Touching Dream (five)
Janelle looked frightened.
"I... I had a nightmare about you; I wanted to make sure you were okay."
He let her in. She wasn't even dressed -- short-hem long-sleeve white satin robe and slip-on running shoes.
"I'm okay," he lied. For the last fifteen minutes he'd been thinking about not telling her about the marble -- about any of it -- but if he didn't, it wouldn't be over, and he wanted it to be over. He was tired of trying to figure her out, and things were only getting weirder, and if he spent any more time around her he was likely to do something stupid.
Well, more stupid.
"I found it," he said. "It's a marble. He hides it in the fishtank." Will didn't understand it, but he didn't really want to.
He thought vaguely about what would happen now. She'd grab the thing -- some heirloom? some precious ancient artifact? maybe its value would buy her freedom, maybe she had to return it to someone to clear her name? -- Stop it, Will, if it makes sense it might make you care. She'd grab the thing and go, and her furious husband would come looking for her. It would get ugly. Will was fucked.
Better clean the gun.
Will couldn't shoot worth a shit, but the old snub-nose revolver looked serious enough and made plenty of noise, and that might be enough to get through to a man nicknamed Rhino.
He sat down behind his desk; the desk lamp was cocked too high and blinded him -- the rest of the office was still dark -- but he didn't bother to adjust it. It was probably better that he couldn't see her very well.
"Ohmygod, what happened to your face?" Janelle sounded concerned, but not alarmed. She flipped on the office lights, casting a bright greenish glow over everything that made Will squint, which made his cheek hurt. It was already swelling.
"Nothing. I fell." The contradiction made the lie obvious, but he tried to sell it anyway. "Off the couch. When I woke up." She stood across the desk from him now, and leaned across to touch his cheek; he winced. "He just startled me." He assumed she knew about Randy's ability to Dream. In retrospect, it was obvious -- it was why she'd approached him in the first place.
"He startled you?"
"Yeah. I asked for it -- I yanked a thread pretty hard." She seemed to understand what he meant. "At first I thought I woke him up, but then he saw me, and-"
"*What?* He *saw* you?"
Wait, what? She didn't know? Or was this another game? She was so damned convincing...
"Well, yeah," he said dumbly.
"Are you *sure*?"
"He asked me who I was." Actually, who the fuck he was, but close enough. "Then he asked me to leave." Then there was the ass-kicking, and being trapped in Dream, and escaping through his own nightmare, and seeing her where she'd never been... but if she didn't even know Randy could *see* someone else in Dream, it was probably better he stop short for now.
Her face paled. She felt behind her for the couch and unsteadily took a seat. She mumbled something he couldn't quite make out, but sounded a little like "goddess help them."
"What's wrong?"
Janelle stood up, a sudden grim determination on her face. "I'm sorry, Will. I shouldn't have involved you. Just... forget I ever came here."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to go home to my husband." It was the most... tragic thing Will had ever heard.
Was this part of her act? Was he supposed to jump in now? He felt played, and yet he made a half-hearted attempt anyway. Maybe it was a sense of professionalism, maybe it was something else. "Wait... Don't just give up. If you need help... I mean, if he moves it and you need me to find it again, I don't mind. I mean, it's what you paid for. And if you need help with anything else, like... I mean..." don't be a hero, Will, "there are programs, or I could refer you to someone who specializes-"
She cut him off. "Will." At first he thought she was offended at his unheroic offer, but her withering look meant something else. "This is my problem, not yours." She turned to go, her hand gripping the doorknob, muscles tensing as she tugged on the sticking door...
"Wait," Will said desperately.
What are you doing?
I don't know. I deserve some answers...
You deserve not to get your ass beat in Dream by a man named Rhino.
But none of this makes any sense. How will I ever let any of this go if it doesn't make any sense?
Janelle had paused, but wasn't waiting.
Will's words tumbled out, emotion turned to words without intervening thought. "What are you trying to do to me? What do you want from me? You come to me to find something, you hardly tell me anything, but all the signals... pulling and pushing... and then there's somebody else who can Dream, and I find the thing you said you wanted only you say 'never mind'... and you keep showing up at the end... I don't understand. Why? Why did you even come here in the first place? Is it just torture? I just..."
