The Nightmare Dilemma

15 A Crow’s Feast

I hid The Atlantean Chronicle on the top of a storage shelf inside one of the secret passageways of Vatticut Hall. Only Ms. Hardwick ever used the passage, and she was several inches shorter than me, guaranteeing she wouldn’t see it unless she went climbing—not very likely given her plumpness.

Keeping the book with me was a bad idea. It was evidence that I had been in the locker room, and I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that Paul wouldn’t come looking for it, looking for me.

Damn. Why does everything always have to go so wrong?

There was no answer to my silent question as I made my way to spell-casting class. I’d briefly considered going to the infirmary for real, but Miss Norton had written down the time on the note excusing me, and I was well beyond it. I figured it better to try my luck with Mr. Carbuncle than attempting to account for my whereabouts for the duration of the last class period to the infirmary nurses.

Mr. Carbuncle was in a generous mood, and I got off with only a verbal reprimand for my tardiness. But despite my good fortune, I was a nervous wreck when I left the classroom to head to third period. I expected Paul to ambush me around every corner. And whenever I spotted the red and black uniform of a Will Guard, I braced for them to stop me. The darkness spell wasn’t exactly illegal, not for Nightmares, but casting it during school hours—and in the boy’s locker room, no less—surely was.

But for whatever reason, everything went smoothly. That was, until lunchtime. Eli had stopped off at his locker before heading to the cafeteria, and one look at his face as he arrived told me he had heard the rumor about the locker room prank and had figured out what I’d really been up to during English class.

“You said you were going to look around Britney’s locker,” he said, holding out his hand for the moonwort key.

I couldn’t bring myself to look in his eyes as I gave it to him. “I did. Like I said, it was empty.”

“Right. But you failed to mention you were checking Paul’s locker, too.”

I began to fidget with my napkin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to be worried.”

He slid the key into his pocket. “So you were just trying to protect me, huh?”

“Yes.” I dared to meet his gaze.

“I’m not the one in need of protection.” I started to argue but he cut me off. “I understand why you did it, and I also realize that you’re too stubborn to drop this crap with Paul, so I’ll make you a deal. I won’t fight you on it anymore if you promise to be honest about what you’re doing and to let me help.”

I stared at him, unsure how to respond.

“I just want to keep you safe,” Eli said. Then without waiting for my answer, he turned and walked off.

The subject didn’t come up again throughout the rest of the day or at dinner that night, but only because Eli had gone out to dinner once more, this time with his grandma.

“I wonder what Paul wants with that book,” Selene said for at least the tenth time as we ate. I’d told her about the photograph, too, but she’d dismissed it as unimportant by comparison. I didn’t quite believe her, but then again, it wasn’t like she could know his motivations for having it anyway.

I shrugged. “Beats me. But I’m going to go over every inch of it before I put it back in his locker.”

Selene nodded. “And I would like to try the detection spell on it. But we need to do it fast. If Mr. Corvus finds out you stole the book, there’s no telling what kind of trouble you might be in.”

I swallowed, remembering the torturous hours I’d spent deciphering that ancient text. “Good point. I’ll sneak it out on my way home from my dream session with Eli tonight.”

The next few hours after dinner passed maddeningly slow. I spent the time in the dorm with Selene, doing my best to resist the urge to head down to Vatticut Hall and fetch The Atlantean Chronicle. But it was too risky. Until curfew, Paul could be anywhere. He could be out after curfew, too, I knew, but I figured it was a lot less likely.

Absolutely refusing to do homework on a Friday night, I wasted time on the computer, checking and rechecking all my favorite websites and reading through my Spellbook feed. As usual of late, Selene wasn’t proving to be much of a distraction. She was working on some sewing project for the home economics class she was taking this semester. The very idea of such a course made my skin crawl, but she seemed to be enjoying it.

“What are you working on?” I asked, eyeing the black coat draped over her lap and the needle and thread in her hands. The thread was strange. It was silvery in color and oddly textured, flimsy and light like gossamer. If I didn’t know any better I would’ve thought it was spider’s silk.

Selene glanced up. “Just a costume project.”

