Forsaken Dreamscape (Nevermor) (39 page)

“I’m
fine,” she said, managing a smile just for him. “Just tired.”

“Try
to cheer up,” he encouraged her.  “It’s like the old days!”

She
forced herself to nod and he went back to his eating, looking quite pleased. 
It was as if there was nothing awful on his mind.  She envied his blind trust.

Wren
peered about to locate the others in the large circle around the fire, where
the Tribals continued with their droning songs.  Calico was nowhere to be seen
– at least was not visible within the crowd of her own people.  Wren spotted
Finn charming two pretty Tribal maidens, talking away as they giggled, but Wren
wasn’t sure they even knew what he was saying.  He didn’t seem to be bothered
by that.  He talked on without a care.

Looking
on, Wren’s eyes found Nix precisely where she’d thought they would: beneath a
cloud of thick smoke.  He’d taken up well with these people, and their smoke
was just as good as his own – perhaps better by the look of things.  He looked
very relaxed across there, ready to drift off into a most perfect sleep at any
moment.  How nice it must have been.  Wren longed for that feeling.

He
glanced up and met her gaze by chance, and at the corner of his mouth, she
thought she could see the faintest smug curve.  It said one thing to her:

I
told you, didn’t I?

Yes,
he had warned her against her blind faith, and now he could see her doubts. 
She admitted it to herself, but not aloud.  She had not completely given up on
Rifter, but she was afraid of what he would say and why he would lie.  Nix had
been trying to tell her this all along.

She
saw his lips move past the smoke, forming a word she couldn’t hear.

Wren…
  He was calling
for her.  She almost went to him, but her resolve was broken by a hand on her
shoulder and a voice in her ear.

“Wren,
will you come with me?” 

She
turned to see Calico leaning over her, peering intently into her eyes.  Shaken,
Wren could not answer right away.  How could she forget that this savage maiden
had tried to steal off with her before, and in this much confusion, it would
not be hard to do again.

“Why? 
What is it?”

“He
wants to see you.”  That was all Calico said, and Wren found herself rising
despite her better judgment.

She
followed the huntress through the dark, away from the camp and the sounds of
celebration.  Calico had cleaned herself up, now in a more traditional garment
common to the women of her people – a wrapped dress covered in painted designs.

Wren
wondered where she was being led and almost mentioned that she did not wish to
go too far, but the amount of vegetation this way had stolen her thoughts.  The
grass was very tall here, and there were numerous flowers blooming across the
ground.  Was this dew on the grass, dampening her heels?  Wren followed Calico
down a path lit by torches and fireflies until they came to a pond, where
finally they stopped.  Immediately, Wren noted that the water was pure.  It was
not black or stagnate like the rest she had seen.

There
were crystals glowing around the edge of the pond, and from that light, Wren
saw him.  Standing on a large rock at the pond’s edge, facing the water, was a
boy.

Wren
stared at him for a long time before she dared to speak.  She had lost track of
Calico, and she could not say whether the girl had left or if she was standing right
beside her.  This boy – there was something very strange about him.

He
stood there, wearing clothes that were accented with fur much like that of a
raccoon.  Three long, full tails of gray-brown and black stripes hung from the
back of his pants.  Trophies?  Perhaps.  Pointed ears, possibly from the same
sort of creature, were mounted atop his head on either side.  Thick, feathery
hair fell to his shoulders, the same color as the gray-brown fur he wore.

But,
wait…

Wren
took a few steps closer.  Was that a swish of those tails not brought on by
wind?  Had she seen a flick of one of those pointed, furry ears atop his head?

“It’s
beautiful, isn’t it?” she heard a voice say.  He was speaking, and his voice
was the gentlest, smoothest sound she had ever heard, like the wind whispering
through the grass.  “But there’s still fault with it.  It makes everything else
so sad.  It’s not fair to the rest of the land for this place to be so
beautiful.  But nothing else can be done now.  That is why you are here, I imagine. 
You would hope to save this forsaken dreamscape of ours.”

He
turned to face her, and she saw the fullness of his truth.  He was a boy, but
he was also a
creature
.  The ears and the tails were not trophies.  They
were his own.  Wren looked at his hands, seeing that they were like human
hands, only they were also like the fleshy claws of a rat.  Long nails
protruded from them.  All those features were striking enough, but there was
one more thing that she couldn’t help noticing.  Over his eyes, there was tied
a bandage bearing marks similar to those on Nix’s arms.  She gasped, recalling
his talk of how beautiful this land was.  But how could he have possibly known?

This
animal boy was
blind
.

He
stood patiently, as if knowing that she wanted to examine him.  When she had
finished, and not a moment before, he hopped down from the rock and approached
her.  Wren noticed that he was near her age, but he could not have been much
taller than she.  His body was thin, but it did not look frail; only muscle and
bone, it seemed.

“Wren,”
he said with a calm, gentle voice.  His delicate lips smiled at her and he held
out his strange hands for her to put her own inside.

Of
all the boys she had reunited with, as soon as he had said her name, she knew
him instantly.

“Sly,”
she addressed with quiet sympathy, taking his hands without hesitation.  “What
has happened to you?”

2

Glowing
eyes like crushed amber looked onward into the distance.  The Rifter sat alone
in the dark, waiting for the moment when they would come.  He was certain they
were on their way.  He had given Wren instructions, and he knew she would do
her best to fulfill them.

