“That seems like a trick question.”
She grabbed his sleeve and started walking again. “The statue glen is this way.”
“Statue glen?”
“Yeah, you know. You had that drawing of it in your sketchbook, the one you showed me when we were watching the library. The statue of the hooded figure?”
“Oh—right. You said you used to go there when you were a kid?”
“Only once.” Nova couldn’t quite explain the giddiness that was surging through her limbs. Her feet sped up almost of their own accord. They rounded a corner and the paved path turned one way, while a smaller gravel trail led into a strip of dense woodland. “My parents brought me to that playground, but I wandered off and found…” Nova pushed back a low-hanging branch and froze.
She stood at the top of a rough, moss-covered staircase. The steps curved down into a small ravine, surrounded by towering oak trees and dense shrubs. “This,” she whispered.
She descended into the glen. The clearing was not much bigger than the bedroom she shared with Honey at the row house, with a short rock wall set in a circle around the edges. A wrought-iron bench on one side faced a solitary statue.
Nova felt like she’d stepped back in time. Nothing had changed, not since she was a little girl.
“This is silly, but … until I saw that drawing you’d done, there had been a part of me that thought maybe this place was my own little secret. Which makes no sense. Probably thousands of people come here every year. But … being so little when I found it, I guess I felt like it belonged to me. Like maybe I’d imagined it into existence.” She chuckled and knew she would have been embarrassed to admit this to anyone else, at any other time. But being here again was so surreal she couldn’t bring herself to care.
She circled the statue. It was exactly as she remembered, if maybe sporting a touch more moss than it had back then. A hooded figure dressed in loose robes, like a medieval monk. The face carved beneath the hood was amorphous, with closed eyes and a contented smile and rounded features. Its hands were stretched toward the sky, like it was trying to catch something.
She did not know how old the statue was, but it looked like it had stood there for a thousand years. Like it would stand there for a thousand more.
“I’ve only known about this place for a couple years,” said Adrian. “Though I’ve been back to sketch a handful of times. How old were you when you found it?”
“Four or five,” she said, trailing a finger along the statue’s sleeve. “That night, I dreamed about it. This was before I stopped sleeping, obviously, and to this day it’s the only dream I can remember in perfect detail.” She surveyed the glen. The woods were so dense here the sounds from the festival could no longer be heard. Only bird melodies and rustling leaves. “I dreamed that I was walking through a jungle, with flowers bigger than my head, and a canopy so dense I couldn’t see the sky. The whole place hummed with life … insects and birds … Except I kept coming across things that didn’t belong there. Concrete steps that were covered in moss, and vines dangling from street lamps instead of trees…” She swirled her hand through the air, tracing the vines from memory. “It was Gatlon, but it was in ruins. Just a jungle now, all overgrown. And then … I found this clearing, and there was the statue. It was facing away from me at first, but even before I got close, I knew that it was holding something. So I walked around it, and I looked up, and…” She paused, feeling like she was back in that dream, drowning in the sense of wonder she’d almost forgotten.
“And then you woke up?” Adrian guessed.
She snapped her attention away from the vision and glared at him. “No. The statue was holding something.” She hesitated, feeling childish now, and a little defensive.
“Are you going to make me guess?” said Adrian.
She shook her head and tried to temper the emotion she felt at the memory. “It was holding a … a star.”
Only in saying it out loud did Nova realize how ridiculous it sounded. “Whatever that means,” she finished lamely.
“Dream logic,” said Adrian. “Or … possibly nightmare logic. I can’t tell if this was a good dream or not.”
Nova chuckled. “It was a good dream. I’m not sure why, given that all of civilization had collapsed, but … it was a really good dream.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “My parents were furious when they finally found me, and they never brought me back to that playground. But I never forgot about that dream. I must have fantasized about finding that star for years afterward.”
“Funny how some dreams stick with you,” said Adrian, sitting down on the grass and stretching his long legs in front of him. “You’re lucky. Most of the dreams I remember from childhood were nightmares. Or … a nightmare. I had a recurring one for years.”
Nova sat down next to him. “About what?”
He squirmed. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not important.”
“And mine was?”
“Yes,” he insisted. “Yours was amazing. A jungle? Collapsed civilization? A statue holding a star? That’s epic. Whereas mine was just…” He waved a hand carelessly. “You know. A nightmare. I don’t even remember that much about it, other than how much it terrified me.”
“Let me guess,” said Nova, cupping her cheek in one hand. “You used to dream that you arrived at HQ only to realize you’d forgotten to put on clothes that morning.”
He shot her an annoyed look. “I was, like, four. HQ didn’t even exist yet.”
“Oh.”
“No, it was more like … there was this thing, watching me, all the time. I called it the monster, because I was original like that. Half the time I couldn’t even see it, but I would know it was there, waiting to…”
“To what?”
“I’m not sure. Kill me, maybe. Or kill my mom or all the people I cared about. I don’t think I ever had a dream where it actually did anything, other than lurk in the background, waiting to grab me or chase me.” He shuddered. “In hindsight, it’s probably not that surprising. I grew up surrounded by superheroes. Every time my mom left our apartment I didn’t know if she would ever come back. And the news was always full of stories of people getting kidnapped or being found dead in gutters … What was my subconscious supposed to do with all that information?” He shot her a wistful smile. “I can see why your subconscious thought it would be better to just let the whole city collapse.”
A surprised laugh escaped her, and though she knew Adrian was joking, she wondered if there was a hint of truth to his words.
“Nightmares,” she mused. “I don’t miss them.”
Adrian’s face softened, and she couldn’t quite look away. Her nerves tingled.
“We should probably get back,” he murmured, without breaking eye contact. Without moving at all.
“Probably,” agreed Nova. But she couldn’t move either. Anticipation mingled with nervousness. Her heart pounded like a mallet.
Earn his affection.