Only a handful of people shared the theater so they had plenty of time to buy popcorn and Cokes and then choose seats in the exact center, in a row with nobody behind or in front of them. The way Annie liked it. She didn’t like to feel cramped or crowded. Ever since she could remember, she’d hated confined places.
They giggled through the promos for coming attractions, and at one in particular, which featured an ancient black and white movie from the fifties. It was about Martians taking over the Earth, and Jenny squealed in delight after the preview.
“Awesome,” she said in a too-loud voice. “I’ve got to see that one. It’s a classic.”
“Go ahead,” Annie whispered back. “But don’t expect me to go with you. It looks positively lame. Now hush. That man over there just gave us a dirty look.”
When the Star Wars logo jumped out at them from the large screen, Jenny grinned at her friend. Annie settled back, determined to let her friend enjoy the show. She told herself that it couldn’t be that bad, and she could sit without fidgeting. She owed her friend that much.
Annie couldn’t tell precisely when the realization struck her, but it came upon her like a bolt of lightning or a punch on the chin. All she knew was that one minute she was sitting back in her seat, half asleep, and next she was sitting upright—as rigid as a hunk of cement.
In front of her, high on the screen, was a scene that shook her so violently, Jenny noticed even in the darkened theater. In fact, Jenny was so unnerved by the look on Annie’s face, that she nudged her friend with an elbow.
“Annie? What is it? What’s wrong?” she mouthed.
Annie continued to stare, wide-eyed, at the screen—her face taut with emotion. The world was spinning out of control.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Annie’s heart leapt into her throat. It can’t be. It’s not possible.
Jenny grew more concerned by the minute and jabbed her friend. “Annie? What’s going on? Why are you looking like that? Is it your stomach? Are you going to be sick again?”
Annie willed her eyes to leave the scene in front of her. She turned to face her friend, licked dry lips several times but was unable to speak. Jenny saw in her friend’s eyes pure disbelief and it unnerved her. Without another word, Jenny pulled on Annie’s arm and led her up the aisle and out to the main vestibule of the theater. Pushing her down onto a bench in a far corner by the women’s restroom, Jenny gaped at her friend in perplexity.
“Annie, what happened in there? You scared me half to death.”
Annie buttoned her eyes and swallowed. “I-I can’t explain it. I saw…I felt—”
“What? It wasn’t even an exciting scene. They were just standing by a window, talking.”
“I know…I told you I can’t explain it. That window…I-it-oh. I don’t know.” Annie jumped to her feet, an anguished look on her face. “I’m sorry, Jenny. I can’t explain it. I’m sorry I spoiled the movie for you, but I can’t go back in.”
Jenny nodded and shrugged. “It’s okay, Annie. I guess I don’t need to see the end of it. I sure wish I knew what it was that scared you so much, though. It’s kind of weird, but I guess I understand…at least, I think I do…”
“Thanks.” Annie stared down at her feet. She was embarrassed and angry at the same time. Jenny had been a good friend for several years, but for how much longer? If she continued to have these bizarre hang-ups and sudden ‘attacks’, wouldn’t Jenny start thinking twice before wanting to pal around with her? She’d call on other friends—like Carolyn—to go to the mall. Why waste time on a screwball like Annie Wren?
Feeling dazed and foolish, Annie followed Jenny out of the theater. It took all her inner reserves to amble around the mall with her friend and pretend to enjoy herself. For the next two hours, she watched while Jenny climbed the rock, then followed her into one shop after another until time to meet Mr. Kim at the front entrance. Both girls were rather subdued on the ride to Annie’s house and Jenny’s good-bye was half-hearted. Annie entered her house convinced she’d lost her best friend.
With a mumbled hello to Mrs. Pratt, Annie raced up to her room and threw herself face down on her bed. Thoughts and emotions tumbled over one another in her mind, and she had to take in one long breath after another just to calm herself. Deep down in the very depths of her being, she was frightened—more frightened than she’d ever been in her life—and she couldn’t articulate it, even to herself. No way she’d be able to describe it to someone else.
