Lair of Dreams

“Do it,” Henry said.

Ling’s body still ached. She hadn’t much strength. If she was going to defeat Wai-Mae, she needed to get on top of the pain and change the dream as she had learned to do under Wai-Mae’s tutelage.

Breathe deeply.

Concentrate.

One thing at a time.

Wai-Mae blazed in the dark. “What are you doing, Little Warrior?”

Ling didn’t answer. She directed every bit of her mental energy to changing her legs back. But it wasn’t working.

“Do you think it was you who changed the dream all those times? No. That was my power, not yours.”

“No. I did it. I felt it.”

“I only allowed you to think it was your doing. So you would be happy. So you would come back to me.”

The courage Ling had carried into the dreamscape ebbed. It was like the day she learned she would never run again, never walk without those ugly braces. Once again, her choices had been taken from her without her consent. She felt the unfairness of it like a punch.

“You can choose to be happy.” Wai-Mae moved a hand across the entrance to the tunnel, and the surface came alive with new wonders: Ling in a beaded gown, dancing the Charleston on strong, sturdy legs. Ling standing before a mesmerized crowd at Jake Marlowe’s Future of America Exhibition as he demonstrated her advance in atomic science. Ling shaking hands with Jake Marlowe himself while her parents looked on, so proud—all of it so close Ling felt she could reach out and grab these dreams in her fist.

“Or you can choose to be unhappy.” The surface clouded. The image disappeared. In its place was a new picture, of Ling struggling to walk over New York’s bumpy streets while people stared. Ling sitting at the back of her father’s restaurant behind the teak screen, alone.

“Turn away from the world, sister,” Wai-Mae said gently. “Stay and dream with me. If we take that one”—she nodded toward Henry—“we will have so much power. Enough for many, many dreams. Soon, the other world will open for us. The King of Crows is coming. He will—”

A loud thwack reverberated in the tunnel as Henry smashed a rock against one of the brick screens. His whole body trembled, but he reached down deep, and with a cry, he smacked the rock against the wall again, cracking the screen. The energy inside it swooshed out on a tail of light that swirled around, then dispersed into the dark. Wai-Mae faltered a bit. Henry went to smash another, but he could barely lift his arm.

“You have no honor!” Wai-Mae grasped Henry’s head between her palms. “I will make you suffer as I suffered.”

“Wai-Mae, stop! Stop and… and I will dream with you,” Ling promised.

Wai-Mae released Henry, and he again fell to the ground. Sick and hurting, he made a feeble swipe at Wai-Mae’s ankle, but she stepped easily out of the way.

“Will you dream with me?” Wai-Mae trailed fingertips lightly down Ling’s arm, and in the gesture were both terror and desire, a coin twirled on a bargaining table the moment before coming to rest in judgment. “Will you promise?”

Don’t promise. Pearl.

Ling reached into her pocket. Nothing.

Pearl, she thought. Pearl. A spark flared at her fingertips. It tripped up her hand. She could feel the pearl taking shape, round and hard and real.

“Will you dream with me?” Wai-Mae asked, more insistent. “Will you promise?”

“Ling…” Henry warned. “Don’t.”

Ling brought her hands to her mouth as if in prayer. Then she motioned Wai-Mae closer with a finger. Wai-Mae dropped down; her face hovered near Ling’s.

“I. Will.” Ling brought her mouth to Wai-Mae’s. “Not!”

Quickly, Ling pressed her lips to Wai-Mae’s. She loosed the pearl she’d just slipped beneath her tongue. Wai-Mae’s eyes widened in surprise. Her fingers fanned at her throat.

“Take… it… out,” Wai-Mae growled.

Ling shook her head. Henry crawled to Ling’s side. The tunnel wobbled, erasing itself. As it did, the dream world also began unraveling. Pine needles browned and fell. The forest thinned to sticks. The flowers of the meadow sank back into grass that flattened to nothing. For a moment, they were aboveground, on the streets of Five Points. Firecrackers exploded in the sky, brief pops of hope above the sagging rooftops.

“No,” Wai-Mae croaked, trembling. She struggled to breathe. Two tears streaked down her cheeks. “This… will all die with me. No more. Without dreams is to die twice.”

They were back in the old train station. Light crackled up the walls and along the expanse of ceiling like shorted electrical wires. And then the station began to curl in on itself, a dream unwritten, something to be forgotten by the banal blur of morning.