Exit Light (19 page)

In the first days home after her accident, Tovah had avoided sleep. Every time she’d closed her eyes, she’d relived the crash in vivid detail, made worse by knowing it was a dream. No matter how many times she’d fought it, each night had sent her back to that car, the shriek of metal on metal and the fear.

Now she knew she’d dreamed it over and over as a way of releasing herself from the horror. Working through it. Now she understood the people who’d appeared had been guides, there to help her survive the horrid event, but back then she’d been so desperate to avoid it she’d kept herself from sleep by any method she could.

Cold showers, lots of coffee and soft drinks, forgoing pain medication. She’d set her alarm to ring every twenty minutes, just before she’d start to drift into dreams. And it had worked for a while.

Sleep is as vital to human existence as food, water and air. A sleep-deprived person might suffer lack of judgment, poor coordination. Mood swings. In severe cases, even hallucinations as the dream world tries to connect with the waking. The Ephemeros had its way of making itself noticed even to those most determined to ignore it.

It had started, for her, with simple things. The changing numbers on the clock and the inability to read even the most basic texts because the letters refused to stay in place on the page. The sound of voices had come next, along with seeing things from the corners of her vision that disappeared when she faced them head-on.

She’d thought she was being haunted.

The more the real world dissolved around her, the more virulently Tovah had fought sleep. Kevin had gone at her bequest, their marriage ruined, and she had nobody there to notice if she sat up night after night pressing the buttons on her remote control to find something to keep her awake.

Tovah didn’t remember the breakdown and had never been brave enough to ask anyone the full story. All she remembered was stumbling into the health-and-beauty aisle of a local discount store. She’d swept handfuls of boxes off the shelves, looking for sleeping pills.

“I can’t take it any longer,” she’d said over and over. “I can’t stay awake any longer.”

In the hospital with drugs and therapy trying to “fix” her, Tovah had met Henry Tuckens one day. Spider the next. It had been weeks before she realized they were the same. Months before she could do the things Spider had told her she could.

She’d
been
crazy. She never wanted to do that again. Yet now, with the nightmare still fresh in her mind, Tovah once again was trying to stop herself from going to sleep.

Her computer offered distraction in the form of more Justin Ross interviews and movie clips. Email, celebrity gossip sites, some online shopping. The night wasted away and her eyes got heavy, but she couldn’t bear to risk finding herself back in that car.

From her window she could look across to Martin’s house. The light in the kitchen was on. She saw his shadow shifting behind the curtains. Martin was awake, too.

Soft music tickled her eardrums. She wanted to dance. With a partner, yes, a tall man with eyes that shifted color and a face that always changed…

Tovah sat up straight. The keyboard had imprinted its buttons on her cheek, and she rubbed the numb skin. She’d been dreaming, almost, of Edward.

Not even he was a comfort she wanted to risk.

Soft meadow grass tickled her bare feet as she ran, laughing, after a butterfly. A man stood waiting for her at the meadow’s other side. He reached for her. She reached for him as she ran, still too far to see his face.

“Shit!” Tovah jerked in her chair and slapped her face lightly.

She couldn’t stay awake. She simply couldn’t. She was drifting too much. Without thinking too hard, so she didn’t lose courage, she grabbed her phone and dialed a number.

“Hello?”

“Martin,” Tovah said. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No.”

She could hear a smile in his voice. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. What’s wrong?”

Nothing was wrong now, nothing at all. The conversation started off a bit slow but something about the night and the distance provided by the phone made it easier to be honest. To flirt, a little. To share.

She moved to her bedroom, still talking. Took care of her bedtime routine, still talking. Slipped into bed between soft sheets and cradled her head on the pillow.

Still talking to Martin.

“I think you’re lovely,” he told her in a voice like warmed honey. “You’re smart and brave and lovely, Tovah.”

His words moved over her like hot chocolate on a cold day, like a cool breeze on an August night. “I like you, too, Martin. A lot.”

“I’m glad.” His small, deep laugh prompted one from her. “Because I don’t have many people in my life. I’m glad you’re in mine.”

This touched her. “I’m glad to be in it, too.”

“Tovah?”

“Yes, Martin?”

“It’s morning.”