Janelle looked down, ashamed. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'll leave now." She resumed her struggle with the sticky door, her whole body jostling and shaking as the tug-of-war escalated...
...until her robe fell off her shoulder, exposing the slender spaghetti strap of her low-cut nightgown.
And the huge scars that ran the length of her shoulder blades.
"Oh my God," Will breathed.
The flesh was dark and twisted and rough and angry, cruel contrast to Janelle's beauty. Will knew the monster who'd inflicted such wounds was no different.
Will had suspected some kind of physical fallout, but this... Nothing distanced like a broken bone or diffuse like a bruise, but jagged and ugly and sick with violence, Will felt his humanity sucked into its shocking gravity.
The scars were only exposed for a moment: as quickly as the robe had fallen, Janelle pulled it back up. She continued tugging on the doorknob, now with only one hand, but using all of her weight, desperate to escape.
"Janelle." Will rushed across the room, his hands coming gently to her shoulders. "Stop..." His hand fell to hers on the doorknob, stilling her, pulling her away from it. Her struggles stopped, and she turned, slipping free of his hold only to collapse back against the door, exasperated. He stepped closer, arms wrapping around her, feeling her fall into his embrace.
He wasn't letting her go. Not now. Not after seeing *that*. Confusion fell to the clarity of purpose. Details didn't matter. What mattered was that she was in trouble, she needed help, and she'd come to him. All of Janelle's games, the flirting, the manipulation, the dishonesty -- if any of it was ever a game at all -- all were forvigen in a heartbeat.
It didn't matter how he got here, only where he went next.
And Will was ready to go all the way.
"It's gonna be okay," he soothed. "I'm not gonna let him hurt you again."
She pulled back, looking up into his eyes with tragic amusement; her hand brushed his cheek. "Oh, Will, that's... sweet. But I can't let you get involved. He's my problem."
"He doesn't have to be. Leave him."
"It's not that simple."
"Sure it is."
"No." She slipped past him, stepping to the window, looking up at the sky. "You don't know what he can do."
"You don't know what *I* can do." Of course, neither did Will. But he'd always felt something in Dream, a vibe whenever he Shifted that there was more, much more. He'd never dared explore it before -- he'd always been afraid, either of hurting someone or of going so deep he didn't want to wake up. But now with Randy out there, and Janelle here, he wasn't afraid of those things anymore.
She turned and look at him. Hard. Like she was sizing him up. Or maybe like she was seeing something in him for the first time. "Sit down, Will."
He moved to the couch, but hesitated in front of it. "I'm not gonna let-"
"Sit *down*."
Will sat, tense but silent.
Janelle settled back, half-sitting on the window ledge. The streetlight outside seemed to hang like a halo over her head. She looked down at the floor for a long time, her lips occasionally parting but never quite forming words, as if she kept thinking she'd figured out where to begin and then reconsidered. Finally she just tsk-tsked and shook her head; she had to start somewhere...
"When I first heard about you, I thought you were the answer -- my ticket out of here. I was tired -- we've been here almost ten years now -- and I thought, how much trouble could he cause here if I left him? After all, he was just a man here. Ten years was enough penance.
"You have to understand, I thought it was hopeless. He bound me, just like they warned us would happen if we got careless. Binding is forever, unless you can take the object that binds you. Only two wagons ever escaped their towel lids, and they were long before my time. So-"
"Wait," Will interrupted. "Only two wagons escaped a what's-it?"
Janelle smiled; shoulders shook with a little chuckle. "No, Wi'gens." She enunciated more carefully. "I'm Wi'gen. And Randy is Tal'id. We're from tu'Ress."
"Why-gginn and Tao-led."
"Close enough."
"From Tourette's."
"Tu-RESS. Yes."
Will cocked an eyebrow. "Never heard of it. Is that like a Balkan state?"
Janelle hesitated, deciding what to tell him. Then she sighed, "it's on the other side of Dream."
Will just stared at her for a long moment as a thousand little memories started to go off like popcorn. The shadows of nothing in Dream, the phantom threads that ran off into nowhere, things Will had long ago learned to ignore suddenly had a theory. The Other Side of Dream.
Well, Fuck Me Naked.
