what drew me to him.
“I think I know better than you what I need,” I snapped. That was one of the rules of survival I’d learned after the apartment with the hallway: if you stayed angry, they couldn’t touch you. It could be quiet anger, expressed in silent screams rather than defiance, but you had to keep the flame burning. Otherwise, you succumbed.
Dean held up his hands. “I don’t know what’s with you today. I’m going out for a smoke.”
After he’d left I sat on the bed, but I got restless. I explored the house a bit. I didn’t appear to be trapped—I could open windows, and I could smell the salted air of Lovecraft as it blew in from the sea. I even took a bite of the damnable cupcake covered in candied violets but found it cloyingly sweet.
I heard the back door open downstairs—Dean coming in, shaking off the chill—and knew I had to go now or never. The ground wasn’t far, and there was a trellis full of dead roses next to the window.
I swung my leg over the sill. I felt thorns grasp at my pants and then at my skin, and the cool damp of blood against the winter air.
I dropped the last ten feet, feeling the impact all the way up to my molars, but I didn’t let it stop me. I wasn’t as familiar with Uptown as I was with Old Town, the district that held most of Lovecraft’s madhouses, where I’d visited my mother, but I could find my way. If this dream mirror of the city matched the real one, I’d be gone in no time, out of the main city gates and on my way back to Arkham. Those memories were murkier, and I figured Nylarthotep would have a harder time keeping me trapped there.
My hope lasted until I turned down one blind alley, doubled back and promptly found another. I didn’t think it was any sinister design, either—the tiny streets, lined with stone cottages so close they could have touched had they elbows, were simply a warren only residents could navigate.
I’d had no reason to come here before. This was a place for content people, for families, for couples living normal, predictable lives. That was never going to be me. Before I could try to find my way to one of the main roads, I heard footsteps and shouting. “Aoife!”
Dean was chasing me, shirttail flying, boots half unlaced. “Aoife!” he shouted again, catching me by the back of my shirt. “What in hell do you think you’re doing?”
I wanted to fight, to lash out, but I forced myself to stay calm. “I’m sorry,” I blurted, the only thing I could think of to say. “I just—”
“Where were you
“I don’t know,” I lied, looking at my feet. “I’m sorry.”
Dean merely sighed, and wrapped his arms around me. “Come on, darlin’,” he said. “Let’s get out of the street before the police see us.”
“Police?” I said. “Don’t you mean Proctors?”
Dean laughed. “Sure don’t. You know the Bureau was disbanded months ago. Nice to be able to walk around your own city without worrying somebody’ll lock you in a dark hole, isn’t it?”
“Sure,” I agreed. I was getting better at pretending nothing shocked me.
“Dean?” a familiar voice called through the fog. I felt my eyebrows rise as Bethina appeared on the front steps of another neat cottage. She looked good, wearing a fashionable dress, her neat copper curls tamed.
“Everything’s fine,” he called back. “Nothing to worry about.”
Bethina lifted her skirt and came running down the street, fluttering her hands around me but not actually touching. “I saw you fly by like a nightjar was on your tail. Are you sure you’re all right, Aoife?”
Aoife. No Miss or any title attached. That was new.
“I’m fine,” I said with a wide smile that felt insane but I hoped looked normal. “Just getting some air.”
Bethina crinkled her nose. I could tell she wasn’t the least bit convinced. “Well, maybe I’ll have Cal stop by when he gets home from his classes at the university.”
Cal going to a human university? I didn’t even have to ask if he’d told Bethina the truth about what he was. This whole place was a lie, so why should I be surprised?
“You do that,” I said. “I’ll be going back inside now.”
I practically dragged Dean away, back toward our cottage.
“I know Bethina can hover a little bit,” he said. “But she means well. It’s nice to have someone motherly around, I think. Especially after what happened with your mother.”
I flinched but disguised it as a deep breath. “Of course,” I said. “It’s … wonderful.”
That was the icing, the final touch on this little test of my mettle. It couldn’t be too perfect. There had to be a tragedy to remind me how lucky I was.
I didn’t ask after my mother. She could be wearing an apron and running a bake sale every weekend for all I cared. It wouldn’t be real. None of this was real.
Though that was the hardest thing on earth to believe when Dean was so close. Close enough that I could smell him, feel his heat, the pressure of his arms as he wrapped them around me.
“I know we have good days and bad days,” he said into my hair. “But I’m not giving up on you, Aoife. Not giving up on us. I’ll never let you go.”
I couldn’t bear to be stiff in his arms. I let myself relax into his embrace, press my face into his neck and breathe in his scent of soap and tobacco. “I’ll never let you go either,” I choked out, feeling the tears build in the corners of my eyes. They spilled over, absorbed by the worn linen of Dean’s shirt. “Never. Not in this life or any other.”
“Love you,” Dean whispered, and gently let me go.
I think it was the release that broke me. I couldn’t simply run out again—I’d only get lost, and he’d catch me. I had to think. And would it be so bad to plan my way out of here in the comfort of the cottage?
“I think I need to lie down for a bit,” I told Dean. “Get myself collected.”
“Sure, princess,” he said. “Go ahead. I’ll put something together for supper.”
I went upstairs and stretched out on the bed. I intended to pretend to nap, and figure a way out, but I ended up falling asleep.
Dean woke me, and we ate cold sandwiches for dinner while he talked about the job he’d gotten as a dockworker down at the shipyard. It beat steel work, which his father had done and which Dean had despised with every bone in his body.
I was noncommittal, just enjoying speaking to him, even if it was an illusion. I was doing this
We went to sleep, and I woke up, and the next day proceeded much as the first.
As did the next.
And the next.
When nearly a month had passed, I had to admit to myself that it wasn’t just a matter of finding a way out. Not that it was easy, by any means—Dean rarely left me unwatched, either by himself or Bethina, and the neighborhood, the few times I’d walked it, was definitely bewitched. Streets folded back on themselves, houses duplicated as if they were being copied with ink on printers’ plates, and everyone watched me from their gardens and behind their curtains with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
But there was more to it. Life with Dean was everything I’d ever wanted. It was calm, normal, free of all the fear and uncertainty that had plagued me since the night I’d run away from the Academy to search for Conrad. Really, since I’d been old enough to realize our family wasn’t usual, that people regarded us differently.
I kept coming up with little excuses—even if I could find my way out of the neighborhood, I had no idea what I had to do to convince Nylarthotep I’d passed his test.
I knew this world wasn’t real. I still had all my memories. What more could he want from me? How could this be amusing, other than to watch me suffer, trapped in a perfect life I knew I could never really have?
That was it, I realized one bright morning. The plain, unadulterated suffering as everyone else in this little fantasy went about their business while I knew none of it was real and never would be.
It didn’t change the fact that I saw no way out and was running out of brainpower to solve the puzzle.
Another month slipped by. And another.
When blossoms appeared on the trees, I finally realized that I wasn’t getting out of here by passing some
