The End of Magic, page 9
He broke off, realizing he’d gotten carried away with himself.
“What my overly passionate brother is trying to say is: We are Magicians,” Thomas said, turning to Lizbeth, his blue eyes flashing with power.
“Which means that we have so much to teach you, last of the human Dream Keepers.”
• • •
Hessika and Eleanora had disappeared with Thomas, leaving Lizbeth and Tem alone with the girls, who were sleeping the drugged sleep of the dreamlands.
“It isn’t like it is in the real world.”
Tem slipped his hands underneath Marji’s slumbering form and lifted her into the air. She was almost too big to carry, but he cradled her dead weight to his chest with such care and gentleness—as if she were a tiny flower needing delicate handling—that Lizbeth’s heart beat a little faster watching him.
“Sleep, I mean. We have to be careful and wake them soon, or they’ll sleep forever,” he continued. “And that’s not an exaggeration. I really mean forever.”
The words sent a chill down Lizbeth’s spine.
“Are you serious?” she asked, kneeling down to scoop Ginny up in her arms.
The girl was skinny as a rail, all gangling arms and legs; easy for Lizbeth to manage.
“Dead serious,” he said in mock seriousness, like he was doing an old-school Clint Eastwood impression. “But in true ‘all seriousness,’ just think about it. We come here to the dreamlands when we sleep, so where do we go when we sleep while we’re here?”
What he was saying made a certain kind of sense. She’d never thought about what would happen if she fell asleep while she was visiting the dreamlands—a trip she’d been making almost nightly since she was a child.
“I don’t know,” she said, truly curious about the answer.
He grinned back at her, inclining his head in the direction of the Red Chapel—and she was reminded again of how handsome he was, especially when he smiled.
“Let’s take them inside and I’ll tell you.”
“All right,” she said, and grinned back at him as she followed him away from the fairyland.
They walked in silence, and like a mood ring, the dreamlands began to change with her emotional state. The scent of the small child in her arms had made her nostalgic for her mother, and while she watched, the landscape followed this bittersweet train of thought, morphing into a field of flowers she’d played in once when she was a child . . . a sea of yellow buttercups that she’d run through with her mother, their squeals of delight trapped in the amber of her mind. Lizbeth was impressed by the depth of detail the dreamlands took away when it plumbed her memories. She bit back tears as she and Tem moved through the plain of bright flowers, their honey-yellow pollen staining her feet and legs.
“You’re doing this, you know,” Tem said, as the wind gusted across the field, the song of a hundred thousand petals dancing on the breeze filling the air.
“Not on purpose,” she said.
“No, not on purpose,” he agreed.
They finally reached the edge of the buttercups and stepped across a moat of neon-green grass encircling the Red Chapel. Only now the chapel was just a giant square box assembled from long beams of hammered redwood timber with an oddly slanted bloodred door cut into its side. The door was a gnarly-looking thing that reminded Lizbeth of a bloody gash. It was unsettling and she found herself shrinking away from it.
“Bad things have happened in this place,” Lizbeth said.
“They have,” Tem said as he stood before the horrible door, one hand on the doorknob. “Blood sisters died at the Red Chapel.”
Lizbeth shivered.
“But death, as you know, is not the end.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
“Step inside and put your burden down,” Tem said, turning the knob and pushing the door open. All Lizbeth could see inside was darkness. “This way.”
He crossed the threshold, Marji still sleeping in his arms, and disappeared inside.
All Lizbeth could do was follow.
Lyse
There were just some things you didn’t know you could do until, all of a sudden, you were just doing them. That was how Lyse learned she could physically go to the dreamlands . . . and bring other people along with her.
“Holy hell,” Arrabelle said, staring at Lyse like she’d just watched her eat a newborn baby. “How the hell did you do that?”
