keep him in the dark, Haden thought.

Before sleep that night I said a silent prayer that he was right.

*  *  *

The mist wrapped the world in cotton, muting all sound and color. I shivered from a chill that began deep in my bones and radiated through the rest of my body. I was awake in Under again.

My nightgown startled me, a red satin sheath that felt cool against my skin as I walked. It rippled like ruby water.

It wasn’t mine.

I would never have chosen such a gown for myself—or the color. It was cut too low and held up by thin spaghetti straps. The shade, as red as blood, contrasted with my skin and the white mist. No, not something I would have chosen for myself.

There was no place to go but forward. I couldn’t see much of the path ahead of me, but the trail was edged in barbed spikes, which I took as a warning, so I stayed in the middle. The wind whispered words, names, and they rushed past my ears like tickles. Names of people? Some of them were recognizable; others were strange to me.

My heart beat a tattoo of fear mingled with anticipation. Where would this path lead? Another garden of bones? Had Haden sent for me? I didn’t feel the same sense of wonder that I did the night of the red and black petals. I didn’t think he was there—I couldn’t feel him at all. And while I was infused with a healthy dose of self-preservation fear, the sense of foreboding doom was also absent this trip.

As scared as I was, Under also made me feel curiously alive. My skin tingled, not unpleasantly. My senses seemed to open and each one heightened and became sharper. I smelled something sweet and fruity but like nothing I recognized.

The path began to curve. As I continued, I realized it was spiraling in on itself like a snail, the circle getting smaller and smaller until it turned me around and stopped abruptly. A wall of mist on all sides boxed me in, blinded me, and prevented me from going any farther. I slid my foot out in front of me slowly—an inch past my toes the path dropped into nothingness. Testing the area around me, I realized that there was no ground but that where I stood. I had no idea how far the drop would be if I stepped off, and there was no way to retrace my trail because it had disappeared behind me.

My pulse leaped in my throat. I was trapped in the realm of nightmares, and Haden probably didn’t even know I was in danger. I’d gotten myself into a mess and I was going to have to find my own way out of it.

I reached my hand through the mist and it became substantial, not like mist at all. Like gelatin that hasn’t thickened all the way. Convincing myself it was better than the alternative, I took a step into the abyss and hoped for . . . I don’t know what I hoped for. I only knew I couldn’t continue to stand in place and hope for rescue.

I didn’t fall—but I did sink a bit. I took another step and another and, though it was slow going, I managed to move through the whiteness that surrounded me. One misstep caused me to tumble, but rather than fall down—as
down
seemed to be a murky concept wherever I was—I floated. I began to use my arms and legs to swim through my environment. A patch of blue caught my eye and I moved towards it and the whiteness around me became fluffier in appearance.

I was swimming in clouds.

It was like being underwater, but I could breathe. The red sheath I wore kept me from kicking as hard as I’d have liked, but I found a rhythm and began to enjoy the sensation of weightlessness. The blue opening in the clouds grew larger and when I poked my head through the clouds, I was dangling above the earth.

Below my perch, quite a ways down, was a beautiful patch of huge, bright flowers surrounded by the greenest of green grass. I wanted to get down there. It looked so beautiful. The cloud I was on began descending slowly towards the ground as if I had willed it. When I got close, I jumped off and it disappeared.

It took a few moments of walking on shaky legs to feel normal again. I had been weightless, after all. The grass beneath my bare feet was damp with dew, but the sun was shining brightly and kept me warm.

The flower bed drew my eye. The flowers were waist-high and each had a little smiling face. As I neared them, I realized they were what I had smelled up in the clouds. So sweet and fruity—almost like candy. Each color had its own unique scent. I held the stem of one and inhaled deeply, feeling the fragrance travel through my nasal passages and then through the rest of me. I tasted the sweet essence as much as I smelled it. A feeling of absolute tranquillity floated through me.

The flowers giggled when I smelled them, but didn’t speak. The blue ones were my favorite. They smelled like cotton candy.

I wandered back into the grass and lay down in the warm sunshine. Several clouds returned, playing with each other and making shapes to amuse me. My eyes grew heavy and I drifted into a relaxing sleep.

