Think but this, and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream . . .
The spotlight that encased her tightened to a pinpoint. As she reached the very last line—So, good night unto you all—the fragile light winked out.
“All right!” Mr. Hall shouted. “Lights up, please! We won’t do notes tonight, but I’d like Bottom and the players to stick around; we’re going to go through the Pyramus and Thisbe bit one more time.”
Someone nudged my side. I swayed, losing balance.
Pierce was beside me. The line of his jaw made me flinch.
“Where’s your stuff?” he asked, in a clipped, quiet voice.
“Oh. I . . . um . . .” I stammered. “If you’re tired of going out of your way every night, I’m sure Nikki could drive me. I don’t—”
“I’m driving you,” he cut me off. “Get your bag. Let’s go.”
Pierce followed me out of school and across the parking lot. I got the sense that he was monitoring me, like a warden with an unpredictable prisoner.
The inside of the BMW was frigid.
I huddled in the passenger seat. My head felt like a blender. The ache was a clump of ice cubes whirling and clattering between the blades.
Pierce waited until we’d put two blocks between the car and the school. Then he said, very softly, “I was looking for you all day. I even waited at your locker between classes. And you were cutting with that freak the whole time.”
I swallowed. “He’s not a freak.”
“Really? He hasn’t been expelled from like fifteen schools for drugs and fighting and whatever else loser wannabe rebels do?”
The hardness in Pierce’s voice sharpened mine. “No. His father has to move a lot for work. That’s why he’s been to so many schools. And he’s not doing any of that other stuff anymore.”
“You know him so well already? That was fast.”
The tires shrieked around a corner.
“Pierce—don’t be angry.” I hated the pleading that edged into my voice. “I was feeling really out of it today, and I ran into him in the hall, and I just—I needed to be somewhere quiet. We went to a coffee shop and talked. That’s it.”
“That’s it,” Pierce repeated flatly.
“Yes. I just needed to get out of there. To talk to somebody.”
“Why couldn’t you talk to me?”
I looked at the white knuckles clamped on the steering wheel.
It wasn’t just that Pierce would never have suggested skipping school, or taken me to an out-of-the-way coffee shop, or browsed used books for more than an hour. I couldn’t tell him the things I’d told Rob. I couldn’t ever show him the weak, flawed, disappointing, terrible-daughter truth.
Of course, I couldn’t tell him this, either.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
We bounced into my driveway. Pierce threw the car into park. He grabbed my hand in a way that made his fingernails dig lightly into my skin.
“Next time, talk to me,” he said. “Please.”
“I will,” I lied. “I will. I’ll try.”
His grip loosened slightly. “Is this because of last night? Because I wasn’t trying to make you mad.”
“No. I know,” I said quickly. “That’s not it. That’s—nothing.”
“I’m not trying to force you to do anything you don’t want. I just hate watching you do stupid, dangerous things.” He shook his head once. “But I guess that’s your choice. Right? If you don’t have any feelings for me, then what you do is none of my business. I just—I thought you did. I thought we were finally in the same place.”
“Me too,” I said. “And I do. Have feelings.”
Pierce’s face mellowed. He leaned closer until I could feel the heat of him radiating straight through me, and I could barely breathe, and then his lips were on mine, and the blender in my head went from mix to liquefy, and my body seemed to have evaporated, because I couldn’t move a single thing.
This was real. This was really happening. Pierce Caplan—perfect, beautiful, out-of-reach Pierce, the boy I’d loved for most of my life—was kissing me. That he was now somewhere between a friend and a stranger made it seem both meant-to-be and frightening. But maybe that was how it was supposed to feel. Maybe that was how fate felt.
Pierce’s lips were warm and firm. I felt his breath against my cheek, and realized that I was holding mine.
After a few seconds, he pulled away.
He gave me that dizzying half smile. “Good night, Stuart.”
I hurried through the double beams of his headlights, up the porch steps, to the front door. I shoved my way into the living room without looking back.
Then I froze.
Because Mom was home. Early. And it was clear from the way she stood in the dining room door, still dressed in her work clothes, her fingers clenched around her upper arms, that she’d come home early for a reason.
Sadie was curled up in her usual chair, her eyes flashing between me and Mom with a mixture of dread and glee.
“Jaye,” said Mom. “I need to speak to you.”
Not talk. Speak. Always a bad sign.
“Okay,” I said slowly.
“Come into the kitchen.” Mom spun around.
Sadie raised an eyebrow at me before turning showily back to her textbook.
I followed Mom through the dining room and around the corner.
Mom leaned against the yellow enamel counter next to the fridge. Her arms were still clamped across her chest, and the line of her mouth was tight. I couldn’t meet her eyes. I shuffled to the opposite corner, putting as much distance between the two of us as the kitchen would allow.
For several seconds, she just waited. I could hear her soft, methodic breathing. Her yoga breathing. It’s probably as close as Mom gets to a prayer.
Finally she said, in a quiet voice, “Jaye . . . would you please tell me what is going on?”