Lyse wished she had a better answer than “I don’t really know,” but she didn’t. As soon as the blue orb had popped, she’d known exactly where she’d taken them, but not how. It had all come from instinct . . . a little voice inside her head that told her to pull off at the diner and head for the back of the parking lot. Part of her, the same part that encouraged her to follow this instinct, wondered if she’d been drawn to the specific place because there was a flow line running through it. That her personal magic was even more powerful when she drew from the bands of magical energy encircling the Earth. It seemed like a reasonable assumption, but she had so little training in magic that it was only a guess.
As much as she loved Eleanora, Lyse would always be a little angry with her grandmother for shielding her from the truth: that they were both witches. If only Eleanora had trusted her enough to bring Lyse into the fold sooner, maybe then she wouldn’t be so in the dark about her abilities. She knew that Eleanora had wanted her to have a normal life—had “protected” Lyse from the supernatural world of the covens because she loved Lyse—but dammit, sometimes she just wanted to punch her grandmother in the arm and yell at her for being so stupid.
Once again, she found herself frustrated by this train of thought and decided that it was a dead end for her. Best to put it away and focus on the problems at hand.
“Well, I don’t know for sure,” Lyse said, wishing she had more info and wasn’t just making an educated guess. “But I think my abilities were augmented by a flow line.”
Lyse shrugged. She knew this wasn’t the answer Arrabelle was looking for, but it was all she had.
“So these are the dreamlands,” Niamh said, green eyes wide as she took in the landscape around them.
It wasn’t too terribly different from the earthly plane they’d just left behind them. They were still in a parking lot. It was still night. There were still the same glowing neon letters spelling out Tessa’s Roadsider in hot pink and fuchsia . . . only as Lyse and the others watched, the neon letters in the giant sign began to melt like cotton candy stuffed into a microwave and set to high.
“Are you seeing this?” Arrabelle asked, but it was rhetorical. No question that they were all seeing it.
“Watch out, Bell,” Evan said, taking a protective stance in front of Arrabelle. “The Dumpster’s going the same way as the neon sign.”
Lyse followed Evan’s example and moved out of the way just as a load of sludge (which, until only moments before, had been a heavy-gauge-steel trash bin) headed for her feet. The sludge had a mind of its own, and that mind did not follow the rules of traditional Earth-based physics. It immediately changed its direction, veering to the left as it chased after Lyse and the others.
“Head for the car,” Evan said, but Arrabelle shook her head.
“What car?”
Arrabelle’s little red rental was gone, replaced by a grinning red plastic skull the size of a car.
“What the hell is that?” Evan asked.
“Skull,” Niamh replied, which got a withering look from Arrabelle.
“No, I got that,” Evan said, grinning. “But why?”
“That’s the million-dollar question,” Lyse said, as she began to circle around the edge of the diner toward the front of the building. “Maybe there’s an answer in there.”
She pointed to the entrance of Tessa’s Roadsider diner.
“C’mon,” she said, jogging toward the chrome-and-glass double doors.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Arrabelle asked, but she and Evan were already following Lyse toward the entrance. Niamh was the only holdout, still staring at the neon sign as it slowly began to melt into a pile of sludge the color and texture of Pepto-Bismol.
“I think the sludge is coming with us,” Niamh said, pointing to the pink goo that was getting dangerously close to her sneakers.
“Start walking,” Lyse said as she reached the entrance and pushed open the door marked In, getting a blast of chilled air to the face. “We don’t know what it’ll do if it touches you.”
“I’ve seen The Blob,” Niamh said, joining the others at the entrance. “I know what goo can do.”
“It smells amazing in here,” Lyse said, holding the door open for Evan and Arrabelle as the greasy perfume of French fries bubbling in a deep fryer and burger patties sizzling on the grill assailed their nostrils.
From the sparkly, ruby-red vinyl booths, the polished chrome-and-Formica dine-in counter—with requisite ruby-red vinyl-covered swivel seats—and the pristine white-tiled floors, this place was old-school/retro diner heaven.
“It’s like America on steroids,” Arrabelle said, wrinkling her nose as she passed Lyse. “Not a huge fan of all that fried crap.”
