The Last Dreamwalker, page 19
He laughed, and for a moment, the fatigue seemed to drop away. “Well, that’s sweet.”
“Seriously, dude.” She leaned forward in her seat. “I just talked to you a few days ago. You said things had slowed at work. That you were getting rest. But…”
She waved her hand in front of his face, taking in the beard stubble, the bloodshot eyes.
“I was. Until a few days ago. And then…” He picked a napkin off the table and began to slowly tear it into pieces.
“Will?”
“When you have those dreams—” He stopped. She waited, watching as the napkin turned, bit by bit, into confetti.
“Remember how you used to always say your dreams were real?” he said finally. He laughed, the sound hollow in the brightly lit condo. “I’ve been having these dreams about Scotia Island, about Charlotte. I mean, I’m sure it’s only because we were talking so much about it, but…”
He scratched at his beard, sighing. “But, these aren’t like any dreams I’ve ever had in my life. Everything was so … I don’t know … vivid. I mean, I could smell the water, Lay.”
“What did you dream?” Layla asked quietly, wary.
He shrugged. “So, I’m out there on that island. And there’s this little house. It’s got all these windows on this porch. And there were these…” He frowned. “Jars? I guess? With flowers in all the windows.”
Layla went still, a chill snaking through her before settling painfully in the pit of her stomach. She had never described Charlotte’s house to her brother.
Will seemed not to notice. He stood, went to the bar, and poured himself two fingers of scotch. “Chase was there. He was just crawling around in the grass. But something was wrong. I couldn’t get to him. And she was there, Charlotte, just watching from the trees.”
He shook his head and downed the scotch in one gulp. “It just felt wrong,” he said.
“Did she say anything?”
“Yeah.” He gave a dry laugh. “She said, ‘Tell your sister she’s a liar.’”
Layla tried to breathe, but the chill in her gut had turned into a solid thing, forcing the air from her lungs.
“But Lay.” Will looked up from his glass. His eyes were glazed with fear. She watched him swallow, and swallow again. “This morning when I woke up, there was sand in Chase’s crib.”
* * *
Layla stood in her darkened apartment, the muted swoosh of traffic leaking through the living room window. She dropped the never opened backpack on the couch and slid down beside it, her fists clenched to control the tremors. Will had had one of those dreams. It was a warning. She was sure of it. Charlotte was sending a message. But why?
She thought they’d had an understanding, a sort of truce. She wasn’t a threat to Scotia Island, or to Charlotte. If anything, after everything she’d learned, it felt as if they should be allies in protecting the island.
She needed to talk to her. To Charlotte. If Charlotte had something to say to her, then she needed to say it directly to her. She sat in the dark for a long time, thinking, before finally making her way into the bedroom and pulling a small duffle bag from under the bed. She’d brought back a few of her mother’s things from the Aunts’. Flicking on the bedside table, she opened the bag and pulled out a handful of pictures, including one of the few photos of Charlotte alone. In it, she was sitting on the beach, eyes closed, legs outstretched in the surf. Aside from the pictures, there was a small hair comb with shiny plastic jewels, the kind a small girl might like, and a bracelet of colorful, braided yarn.
She spread everything on the bed, then turned out the light and stretched out next to the items. She lay there for a moment, eyes closed, then had a sudden thought. Retrieving the backpack from the living room, she pulled the papers out and gently placed the one with her mother and Charlotte’s name on it under her pillow before lying down again.
She needed to communicate with Charlotte, but as she lay there, she realized she’d never tried to reach into a specific person’s dreams before. Her dreams had always appeared random, seeming to choose her.
The ridiculousness of lying on top of personal items of her mother’s and cousin’s suddenly struck her.
“Should just get a Ouija board,” she muttered, laughing softly. “Or sacrifice a goat.”
* * *
She felt water on her face and looked up. The sun was just rising. Dew clung to the tips of leaves, sparkling like crystals. Beneath her feet, she felt the pressure of uneven cobblestones. All around her, narrow, overgrown walkways wound drunkenly between grave markers, mausoleums, and ancient crypts.