Suddenly I almost resented her. For worrying about me. For needing me to be all right. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t pretend not to know what I mean. Your vice principal called me at work an hour ago.”
Our kitchen linoleum was supposed to look like brick, but it was too worn and shiny to fool anyone. Sadie and I used to pretend that if we stepped on the cracks between the bricks, we’d be burned by bubbling lava. I followed the zigzag of fake mortar with my eyes.
“Oh. I didn’t—I didn’t know he’d have called you already . . . Yeah. That.”
“What were you thinking?” Mom’s voice got a tiny bit louder. “Skipping school, leaving the building, driving around with some stranger one week after getting out of the hospital?”
“He’s not a stranger.”
Mom let out a breath through her nose. Her eyes got a little more desperate. “Do you really want to argue about this?” she asked, without waiting for an answer. “Mr. Carter said he was a new student. I’ve never heard you mention him before. How long could you possibly have known him? What do you know about him?”
“He’s new,” I said. “And he’s nice.”
“Nice,” Mom repeated. “Nice enough to convince you to cut class?”
“He didn’t convince me.” The ache tightened. I touched the rubbery line of the scar. “My head was really hurting. I just needed a little break.”
“Jaye, if your head is hurting so badly that you can’t be at school, then you shouldn’t be at school.”
Panic flashed through me. “No, Mom. I didn’t mean— That’s not what I meant.”
Mom gazed at me for a beat. Her eyes were bloodshot, cupped by purplish shadows. I wondered if she’d gotten a full night’s sleep in the last two weeks. “Is it
hurting that badly?” she asked.
Before I could answer, Shakespeare stepped out from behind her left shoulder. He stared at me too, with eyes that were deep and dark.
“No,” I said. “Not all the time. I shouldn’t have put it that way.”
“Maybe we should move up the date of your next appointment. I’ll call the hospital and see if they can fit us in tomorrow.”
Shakespeare glided past the end of the counter and slid behind the refrigerator, like someone onstage stepping behind a curtain. I dragged my eyes back to my mother.
“Mom, it’s okay. I—”
“Because if things aren’t getting any better, you just can’t take this kind of risk.”
Something was beginning to seep out from beneath the refrigerator. Something red and wet and spreading.
“Mom, I swear, I’m not going to skip class again.”
“I mean the risk of going to school.”
The pool of blood widened across the fake brick floor. It trickled into the mortar lines. It was already only inches from the side of Mom’s foot. Polonius in Hamlet, stabbed behind a tapestry. The puddle around the crushed BMW.
It’s not real. It’s not real.
“Mom . . .” I inhaled slowly, smoothing my voice down. Katharine Hepburn. Cate Blanchett. Meryl Streep. “The headache isn’t that bad all the time. Really.” The pool was trickling closer. I forced myself to keep still as it lapped toward my toes. “I just slept badly last night, and then I made one stupid decision. That’s it. I won’t do it again. I promise.”
Mom held her own arms tighter. It looked almost like she was hugging herself. I imagined stepping forward, hugging her with mine instead, but I couldn’t make my body do it. Besides, the pool of blood now completely filled the floor, widening the space between us.
“I thought we were clear on this,” Mom said. “I’ll say it again, just in case. You are not allowed to go anywhere but school until the doctors and I agree that it’s safe. All right?”
“Yes. All right.” I pulled my eyes away from the puddle again. My head spun. “I won’t.”
“That means nothing with Nikki, or Tom, or Pierce. And it means nothing with this new kid, Ron Whatever-his-name-is.”
I could almost feel the warmth of the blood now. “Rob.”
“Fine. Rob,” Mom repeated. “Nothing.” She released the grip on her arms. She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, and I noticed for the first time that her hand was shaking. “Please don’t scare me like that again.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
I looked down at the floor, because I couldn’t look at her anymore.
Blood. Pooling. Sticky. Warm. Melting holes in the white snow.
“Jaye . . .” Mom’s voice came from far away. “If all of this is just too much for you right now—classes, homework, the play—please tell me. Because you getting better matters more than any of that.”
I closed my eyes. “I know. I will.”
The kitchen was quiet for a moment.
“I’m afraid I haven’t done a good enough job of protecting you lately.” Mom’s voice was fragile. I wished I could wrap it in a cast, like a broken bone. “Of making sure you’re all right.”
“Mom, I’m fine.”
“I think I’ve felt so guilty about the things you don’t have—things I can’t give you—that I’ve just let you make your own path. But I need to do better. I need to take care of you. Not the other way around.” Mom’s voice grew a little stronger. “I can’t let you make all of these choices. You’re not ready. So much of the time, you still choose wrong.”
I kept my eyes shut. “I know.”
“If you do something like this again, something that could put you in danger, that is it for the play. You’ll be done.”
My eyes flicked open. The pool of blood was gone. I inhaled, focusing on a piece of lint that clung to the front of Mom’s cardigan until I was sure that my voice wouldn’t come out in a wail.
“All right,” I said. “I won’t. I promise.”
“Good,” said Mom gently. “Now get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.”
