Separated from Yourselves

by Bill Hiatt

  “You can read minds now?” asked Stan.

  “Not like Tal, but I can read magic,” Vanora replied. “I can see patterns. I can tell what a spell was supposed to do and how it’s interacting with a person’s mind, for instance.

  “In any case,” Vanora continued, “the impostor fortunately didn’t erase their memories of you, but she suppressed those memories so your parents wouldn’t ask too many questions. That was a clumsy solution, since obviously other evacuated townspeople were going to ask about where you all were. When your parents seemed unable to remember their own children, the townspeople asking the questions became alarmed, your parents became agitated, and the blood double had a steadily growing mess to clean up. She ended up having to cast a spell to temporarily wipe out everyone’s memories of you, then erase everyone’s memories of the earlier conversations.

  “I could retrieve everyone’s memories of all of you, but my double’s erasures of so many conversations during the evacuations, while they won’t bother others as much, left your parents with an underlying sense that something was wrong. As Taliesin pointed out, erasures can leave traces if the memories are strong enough or traumatic enough. I can’t restore those memories without raising questions we can’t answer, and if I try to leave the memories buried but kill the feeling of wrongness your parents are experiencing, that feeling will just keep coming back. Attempting to impose calm permanently might work, but it could also injure your parents in the process.

  “I’m still not a big fan of telling them the truth, but it’s now the lesser of two evils. Even if we have to backtrack and erase the truth from their minds if they can’t handle it, they won’t be in any worse shape than they are now.”

  One by one my friends backed up Vanora’s theory with their own observations of their parents’ behavior. Carla’s mom burned dinner and yelled at Gianni, neither of which she ever did. Carlos’s mom and dad had a loud, seemingly irrational argument over trivia, not at all the way they would have normally behaved, either. Gordy’s dad seemed generally unhappy for no reason. Dan and Jimmie’s mom kept looking for things that weren’t actually missing. Both Lucas’s dad and Eva’s dad even said they thought something was wrong with their memories. Every single member of our group had seen at least one parent act or speak uncharacteristically, and most had seen both parents do so.

  “I’m afraid to do it,” said Khalid, “but now I’m more afraid not to.”

  “If we can explain their feelings and memory discrepancies to them, we can possibly get them back to normal,” said Vanora.

  “Might it be safer to work out a plausible cover story again?” asked Nurse Florence. “Nobody is better than Tal at constructing credible false memories.”

  “We’ll try that if the truth fails,” said Vanora. “Trust me, though. I’ve been in their heads for hours, examining the consequences of so much magic. All those hasty improvisations by my double have left…inflammation, I guess you would say. I’d like to keep actual erasures and implantations to the absolute minimum.”

  “That sounds wise under the circumstances,” Nurse Florence conceded. “How do we go about breaking the news, though? If they are already agitated, as it seems they are, aren’t they likely to take the truth even less well?”

  That led to a longer-than-I-would-have-liked conversation about the mechanics, but in the end it did produce a viable plan. We would use Nurse Florence’s specialty, dream walking, but we would use it on a much larger scale, sharing the burden among her, Vanora, Carla, and me. Vanora would find some pretext to call the parents to Awen for a meeting. We would put them gently to sleep, and then through dreams we would show them the truth. That approach at least avoided anyone interrupting—or, for that matter, running out the door screaming—before they had heard everything we needed them to hear. Once we awakened them, we would do what we could to field their questions, and then we would see what would happen.

  I had originally wanted to set the meeting for the next evening, but the four of us with magic quickly realized we couldn’t be ready that fast. If we wanted everyone’s parents to accept his or her dream experiences as real, even vivid detail might not be enough. Nor could we rely on strategies we had used before to insert memories, and not just because the parents’ minds had become inflamed, as Vanora put it.

  In the past we had been inserting plausible memories to fill gaps created when we had to erase other memories. In that kind of situation, we didn’t need to craft every detail, though I could have done that theoretically. Vanora and Nurse Florence, who lacked my mind-reading ability, couldn’t have exerted such fine control anyway, but most of the time all we needed was a simple spell that told people what to remember and left their own minds free to fill in the necessary details for the memories to be convincing. We couldn’t rely on such a technique this time, because we were dealing with events almost none of the parents had any experience with. Leaving their minds free to fill in details could give them very inaccurate ideas and might risk our losing control of the impression we wanted to create. No, this time we had to painstakingly craft every single detail.

  The situation was further complicated by the fact that before we had only needed to accept memories that fit well with their views of reality. This time we wanted people to believe something they would probably resist. To overcome their initial denial, we needed to work out a way to make a dream seem absolutely real during the time they were experiencing it, which meant creating a whole new process.

  Stan reminded me of the ring my blood double had used to hold them in nightmares. “The realism was pretty appalling,” he said, shuddering a little. “I imagine it’s something he got from Hecate or Nicneven, but maybe you can adapt the magic to help create the kind of realistic experience you want.”

  “If anyone can do it, Tal, you can,” said Vanora. “It may take time, though.”

