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“You made it,” Balthazar said.
I turned to see him standing next to me, wearing the same kind of clothes; because he was closer, I could see that he wore trousers that only came to his knees, with high boots that flared out slightly at the top. His coat was belted, his cloak trimmed with fur. His hat — well, despite everything, I had to smile. “You look like the star of the Thanksgiving pageant.”
Til have you know, this was colonial high fashion in the year 1640.” Balthazar readjusted his hat so that it sat at a slightly more rakish angle. s More serious now, I said, “Is this what you dream about? Your life?”
“Sometimes.” Balthazar pointed toward a distant light — the glow of an oil lamp in the window of a small cottage. “Let’s see what we can see.”
I walked with him through the woods until we reached the clearing for the cabin. It was more primitive than I would have imagined, though when I thought about it, this made sense; Balthazar had probably helped his father build this house with their hands and whatever few tools they’d possessed. Smoke curled up from a slightly crooked stone chimney, and the single window was covered with some kind of waxy paper, rather than glass. A shaggy dog slept next to the chimney, his back to the warmth. Balthazar smiled and leaned down to pet him. “Hello, Fido.”
Fido didn’t stir. Maybe he couldn’t feel the touch, in dreams.
Then, from inside, I heard a woman’s voice, sharp and angry. “Your disobedience tasks us, Charity. “
“I’m ever so sorry, Mother.” Charity’s voice rang out, clear, strong, and not sorry. “But I’m afraid I have to disobey you even more.”
I’d known this moment was coming from the time Balthazar had first asked me to come into his dream, but that didn’t make it easier to face. To judge by the dread in Balthazar’s eyes, he felt the same way.
Balthazar walked to the front door and pulled it open. There I could see Charity, standing in a long, dark dress with a white apron, and a small white cotton bonnet on her head. Her face was younger than I rememb — ered — this was her a couple years before death, when she was only a child. In front of her sat two people who were clearly Charity’s and Balthazar’s parents, dressed in the same stark fashion as their children, their faces stern and unamused.
Charity grinned, a too — adult expression on a face rounded with baby fat. She tugged her bonnet from her head, exposing her fair curls. “I’m not going to cover my head any longer. In fact, I don’t think I’ll cover any of my body, ifl don’t want to.”
“The devil has gotten into you, my girl,” boomed their father. He looked like an older, heavier version of Balthazar — but harder, somehow.
Unpleasant. There was no love in him as he scolded his daughter, only disapproval.
“That’s right!” Charity laughed out loud, glorying in disobeying her stern parents. “Do you want to see what the devil can make me do?” To Balthazar, I whispered, “Was she always like this?”
“I used to think it was just rebellion,” he said. “But, yeah. Charity was always looking for trouble, from the beginning.”
At that moment, Charity noticed us. Her face instantly shifted from gleeful triumph to confusion. “What are you doing here? What is she doing here?”
“Let me at her,” I whispered. After what she’d done to Lucas, I felt like I could rip her apart.
“No,” Balthazar said, stepping between us. “She can hurt you here. But for me, this is just a dream. She doesn’t have any power over me.”
just like she’s attacked Lucas — he’s attacking her.
Balthazar leaped forward, tackling Charity and sending them both sprawling to the ground. Although their parents protested, neither Balthazar nor Charity paid them any heed; they were dream phantoms only. This fight was for real. She backhanded him savagely. but Balthazar managed to twist one of her arms behind her and thrust her toward the fireplace. When her face was only a few inches from the flames, she started to scream. “Stop it! Stop it! Balthazar, you’re hurting me!”
“And I hate it.” His voice shook. “You know that I do.”
“It wasn’t enough to kill me!” She twisted violently in his grasp, trying to claw at him with her free arm, but she couldn’t quite reach. The scene, terrible enough as it was, looked even worse when I realized how childish and helpless Charity seemed. “Now you want to torture me?”
“I want to leave you alone. Just like you want to leave me alone. But you have to let Lucas go.”
Charity laughed, though her gold curls began to smolder. “He’s mine. All mine. You loved her better than me, and she loved him better than you. But she ‘ll never have him the way that I do.”
“You’re going to let Lucas go,” Balthazar repeated. “Or else . .. every single night you go into his dreams to torture him? I’ll come into your dreams and do the same thing back to you.”
“You don’t have the right! Not after what you did to me!”
“If I could go back in time and kill myself rather than turning you, I’d do it.” Balthazar was shaking now, either with the effort of holding the 207 struggling Charity close to the fire or from pure emotion. “But I’ve let guilt control me for too long. You’re a menace, Charity. You hunt, and you kill, and I should have stopped you a long time ago.”
“By killing me?” Charity’s voice had changed; real pain had slipped in. “Again?”
Balthazar didn’t answer. “You’re going to let Lucas go. You’re going to stop invading his dreams forever. If you ever break your word — ever — I promise you, I’ll know, and You’ll be sorry.”
Charity tried again to claw at him, but without the same strength. I could smell burning hair. “It hurts. Balthazar, it’s hot.”
