The Multitude, стр. 27

Any place not Sanctimonia slipped into the shadows, leaving her with only one reality she could be sure of. She was Maynya. Her other name and peculiar language scattered like fragments of a fractured dream and evaporated into a sky marred by thick black smoke billowing from deep within the forest.

“Flamma!” She scrambled to her feet and ran toward the village.

The foliage on her right crackled, but not from flames. The fire was on her left. These had to be men, unschooled on how to steal through the trees in silence. She spun, reaching for the knife in her belt.

Two of Virtus’s barbarians emerged from the woods.

How could she have let them trick her with fire? Any simpleton could have recognized the diversion for what it was. She glanced over her shoulder at the crossbow she’d left behind. Too far away to be retrieved. She ran away from it, away from the men, as well, cutting an angle across the meadow toward the trees on her left.

The barbarians loped after her, hoisting a net between them, as if trolling for some creature of the sea. They gained on her with every stride. Their shouts, their footfalls, their labored breath came closer and closer.

She clenched her fists, gritted her teeth. She’d bite, scratch, kick. These animals would not get the better of her.

The net caught her.

She went down, face first into the ground. Stars burst in her head.

And then…

* * *

Carla wobbled on her feet, nearly swooning from the shock of yet another scene shift. Bright daylight had been swallowed by blackest night, and the rural landscape of Sanctimonia fell off a cliff, replaced by a familiar semicircle of tract houses in a suburban cul-de-sac. She knew this place. A captivating imaginary man had let her into his home recently and poured tea.

She got out of the street and climbed Brewster’s stairs, closing her eyes when she reached the porch and leaning forward until her forehead pressed against the wood of his front door. Perhaps by relaxing, she’d soften this door to the contours of her pillow and transport herself back to her Syracuse bedroom, where she’d wake up. The very idea eased her pounding heart and slowed her breathing.

The door didn’t get any softer. She choked a sob, pushed back, and turned to the neighborhood behind her.

The street ending at the cul-de-sac stretched through the darkness toward a mysterious point of origin. She couldn’t see beyond the pale illumination of a halogen lamp halfway down the block. What had happened the last time, after she left this house? Where had she gone? She couldn’t remember.

Carla had a notion to follow the street into the gloom. She wouldn’t have been surprised to find the end of the earth waiting out there.

Unlike the subway station, she had choices here. She could take off. Hit the road. Find out what truly waited at the end of that street. But her strongest urge was to play the hand dealt. She’d been delivered to this house again, to an alluring man who earlier reached through a displacement of space, depositing his business card in her hand when she awakened. This man was important.

She pressed his doorbell.

The opening chords of Beethoven’s Fifth chimed, and a light switched on somewhere in the house. Soon, the echo of footsteps approached, a brighter light came on, and the door cracked open. Brewster poked his head out and gazed at her for a long moment before breaking into a grin. “Remind me to never complain about my doorbell again.”

“Are you still having a fight with it?”

“More like a mild disagreement.” He unlatched the chain and opened the door wider.

Brewster’s easy smile brought out his handsomeness despite the tousle-haired, sleepy-eyed appearance of someone who’d been jarred awake. Light, wavy hair sprang out all funny on one side of his head, and the shirt he’d obviously just thrown on showed the wrinkles of a previous day’s wear. He’d only buttoned the thing halfway, teasing her with enough skin to draw her gaze lower. He’d failed to close his jeans properly—her heat welled up when she noticed his belt hadn’t been buckled—and he’d left his feet bare.

Who established the rules in this place called Northbrook? To hell with her wormhole theory, maybe she was the puppet master here! She didn’t want this particular scene to be real. She needed a place where she could plunge into a pool of wanton desire and forget all the rest.

She pressed against him before he could utter another word. Their lips met and he responded at first, brushing his lower one against hers like a magic man.

But he slowed down. He stopped. He took a half step back. “I know this’ll sound nuts, but I can’t shake the feeling you’re a figment of my imagination.”

“A what?”

“I’m dreaming, right?”

Maybe if she smacked him one, they’d both know the answer. “You certainly can’t be my dream or we’d still be kissing.”

He tried to put his hands on her arms. She shrugged him off, but his bewildered expression seemed so much a mirror of the chaos inside of her, she lost her resolve to stalk away.

“You disappeared into thin air last time,” he said.

“Oh, that.”

“There was a last time, right?”

Who knew? She wasn’t even sure there was a this time.

“Don’t leave,” he said.

She reached past him and tentatively touched the door—still hard, still not her pillow. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because you’re special.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Can we work on that?”

“I’ll need something stronger than tea this time.”

Brewster motioned toward the darkened houses scattered around the cul-de-sac. “Me, too. Maybe after a couple of stiff ones, we can come back out here and put on a little show for the neighbors.”

“I have my doubts whether neighbors even exist in this scenario.” Carla gazed at the sky, searching for an extra moon, a green Big Dipper, the Southern Cross, a square planet.