A Dream of Summer Rain: Chapter 31
Another day died. Outside, the rain refused to relent. The whole county would flood if this kept up. She needed to get out of here, if for no other reason than to stop the whole place from ending up under water.
And also, to finally not have to hear Merab talk any more.
“-So anyway that was how it went down with me and Pericles, the Prince of Tyre. He was a sweet enough guy, but he just couldn’t match my voracious sexual appetites. After that I tried dating this ghost girl from Japan with bangs all in her face and she and I had similar views on things sure but like… No physicality, you know, because of the whole ghost thing, so she really couldn’t keep up with me either-”
“Has it occurred to you that you need to slow down instead of expecting everyone else to speed up?” Lacy said. She’d gleaned a bit about this alleged ghoul princess during flashes of lucidity between dissociative episodes.
The ghoul-girl sat in the same chair she sat in all day, every day. The only times she left were to take showers once a day, and when she came back she was always in full makeup and dressed like the happy little goth she was. When she left, a replacement came in, always a different, stern-looking ghoul whom Merab called by name, all of whom kneeled as soon as they saw her. Maybe she wasn’t lying about being a princess- there was a certain level of reverence she seemed to command without even trying to. Today she wore a black gown covered in equally black frills and lace, her hair up in twin buns on the sides of her head. She had a glass of blood and a plate with what appeared to be a human-belly sandwich with people-bacon on top placed on the floor next to her. She hadn’t gotten to either of them yet- she’d spent most of the day doing her black nail polish. “Well, look who finally offers an opinion.”
“I got bored,” Lacy said. That was somewhat true: she was bored now. The past few days, however, she’d kept herself busy drafting a plan, step by step. It was just like dealing with bullies back in school- if you didn’t have the element of surprise going into the fight, then you needed to be unpredictable, and you needed to keep your opponent from thinking too clearly. Five steps needed to be implemented if any of this had any chance of working.
“How flattering. What do you mean by ‘slow down?’”
“I don’t wanna get into this with you,” Lacy said. Every time they talked, it nearly pushed Lacy back into the blackness- she couldn’t afford to dissociate right now, she needed to think clearly. She needed to get out of here, and she needed to put a stop to all this.
“Then you shouldn’t have said anything, silly!” Merab giggled. “You ever thought about going blonde? It might suit you, considering the whole… I was trying to look for a word besides ‘dumb’, but I can’t find one? So the whole ‘dumb’ thing that you’ve got going on- you’d make a great dumb blonde.”
“Thanks,” Lacy said dryly.
“You’re welcome! So anyway, what do you mean by slow down? I’m honestly quite curious to hear your take on it-”
“Look, forget I said anything,” Lacy said. “I have no dating experience whatsoever, you should not be taking advice from me.”
“Really? No guys after a cute little thing like you? That’s hard to believe.”
“I’m a lesbian.”
“No girls after a cute little femme like you? That’s even harder to believe.”
“I’m not cute, I’m disgusting.”
“Seriously, you need so much therapy.”
“I’m not taking life advice from you, Merab!”
“Hey, that’s Princess-”
“Princess, right, of course, how could I forget. Hey, here’s a question for you: if you’re the rightful heir, why’d they all follow Alistair?” Lacy asked.
“Hm? Oh, because he took my father’s Star. That’s why he has two.”
“Makes sense. So what, you had to earn it? And he-”
“No, not quite,” Merab cut her off. “Stealing a Star has some prerequisites- you’re supposed to eat a Starbound in order to steal their Star. Alistair killed my father, then put the body on ice just in case he ever decided to cash that check. Which, after a few years agonizing over it, he did. Me and my loyalists weren’t able to get to the body in time to stop him.”
“And so everyone just fell into line as soon as the new king rode into town? Even after what he did to the last one?”
