Revived

by Sarah Noffke

  ♦

  The submarine has been repaired and a new operator hired. For some reason it signals hope to me, like if things can physically leave and enter the Institute, then there’s hope for my own healing process. That’s the reason I go to the dry dock. I had no reason to visit it before now, never curious about the way Bob and Steve’s packages entered the Institute.

  And just when I thought the Institute had no more secrets to reveal, I step into a new dimension of this world. The arched, tunneled room is the size of a warehouse. Underwater lights illuminate the greenish water that half bathes the long, black missile-shaped submarine. I feel like I’m standing next to a whale and I kind of want it to swallow me whole right now. Stairs submerged under the water next to the submarine remind me of how this place transforms when needed. And I’m completely deflated to know that being here, seeing the submarine about to take its maiden voyage after the repairs, doesn’t make me feel better. It reminds me that I’m half submerged in a reality. And as much as I’d like to, I can’t surface completely from it. Disheartened, I whip around and charge straight into Ren. He’s wheeling a suitcase beside him, another one tucked up under his other arm.

  “What are you doing here?” he says, the usual disgust not coating his words.

  “Not finding what I was looking for,” I say dully. “What are you doing here?” I eye the bag under his arm, the traveling coat draped over the rolling case.

  “I’m leaving,” he says with a shrug.

  “Oh. For good?”

  “Yes, for good. If you’re lucky you’ll never be graced with another of my handsome sneers.”

  I almost laugh. Leave it to Ren to almost pull that emotion out of me after everything. The saltwater lingers through the air, a welcome scent. A promising one. “But…”

  “I promised a length of service to Trey and I’ve fulfilled it. It’s time I move on.”

  “So you served the Institute all these years to make up for…for what you did?”

  “No, I served your father. He asked me to help secure a certain future. For most, I would have told them to piss off, even after all I’d done. But Trey isn’t most people. Maybe one day you’ll see that.”

  “Right now he’s hardly a person. How can you leave, when he’s in this state?”

  Ren gives a knowing smile. “Missy, I’m not going to be the one to wake him up. I can guarantee that.”

  “But…what is? I mean…how?” I don’t know why I keep speaking in abbreviated sentences, like a kid giving a speech in front of a distracted classroom.

  Ren’s eyes fall on my forearm to the scar left there when he cut me during our first meeting. “You know, Mae could heal that ugly scar. One less blemish on you.”

  “That’s all right. It’s a reminder of when I first learned this world was real.”

  “Aw, you almost sound sentimental.”

  “And it also reminds me that one day I should return the favor to you.”

  “No, Roya, I’d say we’re finally even.” The marks around Ren’s throat have mostly faded but are still reminders of the strangulation which almost ended him. The one Chase stopped because of a convoluted plan which didn’t work and then did. If I’d acted faster, maybe more wouldn’t have died. Maybe Trey wouldn’t have been damaged so much.

  “Can I offer you some advice?” Ren says, dropping his attention to his fingernails and then staring straight at me.

  I brave myself for a diatribe spiked with insults.

  “Most people aren’t happy. They sing songs like they are. Make up cute little stories. Post pics of the rare times when life wasn’t dreadful. Most people are stomaching this whole affair called life. Are these people complainers? Probably. Most are. But they’re also just blokes who’re too afraid to take a risk. So they live lives in a redundant cycle of complacent apathy. Then these people wallow around day after day in their unhappiness. The more you do that, the more you lose sight of the chances you could take to make things better.

  “Here’s my advice, missy. Don’t let chances slip past you because you’re too afraid to take risks. And don’t make loss in your life make you a loser. Sure, you’re sad now, but if you’re willing to gamble a little you might be able to fix things. One thing I know is you don’t want to wake up and realize you could have been happy, that the risks would have been worth it, but you dwindled away your chances.”

  “Okay,” I say, considering his strange advice. “So I should take a risk? Hmmm…Because pretending to love a psychopath wasn’t enough?”

