Nevermor Page 10

  Perhaps we are going to a different stretch of beach, she reasoned to herself.

  Nix was out in front, no doubt because he was sullen and didn’t want to associate with the rest of them. The smaller boy named Sly was sometimes there and sometimes not – drifting off into the woods at times before falling back in line with the group. Finn and Toss were chatting together, keeping the forest alive with their voices. The twins were behind her, and they were not quiet either, but she could not hear what they were saying as they talked together.

  It was unusual to her that the boys spoke differently than she did. She had noticed it right away. They all spoke English, but in different dialects, and even the sound of Rifter’s voice had been unusual to her. She suspected that they had all come here as she had after Rifter had chosen them, perhaps years before, lifted from different parts of the world.

  She wanted to ask. The questions were burning in her chest.

  Rifter walked next to her, which made her feel content, but the fairy never did go very far away from him, sometimes swooping low just to remind Wren that she was still there, as if to say: I’m watching you.

  They walked on for a while, and though Wren was glad for the way the others cleared the path ahead of her, she was getting tired, convinced that she had already been up all night. Why were they going to the beach now? Couldn’t it wait until morning?

  “Don’t you boys ever sleep?” she asked them, and their boisterous conversation died down at the sound of her question.

  “We sleep when we want,” Finn said. “We’ve been known to stay up for days.”

  “And sometimes sleep for days,” Toss added, but he wouldn’t look at her, too embarrassed.

  “That can’t be good for you,” Wren commented. “Not getting enough rest will make you old.”

  At the sound of that, they all began to laugh at her. She hated to say that she was starting to get used to it. Apparently, none of them thought she knew much of anything.

  “We won’t ever grow old,” one of the twins said. She thought it was Mech, but she couldn’t be sure.

  “That’s part of the Vow,” the other twin added.

  “What vow?” Of course she had to ask, and once again there was silence after her question. She decided on a new tactic. “I’m very sorry that I ask a lot of questions. It’s just that I’m so fascinated by this place, and all of you, and I want to know everything I can.”

  She waited for the flattery to take hold of them – could already see a few of them smiling – and then Sly spoke up from the shadows.

  “If one desires to stay here with us, he must take the Vow of the Never-Ones, in which – among other things – he must promise never to grow even the slightest bit older. We have all taken it and, well, we don’t.”

  Wren couldn’t help herself. She laughed.

  “But that’s impossible.” None of them were laughing with her. “Isn’t it?”

  She looked up at Rifter, who returned her gaze and spoke tolerantly.

  “I’ve been here for as long as I can remember,” he said. “I only remember the day that I woke up here and nothing before that. I figure it has been a hundred years or so.”

  A hundred!

  “And you’re still…” Wren couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it. To live that long and never age? It seemed fantastic – unreal! “And the rest of you as well?”

  “We’ve not been here quite so long,” Finn said. “There were others before—”

  “We’re nearly there,” Nix interrupted from up ahead, and their conversation faded.

  The trees were getting sparse, giving way to the beach, and finally they stepped free of them, out onto an unfamiliar portion of the coast. The boys were all silent now, and Wren kept quiet with them, feeling they did so with good reason.

  They went out onto the sand anxiously, drawing their weapons as they peered around. Some of them had blades; others had ranged weapons of war – some more modern than others – but there did not seem to be anything to fight. The sight of the weapons had her a bit worried, however.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked Rifter, who was standing beside her, peering toward the sea. “Are you going to call someone?”

  “No, I’ve already called you, and that’s enough for now,” he said.

  “Then what?”

  “I told you this is a place of dreams,” he reminded her. “The sea is there, and it brings the dreams in from different places, all across the universe. Some of them die before they get here, but the purest of them survive. With that also comes the blackest of things. Sometimes, there are nightmares. The sea has many monsters, and it is always best to kill them when they first come on shore – before they are fully formed. This is what we do. It is what we have always done.”

  She thought he had mentioned this to her before. He’d said something about using his sword to fight the nightmares, but knowing it ahead of time didn’t make it any more pleasant for her now.

  “As I said, I’ve never brought a girl here,” he went on, “so I’m not so sure of what to do with you now, but I always give the new boys an initiation. They are supposed to kill at least one nightmare. That’s my rule.”

  A chill seized her when she realized what they had come to the beach for.

  “And because I am here, you want me to…” She couldn’t finish, partly because she could not come up with a way to describe it. If Rifter expected her to magically know how to fight – as he had killed those pirates – he was mistaken. She was a common girl, and didn’t know about anything except sewing and washing. She was not a warrior.

  Rifter shook his head, looking back to her eyes.

  “I already know you can’t fight,” he said with a laugh, and she didn’t think she would ever be so grateful to have him laugh at her. She sighed with relief.

  “Just stay back and you should be fine. But just in case…” He reached down to the top of his boot and drew out a short knife. He held it out to her in his open palm, but she did not take it. She didn’t want it, but she wasn’t sure how to say that. Wren looked at the shining knife with the crude handle and then raised her eyes back to him. He saw her reluctance.

