Indexing (35 page)

“I’ve been having these weird dreams lately. The kind that
you remember the next day, and that seem so
real
…” Gerry frowned,
eyes still closed. “I’m in this big field full of roses. Red roses, naturally.
Anything else wouldn’t be symbolic enough, you know? And I can see another
field nearby, full of white roses, and I know—in the dream—that if I can just
get there, this can all be set right. Because that’s the other thing. In the
dream, something is terribly wrong. I just don’t know what it is. So I wade
through red roses, trying to get to the white ones, and I never quite make it,
and eventually, I wake up.”

“How long?”

“How long does the dream last, or how long have I been
having it?” Gerry didn’t wait for me to answer. “The dream seems to last for
days, which is part of how I can remember that it’s a dream, even when it’s
happening. I’d starve if I spent that much time alone in a field of roses. I’ve
been having it for about a month. Only once a week at first, and then every
other night. It’s been every night for a couple of weeks now.”

That explained why he looked so tired. “You should have
called me,” I said gently.

“I was hoping I’d never have to. But you asked why the deer
were enough to make me come here—why the deer meant my story was going live and
not, I don’t know, that we needed to call Animal Control.” He finally opened
his eyes, turning toward me as he held up his left wrist. I gasped before I
could stop myself.

There, on the inside of his wrist, was a row of livid red
scratches. They had scabbed over, but were clearly still fresh.

“When did this happen?” I asked.

“Last night. I almost made it to the white roses. I thought,
‘this is great, I’m going to reach the finish line and then I won’t have this
stupid dream anymore.’ I reached out too fast, and I cut my wrist on the
thorns.” He wrapped his hand around his wrist, hiding the scratches from view.
“I woke up with blood on my pillow. That’s when I knew that this was serious.”

“I
really
wish you’d called me sooner.”

Gerry grimaced. “So do I. But I’m here now. That has to
count for something, right?”

“I sure hope so.” I leaned over and hugged him before
standing. “I’m going to get some sleep. You should do the same. Tomorrow’s
going to be a long day of tests, questions, and research, and while that may
sound boring, you’re going to want to be awake for it.”

“I can do boring,” he said, with a small smile. “Boring has
sort of been my life’s goal.”

“Then let’s see if we can get your life back on track. Good
night, Gerald.”

“Good night, Henrietta.”

He was still sitting up, holding his wrist, when I turned
off the living room light and walked into my bedroom, leaving him alone in the
dark.

That night I dreamt of the wood, but all the whiteout women
were missing, and the air carried the distant scent of roses.

As always, my alarm went off too early, yanking me back into
a world I wasn’t quite prepared to deal with. I looked automatically toward the
window as I sat up. Only three bloody crescents marked the spots where
bluebirds had managed to slam themselves to death against the glass. My new
bird netting was working. More cinquefoil had sprouted from the carpet near the
bed, now joined by a riotous spray of snowdrops and crocuses. All of this was
normal.

The scent of coffee and bacon hanging in the early morning
air … now that was a bit more unusual. I rolled out of bed, rubbing my eyes
with the back of my hand as I shambled toward the bedroom door, pausing only
long enough to snag my phone. I didn’t want to miss a summons by being too
interested in what smelled very much like breakfast.

The front room was empty. Gerry had even stripped the sheets
off the couch, folding them in a neat pile on one cushion. His pillow rested on
top. I touched it lightly as I passed. The fabric was cool. He’d been awake for
a while.

Then I stepped into the kitchen and stopped, blinking at the
edifying sight of Sloane operating a waffle maker that I was more than
reasonably certain I didn’t own. Jeff was sitting at my small dining table,
sipping from a glass of orange juice, while Gerry flipped bacon at the stove. I
gawked at them for a moment before asking the only question I could think of:
“Where are Andy and Demi?”

“Good morning to you, too, snow-shine,” said Sloane, almost
kindly, as she looked over her shoulder at me. “I thought we should come over
and make sure you two survived the night. Andy didn’t feel like getting up
early, and no one wanted to prod Demi. She’s still too fragile to fuck with
much.”

