Chapter 28: Walking on Your Hands

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https://helena-heissner.itch.io/a-dream-of-summer-rain

CW: mental illness, childhood trauma. Because being Danny is suffering.

5 Years Ago

Wind raked over the hill, over the branches and the leaves and the tree trunks, warping around the obstructions and adding dimension to its shapeless expanse. Flower petals, yellow and blue and purple and pink were scattered amidst the vernal breeze. The sky was clouded over and shined silver in the scant light mixed with the clear river that ran through the land.

Teenagers gathered around the bank of the river. A cluster of boys, and a few girls, were gathered on one side, while on the other stood a nervous Danny with his hands jammed into his pockets. Between these two extremes was a ginger boy named Trevor, who stood at nearly five-ten and whose pasty face was a mass of zits and freckles, and Lacy.

They were fighting.

And Lacy was winning.

Trevor had been a problem throughout the school year. As was often the case with Lacy and Danny’s problems, he made himself known at the beginning of the year when he decided he wanted a turn at having them as his punching bags. Lacy’s… Handling… Of John back in middle school had incited a reaction of ‘challenge accepted’ in a lot of their classmates. The result was always the same: Lacy spent the first few minutes getting beat down by someone bigger than her, falling lower and lower, until finally she was able to punch her opponent in the balls. Often repeatedly.

After that, Lacy began working her way up, delivering blows to Trevor’s stomach, chest, mouth, nose, and eyes, moving so quickly he barely had time to react while still recovering from the damage to his family jewels. And on the muddy shore of the river, blood spotted the ground.

As usual, with her opponent down, Lacy stood over him, arms hanging limp at her sides, breathing heavily. The dominant emotion pouring off of her was rage, red like the blood leaking from her nose and out Trevor’s newfound tooth-gaps, but veins of cold blue shame and misery ran through it. The rest of the crowd were a mix of disappointment, irritation, and ecstatic joy- at least one of these boys, Trevor’s supposed best friend Mark, actually hated Trevor’s guts and thought it was hilarious that he was getting his ass kicked by a short, skinny kid like Lacy- plus all the others who were just there for the continued amusement of said shorty winning that many fights. Lacy had won what, four, five of these now? And she hadn’t gotten in trouble for it since the first one with John back in sixth grade- she was smart enough to make people meet her down by the river for it.

Still, there was just as much anger at Lacy’s continued victory- many of these people, especially Phil and his secret boyfriend Cameron, found it outrageous that someone like Lacy kept getting away with this, especially when they knew now that if they bothered Lacy she might just challenge them to a fight. And they’d look like cowards if they said no, and they both already lived in constant fear of discovery, so that meant getting humiliated AND beat up instead of just humiliated.

Some of the girls also reacted badly. Trevor’s girlfriend, Mia, was a given, but Rachel and Sara were both unattached and viewed Lacy, who they knew as Liam, with a staggering contempt- they resented her for going outside of what they saw as her lot in life.

Danny smirked when Lacy spat on Trevor while he was on the ground, then gave the crowd the middle finger. She was covered in mud, and she had a new bruise on her cheek. She turned around and walked towards Danny, and then she went straight past him, shivering with self-hatred. More so than usual.

That was not a good sign.

Danny followed after her, into the misty greenery of the forest. “Hey, wait up.”

Lacy said nothing, and didn’t slow down.

“Man, wait up,” Danny said, widening his gait.

Lacy kept moving. Oh God, she felt horrible- it was like insects were crawling around inside her. This was all on top of the usual tides of dysphoria that were always coming off of her. They were out in public, so it was a risk, but Danny had to reach her somehow. He caught up to her, and whispered, “Lacy, are you ok-”

She broke into a dead-sprint and was gone. Danny stood there a moment- perhaps she needed some space. He looked up through the canopy, and wondered when the rain would start again. It always did.

