Wind hit hard and sudden, rippling the surface of the water and grabbing my short hair. Havoc froze, nose up, and Val spun in crazy circles, her tongue hanging out of her teeth. I laughed at her and clapped my hand onto my thigh. “Here, girls,” I said, and they ran at me. Val knocked her shoulder into my leg, nearly bowling me over, and Havoc put her head in the palm of my hand. I scratched behind her ears.
The wind ran away west, ripping at the tall grass. Closing my eyes, I imagined looking down at the rolling hills from a bird’s eye. Pinpointed my location, then focused out until I could see the interstate just south of me. There were the sprawling suburbs creeping away from town. The Kansas River winding loose and undirected. The green summer trees all hot and bright under the sun.
It was a trick I used to orient myself so I never got lost.
Val charged into the lake, interrupting me with cool water splashed everywhere. I smelled the mud and silt, the sunbaked grass, and for a moment I was back there, just after the earthquake. Diving again and again into the murky water, running my fingers blindly against the slimy bottom, lungs burning, desperate to find her.
I dreamed about it at night. Of the sick moment I realized she hadn’t come back to the surface. The shock of relief when I finally, finally grasped her ankle. Those long, horrible moments shaking onshore, hands covered in mud and water and blood from the gash on her head, while Shanti did CPR and all our friends crowded around whispering and touching hands and shoulders, leaning in. The sound of their breath pressed into my bare skin, pushing me down.
I’d wake up choking.
With Havoc at my side, I waded into the lake where all my bad dreams came from, hoping to bury the fear back under the mud.
It was ridiculous, I knew, but I couldn’t tell Mom and Dad. Mom would blame herself. Dad would think it was some deficiency. And it sure wasn’t the kind of thing I felt like telling Matt or Dylan about in the locker room before practice. Instead I’d looked up on the Internet different theories about conquering nightmares, and most had agreed that if you confronted the root of the dream head-on, you had a chance of letting go.
So here I was. The water soaked my pants, dragging them down. I tightened the drawstring and walked out farther. My feet slipped in the silt, slime squishing up through my toes. The sun beat down on my shoulders and I rolled them, trying to relax. Then I pushed out into deeper waters. Havoc held back, staying where she could touch the bottom. When I was near the middle of the small lake, I stretched out onto my back and shut my eyes.
Tiny ripples lapped at the sides of my face, and the sun glared red through my eyelids. I floated, fingers splayed, knees bobbing up. I kept my chin tilted and imagined miles of dark water under me instead of a mere thirty feet. There were blue-gills stocked in the lake. Maybe some other kinds of small fish. A few weeks from now, I’d be swarmed with mosquitoes.
With my ears submerged, I could hear the high, muffled ring of my own blood running through my body and the flap of waves under my hands. My breath was a dull roar.
According to the Internet, I was supposed to invoke as many details as possible in order to relive the moments of my so-called trauma. It was easy to let my mind turn back to that afternoon. We were hanging here because it was part of Matt’s uncle’s property, on the first Saturday hot enough for bikinis: mostly the guys from our soccer team and some girlfriends. Around dusk I was on the dock with Holly and Matt’s girlfriend, Shanti, fiddling with a blow-up raft. Austin, being a dick before anything else, snatched Shanti’s writing notebook out of her bag to see if there were love notes to Matt inside. She was so pissed she leapt at him with one of the foam noodles, and he flung the book as far down the beach as he could, where it crashed into the branches of a wide-slung tree.
Holly caught my eye to grimace. I laughed and offered to give her a leg up into the tree. I thought of her thin beach dress fluttering in the breeze. The little flashes of thigh made me keep my eyes on her hands as she reached and reached. I’d been impressed by her strength as she hauled up higher, and then surprised when she called down, “Stop shaking the tree, Will.”
Only I wasn’t. I leaned into the trunk, palm flat against it, and felt the very small trembling. Just as soon as I noticed, the whole ground bucked like someone snapping a beach towel. Holly’s cry of panic was crowded out by the yelling and shocked laughter from the dock and beach. I fell against the tree as the shaking worsened, and called Holly’s name as she slipped. Her head snapped against the branch just before she hit the water.