I frowned, taking a longer look at the garment. She seemed to be making some kind of alteration to the back of it. “For what?”

This time she didn’t look up. “Um, the drama club is putting on a play.”

“Fun,” I said, returning my attention to the computer screen.

Finally, the time came for me to leave. I slipped on my black leather moccasins, said good-bye to Selene, who was in the bedroom changing for bed, and then left the dorm. Eli was sitting at his desk in front of the computer when I arrived, the screen opened to a Spellbook page.

“Hey,” he said, not looking up as I walked in.

“Hey.” I sat down on the sofa, keenly aware of the lingering tension between us. I cleared my throat. “What are you looking at?”

Eli glanced over his shoulder, his smile clearing the air a little. “I’m trying to figure out what this Terra Tribe is all about.”

“Oh, yeah, that. I forgot to tell you in all the excitement of finding the joker card, but I know a little more about it.”

“Yeah?” Eli swung his chair around to face me.

I nodded, less than enthused by the idea of reliving the scene with Oliver Cork. But it was too late to stop now. I gave Eli the short version, leaving out the aftermath and how I’d gotten hit by the baseball bat inside the Gauntlet. I would go to my grave without telling him about that one. Fortunately, the story stung less than I thought it would, but it still left an unpleasant taste in my mouth.

By the end of it, Eli was scowling. “You’ve got to be kidding? Arkwell really allows that kind of stuff to go on?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Apparently. Selene says stuff like that has been happening for ages.”

Eli grunted and ran a hand through his hair. “No wonder I haven’t gotten a response to my request to join.”

I sat forward on the sofa. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s why I haven’t gotten one either. Talk about adding insult to injury.”

“For real.” Eli turned back to the computer and started clicking the mouse. “And it definitely paints the group in a different light.”

“You mean sinister?” I stood and walked over, coming to a stop behind his chair. He’d navigated to the Terra Tribe’s Spellbook page, but when he clicked on the friends’ list all he got was a message stating membership to the group was private and that his request to join was still pending.

Eli drummed his fingers on the desk. “What we need is someone who belongs to the group who’s willing to talk to us.”

“Yeah, but who?” I bit my lip. “Are you friends with Oliver on here? We might be able to find the members that way.”

Eli shook his head. “Nope. I’m not even friends with Britney. I don’t really friend people unless they ask me to. Too much hassle.”

I made a noncommittal “mmmm,” although the childish, prone-to-be-jealous part of me was secretly glad Britney hadn’t friended him.

“Actually, I think the only naturekind I’m friends with is Irene Stark,” Eli said, his fingers striking the keys as he entered a search.

I rolled my eyes at the back of his head. Britney would’ve been far preferable to Irene.

In seconds, Eli had pulled up Irene’s wall. He clicked on her info, and we both saw the Terra Tribe listed as one of her groups.

“Bingo,” Eli said.

I caught myself grinding my teeth and stopped. “What makes you think she’ll talk to you about it?”

“I don’t know if she will or not, but I’m going to give it a go.”

Perfect.

“Are Oliver’s friends hidden or can you see them?” I asked, bending toward the desk.

“No idea.” Eli searched for Oliver and clicked on the link.

We could see the list all right. And it was long. Half of the people I didn’t recognize, many of them adults. I suspected quite a few might be Arkwell graduates. There were a number of photos of people wearing jerseys from the various international magickind universities.

Eli scrolled slowly through the first hundred or so then started moving through the rest more quickly. I recognized a couple of people but none that I knew well enough to try and get them to spill the beans on the Terra Tribe’s inner secrets.

That was until a familiar face caught my eye.

“Wait a minute.” I touched Eli’s shoulder, hyperaware of how warm he was and how close. “Go back up.”

Eli did as I asked, and he stopped in the right place without any prompting from me. He knew exactly which person I’d recognized. He beamed up at me. “Perfect. You can get her to talk for sure. She owes you big time.”