The linoleum sagged under me.
Lady Capulet’s line. Romeo and Juliet.
“What?” I breathed.
Mom gazed back at me, her forehead crinkling with worry. “I said, go get a little rest. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Fine.” My throat tightened. I took a breath, trying to force it open again. “I just . . . must have misunderstood you.”
I lurched away, keeping my face down until I was safely around the corner and out of her sight.
As I crossed the living room, the set began to change. Our furniture drifted silently up into the fly space. The carpets rolled back. Painted stone walls settled down onto the black wooden floor. I climbed the steps, which were now just wooden slats leading up to a stage-craft balcony.
By the time I reached the top, I could hear new sounds coming from below. Clanking. Rasping metal. Hard footsteps. I leaned out over the railing.
Two actors were dueling on the stage below. Their long, thin swords hissed when they touched, like water on a hot burner. At first, from their clothes—one in a white tunic, the other all in black—I thought they must be Laertes and Hamlet, acting out their final scene. But when they changed direction, I could see their faces for the first time.
It was Pierce and Rob.
I held the railing tighter. What play was this?
They moved in a tight pattern across the floor. Spotlight glittered on their swords.
Pierce slashed at Rob’s rib cage. Rob leaped out of the way, but the blade caught his side, tearing a slash through his shirt. Red drops spilled from the fabric.
Too real. Too real to be stage blood.
Rob didn’t pause. He swung around, lashing out as Pierce charged forward. A streak of red appeared on Pierce’s shoulder.
“They bleed on both sides,” a voice whispered in my ear.
Hamlet stood beside me. His cracked-ice eyes seemed to give off their own light. “What is it you would see?” he asked, gazing past me, at the fight below. “If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.”
“Why doesn’t anybody stop them?” I whirled away from Hamlet, ready to run back down the steps, but the wooden staircase had disappeared. We were stuck on our little platform. I held the railing and leaned out as far as I could. “Somebody stop them!”
Rob and Pierce fought on. They were both staggering now. Blood left wet petals on the boards. Their boots crushed them, dragged them into streaks.
“Stop them!” I tried to scream, but no sound would come from my mouth. “It’s real! This is real!”
Why hadn’t I seen it coming? Everyone knows how the play ends.
But I’d been an idiot. I’d let it happen.
Hamlet took hold of my arm. I tried to shake him off, but he wouldn’t let go.
“Stop them!” I shouted at him. At anyone. “Please! Please! It’s real!”
A hand grabbed my other arm.
“Jaye. Jaye.”
Faint light on my face. Someone turning me around. Pulling me down to the carpet. The smell of blood thinning in the air.
I blinked. The upstairs hallway snapped back, solid and familiar. Moonlight blurred the hanging picture frames. Sadie was crouched in front of me, holding me by both arms. A tennis racket lay on the carpet beside her.
“Jesus, Jaye,” she whispered. “I thought somebody had broken into the house. What, were you sleepwalking?”
I looked down. I could see the fuzzy plaid of my own pajama pants. Below us, the living room was silent. Mom’s door at the far end of the hallway was shut.
“I don’t know. I must have been,” I whispered back. My heart was slamming so hard against my ribs, I wondered if Sadie could hear it. “I was dreami
ng . . .”
“About what?”
“About . . . someone fighting. I was trying to stop them. I kept yelling and yelling, but no one could hear me.”
“I hate that. Or when you dream that you’re trying to run, and you’re working as hard as you can, and your legs won’t even move.” Sadie got to her feet. She offered both hands and pulled me up too. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
“Were you going to serve a burglar to death?” I asked as we stepped over her tennis racket.
“If I had to,” Sadie answered. “I would at least have returned him to the bottom of the stairs.”
She tucked me back under my rumpled purple quilt. For a second, I almost asked her to stay and sleep beside me, like we’d done when we were little, and I thought packs of hungry monsters hid under my bed. But I couldn’t quite get the words out.
“Sadie . . .” I whispered. “Thanks. For getting there before Mom.”
Sadie nodded. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure she didn’t even hear us.”
“You won’t tell her, will you?”
Sadie looked hard at me. “Does she need to know? You’ve never sleepwalked before. You could have fallen down the steps and hurt yourself.”
“I’ll tell the doctors at my next checkup. I promise. I just don’t want to scare Mom any more.”
Sadie paused in my doorway, turning back to the bed for a second. The Beatles’ faces on her T-shirt looked blue and ghostly. “Do I need to barricade you in here?” she asked. “Set up any booby traps?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay.” She hesitated again. “Good night, Drama Queen.”
The door clicked shut.
I lay still, staring up at the ceiling.
I’d lost a few hours. But I was safe at home.
Pierce was safe in his own house, a couple of miles away.
Rob, wherever he was, was safe too.
I promised myself this.
It was only a dream. Or mostly a dream. Or a dream with real things scattered inside. Fake swords, real blood.
Still, even though I’d woken up before the end, something dark and heavy lingered inside of me, telling me that I was already too late.
CHAPTER 17