The train of thought plunged her into a sudden depression. For the first time in a while she thought of Chad and the life she’d left behind. Scenes and aural snippets from their screaming arguments came back to her then. Arguments that nearly always centered around the same thing-her deepening booze and pill dependence. Chad railed endlessly against this “self-medication,” insisting that she needed professional help to deal with her guilt over the deaths of her friends. This was followed by Dream’s usual litany of bitter recriminations, unfairly blaming him for everything that was wrong with her. Even then she’d known how unfair she was being, but she hadn’t cared. She would not be denied her only real solace, the numbing effects of her chosen poisons. Things came to a head the time Dream whizzed an empty bottle past Chad ’s head, barely missing him before it exploded on the living room wall. And then she’d hit him. And that’d been the end of it. She moved out the next day and never returned.
Tears stung Dream’s eyes and she was glad for the obscuring effects of the rain. A flicker of movement to her right drew her out of the painful reverie. She glanced in that direction and saw the girl in the yellow rain slicker again. Only now she was closer than before, the distance between them nearly halved. The rain slicker flapped in the wind and the hood blew back a bit, revealing long wet strands of blonde hair. The girl’s eyes were a brilliant shade of blue that sparkled even in the gloom. She was a pretty young thing, one might even say adorable but for that insidious grin and that strange, mocking laughter Dream realized she could actually hear now.
Dream cast her gaze about for any sign of the child’s parents, but there was no one nearby who obviously fit the bill. A few other people were present, but they were mostly dark, indistinct forms in the distance. And surely no parent of any worth would allow a child so young to wander from sight on a place like Rainbow Bridge. She didn’t want to believe the girl was another apparition or magical construct, but the sense that she was wouldn’t go away. The idea that the power she possessed was so far beyond her control terrified Dream.
But there was another thing to consider. From which submerged corner of Dream’s psyche had she emerged? There was nothing instantly familiar about the girl. Except for the blonde hair, she didn’t much resemble Dream as a young girl. Nor did she much look like any of the childhood friends she could recall. Then something occurred to Dream, a flash of insight so stark and compelling she couldn’t help but believe it. Perhaps, on a subconscious level, the girl was Dream’s idea of how her own daughter might look. She was a woman, and perhaps on some primal level lurked a need unfulfilled, a biological imperative that combined with what Marcy called the “supernatural gumbo” inside her to produce this leering manifestation.
Her eyes still locked on Dream, the girl laughed harder, her little body rocking with the force of her mirth.
Dream shivered and moved back a step.
The girl was closer by half again, maybe ten feet away now, and Dream had not seen her move. It was almost as if the physical distance between them was shrinking of its own accord, the fabric of existence retracting or disappearing to draw them closer. Which was an insane, impossible thing, but Dream had seen and experienced enough not to discount a thing merely because it shouldn’t be possible.
She moved back another step and said, “Stay away.” She bumped against Marcy and her voice rose in pitch as tears flowed freely down her face. “Stay the fuck away! Leave me alone!”
Marcy shuffled away with a startled grunt and said, “Who are you talking to, Dream?”
The little girl was five feet away and looking straight at her now. She raised a hand and pointed a slender forefinger at her. The pale digit looked ghostly in the gloom. Like something only half-formed or incomplete. This impression, combined with Marcy’s question, formed the impetus for what happened next.
Dream ceased her retreat. The terror was still rising inside her, an inferno that threatened to scorch what precious little remained of her sanity. But there was another emotion now, as well. Anger. Raw, burning hatred. Hatred for a part of herself she couldn’t control. A thing she feared might consume her.
She loosed a cry of rage and dashed forward. The girl’s hand fell to her side and her evil little grin gave way to a look of shocked surprise. Dream seized her by the shoulders and began to lift her up. A scream of terror ripped from the girl’s lungs, but Dream ignored it, knowing only she could hear the sound. She would not be swayed from doing what had to be done, would not allow this awful thing to feed from her and grow stronger, become a part of the real world. The girl’s body was quaking as Dream lifted her higher and moved toward the railing. She sobbed and pleaded, but Dream blanked it out and focused only on the task at hand, moving the light little body out over the railing.
Marcy was yelling at her: “Dream, what the hell are you doing? Have you lost your fucking mind!?”
Other people were yelling, too. Shouts and exhortations, desperate words that failed to penetrate the roaring in her ears. She also failed to hear the sound of several pairs of feet pounding across concrete toward her, but she did feel the grappling hands of the wouldbe rescuers a moment later, felt them pulling at her arms, tugging at her hair and clothes, desperately digging for any hold at all to pull her back from the brink. But Dream was resolute and would not be moved. The dormant core of power within her switched on and filled her entire body with a strength several times greater than that of all the people assailing her combined. Though she didn’t think it consciously, there was an underlying sense that these people were attempting to pull her back from an apparent suicide leap.
She leaned even further over the railing, effortlessly shrugging loose all those grasping hands as she lowered the girl and prepared to drop her. The girl abruptly stopped thrashing and looked up at Dream with wide, pleading eyes. Then her mouth was moving. Dream couldn’t hear what the apparition was saying, as the roaring in her ears continued to obliterate all external sounds.
This was it. All Dream had to do was relax her hold on the girl and let her slip away, and this one little phase of the ongoing nightmare that was her life would be over. But Dream hesitated. She stared at those thin, chapped lips as they moved. Saw the girl’s crooked white teeth and the pink wedge of tongue behind them.
The roaring in her ears ceased.
The rush of the water below returned. Then she heard the screams and the words of the people grabbing at her, words too frantic and intercut to make any sense. Dream focused on the motion of the girl’s lips and was at last able to hear her voice, its soft timbre somehow rising above the cacophony of sound from the bridge. The girl’s actual words were channeled in another direction as something alien pushed these words through her vocal cords: “The Master awaits you in hell, slut.”
She let go of the girl and jerked backward. The bodies of all the people behind her prevented a full retreat and she watched the little body drop and tumble, the rain slicker flapping up and briefly lifting her arms like a tiny sail. Then she hit the water and sliced through its surface like a scalpel cutting flesh. In the next moment she disappeared from view and the people behind her went running toward the other side of the bridge. Staggering, Dream turned around and watched their retreating backs as a frown began to work its way across her stunned features.