Dreamwalker. Part 4

First thing I discovered was that a scary number of people out there thought they'd been raised by the wrong families. Whole networks of them, in fact, going on and on about how they didn't look like either of their parents, or didn't have the same interests as their siblings, or were smarter or dumber or taller or shorter or better at foreign languages than the rest of the family. Whatever. Most of their logic wouldn't survive five minutes in a high school genetics cla.s.s, but some of it was disturbingly reasonable. Yes, there were only a handful of verified cases of "baby switching" in the US, but how many remained undiscovered?

Some of the posters were just plain crazy. One guy claimed that he was really a s.p.a.ce alien, and that he had been planted on Earth to serve as a spy for "the grey men." Another insisted that faeries (she spelled the word with an "e") had stolen her mother's real baby and left her in its place. Yet others blamed Middle Eastern slave traders, or the Illuminati, or any one of a dozen global baby-s.n.a.t.c.hing conspiracies. These people clearly had problems that went beyond the question of who their parents were.

Was I crazy, too? I was beginning to wonder.

Meanwhile, thank G.o.d for Tommy. I'm not sure why talking to him helped keep me grounded during all this, but it did. Not just because I needed someone to confide in, though that was certainly the case. I think it was because, for him, this mystery was all so . . . well, normal. I mean, the kid hung around with elves and trolls and went on dragon-hunting expeditions in his spare time. So what if his sister was a chimera, whose very existence defied the laws of science? It was just another puzzle for him to solve. Another game. Come up with the right answer and you get experience points.

I posted brief comments on some of the discussion boards, hoping to connect to someone else who was in a situation like mine. But if other chimeras existed they weren't talking.

Mrs. Fletcher's office was at the far end of the art studio, so you had to walk past all the works-in-progress to get to it. This week she was teaching us how to sculpt human faces in clay, which meant that there were now disembodied heads lined up along both sides of the room. I was reminded of how an ancient tyrant might impale his enemies' heads over the castle gate, warning detractors to behave.

Her office was separated from the main room by a wall of gla.s.s, and maybe, at one time, you could have seen between the two rooms, but there was so much artwork hung on it now that only narrow peepholes were left. As I approached the open door I could feel my heart flutter in antic.i.p.ation. Yes, I was flattered that someone wanted to buy my artwork, there was no way around that.

Two people stood up as I entered the room. I saw that some of my art had been spread out across a table; were these the pictures someone wanted to buy? I frowned. Some of them weren't my best work.

"And here is the artist herself!" Mrs. Fletcher announced. You could hear pride echo in her voice. "Jessica, this is Miriam Seyer, the woman I told you about."

The second figure held out her hand as I raised my eyes to look at her-and I froze.

The room froze.

Time and s.p.a.ce froze.

"Jessica," Seyer said, holding her hand out casually, as though I hadn't just become incapable of human motion. She was smiling; I couldn't tell if the expression was genuine or not. "I'm so glad to meet you."

She was a small woman, probably early thirties, with pale skin and large, dark eyes that were outlined a bit too heavily in kohl. Her hair was jet black, the kind of color that rarely appears in nature, and it was cut in a shoulder length pageboy, with a thick valance of bangs hanging down to her eyes. The bones of her face were prominent, with high, arching cheekbones that accented the elongated eyes, reminding me of an ancient Egyptian queen.

Or a goth chick.

After a moment I managed to get a hold of myself, and I forced a smile to my face. "Hi." I didn't want to touch her but there was no polite way to avoid it, so I shook her hand. One brief up-and-down, a light squeeze, then I let go. I resisted the impulse to count my fingers afterward to make sure they were all still there.

This was Tommy's stalker. I knew it in my gut. And for the life of me I didn't know how I was supposed to respond to her.

Fortunately Mrs. Fletcher reached in between us, dispelling an awkward moment. She offered me a bottle of flavored water, bright cranberry in color. I took it gratefully, glad to have something to do with my hands.

Who was this woman? Why was she here? What had she been doing at my house?

"Mrs. Fletcher has been showing me your work," Seyer said. Her voice was as smooth as silk, too controlled to be trustworthy. I realized with a start that my most recent drawing was among those on the table. Did she have a clue what that one was really about?

It depicted two sun-shapes, one dark and one light, hanging side by side in a sullen sky. Their rays interlocked like the spokes of a gear, each one breaking down into smaller and smaller rays, layered like the fractal of waves of Hokusai's famous print.

It was the same fate-portrait I'd started tracing in the pizza oil a few days back, only a thousand times more complex.

Her fate-portrait.

The light sun represented the possibility that her visit to our house was benign. Each ray represented a different reason she might have been in the neighborhood. Looking for someone else's house. Trying to find someone to ask directions from. Was intrigued by our garden and wanted a closer look. Branching off from each of those were the many different choices that might follow. A hundred different fates, neatly ordered.

