“We didn’t meet under good circumstances,” Gray said. “I wish we had.”
“Why?”
“Damn!” He looked skyward. “Sorry. But can’t you say anything but ‘why’? It’s annoying.”
“I can say other things,” she told him.
He put his hands lightly on her shoulders. “Can I come by and take you for dinner tomorrow? Around seven?”
“Sykes?”
Sykes didn’t answer and she looked around, but couldn’t find him. “Damn,” she said sharply.
Gray rubbed his palms up and down her arms and laughed. “You, too, huh? At a loss for useful words? Just say yes.”
“I’d rather think about it.”
“Yes, of course you would. You do that and call me.”
“Okay,” she said, anxious to get away.
Sykes had left her in her hour—her moment of need.
“Good night, Gray.”
“Night,” he said. “How will you phone me?”
She frowned.
“You don’t know my number. It doesn’t really matter. I’ll call you.”
Marley turned to unlock the shop door. She felt shivery and not only because she was responding to a very sexual thrill. Real fear climbed her spine. He could follow her into the shop and there would be nothing she could do about it if Sykes had really chosen to take himself off.
“Good night, Marley,” Gray said. “Tomorrow?”
She turned back for a moment. “Maybe.”
He nodded and faced the street to step off the sidewalk. His hands were deep in his pockets. Every move he made flowed. He had a powerful grace, like a big cat.
The instant before she looked away, Gray glanced at her over his shoulder.
That look wasn’t soft or humorous anymore. Just for a flicker of time he stared, and Marley went into the shop and slammed the door. She shot home the locks.
It was the light, it had to be. But then, it had been the light the first time she saw hardness in those eyes that looked black, not whiskey-colored anymore. The light had turned his face into a facsimile of a black-and-white photograph. What the living face amazingly concealed, a negative image revealed: a thin, white scar passed through Gray’s mouth, sliced upward beside his nose and across his cheek.
Marley didn’t want to wake up.
Between night and dawn, sleep and the drifting time, Marley’s old companions waited: the Ushers.
They had come for her. They wanted her to travel again.
Should she resist—or give in and go where they took her?
They were there again, beckoning.
In her dream-state, Marley felt herself drawn back to something that had happened to her more than two weeks earlier. She saw her feet aimlessly wandering along a sidewalk as they had that day. The colored layers of her skirt floated, pointed hems curling about her ankles and flashes of gold—from the sandals she wore— gleaming through gauze.
A woman called out, “Marley Millet?”
Marley didn’t recognized the voice, but it was kind.
“Marley Millet, you came! I’ve been expecting you. This way, my friend, follow me.” A welcome in every word. “I’ve waited for you and now you’re here. You’re going to help me do something that must be done. Come and see what I have for you.”
“Yes,” the Ushers whispered to Marley when she hesitated, whispered in sounds like soft smiles. “Come on, Marley.”
An alley and an archway opened before her and once through the arch, she entered a small shop. She twirled around and felt her skirts fly wide, then wind tight. Glass cases filled with toys. Dolls. All around her beautiful, wide-eyed dolls, their ringlets shining, dressed in silks and satins.
Teddy bears and stuffed horses, foxes, lambs, piglets, kittens and puppies, an elephant, an ostrich, a giraffe, a parrot—they lined two rows of shelves, one above the other, all around the shop.
Marley turned and turned.
A baby buggy of palest cane stood there, and there a cart with woolen chickens inside, and there three penguins with nodding heads. They must be on springs—those heads.
Wooden blocks, a jack-in-the-box, bags of jacks and decks of cards, marbles, bubble mix, balloons, soldier sentries in their fort, fairy wands, scarlet capes, tiny cars and trucks and trains stood everywhere in piles, on hooks, in open drawers.
“My name is Belle,” the woman said. “Take this. It’s not big, but it’s heavy, so be careful not to break it.”
Marley stretched out her arms and Belle placed there a small, wooden house lacquered a brilliant red, with the silhouettes of the people inside showing through closed blinds at the windows.
“Do not tell anyone you’ve got this,” said Belle. “If you do, others will try to take it from you. Don’t let them. Protect the house from friends and enemies. Whatever it takes, keep it until I can return for it. Keep it and use it well.”
Almost afraid to do so, Marley looked at Belle. She was slim, quite tall, and shapely in a gray leotard, tights to her calves, and a glossy skirt the same color that reached her knees. Brushed straight from her face, Belle’s black hair, knotted at the nape of her neck, glistened, just as her dark eyes glistened. An exotic creature captured in a place where she didn’t belong.
“You’re a dancer,” Marley said.
“Oh, yes. Thank you for noticing.” She pointed the toes on one of her bare feet and traced on the floor. Lines formed in the dust there, shapes. “The house will be your way, but you will need courage. You have courage. Use it.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Go there.”
“Where?”
“You’ll find it if you follow,” Belle said. “I know there is a force for evil that needs the little house to complete his plans. We won’t allow it, you and I.”
Marley leaned the house against her. “Why me?” she said.
“Because you’re like me.” The woman smiled and appeared younger and even more beautiful. “You’re a traveler, too.”
“Can you tell me more about—”
“The beast has come home. You must stop the killing.”
Marley woke up. Twisted in her sheets, she flung out her arms and tried to breathe slowly. Parts of the dream replayed, vivid, full color and too real.
That woman’s last words echoed: “The beast has come home. You must stop the killing.”
It was a dream, not reality. Once she calmed down it would all fade.
A rough, wet tongue, Winnie’s, made rapid swipes over Marley’s face. A solid dog on your chest, even a not very large dog, could make it even harder to breath—and it hurt.
