The Heart of the Circle

by Keren Landsman

  “I know,” Lee said, wrapping his arm around my shoulder, “the tunnel of fear.” He pointed towards the signs. “And I won’t even say a word when you’ll start bitching about their horrible moodification design work.”

  “I don’t bitch all the time,” I mumbled, and Lee burst into laughter. He pulled me closer to him and lowered his hand; my shoulder instantly grew cold where he was no longer touching it.

  We started at the tunnel of fear, which indeed suffered from horrendous moodification design. It hadn’t been properly maintained, and the feelings seeped between each “haunted” attraction so you knew when something was going to jump out at you. The pirate ship jerked and jolted us around so badly that even Daphne got queasy. We made a stop for snacks and boarded the Ferris wheel with our pockets bursting with an impressive variety of sugar derivatives.

  “Want to share a cabin?” Oleander tilted his head at the line.

  I glanced at Daphne. She shook her head in a gesture that would have been imperceptible to a less familiar eye. “I don’t think so.”

  Everyone else had to squeeze into the cabins in groups of four, but when our turn came there were two empty ones. Oleander and Daphne boarded one cabin, and Lee and I took the other.

  “Is it OK that I tagged along?” Lee asked quietly.

  “Tagged along?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “With you and your friends. I just showed up out of nowhere and…” his voice trailed off.

  “I invited you, remember?” I smiled at him.

  “I thought maybe you were just being polite.”

  Light and breezy. I have to keep it light, and breezy. I put my hand on his. “Very polite. I’m not at all undressing you with my eyes right now.”

  The sparkle was back, and instead of replying he sent me a warm, gushing wave. The smile was still on my face when we got off the Ferris wheel. Daphne’s hair was completely disheveled, and Oleander’s silly grin betrayed what they had been doing on their bench the entire ride. I was happy there were enough people around us to dilute the effect of Daphne and Oleander’s feelings. I couldn’t cope with their emotions on top of what I was feeling towards Lee that very moment, and what I suspected he was beginning to feel towards me.

  “What now?” Oleander rubbed his hands together.

  “You need another round on the Ferris wheel?” Lee winked at him.

  “No, do you?” Oleander winked back.

  Lee started laughing. “You’re nicer than most seers I know.”

  “More than Oliver?” Oleander smirked.

  “Oliver?” Lee’s brow furrowed.

  “You know, Oliver, the psychologist.” Oleander sounded amused. “The damus you’re always hanging out with?”

  “I don’t know any damus psychologist named Oliver,” Lee replied.

  Oleander’s forehead creased.

  Daphne smiled apologetically. “It’s a different timeline. Oleander got mixed up.” I didn’t sense any confusion from her, only a flash of fear.

  Lee’s smile withered. “Does it happen to you a lot? That you’re in the wrong timeline?”

  “It happens to all of us,” Daphne answered for him, the tension inside of her mounting.

  I touched Lee’s arm. “Damuses often respond to something that isn’t there,” I said, and sent him a small wave of reassurance.

  “Yeah, but not people who aren’t there,” he said, without taking his eyes off Oleander. “If he’s seeing someone who isn’t here, and he’s not inside a fountain of sorcery, it has to be brought on by Salvia.”

  “Salvia?” I asked quietly.

  “Salvia divinorum,” Lee replied, and waved two fingers in the air. “It blows your mind.” He looked at Daphne, “See for yourself. You should know.”

  Daphne cleared her throat. “We don’t look at each other’s timelines.”

  “Bullshit,” Lee snarled. “Seers always check the people around them to make sure they aren’t dangerous. You’re the most calculated people I know.”

  I wanted to tell him that they didn’t always check, but the sudden pain pouring out of Daphne silenced me.

  “Salvia is the only thing that makes you wander between timelines instead of staying connected to the current one,” Lee continued.

  “Alcohol can do it,” Oleander retorted, and straightened up. “And other substances as well. Almost anything that affects our perception of reality can cause it.”