  Much as I hated to miss school this close to finals, I didn’t have much choice if I wanted our idea to work. This time at least the logistics were easier; my parents could just let the attendance office know I was sick.

  I spent all day each day at Awen working with Vanora on perfecting the new magic and on what information to present to the parents. She too worked all day every day, with occasional jaunts to headquarters to consult with someone in the Order, as well as trips to Annwn to pick Queen Mab’s brains for her dream expertise, and even the Korrigan’s because of her mastery of illusion. Carla and Nurse Florence joined us during the evenings, and some of the guys dropped by so I could download their memories from each class and not fall too far behind.

  I knew Vanora was an organizer and a worker, but I had never seen her put so much energy into anything—an especially pleasant surprise given how skeptical she had been of the whole idea in the first place. I’d grown so accustomed to thinking of her as unreasonable and inflexible that it was good to be reminded she was making much more of an effort, especially where taking care of us and our families was concerned.

  “This has to be as close to perfect as we can make it,” she insisted at one point. “I see evidence that some of the parents have developed a little psychic resistance as a result of all my double’s tampering. We need to create a sense of reality good enough to convince even…well, you.”

  I had to laugh at that. “If we set the bar too high, we could still be working on this next month.”

  Within five days we had a workable method for creating a dream vivid enough to be mistaken for reality, so then when the parents awoke, they could not possibly confuse what they had experienced with any normal dream.

  Even more challenging, though, were the questions of what to include—and how to include it.

  The first question didn’t require as much work, but it require advanced planning. We did need to tell the parents enough to stop their worrying over what they felt they were missing and to allow each of my friends to be honest with his or her parents. Some of the material, though, might better be left for my friends to reveal themselv
es or not, and in any case it certainly wasn’t something we wanted to broadcast to everyone.

  Jimmie had wanted to tell his parents who he really was from the beginning, and he didn’t really care who knew who he was beyond that. Dan felt his brother’s return was such a positive we should include it, so that became a no-brainer.

  On the other hand, Carla understandably did not want to tell her parents about the whole trying-to-sell-her-soul incident.

  “They probably should know at some point,” she told me, “but let me find a way to break it to them.”

  Alex wasn’t a big fan of revealing how Ares had corrupted him, either. I told him not to worry about it.

  “Nothing like that goes in unless the person wants it to,” I assured him.

  Lucas and Khalid posed the biggest problems. Both agreed that, given the way their parents were acting and what Vanora had said, their parents had to be told something. Should they reveal their special natures, though?

  “That’s totally up to you,” I told both of them. Weirdly, they stopped by at almost exactly the same time. “We’ll work around that if you want.”

  “If I were you, though, I’d let them know,” said Shar, who had been briefing me on school when Lucas and Khalid showed up.

  “You know what I’m worried about, right?” asked Khalid.

  “I told you before,” said Shar. “I can’t speak for Lucas’s dad, but I know my parents, and I know they’d love you, Khalid, even if you turned out to be a Martian. The problem is you’ll never know that if you don’t give them the chance to prove it.”

  “I suppose I should think about the situation with my dad,” said Lucas, looking down at the floor.

  “I don’t want to tell you what to do,” I said. “This is one of those times when you have to be comfortable with what you’re doing. I’ll tell you, though, that I didn’t want to reveal to my parents what was up with me, either. Having to tell Mom when she became a seer and thought she was going insane was kind of a relief, though. Having my dad find out was an even bigger relief. And you know what his only complaint was? That I hadn’t told him sooner.

  “Someone like Gordy could theoretically walk away from the whole thing, but you can’t, Lucas. It’s part of who you are, and I think one day your father is going to know it, one way or another.”

  “You’re probably right,” admitted Lucas. “Go ahead, I guess, and include my…unusual background.”

  “Mine too!” said Khalid. “Shar’s right. It’s better to know where I really stand with my…”

  “It’s OK to call them your parents,” said Shar. “They’ll adopt you the moment you say they can. I’m sure of it.”

  After they had left, Vanora said, “It’s just as well. The fewer things we have to dance around, the better, and frankly underscoring the fact that some of their kids are part of the supernatural world may make those parents more likely to accept that world as part of life rather than some dark place they can continue to pretend doesn’t exist.”

  Once we knew for sure which parts to avoid, cobbling our “footage” together from different people’s memories was comparatively easy, though we also needed to include the occasional explanatory voice-over.

  “Is this getting to be a little too Hollywood?” asked Nurse Florence at one point. “I thought we wanted realism. What we’re getting is more like watching a movie.”

  “I think it will end up being more like a virtual-reality simulation,” said Vanora. “Tal, would you like to test it for us and see how it seems to you?”

  Vanora put me to sleep and streamed what we had so far into my head.

  “It definitely feels real,” I said after I woke up. “If I hadn’t already lived those experiences, I would have been sure I was experiencing them right now. I could even feel things like the wind on my face.”

  “Putting aside your own emotions about the events, does what we’ve made communicate the message we want?”