The earth stilled, except for the wind and screaming birds. Matt called, “Shit, Will, you okay?”
It had happened so fast. The rest of my soccer team was crowing about how awesome the quake had been, and even Shanti was laughing, soaked from ending up in the lake with Austin. Rachel tossed her a towel and I turned back to the water. “Holly?”
Nothing.
I stared at the ripples where she’d gone in. It was shallow; she should’ve been able to stand. Without another thought, I jumped into the cold water.
The quake had thrown up mud and silt. When I opened my eyes, they burned and all I saw was murk. I dove again, running my hands blindly over slimy mud and rocks, crawling across the bottom of the lake. Again and again into the muddy darkness. My fifth dive I caught her ankle in my hand, and relief forced the air out of me in a blast of bubbles. Lungs burning, I dragged Holly up and toward shore, standing as strong as I could with her in my arms. We burst out of the water, me coughing and Holly dead weight. Shanti was screaming and met me, half taking Holly and helping to spread her out in the grass.
“Call an ambulance!” somebody yelled as Shanti scooped her finger into Holly’s mouth. I leaned on my hands and knees, shaking, while Shanti did CPR she’d learned for babysitting. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and I saw blood seeping out of Holly’s head, soaking her hair and the damp shore. It was thin and pink on my hands. I dug my fingers into the mud and—
The sharp barking of my dogs broke the memory.
I flailed up, splashing my eyes, and treaded water as I tried to see what they were up to. Both dogs stood on the beach with their tails to me, hackles raised and ears back as they stared into the nearby woods.
Swimming toward shore, I called, “Here, girls, what’s wrong?”
Valkyrie glanced at me, but Havoc growled. A low growl, the kind you feel before you hear it.
My toes touched ground just as the thing emerged from between two trees.
What I saw sucked the breath out of me.
It was a man—or a man-shaped thing—crawling with leaves and twisting branches, dripping mud. Its face looked like melted candles, except for the bright blue rocks where eyes should have been. Impossible.
I ran out of the water to my dogs, gasping. “Hello?” I said, telling myself it had to be a man, somebody in a costume or something.
The head jerked toward me and the blue rock eyes saw me.
Havoc charged, and Valkyrie followed instantly.
The thing reached down and batted Havoc away like she was a piñata.
“No!” I yelled, running full out.
It let out a strangled, bubbling cry and focused on me with its stone eyes. Then it lifted a stumplike foot and moved to crush Val.
I threw myself at it, a flying tackle. I hit hard, and all my breath was slammed out. We went tumbling. It smacked down on top of me, and I felt something jab hard into my sternum. I yelled again. Mud packed my nostrils and dropped chunks into my mouth. I spat, trying to shove it off, but the thing was heavier than a dozen midfielders. It stank of rot and pennies and wet dog. We rolled together, me choking and straining with all my strength. It was slippery and hard to get ahold of. It shoved its fingers into my mouth, ripping at my jaw. I bit down, and spat mud. It flailed and I pressed my elbow into its neck and twisted. Suddenly I was on top. I shoved down with all my weight. The thing jerked but remained under me. I stared at it, gasping for breath. My dogs barked and growled from either side.
It felt like a man but softer, with a wax face and a gaping mouth. Black feathers covered its chest, and a white piece of antler stuck out where its heart would be. One of its arms had torn off and twitched nearby.
It breathed. A great, shuddering breath, full of mud, and a rose petal fluttered up out of the tear of its mouth.
I bent over it, spitting muddy saliva. A rose petal fell out of my mouth, too.
My fingers were slick with mud, and sweat ran down into my eyes. My chest was tight, aching where the antler had struck me. Valkyrie whined, but Havoc growled. Pure relief made me light-headed. She was okay. “Hey, girl,” I said.