I nodded. Melanie Remillard did owe me, a little anyway. She had asked me to discover her best friend’s murderer, a task that eventually led to the showdown with Marrow. Still, I wasn’t wild about the idea of asking her about the Terra Tribe. She seemed nice enough, but after the way Oliver had behaved, I wasn’t sure I could count on her to help. Nevertheless I said, “I’ll ask her about it as soon I can. I’ll get Selene to come with me. She knows Melanie better.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Eli tapped his wand ring against the desk. “She might not be willing to tell us much about the group, but she should at least be able to shed some light on Britney’s activities that night. And it’s not like we have any reason to believe there’s a connection between the Terra Tribe and what happened to her.”

“Good point.” I smiled, feeling better about the whole thing.

Eli stood up without warning, going from beneath my eye level to towering over me. I took a step back, my senses on overload. An odd expression crossed his face, and for a second, I allowed myself to believe it was disappointment that I had moved away.

“You ready?” I said.

In answer he turned and lay down on the sofa, his body covering the expanse of it with at least a foot of leg hanging off the end. “I will be soon.”

I leaned against the desk and waited for him to drift off. Then I climbed on top of him and into his dreams like I’d done so many times before.

But unlike all those dreams before, the world I emerged into was blurred and foggy like a picture out of focus. The ground beneath me seemed to be nothing but smoke and mist, and I experienced a moment of vertigo, feeling like I would fall right through it.

“Whoa,” I heard Eli say from somewhere to my left. “What’s going on?”

I turned my head, wishing there was something I could hold on to, to steady myself. A second later a tall-backed chair appeared in front of me. I reached for it, and the vertigo stopped.

“You okay?” Eli said as he emerged from the fog.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak yet.

Eli halted a few feet from me and motioned to the formless world. “Are you doing this?”

I shook my head. My reply came out a croak. “I’m not doing anything.”

Eli didn’t appear to hear me. His attention had shifted to the world beginning to take form around us. It was like watching a painter filling in the blank spaces of a sketch.

We were in some kind of large chamber with a high-vaulted ceiling. Tall stained-glass windows decorated the stone walls at regular intervals with marbled statues of various magickind in their native forms set on the floor in between them. In the center of the room stood a long rectangular table, a massive wooden slab polished to a bright shine. The tall-backed chair I was leaning against was one of several set around the table.

“Wow,” I said, recognizing the place from various pictures in the magickind news outlets. “Have you been to Senate Hall before?”

Eli didn’t look at me as he answered. “Yeah, the day I found out I’m a Conductor. One of the scientists was pretty friendly. She thought I might enjoy seeing it. I guess they don’t let civilians in here very often.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that, too.” Across from me, several suits of armor were just coming into focus, lined up along one section of wall. They were far grander than the ones at Arkwell, with vivid indigo plumes on their ornate helmets and glistening shields engraved with the Magi Senate crest. I wondered if the real-life ones were as lively as those at Arkwell. It would make for interesting meetings.

“I’ve never even been to Lyonshold,” I added, a little envious.

“You’ll get to see it soon,” Eli said as he moved down the table that, like the knights, was still taking on form around us.

“How do you figure?”

He picked up an object from the table that looked like a stick or maybe an overly thick wand. “The Beltane Festival.”

“Oh, yeah. That.”

“I’ve been thinking about volunteering for it.” Eli held the object up higher. “I really hope this isn’t a regular feature at senate meetings.”

I took a longer look at it and noticed a little piece of string sticking out from the end of the stick. “Is that dynamite?”

“Yep.” Eli leaned toward the table and set it down much more carefully than he’d picked it up. I understood his caution. Dreams were a lot more real than most people realized. Especially Eli’s dreams.

“Yeah, I think that would be out of place even among magickind.”

Eli grinned. “Not unless Culpepper suddenly gets elected to the senate.”

“Let’s hope not,” I said, picturing Culpepper’s secret storeroom of illegal items. It included not only candy bars and black magic objects but also entire crates full of dynamite and other dangerous explosives. Yeah, not exactly the type of guy I wanted in charge of things.

Eli started to say something more but stopped. I turned to see what had stolen his attention. More of the table had come into focus by now, and with a sickening drop in the pit of my stomach I realized that we were no longer alone in the vast chamber. People now sat in the chairs—twelve of them in all.

