Gareth almost wanted to laugh. “If you’d asked me that a couple months ago, I’d have said there’s an explanation for everything if you look hard enough.” He leaned back in the desk chair. “But now, I—I guess I’m not sure.” He glanced at his phone, lying quietly on the desk next to the keyboard.
“I know the feeling,” Wyn said, staring at him as if she could tell what he was thinking. Then, all in a rush, she said, “Listen, what would you say if I told you I have dreams that are true?”
“It depends on what you mean exactly,” he answered cautiously.
“My Gee Gee says it runs in our family. Dreams that mean something.”
“Don’t most dreams mean something? They reflect your unconscious thought processes and all.” Gareth had a feeling that wasn’t what she was talking about.
“Yes, but … Here’s what I mean,” Wyn said, her words spilling over each other. “Lately I started having dreams about the past, about my great-gran, but way before I was born. Before she left Wales. I thought it might be a coincidence. But there’s too much detail! I dream about this place I’ve never seen before, but it seems so real I could touch it. And then when I told Gee Gee about it, it’s like she avoided answering any of my questions directly. She told me these tangential stories. When she says she doesn’t remember something, I don’t even know if she’s telling me the truth.” Her shoulders were stiff, and she looked really sad now. Sad and frustrated.
“Okay.” Gareth paused and chose his words carefully. “Whatever it means … do you trust in yourself, in what your unconscious is trying to tell you? Or do you trust in what your gran is saying?”
“Both,” Wyn said without hesitation. “I mean, I trust her, but I have the feeling she’s not telling me everything.”
“Well, she’s bound to have forgotten some things by now, right?” he pointed out. “It’s been a long time.”
“I guess so.” She seemed to relax a little, but she was still frowning.
“You know what’s funny? I’ve been dreaming about Wales too. I guess because we visited there over spring hols. Or because you and I have been talking about it,” Gareth said. He didn’t mention that one of his dreams had happened standing up, or that he’d been wide awake a moment before it happened.
“That’s kind of uncanny,” Wyn said, staring at him.
“It is,” he agreed. He glanced at the clock in the corner of the screen and had a moment of panic. “I’ll have to tell you about it later. I’ve got to go to school.”
“Email me about it, then.” She sounded intense, interested.
“Will do, cheers.” Gareth disconnected the call, then got up from the swivel chair and pounded upstairs to put on his school clothes. It was hard to believe Wyn was really having psychic dreams, or whatever they were. But not as hard as it might have been a few weeks ago.
Then again … if her great-gran came from Cwm Tawel, maybe she’d visited when she was small and didn’t remember, but the images of Wales were still there in her subconscious and coming back in her dreams. Or, he supposed, Wyn could be lying. But she really seemed to be telling the truth, and she didn’t seem delusional.
Maybe he was delusional. He stared at himself for a moment. His eyes looked a bit tired and droopy, but other than that, he still looked the same. Would he even be able to tell if he was losing it?
Gareth shook his head and pulled on his school jacket. He needed tangible proof of what was happening. Whatever was happening. If he asked Wyn to describe the Welsh scenes she saw, or better yet to draw them, and something seemed familiar, he’d know she wasn’t having a laugh at his expense. Or would he? After all, she could just go online, find pictures of Cwm Tawel, and copy those. But who would do that? Who would pull a prank so elaborate on someone they didn’t even know? It didn’t seem likely that she was pulling some sort of a hoax.
He’d just have to decide to trust her.
Grabbing his school bag from the floor in front of the bed, he headed down the narrow staircase and back into the front room, pausing just long enough to send Wyn an email asking for drawings, descriptions, anything she could give him. He sounded a bit desperate—exactly what he’d been hoping to avoid—but he couldn’t help it. His sanity, and his character judgment, were at stake.
And he refused to believe he was insane. Either Wyn was exaggerating about the realness of her dreams, or …
… or her dreams were real, and if they were, maybe Olwen was, too.
The sun was out, and it was a warm early summer day in North London. Gareth took his usual route home past the park, its green lawn scattered with kids playing and people lounging on deck chairs. This time, though, he didn’t stop to look for Amit. They all had exams to study for next week.
That was when Wyn was due to travel to Wales.
He walked faster, eager to get home and check his email. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. He wondered if he might be getting obsessive, but when he thought about it all, he was convinced it was more than just chance that had brought them together.
As he crossed the threshold of his front gate, his phone began ringing. He fished it out of his backpack and then frowned. Had Amit changed his ringtone as a joke? It was playing an old Welsh folk tune, one he remembered singing at school when he was really little. “Ar Lan y Môr”—“At the Seaside.” It was a haunting melody, slow, sweet, and wistful.
After a moment, Gareth realized he was still standing half-in and half-out of the garden. He stepped forward and let the gate swing shut behind him.
The melody was still playing, his phone still ringing. He turned it over to see who was calling.
The screen said Unknown Number.
This was getting weird. He knew Amit would definitely not go to the trouble to freak him out like this, especially since Amit had no idea he even was freaked out to begin with. Maybe it was Wyn? Gareth swallowed hard and pressed the Talk button.
“Hello?” His voice sounded strange and high.
