And failing.
Often she finds herself landing on the ledge, fear screaming her name from the chasm. Turning—always turning to run. To get away.
And she always returns. Never escapes.
She’s caught in the current of thoughts and tension and contraction. Back to the ledge. Toes hanging over.
Nothing she ever does works. She never gets away, always comes back.
So she stops.
She stays on the edge, staring into the abyss. Gray swirling like lost souls. Loneliness howls inside her, but she doesn’t look away this time.
This time she doesn’t run.
Doesn’t resist the discomfort.
She remains there, on the edge, with the tension. The fear. Without pushing it away, without grasping. Just there.
Just there.
No more running.
This time, she finds home on the edge.
“No stealing tonight.”
Cyn is jostled from slumber. She hears the voice, different from the ones that whisper from the gray. This one is over her, near her.
She opens her eyes.
“Here.” Mad puts something against her lips. “Swallow.”
Cyn lets the pills fall under her tongue, swallows the water poured in after them. Feels like she’s drowning.
Her head falls onto the pillow. So hot. So achy.
Mad and Kat are dim outlines in the failing light. It must be late.
“We got rid of them,” Kat says.
Kat dangles something. The plastic bag catches a little light coming through the window, clear nutrient solution dripping through a tear on the bottom. Tubes wrapped around her wrist.
“No more stealing.”
42
Mr. Williams and Sid are waiting outside the brick house.
Miranda pulls on her gloves, tucks her scarf into the gap under her chin before stepping outside. The sun is rising. Fresh snow glitters like a blanket of diamond dust.
It smells so fresh, so clean.
Mr. Williams smiles, throws his arm over her shoulders, and draws her tightly against him. He inhales deeply, feeling the clean air, too.
His hand finds its way onto her neck, thumb circling on her flesh. Goosebumps flash down her back.
“If all the days were like this, I wouldn’t mind staying.”
Another deep breath.
“Sid,” he calls.
It takes Sid a moment to process this. He slides his hand down the railing, scraping a two-inch layer of snow onto the ground. Mr. Williams keeps his hand on her neck. She’s too afraid to move, wondering if he can make the fob work on her.
The garden looks like a graveyard of fallen soldiers, old stalks beneath lumps of snow. An arm here. A leg there.
He stops at the first solar panel, wiping off the snow. He uses his arm like a wiper, exposing the black glass to absorb the light once the sun is up.
Miranda watches.
“A good start, yesterday,” he says. “We’ll find it soon enough, Miranda.”
“How long do we have?”
He goes to the next panel. Sid is working his way towards them. Mr. Williams winks. “Plenty of time. Don’t tell them.”
They finish cleaning the solar panels and plod their way through the snow, around the garden. The outside kitchen door is cracked open. Mr. Williams discovered he could unlock all the doors through the computers, except for the small cabin where Patricia sleeps.
“Plenty of food,” he says. “We don’t have to go hungry, it’ll last us.”
Again, arm around her.
She walks stiffly, head down. Funny how they’re still hungry in a dream. Still breathing. They don’t really need food or air.
Not in a dream.
Sid walks through pristine snow piled at the foot of the kitchen door. He pushes it open, steps aside. The shelves are full of food. Mr. Williams chuckles, in the best of moods. He kisses the top of Miranda’s head, gives her a squeeze, and steps into the kitchen.
Stops.
She and Sid wait outside.
Nothing looks out of place. But his cheer dies. Mr. Williams’s hand slips into his pocket. He lumbers through the small kitchen, poking at something in the sink.
Miranda’s afraid to follow. She backs up a step, feeling her chest contract. It seems as if his posture swells, that he fills the room with anger.
He holds something up.
It’s plastic and limp.
It slaps onto the floor.
Mr. Williams grasps the edge of the sink, hunched over. Head bowed. Sid doesn’t move.
“Dammit!” He swings his arm.
