Falling (8 page)

The longer Linc sat up there and answered their stupid questions, the more relaxed he became. He sat up straighter, smiled and made a few jokes. The doctor finally cut them off citing his patient needing rest and we were all escorted back upstairs.

Relieved to see Linc more like himself, I gave him a tiny hug good-bye but was surprised when he wouldn’t let go.

“Bixby?” he whispered into my hair.

“What?”

“Can’t you stay here tonight?”

I pulled back a little and looked from him to our dad. “I have to take care of Grandma. What’s wrong?”

He shrugged, and then whispered, “Nothing. Just bad dreams I guess.”

He heard my tiny intake of breath and looked at me quizzically.

“What kind of dreams?” I wheezed.

“Just ... bad ones. Like I’m stuck, or ... stuck, I guess.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, don’t worry about it.”

I nodded and shoved my shaking hands into my pockets. “There are nurses out there all night if you need anything, okay? And we’ll be back tomorrow to bring you home. I’ll make Salisbury steak, okay?”

Even that didn’t cheer him up and I left the hospital feeling like a jerk. He was sick and in pain and having nightmares and not only could I not stay to keep him company, I couldn’t help but be worried for myself. I had been distracted for the last few hours but bedtime was only a short ways away and I was worried for my sanity.

THE RIDE HOME WAS ANOTHER silent one and to my dismay, Grandma wanted to go to bed right away. I would have straightened Lincoln’s room for him but I had done that obsessively after the funeral, washing and folding his clothes and making his bed, doing it all over again when my hands had been still for too long.

I tried to loiter in the living room with my dad but he kicked me out. “Seriously, Bixby, can I have five minutes to myself?”

Our outdated water heater only gave me fifteen minutes of soothing, distracting hot water and even my hair didn’t need more than a few minutes with the hair dryer. Frustrated and nervous, I found myself in bed at ten o’clock.

I lay thinking then reached over to my nightstand for a pen. After another minute of thinking, I carefully wrote out “Lincoln” on the back of my left hand and lay back down.

I tried to pay attention as I drifted off. Was it at all different than how I normally felt falling asleep? Was coming to in this new kind of dream different than Nightmare Town?

Hearing the distinct crackle of the fireplace again I realized that it was. I didn’t ever wake up in Nightmare Town, I just was there. I fell asleep, floated around in darkness for a while then my mind faded in with me standing in front of the display cases in the general store, or walking down the road to my house, or in the alley behind the pub. Here, in Jordan’s world, or dream world, I was waking up in bed.

“You are awake, aren’t you?” Ash asked.

I sighed and sat up. “Yup.”

“Good,” she said with smile, reaching into the wardrobe, searching for another ridiculous dress.

I glanced down to see the same nightgown and the carefully printed letters on my hand. With some spit and vicious rubbing, I scrubbed the ink off entirely. “You have a pen?” I asked.

Ash poked her head back out of the wardrobe. “A pin?”

“Pen.”

She shook her head. “You’ll have to ask Jordan.” The dress she pulled out was only slightly less frilly than the others. I put it on without argument and ran my fingers through my hair.

I tried to focus on the questions I wanted to ask the most. I would be getting some answers from him.

I expected to be led back to the small library, but instead of going down the stone hallway, she led me out under a stone archway and into a huge, paved yard. Giant torches lit the whole area and I was surprised to see so many people around, some pushing carts or wheelbarrows or carrying baskets or just rushing around in general.

“Isn’t it kind of late to be working?” I asked.

Ash shrugged. “I think we live on a different schedule than people do.”

I frowned at that, opened my mouth to ask her about it and promptly had it snap shut on me when I saw what was in the stable I had been led into.

A huge glossy carriage sat in the wide aisle way and in front of it were the two hugest, blackest horses I had ever seen. They looked like evil sculptures, all curves of muscles and flared nostrils and round, angry eyes. Their stamping shook the floor and if I had been suicidal enough to measure myself against them, I’m sure I would have found I could easily walk under their barreled stomachs.

Ash, who had kept walking, finally noticed I was still standing in the doorway. “Come on,” she prompted with a little wave.

I followed, skimming close to the wall. But when she opened the door to the oversized black carriage and motioned up, I balked. “No way,” I squeaked. “Not with those things pulling it.”

“Come on,” she said more forcefully, making hand motions like it would be both our necks if I didn’t jump in the carriage.

I closed my eyes and whispered to myself, “This is a dream, this is a dream, this is a dream.”

Ash grabbed my hand and shoved me up into the carriage.

Jordan was seated on one bench, looking bored. “What took so long?” he asked. “We only have a few hours.”

“What the hell are those things?” I hissed.

He frowned. “Horses. You don’t have horses in Michigan? What a weird place.”

I flung myself down onto the opposite bench. “We have horses. Normal, nice looking horses that are small enough to ride. Those look like Satan’s horses!”

Jordan grinned and managed not to be knocked from his bench like me when the carriage jerked to a start unexpectedly.

I picked myself and tried not to be totally indignant. “So what exactly is it that we’re doing?”

“I thought I’d take you on a tour of the countryside.”

“Okay, A., I didn’t realize this was a Jane Austen novel and B., it’s dark outside.”

