The thought trailed off. Damn it. He
had
seen something. All he had to do was close his eyes and he could call up those alien features in his mind. The triangular-shaped face, pinched and brown as bark. And the eyes, like two small moons, glinting gold…
A cab drove by and Cat pulled away from him as though even that passing driver was too much of a crowd to witness her grief. Peter thought of flagging it down, but by then it was already far down Bank, taillights winking red. He turned back to Cat, reached for and captured her hand.
"I did see something" he said. "What it was, I don't know. I just find it really hard to accept that it was a little man from your dreams, Cat."
Hard to accept? Try impossible. But
she
believed. And her grief for the death of one of the dream companions— that was real for her as well. So what did that mean? That she had a good imagination? He could tell that from reading her books. But no matter how real it was for her, he knew he shouldn't play up to her fantasy. It was just going to support an illusion, and that wouldn't help in the long run. It would make it harder for her to accept that it was her subconscious mind peopling her sleep with the companions she was too shy to meet in real life.
An excellent theory, barring one small detail. He'd seen something too.
Cat watched his face through a film of tears, trying to understand what was going through his mind.
"C'mon," he said simply, squeezing her hand.
They walked along in silence, past the Civic Centre and Lansdowne Park. Halfway across the bridge they paused and looked down at the still waters of the canal, arms propped on the balustrade.
"Kothlen was like water," Cat said, searching for words to express what her friend had been like, trying to bridge the gap of disbelief that still lay between Peter and herself. "When he was still, he was as quiet as that water down there. You could just sink into his silences, and when you came out of them, you were refreshed. Filled again. He was like Mynfel in that way."
"The horned woman?" Peter asked, remembering her talking a bit about her yesterday evening.
Cat nodded. "She's like a goddess. Being with her is like being in the presence of something… I don't know. Solemn. Holy. Kothlen could be like that, but he could also be fun. Did you ever go up into the Gatineaus in the spring and hear one of those small brooks come tumbling down a hill? That's what his laugh was like. And that's why I think of him being like water. He was as hard to understand as the sea, but as immediate as… as rain on your face."
The depth of her feelings reached Peter. He found himself wishing he could have known this man, wishing Kothlen hadn't been just a fabrication, but someone real. Someone Cat could have introduced him to. Someone he could have talked to himself, to sit around and shoot the breeze with…. Again he returned to the question: Did Kothlen's unreality make any difference to the validity of Cat's feelings? No matter what Kothlen had been— imagined or not— didn't the feelings stay real?
"You're going to miss him, aren't you?"
She nodded again, quietly, holding back a new rush of tears.
Lysistratus smiled in the darkness of Cat's study. He had felt her coming to him ever since he'd broken her dream. Now every footstep brought her closer. He thought again of breeding a woman like her. Was she in a fertile cycle tonight? What sort of child would spring from a union of such a true dreamer and a being like himself?
When Cat and Peter reached the corner of Belmont and Willard and were looking down the street to where Cat's house rose above the cedar hedge, Peter sensed a change come over her.
"What's the matter?"
Somehow she couldn't tell him about the watcher— not after everything else that had come up between yesterday afternoon and this morning. He'd go from thinking her quaintly eccentric to out-and-out paranoic.
"Cat?"
She didn't know why she'd insisted on going home. Looking down the street to her house, it appeared sinister. She felt the same disquiet she'd known in her dream— just before everything went wrong. She'd come to be safe in her refuge. Nearing it now, it seemed anything but safe.
"Are you okay?" Peter tried again.
"It's nothing," she said with false bravado. "I'm just not having a good night."
When Lysistratus saw the pair of them coming down the street, he rose from the chair he was sitting in and stepped back from the window. His seed would not fill her tonight, the way her dreams filled him. Not unless he dealt with her companion, and he wasn't prepared to do that. He considered waiting in her study to see if her companion was just dropping her off, then shook his head. Downstairs would be better.
