by J M Fraser
No, not Carla. Her name was Maynya in this place.
Collectively delusional? She couldn’t discount the possibility each of her personalities imagined their surroundings, creating scenes and then thinking them real, including another Carla who traveled hundreds of miles in her sleep only to awaken in her own bed and find physical proof of the journey—a man’s business card impossibly in her hand. A card she might have hallucinated, too. After all, where was it now, at this moment?
A hare bounded out of the woods, raced across the meadow, and entered the forest on the other side. Each of her worlds had unique rules of order. In Sanctimonia, new things happened. Every episode followed a chronological path, always picking up where the last left off—she could remember walking out of her cabin earlier to stand in the meadow—and the randomness of events prevented her from guessing the future. But the subway nightmare chased its own tail, returning to the same beginning, then building to the identical climax each time, with only minor variations in between.
And what about free will—something she possessed in Sanctimonia but not in Manhattan? Did she follow a script in Syracuse, too? She couldn’t remember.
Any place not Sanctimonia slipped into the shadows, leaving her with only one reality she could be sure of. She was Maynya. Her other name and peculiar language scattered like fragments of a fractured dream and evaporated into a sky marred by thick black smoke billowing from deep within the forest.
“Flamma!” She scrambled to her feet and ran toward the village.
The foliage on her right crackled, but not from flames. The fire was on her left. These had to be men, unschooled on how to steal through the trees in silence. She spun, reaching for the knife in her belt.
Two of Virtus’s barbarians emerged from the woods.
How could she have let them trick her with fire? Any simpleton could have recognized the diversion for what it was. She glanced over her shoulder at the crossbow she’d left behind. Too far away to be retrieved. She ran away from it, away from the men, as well, cutting an angle across the meadow toward the trees on her left.
The barbarians loped after her, hoisting a net between them, as if trolling for some creature of the sea. They gained on her with every stride. Their shouts, their footfalls, their labored breath came closer and closer.
She clenched her fists, gritted her teeth. She’d bite, scratch, kick. These animals would not get the better of her.
The net caught her.
She went down, face first into the ground. Stars burst in her head.
And then…
* * *
Carla wobbled on her feet, nearly swooning from the shock of yet another scene shift. Bright daylight had been swallowed by blackest night, and the rural landscape of Sanctimonia fell off a cliff, replaced by a familiar semicircle of tract houses in a suburban cul-de-sac. She knew this place. A captivating imaginary man had let her into his home recently and poured tea.
She got out of the street and climbed Brewster’s stairs, closing her eyes when she reached the porch and leaning forward until her forehead pressed against the wood of his front door. Perhaps by relaxing, she’d soften this door to the contours of her pillow and transport herself back to her Syracuse bedroom, where she’d wake up. The very idea eased her pounding heart and slowed her breathing.
The door didn’t get any softer. She choked a sob, pushed back, and turned to the neighborhood behind her.
The street ending at the cul-de-sac stretched through the darkness toward a mysterious point of origin. She couldn’t see beyond the pale illumination of a halogen lamp halfway down the block. What had happened the last time, after she left this house? Where had she gone? She couldn’t remember.
Carla had a notion to follow the street into the gloom. She wouldn’t have been surprised to find the end of the earth waiting out there.
Unlike the subway station, she had choices here. She could take off. Hit the road. Find out what truly waited at the end of that street. But her strongest urge was to play the hand dealt. She’d been delivered to this house again, to an alluring man who earlier reached through a displacement of space, depositing his business card in her hand when she awakened. This man was important.
She pressed his doorbell.
The opening chords of Beethoven’s Fifth chimed, and a light switched on somewhere in the house. Soon, the echo of footsteps approached, a brighter light came on, and the door cracked open. Brewster poked his head out and gazed at her for a long moment before breaking into a grin. “Remind me to never complain about my doorbell again.”
“Are you still having a fight with it?”
“More like a mild disagreement.” He unlatched the chain and opened the door wider.
Brewster’s easy smile brought out his handsomeness despite the tousle-haired, sleepy-eyed appearance of someone who’d been jarred awake. Light, wavy hair sprang out all funny on one side of his head, and the shirt he’d obviously just thrown on showed the wrinkles of a previous day’s wear. He’d only buttoned the thing halfway, teasing her with enough skin to draw her gaze lower. He’d failed to close his jeans properly—her heat welled up when she noticed his belt hadn’t been buckled—and he’d left his feet bare.
Who established the rules in this place called Northbrook? To hell with her wormhole theory, maybe she was the puppet master here! She didn’t want this particular scene to be real. She needed a place where she could plunge into a pool of wanton desire and forget all the rest.
She pressed against him before he could utter another word. Their lips met and he responded at first, brushing his lower one against hers like a magic man.
But he slowed down. He stopped. He took a half step back. “I know this’ll sound nuts, but I can’t shake the feeling you’re a figment of my imagination.”
“A what?”
“I’m dreaming, right?”
Maybe if she smacked him one, they’d both know the answer. “You certainly can’t be my dream or we’d still be kissing.”