  Lee shook his head. “No. I’ve seen people on Salvia. This is exactly how they react.”

  Oleander crossed his arms over his chest. “Really? You want to tell Reed where you’ve seen people on Salvia?”

  Lee recoiled, immediately retreating behind his walls.

  “Enough,” I raised my voice. “Enough with this stupid argument.” I gestured towards Daphne and said, “If Daphne says everything’s fine, everything’s fine.” I put my hand on Lee’s arm. “Come on, let’s take another spin on the Ferris wheel.”

  He shifted his gaze from Oleander to me. “No,” he said, and sent me a wave of caution, covering it with a layer of warmth. “I think I’ll call it a day.”

  I was hoping he was going to hug me again, and I was planning on returning the hug, but he only waved and walked away, disappearing into the crowd. I felt his consciousness pulling away from me.

  “Reed,” Daphne said, touching my arm.

  I shook her off. “I think I’ll call it a day too.”

  “If you hurry you can catch up with him,” Oleander said.

  I stared at him. “I meant it when I said I don’t want you looking at my futures.” I turned to Daphne. “Are you coming home tonight or sleeping at his place?”

  “His place.”

  I held my tongue and nodded. “See you tomorrow.” I left them standing there, the loneliness gnawing at me as I made my way out of the crowded amusement park.

  There was only one person waiting at the bus stop outside the park. Lee. He was sitting on the small bench, his legs stretched out, looking at the ground.

  “May I sit?”

  He straightened up and moved over.

  I sat beside him. The same distance between us as in Daphne’s back seat. And on the bench on the Ferris wheel. But this time there was a giant, indivisible wall between us.

  “There are two options,” I said quietly, before he managed to say anything. “Either you tell me why you were so scared by what Oleander said, or we go back to being just two people who work together and maybe have a coffee once in a while.”

  “I don’t think we were ever just two people who work together,” he said, just as quietly. The noise from the amusement park was grating in the background.

  I remained silent.

  “I don’t want to scare you off. I don’t know…” Lee said, and bit his bottom lip. “I don’t have many friends.”

  I knew what he meant. I had Daphne and Matthew, and that was it. I could always feel people’s lurking suspicion when they talked to me. Convinced that I was maneuvering them without their ability to resist.

  “Blaze said you guys are friends,” I pointed out.

  “Blaze is fucking my little sister. He better be my friend.” His voice was harsh, and his American accent suddenly more pronounced. I made an effort not to pull away.

  Lee slowly exhaled. “Sorry.”

  “Continue,” I replied to what he didn’t say.

  He lowered his gaze and looked at the tips of his shoes. I scooted slightly closer to him. “I promise not to run away.”

  Lee looked up at me. “I used to do a lot of dumb shit.”

  I shrugged. “Who hasn’t.”

  “I’m talking shit that lands people in jail. Or in the hospital. Or in coffins.”

  “We don’t do coffins here,” I said.

  His lips curved into that faint smile of his. “I think,” he said slowly, “you actually won’t run away.”

  I smiled back at him. “Tell me.”

  “How much of it do you want to know?” he asked.


  “As much as you want to tell me,” I said, and quickly added, “how do you know what Salvia does to people?”

  Lee leaned back on the plastic wall of the bus stop. “Remember being a teenager? When you start really experiencing what it is to be… like us? When it feels like everyone’s constantly watching you. Everyone knows exactly what you are, and you can’t even walk down the street without arousing suspicion?”

  I nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at me.

  “I can barely remember anything between the ages of sixteen and twenty. Just images and people. It’s all…” He twirled his finger in front of his temple. “Garbled. I ran away from home and…” He shook his head. “One time my parents found me and had me committed to a psychiatric facility with round-the-clock supervision. The kind with armed guards outside your room, and for every attempt at slashing your wrists they send out a damus to force you to deal with the consequences of what you tried to do.” He smiled nervously. “The good old days.”