Ah,
Wren
. 
He thought of her fondly then.  She was beautiful, her hair so long and soft. 
Her eyes looked at him so adoringly – and that was the most important thing. 
Beyond her initial fear, she looked at him like she could not ever look at anyone
else, and Rifter loved that about her most.

He
sighed as he sat, waiting for her.  She would be along soon.  Would she bring
all of the boys as she had promised?

She
will.  She will not let me down.

As
he sat amidst the ruins in the dark of the night, he was suddenly aware of a
presence behind him.  He was not alarmed, however.  Rifter peered back over his
shoulder halfheartedly, and a gleam of light was there to catch his attention.

“You
shouldn’t be here,” he warned.

An
apology reached his ears.  What sounded to most like an uncommon whisper could
be interpreted into perfect English by him.

“
I
wanted to see you
,” the fairy said. “
I haven’t been near you like this
in a very long time
.”

Whisper
moved hesitantly through the air on her shimmering, transparent wings, edging
toward the boy she loved.  He did not look at her, only out into the distance.

“We
can’t be together like this.  We have gone our separate ways.  You remember.”

He
knew she did.  Whisper looked down at her hands with sadness in her eyes.

“I
could have let you stay with me if you hadn’t gone after Wren in the
otherworld.  That was the choice you made.”

“
Just
tell me once, so that I might be content
,” she pleaded. “
Tell me that if
I was Wren’s size, you would have me in her place!
”

He
sent his odd gaze to the fairy wisp who had been his companion.  She had looked
after Rifter since the beginning of it all, and all she had done had been to
protect him.  She had tried to destroy Wren because she thought it was best to
keep him safe, and while he knew these things, he could not choose both of them
for the same task.

Whisper
was right when she said that they had not been together in a long time.  It
would not be acceptable for them to be seen together now.  They should have
been bitterly opposed, but who would see them?  This place was deserted for
now.  No one was around for miles, save for them, and oddly, he did not feel so
hateful toward her.  He held out his hand.

“
Please
,”
she said.  “
Tell me that you still love me
.”

Rifter
smiled wickedly.  “I will tell you that if you were Wren’s size, you would not
want
to be in her place.”

Absently
as he stared off into the distance, he stroked the length of her torso with his
thumb.  The fairy sighed in ecstasy at the caress of his fingers, but Rifter
was not with her in his mind.  On his face was an expression of resolve.

“They
will come,” he said, though his tone was angry at the thought that they might
not
come. “It is the only way.  She will not fail me.  She will not–”

At
a sharp pain, Rifter gripped his chest, releasing the glowing creature that had
been so content in his grip.  His mouth twisted in an awful grimace, bearing
his fangs.  This old pain…  Would it never cease?

When
he opened his eyes, he saw that Whisper was hovering there, full of concern. 
She coaxed his hands away and untied the strings that bound his shirt, pulling
at them until the material fell open.  There, in the middle of his firm chest,
was the scar.

The
wound had been deep and had healed badly, running from his collar bone all the
way to his navel.  But it was not the only one.  There were many others, marks
where he had been stabbed and shot, murdered again and again, yet he was not
dead.  Whisper shook her head sorrowfully at the sight.  The white-haired boy
sighed.

“After
so long, I don’t understand why there is still pain.”  His voice changed from
sorrow to determination.  “But Wren’s going to see that it goes away very
soon.  Then they will all help me take this world.  We will fix Nevermor yet.”

Even
beyond his pain, the Rifter smiled.  Within him, a fire flared.

3

Whisper
did not stop to think that Rifter’s words might mean bad things for her.  But
it was as he’d said.  She’d made her choices.  She was glad to have seen his
face, but knew she would not see it again until all was said and done.  Apart,
they would see what the end brought them, but she could not but wish for an
outcome that would have them together again – only the two of them as it had
been in the beginning.  The time was not right yet, however; she would wait. 
Yet there was a fear hanging in the back of her mind.

Whisper
worried that when it ended, they would not both survive.

1

“What
happened to me, you ask?  That is a difficult question indeed.”

Sly
had urged Wren to sit in the grass across from him while he explained himself. 
Nearby, the untainted water of the pond sparkled with the light of the
crystals.  The boy with no eyes had not ceased to hold her hands since she had
presented them to him, but this affection did not make her feel uncomfortable. 
The touch of his strange, animal-like hands did nothing but make her feel at
ease.  She felt that she could tell him her darkest secrets without judgment,
but at this moment, she wanted to hear about him instead.  There was time for
confidence later.

“It
is certain that you have gathered a story or two,” he said.  “Would you tell me
what you have heard about me so that I might separate fact from fiction?”

His
fingers slid over her hands in the nervous way of the blind – constantly
looking with touch.  If his touch was equivalent to his eyes, he stared at her
hands intently.  She did not understand why, but she was obliged to answer his
question.

“I
have not been told much about you,” she said, her voice made soft by listening
to his.  “I have only heard you were the second boy to leave Rifter, but that
you waited until Rifter returned from his search for Nix.  I was told that you
had made up your mind that, if Rifter did not bring Nix back, you would leave. 
The only thing that I have been told about where you actually went was that you
were going ‘
into the sun
’.”

Wren
added, for good measure: “And then there is the constant phrase I have heard
throughout.  They all seem to believe that ‘
Sly would know
’, when I ask
a question they cannot answer.”

A
pleasant smile crossed his lips.  “Yes, and surprising to me, every bit of what
you have recounted to me is true.  It also gives me a decent place to begin my
explanation.  I will start with Rifter.”