She knew this place.
Père Lachaise.
The last vacation her whole family had taken together had been a week in Paris. While her father and brothers had taken boat rides up and down the Seine and haunted the arrondissements for the best macarons, Layla and her mother had wandered the city’s famed cemeteries.
Something flashed in the trees and Layla moved toward it. She found her mother kneeling in front of a small headstone, wearing what her father called her cemetery sweater, the thick, white cable-knit turtleneck she always wore on her trips.
There were other people in the cemetery, but they were off in the distance, their whispered conversations reaching her as a faint murmur. Her mother was using a charcoal stick to do a tracing of the headstone. Layla moved close and sat in a nearby mound of grass to watch. She could see that it was the grave of a young girl, Yvette Abadie, 1899–1914. Her mother looked up and smiled, then went back to her tracing.
Layla leaned back into the grass and closed her eyes. She could feel the sun playing on her face as it filtered through the leaves.
“Layla?”
Layla sat up. Her mother was watching her, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She held the tracing out.
Layla reached for it, then froze. It was not a rendering of the tombstone, not the dates or the small daffodil in the center of the headstone. Rather, it was a sketch of their family, roughly drawn but easily recognizable: Layla’s parents, her brothers, herself. And in the background, the vague outline of several other figures.
Her mother was watching her, no longer smiling. She forced the sketch into Layla’s hand.
“Family,” she said.
22
SUMMER
South Carolina in late July was even hotter than South Carolina in early June, the air viscous, gel-like. The soft greens of late spring had given way to brilliant emeralds and over-lush jades, and the clouds hovered at the top of the trees, blinding in their whiteness. The whole world felt jarringly Technicolor, surreal. The first time she’d come to South Carolina looking for answers. Now she was back, looking for Charlotte.
Charlotte.
She’d tried night after night to find Charlotte in the world of dreams. But either she was too inexperienced, or her cousin didn’t want to be found. Charlotte’s dreams had proved elusive. For the first time in her life, Layla craved the dreams, yet her nights had gone dreamless, quiet, and the irony was not lost on her.
If she could not reach Charlotte in the night, then she would have to come to her in the day.
“So, you came back.”
Layla inhaled sharply, turning at the unexpected voice.
Viktor Williams stood smiling at her just inside the baggage claim door, his hands thrust deep in his pockets.
“Yep,” she said. “I came back.”
“Good,” he said as he took one of her bags. His smile widened. “I hoped you would.”
Layla raised an eyebrow, surprised. “Really? Why?”
He had already started across the narrow walkway toward the parking lot. At the question, he stopped, turning to look at her. “Why?”
She nodded. “Yeah, why?”
“Well,” he said, cocking his head, brow wrinkling. “Because you seemed a mysterious sort. And I do love a mystery.”
He grinned and resumed walking. “’Sides, Oma seemed right taken with you.”
She smiled, shifting her backpack between her shoulders, and followed him across the parking lot.
“How’d you get trapped into picking me up?” she asked, once the truck was located and they’d settled in.
“Your tantes’ truck finally gave over,” he said, giving her a crooked smile. “So, I volunteered.”
They drove the same circuitous route that Aunt Jayne had driven the last time. As they roared along the curving back roads of Port Royal, she rested her head against the seat and inhaled the warm, sweet-smelling air rushing through the truck’s open windows.
The Aunts’ old truck was parked in its usual place under the sugarberry tree, the sun glinting off the rust scabs. An old tractor sat sideways near the porch, as if someone had been mowing the patchy lawn and been interrupted. The Aunts were nowhere to be seen as Viktor pulled up close to the porch. Layla stared at the house, not moving.
“I know you haven’t been gone all that long, but they’re thrilled you came back,” he said.
She nodded. “They’re kind of wonderful.”
“They are,” he agreed. He seemed to hesitate. “So, can I ask you a personal question?”