He tried to put his hands on her arms. She shrugged him off, but his bewildered expression seemed so much a mirror of the chaos inside of her, she lost her resolve to stalk away.
“You disappeared into thin air last time,” he said.
“Oh, that.”
“There was a last time, right?”
Who knew? She wasn’t even sure there was a this time.
“Don’t leave,” he said.
She reached past him and tentatively touched the door—still hard, still not her pillow. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re special.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Can we work on that?”
“I’ll need something stronger than tea this time.”
Brewster motioned toward the darkened houses scattered around the cul-de-sac. “Me, too. Maybe after a couple of stiff ones, we can come back out here and put on a little show for the neighbors.”
“I have my doubts whether neighbors even exist in this scenario.” Carla gazed at the sky, searching for an extra moon, a green Big Dipper, the Southern Cross, a square planet.
CHAPTER 13
Back inside for something stronger than tea
By the time Brewster came out of the kitchen with a bottle of wine, Carla had settled onto the couch and kicked her shoes off. She’d found the bowl of chips on the coffee table and now munched away, staring over her shoulder out the picture window behind her.
He paused to enjoy her in profile—brooding expression, dark, shaggy hair, a funky silver earring hanging like tinsel from a milky lobe—until she noticed him and turned.
“Cheers.” He filled two glasses and handed one over.
“How did you know I like white wine?” she asked.
He didn’t for sure, but, “Who doesn’t?”
“That’s too glib an answer.” She glanced over her shoulder again. “Maybe our lives are scripted.”
“Then I should thank whoever wrote yours for bringing you to my
door.”
Carla’s smile brought a twinkle to her eyes.
“Here’s to predestined midnight visitors,” he said.
They clicked their glasses, and he joined her on the couch. Their shoulders touched and lingered, easing his concern he might have cast a shadow on their fledgling relationship by breaking off the kiss in the doorway. She provided further evidence of forgiveness by lifting a foot and running it a few inches up his leg, under the cuff of his jeans.
“I don’t quite know what to make of you,” she said.
Her touch renewed his desire, but he kept his hands to himself. Carla presented a perplexing combination of forwardness and skittishness. She’d seemed ready to bolt after mugging him on the porch, and she had taken off by disappearing the night before in her best rendition of a Twilight Zone episode. “I’m having a little trouble figuring you out, too.”
That was all the talk for a time, but they shared a language of touches, gazes, and smiles to communicate an easy sensuality and comfortable bond transcending the questions hanging between them. Eventually they drained their glasses, and he poured more wine.
“I need to explain myself,” she said.
“Do you know the secrets of the universe while you’re at it?”
She gazed behind them, into the moonlit neighborhood. “I’m afraid my world defies comprehension.”
“Join the club.”
Carla set her glass on the table. “Imagine yourself dreaming but fully aware. You’re the man behind the curtain, the puppet, and the audience all at once.”
“Got it,” he said.
“Some totally hot woman comes along and—”
Hmmm. This hypothetical was hitting close to home. “Anyone I know?”
She poked his arm. “Shut up. I’m trying to tell you something.”
Brewster would have liked to close the lids over her mirthful eyes and press his lips to each one, but he needed answers to the questions buzzing in his head. “I’m all ears.”
“You and this woman are alone at her place. You know from her words or her body language or simply the context of the situation she’s available to you. You take her, right?”
The question had double meaning written all over it, but what response was she looking for?
Carla offered no help. She folded her arms and waited.
“Well, see, there’s this whole I’m Catholic thing to deal with.” A punt at best. He almost motioned to the crucifix on the wall but didn’t want to overdo it. Catholic or not, he hadn’t been a saint all his life when it came to women. Lately, though, he’d sworn off his previous ways.
“Don’t waffle. I’m describing something happening to you in a dream, Brewster. Religion doesn’t count, because none of this will be happening in the here and now. You’re in a dream, you know you’re dreaming, and the most desirable woman in the world comes along. What do you do?”
“Bust into tears?”
“Don’t make me kill you.” She leapt off the couch and paced in front of him, sloshing her wine with each step. Then she stopped and polished it off, returned the glass to the coffee table, and fixed him with a stare from eyes suddenly vulnerable. “Now you know why I came on to you.”
He tried to follow her logic, but the heat of the earlier moment must have fogged his brain. “Because I’m dreaming?”
“No, you impossible man. I thought I was.” She headed toward the kitchen but paused in the doorway and turned. She didn’t seem annoyed, just unaccountably determined. “I’m not a slut. I swear to God, if you’re sitting there thinking I’m—”
Had he been thinking that? If not, why were his cheeks burning? He held up his hands. “Easy, girl.”
She came back and poked his arm again. Hard. “Don’t call me girl. Carla works just fine if you can’t think of anything more endearing to say. Now come on.” She grabbed his wrist and tugged him off the couch.
“Where are we going?”
“I noticed a laptop on the kitchen counter last time I visited this imaginary place. There’s something I need to show you.”