“They can’t all help it,” Merab said. “That Star connects the King to all ghouls, puts him in their heads. It’s called the Ever-Song. The more feral you are, the harder it is to resist his will. And there are lots of feral ghouls out there. And even a lot of the non-feral ones, frankly, the upper classes… Well not all of them liked my dad, and some of them just didn’t want me to be in charge. Apparently I’m ‘flighty,’ or some such nonsense. So when Alistair took the Star, all that he actually needed was the small chunk of the upper classes that would’ve fallen behind anyone else at all.”
“And you would’ve done better?”
“Well at the very least I wouldn’t be plotting world domination,” Merab said, blowing on her nails and then taking a sip of blood. “I’d be happily keeping us in our caves, eating the odd stranger here and there-”
“Causing disappearances every year, sentencing innocent people to death, enforcing what sounds like a pretty hardcore caste system-”
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t be in a cage right now, and your hometown wouldn’t be occupied by domestic terrorists. That’s gotta hold some appeal.”
Lacy rubbed her temples. “Ask you something?”
“Why stop now? I’m loving that we’re finally having a real conversation.”
“If Alistair were to die, how confident are you that you could get the troops to pack up and leave? If you could have even just a little nibble of him?”
The princess opened her mouth, tilted her head, and was finally at a loss for words.
The door opened, and Mrs. Woodrow stood on the other side. She was clad in her Sunday best, a light green dress with a cream colored coat and a wide-brimmed hat like she’d used to wear to church. She led a young boy, who couldn’t have been past elementary school age, in handcuffs in front of her, and held a trench knife in her sinister hand.
“I don’t believe I need to explain what happens if you make a fuss,” Mrs. Woodrow said.
Lacy, in spite of herself, gulped.
“You’re dismissed, Merab,” Mrs. Woodrow said curtly.
And then, with a flicker of agitation, Merab stood up, looked directly at Lacy, and said, “Very confident.”
“Offer is on the table then,” Lacy said.
Merab smiled as she left.
Step 1: instill chaos in the ranks. Undermine the leadership, Lacy thought.
Mrs. Woodrow went over to the glass, laid a palm flat on it. A red glow pulsed over the wall, through which Lacy squinted and saw a doorway manifest. “Now then, come on. And don’t try anything. You need to get ready.”
“Get ready for what?” Lacy said, not yet getting up from her cot.
“For family dinner, of course.”
Lacy creased her brow, but relented when the heiress to House Koenig waved her knife at her young hostage. Lacy stepped out of the glass cage, and the hideous grip of the red rune loosened. Her pulse relaxed, and the dull throb around her temples lightened. Her Star hummed inside her, desperate for release, but she couldn’t risk it yet.
Still, it was what she thought it was- the rune only dampened her power, not nullified entirely. There was a limit to how much of a cap they could put on her, and it poured outwards into the environment when she couldn’t release it. That meant there were limits to the ghouls’ defenses, to this Entropy magic of theirs. Filing that away for later, she thought.
Mrs. Woodrow led Lacy down the spiral stairs to the third floor of the brick mansion, and into a bedroom. “Take a shower and put on something nice,” she said. “And don’t try anything- there are cameras in that room, and I’ll be outside with my friend here just in case.”
Lacy grunted in response as the bedroom door fell shut. She looked around and saw what was by all accounts a normal girl’s bedroom, leftover from one recently departed for the adult world. A bed with a purple comforter over it, golden-yellow wallpaper, a blood red rug covering the floor. But the walls were bare of posters or pictures, and the bed looked like it had never been slept in once. There was a desk in the corner by the window, with a makeup mirror and a lamp and two framed pictures. One was of Danny and his mother, and the other included Alistair, Danny at about fifteen, and a girl the same age as Lacy was now. She had white hair and gray eyes and an angular face.
Elaine.
This was the bedroom of the girl Lacy had killed.
She probably hadn’t stayed here very often, based on the sheer lack of effects, the strange aura of a bedroom seldom used. But this was hers, the dead sister’s room. In the closet were her clothes, which her family expected Lacy to put on.
