XVII
In my dream, Dad stands on a pathway in the wood, next to a grouping of leaves turning black. The darkness oozes out of the leaves’ pores. He watches it happen, his back to me, his entire body rigid like a corpse.
“Dad?”
I want to run to him, but every step forward keeps us at the same distance. I can see him, but I can’t touch him.
He slowly turns his body toward me, his gaze sliding away from the leaves. “What have you done?” His voice is hollow, tinny. It doesn’t sound like it should, and that scares me more than anything.
“I don’t know,” I say. Shadows move behind him even though the sun is high and the wood should be safe. “What’s happening?”
“You shouldn’t have let him through.”
I have nothing to say to this. I know he’s right.
“Two council members disappeared, and he thinks it has something to do with what happened to you,” I say instead. “I think he can help us.”
“He doesn’t belong here.”
Tears spring to my eyes, but it isn’t sadness taking over my body, making my fists curl and my heart hammer. “Too bad you’re not making the decisions anymore, Dad. Maybe if you hadn’t left us, none of this would be happening. Did you ever think of that?”
He doesn’t answer.
I take a step forward, and another, but the distance between us remains the same. “Why’d you do it? Why did you walk off the path?”
He blinks, and then he starts to fade away. Not like Uncle Joe, not in sifts of sand that once made up his body, but like a ghost, growing more transparent until I can only see the faintest outline of his shoulders, his legs, the roundness of his skull.
“ANSWER ME!” I yell.
“Wake up.” His voice carries on the wind.
Something beeps behind me.
“I can’t…” I fall to my knees. Crumple in on myself. “I can’t do this alone.”
Beepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeep.
“Winter.” His hand rests on my cheek. His wedding ring glints in the sunlight. But when I look up at him, it’s full dark, and worms wriggle out of his eyes.
Wake up.
*
Henry shakes me. “You must awaken.”
It takes me a moment to remember exactly who he is, why he’s here, and why I still hear the beeping from my dream. Another moment to realize it’s my alarm clock, and that it’s probably been going off for a while. If Mom comes in to check on me and sees Henry here, I’m dead. Stick me in a coffin and make me a tombstone that reads: She had a boy in her room, so her mother killed her. Let it be a lesson to all.
“This blasted machine of yours will not stop—”
I push him away and slam my palm down on the snooze button, then flip the off switch next to it. The clock reads 6:52. It’s been going off for the past seven minutes. Thankfully, I hear the pipes clanging in the walls—Mom’s taking a shower. She couldn’t have heard it.
I let my head fall back on the pillow and groan. I stayed up way too late thinking about a job that should require little thought (patrol the wood, catch a traveler, send him back), and now my brain feels sticky, like it’s peeling off my skull and jiggling back into place.
Henry picks up the clock and turns it over. “What is this infernal contraption?”
“It’s an alarm clock,” I say, my voice deep and sleep-scratchy. “It wakes you up.”
He sets it back down. “Evidently not.”
I stick my tongue out at him and he raises his eyebrows.
I wait until Mom’s out of the shower, then slip into the bathroom with the tiny makeup bag she bought for me in middle school, its contents practically untouched. I work quickly, smothering my face in powder to make myself appear paler than I actually am, keeping my ears trained on Mom’s movements.
When I get back to my room, the TV is on. Henry’s watching Saved by the Bell.
“I think I am beginning to understand your vernacular,” he tells me.
“Good.” Although it really isn’t. If I’d done my job right, he wouldn’t need to understand my “vernacular.” He’d be back in the eighteenth century, living his life as he was supposed to.
Actually, he’d be dead.
The thought makes my stomach roll. What am I saying? He is dead. I could take him to Brightonshire today and we could stare at his grave together. Just because he’s sitting in my room, watching TV and wearing my T-shirt, does not mean he’s a part of my world. He needs to go back, live his life, and die just like everyone else.
I try not to think about it long—it’s too morbid for seven fifteen in the morning.
“For example,” Henry says, “your breeches are cool.”
I smile. “Pants. Not breeches. And they’re pajama pants, to be more accurate.”
“Ah.” He stares at my legs, and even though I know he’s just interested in the fabric, I feel like I should cover myself. “Pah-jah-mahs.” The word sounds strange on his tongue, but then again, so did cool.
“We’ll work on it,” I say.
I tell Henry to wait in my room and not make any noise, and then I slowly shuffle down the stairs. I grimace with every step, tenting my hand over my eyes as if the sunlight streaming in through the windows is physically painful. Mom’s in the kitchen eating a bran muffin as she gathers papers into her briefcase. The second she sees me, her eyes widen.
“Winter? Are you all right?”
“I don’t feel so good,” I say, collapsing onto a stool at the island.
Mom frowns and places her hand on my forehead. “You don’t feel like you have a fever.” But I must do a good job of looking pathetic, because she pats my back and says, “Go to bed. I’ll call the school and tell them you’ll be home sick today.”
“No, I can go—” I make a big show of trying to stand, my head lolling on my shoulders like it’s in danger of falling off.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mom says, shooing me back down. “Do you want me to call Joe and see if he can patrol for you this morning?”
“No!” The last thing I need is for Joe to come poking around and find a traveler in our house saying things like cool and electricity.
Mom blinks.
“I mean, no, don’t worry about it. I can call him. You don’t want to be late for work.”
She checks her watch. “Will you be all right here on your own? I have a full morning of lectures and some student meetings in the afternoon, but I could come home around lunch and make you some soup—”
“That’s okay,” I say, careful to keep my voice scratchy. “I think I’m just going to be sleeping all day anyway. I know where we keep the food if I get hungry.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod.
“Okay,” she says, popping the lid onto her thermos. “Get some sleep, baby.”