Life is But a Dream: A Marlow and Sage Mystery (A Nursery Rhyme Suspense Book 2)

by Lee Strauss

  I would look absolutely pathetic if I called him and she was there. Besides, I didn’t have time to search for his number. If Sage was at the dock… I gulped. I could already be too late.

  Finding my sweats in the dark was easy, but getting them on, not so much. I hopped around on one leg, losing my balance and falling onto the edge of Zed’s bed.

  “What the hell, man!”

  “Sorry. Hey, I gotta borrow your bike.”

  “What’s wrong with yours?”

  Mine sucked. Zed’s was top of the line and went like stink.

  “I just do.” I threw on a hoodie and grabbed the key to Zed’s bike lock.

  Sweat and dread kept me heated as I zoomed through the quiet campus streets, along cracked sidewalks and past blocks of red-brick dorm housing. Transit stopped at 2:00 a.m. Besides the odd stray cat, I was pretty much alone. The street lamps were dim, but even on the darkened stretches, I could see fine. Adrenaline seemed to give me superpowers so that even though it felt like forever before I made it to the other side of campus, I actually made pretty good time. I never stopped pedaling until I was at the base of the dock.

  My breathing was short and labored. I struggled to shout out, “Sage?”

  I couldn’t see her anywhere, and I bent over at the waist to catch my breath. She wasn’t here. Sage wasn’t here, which meant she was with Tristan and I was an idiot.

  I straightened and saw the rower. Just like in my dream.

  “Sage!”

  I dropped to my knees and searched the dark waters around the dock. “Sage!”

  Then I saw a row of bubbles and a pale shimmer that could be skin or clothing. I jumped in, reached for the object and tugged. A girl’s face broke the surface.

  “Sage!”

  I dragged her to the steps. As soon as I gained purchase, I tilted her head back and breathed into her mouth. I carried her to the walkway and gently lay her cold, wet body down. Collapsing to my knees, I pumped her chest and breathed into her mouth, her soft lips icy cold against mine.

  Hot tears ran down my face. “Come on, Sage. Breathe!”

  Oh, God. I was too late! I should’ve left earlier. All those wasted moments debating and deliberating were the seconds I’d needed to save her.

  I pumped her chest, breathed into her mouth, again and again. She didn’t move. I lost her.

  “Oh, Sage, I’m so sorry.”

  I stroked her face with tender regret. My lips touched her mouth once more, this time with a soft kiss good-bye.

  19

  

  Sage

  It sounded cliché, but I was walking through a sunlit meadow, waist-high in wild flowers, wearing a beautiful flowing white dress. This was how I knew I was dead. I’d never worn a white dress in my life, saving it for when I got married.

  I supposed that would never happen now. Somehow that didn’t depress me. In fact I felt surprisingly light and happy. I imagined myself flying and then I was. It was exhilarating! I was free! Every weighted burden I’d been carrying since Teagan’s death melted away. Even gravity couldn’t keep me down!

  I had no idea where I was, but it was nowhere I’d ever been. Not that I’d been to a lot of places outside of Illinois and Michigan. Toronto once on a high school grad trip.

  The air was so crisp and fresh, lightly scented with the honey sweetness of the floral bed beneath me. The colors in the field were vivid and bright, like no high-def television I’d ever seen. Laughter bubbled up from my chest, and I was shocked by the sound of my voice. Of my laugh. I hadn’t laughed in such a long time.

  All the sadness and grief I’d been feeling disappeared, and intuitively I knew that Teagan would be glad. She wouldn’t have wanted that kind of life for me.

  Thoughts of Teagan turned into the real thing. Really! In the distance, a tall girl with honey blond hair stood amongst the flowers. She smiled at me and waved.

  Suddenly I was standing in front of her.

  “Teagan?”

  “Yes, Sage, it’s me!” She wrapped her slender arms around me, and I felt the softness of her body press against mine. Solid and real.

  “Oh Teagan!” The joy that filled my heart was almost too much. I felt like I was about to burst. “It’s so good to see you!”