When I woke up in my bedroom, the red nightgown was scratched and torn, though I had no recollection of how.

CHAPTER SEVEN

T
he next day passed in a blur. I looked for Mara around every corner—which was probably the reaction she was hoping for. I noticed that several boys from the soccer team were back in school, but they looked pretty tired.

Brittany was apparently at a doctor’s appointment, I overheard in the washroom. Most people thought she had the flu, but the more vicious rumor, the one circulating here in the ladies’ room, was that she was likely pregnant.

I waited until the girls had left before exiting my stall. Pregnant? I thought of Haden’s guilty expression the other day and wondered just how close they had gotten while I was gone.

My hands shook under the water as I washed them. She’d been after him since he first enrolled at Serendipity High. And before we’d begun dating officially, I’d been pretty sure he and Brittany had some kind of a thing together. I couldn’t know what had happened while I was in Under—but I did know that Haden hadn’t remembered me. I wasn’t even sure I could call that cheating.

But pregnant? I shook my head. I couldn’t deal with the new threat to my relationship on top of everything else, so I had to try to put it out of my mind. If Haden thought Brittany was pregnant with his child, he would tell me. I had to believe that. The most important thing right now was figuring out what Mara’s plan was and finding a way to stop her.

Haden was waiting for me in the otherwise empty hallway, leaning against a bank of lockers.

“Are you doing all right?” he asked.

I forced a smile and was about to say I was fine, but that wasn’t true. “I’m jumpy. I’m distracted. I’m worried about my father and what Mara is going to do. I don’t want my friends involved, but I don’t want them blindsided either.” And then I had an idea. “I think I should leave . . . we should leave. We could go somewhere. You could set up new identities for us like you did when you came here. We could build a new life.”

He shook his head. “Mara’s already taken too much from you, Theia. Don’t let her have your identity too.”

It occurred to me then that asking Haden to leave with me might be selfish. For the first time in his life, he had friends. He wasn’t the only human in a world of monsters anymore. All his life, he’d longed for human companionship. I wanted that for him—I wanted his happiness more than my own.

“Have you talked your father out of this weekend’s double date?” he asked.

“I wish.” I had suggested bowling, assuming that neither Mara nor my father would agree to it. I was wrong. My father, taking his cue from Mara, had agreed wholeheartedly to the disastrous plan, going so far as to instruct his personal shopper to buy him bowling shoes, a suitable outfit, and his own ball and bag. He was accessorizing—even if Mara weren’t a soul eater, this date would have certainly qualified as a hellish undertaking.

“Relax, Theia.” Haden cupped my cheeks in his palms and kissed me. White stars blanketed my vision. He smelled wonderful, a combination of spices and vanilla that reminded me of a chai latte.

He continued to kiss me until I was breathless. As he pulled away, my heart tripped as if it weren’t sure how to beat on its own anymore.

His Cheshire cat grin was firmly in place, but his eyes told me he was as gone as I was. He blinked a few times and said, “Oh, I’m supposed to tell you that we have a meeting at dawn at the bowling alley. Amelia wants to try to ward the building to nullify anything that Mara tries to do.”

“Do you think it will work?”

He shrugged. “Likely not, but it makes everyone feel less powerless.”

“It feels more like we’re putting on a bulletproof vest to face cannon.” I checked the time on my phone. “I’m supposed to be taking a quiz that I’m not prepared for right now. I have to go.”

He kissed me one more time and I felt the weight of it all like stones lining my pockets before a dive into a lake.

*
  
*
  
*

*  *  *

He’d always known it was a mistake. It didn’t stop him from racing to make it, but he’d always known their love story was a tragedy, not a happily-ever-after.

He didn’t go to class; instead he peered at her for a few minutes through the window of her classroom door. He watched her smile at a boy he didn’t know, reducing the poor kid to a puddle in his seat. He watched her puzzle over her test until she finally leaned over and copied the answers from someone else.

Haden closed his eyes. Theia was tiptoeing around the edges of her own boundaries. Before he’d come into her life, she’d navigated the gray areas of life much better. She knew what was right and what was wrong, what was black and white. And now—now he watched her struggle to find parts of herself not touched by the demon blood and not finding many. All because of him.