Nobody replied. He heard a soft sound like the wind, susurrating gently.
“Hello?” he repeated. “Who’s there?” Suddenly he heard what sounded like a child’s laugh, far away. Maybe somebody was pocket-dialing him by accident. A wrong number. That had to be it. He pushed the End Call button and started moving again, up the front walk, shoving his unease away.
The quiet didn’t last long. The phone rang again, and again it played the same melody. This time Gareth picked up right away and said, “Who is this? Is this some kind of joke?” Again, he heard the child laughing somewhere in the background. But this time, weaving over the laughter, was a woman singing softly—the same song. The Welsh words sounding ancient and sad. He opened his mouth to say something more, but nothing came out.
He cleared his throat to try to speak, to give the person one last chance to respond, but before he could talk, the line went dead.
“Okay.” Gareth took a deep breath and let it out forcefully. It was just a wrong number. They’d finally realized their kid was playing with their mobile or something and hung it up. Or maybe it was Amit, and he was home laughing right now. Gareth set his bag down next to the front door and hit the speed-dial button.
“Oi, why aren’t you at the park?”
“Did you just call me?” Gareth asked.
“Miss me already?” Amit laughed. “No, I didn’t call you, G-spot.”
“Right.”
“Is that it? Because Dobbs is about to—oof!” There was a muffled thud, as if the phone had fallen. Gareth hung up. If it hadn’t been Amit, then it was probably just a fluke, a random pocket dial. He went to put his phone back into his bag, but something caught his eye.
He looked more closely at the screen. Something was off. It took him a second to realize: it was the background wallpaper. His usual photo of a silver Jaguar F-Type wasn’t there. Instead, the screen was showing a d
ifferent picture, one that was all too familiar. But he knew he hadn’t put it there.
It had changed. Or somebody had changed it.
It was the cromlech—the standing stones on the grassy green clifftop. And in the photo was a girl. A small girl who definitely hadn’t been in the picture before, sitting on top of the huge capstone and dangling her legs above the opening. She seemed to be laughing.
Gareth shoved the phone into his bag as fast as he could and zipped it shut, his hands shaking.
Inside, he switched on the main computer in the living room, feeling an irrational need to tell Wyn what had just happened. Of course, she didn’t know about any of it yet—didn’t know about the girl, or the cromlech, or the grave. He’d been waiting to tell her until he could prove it to himself that something supernatural was happening.
Today, with his phone … that was not easy to explain away. It wasn’t exactly proof, but it was something.
Trouble was, it really made him sound like a loon. A phantom ringtone? Photos that changed when you weren’t looking? How did you talk to someone about that in casual conversation? Dithering, Gareth pulled up Wyn’s blog in the web browser.
There was a new entry.
Born to Wyn, June 16, 10:02 p.m.
Still having dreams. Still learning more about
Gee Gee that I didn’t know.
During the war, her family took in evacuated children from London and fed them, out in the country where they were supposed to be safer from bombings. Gee Gee was my age, but she helped take care of the kids. She knitted socks for the army. She tended the vegetable garden. But it feels like there was more to it. Something important.
I hope I find out.
Soon we’ll be in Cwm Tawel. We’ll be in a vacation cottage on the edge of what used to be Gee Gee’s uncle’s farm, until he sold it after the war. We leave in a handful of days, after school lets out. Despite everything, I’m excited.
Gareth re-read the post. What if he could meet her at the airport? Then he could show her the mutating photos. Assuming
there was anything in them by the time he looked at them again. He glanced warily at his bag, which still held his phone.
It hadn’t rung again since he’d come inside. But that didn’t mean anything. What if it kept happening? How would he explain it?
He’d have to turn off the ringer. He had no idea how to even begin talking about this with his parents.
When he pulled the phone out to silence it, he got another shock. The background image was the silver sports car, a Jaguar F-Type.
It was as if none of it had ever happened.
Dear Gareth,
I know it’s hard to believe, but the photo you sent of the clifftop, with those stones, is exactly the place I saw in my dream. Exactly.
I didn’t see anyone in the picture. But I believe you. This might seem like a stretch, but I wonder if the Olwen you saw is the same little girl I saw in my dream? I think we should try to research Cwm Tawel at the time she lived. Maybe we can find something out. Can you check online records? I’ll keep asking my Gee Gee.
We leave in four days. I’ll send you a link to where we’re staying. Please come if you can. I’m getting a temporary phone, so send me your number.
—Wyn
Gareth closed the email window on his phone. The previous night, he had told Wyn everything. And he was surprised at how much lighter he felt simply because someone knew. Someone who didn’t laugh or joke or doubt. Someone, in fact, who claimed to be having a similar experience.
Yet another improbable coincidence in his currently unbelievable life.
Wyn was right, though. They only had two potential sources of information about the other Olwen: her great-grandmother, and the collective wisdom of the Internet. At least searching the Internet was something Gareth knew he was good at.
He got up off the sofa and sat down in front of the computer in the corner. It seemed like a good idea to start with a general search and then narrow it down from there; a good history site would probably have regional information. He typed “Wales history” into the browser search box and hit Enter.