  She capped both of my shoulders with her palms and stared down at me. “I’m so happy to see you too.” Then her countenance changed, her smile disappeared. “But you can’t stay.”

  “Why?” I felt horrified. I wanted to stay. I wanted Teagan to show me all the glorious things I just knew lay beyond the gorgeous meadow.

  Tegan pointed. I turned as the brilliant blue sky grew dark. Ominous clouds billowed overhead, and a dark wash reflected off a body of water along the horizon. A black dot floating in the water grew larger until it gradually took shape. A boat and a rower.

  Yellow eyes.

  I gasped.

  Teagan’s voice filled my ears. “You have to go back.”

  The world around me began to spin until I was in the middle of a watery vortex. Pressure weighted against my chest. I couldn’t breathe. Everything went black.

  “Sage.”

  I heard my name. It was Marlow’s voice. I try to open my eyes to make sure but I couldn’t get them open.

  Try harder.

  “Sage?”

  Eyes, open!

  “Sage! Oh my God!”

  Marlow rolled me over onto my side. Water spewed from my mouth. I heaved and coughed and vomited.

  Marlow handed me damp fabric and helped me wipe my face.

  My vision slowly cleared and I could make him out, down on his knees, chest bare, eyes wide.

  “Where’s your shirt?”

  Marlow smiled. “I think you’re going to be okay.”

  “No, seriously?”

  He nodded to the wet cloth in my hand.

  “Oh. Sorry for puking on it.”

  “It’s okay. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in a while.”

  “Me or the pukey shirt?”

  “Both.”

  Marlow moved off his knees until he was seated on the ground. He held a palm over his heart and his breathing slowed. “What happened, Sage?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t remember how you got here? How you got into the canal?”

  I shook my head again. “No. I must be crazy.”

  “You’re not crazy. Something else is going on. We just have to figure out what.”

  “You saved my life,” I said.

  “I owed you one.”

  “Huh?”

  He chuckled. “I’ll explain later.”

  His chest broke out in goose bumps, and I also began to shiver. Marlow helped me to my feet. “You should see a doctor.”

  “I’m fine. Nothing a hot shower and my bed can’t cure.”

  “Seriously, Sage. I think you might’ve …”

  “Died?”

  “Did you?”

  “Maybe. But I’m fine now. I just need to sleep.”

  He wrapped his arm around me and I held him tight. Together, we’d keep each other warm. Together, we’d figure out what was going on. We had to. Next time, Marlow might not make it to me in time.

  20

  

  Eliza

  The first day of Eliza Gellar’s senior year of high school started with a freak snowstorm and ended with the sudden death of her mother. The police blamed poor tires. Eliza blamed the incompetence of the road crews. She didn’t care that they hadn’t been prepared for snow. They should’ve been. Modern technology should’ve predicted the severity of the weather. The city of Chicago should’ve been ready.

  Eliza was an only child raised by a single mother. It had always been the two of them against the world.

  Her mother left Eliza a college fund, a 2002 Volvo and a hole in her heart the size of Alaska.

  She was fostered out to a middle-aged couple with two grown children. They lived in the same neighbourhood so she wo
uldn’t have to change schools, which was great. The state agreed that losing her mother was enough change for Eliza. She turned eighteen in August, just in time for college to start.

  Eliza always imagined that her beautiful, youthful mother would be the one driving her to Detroit University, helping her to make her dorm cozy and comfortable and crying shamelessly while saying goodbye in the parking lot.

  Instead Eliza was alone in the Volvo, listening to an old Beatles’ CD as tears streamed down her face and blurred her vision.

  For about three weeks after the funeral, the teachers and kids at school would flash looks of sympathy and pity toward her. Awkward glances and silent stares. No one knew what to say so most said nothing at all. By the time Thanksgiving arrived, no one seemed to remember her personal tragedy.

  Not long after Christmas she started with the piercings. The physical sting and prolonged throbbing took her mind off a deep emotional pain she couldn’t run from.