  Ren regards me carefully for a moment, his green eyes hovering almost too long on my bemused face. “That was the risk you took to save the Lucidites. Taking a risk to survive isn’t that impressive. Taking a risk to be happy, that takes guts.”

  “Well, thanks,” I say, not meaning it. “If this magical chance to relieve all the trauma from my life skips past me, I’ll be sure to stake my life on it.”

  “One more thing,” Ren says, like his words are gold. “Sometimes redemption happens in the past. Time isn’t linear, Roya. Use that to your benefit.”

  I scratch my head, shaking it, my thoughts muddled. “Is that why you’re leaving? Are you taking a risk so you can be happy?”

  “Are you insinuating that I’m an unhappy person?”

  “I think I am,” I say, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

  “The truth is, I’ve never liked this place,” he says, waving his hand around. “It’s too cold and sterile. But I’ve liked having a second chance to become something less despicable than what I used to be. That isn’t happiness but it’s improvement. Who knows what the future holds, but yes, by leaving here I’m taking that risk.”

  “Where will you go now?” I ask.

  “Oh, there are many places where a Dream Traveler can start anew. Maybe even I’ll make a friend this time.” He says this like it’s a ridiculous joke.

  “So you’re not saying goodbye to anyone?”

  “Well, I guess you count as someone. Barely though. Goodbye, Roya,” he says, stepping onto the grated walkway leading to the submarine. After a few paces he turns and looks at me. “Oh, and thanks for ridding this world of Allouette. I’ve never slept so well.”

  The first smile in two weeks graces my lips. “You didn’t save Joseph and me seventeen years ago for our sake, and I didn’t kill Allouette for yours.”

  “No, we did it because it the right thing to do. Still…thanks, that bitch made my life hell.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say, and walk away.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  There’s one Lucidite law I never thought I’d break. Messing with Middlings isn’t the worst thing in the world. Moving objects in the physical realm while dream traveling also isn’t that big of a deal, if done rarely. And spying on the future, well, it can have its dangers, but mostly it just creates a mind game. However, there’s one law that was created to protect the Dream Traveler. No past self-interaction is considered the most important of our laws. Breaking it, especially repeatedly, can leave a person with a schism in their consciousness. I only plan on breaking this law once, but still that could be enough. Maybe this is what Ren meant by taking a risk. I can think of no bigger gamble than this.

  With apprehensive focus I set my attention on a specific time and place. Almost immediately I fall backwards through time, a feeling that took me a while to get used to when I first started dream traveling. As soon as I strike the right time in the past I’m suspended momentarily in the wormhole, and then I race forward. Each turn is followed by a blanket of adrenaline. Each stretch of silver tunnel brings me closer to facing this choice I’ve made. I close my eyes to collect some courage and don’t snap them back open until I’m crouched on the street, the cobblestone under my fingertips.

  July 13, 1997. Stockholm, Sweden.

  In front of me stands a door as ordinary as all the rest on this narrow street. The buildings stand close together here, casting most of the area in shadows. For this reason I don�
��t spot him until he’s less than a block away. If it wasn’t for the strained look on his face I might actually say he looks a little boyish. However, the anxious looks he keeps casting over his shoulder cause premature wrinkles to mark his forehead and eyes. It’s only when he halts in front of the door and takes a deep breath that the worry lines that will someday be permanent fall away.

  I only allow myself a brief glimpse at the bundles he’s carrying against his chest. They’re wrapped in dirty blankets, and one is squirming a little. The door swings open soon after Ren knocks. Trey looks like he’s been expecting someone, but from the look of disgust in his eyes it wasn’t Ren. I take this opportunity to move around them, and trespass into the entryway. I know my presence can’t be seen, but I still don’t want to pass through them for some reason.

  Words now spill out of Ren’s mouth; his British accent was more pronounced seventeen years ago. I only half listen to him, almost not wanting to witness this part of my history. My attention stays focused on Trey. He swipes his hand across his head of mostly blond hair. Neither man actually looks much younger than they presently are, just certain things have aged on them.

