Bedtime Story (73 page)

He turned to me, his eyes wide, frantic.

“Your mother,” I said, holding the stone high. “Your mother.” I mustered all my strength. “Catch,” I said.

And the last thing I knew was throwing it to my son, watching the Sunstone arc through the air, glinting red, as everything else faded to black.

In Portland, Oregon, Stephen Griffin woke for the first time since 1952.

In Taos, New Mexico, Dan Santos opened his eyes, waking for the first time since 1963.

John Philips, in Poughkeepsie, New York, awoke after feeling he’d been in another world since 1969.

In Omaha, Nebraska, Stuart Johnson woke from a dream of shadows and stones that he had been trapped in since 1987.

In San Jose, California, Raymond Chan spoke for the first time since 1993, asking his father for a glass of water.

In Liberty, Florida, David Miles, twenty years old, awoke for the first time since 2001.

In Bellevue, Washington, Matthew Corvin opened his eyes.

The room was unfamiliar, but he knew, without knowing how, that he was home.

“Mom?” he called out, testing a voice he hadn’t used in more than thirty years. “Mom?”

He heard a scream in the distance, then the sound of feet on stairs.

“Matty?” his mother said as she stepped timidly into the room, her hands clenched in front of her as if to defend herself.

When he smiled at her, she broke, her tears accompanied by huge heaving gasps. She stumbled toward him, toward his bed, and then she was holding him and touching him and tousling his hair.

Home.

“Oh God, Matty,” she crooned. “Oh God, baby.”

In a stone room, high above the Oregon Coast, Christopher Knox opened his eyes.

The first thing I saw was a shadow. As my vision cleared, that shadow took on shape, took on David’s familiar features. He was leaning over me, his face tight with fear, his eyes widening as I smiled.

“Dad!” he said, throwing himself on top of me, hugging me tightly.

I held him close, smelling him, feeling him breathe, listening to him as he cried in my arms. All I could do was say his name.

“Davy,” I breathed.

I breathed.

“What happened?” I asked into his hair.

“You died.” The voice wasn’t his.

Glancing up, I saw Jacqui looking down at me, her face drawn and pale. The front of her shirt was drenched with blood, a ragged hole over the centre of her chest.

“Jacqui.” I reached out, weak, shaking. She took my hand. “You’re okay.”

She nodded, then her own tears came. She let them streak down her cheeks without actually allowing herself to cry.

“We have to get out of here,” she said flatly, her eyes flickering somewhere to my right.

As I followed her gaze, I became aware of waves of heat pulsating toward me. Took’s bed was on fire.

“Come on,” she urged, pulling at my hand.

I braced myself against the floor with my other hand. As I rose stiffly
to my knees, I saw a flash of silver on the floor: my lighter. I reached for it, almost falling again as I grabbed it.

I got to my feet, leaning against David. The flames were rising higher from the bed now. Deep within the orange caldera I could vaguely make out the shape of a body under the burning sheet.

I had to turn away: he had saved us all.

Jacqui took my other arm. We staggered slowly toward the door, and as we approached Cora Took’s body I pulled David closer, held his face tight to me, hiding the sight of her withered form.

She was just an old woman now, fallen dead to a hard floor.

We didn’t stop until we were outside, in the cool dark, the breeze off the water heavy with the smell of the sea, the old trees above us. As I collapsed on the front steps, David looked around in the moonlight.

“This is what it smells like,” he said quietly. “Colcott. Not the town, but just outside of it, where the trees start to close around the road.”

I looked at him, my son, my boy, come back to us from so, so far away.

The stories he could tell.

“David,” I said. I gestured at the stone step beside me, and he sat and snuggled in, still small enough to fit into my embrace. Jacqui sat down beside him, her arm around his shoulders, her hand touching my back.

At first, he didn’t want to talk about it, but I had to know what had happened, after. After I was gone.

“At first, when the man on the bed—”

“Lazarus Took,” I said.

He just looked at me for a long moment. “When he lit the book on fire, everything started to change. It was like Dafyd and his mother and the magus … they were disappearing.”

“Back into the book,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, shivering a little in the breeze. “And the Sunstone, it was fading too. When I …” He glanced at his mother. “When I touched it on Mom, it was like it started to dissolve in my hand. I didn’t think it was going to work.”

“But it did,” I said quietly. My eyes met hers; neither of us looked away.

“Yeah.”

It took me a moment; my mind was slow, groggy. “But if the Sunstone disappeared …”

He wriggled against me as he reached into his pocket, his elbow jamming into my ribs. When he pulled his hand out, he was holding the Sunstone, the chain dangling between his fingers.

“It was hers,” he said. “That woman’s.” He held the amulet out toward me. “I thought maybe, if the other one worked, this one …”

He pushed himself into me as hard as he could. I could feel his back trembling as he cried. Jacqui’s arms enwrapped him, and me, from the other side.

We just held him, for a long time.