A stack of bags scatter, each smacking against the wall. He kicks through the debris, stomps outside. His face a shade darker.
Miranda flips on the light. The clear plastic bags ooze on the floor.
43
The silence wakes her.
She’s accustomed to the bunkhouse creaking, the wind pushing against the windows, through the cracks. Now there’s not even the whump, whump, whump of the wind harvester.
Just the silence.
Cyn opens her eyes, staring at the rafters. Her pillow still wet from fever, but her forehead cool. Legs no longer on fire.
Such a wondrous moment.
She falls back to sleep.
She wakes to the rustle of coats, to boots hitting the floor. The stove is fully stoked, embers popping against the metal belly. Trays sit on chairs, a few on the floor. Food, uneaten.
The girls are pulling on winter gear.
Roc is cursing from her bed.
Cyn’s lips are glued together with slime. She pulls them apart, smacks them to work up saliva.
“How you feeling?” Jen asks.
“Water.” Cyn pokes her hand out.
Jen brings it. It’s a cold rush down a hot pipe. She hands it back. “What’s going on?”
The front door slams open.
A Russian bear fills the doorway. His nose is ruby red. Cheeks scuffed by winter. He steps inside. The bear transforms into an old man, scuffling into the bunkhouse. A fur cap forced onto his head, the fuzzy edge resting just above his eyebrows.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” He shakes plastic at them. “Do you?”
Sid comes in. Miranda after him, wearing knee-high boots and a flawless white coat, plus pearls and new earrings. Jealous anger stirs inside Cyn. She’s a thief.
“Untie the one in back.” He points a hooked finger.
Sid marches to the back corner. The bedsprings creak.
“What are you doing?” Cyn sits up. “Wait, you can’t untie her. Do you know what you’re doing?”
“I ask the questions.” He spikes the bags on the floorboards, droplets spraying in all directions.
He pulls the hat off, grinding his teeth. He walks toward the stove, thoughtful steps. Head down.
Hand in pocket.
Kat and Mad step aside.
“We had months to survive.” He turns around, shaking his head. “All winter, probably. Now we might only have days!”
He finishes pacing to the door, swings around.
“Do you understand? Days! You don’t know anything about this world, none of you. You stumble around in the dark like children. I am your light. I am the one who will lead you out here. And you!”
He crosses the room with large steps, shaking his finger at Cyn.
“You had one purpose: you were chosen to keep the dreamer alive. She chose you to bring those bags to her, allowed you inside her sanctuary to feed her, and you destroyed it. This is your fault!”
He stands over her, balling his fist, restraining himself from striking her. Cyn is unmoved, unblinking. If he decides to cave in her skull, she can’t stop him.
“Thought you said this was a dream,” Kat says.
The rage dissipates. His eyes blink heavily. He straightens, looking down at Cyn, nodding.
And then the pulse, the electric prod ignites a thunderstorm in her neck, lightning flashing behin
d her eyes. A thunderbolt in her throat.
Her body is like a steel plank.
And blackness falls like a marble slab.
Consciousness lifts like a fuzzy shade.
Her body buzzing. Teeth numb.
“Listen to me,” a disembodied voice calls. “And do what I say.”
Footsteps echo.
Moans follow.
Forms creep from the hazy light. The girls are on the floor. Mr. Williams walks across the room, his shoes grind at a turn, step in the other direction.
“Patricia is the dreamer. We are inside her mind; she creates the rules. And the rules mirror reality. That means her body, back in the woods, needs to be cared for, needs to be fed. That old woman on the path was the caregiver. When she died, Patricia chose Cyn to take her place.”
He picks up the limp plastic bag.
“When Patricia dies, so does this world.”
The girls sit up.
“Get dressed,” he says. “Meet me in the dinner house. We will eat and plan routes. You will explore this land until nightfall. I would leave you out there half the night if Patricia didn’t put you in the dream.”
The girls sleep like the dead. They all dream the same. Patricia’s doing that to us.