  Trey’s turquoise eyes, coated in disbelief and growing sorrow, dart from Ren’s face to the two poorly swaddled babies in either of his lanky arms. Our father yanks us to him, angry tears already rimming his eyes. And Ren is a host of burden, all regret and remorse.

  “I know I can’t excuse my behavior,” Ren says. “If somehow I could prove to you that I never meant for this to happen then I would. I wish––” Suddenly Ren’s eyes skirt to the left, to exactly where I stand beside Trey. Startled he takes a sudden step back. Then catching himself, like he’s just seen a ghost, he leans forward carefully, his hand outstretching toward me.

  He senses me somehow.

  “Get out of my sight,” Trey says to Ren, revulsion in his voice.

  Ren snaps his attention back on Trey, looking somehow lost. His eyes flick back in my direction as he nods slowly. “Yes, of course,” he says, looking from Trey to me, his brow knitted with confusion.

  Without another word Trey slams the door in Ren’s face. He steps until his back is against the wall and slides to a seated position, cradling two tiny and fragile babies. First his lips tremble, then he pulls us closer into him. The first sob that escapes assaults me in the pit of my stomach. “Noooo,” he cries, his tears falling on the blankets just beneath him. “No. No. No. No. No,” he says in a traumatized rush, his chest now vibrating up and down. Trey throws his head back until it hits the plaster wall behind him. “Why? Oh my God, why?!” he shouts and there’s a real question in his shaky voice, one I’m certain will haunt me for a long time. And for the first time ever I see my father for who he truly is––a man who lost the woman he loved.

  After seeing the astonishing look on Ren’s face I realize that this visit can hold more than just closure for me. I was hoping to come here to understand Trey. To understand enough that I could find the next direction to navigate in this muddy water I’ve entered. But maybe…maybe there are more options for me here.

  I kneel down, never looking at either baby, and hover in close to Trey. My lips only a few inches from his ear. “Dad…” I say, testing the word. He doesn’t startle, only continues to convulse with silent tears. “If you can hear me, then listen. This is Roya. I’m one of the babies in your arms right now and I need you to know a few things. First of all, you’ve got to stop blaming yourself for her death. Sometimes you don’t get to live your life with the ones you’ve loved. You’ll never know what a life with them would have been like. And that wasn’t the point in the relationship in the first place. The point is to get you to the next place in your life, a place where you wouldn’t have gone otherwise. Secondly, please know that your mistakes won’t scar anyone, even you. They will just be mistakes and once again without them no one will progress. One day I’ll blame you. I’ll hurt you. I’ll misjudge you.” I’ve never had this happen in any dream travel, but as I speak a single tear falls from my eye and lands with a splat on the floor. “And one day I’ll forgive you for everything. One day it will all work out. But you have to get up now and in the future. You have to protect us. You have to send us away.” And I can’t believe the next words that fall out of my mouth, but they do, as real as water in from a river. “You have to separate us…because if you don’t, then we’ll die.”

  Trey hitches in a breath, holds it and pushes upright. For the first time he pulls the blankets back and stares at the faces of the babies in his arms. His eyes circle around the empty flat, like he’s heard a voice he’s trying locate. Not finding what he’s looking for he returns to the faces of the infants in his arms, and caresses a hand against our cheeks individually. “It’s okay, children,” he says, through a tattered voice. “I’ll take care of you. Forever I’ll watch over you.”

  For several hours I sit with my father and grieve. I picture that he’s able to rest his head on my shoulder, to have someone besides two infants to confide his pain in. My tears fall so rapidly that they soak my shirt. And never do I look at my own face, not that I’d know it from Joseph’s. Still, that’s not the point of the visit. It’s to stare into Trey’s eyes, to understand his pain and therefore the weight I inherited.