A matchbook of ire lit up behind him. Danny turned to find Lee, an average height, average weight, average looks fellow, approaching him with his hands in his pockets and a smug sneer on his face. “Hey faggot. Where’d your boyfriend run off to?”

“We’re not dating,” Danny said flatly.

“Then why are you and the little freakshow always looking so gay together?” the dumb redneck chuckled.

Danny pulled his switchblade from his pocket and made it dance in his hands. “We don’t. You’re just fucking stupid, on top of being the kind of asshole who tracks someone down after a fight so you can beat them up while they’re bloody and exhausted. No wonder Coach Atwood won’t let you on the starting lineup. Now get out of here, or I’ll carve you up.”

The dull boy scowled. “You’re all talk. Nobody’s ever seen you in a fight- you always let the midget do it for you.”

Danny grinned. “Maybe you should think about the fact that my family is rich and important, and you’re dirt poor white trash, and I can do whatever I want to you and get it covered up, but if you do shit to me, my family will straight-up kill you.”

He flinched. “You’re full of shit.”

Danny laughed. “Maybe. Wanna find out?” He lunged at Lee, knife in hand. The other boy ran away screaming. Danny laughed again, softer this time, and put his knife away.

Then he followed after Lacy.

She’d started opening up to him shortly after Drew died, first about her being trans and about her real name being Lacy, and second about what her parents were like. It made sense, both of them- prior to learning those details, Danny had never been quite sure what to make of the sheer omnipresent misery that constantly consumed his best friend. It also led to him sticking up for her more- that was what friends did. She could handle herself fine at school- that had been thoroughly demonstrated the past few years. At home, though… Lacy was terrified of her parents, in a way Danny understood all too well.

He left the woods, and stepped into their crappy town square. Everything was always gray and dirty in Dresden. Nothing was nice, nothing was clean, and nothing deserved to be either of those things. The people glared without actually glaring as he walked by- Danny could feel it, the jealousy and resentment from both kids and adults of the simple fact that Danny had money and they didn’t. It was pathetic. And hard to breathe through. The only one who didn’t seem to hate him on principle was Lacy. And once upon a time, Drew.

They were the only people he’d ever felt safe around.

Danny came upon the shallow cul de sac Lacy’s shitbag parents resided in. They were, frankly, the worst people Danny had ever met. The sheer amount of malaise and nihilism and utter contempt for everyone and everything they came across that both Declan and Siobhan O’Sullivan exuded at all hours of the day was so strong Danny had nearly thrown up the first time he’d met them. But they weren’t home right now. It was just Lacy. Brimming with a despair and a desire to die that Danny had never encountered before.

Danny ran up to the house and picked the lock and burst through the door just in time to see Lacy standing on a stepping stool and beginning to decorate her neck with a noose.

They stared at each other for a moment.

“Um,” Lacy said. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“Then what is it?” Danny said in a soft voice, stepping inside and closing the door.

“...”

“Lacy. Please don’t do this.” God, she was in so much pain. I have to help- no matter what, I can’t let her go through with this.

“I have to,” she whispered.

“No, you don’t. And you shouldn’t.”

“Why not?! Do you have any idea what it’s like, going through every day feeling wrong, feeling disgusting and horrible about yourself for something you can’t control, and to have to top it all off with… With…”

“With your parents,” Danny said.

Her eyes shot back and forth. There was something she wasn’t telling him. Probably best not to press the subject just yet.

“Lacy,” Danny said, inching closer. “Whatever it is, whatever happens, whatever you think you are, please, you have to know that-”

“Don’t say it will get better. It never will! There’s no reason for me to believe-”

“Then let me help you, dammit!” Danny snapped. “Okay. When this is over- I mean high school, when that’s over- we’re both leaving this town behind. Together.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“You’re my family, Lacy,” Danny said. “You’re the sister I never had.” Not quite true, but we’ll go with it.

“You… You mean that?”

