Lair of Dreams (The Diviners #2) (25 page)

Wai-Mae was waiting for them in the forest. Seeing Ling, she broke into a grin. “You’ve come back! I knew you would!”

“Wai-Mae, this is Henry, the other dream walker I told you about,” Ling said, nodding to Henry. “Henry, this is Wai-Mae.”

Henry bowed courteously. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Wai-Mae.”

“He is very handsome, Ling. He would make a nice husband,” Wai-Mae said in a whisper that was not a whisper at all. Ling’s face went hot.

Henry cleared his throat and said, with a formal bow, “Well, if you ladies will kindly excuse me, I’m off to meet a friend. I wish you sweet dreams.” He turned and walked down the path until he disappeared into the fog.

“I have a surprise for you,” Wai-Mae announced.

“I hate surprises,” Ling said.

“You will like this one.”

“That’s what people always say.”

“Come, sister,” Wai-Mae said, and Ling stiffened as Wai-Mae linked arms with her, just like the schoolgirls who often passed by the Tea House’s front windows, talking and laughing. But Ling had never been terribly girlish or giggly or affectionate. “You’re not much for a cuddle, are you, my girl?” her mother would say with a wan smile, and Ling couldn’t help feeling that she was letting her mother down by being the sort of daughter who enjoyed atoms and molecules and ideas
instead of hugs and hair ribbons. Her mother would probably love Wai-Mae.

Wai-Mae’s mouth didn’t stop the entire walk. “… and you can be Mu Guiying, who broke the Heavenly Gate Formation. I will be the beautiful, beloved Liang Hongyu, the perfect wife of Han Shizhong, a general. She helped to lead an army against the Jurchens and was buried with the highest honor, a proper funeral befitting the Noble Lady of Yang.…”

All of Wai-Mae’s stories were romances.
Oh, so you’re one of those
, Ling thought,
the girls who see the world as hearts and flowers and noble sacrifice.
Wai-Mae led Ling deeper into the forest, and while Wai-Mae chattered away about opera, Ling noticed that the dreamscape was even more vibrant than it had been the night before. The crude sketches of trees had been filled in with rich detail. Ling ran her palm over scalloped bark. It was rough against her hand, and she couldn’t help but touch it again and again, grinning. A sprig of pine needles hung invitingly from a branch. Ling pulled and a handful of needles came away. She brought them to her nose, inhaling, then examined her fingers.
No resin, no smell
, she noted.

“We’re almost there!” Wai-Mae chirped. “Close your eyes, Little Warrior,” Wai-Mae insisted, and Ling did as she was told. “Now. Open.”

Ling gasped. Golden light bled through the breaks in the line of gray trees. Here and there, mutated pink blooms sprang up. Red-capped mushrooms poked their fat heads above the patchy tufts of grass that tumbled down into a verdant meadow rippling with colorful flowers. In the distance, a rolling line of purple mountains brushstroked with hints of pink rose tall behind an old-fashioned village of Chinese houses whose pitched tile roofs tilted into smiles. So much color! It was the most beautiful thing Ling had ever seen inside a dream—even more beautiful than the train station.

“Where are we? Whose dream is this?” Ling asked.

“It doesn’t belong to anyone but us,” Wai-Mae said. “It’s our private dream world. Our kingdom.”

“But it had to come from somewhere.”

“Yes.” Wai-Mae smiled as she tapped her forehead. “From here. I made it. Just as I did the slippers.”

“All of this?” Ling asked. Wai-Mae nodded.

Ling couldn’t imagine how much time and energy it must’ve taken. This was more than transmutation. This was creation.

“There’s something magical about this place. We can make new dreams. We can make everything beautiful.” Wai-Mae bit her lip. “Would you like to learn how?”

“Show me,” Ling said. “Show me everything.”

Wai-Mae marched to a puny, half-formed tree at the top of a hill. “Here. Like this. Watch.”

Wai-Mae threaded her fingers through the wispy leaves, holding tight. She closed her eyes, concentrating. The bark moved like melting candle wax, and then, with a great groaning, the trunk shot up several feet. Massive branches reached out in every direction, bursting with pinkish-white flowers.

Wai-Mae fell back with a gasp. “There you are,” she said, wiping a hand across her brow.

Dogwood blossoms drifted down toward the girls. One landed in Ling’s hair. She pulled it free, rubbing the velvety petal between her thumb and forefinger, feeling something primal in its core, some great electrical connection to all living things. If she’d been a true scientist, she would have shouted “Aha!” or “Eureka!” or even “Holy smokes!” But there were no words that she could summon to communicate the magic of the moment.

“Now it is your turn.” Wai-Mae twisted her mouth to one side, thinking. “We will need places to sit for our opera. Try changing this rock into a chair.”

It was as if Wai-Mae had asked Ling to grab the moon and put it under glass. “But how?”

“Start by putting your hands on the rock.”

Ling did as she was told. The rock was cold and dull, like clay awaiting the artist’s hands.

“Think only of the chair, not the rock. See it in your mind. Like a dream. Do you see it?”

“Yes,” Ling said.

“What does it look like?”

“It’s a red-and-gold throne fit for a queen.”

“I cannot wait to sit there,” Wai-Mae said, excited. “Now see the chair and concentrate.”

Ling kept her thoughts on the chair, but the harder she tried, the more it seemed to elude her.
Shift
, she thought, and
Transform
and
Chair
. But the rock remained a rock. Finally, Ling fell back in the grass, exhausted and angry. “I can’t do it.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I can’t!” She pushed herself up and stalked off toward the forest.

Behind her, Wai-Mae’s voice took on a steely resolve. “Little Warrior: You can do this. I believe you can.”

“Just because you believe something can change doesn’t mean it will,” Ling snapped, feeling ashamed of her outburst but helpless to stop it.