So it was. Smiling and stretching without getting up, she cupped the phone closer to her ear as she rolled onto her side. “We talked all night long. Martin?”

But Martin’s only answer was the hum of the dial tone.

Startled, Tovah disconnected the call and sat up. Her eyes no longer felt heavy. Had she slept? Had they talked?

Or had she dreamed it all?

“You look lousy.” Kelly didn’t pull any punches.

Tovah didn’t mind. It was true. “I’m having a hard time sleeping lately.”

Kelly gave a low noise. “You and me both, hon. I told you, it’s something in the water.”

Tovah swigged water and looked at her friend. “Bad dreams?”

“Hell, yes. I’d go back to chasing Justin Ross with a vibrating penis any day.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad to me, either.” Tovah gripped the treadmill’s handles tighter. “I don’t know how he’d feel about it, but…yeah.”

Kelly stepped up her pace a bit and wiped some sweat from her brow. “Frank says it’s because I worry that he’s not home. That maybe we should get a dog or something, but I told him I don’t dream about someone breaking in. I dream about the whole damned world falling apart around my ears. Like I’m in an earthquake but worse. Pieces fall away and they’re just…gone. And then I wake up and I’m so damned tired I’m afraid I’ll drive off the road on the way to work or something.”

Tovah looked at her friend. “No. Oh, you have to be careful!”

Kelly laughed a little. “Yes, I know. Frank said the same thing. But I’m okay, Tovah, really. It’s just these damn dreams.”

Tovah shuddered at the thought of Kelly in a car accident. “Just be careful, Kelly. Promise me.”

“I promise.” Kelly looked at her. “Hey, are you all right?”

“Yes. I just need some sugar.” Tovah forced a smile.

She wasn’t all right. Something bad was happening and not just to her. Avoiding it wasn’t going to make it go away. She had a responsibility to do what she could.

Even if that meant facing her own nightmares.

Tovah shaped another mountain in front of her. A higher one, this time, with fewer places to grab. Spitting into her palms, she rubbed them together. She flexed her fingers.

She wasn’t paying attention to anything but the gray stone in front of her. Grass beneath her feet, the sound of waves, the scent of salt. The beach had nothing to do with her urge to shape herself away from whoever wanted it. She was going to get to the top of this mountain before she woke up.

“Did you know an octopus has no bones?”

She turned at the sound of the voice beside her, automatically testing to see if it belonged to a sleeper or a shaper. She took her hands away from the rocks when she saw who’d spoken. “Oh. It’s you.”

Ben smiled. “Last time I checked.”

Tovah didn’t smile. “I’m sort of busy, Ben.”

“I see that. I just thought I’d say hello.”

“You didn’t say hello, you said octopuses don’t have bones.”

“They don’t.”

Tovah gave him a narrow, sideways glance. “Are you stalking me?”

“Maybe.”

Tovah’s mouth wanted to curl, but she forced it downward instead of upward. He didn’t seem perturbed.

Without her attention, the mountain had dissolved into a sand dune. She looked around. The beach scene had grown more detailed, mostly from Ben, but her will was automatically filling in the empty places, too. It was interesting, that her sand was golden brown and his was white. Together they made a patchwork quilt of sand. Farther down, the beach faded into smooth black stones. A few people were fishing, some with rods and some with nets.

“Why the beach?” she asked.

“Why not? Don’t you like the beach?”

She looked around again. “It’s all right.”

In the waking world, she hadn’t been to the beach in a long time. She didn’t want to think about what sand would do to her leg, how it would be impossible to keep the joints clean or how walking would be even more of a challenge.

She had no problems now and wiggled her toes deeper into the sand. A wave curled toward her feet, wetting them. The water was as warm as bath water.

“I thought it would be cold,” she said with a small laugh.

“I don’t like cold water.”

She nodded, watching him. “This place still surprises me.”

“It probably always will. That’s the nature of it. But it gets easier, the longer you’re here.”

“Most things do.”

They’d begun walking while they talked, toward the rocks and the fishermen. A small red crab scuttled out of the water, directly beneath her foot, and Tovah automatically sidestepped. More crabs appeared, each as tiny and perfect as someone’s will could shape them. They merged, becoming one, and crept back beneath the water.

“You like crabs?” Tovah gave Ben another sideways glance.