Niamh, the last one of them inside, disagreed.
“Oh, yeah, I like it in here,” she said, a wistful smile on her face. “Our parents took Laragh and me to a place like this near Seattle once. We could order anything we wanted . . . it was the first time I ever had a milkshake . . . it was strawberry.”
“Do you smell that?” Arrabelle asked—and Lyse nodded: She sure did.
Fresh strawberries, vanilla, and heavy whipping cream. This new aroma displaced the diner smells, though no matter where Lyse looked she could find no one doing any cooking.
“Uh, I think we’re being followed,” Arrabelle said, looking pointedly at the white-tiled floor.
Lyse followed Arrabelle’s gaze to the entrance. The Pepto-Bismol-colored sludge had pushed open one of the glass doors and was now making its way inside the diner. The closer the sludge got to them, the stronger the strawberry milkshake aroma became until it was almost overpowering.
“I think we’ve found the origin of the milkshake smell,” Evan said, pulling Arrabelle along with him as he moved away from the sludge and farther into the diner.
“No kidding,” Lyse said. As a finger of sludge snaked toward her sneaker, she hopped up onto the seat of one of the booths, the soles of her shoes squeaking on the red vinyl. “Niamh! Get on a booth or one of the counter stools.”
“No, I think it’s okay,” Niamh said—and Lyse watched in horror as the younger woman knelt down beside the goop to examine it.
“Niamh—” Evan said, a warning in his tone.
“It’s okay, Evan,” she said, and tentatively stuck a finger into the thick goo.
Lyse closed her eyes, not wanting to see Niamh’s finger dissolved down to the bone.
“Mmm . . . that’s yummy.”
“It didn’t eat you?” Lyse asked, still not wanting to look.
“Nope,” Niamh said—and Lyse opened her eyes in time to catch Niamh licking her finger. “I ate it.”
“C’mon, Niamh,” Evan said, shaking his head. “Really? You had to eat it?”
Niamh, still squatting by the doorway, turned to face the others, a big grin on her face.
“It’s strawberry milkshake.”
The sludge had surrounded Niamh, leaving a tiny island of white tile where she knelt. Now that it had what it wanted—Niamh under its guard—it remained where it was, unmoving. Whatever the sludge was, it was clearly interested in Niamh and wanted to be as close to her as possible.
“Niamh,” Lyse said, “I want you to think about turning the strawberry milkshake into a chocolate one.”
Niamh looked up at her, frowning.
“I know it sounds super weird, but can you do that?” Lyse continued.
Niamh nodded, but she looked skeptical.
“I’ll try,” she said.
She scrunched up her face and closed her eyes, doing as Lyse asked. At first, nothing happened, but then the sludge began to bubble—hesitantly and then with more energy. Lyse watched as the gooey sludge began to get darker and darker until it was no longer a pale Pepto-pink, but a rich chocolatey brown.
“Smells like chocolate,” Arrabelle said. Lyse could smell it, too, the warm sugary goodness of chocolate filling the air.
Niamh dipped her finger into the brown goop.
“You don’t have to eat it,” Evan began, but too late—Niamh had already popped the goop-covered finger into her mouth.
“Yep, that’s chocolate, all right,” Niamh said, and grinned.
Lyse realized that Niamh’s ability to manipulate the physical form of things here in the dreamlands made a weird kind of sense. She’d never been able to control what happened in her dreams, but Lyse had read about other people who possessed the talent—and she had the distinct feeling Niamh was one of them. Which meant that they were much safer traveling in the dreamlands with Niamh to navigate their way.
“I think it’s okay to come down now,” Niamh said, standing up and wiping the goo from her hands onto the front of her jeans. “It’s just a milkshake.”
She offered her hand to Lyse, and Lyse took it, letting Niamh help her climb down from her perch on the red vinyl seat. As she alighted from the booth, the sludge moved out of her way, leaving a clean spot for her to stand in. Evan and Arrabelle did the same, and the sludge obliged by clearing a path for them to join Niamh and Lyse.