“Why?” Cyn croaks.
He turns toward her.
“Why does she do that?” Cyn asks.
“You’re her children. She wants to share the dream.”
“And you?”
His head shakes. Perhaps he’s contemplating the button.
“You,” he says with stiff lips, “are useless. Stay in the bed and die there.”
He punches the door open. Miranda flees behind him.
There’s a scuffle in the back. Sid drags Roc by the arm, her coat open, bootlaces whipping around her feet. She yanks her arm out of his grasp. His reaction betrays his slack posture: a lightning-quick slap to the nose. He twists her arm behind her back, bending the wrist until her fingers tickle the back of her head.
He marches her through the doorway, slamming it shut. Roc’s curses are heard through the closed door.
The girls get dressed. Cyn is just getting the feeling back in her fingers.
“We’ll bring you something to eat,” Jen whispers.
“Where are you going?” Cyn asks.
“He’s got us searching for the gate,” Kat sneers, not bothering to whisper.
Cyn throws the blanket off, squirms to move her legs. “I’ll come with—”
“Stop her,” Kat says. “He’ll freak out. Besides, you won’t make it to the door, not on those rotten ass feet. Last thing we need to do is dig a hole for your body.”
Mad inserts pills in Cyn’s mouth. “Here’s two more,”—she pushes pills into her palm—“and take them if we don’t come back.”
“We’ll be back,” Jen says, wrapping her face in a scarf.
They leave Cyn with the silence and a medicinal haze.
Then the gray.
44
Miranda stays outside, where the air is brisk and renewing. The cold washes away feelings of heavy dread. She imagines she’s a filter, the pores plugged with dust and grit and decay.
The air blows it out. Makes her new again.
She opens the front door where the air is dry and warm and unwholesome. Somehow she dies a little every time she goes inside.
Mr. Williams stands at the window, a cup in hand. The smell of coffee mingles with the stagnant odor of the brick house. Miranda stomps the snow off of her boots, steps past a fully loaded backpack. He holds out his arm, beckoning. She pretends not to notice, unzipping her coat.
“Come,” he says, wiggling his fingers.
She’s frozen in place again. He knows she heard him. She’s looking right at him.
It’s easier to just go to him. He’s old.
Miranda comes within reach. He pulls her against his body, squeezing tightly. Perfume emanates from his wrist.
Kat, Mad, and Jen exit from the outside kitchen door, begin their trek through the woods out back. Roc and Sid exit the front door, walking west. Together. Even though Miranda never lets the fob out of her grip, she’s relieved Sid is staying near her.
And if he causes her pain, she enjoys that.
“Don’t worry.” He pulls her tighter. “We’ll find the gate.”
“Is it true?”
“Of course, it’s out there.”
“No, I mean about Patricia. Will she die?”
His grip stiffens. He pulls a sip from the cup, smacking his lips and letting go of Miranda. He pulls a sheet of paper from his back pocket, unfolding it.
Miranda moves away, not wanting to be near him if she doesn’t have to. She goes to the rack next to the door, pulls the coat off her shoulder—
“No.”
Mr. Williams holds the paper out while continuing to look out the window. Miranda reluctantly takes it. The letter N is at the top. There’s a small square drawn in the middle labeled “camp”. Five arrows point out from it in different directions.
Miranda’s name is penciled over one of them.
“You go east,” he says. “You go until the sun is high and then return. Write down everything you see.”
He sips the coffee.
“You want me to go out?”
“You’re young and able, darling. In this body, I wouldn’t make it past the meadow. You can walk all day.”
She stares at the paper. It starts quivering.
“We all have to pitch in, Miranda.”
He looks over his shoulder. She still hasn’t moved. He puts the cup on the windowsill, begins to slowly zip her coat up.
“There isn’t much time.”
He tucks her scarf around her neck, sliding his hands over her shoulders, pulls the hood over her head and ties it below her chin.