“You have no idea how strange it is to hear you say that,”
commented Gerry, leaning away from his bacon long enough to press a kiss to
Sloane’s cheek. “Morning, sis. Jeff told me your alarm would be going off soon,
so it seemed better to just let you sleep until then. You looked like you
needed the rest.”

“And you didn’t?” I folded my arms and leaned against the
door frame, eyeing the bustling kitchen. My apartment hadn’t contained this
many people since the movers dropped off the last of my things seven years ago.
It was unnerving. “You’re the one who hasn’t been sleeping.”

“I know.” Gerry started sliding bacon onto a plate.
“Unfortunately, my brain didn’t really care that I needed sleep. As soon as I
appeared in that damn field, I was awake.”

“Shared dreamscapes are a function of some stories,” Jeff
said. I turned toward him, suddenly interested. “Sleeping Beauties tend to find
themselves in endless castles, for example, and Cinderellas share a maze of
kitchens and graveyards.”

“Oh, that’s charming.” I unfolded my arms, starting toward
the coffee maker. “What purpose do they serve?”

“For the stories that are connected to them, they act as a
unifying factor of sorts—a way for the narrative to track everyone who is
currently living out that set of tales. We don’t know much about them. It’s
hard to document something that requires an active connection to a very narrow
slice of the narrative.” Jeff gave me a thoughtful look, and I tensed, waiting
for the inevitable question. To my relief, he said only, “We have a few books
on the phenomenon back at the Bureau. I was planning to start my research
there, since Gerald has confessed to accessing one such dreamscape. It may come
to nothing.”

“Any port in a storm.” I sat down at the table next to him,
watching Gerry and Sloane going through the surprisingly domestic motions of
producing breakfast. “I really appreciate you helping out with this.”

“Yes, well.” Jeff smiled, reaching up to adjust his glasses
with one hand. “You can thank me after we’ve found an answer to your brother’s
situation. Perhaps with dinner?”

I blinked at him before slanting a glance back at my brother
and Sloane. Both of them were steadfastly ignoring us. I looked back to Jeff
and smiled, more shyly than I had intended. “Dinner would be lovely,” I said.

“Breakfast is better,” pronounced Sloane, and dropped a
platter of waffles on the table between us. “Eat up. I’m sure something’s going
to fuck up the rest of the day to the point where we miss lunch.” She turned
and walked back to the counter.

The waffles were golden brown and perfect, filling the air
with the scent of doughy sweetness. I blinked. “Wow. I didn’t know you cooked.”

“I live alone. It’s cook or live on takeout Chinese, and I’m
not that fond of dealing with delivery men.” Sloane returned with a stack of
plates and forks in one hand and a large plate laden with butter, syrup, and
sliced, sugared strawberries in the other. She set these down with more care
than she’d shown the waffles, which I appreciated. Cleaning syrup off my
kitchen floor wasn’t my idea of a good way to start the morning.

“Eat,” commanded Gerry, joining us at the table with his own
large plate, this one covered in bacon. “I hate wasting food.”

“That’s not likely,” I said, and snagged a waffle.

For a while, everything was quiet except for the sound of
cutlery scraping against Ikea plates and the occasional smack of lips or crunch
of bacon. It was surprisingly homey, and comfortable in a way that things all
too rarely were. I found myself wishing that Demi and Andy had been able to
join us, even though they wouldn’t have fit around my tiny table; we were
squashed in as it was. Their absence was still the only flaw in what could
otherwise have been a perfect morning.

Gerry still looked tired, but he looked more relaxed than he
had the night before: maybe sleeping on things had allowed him to come to terms
with his current circumstances. Having Sloane around probably didn’t hurt. His
brief flirtations with her before we’d gone off to college had been seen as a
rebellion by our foster parents and a terrible idea by me—what potential Snow
White wants to see her brother getting involved with a poison apple girl? Not
this one, that was for sure. And yet …

She was smiling as she ate her waffles, and Gerry was
smiling back, stealing glances at her when he thought that no one else was
looking. I wouldn’t say that they were in love, but they were definitely in
like, and I cared enough about both of them to want them to be happy. Weird as
that was, considering Sloane.