A minute later, they stood side by side at the counter. Carla fiddled with the mouse and danced her fingers across the keyboard until she came up with a website and opened a cam shot of somebody’s bedroom. A sleeping woman appeared on the screen, sheets pulled up to her chin, dark hair splayed across her pillow. Sections of newspaper lay scattered about, as if she’d been reading when she dozed off.
The scene wasn’t zoomed in enough for Brewster to get a good look at her face. “Whoever that is, she sleeps well in god-awful brightness.”
“I had to leave the lights on so we’d be able to see her.”
“Wait. You were in the room with her?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
She zoomed in.
Carla was the woman in the bed. He blinked. “Why did you film yourself like that?”
“Wrong tense,” she said. “I’m filming myself. You’re watching a live webcam.”
“Right.” God. How strong was that wine?
“I mean it. There I am in my bed and here I am standing with you.”
“I could use the idea in a novel.”
Carla grabbed his arm. Got in his face. “Act shocked…surprised…scared.” Her wide-eyed expression combined all of the above.
As for his, what could he convey but confusion? Did she really expect him to buy into some supernatural explanation instead of the obvious? They had to be viewing a recording, not a live feed. “Shouldn’t there be a time and date stamp on the bottom of the screen?”
“The camera app is new. I spent half an hour just figuring out how to get it to do this much.”
A little voice in Brewster’s head told him to shut up, play along, and keep the sexiest woman he’d ever met amused, but he couldn’t stop his brain from shooting a bolt of cynicism out his mouth. “So, where’s the proof of what you’re—”
“Look at the bed! I spread the newspaper so you could see the date and location. I’m sleeping in Syracuse, New York at the moment.”
Carla’s doggedness over something this ridiculous made his skin crawl. He grabbed the mouse and zoomed in on the paper. Syracuse Post Standard? “Wait. Last night, you said you walked here from Sanders Road. That’s here in Northbrook.”
“No, I came from Sanders Creek Parkway in East Syracuse, eight hundred miles away.”
Yeah, but the date on the newspaper was from 2012—a year ago. She’d recorded herself then, not now. Ha ha.
Carla shifted from foot to foot, arms hanging limp at her sides, far closer to tears than laughter.
He tapped the date on the paper. “I don’t get it, Carla. You filmed this a year ago.”
“What?”
If she truly believed she was in two places at once, what did that make her? Delusional? Insane? No way. Wildly eccentric maybe, but no worse than that. Just a woman in need of a steadying hand, especially after a couple glasses of surprisingly strong wine. In fact, he was beginning to feel tipsy himself. “Look at the wall calendar over the sink.”
“What are you talking about? I—” She gaped at the calendar for a long moment, then turned and headed out of the kitchen.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ve had too much to drink.”
Bingo.
“The bedroom’s upstairs, right?”
He came after her. “Yeah, but—”
Carla reached the stairs, wobbled, and slumped against the bannister. “We’re not having sex. We just met. I’m not a—”
“Shh… I know.” He wrapped an arm around her waist. “Easy.”
“It’s called bi-location.” She’d lowered her voice to a whisper, and her eyes took on the reverence of a nun in church.
“What?”
“Being in two places at one time. I looked it up.”
He helped her climb the stairs.
“I’ve done a lot of research lately,” she said. “Bi-location, schizophrenia…maybe I need to add a
subject.”
“Sorcery?” With all of this commotion, they’d completely neglected the obvious question. How the hell did she vanish the night before?
“Time travel.”
Huh. What better bow to tie around disappearances, reappearances, and chiming doorbells in the dead of night? For a stomach-churning moment he almost went along with it.
But he shook his head clear of the fuzzies and returned to planet earth.
Carla stopped him at the guest bedroom doorway. “You’re catching me at a bad moment. If you plan on trying to tuck me in, that’s as far as it goes. Treat me like a…” She trailed off and leaned against him.
“I could slip a pea under your mattress and treat you like a princess.”
She kissed his cheek, and he eased her into the room.
Carla climbed into bed fully clothed. She rolled to the wall.
Brewster pulled the sheets over her shoulders. This woman needed protection. From what, he couldn’t guess. But premonition, instinct, a strong hunch, or whatever shouted at him to watch her back.
Keeping watch would have its advantages. Just being in the same room with Carla buzzed him more than a bottle of wine. He crept toward the chair by the window to take his sentry post.
The hardwood floor creaked beneath his feet.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Just over here.”
“Spoon up behind me, and I’ll share my secrets.”
“Now you’re talking.” He came over and climbed in with her, respecting the dress code by keeping his shirt and jeans on. He shaped his body against her backside and settled a protective arm across her shoulders.
They rested together for such a long, quiet moment he thought Carla had drifted off. But she eventually started speaking in a soft voice, first about nothing—the legions of ladybugs appearing out of nowhere every October, the weather, the sharpness of the crescent moon she’d seen in the sky while standing on his porch. “Would mankind have evolved into a savage people if the moon were red instead of white?”
“Are you suggesting we aren’t a savage people?”