“We should go,” Jacqui said when he began to calm, looking at us, then up at the dark house.

I nodded. “Let’s go, sport,” I said, squeezing him again for good measure.

“Home?” he asked.

I looked at Jacqui.

“Soon,” she said, meeting my eye.

Arian and Tamas had spent the day carrying armloads of splintered tables and chairs through the kitchen, piling them in the corner of the yard. They had salvaged what they could, Tamas fixing what he was able to, scavenging pieces from furniture that was beyond repair.

The Mermaid’s Rest looked almost its old self by the time they were done. There weren’t many places for people to sit, and most of the ale was lost, pooled on the floor from smashed kegs—but with no sign of Mareigh, The Mermaid wouldn’t be opening its doors that day anyway.

They hadn’t spoken much over the day, each of them alone with private thoughts. Once Tamas had told her what had happened after she went to the abbey, Arian had closed down. He had tried to cheer her, telling her, “I am sure he’ll return,” but neither of them really believed that, and silence seemed a better choice than lies, however comforting they were intended to be.

“So what should we do now?” Tamas asked, leaning against the bar.

She pulled him a flagon of the remaining ale, and set it on the bar next to his elbow.

He looked down at it. “You’ll hear about that when Mareigh gets back.”

She bit her lip. “I hope so,” she said.

“You should have one too.”

She shook her head. “Not—” And she stopped herself. “Not while I’m working.”

Tamas drank in silence as the sun slid through the front windows, the late afternoon light glowing against the floor.

At first, the sound seemed like distant thunder, a low rumble that they felt more than heard. It took a moment for Tamas to recognize it for what it was.

“Horses,” he said, starting for the door, Arian following.

All up the street, people were coming out of their doors, looking up in the direction of the castle as the sound grew louder. When the first of the riders rounded the sharp corner, people reflexively stepped back, giving the mounted guardsmen wide berth as they passed.

Four mounted guards led in full dress, pikes gleaming in the sun. Behind them, four of the Brotherhood, their cloaks rich and silver. Dress robes. Formal.

The guardsmen came to a stop just past the tavern, turning their mounts so they faced the rest of the procession.

Behind the Brotherhood, two men on horseback. One, a member of the Brotherhood, his robes grey and dingy, his beard white.

The other …

“Dafyd,” Arian whispered, and Tamas had to look twice.

It was his friend, his oldest friend, sitting high on one of the finest mounts he had ever seen. Dafyd was dressed in a simple tunic of deep green, but even from a distance Tamas could see that it was finely made, not the rough work of uniforms and street clothes. The crest of Colcott was embroidered on its front, and matched the amulet that hung from a gold chain around his neck. The gold caught the afternoon light, as did the circlet he wore on his head.

Dafyd stared straight ahead, a grim look on his face. In the weeks he had been gone, Tamas thought, he seemed to have aged years: he looked strong, confident.

As he turned to the doorway, though, he seemed to lose some internal battle for poise, his face breaking into a wide grin.

“By the gods,” Tamas muttered.

“His Majesty the King, Dafyd the Second,” one of the riders called out, and Tamas and Arian realized they’d best drop to their knees.

Behind Dafyd and the magus, a bright carriage drawn by two horses came to a stop.

Dafyd dismounted easily, almost gracefully, and moved to the door of the carriage before the steward could open it.

When Mareigh stepped out, dressed in finery befitting a lady of the court, Dafyd took her hand and led her toward the doorway.

“That,” Mareigh said, looking at the two kneeling figures, “is what I like to see.”

Arian glanced up and caught the teasing smile on the woman’s lips.

“King Dafyd?” Tamas said, staring at the ground. “What have you done?” He risked a glance up and saw Dafyd smiling at him. When the new King reached out a hand, Tamas took it and allowed himself to be drawn up to his feet, into Dafyd’s embrace.

Dafyd whispered in Tamas’s ear, “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Tamas pulled away from him. “Who?”

Dafyd cocked his head, and one of the lead riders, one of the guardsmen, dismounted and approached.

“This is Captain Knox,” he said. “He’ll be in charge of your training.”

“My …” Tamas looked between Dafyd and the soldier as the full weight of the words settled on him. “Tell me you are not joking.”

Dafyd smiled. “I am not joking. A king needs a guardsman, someone to advise him, someone to stand alongside him. And I need a friend.”

Tamas nodded and grinned, almost bursting with excitement.

“And you,” Dafyd said softly, turning to Arian, who did not raise her eyes. “Arian,” he said.

She looked up at him.

He extended his hand.

She accepted it, and allowed the new King to help her to her feet.

I drove back to the hotel at a crawl, leaning forward against the steering wheel, not trusting the roads, not trusting myself.

Jacqui was silent beside me, her face dimly lit by the blue glow of the dashboard. David was in the back, and I caught myself checking him in the mirror, over and over again, needing to reassure myself that he was there, that he was really there.

“Chris,” Jacqui said, as the road widened out of the ancient forest. “The police?”