She tensed, then brought her shoulders up slightly, an intimation of a shrug.
“Your mom and the tantes weren’t close?”
She said nothing.
“You know why?”
She exhaled slowly through pursed lips, then shook her head. “Not really. No.”
Viktor sighed. “That’s kinda sad, isn’t it? Family is everything.”
Family.
She fixed him with a look. “Is it?”
He blinked, surprised.
Pushing open the door of the truck, she climbed out, dragging her bags behind her. “Thanks for the ride.”
She turned and walked toward the house.
23
From the Aunts’ wide porch, Layla watched the warm day leach away, the sky changing from an impossible shade of plum, deepening to navy at the edges. Beyond the trees, the low hum of the cicadas notched into a higher register. An ice-filled glass appeared on the porch step next to her. She turned to find Aunt Therese offering a bottle of Canadian Club and shook her head no.
“Suit yourself.” Aunt Therese groaned as she settled herself on the porch next to her niece. She took a deep drink from her own glass and sighed. “But it’s just the thing for nights like this.”
Layla stared into the darkening yard. It was becoming hard to see anything except shadows moving against darker shadows. “It’s not the nights I worry about, Aunt Therese. It’s those horrible mornings after.”
“Well, I guess that’s right.” Her aunt chuckled. “Those can be a bear. That’s why you got to ease into drinkin’. Train.”
“Train?” Layla smiled. “To get drunk?”
“Train to not get drunk,” said Aunt Therese. “Drinkin’ ain’t no different from anything else. Like dancin’ for example. Drinkin’ right’s all about rhythm and pace, buildin’ up a tolerance. Not doin’ too much all at … what?”
She stopped midsentence.
“Seriously?” Layla was staring at her, incredulous.
Her aunt took another slow sip from her drink and cocked her head. “Seriously.”
Layla laughed.
They sat watching the sky darken, flickers of light tracing the path of fireflies.
“Aunt Therese,” said Layla, breaking the silence. “You got that paperwork I sent? About the title?”
Her aunt nodded. “Gave me a funny feeling,” she said, patting her chest softly. “Seeing Momma’s name. Grandma Grace’s. That old paper from when the land first got deeded to our family.”
“Did Charlotte see it?”
“We had Damien, one of the neighbors, carry it out there. He got people out on Scotia still too. Goes out regular.”
“And?”
Aunt Therese looked at her over the rim of her glass. “And nothin’,” she said, after a long moment.
“But…”
“Time to go in,” Aunt Therese said, abruptly rising and cutting her off. “Mosquitoes gonna eat us alive out here.”
In the foyer, the sound of running water came to them from the upstairs bathroom, and Layla suddenly realized how exhausted she was. The trip, the worries about Will, the sense of urgency that she felt to talk to Charlotte, all pressed down on her like a weight. She turned to tell Aunt Therese good night and gasped.
In the hazy illumination of the overhead foyer light, her aunt was trembling, her lips pressed tightly together.
“Aunt Therese?” She took the bottle from the old woman and set it on the bottom step. “What is it? Do you want me to get Aunt Jayne?”
Aunt Therese shook her head. “No, baby. I’m fine. It’s just the heat and the excitement of your comin’ back to visit,” she said. “And … and I guess I’m not as well trained as I used to be.”
She nodded at the nearly empty bottle at the foot of the stairs and tried to laugh. The sound caught in her throat. “Why you back here, Layla?” she asked.
“I…”
Aunt Therese eased herself onto the step. “What do you see when you look at me? Look at us?”
Layla frowned. “I don’t…”
“You know what you see? You see what all young people see. Two old ladies. Funny. Feisty. Not doin’ too bad for our age, but two old ladies. You ever notice how nobody never calls a twentysomething feisty?”
“Aunt—”
Aunt Therese held up a hand to stop her. “Young people look at old people, at us, and the outside is all we are. All we ever were. Like we can’t see. Can’t hear. Like we ain’t got good sense.”
