Vivian went to the newspapers, searching for the date of June 7, 1925. Sure enough, the Spokane Times sported a garish headline—Four Dead in Krebston Massacre!!—along with a grainy black-and-white photograph of a tangle of bodies that she wished she could unsee.
All blame pointed at sixteen-year-old Weston. Grace was on the scene, bloodstained and mute, while Weston was nowhere to be found. The girl revealed no information about the events.
Vivian went back into GenWeb. Grace Jennings died in 1977 and was buried with her family in the Old Krebston Cemetery. As for Weston, there was no date of death. It was as if he had vanished off the face of the earth.
Leaning back in the chair she rubbed the muscles in her shoulders. A rogue Dreamshifter who was accused of the mass murder of his own family. Maybe he was dead. But Dreamshifters lived well beyond the usual life span and he could easily be running around creating havoc in Dreamworld or the Between. If there was another Dreamshifter still alive somewhere on the planet, maybe he had information. Maybe he could get her back into Dreamworld; maybe he knew about the Key.
Maybe, just maybe, he had access to dreamspheres. If there was even a hope of that, she had to try to find him. Even if he was a deranged killer, which seemed likely.
She needed more information, and she thought she might just know where to find it.
Fourteen
Zee refused to die. Not here in this place that reeked of dragons.
Using the sword as a support, he tried to lever himself up onto his feet, but his right arm wouldn’t work and his knees refused to stiffen. On the first attempt he fell flat onto his bruised ribs. Pain lanced through him, stole his breath, sent his consciousness scurrying off into dusty corners of his mind.
He held on, resisting the lure of the inviting darkness, until the pain eased and he was able to breathe. Then he tried again, planting the tip of the sword between two of the paving stones, grabbing on to the hilt with his left hand. He managed to drag himself up onto his knees but could get no farther.
Recognizing at length that his efforts were not only futile but draining the little energy he had left, he began to crawl. One slow inch at a time, shoving the sword ahead of him to free both hands, he dragged himself toward the arch through which he had entered. His arm began to bleed again, turning the hand slippery with blood so that it slid when he braced it against the stone to pull himself forward. His head spun; his heart lurched and pattered in an irregular rhythm.
Death loomed. He felt its presence, but he wasn’t ready. Not yet. Too many things left undone. He’d sworn to help Vivian and now here he was, dying before he’d done a thing to aid or protect her.
But even these thoughts faded away as the pain and the weakness and the necessity to move just one more inch became overwhelming. He didn’t notice when he reached the arch, but he heard the bell toll, followed by a cracking, rending sound.
And then everything changed.
He lay facedown in soft green grass, instead of on the road he was expecting. Light filtered in through his closed eyelids and he felt the impossibility of sunlight warm on his back. When he lifted his head, he saw that he lay on a well-tended lawn in full daylight. To his right, a gravel road disappeared into a thick grove of trees. Tall grasses grew up along the far side of the road, blocking the horizon. To his left stood a battered fifth-wheel trailer, much like the one he had grown up in, with the difference of a carefully tended lawn and a garden of bright flowers.
A man sat in the shade of a gnarled and ancient tree. His head was bald and shone as if it had been waxed and polished. A thick white beard covered his chest, and he wore a robe sewn out of some sort of rough brown cloth, tied around an ample belly with a bit of old rope. Beside him, ready to hand, sat a rough wooden table bearing a jug full of water and two plastic tumblers.
“Well met, Warrior,” the old man said. “Would you drink?”
“Please,” Zee croaked, in a voice that seemed to belong to somebody else.
The man got up with some difficulty. The flimsy lawn chair in which he sat was a tight fit for his bulk and wanted to come with him. But once he had managed to dislodge it he filled one of the tumblers with water and put it in Zee’s hand.
It looked like plain, ordinary water. No enchantment that Zee could detect, and the old man stepped back and waited, not trying to coerce him. Drink or die. He drained the glass, the cool liquid soothing his parched throat, but it was not enough. Before he could ask, the old man retrieved the pitcher and refilled his glass to the brim.
While he drank, Zee looked around. Nobody was to be seen except his benefactor. A wooden dream door hung in the middle of a hedge, maybe the one he’d come through, maybe another one. It was closed, which was good, although he knew well enough it could open at any time.
“Where is this?” he asked, his voice belonging to him once again.
“No place and every place. Do you not recognize the Between?”
The urgency that had driven Zee this far resurfaced. “I need to get back to Wakeworld.” He tried to sit up, but the old man pressed him back and he wasn’t strong enough to argue.
“Do not fear. You are safe for the moment—she will come for you, by and by, but not yet. Rest now. Let me dress your wounds.”
Too weak to explain or to fight, Zee let his head fall back into the softness of grass. His weariness was an inescapable force and his eyes drifted shut. Somewhere a bee buzzed, and a gentle breeze touched his face. His hand groped for the sword and closed around the familiar hilt. Only then did he allow himself to sleep.
When he woke, the old man still sat in his lawn chair under the tree. The sun hung in the same place in the sky; the shadows had not shifted. But the stabbing pain in his head had receded; the raging thirst was gone. A neat bandage wrapped his upper right arm. The gash in his side had been cleaned. When Zee pushed himself up to sitting, the world spun for only a moment and then righted itself.
Wordlessly, his benefactor brought him another tall glass of water, and he drank.
“How long have I been asleep?” His hand went to his jaw, half expecting to find a Rip Van Winkle beard, and he was grateful to discover only rough stubble.
“Time has no meaning here; it comes and goes according to its own whims. Do you hunger?”
Zee realized that he was, in fact, nearly as hungry as he was confused. “I could eat. And I have a lot of questions, if you are willing to answer.”
“The willingness is perhaps not the issue. Ask only questions for which I have the answers, and we will do well.” The old man opened a picnic basket that now sat on the table beside him. “Ham sandwich?”
The sandwich in question was made from a small round loaf of bread, stuffed with a thick slab of ham and some sort of waxy yellow cheese that was definitely not cheddar. Maybe it was just because of his hunger, but the flavors seemed bigger, the textures more real, than any sandwich Zee had ever eaten. One bite led to another, and he had consumed the whole thing before he wiped the crumbs from his face with his sleeve and asked, “Who are you?”
“My name matters not.”
“How long have you been here?”
The old man smiled, beatifically, and said, gently, “As I have said, time here has no meaning. Ask a thing that I can answer.”
“All right. What are you doing here?” Zee gestured at the trailer and the empty space all around.
“I’m a hermit. Where else would I be?”
The Holy Hermit of the Fifth Wheel, Zee thought, with a mixture of amusement and frustration.