“You’re controlling the sludge,” Lyse said.
Niamh nodded.
“I see that. It was kind of obvious when the sludge went all chocolatey.”
Evan seemed to catch on to the implication of what Lyse was saying.
“Niamh, you were manipulating the diner and you didn’t even realize it,” he said. “I’ve heard you tell Yesinia—she was the master of our coven,” he explained to Lyse and Arrabelle, “about making stuff happen in your dreams. Controlling your nightmares . . .”
Niamh shrugged, shoving her hands into her pants pockets.
“But that’s different.”
Lyse disagreed—it was exactly the same thing.
“If you can control stuff in your dreams, then you can do it here. These are the dreamlands. This is where you come when you dream.”
Lyse knelt down and dragged her finger through the sludge. She held it up to the light for the others to see.
“This place is made of dreams, Niamh,” she said. “You ate a dream.”
Niamh laughed.
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“I think it’s time we got out of here,” Arrabelle said. “Let’s see what’s here and then let’s figure out how to get home.”
“Agreed,” Lyse said.
The four of them headed toward the double doors.
“The world is a new place, Niamh,” Arrabelle said. “What was impossible before? Well, who’s to say it’s impossible now . . .”
Arrabelle let her words trail off as she placed her hands against the glass and pushed the Out door open. It swung forward and she stepped into the night, pressing her back against the door and holding it wide so the others could pass. Niamh looked uncertain, her eyes switching from Evan to Lyse, then to Arrabelle and back again.
“Maybe. It’s a little scary to realize that whatever I think can become reality here. Makes me not want to think . . .”
“You’re looking at it the wrong way,” Evan said. “You have a gift. Use it wisely and you don’t have to worry about it.”
“I had no idea I could take us all to the dreamlands,” Lyse said, smiling at Niamh. “It freaked me out, too. But it saved us from the bad guys, and that’s something.”
“I just imagined and a neon sign turned into a puddle of strawberry milkshake.”
“You never know when that ‘imagining’ gift of yours could be the thing that saves the entire world,” Lyse said, putting her hand on Niamh’s arm and gently guiding them both out into the night.
Niamh snorted—but she didn’t argue.
• • •
They’d been walking in the desert for what felt like forever.
After they’d left the diner, they’d headed out onto the highway, following the road signs that pointed them toward Los Angeles. It was an empty stretch of road. No cars, no bikes, no buses, no airplanes . . . no other travelers. The dreamlands must be such a vast place that you could walk forever and never run into another person.
It was also an incredibly changeable landscape. You blinked and things were different—which was how they’d found themselves not on a highway at night anymore, but on a flat plain of bloodred desert in the middle of the afternoon, their shoes sinking into the sand. Lyse missed the firm asphalt of the road under her feet, and she hated missing something as important as watching night being instantly swapped for day.
We could spend forever wandering the dreamlands, Lyse thought, and never reach a real destination.
She knew they needed to get back to the real world—and soon. Things were already a mess in their reality, and the four of them being gone so long was a bad idea. The only problem was that since she had no experience with venturing in and out of the dreamlands, she wasn’t really sure where they’d end up if she did manage to get them out. Would they be right back where they started—with the white pickup truck barreling toward them? Did where you were in the dreamlands correspond with where you were in reality, or was it all arbitrary?
Lyse didn’t want to do something that might endanger them all.
Her uncertainty made her unwilling to act. She recognized that logic was unhelpful because it didn’t really work that way in the dreamlands . . . a place where Niamh could turn cars into skulls and neon signs into milkshakes. And the only time she’d ever seen someone moving in and out of the dreamlands was watching Lizbeth do it in Elysian Park. Her physical form had remained behind while her spirit traveled here—but their situation was totally different. Lyse and the others hadn’t left their bodies behind. They’d been awake when they’d entered the dreamlands.