There was something odd about the night. He could almost sense a second Cat Midhir abroad— had ever since he'd pulled her from her dreaming. It existed as a disturbing presence that nipped just at the edge of his awareness. When he reached for it, it flitted from his scrutiny, sliding away into the seas of the night with all the quick grace of a manta ray. Here one moment, gone the next. Hidden. But close.
He could put no name to it. It felt so much like Cat, like the essence of her dreams… as though some part of her dreaming had broken free and strayed to wander loose on its own.
Soundlessly he left the room and slipped down the stairs. He could hear their footsteps on the porch as he paused in the hallway in front of the door. The taste of her, of her essence, was strong in the air. Her anodynic dreams…
He wanted to take her right there on the floor in the hallway, even though it would mean he'd have to deal with her companion and all the problems that could ensue. If he simply put the man to sleep and took her, they would realize something was amiss when they awoke, sprawled in the hall, or however naturally he might arrange their slumbering bodies in her bed. If he killed the man, the police would be brought in. Either way he stood the chance of losing his easy access to her.
Undecided still, he drifted toward the rear of the house. If only the hunger wasn't so strong tonight.
Cat dug in her pocket for her key.
"I was sure they'd be around," she said lightly, hoping to make the end of their very strange evening more normal. She had the quixotic notion that if they parted ordinarily, all the weirdness could be forgotten.
"You thought who'd be around?"
"Ginger and Pad. My cats. I haven't seen them for a day or so."
Peter smiled. "Cat's cats."
She had her key out now. "They can be a couple of monsters, let me tell you, but…" Her voice trailed off. The front door swung open as she touched her key to the lock.
"Cat?"
The watcher reared in her mind with all the menace of the dark-winged searcher on top of Redcap Hill.
"I locked it before I left," she said. "I know I did."
Peter stepped past her into the house. Pinprickles marched up his spine. There was suddenly a very real sense of danger in the air that was neither imagination nor dream. As he started forward, Cat put a hand on his arm. Every horror movie that she'd ever seen came rushing into her head. Ghouls. Maniacs with meat cleavers or long wicked knives…
The back door slammed, and they both jumped.
"There's somebody in here!" Peter cried and ran ahead to the kitchen.
"Peter! Don't!"
They stopped in the kitchen to stare at the back door. It swung wide. Heart thumping, Peter moved forward to look out. On the lawn he could make out footprints in the dew— widely spaced, like a running man would make.
"Oh, God," Cat said as she saw them. "It's real."
Peter swallowed hard. "What's real?"
His own imagination had started to take quantum leaps. He was ready to believe almost anything when she started to tell him about her watcher. When she was done, he almost sighed with relief. A weirdo he could handle. That fit into his world-view, no matter how unpleasant that kind of a person could be. He just couldn't have faced the possibility of more dreams becoming real.
"You'd better call the police," he said.
"I… I can't."
"What do you mean, you can't?"
"They'll just laugh at me."
"For Christ's sake, Cat. It's their job to check out this kind of thing. Would you rather be dead?"
She sat mournfully at the kitchen table, feeling as though her world was tumbling into a freefall from which there was no escape. Reality, even her ghost-laden brand of it, had turned topsy-turvy. Order had fled and no one had been thoughtful enough to provide her with a new set of rules.
"Why'd he have to pick on me?"
"I don't know." Peter massaged his temples. "We don't even know what he wanted."
But with all you read in the papers or saw on TV these days, you had to be prepared for the worst. Especially if you were any sort of a public figure— even as low-profiled as Cat. Hinckley came to mind— attempting to assassinate Reagan just to impress Jodie Foster. Lennon's murderer. Fans. Hero worship that went a giant twisted step too far.
He said as much to Cat. She looked shocked.
"I get letters from my fans all the time, Peter. They're not weirdos."
"You don't know that." Looking up, he saw the fear in her eyes. He tried to put on a reassuring smile. "Maybe you're right. Still, you'd better not stay here."
Cat shook her head. "I'm not going to let him chase me out of my own house."