“That wasn’t me.” He laughed, pointing at the water. “There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of wills working here. Someone has a crab fetish, I guess.”

No matter how far they walked, they weren’t getting closer to the rocks and the fishermen. “I don’t see hundreds of people.”

“You don’t have to see them. It’s not about seeing anything.”

“Yeah. Right, right.” Even now it was still a hard concept around which to wrap her mind. That the Ephemeros, the dream world, was formed from the collective subconscious of the world. That it was a genuine, alternate plane of reality, existing simultaneously in the minds of every person on earth and accessible only in sleep.

“How many people are sleeping right now?” she asked suddenly.

Ben bent to pick up a flat stone and, turning, skipped it out across the water. “A lot.”

“I read once that on average, we spend a third of our lives sleeping. I had a roommate in college who hated to sleep. She said she’d rather be awake all the time and just take her third all at once, at the end of her life. Just close her eyes when she was done and spend the rest of it asleep, but give her every moment she could take right now.”

Ben picked up another stone. A breeze ruffled his hair. “She wouldn’t have really wanted that. People need to sleep.”

“And dream.” Tovah found her own smooth stone and attempted skipping it. She wasn’t as successful. “People who don’t dream get sick.”

“So do people who dream too much.” Ben turned to her. “There has to be a balance.”

“That’s what I keep trying to tell Spider.” This time, when she took a step, Tovah shaped less distance between them and the rocks.

“You’re good.”

The appreciation in his tone made her turn to look at him. “What makes you say that?”

“You want something. You make it happen, but it’s not jarring. It’s nice being around you.”

She shot him a look that clearly said she thought he was yanking her chain. “Uh-huh.”

“I mean it.”

She shrugged. “You’re better than I am. Stronger. Way smoother.”

Ben shook his head, staring off toward the sea. “Only because I spend more time here than you. That’s all.”

“Well, believe me, if it weren’t for this freaky shit that’s been going on here lately, I’d be happier to spend more time here.”

“No.” Ben looked at her sharply. “You think that, but you don’t mean it.”

“You can read my mind?” She tossed a pebble toward the water. “Relax. I’m only teasing you, Ben.”

Now she could see that the group of people on the rocks were really a family. Mother, Father, Son. She wondered which one of them was dreaming. Or if all of them were.

“Can I ask you something, Tovah?”

Tovah paused. The sea swirled around their ankles and she cherished the sensation, even if the water wasn’t cold like she’d have shaped it. She looked over at Ben. “Sure.”

Ben looked out over the ocean, itself a patchwork of color and texture. It was, she realized, a perfect representation of the Ephemeros itself. A patchwork sea.

“Why don’t you want to be a guide? Really?”

Tovah studied him. He wasn’t looking at her. His face was also pleasant in profile. The curve of his forehead met the swoop of the bridge of his nose, and his chin anchored everything together. Ben had a good face.

He couldn’t know her thoughts on that were changing. “The Ephemeros is a playground. I wanted to swing on the monkey bars, not be the monitor.”

Son had cast his net into the ocean. His dream then, she guessed. He pulled in the net, empty, and cast it out again while his parents encouraged him.

He brought up a net full of shining silver fishes, glittering like they’d been covered by sequins. Some of them wore tiny top hats. Some of them were singing.

Ben stopped walking. His hands thrust deep into his pockets, he steadfastly didn’t look at her. He lifted his chin a bit toward the kid casting out his net again. “What do you think he’s trying to catch?”

Tovah studied the scene in front of them. The waves had gotten bigger, rising higher on the sand. Mother and Father faced into the wind whipping off the sea. Tovah had thought they were encouraging Son in his fishing, but now that she was closer she could hear what they were saying. All of it was spoken in fond, loving tones almost syrupy in sweetness. None of it was nice.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Son cast out his net again. His small shoulders hunched with the effort of drawing it in. When it arrived empty, the taunting of Mother and Father got a little louder.

“Do you think he’s just trying to make them happy?” Ben asked. “Or is he doing this for himself? What do you think he wants to find in that net, Tovah? Is he wishing that just once he’ll pull in something bright and magic that will change his life?”

Tovah looked at him. This speech was like nothing she’d ever heard from Ben before, and yet it sounded truer than anything he’d ever said. She looked again at the family trio dredging the ocean for something unknown.

