Authors: Erica Orloff
I come to a door painted with clouds. It feels as infinite as the sky, but it does not speak to me in my gut. I hesitate but move on.
The hallway never ends. When I have walked what feels like a mile, I stop. Behind me are the hundreds of doors that I have passed. In front of me are the hundreds of doors still to come. This is not working. I do not feel my father, maybe because I have never really had one. I don’t know what it is like. Morpheus is no more my father than the beautiful man in the painting with Iris. He is oil on canvas. I have no connection to him except birthright.
The one being I have a connection to in this strange world of dreams is Sebastian. I decide to find him, and together we will seek Morpheus. This is my new plan, and I have to go with it.
I shut my eyes. I think of kissing Sebastian. I remember the time he lifted my hair in the hot nightclub and blew on my neck. My spine feels tingly.
I open my eyes and look at the doors. The door with swans on it isn’t here. I walk on. I pass a black door engraved with some sort of Chinese or Asian symbol. I pass one painted royal purple, fit for a king. Then a door with intricate latticework. Finally, after walking for a while, I reach one that is simple wide-planked pine, with a heart-shaped red porcelain knob. I pause. My belly trembles. I touch the door. It quivers ever so slightly, like touching my phone when it’s on vibrate.
This is it. I exhale. Sebastian must be my true one, because I feel him in a way that goes beyond words.
I fumble with the key ring until I find a key with a heart engraved on it. It is warm against my fingers. I insert it into the lock and hear the click. I inhale and open the door.
This room is very cold. And very dark. And I hear noises around me. A cacophony of frogs and nocturnal woodland creatures, like owls. I can’t see anything.
“Remember this is your dream, Iris. You always have the tools you need.” Dr. Koios’s voice seems to whisper in my head.
I look down at my hands. The key ring has been replaced by a lantern. I lift it and shine the light all around me.
I am in the woods. Copses of long-needled pine trees surround me, and when I inhale, the scent is pine and that fresh tang of the winter when it’s about to snow. My breath curls out from my mouth and around my face, and I shiver. My nose runs a little.
I look down at my sneakers, and I can see the ground is thick with a cushion of pine needles. But when I walk, the ground crunches beneath me, thick with frost.
I walk forward because I feel as if that’s my only choice, but there’s no discernible path. I gaze up through a break in the trees. A full moon peeks through slate-colored clouds, offering me just a little more light.
Still, I’m uneasy. I’m afraid of the dark. I always have been. Why here? Why this room? This forest?
I continue my steps, teeth chattering. Why is it so cold? I wish I had gloves. And a coat. They don’t materialize. So I feel each gust of wind blowing past me.
From some far-off place, the mournful howl of a wolf pierces the night. The sound rips through me like a razor. Other wolves echo in return.
I don’t like this. Everything about this room seems wrong. But the Underworld, this netherworld, doesn’t always make sense.
Sebastian, where are you?
I look behind me, and I no longer see the door.
Trust your power. Trust your instincts.
I calm myself. Inhale. Exhale. Just like Dr. Koios has taught me. Part of me wants to run. To go back, to find myself safe in my living room with Annie and Aunt Aphrodite and Dr. Koios. My shivering from the cold seems only to compound my unease and fright. But I know until this thing with Epiales is settled, I will never be safe, and neither will anyone I love.
I concentrate on my connection to Sebastian. When I think about him, instead of feeling my fear, I somehow know he is in this forest . . . somewhere. But I don’t know why I cannot hear him calling to me. I miss his voice in my head. I feel lonely without him guiding me. I realize now that I have heard him in my head, almost like my conscience, for a long, long time. Now that I don’t feel him . . . I miss it, that voice. I miss him.
I march on, holding my lantern in front of me. I hear some kind of animal padding on the forest floor, crunching its paws against the frost. I pray it’s not a bear. I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry with fear.
Then, in the distance, I see it. A grin flits across my lips.
A log cabin perched on a small rise. And a sliver of light streams out from a crack in one of the windows, though its shades are drawn.
Of course. A romantic cabin in the woods where we can talk freely, no one finding us in this thick forest. Sebastian is brilliant.
I begin running toward it. The creature behind me growls, a rich-throated rumble that I feel in the core of my gut. I run faster, even though I’m pretty sure that if you encounter a bear, you’re supposed to hold very still.
The creature must be large, because branches are breaking, their cracking sounds echoing through the dark night. My lungs burn as I run. My heart beats like a jackhammer in my ears. I’ve never been like Annie. I get winded climbing two flights of stairs.
The cabin is closer.
My legs ache and feel like lead, and I don’t dare turn around.
Jaws snap behind me just as I reach the cabin porch.
I inhale sharply, hoping the door is unlocked. But it is my dream, and I turn the knob and the door swings open. I jump inside, slamming the door on what is most definitely an enraged black bear that roars its disapproval, angrily slamming its body against the door, jolting me.
I lock the door and turn around, heaving and sucking for air.
And then I see this dream is very, very wrong. It is very, very evil. Aphrodite is right. I could never have given voice to this. It is a nightmare, and I want to wake up—but don’t dare.
Sebastian is tied to a wooden chair, heavy rope binding his wrists and each ankle secured to a leg of the chair. The light I had seen shining out is actually the light of an interrogation lamp hanging from the ceiling, a bare bulb, its beams so bright tears well involuntarily in my eyes. I blink hard and put my hand up as a shield.