  He talks to us. Tells us how much our mother loved us. How much she wanted us. He tells us about their dreams, about the plans that would never come to pass. And I listen, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes unable to understand his words through his grief-stricken tears. But I don’t move from his side. For all of that night, I stay with him. I watch him sink into the person that I know now. I watch him evolve from the man who opened that door with anxious eyes to find Eloise, to the man who realized she was never coming home again. I watch my father’s heart break over and over again in one night, and that’s when I make the decision to love him.

  When I know my night is drawing to an end, that I must retreat for my own health, I make as if to rest my hand on Trey’s arm. I picture…I wish…I sense he feels me. “One last thing before I go,” I say to the man who’s finally laid his children down on the bed, to rest without his arms. “You need to trust the man who just delivered us to you. Ren is a good man. For that matter, so are you.”

  I let my hand fall through him and I disappear, back to my room inside the Institute.

  ♦

  When I enter his room the next morning, I expect him to be staring at the wall like he normally does.

  He is.

  I expect him to sit motionless while I settle into the chair beside his bed and open my book to the place where I left off.

  He does.

  I expect him to remain frozen while I sit and read.

  Almost, like a machine operating for the first time, a bit rigidly, he turns. Looks at me. “Roya,” he says, his voice quiet, unused.

  “Trey?!” I say, sitting forward, dropping the book.

  “Dad,” he corrects, staring at me from his place higher up on his bed.

  “You’re…what?” I say, disbelief coating every word, every thought.

  He brings his chin up, his turquoise eyes holding a strange hope. “You’ve…you’ve...finally done it, haven’t you?” he says in a ghostly voice.

  “What? What have I done?” I say, rushing to his side. I almost grip his hand but hesitate a few inches away.

  He reaches forward and seizes my hand, his eyes swelling with tears. “All your life I’ve been waiting for you to experience that moment but I never knew when it would come to pass. And it has, hasn’t it? You visited me?”

  Confused and elated I say, “Yes, I’ve been here every day.”

  He shakes his head. “Not here. In the past.” He gulps, swallowing down tears. “I named you Roya after that.”

  “After what?” I say, knowing what’s coming next, but needing to hear it.

  Tugging my hand in closer, he looks at me with earnestness. “I knew you were there. Seventeen years ago I felt you. I felt the messages in the wor
ds I didn’t hear. And I knew they were yours. They were, weren’t they?”

  I nod, an ache erupting in my chest, engulfing the space around me.

  “You saved me all those years ago. And all these years you’ve saved me by giving me hope.” Sliding his hands across his drenched cheeks, he sucks in a breath. “And I’ve been waiting, hoping I didn’t imagine it because then it meant that at some point in the future you didn’t hate me anymore. That one day you forgave me enough to risk your life to save mine. And you did. All these years I would never have been strong enough if you hadn’t come to me, inspired me when you were first born.” His weak smile is full of pain. “I’ve been merely surviving, waiting to get to this point. Waiting for you to get to this point. To where you saved us.”

  I slip my hand from his and fold my arms around his neck, hugging him into me, feeling him convulse with sobs against my chest. “We’re there now,” I say. “We’re there now.”

  Chapter Fifty

  “I am grateful you both will be returning to news reporting,” Shuman says, standing with both hands clasped behind her back. “Without your reports we have logged half as many stories as we used to and nothing as significant as the ones you normally report.”

  “It will be good to be useful,” I say, scanning the Panther room. It’s always a relief to dwell in a space that doesn’t show the damage from Zhuang’s attack. To look at Joseph’s face and see the light back in his eyes also brings comfort. He was slow to come out of the depression that hit us all after Day Z, but Trey waking up helped. The burden he carries for murdering our grandfather may never leave him, but I will be his secret keeper and help him shoulder its weight.

  “May I ask you a question?” Joseph says to Shuman.

  “You may ask both of your questions to me.”

  Joseph gives Shuman a confused look. “Nah, I just got one. Where’d you keep all those rattlers that besieged the battle on Day Z?”