Rolling onto her back, Annie stared up at the ceiling. She studied the swirls and tiny moons and five-pointed stars and replayed the scene in the movie that had spawned this intense confusion. The characters had been standing by a large, curved window that gave an immense view of infinite space. The panorama had been a velvety black background dotted with countless points of flickering light—stars and planets.
The characters spoke—about what, she couldn’t remember—but it wasn’t the dialogue that had stirred dormant images in her subconscious mind. It was the view from that big window. The vastness of outer space, the dark eternity, with its billions of tiny lights, that had her in this grip of uncertainty.
Deep down—so deep, she couldn’t fathom it—Annie knew she’d seen that window before. Not on a theater screen, or on TV. No. In real life. She gazed out that window—or a window just like it—and saw the black nothingness of the universe with its population of stars and planets that went on and on…forever and ever and ever.
She had. She knew she had.
But she couldn’t remember when…or how…or where.
SIX
Although Jenny treated her as though nothing had happened that Saturday, Annie knew their friendship had changed. She laid the bricks for the invisible wall separating them—not Jenny. They still saw one another in social studies, talked on the phone after school when Annie was allowed, but something was different. That uninhibited camaraderie they’d shared for the past six years was gone. In its place, a vague reserve that Annie couldn’t penetrate, even on the rare occasions they got together for fun.
The weeks passed, marching stoically toward summer vacation and the end of middle school. Annie kept her equilibrium well enough. No one suspected she harbored a disturbing secret that ate away at her like a cancer. As far as her parents were concerned, she was a recalcitrant teenager still in dire need of discipline—something they hoped high school would bring about. Nothing more sinister than that. She’d been able to keep her grades up and hadn’t missed any more school because of an upset stomach, so her parents relaxed their restrictions on her after-school activities. There were no more ‘incidents’ to upset her parents’ busy lives and coveted routine.
Tuesday arrived, the last week of school, and Annie was at her wits’ end. She needed to release the tension that’d been building up inside since the revelation at the theater— had been trying for weeks without success to put the turbulent feelings into words. She reasoned that if she could just talk to someone about it—if just one other person could share her terrible secret—then she’d be able to get her life back to a semblance of normalcy. But who? Whom could she trust with such a bizarre story? Who would believe her—even begin to understand? How could she expect someone else to comprehend what she herself couldn’t? Yet, if she didn’t get this thing off her back, she’d lose her mind.
She and Jenny were finishing their final project in social studies, and Jenny chattered about her parents’ plans for a family trip to California when Annie gave voice to her dilemma.
“Jenny…” she began, groping for nonchalance.
“Hmm?”
“Do you believe in extraterrestrials?”
“What?”
Annie took a deep breath, lowered her voice and tried again. “Do you believe there’s alien life on other planets? You know, intelligent life. People like ourselves who’ve evolved on other planets and who, maybe, are far more advanced than we are, and have, uh, maybe visited Earth?”
Jenny did a double take. “Hu
h? I can’t believe you, of all people, are asking me this. Aliens? Extraterrestials?”
Annie grimaced. “I know, I know, but please just bear with me. You’re always watching those sci-fi movies and going on and on about life on other planets, and I know I’ve always said I thought it stupid, but…well, what I’m trying to say is, do you really believe in it? Life on other planets, I mean.”
Jenny’s dark eyes were boring into her, and Annie was afraid that her friend thought she’d really flipped, but then Jenny grinned and bobbed her head up and down with unabashed enthusiasm. “Life on other planets? Oh definitely. How can there not be? Think about it. The universe is so humongous, there have to be other worlds out there able to support sentient beings.”
“Sentient beings?”
“Yeah. Intelligent life forms. People who can reason and create and all that. I mean, who knows? Maybe fellows like Picasso and Socrates were really aliens transplanted here to observe us and give us a, well, a nudge in the right direction. Oh, it’s so awesome just thinking about it. I hope we make the official first contact while I’m still alive. I’d love to have a chat with one of ’em.”