And the dark sun represented-well, darker possibilities. Every nefarious purpose I had been able to imagine had its own ray. Some of the ideas were pretty crazy, but I'd wanted the number of rays on each side to be the same. Positive and negative energy in perfect balance: a yin-yang of fate. A thin line of footprints wandered between the solar disks, weaving in and out of the zig-zag channel that the rays created. That represented my own search for meaning in Tommy's report. No beginning, no end, no clear destination: just me wandering among the facts.

I called the drawing Stalker.

The woman was looking down at it now, and I felt a strange sickness come over me as her long finger, tipped in blood-red nails, stroked my work gently. It was strangely intimate.

"Mrs. Fletcher was telling me that you base some of your work on dreams," she said, breaking the moment's spell.

I nodded.

"It reminds me of Australian dream art. Very similar in form." She looked up at me. "Are you familiar with that tradition?"

I shook my head.

"Aboriginal mythology speaks of a time called The Dreaming. The source of all creation." She looked back at my drawing; her finger traced the thin line of footprints. "Some speak of a network of mystical paths called songlines, where the creator-beings once walked. Material reality and dreaming reality intricately intertwined, and their art reflects that union."

"My artwork isn't all that complex," I stammered. "I just dream about geometric shapes. If I like the way they look, I paint them."

The look she shot me from under her jet-black lashes made it crystal clear she knew I was lying. "And yet your end product echoes much more complex forms," she said. "Which is why it interests me." She glanced briefly at Mrs. Fletcher, who by now was beaming with all the pride of a mother whose kid was just accepted by Harvard. "Your teacher told you I would like to buy a piece of your work?"

"Yeah." If I hadn't been totally comfortable with the idea before, I really wasn't comfortable with it now. "I'm not sure I want to do that."

"I'm willing to offer you a hundred dollars for a drawing. More than that for a painting, if you're willing to part with one of those. There's one on display in the corridor that I find particularly appealing."

A hundred dollars. Jeez, that was real money.

I felt a lump come into my throat.

"I'm sorry . . . I can't. This stuff is too personal."

Her dark eyes fixed on me, and for a moment-just a moment-it was as if I could feel her thoughts piercing into my mind. Vivisecting my soul. Sickness welled up inside me, and for a second I was afraid I was going to vomit.

"I'm so sorry about that," she said softly. The illusion released me. "Will you tell me something of the inspiration behind your art, then? I would love to know more about that."

I shrugged stiffly and looked down at the table again. Anywhere but those eyes. "There's not much to tell."

"Jessica . . . ." Mrs. Fletcher began. She seemed both confused and disturbed by my response.

"Really." I said it more firmly this time. "There's nothing to talk about."

For a moment there was silence. Then, with a silvery laugh of false humor, the visitor turned to my teacher. "Well, that's it, then. I do thank you so much for your a.s.sistance." She took out a business card and handed it to Mrs. Fletcher. "Please call me if Ms. Drake changes her mind."

Her path out of the room took her right past me. Almost close enough to touch.

"You have a rare gift," she said softly, as she walked by. "Make the most of it."

I nodded dully.

And then she was gone.

"Is something wrong?" Mrs. Fletcher's voice was filled with concern. "You usually love to talk about your work."

"I ate something bad at lunch," I said. Not looking up at her. "Just not feeling well."

Someone else might have pressed me for more information, but Mrs. Fletcher wasn't that type. She just reached across the table to gather up my art, and asked nothing more.

I watched her for a moment, then said, "Mrs. Fletcher? Could I take my work home with me?" I hesitated. "All of it."

She looked at me curiously. "School lets out in a week. You'll get everything back then. What's the rush?"

"My father is coming this weekend," I said quickly. It was the only excuse I could come up with that fast; I prayed she didn't know what my relations.h.i.+p with my father really was. "I'd like to show him my work." When she did not respond I added, in a pleading voice, "I hardly ever see him."

She hesitated, then sighed. "I suppose it would be all right."

"And the stuff in the exhibit," I said quickly. "I'd like to take that, too."

She raised one carefully plucked eyebrow. I thought for a moment she might ask me why I was so anxious about all this, and I started rehearsing answers in my head. But she was not the sort to seek confrontation, and in the end she just said, "Well, then. I can hardly deny your father the chance to see your talent, can I?" She pushed the pile of drawings toward me. "Come on. I'll help you pack everything up."

We took down all of my sketches that were taped to the gla.s.s wall, and the painting that was on display by the door, and then I wrapped my nascent sculpture in a plastic garbage bag-it was still wet-and headed out the door. I knew that I was acting strangely, and Mrs. Fletcher might well contact the guidance counselor after I left and ask her to get involved in my life in some intrusive way, but if that was the price I had to pay to claim all my work, so be it. The stalker-woman had wanted a piece of my art very badly, and for some reason it seemed very important that I not let her have it.