  “Not all of the time, but sometimes, Nevermor is a dangerous place. You should at least have a weapon in case you need it.”

  Rifter took her hand in his and curled her fingers around the dagger handle, perhaps knowing that she wasn’t going to take it otherwise. He was right.

  “Do you see anything, Sly?” Finn was saying from across the beach.

  Sly had withdrawn a sort of telescope that had been lashed to his belt, which he used to look out over the sea.

  “Hm. I think… Yes, there’s a dark mass incoming! Just a few waves out.”

  “Excellent!” Finn exclaimed. “And at that, we are ready to pray. May we have our blessing, please, Whisper?”

  The fairy kicked up a terrible commotion, which led Finn to roll his eyes.

  “Rifter, Wisp isn’t being very cooperative. I think she’s refusing to bless us.”

  “She is,” Rifter confirmed. “She doesn’t want to give Wren a blessing and is refusing to give the rest of you one either.”

  Wren just looked on, the dagger stuck to her hand. What were they talking about? She was, however, beyond being insulted by the fairy-thing. There was only so much tolerance she could have for something that had attempted to murder her.

  “I don’t have time for this, Wisp,” Rifter warned, leaving Wren’s side to approach the irritated pixie. “It’ll be dawn soon.”

  The fairy went on again, spitting out those terrible whispers that scratched at the ears. Rifter argued with the wisp for a few moments, and eventually it seemed that he had reminded her who was boss.

  “Gather around,” he instructed. “All of you. Make it quick.”

  Wren wasn’t sure if she was included in that, but she guessed she wasn’t. She watched the boys gather and no one invited her in, so she stayed in place. They all stood in a cluster –
except Rifter, who backed away – and then Whisper hovered over them, pulsing with light.

  Wren heard the fairy speaking in her quiet way, and she believed it was some sort of incantation. She was reminded of the Lord’s Prayer being murmured hurriedly by someone who was devote and troubled, but of course this was not the same thing. The boys had their eyes closed as the blessing fell on them, and once it was done, they came back to life.

  “That’s much better!” Finn declared. He threw his arms up and stretched as if he suddenly felt much more relaxed and lightweight.

  Nix hopped up and down on the balls of his feet, shaking himself out. Sly jumped into the air and turned a flip – then another directly after. Wren knew she wasn’t nearly nimble enough to do that, but somehow didn’t notice that he lingered in the air a little longer than he should have.

  Above them, the wisp was still muttering about something, but the boys had forgotten her, heading down to the edge of the water. Wren watched them, feeling nervous. Beneath the light of the enormous moon, she could see what had been spotted on the ocean. There was definitely something coming. It was like a black blanket riding the waves. It did not glisten in the moonlight as the water did, but was thick and black as tar.

  What is it?

  “Do you see it?” Rifter asked. She hadn’t even known he was beside her again, and she shivered. “That’s what a nightmare looks like when it’s on the sea. After it washes ashore, it will grow, and it can become its true form, sent from the dreamer who dreamed it.

  “There are three things that may happen, the best of which is that we are able to kill it. Otherwise, it will get past us and run free on the island – until we manage to hunt it down and kill it later. Or, it will go back out onto the sea, where it will return to the dreamer and probably stay with them for a while. Either way, it will be here soon.”

  Wren gulped. She could not even feel her fingers around the knife anymore. She wondered if it would do any good to ask to be excused from this – at least this one time – but before she’d gotten the words arranged in her mind, the first oily bulk had washed ashore.

  She only watched to see what would happen as the boys gave their attention to it. As she observed from a safe distance, she saw the glob shifting there on the beach – clearly alive, though it had no features.

  A couple of the boys moved toward it, and she could hear them talking.

  “Oh don’t kill it yet, Sly,” Finn complained. “Let it get a little bigger first.”

  There was no fear in their voices. If anything, they were excited. They stood by with their weapons and, in fact, a couple of them were not even looking at the thing. This was commonplace to them. They were not horrified by the prospect. It was a game.

  Is it really that simple? She hoped that it was, though she had reservations about killing anything, even a simple bug.

  A bug… Yes, that was what the blob looked like now. It had changed before her eyes, having sprouted spindly legs. It was able to stand, rising up to be around the size of a large dog. Eventually it grew a head and several round, red eyes formed on its face. Still, the boys did nothing. Instead, they seemed fascinated to watch what it would become.

  Wren was trying to keep herself steady – to not scream or show any fear – but she was having a difficult time with that. She knew they would laugh at her anxiety and so she strived to keep it to herself.

  Did you think this would be a perfect trade? Did you think that you could come here and there would be absolutely no adversity? She asked herself this, not knowing the answer. Perhaps she had thought that.

  Presently, another dark form was taking shape not far away. The boys were growing eager, working themselves into a frenzy, though they still did not attack. Away from the rest of them, Rifter was observing it all, but his eyes were affixed in the distance, staring at the large dark blanket that was on the waves, coming ever closer.

  These small ones were nothing to him. He was waiting for the larger nightmare to arrive.