Annie tried to laugh, but it came out sounding more like a whinny. Jenny didn’t appear to notice, but before they could discuss it further, the bell rang.
That night Annie had another dream.
She hugged her stuffed monkey closer, rubbing a tear-stained cheek against his cottony body. The room exploded into a kaleidoscope of swirling colors. They twirled and pirouetted and danced above her head like Christmas lights come alive. Intrigued yet dismayed, she watched them bounce off the walls and ceiling, off her bed and dresser, her bookcase, lamp, chair, and then…she became buoyant…floating…floating, up, up, up…
Annie awoke with a start. Dazed and perplexed, she blinked several times to orient herself. She remained in her own bed, in her house in Atlanta. For one heartbeat, she’d thought she was in the upstairs dormer room in the cabin in Maine. Sitting up, she reached over and switched on the small, bedside lamp. It cast a warm, pink soothing aura. And across the room, her little angel nightlight glowed with a pleasant softness—a dim reflection on the posters of Albert Einstein and Shinichi Suzuki. Her room in her house. Nothing lurked in the shadowy corners.
She turned off the lamp, lay back on the pillow, and sighed. It’d just been The Dream again—nothing else. Something in that movie she’d seen with Jenny had awakened a seed that had been planted in her subconscious years ago. It had sprouted, pushed its way up through the fertile soil of her mind.
Psychologists probably had a very logical answer for what she’d been going through. The sooner she shook free of that horrible scene in that dumb movie, the sooner she’d be able to get on with her life. At least, she could if The Dream would let her.
SEVEN
The last day of school had come and gone. Annie was relieved almost to delirium. She’d passed, although just by the skin of her teeth, and now looked forward to several weeks at a camp she didn’t want to attend, anticipating mosquitoes and spiders and sharing a cabin with snobbish girls who thought they should be on American Idol.
Her mother was leaving for Paris in two days and ran around in a frenzy, trying to pack and tie up last-minute loose ends. Her father, on the other hand, did his bit by leaving for work early and returning late every day and blaming it on the sudden onslaught of new projects at the office. Nobody challenged his explanation for absenteeism, and Annie certainly didn’t care. Her mind lingered on packing for the long-dreaded sojourn at the auspicious camp in the Adirondack Mountains. Mrs. Pratt would remain at the house and have what she considered an “in-house” vacation.
Annie indulged herself with a late-night movie and a large bowl of heavily buttered popcorn then went to bed. She fell asleep within minutes—worn out from thinking about the upcoming two months at camp and worrying over starting high school in the fall. Somewhere in that twilight dimension they call the unconscious, she had another dream.
The music…soft, melodic, caressing…filling her head like water filling a glass. It didn’t come from outside, nor did it emanate from the floor below. It was just there, inside her mind, and it was beautiful. Opening her eyes, she blinked several times in the pitch-black dormer bedroom that was hers whenever she visited her grandparents’ cabin in Maine. Because they were far from intrusive city lights, the darkness was like a living thing. Not at all like her bedroom back in Atlanta…
Annie jerked awake, her heart pounding like a drum. Sitting up, she reached for the lamp, knocking over her alarm clock in the process, and thumbed the on switch. Like before, the soft, pink glow warmed the room and calmed her enough so she could breathe more evenly.
“Okay, okay,” she whispered aloud. “Okay…these dreams have got to stop. But how do I make them stop? How do I get those thoughts and pictures and sounds out of my mind? Why is this happening to me?”
She lay back on her pillow, willing her heart to slow its thunderous beating. This time, she left the lamp on. She needed its delicate illumination to ward off more dreams.
* * * *
For the last few days of May, Annie immersed herself in a furious cleaning of her room. She couldn’t explain why she had to. She just did. She took everything out of drawers and cupboards and closet and filled three boxes with junk to either throw or give away. The violin, however, remained on the top shelf of the closet. She didn’t even touch it.