The bike ride home was difficult, what with carrying all that stuff, but I stopped halfway to mash the clay sculpture into an unrecognizable lump, and left it behind in a dumpster. That helped.

Mom loved seeing my artwork. She never questioned the fact that I'd brought it home before the end of the quarter; she was just happy that I was sharing it with her. She made me spread everything out on the kitchen island and tell her about each piece, which seemed to take hours. But I guess that was a good thing, as it gave me a chance to focus my mind on something other than the weird soap opera my life had suddenly become.

I couldn't bring myself to tell her about the goth woman. I mean, what would I say? A strange woman liked my art and offered to buy some of it. But I didn't trust her because she'd stopped by our house last week, which could just have been because she was trying to figure out how to get in touch with me, but Tommy thought it looked odd, and besides, she was asking about my dreams. Yeah, it all felt wrong, but in the actual measure of events it wasn't. That's what Mom would tell me.

Finally the long night was over, and I gathered up my artwork and headed up to my room. It was good to know that all my paintings were there with me in the house, where no mysterious stranger could get at them. Pieces of one's soul should be properly safeguarded.

I wondered what Tommy would make of Seyer's visit, once I finally told him about it.

Texting and Facebook and Twitter and email. It was my nightly ritual, as sacred as tooth-brus.h.i.+ng. I generally took care of it while curled up in bed, scrolling through site after site with methodical determination, making sure that all waiting texts were answered, all contacts acknowledged, and all posts on my Facebook page read and commented upon.

Finally I got to my email. There was one new letter, from an address I didn't recognize, Cute, if not original. I opened it. And I guess if I had to identify the one moment when the course of my life changed forever, that was it.

Saw your posts, the letter said. Look for changelings. Below that was a URL for some social network I'd never heard of. No signature.

I stared at it for a long while, not quite sure why it made me so uneasy. I wanted answers, right? If this email was going to lead me to them, that was a good thing, wasn't it?

My nerves were probably just on edge from the meeting with Miriam Seyer.

Shutting down my email program, I headed to the networking site to look for changelings. So much for getting a good night's sleep.

5.

SOUTHERN TIER EXPRESSWAY.

UPSTATE NEW YORK.

STANDING BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD, the deer was all but invisible in the darkness. A sharp outcropping of rock s.h.i.+elded it from the view of cars heading north, while cars heading south were perilously close to a steep drop-off, and were too busy watching the road itself to look for wildlife. This close to the river driving could be treacherous, and one wrong move coming around the sharp turn on the mountainside could send a car hurtling down to the water.

Had anyone stopped to look at the deer they might have wondered at its presence there. Sandwiched between a steady stream of cars and the jagged cliff face, it barely had room to stand. Further north the slope was gentler and led to sheltering woods, the kind of place that deer normally preferred. Here there was only danger.

The deer did not look afraid.

It watched as the cars sped by, glancing briefly to the side as each one pa.s.sed, as if to keep its reflective eyes from revealing its presence. Some of the vehicles whizzed by so close that the wind from their pa.s.sage bristled the deer's fur, but it did not shy away.

It waited.

A blue Corolla came into sight; the deer tensed as it approached. For a moment the vehicle disappeared behind the bulk of the mountain, but its headlights continued to scour the valley like a searchlight, and the deer watched the twin beams of light, tracking the car's position. Then it came around the final turn and was visible again.

The deer leapt into the road.

The car swerved to the left to avoid hitting it.

The deer rushed directly at it, forcing the driver to swing wide to avoid collision. But on this stretch of road there was no such thing as "wide." The blue car skidded, crashed into the low metal guard rail head-on, and smashed through. Shattered gla.s.s flew through the air like hail as it hurtled down the rocky slope, flipping end over end, the sound of each new impact resounding through the valley like a gunshot.

And then there was a splash.

And all was still.

The deer picked its way carefully across the road and started down toward the car. The mountainside was steep, and a keen observer might have noted that the deer's footing was not as steady as one would expect from a member of its species. But at last it reached the narrow river, and the wreck that was half-submerged in it.

The driver's window had shattered. The deer could see that there was a body inside, that of a young woman strapped into the driver's seat. She wasn't moving. The deflated airbag that hung sadly from the steering wheel was splattered with her blood, a monument to the limits of technology. Her skull had been crushed against the side of the car.

The deer reached its head into the window and pressed its nose against her neck.

No pulse.

As it drew back from the car, then, a strange light entered its eyes. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that a strange light left its eyes.

Suddenly the deer looked confused. Its nostrils flared as it smelled the blood in the air. The fur around its neck stiffened as it whipped its head about, checking for predators.