  “Sounds fun,” I said. The facility I had spent three weeks in as a teenager was a lot slacker, and I was so good at faking the ‘right’ kind of behavior that the head psychiatrist didn’t even understand why I was there.

  I edged out my apprehension. “Go on.”

  “You’re not running?” He shot me a look.

  I shook my head.

  “When I got out of there, I met Morty.” He straightened his legs. “He had a whole group of followers. Most of them weren’t even like us. Just people who were after a painless death, without admitting it to themselves.”

  I hid my pain when he uttered those last words.

  “He tried to save us.” He gave a small smile. “He believed that if you give people the right treatment, they can overcome depression, loneliness. He took each death personally.” Lee was breathing slowly. “When he found out I was an empath, he asked if I was willing to participate in his experiment. He made a list detailing substances and emotions, how to maneuver me and what the results were. It was perfect. You’re floating carelessly. You’re not worrying about the next fix, or about a combination that could kill you.”

  His voice was tinged with longing. I swallowed my fear, my aversion, and hid them deep inside me. So he wouldn’t be able to guess what I was thinking. Not now. Not like this.

  “I saw damuses on Salvia in Morty’s group,” Lee said, looking me straight in the eye. “It made them break away from the current timeline. It’s scary as hell to be around them when it happens, it gives us the worst feeling of nausea. And they can drag other damuses along with them. I’ve noticed you’re protective of Daphne. If Oleander’s doing Salvia, he might persuade her to try it.”

  “And then what would happen?” I buried my fear for Daphne deep beneath my other feelings, making sure Lee could only pick up on the lighter, more pleasant emotions. So he wouldn’t shut me out again.

  “Best case scenario she’ll just be happy, completely detached from any timeline, and feel like a normal human being for a few moments. Worst case scenario, she sees people in other timelines, like Oleander does. Worse than worst case scenario, the detachment from the present will cause her to relive something difficult from her past, and that can really crush certain people.”

  I fought off my desire to run to Daphne and physically pull her away from Oleander. “But if she wants to do something like that, she’ll make sure I won’t be able to stop her.”

  Lee nodded. “That’s the problem with damuses. If they want to get fucked up, you can’t stop them. We can only be there for them afterwards.” He put his hand on my thigh. “What you’re doing for Daphne, how you take away her turmoil when she’s having a hard time, she knows you’re always there for her.”

  “Not always,” I whispered. That old twinge of pain was throbbing inside me. For once, it was my own pain, not Daphne’s. Instead of talking about it, Lee sent me an enveloping wave of consolation. I closed my eyes and leaned back, letting the wave wash over me. When it ebbed, part of my pain had dissolved. I opened my eyes.

  Lee was leaning back next to me, looking straight ahead at the road. I sent him gratitude. He closed his eyes, savoring it.

  “Have you ever done Salvia?” I asked quietly.

  He shook his head, eyes still closed. “It doesn’t sit well with empaths.” I looked at the road and took in a lungful of car exhaust, Tel Aviv humidity and the subtle scent of Lee’s aftershave. “I’ve never tried anything stronger than Goldstar,” I said.

  “That’s more piss than beer,” Lee said, smiling to himself.

  I kicked his leg. “I won’t judge your preferences if you don’t judge mine.”

  He laughed and turned his head to me. “Deal.”

  A bus pulled up against the curb. “Shit,” he blurted.

  “What?”

  “This one’s mine.” He got up. “It was good talking to you.” He smiled at me, genuinely, wholeheartedly.

  “Right back at you.” I returned the smile. I looked up and registered the bus number; it wasn’t headed in our direction, but downtown. I assumed he was going to River’s.

  The driver opened the front door. Lee gestured towards the back one. The instant wave of disdain flowing out of the driver almost drowned us both, and we raised our walls almost simultaneously. The driver opened the back door. I groped for Lee’s consciousness as the door closed, and sent him a wave of affection. He grabbed onto the pole and looked at me through the window. I raised my hand to say goodbye and sent him another wave, ignoring all the other emotions flowing at me from the bus passengers. He sent me back a tight arrow of warmth and endearment.

