Her fingers brushed her own collarbone tats. Would the same happen to her designs when she passed over? The White Lady noticed the gesture. “Protective ink only takes you so far in the Never.”
“It’s worked pretty well so far.”
“That’s because a Walker is the worst thing you’ve come across. There are much, much worse things out there. Things that don’t even blink at your ink.”
“Yawn. Bored. Is there a point to all this?”
“My point is that your mother didn’t train you well enough. In fact, she hardly trained you at all. Letting you reap only Shades for years? Until her little accident, your mother had you only reap one ghost. One. So why do you think you are coming to this talk from any sort of position of power?”
“I’m strong enough to tell you to go to hell. And I go through your Walkers easily enough. Or did you forget all that begging you were doing on their behalf earlier?”
“So you can reap a few Walkers. Yippee. I’m much worse than a Walker and I know that, for all your bluster, you’ve figured that out by now. And there are beings far, far scarier than I am wandering the Never.” She held up her rotting horror of a hand so that the light filtered through it, casting a holey shadow on the sand. “Did I ever tell you that I knew your mother? In the living world? I knew what she was.”
“Shut up,” Wendy whispered through lips gone numb from shock. “That’s impossible and I don’t have to listen to this bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit if it’s true.” The White Lady clenched her fist, skin flaking down. “And you? You are really starting to irritate me, Wendy.”
“Good!” Wendy snapped. “Anything that gets your panties in a twist is fabulous!”
“Stupid, idiot child,” the White Lady snapped. “Normally the ones like you, the Lightbringers, are sent on their first dream-walk at seventeen. But your mother was gone by then, wasn’t she? She never even bothered to tell you that you woke too early. Just thirteen,” she sneered. “It’s a miracle you didn’t go insane from the shock.”
Shoving against the sand for support, Wendy started to rise. The White Lady waved a hand. Hard pressure pressed against the tops of Wendy’s shoulders and she toppled back down, her tongue ring popping smartly against the back of her teeth when she hit the ground.
“I said,
Pressing her hand to her mouth, Wendy drew back fingers dark with blood. The sudden jolt had ripped the hole in her tongue wider open. It would heal by tomorrow but until then her mouth would be filled with the copper- rust-salt taste of her own blood. Wendy leaned to the side and spat a wad of bright red that sank into the sand. “Haw doh yah now all thish?”
“Oh for god’s sake,” the White Lady groaned, exasperated. “You just had to get a tongue ring, didn’t you?” She crawled to Wendy’s side and grabbed Wendy by the face. Wendy tried to struggle but the White Lady, rotting apart or not, was still far stronger in this dream realm than Wendy could ever be. Her long and bony fingers, the last flaps of skin flaking apart at the knuckles, forced past Wendy’s teeth.
Then the White Lady grabbed for the barbell and ripped it out.
Shrieking in pain, Wendy gripped the White Lady’s wrists and tried to force the filthy hand away from her face. It was like trying to push a brick wall.
“Stop struggling,” the White Lady snapped and pinched the tip of Wendy’s tongue. Immediately an icy chill filled her mouth, so cold her teeth ached and the molars with silver fillings began to protest the sharp shooting pain.
“To answer your question,” she said, fingers probing the wet, open meat of Wendy’s wounded tongue, “I just know. Do you think I was always like this? Falling apart, piece by piece? I told you that Lightbringers were a hobby of mine. I watched your mother call Walkers from three miles away. I knelt at the knee of your grandmother in these dream realms, learning how to manipulate the ether. Compared to the likes of them you are alone, a toddler wandering in the woods. You know nothing of what your kind can do.” She released Wendy’s tongue and crawled back, wiping her hands against her shift. “That should do it. I know that you won’t say thank you, so you’re welcome.”
A gritty taste like rotten milk and salt permeated her mouth. Wendy staggered to the shoreline and scooped up dipperfuls of saltwater in her hands. It tasted fishy and rank but was better than the texture and taste of the White Lady that lingered foully through several rounds of rinsing and spitting.
“You bitch,” Wendy gasped, spitting out the last mouthful of gritty, salty beach water. Tender probing of her mouth revealed that her tongue had closed up and the blood had ceased its sluggish flow. “You ripped out my ring!”
The White Lady, ignoring Wendy’s outrage, held the hood close to her face and tipped her face to the sky, gauging the sun. “We’re almost out of time. I must conclude my business.”
“What business is that? Being a crazy bitch?”
“Our trade. Will you meet with me in the Never or not?”
“You’ve got nothing I want.” Wendy turned her face away, running the tip of her tongue along the back of her teeth. Her entire mouth felt swollen and sore, tingly in all the wrong places. She just wanted this obnoxious dream to end.
“Oh really?” The whisper of her cloak was all the warning Wendy got as the White Lady snuck up behind her and grabbed Wendy by the back of her neck. “Does this look familiar to you?” She shoved an object in Wendy’s face. At first Wendy couldn’t make out what it was but then she gasped, both confused and furious. It was Eddie’s phone.
“What the hell is this? Is this some sort of dream trick?” Then she laughed. “What the hell am I talking about? Eddie’s alive. He’s fine. You can’t touch him.”
“Oh, the things you don’t know about your own power or mine,” the White Lady sneered, throwing Eddie’s phone into the surf where it sank beneath the surface with a quiet plop. “I was quite surprised when my spy reported in last night. Despite how badly you were wounded, you simply bandaged your arm and didn’t think twice about it, did you? Even after what I told you at that decrepit old house. It didn’t matter what your memories told you; you brushed off my words just because they came from me.”
“Last time…”
“I can’t touch your friend Edward? Oh really? If I can’t touch your dear Eddie, how could my Walkers have harmed you? You’re alive, after all.”
“But when I’m like that…I’m not exactly alive,” Wendy protested. “I’m in between.”
“Even in between, it shouldn’t hurt your physical body as deeply as it did,” the White Lady chuckled. “Poor, poor lost child. So very ignorant, even after I warned you, even after I damn near handed you the answer at that house. Some spirits can reach into the living world, Lightbringer. Some spirits can interact with the living. The Rider does. My Walkers did.”
“When I find my mom—”
“Enough of this. Your precious mother? She’s with me,” the White Lady snapped.
“No.” Wendy shook her head. “No-no-no.”
“I warned you what would happen if you mucked around with my plans and my people, didn’t I? And I always keep my promises. Always.” Her hand on the back of Wendy’s neck clenched tighter, bone tips digging in. “I finally caught her last night. Trapped her not four blocks from your school. While you were busy with
A flap of essence with tribal tattoos carved into it; ink that matched Wendy’s own.
“No!” Wendy shrieked and struggled in her grip but the White Lady was impossibly strong. Raising Wendy high, the White Lady shook her by the back of her neck like a kitten until all the fight drained away. Wendy hung loosely, weeping silent tears.
“There’s still a way to get your mother and your boy Eddie back,” the White Lady said, her voice dim and quiet behind the ringing in Wendy’s head. “I’ll even show you how.”
“You’re lying,” Wendy whispered. “You always lie.”
“I’m not,” she replied. “I want your mother back in the land of the living almost as much as you do. Think I want a Lightbringer walking around the Never? Even dead, your kind is a bother. If you knew even half of what your mother knows you’d be like a dangerous wolf loose among the sheep. I can’t have your mother here. So I’m sending
