In her dream Patty reached the top of the hill and stepped from the shadows of Boundary Street across the line of light and into the Fire Zone.
The Music hit her like a wave. Harsh at first, but then everything she was, was suddenly aligned with what it was. The Music. Capital M. Sounds and songs that had been played so long, so well, with such insight and profound understanding that they had come alive, achieved consciousness and awareness and wisdom. The Music wrapped itself around her and kissed her and welcomed her to the Fire Zone.
Patty felt herself moving forward, along the street toward the avenue where thousands of people were laughing and dancing. The people around her seemed completely insubstantial, wisps of color in the shapes of men and women, and of children. With each step, though, each shape became more defined, more real in every way. Deeper, wider, brighter, hotter, infinitely complex in the way stars are. When Patty looked down at her own body she gasped to see that she, too, was dressed in rags of light. Shimmering and alive in ways she could never be back down in the shadows.
Dance with us, said a voice, and she turned to look, but instantly understood that the voice had come from inside her own mind.
“I don’t dance,” she said.
Everyone dances. It’s how we are alive.
“I stopped dancing a long time ago.”
Why? asked the voice, and it was as if the voices of every dancer around her spoke at once. Not in some overwhelming way, though. It was a perfect harmony, in time with the Music. Many of the voices were familiar. Many were not. All were her family, though. Soul family.
“I forgot how to dance,” lied Patty.
No, said the voices. No one ever forgets. We are made of star stuff, infinite and in constant motion. The universe moves within us and life itself is a dance.
Patty tried to turn away, to hide her shame and her truth, but she realized with a shock that she was deep within the Fire Zone now. Completely surrounded by ten thousand shining faces. Beyond the crowds rose the facades of the nightclubs where she used to dance in her dreams. Grim Torquemada’s, with the massive bloodred neon hand flashing on its white wall. The swirling spike of silver and turquoise that was Unlovely’s. Beyond that, Café Vortex, with a real spiral of wind that sucked up the dancers and sent them laughing into the night. And others. Too many to count. Dance clubs everywhere. Dancers and the dance everywhere.
“I don’t want to dance anymore,” protested Patty. “I’m not allowed.”
The next voice spoke beside her and she turned to see a very tall woman with masses of red hair. Her body was ripe and lovely, dressed in a tight gown of shimmering green, and there was an emerald in her forehead. Not on a circlet—it seemed to grow out of flawless skin. But beneath the jewel and arching brows were smooth panels of flesh in which there were no eyes at all. And yet, on some instinctual level that reached all the way down to her soul, Patty knew that this woman was called Lady Eyes, and she saw everything.
Every.
Single.
Thing.
Who has told you that you are not allowed to dance?
Patty felt the tears on her cheeks burning like spilled lamp oil. “I forgot her name,” she said with a sob. “I forgot her face.”
Whose face have you forgotten?
“Tuyet … I forgot everything about…”
Her words trailed off as she realized she’d just spoken her daughter’s name. Spoken it with surety, with a mother’s unbreakable confidence.
Lady Eyes reached down and took Patty’s hand, lifting it so they could both look. Around them many of the dancers turned to see. Their eyes were filled with fire. Lady Eyes used two very long fingers to pluck away the bandage. There, on the back of her left hand, was the face of Tuyet. The other tattoo, the crude one, seemed to hover above the surface of Patty’s skin, glowing with a faint yellow light. A warning light, maybe, offering a choice: stop now or drive faster.
She is right there, said the lady.
“She’s leaving me,” cried Patty. “He took her. He has her.”
Who has her?
“Him!”
The Music seemed to suddenly become muted, distorted, even ugly. There was a frenetic buzzing in the air that made it hard for her to think.
Speak his name, urged the lady. Names have so much power, little sister. Don’t you know that?
“But I don’t know his name. He stole her. I have no idea who he is.”
Yes, said Lady Eyes, you do.
“I don’t, I don’t, I don’t,” wailed Patty. The buzzing grew louder and louder as if ten million insect wings fought the Music to own the Fire Zone itself. “He stole his name, too.”
Your daughter is with him, but she’s also with you, Patty. Speak his name.
“I can’t…” She fell to her knees, weeping, screaming, bleeding. Maybe dying.
The buzzing was a towering sound now. Patty touched her ear and her fingers came away slick with bright-red blood. Around her some of the dancers were wincing and drawing back. The Music fought to be heard. All at once Lady Eyes raised her hand, fingers wide, and in a voice louder than thunder yelled, STOP!
The buzzing stopped.
Just like that.
A thing like a shadow of light fell across her and the Music was back, soft and sweet and so powerful.
Speak his name, my love, said Lady Eyes.
With snot running from her nose and blood clogging her ears, and her tears mingling with spit from slack lips, Patty mumbled seven words. They hurt her mouth like punches.
“He is the Lord of the Flies,” she whispered. The terror in her voice was vast and bottomless.
A moment later she felt the softness of lips pressed gently against her forehead.
Tuyet is your daughter.
And then Patty Cakes woke up, looking at the hospital ceiling. Around her the nighttime hospital was silent except for the hiss and ping of machines attached to the lost.