  The bus pulled away from the kerb, and I remained on my own, surrounded by traces of Lee’s emotions. I replayed our conversation in my head. Everything he had said, and the underlying truth. His apartment smelled of sage. He was still dabbling, but probably nothing as hardcore as in the past. At least he was still functional. And his concern for Daphne had been perfectly sincere.

  I exhaled slowly and stared at the deserted road, my mind racing.

  21

  I woke to the blaring shrieks of both the alarm clock and my phone. I tried turning off my phone and answering the alarm clock before I had regained enough of my senses to understand what belonged to which device. I turned off the clock and slid the icon on my phone to accept the call.

  “You awake?” It was Daphne.

  I rubbed my eyes. “What’s up?” Certain parts of me were still inside a dream that featured a lot of Lee and very little of reality.

  “Oleander had an idea, I need…” She paused. “You’re not dressed.”

  “It was hot last night.” I tightened the blanket around my stomach, edging out my shyness. We’d known each other for a decade, and I knew for sure that she had seen me naked in visions, if not also in reality. “What were you saying about Oleander’s idea?”

  “What exactly happened after you two left us yesterday?” I heard the smile in her voice.

  “Nothing.” I tried sounding as matter-of-fact as possible. “What did you two get up to after we left?”

  “It wasn’t what you’re worried about,” Daphne replied. I closed my eyes, hoping she was seeing me right now, registering my relief.

  “Oleander suggested that we try seeing my vision together, hone in on it.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “The vision of the wounded?”

  “He saw very little, and only after I described exactly where he should be looking.”

  “What do you need me to do?” I yawned.

  “Help me trust Oleander.” Her voice sounded smaller somehow. “Because what Lee said bothered me too. I’ve already guessed something wasn’t quite right with him, but I kept thinking that it was because…”

  “Because?”

  “Because he’s going to die in two months.”

  “What?!” I gasped.

  “I knew from the beginning that our time was limited. Otherwise I never would have let it get this far.”

  “Daphs…
” I tried sounding soothing, supportive. I never asked Daphne about her end. I could feel the jagged fear merely looking in that direction stirred in her, and whenever I felt it I hugged her without saying a word. Ivy was different. She wouldn’t stop talking about her end, about her plan to ‘go out with a bang,’ and then laugh when I looked at her with horror.

  “I’m fine. It was a conscious decision.”

  “So when he said he wasn’t going to hurt you…?” Daphne sniffled. “He won’t. I made sure he won’t. In any timeline.”

  “And yet, you don’t trust him enough to look at the vision together.”

  “I haven’t known him long enough, and despite what he says he’s still Ivy’s brother, and I know how other damuses behave when their end is near. But I have to trust him enough to focus the vision, to get a better sense of what’s going happen, so we can…”

  “It’s OK.” I sat up against the headboard. “I need to stop by the Sinkhole to get my shift schedule, but I’ll come right after.”

  “Should I get someone to help you wake up?” she said.

  I stuck out my tongue, making sure she was watching. “Stop trying to fix me up.”

  “There’s hot water if you want to take a shower.”

  We said goodbye, and I stretched out and closed my eyes. It felt nice being naked in bed, nestled in the traces of my dream about Lee. I had no way of knowing when Daphne was looking at me and when she wasn’t. I swept my gaze across the empty room. “Daphs, if you’re looking right now, then stop.” I burrowed under the blanket, stealing a few more moments of quiet before going on with my day.

  After a shower and cup of coffee I walked out into the blazing street and started counting the hours until I could take another shower. My back was sticky with sweat. Daniel was still in the hospital. I could visit him on my way to Oleander’s, after I stopped by the café. He’d appreciate it if I brought him a croissant or a sandwich. I could also bring some frothy milk in a take-out cup and tell him it’s happy milk. Hopefully it would make him laugh.