Lacy started with a shower in the bathroom off to the side, savoring the long-forgotten feeling of being clean. She didn’t deserve it, but she took it anyway. After that, she set about the grim task of finding something to wear.
Searching the closet was like wading through a sewer rooting around for something valuable. She parsed through for a subjective eternity, until finally she found something that fit her: a solid navy blue dress with long sleeves and a skirt that went below the knees, then applied a light coat of makeup.
When she was ready, she stepped out into the hallway, where Mrs. Woodrow waited with her hostage. “You look lovely,” she said, running a hand through Lacy’s damp hair, cupping her cheek. A twinge of discomfort shot through Lacy, but she tried not to flinch. She couldn’t afford to show any fear, no matter how much dwelled within her.
Her jailor led her into the outdoors for the first time in weeks, beneath an umbrella into the pouring rain. Night gripped the town of Dresden like a bear trap, and the air was cold and wet and sharp. Woodrow Manor was a half-mile from town square, and street lamps illuminated the vein of Main Street. Ghouls stood in the rain, and none were in even a remote state of decay. Lacy heard some heartbeats in the houses and shops on Main Street, but not as many as there should have been. She didn’t wanna think about how much of the town was left, or if Coldwater and Cleaver had met the same fate yet. Lacy gritted her teeth as she walked side-by-side with the woman who had moved to this town with her family, had settled into it like a weed and overrun the whole garden. Spreading her roots through the soil, not letting anything else grow.
Town square unfolded like origami, Saint Cecilia’s Catholic Church providing the backdrop. A tarp was spread over the street, with four heat lamps beneath the four corners. At the center was a round dining room table, and with its back to the church sat the King of the Ghouls.
Lacy was seated to Alistair’s left, and Mrs. Woodrow to her left. Directly across from her was Danny, who looked even shittier than he did before. He was cleaned up now, showered and shaved, clad in khakis and a red button-down and a black blazer, but he was somehow paler and more haggard than his erstwhile, argumentative self.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Alistair said as raindrops fell from the tarp and sizzled atop the heat lamps. “But you needn’t worry- none of your food is human meat. Only mine own. I would never force someone to eat it, to join me in so.”
Lacy squirmed in her seat. “Then, uh, what are we having?”
“Fish,” Mrs. Woodrow said.
Lacy’s stomach lurched.
Danny snorted.
“And eggplant,” Mrs. Woodrow said.
Danny visibly winced.
Two ghouls, utterly human in appearance- try not to think about it, try not to think about it- brought platters of food. The fish smelled of freshwater, probably something locally caught, so hopefully it wouldn’t be too fishy.
Lacy served herself and took a bite. No such luck. Danny took a bite of eggplant and struggled not to gag. Lacy tried to eat the eggplant and the fish at the same time. Her stomach’s sheer emptiness was the only thing keeping it down.
Alistair was given its own tray of what looked like sausages.
They were sausages, in fact. Sausages made of…
Of…
Try not to think about it, try not to think about it-
“So,” Alistair said, “How are you both? I feel I haven’t had proper time to talk with you two, to simply chat, since we all returned home. Everything has been all business of late.”
A heavy silence, underscored by the rhythm of rain and the seer of steam.
“Well?” Alistair asked, cutting into its sausage with a fork and knife.
Danny sighed. “Well Dad, I’m detoxing. So I feel like I’m dying. Constantly.”
“Ah. Yes, of course. But you are my son, and so you shall be strong enough to persevere.”
“How reassuring.”
“Lacy, what about you? How are you feeling?” Alistair asked.
Lacy blinked rapidly over her half-eaten food, and then burst into a maniacal cackle. Alistair and Caroline stared at her in confusion, and Danny with sullen frustration. Lacy stopped when she realized, once again, Alistair was being serious. “I…,” Lacy started, then looked around, past the falling rain in the darkened town. What was it her parents had always gone on about, whenever any of them were in a mood? “I don’t wanna spoil this nice dinner by complaining.”