It was two days later that she experienced yet another dream. Again, she’d stayed up later than usual, this time talking on the phone to Jenny. Her friend had been receptive, but Annie noticed a hint of reserve. She’d a pounding headache when she hung up after more than an hour of nonsensical prattle—too keyed up to sleep.
Lying in bed in that between state of wakefulness and deep sleep, Annie’s senses were again flooded with color and sound.
…Up, up, up, she floated, toward the ceiling… the blankets dropping away as if by magic. The sensation tickled like a feather…she had to giggle. She was tempted to call out for Nana or Doc or her parents…but didn’t. The lights swept her along in their merry chase.
Her short arms reached out and touched the ceiling. But instead of a solid surface, her chubby fingers made no contact with anything tangible. A peculiar impression of being out-of-body overwhelmed her and she shut her eyes. When she “awoke” again, she found herself sitting on top of a table in a dimly-lit room. The long table reminded her of Doc’s billiard table in the condo in Charleston.
She cried. Tears rolled down her flushed cheeks like gentle raindrops during an unexpected spring shower. The walls around her were nothing but cupboards and drawers, buttons and knobs. A strange room. One she’d never been in before. When a tall figure approached, she looked up into his face. He stooped over her and smiled. His strange eyes looked kind.
Scooping her up into his arms, he carried her through an oval door into a bigger room with a higher ceiling. He held her up in front of a large, curved window and told her to look at the pretty sky. Expecting to see a night sky like the one Doc had shown her countless times before, she saw, instead, a vast expanse of blackness, dotted with so many tiny white lights that it left her breathless. It was beautiful…thrilling…incredible…
This time Annie didn’t awake with a jerk nor did she have a racing heart, spurred on by confusion and fear. This time, she coasted into wakefulness and lay there, curled on her side…just thinking. It’d all come back to her. The Dream—the fragmented pictures of a happening she thought she’d locked in the cellar of her mind—was as clear as if the event had just occurred.
She’d been four years old. She remembered now. Her parents and she had been visiting Nana and Doc’s place in Maine. They’d planned to stay two weeks but had to cut the visit short on account of her unexplainable fever. The day following The Dream she’d come down with a fever that no amount of nursing and coddling would break.
Reluctantly, her parents decided to take her home and see the fam
ily doctor. Since she wasn’t seriously ill, they flew back to Atlanta and turned her over to a concerned Mrs. Pratt. The housekeeper knew something was amiss from the start, but Annie had been unable—or unwilling—to recount the strange happenings of that strange night.
As the days turned into months, and the months into years, The Dream receded into her subconscious like the sea at low tide. By the time she was in school, she didn’t even remember having experienced the event. The only thing that gave credence to anything peculiar having happened during that visit, was that now she balked at ever returning to the charming bungalow on the rugged coast of that far northeastern state.
Her parents and grandparents hadn’t been able to figure her out and had attributed it to an over-active imagination. Nana had even suggested that the fever had given her a “nightmare” which had scared the four-year old beyond reasoning. When she was older she would out-grow it, Nana had assured them. The trouble with that theory—she hadn’t. The house in Maine continued to disturb her and caused no end of arguments with her parents.
Now, in the semi-darkness of her bedroom in Atlanta, Annie realized, with an overwhelming force that she had to go back to the house in Maine, and soon. Very soon. Tomorrow, in fact. First thing tomorrow morning, she vowed, she’d tell her father. He’d have to listen; have to understand the seriousness of this whole freaking conundrum.
One relief in all this, her mother was safely ensconced in Paris. There’d have been no end to the arguments if she’d been home. Maybe the Fates were finally on Annie’s side. She’d phone Nana and Doc, make the arrangements, and be on her way to settling this quandary once and for all. The fact that she was scheduled to leave day after tomorrow for the noxious summer camp was of no consequence. She would not be spending her summer there. They’d have to bind and gag her to get her there now.
Annie told her dad at breakfast the next morning that she had to go to Maine. Her father mumbled something behind his morning paper, but Mrs. Pratt gave her such a penetrating look that she knew she was in for it.
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