“Of course I mean that,” Danny said. Another few steps forward. “We’ll figure something out. I can probably even help fix you up with some antidepressants- my mom knows people.”
She was so scared, of what she was and what she might be, and what the world would do to her if they found out. She stood on the stool, the rope still in hand but off her throat, and her eyes were blank sheets of glass.

Danny closed the gap, and he offered her a hand to help her down from the stool.

After a moment, she took it, and stood with him.

“Let’s go to my house,” Danny said. “We can get dinner there.”

“Are you sure your mom will be okay with it?”

“Yeah, it’ll be fine,” Danny said, hoping that part was true.

“Do you… Do you still have those fireworks at your place?” she said, not looking at him.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Let’s… Set them off tomorrow night,” Lacy said, as much for her own assurance as his.

Wordless relief flooded through him. ‘Tomorrow.’ Thank God.

They trudged through town as the sun began to break through the clouds, and came upon Woodrow Manor. Danny’s mother’s family had bought it as a safehouse in case they ever needed to retreat to somewhere inconspicuous- they mostly stuck to Chicago, but after the whole incident with Gwen it was decided that was too obvious. She was coming for Danny- one day, she would return, and she would finish what she’d started that night. And Danny would die, unless he was willing to do what it took to survive. And so he’d grown up in the wilderness, waiting for the day that would determine his family’s fate.

But today was not that day. Today he was helping another member of his family, the one he actually cared about, get through a very difficult time. He opened the black wooden door to the Manor, and revealed the brick archway inside.

“Mom?” Danny said as he took off his shoes and coat. Lacy did the same. Her clothes and face were still muddy. “You home?”
She normally wasn’t until at least seven, so Danny took the silence as a sign they were alone. He looked at Lacy. “Go take a shower. You look like you could use it.”

Lacy nodded, eyes still glass.

Danny waited in the living room while Lacy bathed upstairs, burying his face in his hands. His head jerked to the side as his mother entered the back door.

“I see you’ve brought a guest home,” Caroline said, unbuttoning her white raincoat.

He stood up and brushed the excess dirt off himself, eyes wide and breathing in a deep breath. “It’s just Liam.”

“You mean Lacy,” Caroline said, marching into the room. In heels, his mother had several inches on him.

Danny’s fear tripled at his mother’s nonchalance and effortless pride. “How did you-”

“I’ve known for years, Daniel,” Caroline said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “If you put more time into practicing like I’ve asked you to, you would’ve already known that I know.”

Danny flinched, and the week-old bruises on his back throbbed psychosomatically. “I didn’t realize-”

“There’s lots of things you don’t realize, son,” Caroline said, walking over to the drybar by the blazing hearth.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean about the fact that she’s a mage,” Caroline said, pouring two glasses of bourbon and chipping ice off a block in the mini-freezer next to the drybar.

“Lacy’s not-”

Caroline raised an eyebrow. “Tell me I’m lying.”

Danny grunted, then breathed in a small gulp of Stardust and burned it. He still had to, in order to tell when someone was lying- he couldn’t yet do it automatically like she could. Like most empaths, most oneiromancers, could.

Fuck, Danny realized as he discerned his mother wasn’t lying to him this time. “There’s no way. She wouldn’t keep something like that a secret from me.”

“Just like you wouldn’t keep something like that a secret from her?”

And then Danny felt like complete and utter shit. Which was nothing new, but it usually didn’t feel quite like this. “I… But how- I should be able to sense that. We can tell when someone else is a mage- even I can do that. I have done that- it’s how I was able to tell that kid in my fifth grade class was a necromancer.”

“And your father gratefully appreciated that information,” Caroline said, handing Danny a bourbon. He’d never had hard liquor like this before, only beer.

Danny shuddered as he thought of his father taking away one of his classmates- that kept him up at night, regularly, after he’d realized what happened when he followed his parents directive to let them know if there were any mages hiding in his school. He took a sip of bourbon, and it burned his throat.