  “It makes what we do look heroic,” I said.

  “What we do is heroic,” said Nurse Florence. “That’s what we want to communicate. Parents should be proud of what their sons and daughters have accomplished, not horrified.”

  We tweaked it a little more. Once we were sure we had what we wanted, Vanora called the meeting, couching the invitation in the best terms she could. We all hoped none of the parents were so damaged they would no longer find an invitation from Santa Brígida’s uncrowned queen appealing.

  “You know, we could do this without outing you,” I pointed out.

  Vanora shrugged. “If they react badly, we’ll have to wipe the memories anyway, and if they react well, it won’t matter whether they know about me, or not, will it? Besides, what pretext could any of you use to get them together so quickly?”

  I still fretted over the presentation a little, but I did take a quick trip home via a portal to make sure Mom and Dad were coming.

  “You don’t really need to be there, but you could help us convince the other parents,” I said, feeling awkward.

  “Of course we’ll come,” said Mom at once.

  “I’d actually like to see the… presentation anyway,” Dad said. “Your mother has seen some of your adventures in her …visions, I gather. Now that I know about that part of your life, I want to see what it was like.”

  “Can I come?” asked Michael. “If they need a live demonstration, I can cut myself and heal right in front of them.”

  “You are not going to do anything of the kind,” Mom insisted.

  “The flaming sword is usually a sufficient live demo,” I said. “If that doesn’t sell the idea, Khalid can fly for them. We want you to come, though,” I added when he looked downcast. “You’re part of this as much as anyone.”

  With them I was cheerful, but inside I was still dreading the evening. The amount that could go wrong was mind-boggling.

  Everyone showed up, perhaps looking a little less happy to be at a Carrie Winn function than normal, but there nonetheless. Though a large conference room would have sufficed, Vanora had set us up in the ballroom at small tables, with a large buffet table near the front drooping from the weight of the hors d’oeuvres and drinks.

  “I’m glad you all could come on such short notice,” said Vanora once the parents were as relaxed as they were going to get. “What I want to talk about tonight will have a profound effect on your lives, and on the lives of your sons and daughters.”

  That was our cue to put them all to sleep, with their respective sons and daughters standing by to make sure they didn’t fall over on the floor or something like that. Once they were all out, which took only a few seconds, Vanora put the rest of us under as well so we could share the experience with them—a normal part of dream walking. Then she broadcast to all of us our carefully prepared collection of memories and explanations.

  It took our sleeping minds a short time to process into vivid dreams what amounted to several hours of video, and before we knew it, we were waking up. I felt a little groggier than I expected to, but I attributed that to the vividness of the experience.

  “What…what was that?” asked Mr. Reyes. “Some kind of virtual reality demonstration? I feel like…I’ve been asleep.”

  “It was video, wasn’t it?” asked Mrs. Schoenbaum. “But when did you have time to work on something that elaborate?” she asked Stan.

  Apparently denial, as the old saying suggested, was not just in Egypt.

  I got the impression that all the parents were busy formulating real-world, rational explanations for what they had just experienced. At the same time, though, I could feel the anxiety levels in the room rising. At least subconsciously, what they had seen had registered on them.

  “What you just saw was real,” said Vanora loudly enough to be heard throughout the room without a microphone. We had figured they might take the news better from Carrie Winn than from me.

  “What do you mean ‘real’?” asked Mrs. Schoenbaum, her tone suddenly harsh. “Dragons? Faeries? Greek go
ds? Surely you don’t mean literally real, do you?”

  “I am being quite literal, Mrs. Schoenbaum, though I can understand why you might be skeptical. It would have been better perhaps to have briefed all of you earlier, but some of the supernatural beings with which we deal have very strict rules about that, and breaking those rules would have been dangerous, to say the least. We only recently got permission to tell you. Your sons and daughters wanted to be honest with you—and frankly, you should know how heroic they have all been.”

  I was trying hard not to pry into their minds, but most of them were radiating so much skepticism it was hard not to notice. Anger, too, though that was a little less obvious.

  Even with Carrie Winn as the messenger, they weren’t accepting the message.

  The one exception so far was the Stevens family. Mrs. Stevens looked at Jimmie as if he had just fallen from the clouds. “You really are Jimmie…my biological son, I mean?”

  Jimmie nodded. Even though he had wanted to tell his parents the truth, now he looked as if he were going to pass out or something.

  “I think in my heart I knew that. Somehow I knew,” she said, hugging him hard enough to crack ribs. Next to them Mr. Stevens was tearing up.

  “You can’t believe that, can you?” asked Mr. Hayes. “Marjorie, I don’t mean to be insensitive, but—but that kind of thing…just doesn’t happen.”

  “Perhaps a live demonstration is in order,” suggested Vanora. She looked just a little flustered, though she was pretty good at covering how she felt.

  That was the cue for Khalid and me to go to the front. I turned off the illusion on White Hilt and let it flame for them, and Khalid levitated off the ground.