“Is that what you’re always hoping for? Something bright and magic?”

Ben’s smile only made it to half of his mouth. “Tell me you don’t.”

She could feel soft sand between all ten of her toes. She could walk without losing her balance, climb and run without fear of falling. She was here and whole, in dreams.

“I know the difference between this life and my waking one, Ben. Nothing that happens in here changes anything about my life when I’m awake. Hoping to make a change from something I do in here is a waste of time.”

Ben nodded, looking down at the line he drew in the sand with his foot. She’d never seen his bare feet before, the long, strong toes and smooth pale skin below the ragged hem of his cords. Seeing his feet felt suddenly intimate and tender. She looked away.

“I know,” Ben said in a low voice. “But I can’t stop trying. Okay? Is that the answer you want to hear?”

He looked up. His eyes held hers. Something passed between them. In the waking world it would have been a hint, unknowable, a guess. Here, it entered her like a wisp of smoke or perfume breathed deep. A scent and taste wrapped up together to create emotion, and it sank immediately into her heart and lodged there so tight and fast she momentarily could not breathe.

“Is that why you keep me so far from you?” Tovah whispered the question on the outward-bound breath. “I thought it was because you didn’t like me, but—”

“Things that happen here do change what happens there, Tovah. I have to believe they do. I have to.”

The note of quiet desperation moved her toward him, but she stopped herself from touching him. Her hand outstretched between them seemed sad and anxious and she withdrew it after a heartbeat. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. Every line of his body bespoke sadness struggling not to be grief.

A thousand words rushed to her throat and were imprisoned behind her teeth. Her lips parted, but nothing came out. So much to say and none of it seemed right.

“I’m sorry, Tovah.” Ben looked out at the now-black sea.

She’d lost something she hadn’t known she had. A gift taken away before it had been given. Something fragile broken by a heavy hand.

She thought of Ben making her a mermaid, and of how he’d kissed her just that once before he’d known she wasn’t something bright and magic that would change his life. Of how he’d always been there, no matter what time she came or left. Of how he’d been the one to help her when things got scary, how his encouragement and friendship had been her rescue, not just his hand pulling her free. And she thought of how many times she had slipped into the Ephemeros hoping to see him and settling for something anonymous instead.

“We’re friends,” she whispered, aching. “Aren’t we?”

He looked at her then, his smile familiar and lovely. “Yes.”

And that was all. Because he believed that anything more here would change something in the waking world. The real world. And he didn’t want her there.

She managed a smile. “Okay, then.”

The knowledge between them didn’t dissipate, but it eased a bit. Ben looked up at the sound of a shout. Son had caught something bigger in his net than glittering cabaret fishes.

Tovah looked, too, and took an unconscious step back in shock at what she saw.

Son had, indeed, pulled out something bright and magic, and Tovah looked at Ben at once, certain he’d had a hand in shaping it. But Ben looked as stunned as she felt. His hand came out of his pocket, and instead of stepping back he’d gone one forward, fingers curled as though he meant to reach.

Son had pulled a mermaid from the water.

No golden-tressed buxom beauty with sequined scales and a sweet, trilling voice. This creature had been dragged from the depths of the sea’s darkness, and it writhed and mewled in fury or agony at being made to face the light.

Its torso was human-shaped by broad definition, with two dangling arms ending in webbed hands. It had no breasts, for it was clearly never meant to suckle or nurture its young. Trailing remoras clung to skin nearly translucent in its lack of color, fading into deep gray where the torso met the scales of its tail. A series of dorsal spikes lay flat along its spine, and they jutted upright as Tovah watched Son struggle with the net. His hand landed on one of them and he cried out, jerking away. Clear poison leaked from the tips of the spines, bubbling as it hit the sand when Son dropped the net.

The creature turned as it fell, and the face—oh, the face was an abomination. Eyes, nose, a gaping, screaming mouth lined with multiple rows of teeth like a shark—it was the face of something damned and, worse, it knew it. Intelligence glittered in round eyes without any differentiation between iris and pupil.

Tovah put a hand over her mouth and nose to hold back a gag at the creature’s stench. Ben stepped forward, closer, with a low, agonized groan. “Ben, no!”