“There is a reason you haven’t been able to detect her magic,” Caroline said. “It’s the same reason I haven’t been able to detect it, that nobody in our school can. Lacy has a Destiny Star. A blue one.”

“What?!” Any Star hotter than yellow offered shielding from most forms of psychic attack, including basic scanning- only the most heavy duty dreamweave could work on them, and even then it took a lot out of the weaver.

“It appears that serendipity has led us to exactly where we were supposed to be this entire time, dear boy,” Caroline said.

Danny took another step back. “How do you mean?”

“Because Lacy’s Star is the one we’ve been looking for. The one your father needs.”

His eyes went wide with terror. “Please- you can’t hurt her.” I promised I would get her out of here, get her safe.

“Your father needs that Star, and there is one guaranteed way for him to take it.”

No nonononononono not again, this is not happening again. Not to her. “What if… What if I get her to help us instead,” Danny said, the words spilling out before he could think about any of them and what they might mean.

Caroline gave him a long, hard look, and Danny knew she was scanning him, trying to figure out if he was serious. “I’m listening.”

“Just… Just give me time,” Danny said. “I can get her to see reason.”

Caroline took a thoughtful sip of whisky, swallowed, and then clinked her glass against Danny’s. “Very well. I’ll discuss it with your father. He’s an understanding man.”

And as Lacy walked downstairs from the shower, Danny, in his quiet desperation, drank his bourbon down in one gulp.

***

“It’s time to wake up, Danny,” Drew said.

Danny groaned, his head throbbing and his body a log on the floor of his childhood bedroom. Here he was, back again in this horrible piece of shit town, in his childhood bedroom. It was exactly the same as he’d left it: posters of all the Star Trek movies on the walls, his shelf fully stocked with his Wheel of Time and Malazan paperbacks, his bed completely made up and waiting for him. He’d passed out on the floor clutching a bottle of vodka like a stuffed animal. He tried to remember the last time he’d slept in a real bed instead of the floor- even in Grand Rapids, he’d always slept on the floor.

“Danny, wake up, come on,” Drew said, “You’ve got things to do.”

“You’re not Drew,” Danny whispered.

“I can be, if you want.”

“What are you?”

“Guess.”

“What does Lacy think you are?”

“Rapid-onset schizophrenia,” Drew said. Darkness surrounded him like a throne, and he stood at the front of it rather than sitting in it. Errant structures and domiciles floated behind him, like empty houseboats floating along a gentle river into an entropic infinity. The front half of a house, the back half of a school, the top half of a castle, the bottom half of a church- all perfectly visible in spite of the lack of light.

“You’re not, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Danny said.

“Not necessarily. Given how your powers work, you could have picked up what Lacy was feeling and then eventually caught it yourself.”

“No. If you were a hallucination, I would’ve picked up on your presence earlier. You’re something else, something that’s able to hide itself from view. Yet you chose to reveal yourself to me.” The effort of all that brainpower ran up against his hangover, and he groaned.

“Brilliant deduction,” Drew said. “Perhaps some food and water would help with your further investigative efforts.”

“That would require moving.”

“Ah. I see. You always did have a problem with that.”

“Shut up.”

“Hmmmm no. The lesson isn’t over.”

“What lesson? What the hell are you talking about? Why are you even talking to me?”

“The same reason I was talking to Lacy: one of my students needs my help.”

Danny lurched upwards, his shoulders slumping as he rose. “Shut the hell up! You’re not Drew! Don’t pretend like you are.”

“I can be if you want me to be.”

“What does that even mean?!”

Drew stepped forward, away from the endless abyss of blackness, away from the parade of half-finished hollow hovels. “When you were nine, you showed up for CCD an hour early, and asked if you could sit and read outside the classroom. You were reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader for what you eventually said was the fifth time, and I told you that if you wanted I could bring you some of my fantasy novels so you could expand your repertoire. It was always easier talking to you about books than it was with Lacy- she only ever wanted to talk about music. So I brought you my copy of-”

“The King of Elf-Land’s Daughter,” Danny cut him off. “I still have it. Or I did. I let Lacy borrow it a while ago.”

