Page 48 of The House of Quiet

Chapter Forty-One

A River of Dreams

“Sorry, my heart. I have to find someone else.” River pulls Arrow closer and kisses her, wondering if she’ll forever associate the smells of blood and the ocean with the thrill of Arrow’s lips and hands.

River twirls, trying to spin herself into another dream.

One materializes around her. Dawn’s on a makeshift stage in the foyer, performing a dance for the whole household.

Everyone is clapping, but Nimbus cheers the loudest for her.

It’s sad that they’re the only group Dawn can imagine herself being supported by.

River closes her eyes and tips backward. She opens themand—

The red circle. No, no, no no no. How is it always waiting for her? But she’s already holding on to so much of herself, she isn’t sucked in yet. She yanks her mind away as quickly as she can.

“Hello,” Lake says. She’s setting a table for tea in the middle of a vast field punctuated by tiny purple flowers. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for Birdie,” River answers, frustrated.

“Well, don’t let me delay you.” Lake scowls, but then she pauses thoughtfully. “We’re friends,” she says.

“I like to think so, yes.”

“Then you’re not here to kill me?”

“Why would I kill you?” River asks.

“You’ve done it before, and you’ll do it again,” Lake says with a sigh.

“Killed you?” River’s horrified.

Lake huffs, exasperated. “Not me . Others. Well, go on.”

More alarmed than she’d like to be, River considers Lake seriously for the first time. Deciding to save this puzzle for later, River walks backward, eyes closed.

When she opens them, everything is dark.

She whirls, looking for Birdie’s candle, but there’s no light in here.

Nothing. And even worse, there’s a claustrophobic sensation, like the dream is compacting, getting smaller and smaller on its way out of existence.

If she stays here long, she’ll be crushed.

“Birdie?” River calls. She expects her voice to echo, but it drops flat, strangled by the heavy blackness all around them. “Birdie?” she whispers. “Birdie, if you can hear me—don’t go. Please don’t go. We still need you. Magpie still needs you.”

River nearly jumps out of her skin as a hand takes her own. It’s cold, but it squeezes hers with surprising strength.

“I can lead you out,” River says, though she’s not sure that’s possible.

She’s never tried it. She’s done far worse things to people in dreams, though, so this should be possible, too, shouldn’t it?

Why should her ability be only a weapon?

Blades can kill when they’re swords or knives, but they can also help heal things when they’re scalpels.

“He told me to come back to him,” Birdie whispers, “but it was so bright and loud and painful. I couldn’t stay. I can’t stay.”

“You can. You have to. Come on.” River tugs gently on Birdie’s hand.

She takes a step, terrified that Birdie will slip out of her grasp, but Birdie moves with her.

Another step. Another. It’s like walking through tar, the darkness clinging to them.

If Birdie were alone, she couldn’t have pushed through it.

But together, they move with achingly, painfully slow steps.

It feels like an eternity before River notices a change.

The air is a little less close. There’s a hint of expansiveness around them.

“Birdie, do you feel that?” River turns, but she’s too excited. She knows better than to move quickly in these spaces. The dream falls around her and re-forms.

It’s not Birdie’s dream anymore. This one smells like River’s father: pipe smoke and leather and alcohol. It smells like all the important men River has ever had to endure.

Hawthorn is standing in the center of a room, hands clasped behind his back as he spins in a slow circle.

The walls are deep red, trimmed in gold, and all the furniture seems thrown in as an afterthought—a jumble of leather and velvet pieces, a sofa next to a couch next to a chair next to a desk, on and on, a maze of luxury.

Hawthorn finishes his rotation and sees her.

That’s surprising—she wouldn’t think she’d be a presence in his dream.

Usually the person has to know her. But when she looks down, it makes sense.

She’s wearing bloodred velvet, cut perilously low and hugging all her curves.

Jewels drip from her neck and weigh down her hands.

She’s not herself. She’s another expensive decoration in the room.

Exactly what her parents always wanted her to be.