“Hm? Very well,” Alistair said.
Mrs. Woodrow beamed with a wide smile.
Lacy shuddered. She choked down a bit more of her fish, trying not to make a face.
“How are you both finding your accommodations?” Alistair asked.
Lacy waited for Danny to answer first, who was evidently in turn waiting for her to do the same.
Alistair finished its meat, and set its cutlery on its plate. It took a long sip of a red liquid from its wine glass, then exhaled when it finished. “Ah. This is Rosé, mind you. I’m fortunate enough that while diminished, the pleasures of alcohol are still afforded to me in small quantities following my transformation.”
“That’s nice, Dad,” Danny said.
“Is that sarcasm in your voice, Daniel?”
“Yes, Dad, yes it is.”
“Daniel, honestly,” Caroline said. “I went to the trouble of cooking all this, the least you could do is try to get through the meal without showing that nasty attitude of yours.”
Danny’s shoulders went slack, and he stared down at his food.
“And you, Lacy? I assume you’re pleased with your new room?” Alistair asked.
“New room?”
“Yes, the one you were led into earlier. Where you acquired that lovely dress.”
Lacy stared directly ahead at nothing in particular.
“Well?”
“It’s… It’s great,” Lacy said, her dress a coat of ants crawling over her skin. “I love it.”
“I’m glad. I do hope you find the accommodations nicer than at your old home. Such an ugly place. I attempted to burn it to the ground, but the rain prevented that.”
Lacy dropped her fork and knife.
“I’m still rather famished,” Alistair said, looking down at its empty plate despondently, shaking its wine glass in its hand.
Mrs. Woodrow stood in the air and called, “Reginald?”
A ghoul with dark yet sallow skin, clad in a leather jacket and blue jeans and a beige beret, stepped forward from the line of ghouls surrounding the dinner table. “Yes?” Reginald said in a rich vibrato.
“Fetch my husband some more meat, will you? Don’t be afraid to replenish the stocks if you have to.”
Lacy blanched. She gripped her dinner knife tightly in her right hand. They were willing to- no, they would- no, they already had and would continue to do so. They had to feed their army- it kept their animalistic urges at bay, kept their Entropic magic charged. So in a way, their use of hostages to keep her in check was an empty threat- they would kill and eat the people of Dresden, and presumably Coldwater and Cleaver, regardless of what she did. Focus, Lacy. Focus on Step 2: throw a wrench into whatever plans they have. Force them to adjust as they go. That’s how you get out of this. That’s how you get justice.
“Admiring our work?” Mrs. Woodrow said. “Woodrow knives provided all the cutlery you see at this table. And might I add I’m glad to have had you two as employees- you two moved more units than any other two-person team we’ve had in some time.”
“Great. I’m real fuckin’ proud of myself,” Danny said, sullenly picking at his food..
That was when Caroline slapped her son across the face.
Deja vu, Lacy thought.
“That’s enough, Danny, honestly,” Caroline started, “I-”
She stopped when she noticed Lacy standing up. That was about the same time Lacy noticed herself standing up. “Don’t do that,” Lacy said.
Alistair frowned. “Something the matter, dear child?”
“Talking to your wife, not you,” Lacy said, glared fixed onto Caroline.
Caroline glared back, while Danny slipped into a thousand-yard stare. “I hardly think you’re in a position to be giving orders-”
“And you are?”
“Yes, Lacy. I am.”
Lacy smirked. “Well, you’re wrong. You guys need me to cooperate. Or at the very least, you want me to. So don��t go spoiling dinner, Caroline. I know you worked hard on it.”
Caroline’s smile bloomed wide and predatory. She grabbed her son by the hair and slammed his head into the table, making him bow. “And what is it you’re objecting to exactly? My hurting this boy who betrayed you?”
“On your orders.”
“He’s an adult. He could have refused if he wanted to. He’s simply loyal to his family.”