  Several lesser portions had washed up now, some mere droplets compared to others, and Wren wondered if they were all separated parts of the bigger mass. Once they had begun a steady population of writhing creatures on the shore, the boys set to work.

  The nightmares hatched, each one of them different. The boys didn’t care much. The creatures released horrible screeching sounds as their dark flesh was met with blades. Wren clenched the knife in her fist, hoping that none got near her.

  All around, the boys were in top form. They were slicing off black chunks of flesh with glee, putting arrows and bullets through nightmare skin. They moved with such ease, jumping around and dodging with amazing swiftness, and yet she was too terrified to move.

  “Here comes the big one!” one of them yelled, and as soon as he had said it, the black mass washed up onto the sand.

  It rolled in with the waves, collapsing upon itself like a pile of sludge. It did not take long before it was growing limbs and gaining mass, and to her surprise, the boys did not waste time with it. They were already shooting it before it was fully formed, but that did not halt its growth.

  Rifter was interested now. She could see his fascination, and when he looked over at her, his eyes were bright and shining.

  “Time for some fun,” he said with a smile.

  “Do be careful,” she pleaded, but she had to trust that he knew what he was doing.

  “Just keep yourself out of the way,” he warned, and Wren instinctively stepped back a bit more.

  Rifter drew his sword and began to take steps toward the creature, but he was in no hurry. Nix and Finn were shooting the forming nightmare with guns while the twins were sending arrows into it, one after the other without having to aim. Toss had not made a move yet, but he and Sly were standing there, carefully taking measure of the thing. Even Whisper was helping, floating over the creature’s head to keep it confused and distracted. More than that, she seemed to be indicating places where they should shoot – points of weakness.

  As Wren watched, she gradually began to notice what she thought were effects of the fairy blessing. All of the boys could move unnaturally fast now – but perhaps not as fast as Rifter had moved before – and they could jump uncommonly high.

  Even for all their effort, the beast still managed to stay upright. It had grown much larger now, rising up on legs like dark tree trunks. It was still fully black as shadow, but now it had a head as well as long, thick arms which it used to swipe at the boys. Toss and Sly finally ran in and began to attack it head-on – Toss with a large hammer and Sly with some unusual clawed gloves – as the beast roared with rage, but Wren found herself taking a step back.

  There was no way that she was involving herself in this fight. It was too much for her.

  I could run, but what good would that do me? I can’t always run away.

  She had been learning that gradually. Lately, that was what her life had become – that choice. Was she strong enough to deal with this? For these boys, this was part of everyday life. Could she accept it as being a part of hers?

  Why should I have to keep running? Can’t I just stand still and be perfectly safe?

  That was a question she didn’t have an answer to.

  2

  Rifter had stood back for as long as he could bear, watching the others hack away at the growing nightmare monster, but he couldn’t be idle any longer. He hadn’t had a decent battle in so many nights, and he was itching.

  The nightmare should never have come here. It was going to regret it.

  He rushed into the fray, one foot before the other until he leapt up and took flight, his sword raised to strike the vile thing down – and a dark tentacle slapped him out of the air like a fly.

  He hit the sand on one knee and slid back until he finally halted, but the sting on his flesh did not deter him. Within seconds, he was up and running again. The nightmare before him could not seem to decide what it wanted to become. There were several wagging tentacles, and it appeared to
be growing a few different heads as well, aside from the massive arms and legs.

  The uncertainties of what could be dreamed up out of fear never ceased to amaze him, but it didn’t matter. The abomination would die just the same.

  He looked for Whisper, who was best at figuring out where there was a weak point on the enemy’s body, but he could see that she was still flying around as if lost. She hadn’t been able to pinpoint anything, likely because the nightmare had not chosen its form yet. The thing was already annoying him. He hated indecisiveness.

  When in doubt, there was one sure way to kill a nightmare which couldn’t fail if it was done properly. Rifter knew the secret of that.

  “Wisp!”

  She came to him promptly, as he’d ordered. He held out his sword and she landed on the flat of it, knowing what he intended for her to do. She put her tiny hands down onto the metal and spoke a quiet prayer. The blade began to glow with the power of the blessing, shining gold, glowing in the dark.

  “Keep it distracted!” he ordered the others, and they had no intention of doing otherwise. All of their attacks thus far had been meant only to weaken it.

  The tentacles were flailing all around. Toss and Mach were hit, knocked to the ground as the breath was taken from them, but Rifter couldn’t pay them any attention. He leapt up and flipped over the creature, clearing its attempts to strike him down. He took himself from its line of sight and pressed downward with the sword, burying it to the hilt in the nightmare’s flesh.

  He held on and the blessed sword began to work its magic, spreading across the black skin like a disease – drying it up, turning it to ash. The nightmare’s movement slowed, became lesser, until finally it was finished. Rifter didn’t pull the sword free until the creature began to break apart.

  The nightmare collapsed as a shapeless black mass, and finally Rifter took his sword and leapt down, splashing knee-high in the water.