Really? 277,000,000 results? Gareth sagged in his chair. Who knew so many people were interested in Welsh history? He scrolled aimlessly through a few of the pages, then typed in “Cwm Tawel” along with “Wales history” to see if that narrowed things down. It helped a bit, but he was still faced with thousands of possible matches: The local newspaper. Civil budget proposals. Boring government documents from the last ten years. He rubbed the back of his neck, wondering what other keywords he could use.
Then, about halfway down one of the pages, a site caught his eye: South Wales Historical Society. It seemed as good a place to start as any. He clicked the link, and found a short listing of regional subheadings: Pembrokeshire, Vale of Glamorgan, Cardiff, Newport. He went straight to the Swansea link and clicked.
It was a directory of sites, and the very first listing was Swansea Local History: Information on the local history of Swansea and its environs, including Gorseinon, Llansamlet, Pontarddulais, Gowerton, and Cwm Tawel. He grinned to himself and murmured “Yes, thank you, I am good.” He rapidly clicked into the site, fidgety with anticipation.
He was only vaguely aware of the sound of the front door opening, but seconds later Tommy entered the living room and bounced on the sofa, clarinet in one hand.
“I want to play Angry Birds,” he said loudly.
“I was just finishing up,” Gareth said. “Five minutes, I promise.”
Tommy jumped up and down. “Mum said I could!”
“Give him a minute, Thomas. And sit, please.” Mum sat down in the green easy chair with a quiet “aaahhhhh,” letting her hair out of its severe bun; Dad sank down onto the sofa and clicked on the TV remote. Tommy climbed down and headed toward the computer.
Gareth quickly bookmarked the link and shut the browser window. He’d have to try again later, or use his phone to check. Stupid Tommy. Annoyed, he spun the chair around to face his brother, who was now creeping toward him with his hands behind his back. His face was cloaked in a rather suspicious smile.
“What have you got there? Give it here,” Gareth said with a frown.
“It’s nothing. Just something I got at school.”
“Show me,” Gareth said warningly, expecting the worst. A worm, fuzzy with pocket lint? A wad of used gum? He braced himself for something vile when Tommy opened his hands over the desktop, but all that spilled out was a handful of toffees.
Gareth eyed them, but they looked perfectly normal. “Can I have one, then?”
Tommy nodded, his eyes wide.
Gareth unwrapped a toffee and put it in his mouth. He immediately spat it out again. It tasted like it had been coated in salt.
“Blech! Bloody—what did you do to it?” He felt like gagging. “You little slug. I should have known.” He grabbed his brother around the middle and dangled him upside down, thinking about how satisfying it would be to pummel him into the sofa cushions. Tommy shrieked and laughed. “I’m serious. You are an annoying little twit.”
“Gareth! What’s going on over there?” Their dad turned the volume down on the television. “Leave your brother alone.”
“He did something to this toffee,” Gareth said angrily, but he let Tommy go. His brother scooted over to the couch with a nasty grin.
“I don’t care what he did,” Mum said, eyebrows raised. “There’s no need to be short-tempered.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, taking deep breaths. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. Slowly, his anger dissipated.
His mum made them apologize to each other, which annoyed him all over again. “All I wanted to do was finish researching this thing online, and Tommy won’t let me be,” he complained. “I have exams coming up, and all of this other stuff keeps happening.”
“What other stuff?” his dad asked, glancing sharply at him. “If something’s wrong, tell us, but don’t take out your temper on your brother.”
“But he was the one who—”
“Enough,” his mum said. “We’re all tired. Tea first.”
Gareth’s shoulders sagged as he headed into the kitchen after his parents, but in a way, he was relieved. He couldn’t believe he’d blurted that out about “other stuff,” and then managed to escape a real explanation.
But maybe it was time for him to say something. It was only a matter of time before his parents found out about his phone acting weird, or caught him talking to Wyn. If he actually told them about it—not all of it, but some of it—maybe he could do something more than just search the web. He sat up straight in the kitchen chair. Maybe, if he didn’t botch it up, he really could meet Wyn in person.
Hours later, after his brother had gone to bed, Gareth came downstairs in his pajamas and sat in the easy chair. His parents broke off their quiet conversation.
“You look like you’ve got something to say.” His mum’s tone was light, but she looked at him intently. Clearly she hadn’t forgotten his earlier outburst.
“Here’s the thing,” Gareth said, swallowing down his nervousness. “I have a friend online, sort of a pen friend, from the USA. Olwen Nia Evans.”
“Isn’t that a lovely name,” his mother said, relaxing a bit into the sofa.
“Her parents must be Welsh,” said his dad with a small smile. “Did you ask her about it?”
“Yeah, so, this is really amazing,” Gareth continued. “Her great-gran, who lives there with them, is from Cwm Tawel, same as Great-Granddad.”
“Is that so?” Both of his parents looked interested now.
“Are you sure she isn’t having you on?” His mother looked at him doubtfully. “It could be one of those scams. Like the Nigerian prince.”
“It’s not,” he insisted. “I even talked to her on video chat. She’s a real girl, Mum.”
“Video chat.” His mum closed her eyes for a moment, looking a bit pained.
The Truth Against the World Page 7