She would hate him when she found out what he’d been doing behind her back. He told himself it was better this way. He was doing it for her. But knowing he had to hurt her, that he was hurting her every day, left scars on his heart.

He’d known better, but he’d hoped he would be stronger, because it was his weaknesses and his yearnings that threatened to destroy the thing he wanted most to protect.

*  *  *

Friday morning we gathered behind the bowling alley to do what we could to prepare it for that night’s expected ambush from a demon, a half-demon, and a demon-poisoned girl.

Still mostly dark, the sky was just starting to pinken and the edge between night and day seemed cold and hard. A bitter breeze swirled and eddied like whispers of fated danger. To say that we were all grumpy would have been an understatement. The only morning people in the bunch were Ame and Varnie, but Varnie was mopey about the epic waves on the coast that he was going to miss, and Amelia was upset with him about a witch ball . . . or something; the details were murky on that one. Gabe was barely awake, his eyes heavily hooded, and Donny hated every day until at least nine a.m.

Ame began giving us directions as to how we were to use the smudging sticks of white sage. I tried to follow along, but my mind was working overtime on everything but the sage. The fact that I was to face Mara filled me with fear.

I’d visited the flower garden in Under again last night. I wondered if I should tell Haden about it, but I was afraid he would say it was too dangerous for me to go to Under without him. The garden replaced so much of my anxiety with peace. And I needed that peace to face whatever was coming next.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Haden said, interrupting my soul-searching.

I pulled his arms around me and snuggled my back against his chest. It was hard to think anything bad could happen when Haden held me.

He whispered sweet words into my ear and I was lost until Ame interrupted. “You two might want to pay attention. Some of the stuff we’re using this morning could have an adverse effect on both of you if you do it wrong. Especially since we’re trying to protect this place from demons like, you know . . . the two of you.”

She was wearing her vintage Doc Martens. If I’d realized that earlier, I would have paid better attention. When Amelia pulled those on, she meant business. Most of the time she was fairly goth lite. She liked subcultures well enough, but she liked to mix them with her own brand of optimism. All her skulls had pink bows, and all her spiderwebs glittered. Unrelieved black was not her style, and she saved the Docs for when she was particularly determined. I pulled out of Haden’s arms and stood at attention.

Gabe, on the other hand, was air-drumming with two white-sage smudge sticks, which annoyed Donny, so she snatched them from his hands and tried to give them to Haden. Haden stared at them dubiously, looking for confirmation from Varnie that they were safe for demon use.

Ame rolled her eyes. “You really haven’t been listening, have you? The sage is fine. You and Theia will be in charge of smudging. It’s the petroleum jelly you need to stay away from.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. “I can’t touch Vaseline?”

Varnie shook his head and made a face. “Nobody should, really. But especially not demons. It’s like holy water.”

Was he serious? I looked at Haden.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it too,” he said. “Though frankly, the sight of it has always made me nauseated. I don’t even know what it’s used for.”

Donny pulled out her hair band to redo her ponytail. Her cola brown hair always made me so jealous of the way it was shiny and not uncontrollable. “Is there a reason we had to meet here in the middle of the night to discuss personal lubricant? I mean, this could have waited until noon.”

“It’s morning, not the middle of the night. And we’re trying to be covert, which is harder at noon than it is at five a.m. It’s not the Vaseline that’s harmful, people; it’s the herbs we’re going to put
in
the Vaseline. Quit teasing them, Varnie.” Ame pulled a huge jar of it from her tote bag and gave it to Donny.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Donny asked.

Gabe leered at her. “I have a few ideas.”

Donny glared at him, but didn’t retort. It was then I realized she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Donny, in all the years I had known her, did not go anyplace a boy might be without putting her “face” on. Consequently, because Donny could find a boy just about anywhere, she was always perfectly made up.

It was early, really early, but the Donny I knew would never have let Gabe see her so undone. I wanted to hug Gabe. He’d done something no other boy had accomplished. He’d gotten past the Maybelline Great Lash.