  Somehow she made it through graduation and even got a job painting houses over the summer.

  One of the first people she met on campus was an attractive black boy named Jamil. He had cornrows and a brow ring. His eyes were dark in color and in mood. He sensed her deep despair and offered help in the form of a pale gel pill.

  She took it.

  21

  

  Marlow

  I left Sage in Nora’s care, figuring that all the drownings and drowning attempts had happened after dark so Sage should be safe for the next few hours locked in her room. I jogged back to my dorm and directly into a hot shower.

  The shock of it all had hit. Sage almost died. If I’d arrived even just a few seconds later, she would’ve been lost. For a few terrifying moments I thought I had lost her. The heat of the cascading water finally warmed my core, but I still shivered.

  Zed stirred awake as I crossed the small room and climbed back into bed, pulling brown wrinkled covers up to my chin.

  “You’re going the wrong way, man,” Zed muttered. “It’s time to get up.”

  “I’ve had a hard night.” I was tempted to tell him all about it. It would be nice to share the burden of all the weirdness going on, but I didn’t exactly know what to tell him. I dreamed that Sage was going to try to drown herself and then she did, but I saved her, except that she hadn’t tried to drown herself, but something else had compelled her to, but we couldn’t explain what, but it probably has something to do with the mysterious rower, yet how could that observer make someone submerge herself into the water without the natural fight for survival kicking in?

  It was too much to untangle, and I was too exhausted to get into it right now.

  Zed’s morning routine kept me from falling asleep right away. I watched as he got ready, putting more effort into primping than I was used to seeing him do. He even gelled his hair.

  “I thought you had chemistry this morning,” I said, “not the prom.”

  “I do have chemistry, and if my memory serves me right, so do you. And I’m meeting my girlfriend at Java Junkie, so until you have a girlfriend, keep your cutting remarks to yourself.”

  I leaned on one elbow. “Seriously? You and Eliza are official?”

  Zed’s gaze cut to our dirty carpet. “Well …”

  I persisted. “Have you had the talk? Or not?”

  “Not exactly.” His dark eyes met mine in defiance. “But we spend a lot of time together and I don’t think she’s seeing anyone else.”

  “You’ve got to have the talk, Zed. Seal the deal.”

  “Coming from a seasoned deal closer. Thanks.”

  Whatever. “Have you kissed her yet?”

  Zed flashed me a frustrated look. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

  That would be a no, then.

  I closed my eyes, determined to block out Zed’s scruffy face, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  It was three in the afternoon by the time I awoke. Nature called, actually screamed, and I sprinted to the bathroom to relieve myself. Once that pressure was off, my stomach set into complaining. I was starved.

  I washed my face, smacking it with cool water to snap back to a semi-alert position, dressed in my usual jeans and loose T-shirt ensemble, and was almost out the door when I decided to check in on Sage before leaving.

  @averagegeek99 to @mathmatters: Hey, are you awake? Hungry? I’m heading to Lit Café for a sandwich.

  @mathmatters: Yeah, I’m awake. Now that you mention it, I probably should feed this shell. I’ll meet you. We should discuss what happened.

  @averagegeek99: I agree. See you there.

  I was about to put on my fake glasses before leaving. I stared at the black frames in my hand then tossed them onto my unmade bed. I had to come clean with the guys so I could quit pretending. The whole ruse was ridiculous. I was a grown man. I had my eyes lasered. So what? I could deal with whatever response came.

  It took ten minutes to walk to the Lit Café, and I thought about Sage the whole time. I liked her. More than just as a friend. It was complicated because I knew Sage in the green world and the orange world—alternate realities of this version of our world—and I saw different facets of her that I recognized in this Sage as well. If I had any hope of being more than just a friend to Sage, I had to tell her the truth.

  It was a risk. She might not believe me, and why should she? It sounded crazy. But what was going on with our shared dreams and the drownings was crazy too, and I just hoped that she’d be open to crazy right now.