I see a man dressed in black, like a Navy SEAL or some kind of assassin, standing next to Sebastian. The man’s face is as brutal and hard-set as Epiales. He has black strips painted under his eyes and green-gray camouflage paint on his skin. Strapped to his waist is a sheath for a large knife. His eyes are those of a lizard, black and shiny and without feeling. Not quite human. Or maybe a sociopath. He is twice my size.
I clap my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming. Sebastian is bloody. He has been beaten. Severely. His face is barely recognizable, it is so battered and red and swollen. His head is drooped toward his chest. His lips are swollen, too. His hair is matted against his forehead. Blood drips from one corner of his mouth. One arm looks misshapen and broken in the restraints, or perhaps his shoulder is dislocated. His shirt is drenched with the sweat of a tortured and brutalized man, mixed with his own blood.
Aphrodite is right. Why do some people think this sort of scene is entertainment? It is not a movie. This is what suffering really is, what it really looks like and smells like. I can smell pain in the small cabin. I cannot imagine what he has been through.
I think he’s dead, and I collapse to my knees. Now that I’ve found him, it cannot end this way. This cannot be.
“Iris . . . are you okay? I think you may need to come back. You aren’t breathing normally. Own your power, Iris. Regain control.”
But then Sebastian’s chest rises.
I exhale in relief. He’s alive. And if he’s alive, then he can be healed.
The torturer smiles. A smile that sends such a frozen jolt up my spine, I literally shudder. My body fights against itself, in an internal war. Every nerve ending is screaming at my brain, “Run!” Save myself. Wake myself up.
And my heart and soul are rooted to the floor of that cabin. I will not abandon him.
“He wouldn’t call for you.”
“What?” I whisper, shocked I can even make a sound. I have no idea what this evil man means.
“All he had to do was call for you. Like he always has. Bring you here. But he wouldn’t. And this”—he sweeps his hand at Sebastian’s destroyed face as if he is showing off a work of art on display—“is the result. Doesn’t appear as good-looking as the last time you saw him, does he? Pity. Does he still make your heart flutter?”
No, I think, he makes my heart hurt for his pain.
“Iris?” Sebastian lifts his head slightly.
His voice is so broken. I don’t care about the man in black. I pull myself to my feet and run to Sebastian, kneeling down by his side and placing my head in his lap. I feel and smell his blood, warm and coppery and slightly sticky, on my cheek and seeping into my hair. I place my hand on his chest, stroke his belly, afraid my very touch will hurt him more.
“Let him go,” I say, looking up at the man.
He just laughs at me.
“Please.” I hate the begging tone in my voice. “I don’t know what you want.”
“You’re right. You don’t. You’re just a pawn in a bigger plan.”
I’m confused. There is clearly something more than just jealousy at work in the Underworld. I know it now. Just hating my humanity would be too simple. The treachery and intrigue between the gods knows no bounds. They have raped one another, gouged out eyes, deceived, kidnapped, committed adultery, destroyed one another. But right now I am too terrified to figure out Epiales’s bigger plan. I just want to get Sebastian and me out of here alive.
“When my father finds out what you’ve done, there will be no place in the Underworld to keep you safe.”
The man sneers. Then he makes a fist and punches Sebastian as hard as he can—he does it so fast, Sebastian can’t even brace for it. His neck snaps back. I hear bone crunching in Sebastian’s cheek.
I scream and stand, blocking Sebastian’s body with my own. I brace myself for a blow, and he delivers a brutal open-palmed slap across my face. My eyes blur with tears, and my nose starts to run. In the corner of my mouth, I taste my own sweet-salty blood.
“Iris, no!” Sebastian begs me. But I don’t cower. I tilt my head up to say this man cannot defeat me. This is my power. Daughter of Morpheus. My power is I see my great and unspoken fear in front of me, that which I could have never given voice to, but I am willing to suffer for those I love.
The man steps toward me, and I think he’s going to hit me again. Instead, he pulls a jagged knife from the sheath on his belt. The blade is huge, and it gleams in the bright light. I try to swallow but find I can’t.
Staring at me impassively, he drops the knife on the wooden floor with a thud.
“Cut him free,” he says. “I’m done here.”
Then the man walks to the door of the cabin and opens it. The bear is gone.
“It’s been fun.” He leers.
With that, he walks out of the cabin and into the darkness beyond, slamming the door behind him.
Frantically, I cut the ropes, and Sebastian screams in agony as blood rushes into his injured arm and numb hands.
I want to vomit. I have loved my mother through her long illness, but it is a clean illness. She’s asleep. I was a baby when my grandmother died. I know the cancer was brutal to her, shriveling her once-vibrant body to a mere ninety pounds. But I have never seen someone I love suffer. Not like this. My admiration for Grandpa grows even more. I know being my grandmother’s caretaker was incredibly difficult.
“Can you walk?” I whisper.
“I can try.”
I stand on his other side, away from his injured arm. I slide my shoulder under his arm and try to pull him to his feet. He staggers and collapses back into the chair.
I look around the cabin and see cupboards and a sink.
You are in control of your dream, Iris,
I remind myself, though I don’t feel like the master of my own dream.
I race to the cabinets and open them. They are all empty. I shut one of the cabinet doors and gather my thoughts
. Control this.
When I open it again, I find a first-aid kit. I also take off my sweater and T-shirt, stripping down to my bra. I put the sweater back on and soak my soft tee in water to clean his wounds.