Amelia, however, wasn’t as amused. She rolled her eyes at Gabe and pulled out a baggie of dried herbs and a mortar and pestle, handing them to him reluctantly. “You two mix the Vaseline with the herbs, and then smear some in the four corners of each window. Just a dollop. We don’t want anyone to notice it’s there.” Then she sent me a look that reminded me of my father. “And anyone with demon blood should remember not to touch the windows.”

I nodded. “Okay, we won’t touch the windows. Haden and I will do the . . . um . . . what was the word?”

“Smudging,” Varnie answered. I noticed that despite the chill, he was wearing sandals and long shorts.

“What are the two of you going to be doing?” Haden asked.

“I’m not peeing in Miss Amelia’s mason jar. That is a promise.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and got quiet.

Well, except for Donny, who snorted.

I looked at Amelia, who was pinkening like the sunrise. “Why do you want Varnie to . . . do that in your jar?”

Amelia pulled a jar full of sharp things from her bag. In it appeared to be bits of razor wire, rusty nails, thorny sticks, and shards of glass. They rattled against the sides of the jar in a disturbing anthem of cacophony. The sound made me wince, as if someone had grabbed my hand and raked my fingernails down a chalkboard.

She flashed her eyes at my disturbed reaction, and then sent Varnie an
I told you so
look. “This is a variation of a witch ball. It’s a protection against Mara’s magic. I’ve put all sorts of things in here, but it needs more organic matter.”

Donny peered closer and then pulled back abruptly. “There are bones in there. That is so skeezy-looking.”

“Well, it needs more.” Amelia rattled the jar at Varnie, who shook his head in defiance. “It would be easier for him to pee in it than for me, but no, he’s too prissy.”

“Prissy but not pissy,” Donny joked.

“I’m not prissy,” he argued. “Besides, you have plenty of organic matter in there.” He took it from her hand, the sound of the objects grinding against each other making me ill. “There’s hair and bone. Is that blood?”

As she snatched it back, the clatter weakened my knees. “Please stop making it rattle. I think I’m going to throw up.”

Instead of the Ame I was used to, the one who would have run to my aid and mothered me until I felt better, this new Amelia ignored my plea and argued with Varnie, her jerky movements sending little earthquakes of nausea through my body. “See? It wasn’t stupid. It’s already working on Theia. If you would just do your business in this jar, we could bury it in the bushes by the door. But no, you have to make everything difficult.”

Varnie, noticing my distress, grasped Amelia’s wrists so she’d stop shaking the jar. “I never said it was stupid. I just have a shy bladder.”

“Oh, for God sakes,
I’ll
pee in the jar,” said Donny.

Ame shook her head, but thankfully not the witch ball. “It will be stronger if Varnie does it. Or me. I don’t have a shy bladder, but I don’t have a pen—”

Varnie let go of her wrists and covered her mouth before she finished her sentence. “Okay, I’ll do it. God. Just stop talking about my . . . junk.”

Donny’s eyes took on the look that always meant trouble was about to happen. “Why can’t we just kill Mara somehow?”

“Donny! I can’t believe you just said that. She’s Haden’s mother. We can’t just kill her.” I was incensed that she would even suggest it.

“I don’t see why not,” Haden said. He ignored my gasp. “She wouldn’t think twice about killing any of you. She doesn’t love me, Theia. Not like a mother loves a son. She’s not capable.”

He said the words, but his face looked pained. I grasped his hand.

“It doesn’t matter. You love her.”

He wanted to deny it, but couldn’t.

Varnie patted Haden’s shoulder in a brisk, manly show of affection. “Killing Mara is a bad idea anyway. The human race actually needs her.”

Even Haden looked confused at that. “Why?”

“Look, I don’t know if we have time for a philosophical discussion here—” Varnie began.

“We don’t,” Donny interjected quickly.

Varnie fixed her with a pointed look. “But nightmares are important. They help us function—they pass down primal instincts through a sort of collective unconscious.”

“Right,” said Gabe, clearly not understanding. And probably not caring that he didn’t understand. That was one of the best things about him—he would support Donny in whatever she needed without questioning or needing to understand.

“There are some things we need to be afraid of. Things that threaten our safety—like poisonous spiders, fire, drowning, predators . . .”