The mud monster bucked, nearly tipping me off. I slammed forward, pushing my hands into its shoulders as if that could keep it down. My hands slid a half inch into its loose body. Made my stomach heave.
I swallowed the nausea. It wasn’t real. It was only—only …
What was it?
Too strong, that’s what it was, I thought as it jerked again. I grasped the antler in one fist. The mud monster roared. Startling back, I tugged, and the antler popped out with a sucking sound. The thing under me shuddered.
I threw the antler aside.
The monster went still, just a pile of human-shaped muck, slowly sinking into the earth as though we rested on quicksand. But I didn’t sink.
For a long moment I just knelt there, staring down and wondering if I was crazy—or just dreaming that I was here. My breath heaved under sore ribs, and my body shook with adrenaline. I could’ve crawled out of my skin. Flown away. I suddenly craved oranges. They’d been halftime snacks at soccer games when I was ten.
Valkyrie nosed at the waxy residue caking the ground. Havoc pushed her head under my empty hand.
The wind brushed over my bare back, and from behind me a girl said, “You killed it.”
FOUR
WILL
My dogs jerked up and ran barking for the tree Holly’d fallen out of last month. Their barks were playful and excited now. I shakily got to my feet. My shoulder blades prickled as I turned my back on the remains of the mud monster.
The girl who’d spoken straddled the lowest branch of the tree. She sort of blended into it because of cargo pants and a green tank top that revealed arms covered in green and brown markings. They might have been tattoos, might have been finger paint. Black boots that looked uniform-approved dangled down on either side of the branch like anvils. In one hand was a small patchwork bag, and in the other a hunting knife. Awkward-looking goggles covered the upper half of her face.
I swallowed a sudden urge to laugh. It was that edge of adrenaline and shock turning the whole situation absurd. Mud monster, girl with goggles in a tree. Obviously.
Both Havoc and Val started barking again.
The girl jammed the knife into the branch. She shoved the goggles up over her forehead, pushing tangled yellow hair away from her face. “Are you all right?”
Pressing a hand flat against my stomach to get ahold of myself, I smiled widely up at her and wondered how far down the yellow-brick road I’d come. “I think so. I’m Will.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed and a breeze tossed her curls across her neck. It made the whole tree dance around her. Like she was part of it, grown out of the branch like a colorful fungus.
As I stared at her, something like awe simmered up from my toes.
“I’m Mab Prowd,” she finally said. There was something dark as grape juice smeared across her lips. And several small sticks poked out of her hair. Before I could ask what was going on, a crow landed on the branch just above her. Then another. They held their wings open.
She glanced at them and nodded. Three more of the big black birds swooped down from the left, batting their wings enough to blow air at me. They landed on a fallen log.
I felt uncomfortable. As if the ground was about to start shaking again, with Mab Prowd as the focus of it. Everything spinning out from her. And I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Was I gonna pass out? Dad would love that.
Valkyrie sat back and wagged her tail against the ground. Her tongue lolled out. Havoc pushed her shoulder heavily against my leg. I dug my fingers into her ruff. My dogs didn’t mind Mab, and that was the best sign I could get.
“They trust you,” she said, as if she was using them as a sign, too.
“Yeah.” We stared at each other for another long moment. I spat again, wanting the taste of blood and mud out of my mouth. “You know …,” I began, half turning my head toward the monster. “You know what that was?”
Swinging one leg up over the branch, she dropped her bag to the ground. It plopped into a bush. Carefully, she lowered herself down, jerked the hunting knife out of the tree, and let go. She landed in a crouch, then tucked her knife into the fallen bag.
I expected her to deny everything. So when she said, “It was a dream of roses,” like that explained everything, my mouth just sort of hung open.
Mab passed me, going to crouch beside the remains of the monster. It was blood, not grape juice, smeared across her lips. The roaring in my ears rose in pitch.
I turned, not really wanting my back to her. Her expression, as she studied the monster, was ferocious. I was glad she wasn’t looking at me the way she stared down at it.