  Sage was there when I arrived. She wore jeans and a green sleeveless blouse. Her hair hung in shiny, clean waves down her back. Her beautiful brown eyes widened behind plastic purple frames when she spotted me.

  “Hey,” I said. “New glasses? They’re cool.”

  “Thanks. They’re new-ish. What about you? Did you get contacts?”

  “No. I had my eyes lasered a few months ago. It’s taken me this long to brave going out in public without them.”

  “I get that. I have contacts but I like wearing glasses. I feel, I don’t know, less exposed. Which is silly.”

  “Not to me. That’s why I haven’t come out before.”

  “Come out? As in the 20/20 vision closet?”

  I flashed her a crooked smile. “Exactly.”

  Sage motioned to the two ham and Swiss sandwiches and two pops that were sitting on the table.

  “I ordered for you,” she said. “My treat.”

  “I could’ve bought.”

  “Please. It’s the least I can do. You saved my life.”

  I half-grinned and picked up my sandwich. “Now we’re even.”

  Sage narrowed her eyes in question. “You said that last night too. What do you mean by that?”

  Great. My chance to reveal all.

  “I have something to tell you, but it’s going to sound crazy. Unbelievable really, but I swear, everything I’m about to say is God’s honest truth.”

  “O-kay.” She drew out the word.

  I launched into the story of how I found myself jumping parallel universes. My mouth moved quickly, like speed-talking would save my life, and though I registered I sounded like an idiot, I couldn’t seem to slow down.

  The threat of hyperventilation forced me to stop for breath.

  Sage stared at me like I was a lunatic. I forged on.

  “In the green world, you were happy and determined. You had hope that we’d find Teagan and we did. In the orange world, you were tough, a fighter. You rallied not just for yourself, but for all the ones who were left, especially Teagan.”

  My throat was dry from all the talking and I downed the remainder of my Coke.

  “So, all that to say,” I added as I set my glass down, “I’ve met you before. Versions of you. And we were friends.”

  Sage hadn’t said a word through the whole story, hadn’t even raised an eyebrow, until now.

  “Friends? Or more than friends?”

  I jerked back in surprise. “Just friends.” Then I added, in case
it sounded like I hadn’t been interested, “We didn’t have a chance for much else.”

  Sage ate the rest of her sandwich without looking me in the eye. I’d blown it. Telling her about the other versions of her was a stupid idea. What was I thinking? Any chance of her confiding in me, developing feelings for me were, bam, out the window.

  Sage wiped her mouth, drank back the rest of her drink and stood. I jumped to my feet and touched her arm. “Sage, I know it’s a hard story to swallow, but you have to admit, something connects us. That dream you had about rescuing Teagan in the cabin? About opening a door to a gun pointed at your head? Those were my real experiences, yet somehow you dreamed them.”

  Sage gently pulled her arm away. She looked at me with sad eyes. “I can’t thank you enough for coming for me last night. Someday you’ll have to tell me why you did, but I’m just really tired now. You understand, don’t you?”

  22

  

  Sage

  I wasn’t born beautiful, and I wasn’t a runway model now, but I remember the summer the boys started noticing.

  Though three and a half years older than me, my brother Ben didn’t hit his growth spurt until he was sixteen, which meant we spent a number of years where we were the same height and one particularly painful summer for Ben when I was actually an inch taller. We were both scrawny and unexceptional. These commonalities made us temporary best friends.

  Temporary because suddenly Ben started growing leaps and bounds. He not only grew taller, but also broader. He began to shave. It seemed that he’d turned into a man overnight while I remained locked in little-girlhood at thirteen. I didn’t even get my period until three days before my fourteenth birthday.

  That was the year that Ben broke out as a football star and got his first girlfriend, Emily Nardelli. She was not twiggy and flat-chested. She most certainly had gotten her period. So what if Emily Nardelli couldn’t tell a prime number from a prime minister, she was pretty. And she had a lot of pretty friends who’d hang out with Ben and all his macho football-playing friends.