Dreamland

As soon as she said the words, Dea knew. She what her mother had meant when she said she must give the monsters faces, and understood, too, what Kate had been trying to communicate to her. It wasn’t about Kate or some book or even about Dea—it was about Co

And Dea could help him. More, even, than Kate knew. What she could do—where she came from—wasn’t just a burden. It was also a gift.

“I think . . .” Dea swallowed the sudden dryness in her throat. “I think I know a way to make the nightmares stop.”

Co

“You’d have to let me in again,” she said. Dea took a deep breath. She didn’t know whether what she was about to suggest was even possible; still, she had to try. But an idea was blooming: if she could walk a dream that was like a memory, why couldn’t she walk a memory like she did a dream? “Into your memories.”

“No.” Co

“It’s the only way for you to know,” she said quietly. And she thought that maybe this had been the point and the purpose of dream-walking all along: so that she could help the boy she loved. “Don’t you want the truth?”

He watched her for a long time without saying anything. “Who are you?” he whispered at last.

Dea took a deep breath. She stood up. There was no longer any point in hiding or pretending. “You want the truth?”

Co

“There’s a world of dreams,” she said. Saying the words out loud felt like releasing air from a balloon that had been stopping up her chest. “A world even older than this one. That’s where I come from. That’s where my mother comes from, too. And now, she’s gone back.”

Dea could hear the ticking of a clock loudly somewhere in another room. Or maybe she only imagined it, a rhythm synced to the heavy pounding of her heart. She waited for Co

“Are you going to go back, too?” he asked.

Dea’s heart broke for him, then. He must be freaking out—he must have a thousand questions—but all he cared about was whether she would stay.

“No,” she said, and she meant it. Somehow, she would find a way to stay. “But I’m ru

Co

Dea thought of the men with no faces, and the ragged pant of their breathing, like deformed animals. “You said you never got a look at the guys who did it,” she prompted him.

“That’s right. First I was sleeping. Then I was . . . hiding.” He spat the word out as if it were poisoned.

“You weren’t hiding the whole time,” Dea pointed out. “You crawled to the door. You peeked into the hall.”

“Yeah, but just for a second.” He shook his head. “Besides, they were wearing ski masks. All I could really see was a pair of mouths.”

So that was where they had come from, the monsters with faces made of mangled flesh, and mouths to taste their prey: from Co

Give them faces, her mother had said. They’ll lose their power.

“Take me through it again,” Dea said. “From the begi

Co

“That’s okay,” Dea said quickly. “What next?”

Co

“And you didn’t hear anything before that first shot?” she said. “They broke a window, didn’t they?”

Co

Dea’s heartbeat quickened. “Do you remember what they were saying?”

Co

“Where was your dad?”

“Business trip.” Co

Dea felt the idea, the knowledge, massing on the edges of her consciousness, a wave about to break. The vast majority of women are killed by their partners. Or by their ex-partners.

“You said at first you weren’t frightened,” she said slowly. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” He hesitated. “I think at first I thought my dad must have come home early from his trip. I just heard the voices and assumed . . .” He trailed off, shrugging.

“And you didn’t hear them break in through the window.”

Co

“Okay.” Dea wiped her palms on her jeans. Even though it was cold, she felt sticky all over—nervousness, probably, and guilt. “Isn’t it possible they broke the window afterward? To make it look like a break-in?”

Co

“Maybe,” Dea said carefully, “someone else had a key.”

She was worried he’d get angry. But he just shook his head. “No way. My uncle looked at pretty much everyone who’d ever been in the apartment—plumbers and friends and even our goddamn cleaning lady. If there was anything to find, he’d have found it.”

The wave had broken, leaving the idea, the association, glittering and solid in Dea’s mind. The dream of a woman enfolded by a giant cockroach; Co

She said, “Your uncle and your mom were . . . close?”

“Very close,” Co

Dea swallowed. There was a bad taste in her mouth. “He knew where she kept the gun. He probably had a key.” Co

“No.” Co