River’s got to go. Who knows how many dreams she’ll have to cycle through before finding Birdie again, if she even can. But something gives her pause.

Birdie wouldn’t just die , Arrow said. River knows people die all the time. But the timing of Birdie’s mysterious ailment can’t be a coincidence. She just doesn’t understand why the appearance of a tutor triggered such calamity. Yet.

She tilts her head and smiles at Hawthorn. “Hello,” she says.

“Look at this!” Hawthorn gestures at everything around them.

River used to play a game to see how long men would speak without ever asking her a question about herself. All she had to do was smile and nod and make the occasional oh! exclamation.

“Oh!” She nods with wide, enraptured eyes.

“Exactly!” Hawthorn laughs. “I never even knew this room was here. Look, look at what I’ve been living in, while all this was righthere .”

He points toward a door that opens onto a small, plainly furnished room. Tidy and clean, but unremarkable. River nods again in silent encouragement for him to continue talking.

“Do you know what all this is worth?” He slaps the back of a sofa like it’s the rump of a horse.

She half expects it to gallop away. Unfortunately, Hawthorn’s dream is too boring for that.

“More than I’ve ever made in my life. More than I ever could make in my life.

” He laughs again, a dark, bitter sound.

“And it was always right here. I just had to walk through that door.”

He seems perfectly content to stand there, marveling at his previously undiscovered wealth. River will need to nudge him along. “How did you get such a very fine room?” she asks.

“The procedure, of course,” he says.

Time for her other trick: playing the pretty, empty-headed fool. “What’s the procedure?”

Hawthorn laughs again, but this time it’s indulgent. “Did you come with the room, I wonder? Have you been in here waiting for me all this time?”

“The procedure?” she prods, not liking the sly, hungry shift in his expression.

“Oh, that.” He grabs her by the hand, tugging her forcefully along.

“Another room!” he shouts excitedly. Through this door is a near-exact replica of the first, with the same red walls accented with gold, the same ghastly chandelier chiming and twinkling above them, the same stink of power and privilege.

But instead of overflowing with furniture, this one has a single pedestal with a small box on top.

River silently curses herself for believing she was going to get anywhere with him. This is just another treasure room for Hawthorn. Doubtless formed by all his years spent coveting the houses he lectured young minds in.

She’s wasting her time. If someone hurt Birdie, it was probably one of the same two people who hurt Rabbit: Cook or the House Wife.

Or both, working together. There was no explanation for how the House Wife got injured.

River’s never seen the House Wife’s dreams, but she’s going to try.

And if she can’t get to those, she has a new suspicion about Cook.

The way Cook led the House Wife didn’t feel like an employee helping an employer.

It felt tender. Maternal even, and River hasn’t seen Cook show maternal tendencies toward any of them.

But in her dreams, there was always a little girl. Silly River. Little girls grow up, don’t they?

She turns to find Birdie again, but Hawthorn grabs her wrist, roughly spinning her back to face him. “Where are you going?”

“You told me you’d show me the procedure.”

“You’re an empty-headed little doll, aren’t you? I already showed you.” He kicks the pedestal, the box jostling on top of it. Before River can move, he leans in for a kiss.

River reaches back, grabs the box, and swings it into his face. With a yelp, he lets go of her. She tips backward. This time the terror of falling doesn’t push her into another dream, but jolts her awake.

Disgust and frustration cling to her. Morning is nearly here, and it’ll be difficult to fall asleep with the memory of Hawthorn’s hand around her wrist, bruising and cruel. She nuzzles closer to Arrow’s side. River should get up and check on Forest. See if Birdie’s improved, or if…

Arrow shifts toward her in her sleep, draping an arm across River’s waist. River doesn’t want to leave this space. She doesn’t want reality right now.

Reality is a broken Birdie that River couldn’t save, a house full of secrets and menace, and a world that will never let her stay curled around the girl she loves.

For so long River’s hated dreams, been plagued by them, tried to escape them.

But all she wants now is to live forever in a dream with Arrow.

And she’ll destroy anyone who keeps her from that.