“She seemed to like it.”

“I guess she found it relatable.”

“And you always thought it was a horror story.”

“It is.” A skyscraper divided horizontally at each floor, levitating perfectly atop each other, floated directly above. Danny rubbed his eyes. “How do you know all that?”

“Like I said, I can be Drew if you want me to. I remember everything about his life. Like I was there for it.” He put his hands in his pockets and rolled his shoulders, the way Drew always used to. And for half a second, he accomplished the strange ability Drew had to make you feel safe and relaxed when you were talking with him, no matter what was going on outside.

“You’re not Drew, though. And you’re not his ghost.”

“Not as such, no.”

“Lacy never bothered to investigate you all that much, did she?”

“Like I said, she thought she was going crazy.”

“Yeah, that sounds like her.”

“But don’t take it from me, go ask her yourself.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“What else have you got to do?”

Danny slapped himself across the face. “Plenty.”

His childhood home, the only one he remembered, awaited him outside his room. He washed his face in his bathroom, staring into the mirror with a creased brow and bags under his eyes, his beard growing back patchy and uneven. He stepped out onto the second floor of the three story house. Upstairs, a hurricane of odium was just barely contained in a glass box. He could feel it in his bones, and it was rivaled only by his own terror.

All the floors were carpeted, and he walked with bare feet downstairs. His mother sat at the dining room table in a kimono, a gift from the Kishimoto’s, eating a grapefruit with a fork and knife. It was raining outside- it was always raining in this awful fucking place.

The coffee maker sat on the counter, the pot half-full and still hot. He poured himself a mug, stuck his nose in and breathed in the aroma. He added cream and sugar, then pulled raw bacon and eggs out of the fridge and began making his breakfast.

“You really should be more health conscious, Danny,” his mother said.

Danny said nothing.

“Respond when I talk to you, Danny. It’s rude not to.”

“Sorry,” Danny lied, “Still waking up.”

The bacon sizzled in the pan, the rich fragrance greasing the gears in his mind. He beat the eggs and poured them onto the bacon, and then sat down with the scramble once it was finished. He stared out the window, and felt cries of fear and despair surging through the town like the distant heat of a rapidly expanding fire.

“What are you up to today?” his mother asked.

“I figured I’d go do the rounds around town,” Danny said. “Give me the opportunity to see the old stomping ground.”

“Very good. Sounds like a productive use of your time.”

“No it doesn’t,” Drew said, standing atop the dome of a mosque floating in the dark.

The caged storm swelled briefly. Danny flinched.

“What was that?” his mother asked.

“What was what?”

“You twitched.”

“No I didn’t.”

“You’re lying, Danny. You know full-well you can never lie to me.”

“... I’m really hungover, Mom,” Danny said. Not actually a lie.

“I picked up on that. You should really do something about this drinking habit of yours.”

“Mom!” Danny snapped, standing up. “I really don’t wanna fucking do this right now.”

“Don’t ever take that tone with me!” she snapped back, rising and clutching her knife. Danny flinched again, and gradually fell back into his chair. “And don’t use that kind of language. Honestly, I thought I raised you better than that.”

“You really didn’t,” Drew said.

Danny tried not to nod in agreement.

After breakfast mercifully came to a close, Danny put on his raincoat and stepped out into the frigid summer. Dresden was a miserable little town. It had been one when he and his mother had first arrived, and it was still one now. Most of the residents worked at the sawmill, or they were farmers in the surrounding area. The harvest this year would probably be annihilated by all this rain- it hadn’t stopped in the week since they’d gotten back, and didn’t seem to intend to let up any time soon. Danny knew why. He doubted Lacy knew, though. She was probably busy dissociating to the sound of the rainfall, same as she always did. She would need to get with the program soon, or the whole town would die. She actually cared about this place, in some bizarre manner for some bizarre reason- if she was upset about her worthless fucking parents she wouldn’t take her worthless fucking hometown perishing very well.