"Okay. I can see that. But if you won't call the police, how about if I hang around for a bit— just until it gets light out."
Cat nodded, grateful for his offer. Her bravery only went so far, and after tonight…
Peter pushed himself up from his chair. "Maybe we'd better go over the house," he said. "Just to be sure. Do you want—"
"I'm coming with you."
There was no way she was going to sit in the kitchen by herself. Peter nodded, understanding how she felt.
At the front door he had to step aside as her cats edged their way in. They watched him warily as they sidled through the door, then bolted for the kitchen. Peter stared out at the hedge. He felt as if he were in a net that was just starting to draw tight, a net from which there was no escape.
He looked beyond the hedge to what he could see of the street. Was the prowler still out there, watching? Nothing had been taken, or even disturbed inside. And while this wasn't even his house, Peter still felt the same sense of outrage that Cat did. Outrage and fear. Hard to say which was stronger right now.
"Shit," he muttered under his breath. Slowly he closed the door.
Lysistratus saw the door close. Dawn was less than an hour away. Would she sleep before it grew too light for the shadows to hide him? He watched as, room by room, lights came on in the house to stab the shadows outside their windows with their bright illumination. They probably thought he was still inside.
He smiled. That much of a fool he wasn't. Nor would he linger here any longer. There would be other nights.
As he turned away, he searched the night one last time for that strange presence he'd sensed earlier— that stray bit of dream, cast loose on the world to fend for itself. An absurd notion, he realized, but it stayed with him. He reached out with his mind, casting the net wide, but it came up empty.
He frowned. Hunger gnawed inside him.
Lisa Henderson slept poorly that night. She'd had another argument with her mother— about her birthday, naturally enough, which certainly put a sense of gloom over the coming festivities. It was at times like this that Lisa wished she lived in another city, even another country, just to get away from the family obligations her mother insisted she maintain. Everything from Christmas to that most holy of holies, Mother's Day.
But her birthday was supposed to be
her
day, wasn't it? To do whatever it was that she wanted, even if it meant spending the whole day in bed, or going out and getting pleasantly sloshed with a bunch of friends. When she'd made some reference to that, the shit had really hit the fan.
Why can't you keep your mouth shut? she'd asked herself as she was forced to listen to another tirade of what a thankless daughter she was, and how did she think her father would feel, and how hurt
she
was herself that her own daughter would…
Lisa got off the phone with a headache that aspirin would not get rid of. It just lay there between her temples, centering mostly behind her left eye, where it felt like there was a little man with a long needle giving her brain a sharp jab every few moments. She got those headaches a lot.
Stress, her doctor had diagnosed when Lisa went to her with that problem a few months ago. "This is a case of prevention, rather than treatment," she'd added as she prescribed a relaxant. Diazepam, 5 mg. One tablet every six hours, when needed. Valium. Lisa never got the prescription filled. It seemed too… too Middle America somehow.
When she got off the phone tonight, she wished she'd taken about a half dozen of them before answering.
She laid down for a while. When the headache subsided into a bearable dullness, she tried reading the paper, but it was too depressing and the print seemed too pinched tonight. Trying to reread Dylan Thomas's
Quite Early One Morning,
she couldn't get into the mood to appreciate it properly either, and ended up settling for the TV. She watched the late movie on Channel 13, the late-late movie on CFCF 12 out of Montreal, and finally got into bed around four A.M., only to sit up a couple of hours later, dead tired yet wide awake.
She got out of bed and went to sit by the window in her living room, which overlooked the street. Movement caught her eye and then, before she could draw back from the screen, she was looking into the piercing blue eyes of her next-door neighbor where he stood on the walk below, his gaze fixed on her window.
She tried to look away, but her limbs went all weak and a buzzing started up in her head. She couldn't have turned her head if her life depended on it, which in some bizarre way seemed all too real at that moment. She felt as though a part of her was being drawn into him. A great darkness welled up before her eyes. There was something waiting for her in that darkness— something too frightening to have to face.