And they were all dead.

I gasped and took an involuntary step backward, repulsed by the sight of their slackened faces and dulled, unseeing eyes. Even worse was when I realized they were people I knew, schoolmates and friends. There was Britney, her head craned back over her chair, her long strawberry blond hair spilling downward behind it. Beside her sat Oliver Cork with Melanie Remillard next to him.

The girl in the chair nearest me was Katarina; her torso was slouched forward, braced against the table. Selene was next to her, her position upright and the most normal of those I’d seen so far, but still undeniably dead.

Terror twisted in my gut at the sight of my best friend. I ran forward and touched her arm, trying to remind myself this was only a dream and failing. Her skin felt frozen beneath my fingers. I let go of her at once, tears stinging my eyes. I looked away, only to be faced with more horror. There was Lady Elaine and Sheriff Brackenberry. There was Eli. And there was …

Me.

I closed my eyes as vertigo came over me again. Vomit burned the back of my throat, and I swallowed it down.

Crack.

I opened my eyes again to see the scene had altered. The bodies were still there, congregated around the table like revelers at a macabre feast, but now dozens of crows had joined them. They were everywhere, perched on the backs of chairs, on the table, even on top of the people themselves.

They were pecking at the dead bodies. I watched one rip away a piece of ashen skin from Bethany’s face. I covered my mouth, too frightened and revolted to scream.

“What is this?” Eli said, moving down the table.

I was amazed he could speak at all given how pale he was and green around the edges. I shook my head, unable to respond. I wanted to look away but couldn’t. My eyes continued to roam, transfixed by the gruesome horror as I watched the crows feasting.

When my gaze reached the head of the table, I realized the man sitting there was Eli’s father.

Eli had realized it, too.

“Dad,” he said, choking on the word. He rushed over to him, trying to shoo away the crows. But the birds only cawed and clacked their beaks at him. I moved to help, engaging my Nightmare magic. If the birds wouldn’t respond to Eli, I would imagine them away.

Only, I froze mid-step as my eyes registered the face of the woman in the chair to the right of Eli’s dad.

My mom.

The crows had eaten the eyes from her skull, leaving behind red, raw pits. As I watched one of them dipping in for another taste, rage exploded out from me. Screaming, I lunged for the birds, all reason forgotten.

As I reached my mother’s body, a cloud of dense fog swooped down, and the world vanished. I once more found myself shrouded by smoke and mist.

“What the hell?” Eli said from some far distance.

Then just as quickly as it had vanished, the world snapped back into place.

We had returned to the tower once more.

“What are you doing, Dusty?” Eli screamed at me from a few feet away. “We have to go back. That dream was important.”

I could only stare at him, my thoughts already giving in to that powerful, obsessive need to reach the plinth and read the word. The first two letters of it seemed to sing to me, beckoning me with a power stronger than any siren. I staggered toward them, struggling against the wind.

“Take us back, Dusty,” Eli said, charging over to me.

I dropped to my knees in front of the plinth and started scratching at the space beyond the E.

Eli stooped and shouted into my ear, “Take us back!”

I flinched away from him, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Nothing else mattered but that hidden word. Already I could see the shape of the next letter. A vertical straight line with another running horizontally out from its base. It could be an L or a Z or another E.

“If I help you do this will you take us back?” Eli said, his voice loud in my ear, but oddly distant, like the buzz of some far-off machinery. He knelt right next to me, but he might as well have been a thousand miles away. He didn’t matter.

But then he touched the plinth. I screamed, outraged by the violation. My need to defend it rose up so strong I reached out and smacked his hands away with no thought of the consequences.

The dream world disintegrated around us as agony shot through me. A second later my consciousness slammed back into my body. With a garbled cry, I slid off Eli onto the floor. I lay there, unable to move until the pain receded.

Eli rolled over on the sofa, and his face appeared above me. “I can’t believe you touched me on purpose.”

“You and me both,” I said through gritted teeth. I hadn’t done anything that stupid in a dream since my very first time. At least the madness I was under hadn’t followed me into the waking world. But what was wrong with me?