“He’s still your kid.”
Danny groaned.
His mother’s grip tightened. “Is it that you’d like to do this yourself? Would you like to take a crack at him? Is that your condition? If you’re hoping I’ll offer up my son for you to brutalize, let alone to kill, you’re mistaken. That is not your right.”
Time to commit to a really bad idea. “I won’t lie, I’ve been thinking about that. A lot,” Lacy said. “But he’s a small fish in a big pond. He’s nowhere near the top of my kill-list.”
“Then who is? Me? Do you want to punish me for harming this treacherous little worm?”
“No, actually,” Lacy said. She turned her gaze on Alistair, who had begun working on a new sausage. Its eyes went wild with delight.
“Lacy,” Danny said, “Don’t-”
“Not everything’s about you, Danny,” Lacy said.
“Then whom is it about?” Alistair asked. “Me?”
“You and me, me and you,” Lacy said. Step 3: implement prison rules.
Now it was Alistair’s turn to cackle, though Lacy suspected that was just how it laughed normally. “I must confess, dear girl, that I don’t quite understand you.”
“Then lemme break it down real simple for ya: I’m a monster, and you’re a monster. I don’t wanna have to deal with you anymore. So I’m gonna kill you.”
Caroline let go of Danny’s hair. He buried his face in his hands, looking through parted fingers at the display before his eyes.
“Fight me,” Lacy said. “One on one. To the death. Those are my conditions. If you win… Well then you can dig in, I guess.”
Alistair stood up from its chair, loomed tall and proud, beaming with more happiness and pride than Lacy had ever seen on her own father even once. It extended its left hand. “Deal. The day after tomorrow, you and I shall duel. I look forward to it. Know this, however- your fight shall not be over if I should fall. There is still the rest of the Sovereignty to contend with, and an army of ghouls all loyal to my cause.”
“Yeah, I know. I just really wanna tear that smug fucking smirk off your face.”
“And I respect that,” Alistair said.
Danny muttered under his breath, so quiet only Lacy could hear: “Oh God he means it.”
“Reginald!” Alistair cried. “Another glass of wine for the table. None for Danny, of course. But the rest of us, the more able, must celebrate.”
Reginald nodded and snuck away.
“My dearest Alistair,” Caroline said, a measured tone exerted over each syllable. “Are you certain this is the best course of action? Was our plan not to convince her to join our side? For our family’s sake?”
Step 4: keep everyone on edge.
“Yes, but it’s clear by now that is not one likely to succeed. Look at this girl? Can you not see she despises us, utterly and entirely? And why would she not? We murdered her family, we occupied her home, we tormented and isolated her? She has due cause to hate us, and her hatred is pure. It is something that is deserving of respect, this kind of unprocessed, justified rage and hatred. It is pure conviction, the kind our other children lack. She deserves a chance to act on it, if nothing else.”
“But dear-”
“That’s enough, Caroline. Don’t spoil this nice dinner. We were all having a grand time.”
Caroline twitched, but then, like a light switch had gone on, she wore a contented smile. “Of course, dear. Of course.”
Reginald brought over a fresh bottle, topping off Caroline and Alistair’s drinks. He saw then that Lacy hadn’t touched hers, and she gave him a look that made it clear she wasn’t thirsty.
Danny’s hands were still wrapped around his face.
“Can I say one more thing?” Lacy asked.
“Certainly!” Alistair said.
Step 5: tell them what you’re gonna do. It’ll make them more likely to underestimate you, and it’ll make the look on their faces when it happens that much sweeter.
Lacy snapped her fingers in front of Danny’s face a half-dozen times, until finally he tore his hands away and met her gaze. “Listen up, asshole, and listen good: I’m gonna kill your dad right in front of you. And when I’ve done that, maybe you’ll understand a fraction of how I feel.”
He laid his hands flat on the table, heaved a heavy sigh. “That’s the problem right there, Lace. I understand perfectly.”
***
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