Gwen smiled, a little ruefully, in my direction. “She used to think her mom could do anything.” She cupped Maria’s face in her hand. “If I didn’t, worrying about you kids would give me nightmares, and I’d never get enough sleep to keep up with you all during the day.”
Maria rolled her eyes, but she smiled.
“Try it the next time you have a flying dream,” I said. “Pick a place to fly to, and see how easy it is to go there. Or switch: Go from flying to galloping or swimming. You don’t have to wait for a dream to feel bad before you take control of it. You’re always in control if you want to be.”
“But if you do have a bad dream,” Gwen added, “come and wake me up. I’ll sit with you until you fall asleep again, like I did when you were little.”
“Can I call you on that dream-phone thing?”
Something crossed Gwen’s face, an expression like she’d caught an unpleasant smell. She scowled at me.
“She’s already experienced the dream phone,” I said. “She was curious about it, and I figured it was better not to keep her in the dark.”
Gwen sighed. “I guess you’re right.” She turned to Maria. “Well, if you have a bad dream it’ll probably wake you up, and you can’t call on the dream phone when you’re awake. But yes, you can talk to me that way. Vicky, too, if she’s willing.”
“Sure,” I agreed, “we can chat about whatever you like. But I might be at work sometimes while you’re asleep, so don’t get frustrated or think you’re doing it wrong if I don’t answer.”
“Start with me,” Gwen said. “I’ll teach you how. My colors are rose and gold. Vicky’s are green and silver.”
“What are mine?”
I let my eyes go out of focus and looked at the space just above Maria’s head. Her aura shimmered into view. It spread around her, the size and balance of colors indicating she was healthy and generally happy, although some excess yellow showed she was prone to worry. Threaded through the aura, her Cerddorion colors were just beginning to show.
“A beautiful sky blue,” I reported, “and . . . well, the other color is kind of pink now, but I think that’ll deepen into a ruby red. Don’t you, Gwen?”
Gwen, who’d also been reading Maria’s aura, blinked. I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling, getting her first glimpse of her daughter’s Cerddorion colors. Her baby was growing up—and into something Gwen feared. She nodded, blinking some more. “Pink and blue. The colors we used for the nursery when you were born.” She cleared her throat. “But Vicky’s right. They’re the base colors, and they’ll take on your specific shades as you . . . as you grow.”
“Are those good colors?”
“They’re yours,” I said. “Colors aren’t good or bad, just like a fingerprint isn’t good or bad. But they’re part of what makes you, you.” I touched the tip of her nose. “So, yeah, I’d say they’re pretty terrific.”
A bread knife lay on the table. Maria picked it up and peered into its shiny surface, tilting the blade this way and that, trying to glimpse her colors for herself.
Gwen closed her hand around Maria’s and lowered it to the table. “Okay, we need to lay down some ground rules. First, you can use the dream phone only on the weekends. No calls on school nights. I remember how tired I used to get when Vicky and I stayed up talking for half the night.”
“But you were asleep,” Maria objected.
“It’s a different kind of sleep. The kind you can wake up tired from.”
“Oh.” Maria seemed puzzled, but she shrugged. “Okay.”
“Second—and this is important—you may answer a dream-phone call only if it’s from Vicky or me. Green and silver or rose and gold. No other colors. Understand?”
“But what about the blue-and-silver lady? Vicky said she was my aunt.”
Gwen looked so angry, for a moment I thought she would hit me. But she took a visibly deep breath, then another, and shook her head. “Just Vicky or me. If I find out you’ve been talking to anyone else, you’ll be grounded.”
“But why can’t I talk to her?”
Gwen picked up the bread knife and toyed with it, her knuckles white. “Because many years ago, when I was a little older than you, I saw that woman do a terrible thing.”
“What?”
“Gwen, it’s been almost twenty years. Surely after all this time you can let go of whatever Mab did to upset you.”
Gwen slapped the bread knife on the table, making Maria jump. “Let go of it? That woman should be in prison, not swanning around her fancy house in Wales. Not pushing her way into my little girl’s dreams.” Gwen shoved her chair back and went to the sink. She poured herself a glass of water and drank it in three gulps. She slammed the empty glass on the counter, fury seething in her eyes. “But I never could get anyone to believe what I saw. Not Dad, not the police—no one.”
She pointed to the side door. “Maria, go outside. Go to the Henleys’ house, ride your bike, do something. I need to talk to Vicky alone.”
“But, Mom, you said I could stay. You said this conversation concerned me.”
“You’re right, it does. But you’re still too young to hear what I have to say. Maybe later, when you’re older, I’ll explain.”
“But—”
“No!”
Maria knew when she was beat. She slid from her chair and trudged across the kitchen. At the door, she turned around and said reproachfully, “I’m growing up, you know. You can’t treat me like a little kid forever.” She tossed her head and went out into the garage.
Gwen’s laugh had an hysterical edge to it. “She sounds exactly like I did at that age—do you remember? If only I’d known then how good ‘little kids’ have it. I had to grow up way too fast, and I wasn’t ready for it. Thanks to your precious aunt Mab.”
“Gwen, what happened?”
“That’s why I never told you, you know,” she said, ignoring my question. “Christ, you were younger than Maria when it happened. I wanted to protect you, protect your innocence. And then later, you were so crazy about Mab and demon fighting and Wales that you wouldn’t have believed me.” She glared at me accusingly. “You won’t believe me now, either.”
“Try me. I promise I’ll listen, at least.”
Gwen didn’t sit down. She didn’t look at me as she spoke. She stood by the kitchen sink, staring at a spot on the far wall, seeing into the distant past.
“Thirteen. I was only thirteen years old. A child. That summer in Wales, I was so terrified of Mab I felt more like her prisoner than her apprentice. I used to imagine that I was Gretel and she was the witch, getting ready to eat me alive. I was so unhappy. I’d take long walks whenever I could escape from the house, and on one of those walks I met a boy from the village. Eric.” Her eyes softened. “I thought he was the handsomest boy I’d ever seen—black hair, dark eyes, and black eyelashes so long and thick I wished mine were like that.
“Eric was fifteen, and I knew Mab would never approve of him. So I’d sneak out at night and we’d meet. I thought I was being careful, but one night Mab must have followed me. I met Eric at our usual place, a stone wall where we’d sit and talk. It was all so harmless, so innocent. That night, he put his arm around me and said he wanted to kiss me.
“My heart was thumping like mad. I closed my eyes and waited for the feel of his lips against mine. Instead, something warm splashed onto my face. I opened my eyes. Eric clutched his neck, blood spurting from between his fingers. His throat had been slashed wide open. Mab stood behind him, holding a bloody dagger.”
Here eyes locked onto mine like laser beams. “She killed him in cold blood, Vicky. A fifteen-year-old boy. And all because he tried to kiss me.”
21