She laughed bitterly, stroking the whiskey bottle with one thumb. “So, pleased as I am that you’re here, I’m a ask again. Why you back here, sugar?”
For a long moment, they locked eyes, old woman and young. Layla was the first to look away.
“Charlotte,” she said, sliding onto the step next to her aunt.
“Hmmm?” Her aunt waited.
“I saw her. Back home. Dreamed her. Or she dreamed me.” She shook her head. “I told her I didn’t want to take Scotia from her. That I didn’t want it. That I didn’t want anything from her.”
Aunt Therese squinted at her. “And she seemed okay with that?”
Layla nodded.
“She seemed to be,” she said. “Then later, I found out Evan had had his people start the title and deed search. He had some people go out there to do surveys so…”
She stopped. Aunt Therese had jolted upright in alarm.
“Wait,” she cried. “All them papers you been sendin’ us? He had folks, actually goin’ out there? To the island?”
Layla blinked. “Well, I guess so. Yeah?”
“White people? Outsiders?”
“I don’t…”
“Damien said he thought he saw folks out there takin’ pictures. Goin’ around the island. And if he saw them, you can bet Charlotte saw them too.”
“But…” Layla shook her head, alarmed by Aunt Therese’s reaction, but not quite able to fathom the reason for her aunt’s distress. “They were just there to get documentation. Proof that Scotia Island belongs to our family free and clear. That it has for over one hundred and fifty years.”
“Do you think any of that matters?” snapped Aunt Therese. Layla drew back, stung by the vehemence in her tone. Upstairs, the water turned off.
“But, Aunt Therese,” she persisted. “It’s a good thing, right? If Charlotte wants to protect the island, now she has legal documentation, proof of—”
Aunt Therese snorted. “Because ain’t no white mens ever tried to cheat a contract when it comes to colored folks.”
She buried her face in her hands, then straightened, reaching for Layla’s hand. “I know you thought you were doin’ a good thing, baby. But I guarantee you, Charlotte isn’t going to see it that way at all.”
Layla was quiet for a long time.
“No,” she said, finally. She thought of her brother’s bloodshot eyes, the sand in her baby nephew’s crib. “I don’t think she does.”
24
She’d tried to sleep. Tried, once again, to reach out to Charlotte in her dreams. Instead, she’d ended up lying awake most of the night replaying her conversation with Aunt Therese, her sense of dread mounting as the hours ticked by. She imagined Charlotte, out there on the island, watching from the shadows as strangers circled the in the waters, drones buzzing the treetops, taking pictures.
In the darkness, Layla squeezed her eyes tight. She needed to get back there, needed to explain. It was a misunderstanding. They, she and Charlotte, could work together to protect Scotia Island.
The thought made her smile a little. The idea that she could be a part of preserving something old and precious.
Her inheritance.
She imagined herself rehabbing one of the decrepit cabins at the Old Place, spending summers there painting, the cicadas the only sounds at night.
She’d go out to the island. Explain to Charlotte. Get her to understand. It would be okay. Everything would be fine.
* * *
She woke the next morning to the sound of mourning doves, the smell of food cooking. She lay still, eyes closed, the sun streaming through the window, warm on her face.
Just a misunderstanding.
Sitting up, she grabbed a towel and clean clothes, then shuffled to the bathroom for a quick shower.
After, she made her way downstairs to the kitchen, hesitating in the doorway. The table groaned with food—eggs, sausage, bacon, fried potatoes. Aunt Jayne stood thumbing through papers at the counter.
“Good morning.” Layla twisted her still-damp hair into a messy bun on the top of her head the cranberry red of earlier in the summer now exchanged for a deep blue.
“Mornin’, sugar,” said Aunt Jayne, turning. “Set yourself down there and get some breakfast.”
Layla sat and poured a cup of coffee. “Aunt Therese still asleep?”
Aunt Jayne flinched. “Therese’s feelin’ poorly this morning,” she said with a tight smile. “I’m going to get that truck towed to the garage to get fixed this morning.”