Town square was at the center, a sad collection of one-story buildings strewn about like a petulant child’s toys across their bedroom. All were gathered around the church at the center, where Danny had learned right from wrong. Ghouls, mostly humanoid, walked the streets, ambling about in the rain. One of them had a can of spray paint, and was approaching the church.

“Hey!” Danny said. All the ghouls in the town square turned their eyes to him at once. Danny stopped short when that happened. He turned around and walked away as the ghouls started vandalizing the church.

He went through the square and walked through the town. The further he got from the square, from his parents’ house, the more and more he felt the others. The low-burning pyres of horror and despair from the dozens of people hiding in their homes. It was better than being inside with the storm, but not by much.

As he passed by a house, two ghouls dragged a man and a woman out of it. Both the humans were old, too old to be converted, and would not be missed, or at least that was the likely rationale for why they had been chosen for…

For…

“Feeding stock, Danny,” Drew said, “They’re going to be eaten.”

“I know.” Fear, the pure, unadulterated terror of a life about to be extinguished, singed Danny as the elderly couple was dragged into a car and ferried away.

“They’re going to die screaming.”

“I know.”

“Just like Lacy’s parents did. Just like Lacy’s going to. Just like you’re going to.”

Danny stood there in the rain, unmoving, unblinking. “I know. I know. I know I know I know I know I know I KNOWKNOWKNOWKNOW!”

The ghoul looked at him again, and so did the hidden people inside their houses, waiting either to be eaten or to be drafted.

Danny turned around and went back to town square, to the liquor store; it was the only thing he was glad was still exactly the same.

He remembered opening the first bottle.

He remembered waking up on the floor of the liquor store later, long after night had fallen, to find both his father and his teacher looking down at him from opposite sides.

“I’m very disappointed in you, Danny,” Drew said. In the blackness was an empty, dimly-lit hallway, stretching on forever, devoid of a ceiling or a front wall.

“My son,” Alistair said, “Are you alright? I’m concerned for you.” He looked fully human- he’d eaten, then. He’d probably eaten that elderly couple, all by himself.

“You’re better than this, Danny,” Drew said.

“You’re better than this, son,” Alistair said.

Danny gulped.

Alistair offered him a hand up. Danny accepted it, and nearly stumbled as he rose. His father helped prop him up, let him lean on him as they walked.

“I hate seeing you like this, Percival,” Alistair said. “Or would you prefer Daniel?”

“Danny,” he said in response. “It’s easiest.”

“Very well then. Danny. My son. I would like you to stop drinking.”

“W-what?”

“You have a problem, my son. And it will destroy you. I saw how this drinking destroyed your sister Morganna, and how it poisoned Guinevere’s body and soul. I do not wish for you to be like them.”

Everything in him- his voice, his face, his posture, his mind- all said that he was sincere. His father wanted him to be healthy.

“What about Mom?” Danny asked.

“What about her?”

“Does she know about this?”

“Yes. But it was my idea. I only want what’s best for you.”

“Yeahhhhhhh, I’m sure,” Drew said.

“You have a Destiny, my son,” Alistair said. “You shall help me in taking over the world. And I shall need you at full capacity to do so.”

“Please no,” Danny said, tears welling up in his eyes as his father dragged him inside, where the imprisoned tempest waited for him upstairs.

“I’m sorry, but this is for your own good,” Alistair said.

He opened the door to their house, and then led Danny, too weak and in too much pain to protest, into the basement. He set Danny down on a cot on the barren cement floor, and then climbed back up the stairs and locked the door behind him.

Danny’s head throbbed as he stared at the ceiling, barely able to move.

“Well,” Drew said, “Quite the predicament here.”

Above him, through his own agony, Danny sensed the tempest in the cage grow stronger.