“I’ve prepared a pack for you with food and water.”
He puts his hand on her cheeks, a slight smile. He reaches out with the other hand—
Miranda breaks the ice in her knees, jerks away.
She pulls open the door and slams it behind her. She stomps through the snow, leaving the food and water, keeping her face in the wind, hoping it will shear away the smell of perfume.
45
A gentle hand wakes Cyn.
Her eyes, slightly crusted, open with effort. Mad is there, her face scratched with red lines. Her hand is on Cyn’s shoulder, pills pinched in her fingers. She doesn’t ask, just puts them between Cyn’s lips.
Cyn lifts her heavy head high enough to chase the pills without spilling water. Not that it matters; the pillow is damp with sweat.
It’s light outside. There’s a lump in Jen’s bed. Roc is making noise in the back.
“What’s going on?”
Mad puts the cup on the floor, hands her a bowl of cold grits. She pulls the covers off the foot of Cyn’s beds, inspecting the bandages. They feel dry but a stench rises.
Kat limps to the stove, poking the dying embers to life, throwing another stick inside. She begins undressing.
“Jen hit a fence,” Kat says.
“What?” Cyn gets higher on her elbow. “Where?”
“Went through the woods, the three of us. Went to that small cabin and split up. Jen went straight north and I went northeast. Must’ve walked about twenty minutes but didn’t get far. Trees are thick and there’s no path. Mad went the other way, same thing.”
Kat’s face is scratched as bad as Mad’s.
“Right about the time I saw the end of the forest, I started to feel the buzz,” Kat continues, sitting on the edge of her bed to shuck her boots. “I slowed down, but kept going. It got more intense the closer I got to the end of the trees. I could see the clearing right where they stopped, like I could just step out and walk into another meadow. I got all the way to the edge and felt like I was going to drop.”
She leans on her knees, rubbing her face.
“Then I heard screaming.”
“Jen?”
“She was a
long ways off, but it sounded like she was set on fire. Took about ten minutes to get to her. She was just outside the trees, squirming in the snow, wouldn’t stop.”
Mad pulls the covers over Cyn’s feet, tucks them in. Won’t look up.
“How’d you get her out?” Cyn asks.
“It took a while,” Kat says. “We reached in and grabbed her foot, damn near blacked out doing it. Once we got her, though, she stopped screaming.”
“She ain’t talked since,” Mad says.
What memories are in her now?
“It was a road, Cyn,” Kat says.
“What do you mean?”
“There were tracks in the ground, just like you saw. Mad and I think she ignored the feeling in her neck, just walked out of the trees and right through the fence.”
“And started remembering.” Mad goes to the stove. “Ain’t that right, Cyn?”
“It’s like the road was taunting us,” Kat says. “Pretending there’s a way out, but then we just start remembering.”
“I don’t want to know,” Mad says. “Not anymore.”
Their eyes are cast downward.
Their spirit will starve long before their stomachs. There’s no escape.
No hope.
They feel the cage, too. Sense the walls. The illusion of freedom is crushing them. There was a world beyond the mountains, but not anymore. Hope is the dream.
“How far did Jen get?” Cyn asks.
“What?” Kat looks up.
“She walked straight north, how far did she go from the bunkhouse before she reached the fence?”
“I don’t know, three hundred yards or so. Hard to say with all the trees.”
Cyn visualizes the bunkhouse from a bird’s eye view. She trekked due south about two miles, give or take. Jen went in the opposite direction only three hundred yards or so.
She reaches under the bed for her coat and searches the pockets. There’s a pencil and a tattered square of paper in the pocket. She unfolds it, holds it up to the light.
If Jen walked three hundred yards to the north—she puts an X on the paper—and Cyn went two miles to the south, then she could identify the perimeter. And if the fence is an enormous circle—Cyn sketches an outline using the two points as a reference—that would mean that the center would be…
Foreverland Is Dead Page 15
