asleep. Not now.
But in the end, I knew it didn’t matter whether I stayed awake or not. I fell prey to the faltering light that sifted through the branches, allowed myself to be lulled into slumber, let the dream wash over me, a serenade of beauty. Just like I had allowed myself to fall in love.
Wake up.
I glanced across the car, saw a surreal landscape sweeping past, purple trees, green sky. The colors were wrong, but they often are in dreams. My younger sister was driving, much too fast, but then it wasn’t my sister after all. The face was blank, all features erased except for a pair of silver eyes. You were in love, my sister asked. I nodded, we were all in love once, a long time ago . I held a box of photos in my lap, black-and-white pictures of my life. The images melted, turned garish and gritty, like cheap tabloids sold on street corners.
The dog is barking. Something must be wrong.
The box of pictures spilled onto my lap, fell across the floor, took root and blossomed, became a garden of images: a picture of that corner office where I had been able to see the sticky glitter of Hollywood; a photo of that delirious holiday we had spent in Cancun; a snapshot of Tucker’s last birthday, back before my world had exploded in tabloid headlines.
GET UP!
A picture of a man who smiled too easily at all the wrong people, most of them women.
My eyes flickered open.
Wake up, wake up, wake up!
I had a crick in my neck and my mouth hung open, slack.
But I wasn’t awake. I couldn’t be.
Because a shadowy monster blurred across the living room and the dog was barking, growling, snapping. Samwise was pushing Tucker’s bedroom door open, he was pummeling across wood floors, legs spinning, mouth open, teeth bared, running toward that dark hole in the universe, that leathery thing that was sucking all the light out of the room.
I sat up and swallowed, blinked away one nightmare for another.
“Sam?” It was the only word I could get out, my mouth filled with the glue of sleep.
Growling. Snarling. Leaping through the air toward the Beast.
Wings spread wide, darker than night, a shadowy creature filled the room like a great, monstrous crow, blacker than black and heavier than a nightmare. It pressed me down and I couldn’t move, couldn’t even feel my heart beating anymore. The dog was frozen in the air, leaping in a broad vengeful arc, jaws open and ready to rip that nightwing beast to shreds. He had a piece of it in his mouth, dark blood spraying.
A woman was screaming.
And then suddenly there were two of them. Wings spread, blanketing the room in a black-ink hell and whispering cold.
Chapter 18
The Edge of Twilight
Ash:
We sat poised on the edge of twilight, eating—this houseful of monsters who barely tolerated one another. Plates passed from hand to hand, moving around the circle like the shadow on a sundial. Driscoll glanced at me from time to time, a glimmer of fear in his gaze. I merely nodded, a king in my court granting reluctant permission to my subject’s each and every move. The two of us were connected in a silent, secret way, the ancient curse shackling us with invisible chains.
Driscoll always preferred to see me dressed in human skin.
So, of course, I rarely appeared to him that way.
Tonight we all sat in full Darkling attire, revealing ourselves as the beasts we truly were. We dined on baked apples and sugared rose petals and pastries with thick raspberry icing. We drank blackberry wine and munched on champagne grapes and fresh strawberries. Through it all, I was the only one at the table allowed to use both knife and fork. Even Driscoll had to gnaw on his chicken and potatoes with bare hands.
It isn’t truly a curse unless you find some way to drive them mad, inch by inch, moment by moment. And madness always was the goal. I could have lived anywhere, like my wild brothers and sisters, those without homes or humans of their own, those who prowled the edges of Ticonderoga Falls like
But in the end, I knew it didn’t matter whether I stayed awake or not. I fell prey to the faltering light that sifted through the branches, allowed myself to be lulled into slumber, let the dream wash over me, a serenade of beauty. Just like I had allowed myself to fall in love.
Wake up.
I glanced across the car, saw a surreal landscape sweeping past, purple trees, green sky. The colors were wrong, but they often are in dreams. My younger sister was driving, much too fast, but then it wasn’t my sister after all. The face was blank, all features erased except for a pair of silver eyes. You were in love, my sister asked. I nodded, we were all in love once, a long time ago . I held a box of photos in my lap, black-and-white pictures of my life. The images melted, turned garish and gritty, like cheap tabloids sold on street corners.
The dog is barking. Something must be wrong.
The box of pictures spilled onto my lap, fell across the floor, took root and blossomed, became a garden of images: a picture of that corner office where I had been able to see the sticky glitter of Hollywood; a photo of that delirious holiday we had spent in Cancun; a snapshot of Tucker’s last birthday, back before my world had exploded in tabloid headlines.
GET UP!
A picture of a man who smiled too easily at all the wrong people, most of them women.
My eyes flickered open.
Wake up, wake up, wake up!
I had a crick in my neck and my mouth hung open, slack.
But I wasn’t awake. I couldn’t be.
Because a shadowy monster blurred across the living room and the dog was barking, growling, snapping. Samwise was pushing Tucker’s bedroom door open, he was pummeling across wood floors, legs spinning, mouth open, teeth bared, running toward that dark hole in the universe, that leathery thing that was sucking all the light out of the room.
I sat up and swallowed, blinked away one nightmare for another.
“Sam?” It was the only word I could get out, my mouth filled with the glue of sleep.
Growling. Snarling. Leaping through the air toward the Beast.
Wings spread wide, darker than night, a shadowy creature filled the room like a great, monstrous crow, blacker than black and heavier than a nightmare. It pressed me down and I couldn’t move, couldn’t even feel my heart beating anymore. The dog was frozen in the air, leaping in a broad vengeful arc, jaws open and ready to rip that nightwing beast to shreds. He had a piece of it in his mouth, dark blood spraying.
A woman was screaming.
And then suddenly there were two of them. Wings spread, blanketing the room in a black-ink hell and whispering cold.
Chapter 18
The Edge of Twilight
Ash:
We sat poised on the edge of twilight, eating—this houseful of monsters who barely tolerated one another. Plates passed from hand to hand, moving around the circle like the shadow on a sundial. Driscoll glanced at me from time to time, a glimmer of fear in his gaze. I merely nodded, a king in my court granting reluctant permission to my subject’s each and every move. The two of us were connected in a silent, secret way, the ancient curse shackling us with invisible chains.
Driscoll always preferred to see me dressed in human skin.
So, of course, I rarely appeared to him that way.
Tonight we all sat in full Darkling attire, revealing ourselves as the beasts we truly were. We dined on baked apples and sugared rose petals and pastries with thick raspberry icing. We drank blackberry wine and munched on champagne grapes and fresh strawberries. Through it all, I was the only one at the table allowed to use both knife and fork. Even Driscoll had to gnaw on his chicken and potatoes with bare hands.
It isn’t truly a curse unless you find some way to drive them mad, inch by inch, moment by moment. And madness always was the goal. I could have lived anywhere, like my wild brothers and sisters, those without homes or humans of their own, those who prowled the edges of Ticonderoga Falls like
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