Janelle wasn't waiting for Will to pick up his jaw. "Learning about you suddenly gave me a purpose. I had a goal. I felt *alive* again. It was so hard keeping it from Randy, but I didn't want to blow it. And you came through for me, Will, you really did. Only now I can't go. I can't just run away."
"Sure you can," Will managed.
"I can't. It's my mission to protect your world from the Tal'id. And it's my fault he's here."
Her mission?
"I'm a Guardian. Or, I was a Guardian. --To become a full-fledged Wi'gen citizen you have to serve the Council for four years. I didn't have any particular talent, so I went for the Guardians. I barely made it through training, but I made it. I thought I'd be assigned to monument duty, but my elder must have seen something in me, because she gave me a veil and sent me into Dream.
"Being chosen as a Guardian of Dream is a great honor -- but it's also hard. In training it seems simple, just a matter of discipline: Look for pulled threads; Ignore the shadows; Don't lose your veil. But nothing prepared me for what it was like. All alone in a big nothing, and yet just beyond my reach I could sense so much happening. I went for what seemed like forever, and I never saw a pulled thread... I started to forget what I was looking for. My mind wandered, and eventually I noticed the shadows.
"Only they're not the twisted remnants of the insane or Tal'id traps like all the stories I heard as a child -- they're the thoughts and dreams of a whole other world. And they're strange and wonderful and beautiful... and terrible. I convinced myself if Tal'id were going to escape to Dream they wouldn't just poke around with Wi'gens, waiting to get caught; they'd go deeper in Dream to interact with this other world.
"But really I was just lonely, and tired, and angry. The mission was stupid and pointless, just chasing a fairy tale. They'd abandoned me out there, given me a gift and warned me not to use it."
Janelle paused. "Do you know about pre-threads?"
"I don't know. What's a pre-thread?"
"It's how we're taught to catch Tal'id. A pre-thread is a hint of where a thought or an object or a person is going. They're not always there, or there are so many possibilities they spread out into nothing, but sometimes a thread appears that connects to an event that hasn't happened yet."
"Like seeing the future?"
"Just a glimpse of a likely future, rarely more than a few moments ahead, but sometimes when something's almost inevitable, it can be further. I think you sometimes call them self-fulfilling prophecies. Anyway, if you really let go and just let someone's threads drape over you, you can get a sense of where they're going. It's supposed to be a lot easier with a pulled thread -- Tal'id manipulating something in Dream to influence someone's thoughts -- which you can use to anticipate a Tal'id's move, and then open a hole in Dream at just the right place that sucks them out."
"So is that what you did to Randy? Is that how he got here?"
"Well..." Janelle didn't seem to know which way to answer. "Technically, it leads to that, but... Let me finish. I was angry because I hadn't seen a single sign of Tal'id in all the time I'd been in Dream, but after just a little while observing people in this strange new world, I started to see things, and I started to feel pre-threads -- and it seemed wrong to just watch and not do anything, especially when I knew something bad was going to happen to someone.
"I had to help. But it wasn't my world. I couldn't cross over, not fully; all I could do was pull threads, make suggestions, point things out. I could help people avoid mistakes, or create coincidences that kept them out of harm's way. Like whispering in their ear. But it worked -- I helped find lost children, got sick people into programs, kept drunk drivers off the road, led police to dangerous criminals, prevented accidents... And it made me feel like I'd finally found a purpose. I'm sure it's a lot like what you do."
"I... I guess." Will suddenly felt like a heel for being so selfish with his gift. Sure, he used it to help people, but it was always on his terms, and it was always for a fee. And he was hardly saving lives.
"I was so full of myself. I thought I was so smart, figuring out the secrets of the universe, doing great things. But I was just setting myself up for a fall. I was just setting myself up for Randy."
"He wasn't supposed to come here. But I was careless. Stupid. Not only was I not looking for Tal'id anymore, I didn't even feel him coming. He yanked on someone's threads and it startled me, and I just froze up... and then he hit me. He was just *there*, and I hurt so bad I couldn't move. It was a textbook attack.
"I wish I could say I did what I was trained to do, but the truth is I just panicked. The hole opened, and he fell into it, almost like he wanted to. Then I felt..." Janelle paused with a gasp; the memory was painful. "It was just an instant, but I knew what he'd done. He'd bound me. The next thing I knew I was here. *We* were here. I never even knew I'd lost my veil, but he must have known, or he wouldn't have been so... so..."