“Are you okay?” From the sound of Eli’s voice, I knew he was wondering the same thing.

I sat up, and he rolled back, making sure our heads didn’t collide. “I’m fine.”

Eli swung his legs over the edge of the sofa, moving into an upright position. He didn’t offer to help me get up, just sat there, staring at me with an expression that made me want to check my face in a mirror to make sure nothing red or hairy had sprouted there.

Vivid memories of our last dream-session came back to me, and I understood why he avoided touching me. He didn’t want the same thing to happen again. Something hot and unpleasant burned behind my eyes for a second.

I pushed myself to my feet, wiping the hair out of my face. “I’m sorry I fumbled it. We’ll try again next time.”

I turned to leave, but Eli jumped up and grabbed my hand, stopping me. It never ceased to amaze me how fast he could move, his reflexes catlike. I faced him, trying to ignore the way my pulse in my wrist danced beneath his touch. His fingers felt like heat-wrapped steel. I didn’t pull away, wondering how long he would keep holding me.

He let go the second my eyes found his.

He didn’t look away but said in a soft voice, “We need to talk about what happened.”

I shook my head.

“What’s going on with you and that stone table thing and those letters? What does B E stand for?”

I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him. “I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve been dreaming about lately.”

“But why did you manipulate the dream? We needed to stay and observe that scene in Senate Hall a helluva lot longer than we did.”

“I didn’t manipulate it. Not on purpose. It just happened.” I took a deep breath, forcing my irrational temper back inside its cage. It was just that stupid plinth affecting me again.

Eli scratched his cheek, thinking it over. “Do you suppose someone’s interfering with us?”

“I guess it’s possible.…” I exhaled, wishing I were better equipped at lying. But I couldn’t. Not about this. Not to him. “But Mr. Deverell thinks I’ve got some kind of block in my brain connected to that dream.”

Eli frowned, his eyebrows drawing closer together. “A block?”

I nodded and then explained it to him.

When I finished, Eli said, “Why didn’t you take him up on the offer to help?”

I bit my lip, searching for any answer other than the truthful one—that I was afraid of anybody else seeing that word, being in that place. “I haven’t had a chance yet. But I will. I promise.”

He stared at me for several long minutes as if unsure whether or not to believe me. I wasn’t sure I believed me—only not getting help was stupid, and I knew it. I just had to get past this inexplicable impulse to protect the plinth and its hidden word.

“Okay,” Eli said. “So what do you make of what we did see in the dream?”

“That something bad is coming.” The image of all those dead people and the crows swam before my mind’s eye. I tried to draw comfort in the knowledge that dreams were nearly always symbolic. The only time Eli’s dreams depicted reality was right before the event in question was about to take place.

Eli nodded. “I wonder what the crows represent. They could be a person, like how the black phoenix represented Marrow.”

“Maybe.”

We spent a couple of minutes speculating, but there was so little to go on at this juncture. At least talking about it made it less scary, that is, until I left, taking the tunnels so I could get to Vatticut Hall unobserved and retrieve The Atlantean Chronicle.

As I walked along, I tried to push the thoughts and fears from my mind, focusing instead on my surroundings. The danger of being down here alone late at night and with Britney’s unknown attacker still on the loose was more pressing than dreams and blocks and dead friends.

Dead mothers.

No, don’t think about that. Don’t you dare.

For a moment, my homesickness for my mom was so strong, I nearly burst into tears. We’d never been close, our relationship strained for years by the impact of my parents’ divorce, but things had changed between us after we took down Marrow. I needed to see her, to hear her voice and assure myself that she was all right. Tomorrow I would give her a call. A simple e-mail wouldn’t do.

By the time I arrived at Vatticut Hall ten minutes later, I’d gotten my emotions under control. To my relief, The Atlantean Chronicle was just where I left it. I tucked the book beneath my arm and then hurried back to Riker Hall.

As my dorm room door came into sight, I grinned in relief at my success.

But when I reached the door, a hand closed around my arm, and for the second time that day, Paul Kirkwood spoke my name from out of the darkness.