Wai-Mae came to her side, offering a moth-eaten dandelion. “Here. Try something smaller. Turn this into a cricket.”

Ling glanced from the dandelion to the magnificent flowering dogwood Wai-Mae had managed to create. “This is hopeless,” she grumbled, but she took the dandelion from Wai-Mae anyway.

“Concentrate. You are too tight! You want too much control.”

“I do not!”

“You do too. Let it become something else. Allow the Qi to move through you like a breath. Think of the dandelion changing from the inside.”

“Atoms…” Ling murmured.

Ling took a deep breath and let it out. She did this twice more, and on the third time, she felt a small fluttering at the tips of her fingers that strengthened into a stronger, buzzing current that coursed up her arm and along her neck all the way to the top of her head.
Frightened, Ling dropped the dandelion. But as she watched, the dandelion fluctuated wildly between two states, weed and insect, before settling back to dandelion.

“I almost did it,” Ling said, astonished. “It started to change.”

Wai-Mae grinned. “You see? Here, we are like Pangu, creating the heavens and earth, but even better, for we can make it as we wish it to be. My powers have gotten stronger each night I’ve been coming here. Perhaps if you come back tomorrow night and keep coming back as I have, then your power will grow, too.”

“Can you bring physical objects into this place?” Ling asked, excited. “Can you take something out of this dream world? Have you noticed anything interesting when the transformation occurs—a smell or a temperature change? Have you experimented?”

“Isn’t it enough that this world exists? That we can be everything here that we can’t be when we are awake?” Wai-Mae asked.

“No,” Ling said. “I want to know how it works.”

“I just want to be happy,” Wai-Mae said.

Three quick surges of light shot across the sky. Another, smaller spark rippled through the treetops, robbing the leaves there of color. Ling heard that same skin-crawling whine that had frightened her back in the station. The whine devolved into a death-rattle growl, then stopped.

“What was that?” Ling asked.

“Birds, perhaps?” Wai-Mae suggested.

“Didn’t sound like birds. Come on. I want to find out where it’s coming from.”

“Wait! Where are you going, Little Warrior?” Wai-Mae called, scrambling after Ling as she ran through the forest, searching for the source of the light and sound.

At the entrance to the tunnel, Ling stopped. The vast dark crackled with motes of staticky brightness. “It’s coming from there.”

Ling took a step forward. Wai-Mae grabbed her arm. Her eyes were wide. “You mustn’t go in there.”

“Why not?”

“That part of the dream isn’t safe.”

“What do you mean? Not safe how?” Ling asked.

“Can’t you feel it?” Wai-Mae backed away, trembling.
“Ghosts.”

“I’ve spoken to plenty of ghosts on my walks. There’s nothing frightening about them.”

“You’re wrong.” Wai-Mae reached the fingers of one hand toward the tunnel, as if drawn to it. “I can feel this one sometimes in there. She… cries.”

“Why?”

“A broken promise. A very bad death,” Wai-Mae whispered, still staring into the dark. With a shudder, she turned away, hugging herself. “I’m frightened of that wicked place. If we do not trouble her, she won’t trouble us.”

“But what if I could help?”

Wai-Mae shook her head vehemently. “We must stay away from there. Promise me, Little Warrior. Promise you won’t go near it. You must warn Henry, too.”

One last bit of light flared like a dying firefly, and then the tunnel was still. Wai-Mae tugged gently on Ling’s sleeve, drawing her away. “Come, Little Warrior. Let the ghosts rest.”

Once they were back on the path through the forest, Wai-Mae’s earlier fear seemed to have gone, and she was her usual garrulous self. But Ling was preoccupied.

“Wai-Mae…” Ling started. “Have you heard any talk on the ship about the sleeping sickness in Chinatown?”

Wai-Mae frowned. “No. Is it serious?”

Ling nodded. “People go to sleep and they can’t wake up. They’re dying from it.” Ling took a deep breath. “My friend George Huang is sick from it. His sister let me take his track medal in the hope that I could find him in the dream world tonight.”

“Do you think that’s wise if he’s sick?”

“I had to try. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any luck. Whatever dreams he’s having are out of my reach. Have you had any walks lately that seemed as if the person dreaming was ill somehow?”

“No. All my dreams have been beautiful. But I will pray for your friend, George Huang.” Wai-Mae gave Ling a shy sideways glance. “And you and I are becoming friends, too, aren’t we?”

Ling wasn’t sure that you could call someone you’d only met inside a dream a true friend. But Wai-Mae was on her way to New York, and for a moment, Ling imagined how fun it would be to parade past Lee Fan and Gracie with Wai-Mae, knowing that they shared an incredible secret all their own, something far beyond Gracie’s and Lee Fan’s limited comprehension.

“Yes,” Ling answered. “I suppose we are.”

Wai-Mae smiled. “I am so happy! What would you like to do now, friend?”

Ling took in the wide, sparkling streets of the village, the misty forest, and the purple mountains just beyond it all. It was all there waiting for her to explore, to claim, as if there were no limits. For just a little while, she wanted to be free.

“Let’s run,” she said.

On the path, Henry smelled gardenia and woodsmoke. He heard Gaspard barking, and that was enough to make him run the rest of the way. Splinters of summer-gold sunshine pierced the soft white flesh of the clouds above the bayou, shining down on Louis, who waved from the front porch, a fishing pole hoisted onto his shoulder, Gaspard at his feet.

“Henri!” He grinned. “Hurry up! Fish are bitin’!”

The old blue rowboat bobbed on the water. Another fishing pole leaned against the side, along with a battered metal pail knotted with a length of thick rope. Henry took a seat on one side, and Louis sat opposite him, paddling them down the river. When they came to a shady spot, he and Henry cast their lines and waited.