Several crows pushed off the tree and landed around Mab. They hopped nearer, wings open, and I realized that it had been a dead crow nailed to the monster’s chest with the antler I’d pulled out.
Val and Havoc nosed closer to Mab, Havoc snapping at one of the crows. It flapped its wings at her and clacked its beak. I hung back, watching the scene play out as if it was a movie. A horror movie.
With both hands, Mab dug into the thing’s chest. Branches snapped, and she dug out huge handfuls of mud. The chunks that slid down her arms left a trail of bright red.
And then Mab pulled out a glistening hunk of meat. A heart. A heart.
I widened my eyes, and wasn’t sure if the earth was shaking again or if it was just me.
She whispered something, stood up, took the heart over to the bag she’d dropped out of the tree. Mindless of her filthy hands, she dug out a box of salt. And dumped a good stream of it over the heart. Tiny white salt crystals stuck to the flesh, melting in, and others trickled to the ground.
Fear tightened around my ribs. I stepped back once, and then again. Toward the lake. My foot slid on the silty shore. I needed my shoes and shirt, and to run for the car. Nothing made sense about this situation, and it couldn’t be real. I hadn’t actually come out here to fight my dreams but was still trapped in a nightmare. That had to be it.
But.
But Mab whispered over the heart and it shriveled. It dried and shrunk in her hands, and the rest of the mud monster shrunk and crumbled, too. Her lips moved surely; her hand held the heart without disgust or fear. There was something too real about her.
“Bound to the ground,” Mab said. She fisted her fingers through the shriveled heart, and it fell to dust at her feet.
I had to get away. I opened my mouth to tell Mab good luck and goodbye, but she shut her eyes and her whole body swayed. She listed hard to the side. Like she was about to faint.
Leaping across the distance, I caught her just as her knees gave out.
MAB
Weariness streamed through me into the earth. My legs trembled and the blood-sight glasses were so heavy my head bobbed like a sunflower in the wind. I tumbled, but the boy caught me in a sun-warmed embrace.
Will. He’d said it was his name, offhand and without any assumptions that it would mean anything to me. But names do matter. Will. Willpower was the thing that held all my magic together: it mattered most of all.
I blinked up at him, clutching at his bare shoulders. His face was close enough to mine that I could see his pupils contract like magic, as the sun emerged from behind a cloud.
The light dappled his skin.
He was my age, with hair cut short against his skull, and he held himself easily, even in the
midst of his confusion. A typical summer farmer’s tan darkened his elbows and forearms, even though it was only half into May.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I drew a long breath, examining the way it passed through my body. My limbs felt heavy, running with thick, tired blood. The tiredness melted my flesh, and I looked down at the remains of the doll. The moment it ran off the blood ground, it had begun its slow deterioration from so-near-human back into this ruin. My vision narrowed in to it, graying with fatigue. Because the circle had been broken, I’d expended too much energy without taking any back; I needed food and my own land for healing. “I only need to get home,” I said. “It’s just south of here.”
Will’s hand found the small of my back and pressed there, a grounding heat. He’d somehow known to remove the antler from the doll, and he knew just where to support me. He said, “You sure? I can call somebody, or drive you or take you to …” He paused as though he were unsure of himself, yet he kept his arm around me, like a piece of warm wind and sunlight.
“Please let me go,” I said again, wondering if I’d need to ask a third time, if Will was subject to rules like that.
But he said, “Okay, Mab.”
“Thank you.” I smiled, imagining the way Arthur drew people into his confidence easily, with just a relaxed gesture.
“Can you stand on your own?” he asked, hand still on my back.
I drew in another long breath and pushed off his hand. “I think so. It’s been a trying morning.” One of his dogs nosed at my fingers and I scratched behind her ears where the fur was thin and soft.
“That’s Valkyrie,” he said, letting me go and holding out his hand to the second dog. “Here’s Havoc.”
“Did he hurt her?” I had not been directly behind the doll because I’d had to change into proper forest-hunting clothes and grab extra salt. And so I’d run out of the trees just in time to see the doll slam into Will.