“These waffles are amazing,” I said.

“Old family recipe,” said Sloane. This time the smile was
for me. I blinked, and smiled back at her.

We were definitely going to have to make breakfast a regular
team thing.

Before we left for the office, Gerry wrapped up the last of
the bacon in foil. “For later,” he explained.

“Never leave me again,” I said, and kissed his cheek.

He grinned. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and the four of us made
our way out of my apartment. It was time to get to work.

Andy munched leftover bacon as he frowned at the piles of
paper on his desk. “They’re definitely two different stories,” he said. “You
can’t be both kinds of Snow White at the same time, and if you’re the kind who
has apple issues, you’re not the kind who has a sister.”

“We may be thinking about this all wrong,” said Jeff,
wandering back into the bullpen with a large book open on his arms. He was
frowning at the text, not looking at any of us directly.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“We’re all assuming Henry is
Gerry’s
Snow White,”
said Jeff. “But what if she isn’t?”

“She’s my
sister
,” said Gerry. Sloane didn’t say
anything. She just sat up a little straighter and frowned, nostrils flaring.

“Yes, but ‘sister’ can be interpreted a great many ways by
the narrative. Close female friends can be sisters. Coworkers. Even other
children who were in foster care at the same time that you were. If one of
them
is a four-two-six …”

“Then we’re not looking for her, because we’re all too
focused on me,” I said slowly, beginning to understand what Jeff was getting
at. “Do we have a tracked list of potential four-two-sixes in this region? Or
hell, in the region where Gerry’s been living? You may have run
away
from the other half of your story, Gerry, instead of running toward it.”

“This is all very confusing,” said Demi. “I didn’t even know
that there
were
two kinds of Snow White before I joined the Bureau.”

“We have a problem,” said Sloane.

“Most people don’t know, sadly,” said Jeff, looking at Demi.
“It’s a translation error. Like having two men named ‘John,’ one with an ‘h’
and one without, and no one knowing who’s being talked about.”

I yawned. “Can we stop the story if we don’t find the Snow
White in question?”

“It’ll be harder,” said Jeff, hiding a yawn behind his hand.
“We can try, but we should really locate her and make sure we’re not just
averting half of the story.”

Someone was shouting in the hall. I turned toward it,
frowning even as I yawned again. “What the hell’s going on over there?”

“I
said
, we have a
problem
,” snarled Sloane,
sliding out of her chair and running for the bullpen door. “There’s someone
here that shouldn’t be.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I wanted to follow
her—I should follow her, lead her even, as her superior—but I was so tired all
of a sudden. I just couldn’t get my legs to obey me. “We’re all here.” Demi’s
head was down on her desk, and she was snoring gently. Poor kid must have had a
long night.

Sloane didn’t slow down long enough to answer me. She just
kept running, which meant that she was in the right spot to catch the woman who
stumbled through the bullpen door.

The stranger was tall and dark-skinned, with long black hair
in a braid down her back. She was wearing a lab coat over jeans and a plain
button-down shirt, and I had never seen her before. She collapsed into Sloane’s
arms, reaching up with one hand like she was pleading. Then she went limp, all
the tension going out of her body in an instant. Sloane staggered under her
weight. I tried again to stand. My legs again refused to obey me.

There was a thump. I turned to see Andy collapsed on his
desk, already snoring. Jeff was wobbling, eyes gone wide and terrified behind
the frames of his glasses. Then he fell.

“Gerry …” I forced my eyes to stay open as I turned
toward my brother, struggling for consciousness. He was slumped backward in his
borrowed chair, mouth hanging open. I could see him breathing. Thank Grimm for
that.

“Sleeping … she’s a Sleeping …” My eyelids were so
heavy. They slid closed against my protests. Everything was slipping away.

Sloane was shouting at me from somewhere far away, in the
dark, but I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t do anything but fall, and fall
further, and the world went away.

Memetic incursion in progress: tale type 410 (“Sleeping
Beauty”)

Status: ACTIVE

Priya Patel slept peacefully in the arms of the woman with
the red- and green-streaked hair, and didn’t think about the future, or the
past, or anything at all.