“Jane Austen?”

“A famous classic writer!” I snapped. “I know you have books.”

Jordan frowned. “Are you angry with me?”

I sighed and took a moment to arrange the long skirt of the dress. “No. I’m just ... this is really weird. And I’m starting to think it’s real, which just makes it weirder.”

He nodded sympathetically. “But it is worth it, right? How’s your brother?”

With that my game plan snapped back into my mind. “Right! My brother! What’s wrong with him?”

Jordan rubbed a thumb down the seam of the bench. “I’d imagine the sorts of things that would be wrong with anyone who suffered in a car accident like he did.”

I shook my head. “No, well, yes, he has some injuries they say would have come from a car crash but I mean he’s not acting like Lincoln. My brother is totally fearless, he’s the best at everything, he spends all his time playing sports and off-roading in his truck. Now he’s pale and timid. And he’s having bad dreams.”

Jordan raised an eyebrow.

“Not like me. Just bad, I guess.”

He nodded and said, “So your brother is hurt, survived an accident his friend died in that he can’t remember, learned his family thought him dead and buried him and now he is having trouble sleeping?”

I chewed my lip for a moment. “You’re right. I would probably be on a psych ward right now.”

“Psych ward?”

“Oh, um, a place where they put mentally ill people who are out of control.”

“I can see I have a lot to learn from you,” Jordan said solemnly.

“What do you do with your crazy people here?” I asked, picturing dungeons again.

“Oh, we don’t have any people here. Well, besides you, and I don’t think you’re that crazy,” he said with a friendly grin.

“No people?” I repeated with my own uncertain grin.

“No, you’re the first one in a long time.”

I looked out the window to see nothing but moonlight on grass rushing past. Being locked in the fast moving carriage dragged by two demon horses further into the night with someone who didn’t consider himself a person was making feel light-headed.

“So you are a ...”

Jordan smiled. “Nothing to worry about. Not like any of those monsters you humans seem so fond of making up.”

I didn’t like his evasiveness. “So I’m a human and you’re a ...”

He settled back on the bench, crossed his leg over his knee and ran a hand through his wavy hair. He certainly looked human. “We’re very similar. I believe the thought goes that you and your people are made from dirt, my people and I are made from fire and then there’s the third kind made from light, although they don’t always stay that way,” he mused. “Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about them.”

“So is there a name for what you are?” I pressed.

“I believe the deal was I ask the questions and you answer,” he said, his jaw tightening.

I swallowed and nodded, more uncomfortable with each passing moment. The rocking of the carriage and passing of the moon stained grass should have been soothing. I waited for him to say something, afraid of what would come out of my mouth if I opened it.

“Your world has so many inventions, which one is your favorite?” he finally asked, his eyes gleaming again.

I sat dumfounded. Once again the idea that maybe I was just having some very bizarre and elaborate dreams seemed a shining possibility. “Electricity, I suppose? We wouldn’t have a lot of things without that.”

“Electricity?” he scoffed. “That’s not an invention! That’s just floating around, waiting to be harnessed, controlled. And you people do a terrible job of that anyway, what with all your ugly poles and lines marching all over the land. Ridiculous—pick another.”

A glance out the window didn’t show any utility poles but I was pretty sure I had seen light fixtures, or at the very least inside the castle it had been too bright to attribute just to fireplaces. “So how—”

“Pick another,” he interrupted darkly.

His mood swings were unsettling and seemed to put him closer to my age than I had first thought.

“All right, the printing press. That did have to be invented and without it we wouldn’t have nearly as many books or stories.”

“I disagree. Before the printing press things could still be written down and maybe your oral traditions of storytelling and passing on history wouldn’t have been pretty much destroyed,” he countered.

“Well, since I’m obviously not going to pick an invention you find acceptable, why don’t you just tell me your favorite?”

Jordan rubbed his hand together. “There are so many! And they’re all so fun! This one was a gift from my uncle,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

It was an ink pen. An expensive, heavy one, but still just a retractable ball point pen. “And why is that your favorite?” I asked, mystified.

“It writes upside down! And underwater! It has a tiny little ball in the end and a spring as well and when you push the button, you can write things out, then push the button again and it hides it away so that ink doesn’t get everywhere.”

“May I see it?” I asked, glad I wasn’t going to have to scratch something out on the back of my hand with a quill or something equally painful sounding.

He handed it over reverently. I paused for just a moment, thinking, before I carefully scrawled “Jordan” where it had previously read Lincoln.

Jordan looked at me, his head tilted. “Just an experiment,” I explained.

He smiled. “Still don’t think I’m real?”

I smiled back. “Not really.”

“That’s all right, it doesn’t matter if you do or not. You still have to uphold your end of the bargain. Your brother is alive and well, after all.”

I relaxed a little when he said that, because it was completely true. I had gotten the only thing I had ever really wanted, for Lincoln to be alive and back with me. Who cared if I thought I was a little crazy, or had more potent dreams than usual? Nobody even knew except for me, and I certainly wasn’t telling. From the outside, no one would even be able to tell I thought I had brought my brother back from the dead by making a deal with some not-human person. “Bixby?” Jordan was asking.