She shut her eyes tightly to let the moment pass.
Will remembered the scars; his hands balled into fists, knuckles turning white.
"...he wouldn't have hit me so hard," she continued. "Of course, in all the time since then, since he's kept me here, I can't say that he's ever been subtle. Except that's not really true now..."
Will was surprised to feel himself breathing hard, as if keeping up with Janelle required physical effort. "Wait, so the marble, that's what... binds you? And if you take it you break the bond?"
"Yeah. At least that's what I was taught growing up -- what the legends say. The elders just tell you not to let your veil slip or a Tal'id could bind you and then it's over. I don't really know."
"And what happens to Randy?"
"If he was a normal Tal'id, nothing. I mean, without a bond to a Wi'gen they're not tied to Dream anymore, so they start aging again and eventually just grow old and die."
"You mean while he's bound to you he doesn't grow old?"
"He doesn't grow old, he can't be hurt, at least not on this plane, and he can't be killed. Some say that's why Tal'id go into Dream in the first place, just to bind a careless Wi'gen and live happily ever after."
"And what happens to you?"
"If the legend is real, I go back to Dream. I can either stay in Dream or go back home to live in shame."
Janelle seemed to be done, or at least she needed to take a moment; she cast her eyes to the floor.
Will couldn't sit anymore. This was all so... *much*. He stood up, moving toward her; her eyes darted up at him nervously. He wanted to hold her, but only if she wanted him to. He stopped short, close but leaving her space, leaning back to sit on the edge of the desk, mirroring her stance against the edge of the window.
"What do you want to do?" he said softly. He tilted his head but held her gaze, supportive but not assertive.
"I wish I could just turn and run. That's what I'd do if..." she reached toward his cheek, fingers tracing the empty space between them as if caressing him; he remembered his shiner, which by now was probably starting to look ugly. "If Randy hadn't done that," she finished.
"Don't worry about me," Will said bravely. "I'll be all right." After all, it was nothing compared to what she must have endured. And if Randy was just an ordinary guy once she was gone -- a huge mean guy in a jilted rage maybe, but still just a guy -- well, Will could find a way to handle that. There were people in the business who dealt with guys like Randy...
"You don't understand. I said that's what I'd do if Randy was a normal Tal'id. But Tal'id don't Dream."
But she said Tal'id went into Dream to bind a Wi'gen...?
Janelle explained. "You are like Wi'gen -- a part of us is always in Dream. Most never understand it as anything more than the subconscious, or strange thoughts they have while they sleep. You see it as full-fledged Wi'gen do, another plane, a place connected to and beyond the physical world, where the mind lives.
"Tal'id are different. They don't have a presence in Dream, at least not like that. But some have learned how to use Wi'gen to *leave* the physical world for Dream. They call it the Leap. It's the same thing that Guardians are trained to do on their own, only when Tal'id do it, it kills the Wi'gen they use as a vessel."
"But Randy saw me." So he was different, but...
"He did more than that." She actually touched his cheek this time; he winced. "You didn't fall off the couch, did you?" Busted.
"I told you, I'm fine."
"I know." Her voice was sweetly patronizing. "But if Randy can do that, it means he can Dream -- he has a presence in Dream while he's here. Which means I can't ever really take the marble from him, because he'll still have a connection to it in Dream."
"That's how I found the marble," Will affirmed. "Isn't there any way to break it?"
"Ironically, not when I'm bound -- I'm just a passive in Dream, I can't do anything."
"Can I do it?"
Janelle looked at him. "No. He'll just hurt you again." No, he couldn't do it, or no, she didn't want him to try? "Besides, if he can Dream, he'll know the moment I escape, and he'll just follow me and bind me again."
Janelle looked down at her feet; Will saw her face tighten up, her breath strained, fighting to keep the tears at bay. "I'm sorry," she said finally.
Will straightened up, his hand finding hers, squeezing it gently in frustration and sympathy and encouragement.
"There has to be some way out. There has to be some way you can escape him."
"There is." She slid her hand gently up to his neck. "At least for a little while." And then she pulled him toward her and kissed him.