Twenty-six

Briar dreamed of earthquakes and machines so huge that they mowed down cities. Somewhere, at the edge of the things she could hear, she detected the sound of gunfire and something else — or maybe nothing else, because whatever it was, it didn’t come again. Somewhere else it was soft and the lights were turned down low, and the bed was deep enough to cradle a family of four.

It smelled like dust and kerosene, and old flowers dried and left in a vase beside a basin.

Levi was there. He asked her, “You never did tell him, did you?”

From the bed, where her eyes were so heavy she could hardly hold them open, Briar said, “I never told him anything. But I will, as soon as I can.”

“Really?” He did not look convinced; he looked amused.

He was wearing the thick linen apron he often wore in the laboratory workshop, and it was covered by a light coat that went down to his knees. His boots were unlaced, as usual, as if it never occurred to him to fix them. Around his forehead a set of conjoined monocles was strapped, wearing a groove into the skin that never fully went away.

She was too tired to object when he came to sit on the edge of the bed. He looked exactly how she last remembered him, and he was smiling, as if everything was all right and nothing had ever been wrong. She told him, “Really. I’m going to tell him, no matter what it costs me. I’m tired of keeping all these secrets. I can’t keep them all anymore. And I won’t.”

“You won’t?” He reached for her hand, but she didn’t let him take it.

She rolled over onto her side, facing away from him and clutching at her stomach. “What do you want?” she asked him. “What are you even doing here?”

He said, “Dreaming, I think. Same as you. Look, my love. We meet here — if nowhere else.”

“Then this is a dream,” she said, and a sick feeling spread through her stomach like acid. “For a minute I thought it wasn’t.”

“It might be the only thing you ever did right,” he said, moving neither toward nor away from her. His weight on the edge of the bed bowed the mattress and made her feel as if she were rolling or falling into his space.

“What? Not telling him?”

“If you had, you might’ve lost him before now.”

“I haven’t lost him,” she said. “I just can’t find him.”

Levi shook his head. She could feel the motion of it, though she couldn’t see him. “He’s found what he wanted, and you’ll never get him home again. He wanted facts. He wanted a father.”

“You’re dead,” she told him, as if he did not know.

“You won’t convince him of it.”

She crushed her eyes closed and buried her head in the pillow, which almost wanted to smother her with its musty, warm odor. “I won’t have to convince him, if I show him.”

“You’re a fool. The same fool you always were.”

She said, “Better a live fool than a dead—”

“Mother,” he said.

She opened her eyes. “What?”

“Mother.”

She heard it again. She turned her neck to pull her face away from the pillow, and lifted her head. “What are you talking about?”

“Mother, it’s me.”

It felt like shooting through a tunnel, the speed and ragged jolt with which she awoke. She was being dragged from warm darkness and into something colder, fiercer, and infinitely less comfortable. But there was a voice at the end of it, and she crawled toward it, or slid toward it, or fell up as she tried to reach it.

“Mother? Oh shit, Mother. Mother? Come on, wake up. You’ve got to wake up, ’cause I sure can’t carry you, and I want to get out of here.”

She rolled over onto her back and tried to open her eyes, then realized that they were already open but she couldn’t quite see. All the world was blurry, though light did flicker off to her right, and above her there loomed a distinctly dark shadow.

The shadow was saying, over and over again, “Mother?”

And the earthquake in her dreams was rumbling still, or maybe he was only shaking her. The shadow’s hands gripped her shoulders and hurled them back and forth until her head snapped on her neck, and she declared, “Ow.”

“Mother?”

“Ow,” she said again. “Stop it. Stop what you’re doing, that… Stop it.”

The brighter her vision became, the more aggressively it was accompanied by a burning sting, and a dampness that drooled over her cheekbone. She touched the sore spot with her hand, and when she drew it back, it was wet.

“Am I bleeding?” she asked the shadow. Then she said, “Zeke, am I bleeding?”

“Not real bad,” he said. “Not even as bad as I was. Mostly you’re just bruised up. You got blood all over the pillowcase, but it ain’t ours, so I don’t care. Come on. Stand up. Get up. Come on.”

He wedged his arm underneath her back and hauled her bodily off the bed, which was every bit as soft as her dream suggested. The room was the same too, so she must’ve been awake enough — in fragments — to gather her surroundings. But she was alone except for the boy, who dragged her to her feet and forced her to stand.

Her knees buckled, then locked. She stood, leaning on Zeke. “Hey,” she said. “Hey, Zeke. Hey, it’s you. It is you, isn’t it? Because I was having the weirdest dream.”

“It’s me, you crazy old bird,” he said with affection and a grunt. “What are you doing in here, anyway? What were you thinking, coming inside this place? ”

“Me? Wait.” As much as it made the sore spot on her head swim, she shook her head and tried to make it clear enough to object. “Wait, you’re stealing all the things I was going to say.” Slowly, then suddenly, the understanding landed. She said, “You. It’s you, you dumb boy. You’re what I’m doing here.”

“I love you too, Momma,” he said around a smile so big he could hardly shape the words.

“I found you, though, didn’t I?”

“I might argue that I found you, but we can fight about it later.”

“But I came looking for you.”

“I know. We can fight about it later. First, we need to head on out of here. The princess is waiting for us. Somewhere. I think. We ought to go find her, and that Jeremiah guy.”

“The what? Or the who?” The warbling throb around her ear kicked hard, and she wondered if maybe she hadn’t been wrong about her state, and maybe she was dreaming again after all.

“The princess. Miss Angeline. She’s real helpful. You’ll like her. She’s real smart.” He released his grip on Briar and left her to stand by herself.

She wavered, but held steady. She said, “My gun. Where’s my gun? I need it. I had a bag, too. I had… some things. Where are they? Did he take them?”

“Yeah, he took ’em. But I took ’em back.” He held out the rifle and the satchel and all but shoved them into her hands. “You’ll have to work that thing, because I can’t shoot it.”

“I never taught you how.”

“You can teach me later. Let’s go,” he ordered, and Briar wanted to laugh but she didn’t.

She liked the look of him, even frantic and controlling — even leading her like a child while she came all the way to her senses. Someone had given him nice clothes and maybe a bath. “You clean up nice,” she said.

He said, “I know. How you feeling? Are you all right?”

“I’ll survive,” she told him.

“Good. You’d better. You’re pretty much all I got, ain’t you?”

“Where are we?” she asked, since he seemed to have a better handle on the situation than she did. “Are we… under the station? Where did that bastard put me while I was out?”

“We’re under the station,” Zeke said. “You’re two levels down from the big room with all the lights on the ceiling.”

“There’s another level underneath?”

“At least one, maybe more. This place is a maze, Momma. You wouldn’t believe it.” He stopped her at the door and opened it fast, then looked left and right outside down the hall. He held out his hand and said, “Wait. Do you hear that?”