When You Believe

by Jessica Barksdale Inclan

  She stopped typing, her hands still over the keys, her stare vacant. Just as she thought to type the letter O, the phone rang. Usually, Miranda didn’t answer the phone when she was writing, but the past two hours at her desk had been so unsatisfying and difficult that she welcomed the annoying interruption.

  “Yes,” she said sullenly. “What is it?”

  “Randa? It’s me.”

  “Oh, hi.”

  “Well, why did you answer the phone, then?” her sister Vivian asked. “Christ, I’d rather talk to your machine than you in this state.”

  “How do you know I’m in a state?” Miranda asked, feeling the word state explode inside her, a low pulse of confusion, irritation, rage.

  “How long have I known you? Thirty years? You started having states when you were sleeping in your crib. What’s wrong? In the middle of a poem?”

  Miranda leaned back in her chair. “No. Just in the middle of going crazy. Maybe going isn’t the right verb. I am crazy. You won’t believe the dream I had last night.”

  “I hope he was cute. It’s about time you had some fun, even if it was in your unconscious,” Viv said. “But aren’t you going to go crazy about your award?”

  “How did—”

  “Dan called me,” Viv said. “Don’t be mad. He thought you weren’t feeling so good, and he thought I might cheer you up. He doesn’t know me very well, I guess.”

  Viv laughed, and Miranda smiled, despite her fatigue and the sense of confusion she’d awakened with. Viv usually cheered her up, especially when she took a night off from her three children and husband Seamus, took BART to the city and spent the night with Miranda. Those visits had been fewer now that Viv was expecting her fourth baby, so even on this very strange morning, Miranda was glad to hear from her.

  “It’s great,” Miranda said flatly. “Yeah, the money will be nice. I won’t have to copyedit manuscripts for a while. I can give up teaching that class at the university extension.”

  “Go on gushing,” Viv said. “Don’t stop!”

  “I really don’t feel good.” Miranda leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

  “So what was the dream about?” Viv said, groaning. “Ugh. Sorry. Had to sit down. I am about -to pop. Any moment.”

  “Really?” Miranda said, sitting up, wondering suddenly where her car was. She’d need it if she had to drive out to the East Bay. A good birth experience would take her mind off everything.

  “No. I’m just fat. I weigh exactly one hundred and sixty point five pounds. All of it’s baby, of course.”

  “Of course,” Miranda said, knowing that Viv would lose all her baby weight in about two point five months, turning back into her long-limbed, smooth-stomached self without Pilates or yoga or step aerobics.

  “Okay, so what was this dream about?”

  “So I was running up a street,” Miranda began. “Three guys were chasing me.”

  “Archetype total two. Street and the number three. A journey and completion. Go on.”

  “I was really scared and tired, and they almost had me. So I see what looks like a door—”

  “Wait. A door. A change. A passage. A transition,” Viv interrupted. “But was it a door or not?”

  “Sometimes it was, and sometimes it wasn’t.”

  “Very interesting. To change or not to change. Hmm. Go on.”

  “Then I escaped but ended up with these creepy people in robes.”

  “Could you see their faces?” Viv asked.

  “Not at first.”

  “But you eventually did see them?”

  “Yeah,” said Miranda. “And they looked like Mom. Like people from her bridge group all decked out in Halloween outfits.”

  “That’s enough to send anyone running. Then what? Were they all like that?”

  “That’s the best part. I was saved by a really amazing man with magic powers. God, was he good looking. Tall, dark, able to change clothes in an instant. He saved me from the group, healed my broken ankle, and told me an evil man named Quain was going to take over the entire world or something. His fingers were so amazing.” Miranda knew she should be smiling or even laughing at the strange turns the story was taking, but nothing seemed funny, as if she believed in Quain. Or as if she believed in Sariel and the way she felt when he touched her.

  Viv was silent for a moment, and then she said slowly in her big-sister voice, “Miranda. Don’t you see?”

  “What?”

  “This is all about Jack.”

  “Jack!”

  “Yes,” Viv said. “Who else? You’ve never gotten over him. So you’re dreaming up mysteries and magic guys.”

  “This is not about Jack. That is so over, Viv. You know it.” Miranda shook her head. “Jeez. It’s been two years.”

  “Well, if you are so over Jack, why won’t you go out with Dan? You know how he feels about you.”

  Miranda sighed and closed her eyes. So that’s what this phone call was about. Viv just couldn’t let go of her protective routine, even though she had 3.9 children of her own to take care of. Viv wanted to see Miranda married, with her own house and children and pets that peed in the corners and ate all the socks.

  “What did Dan say to you? Did he put you up to this?”

  “No! He didn’t say anything. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Viv!”

  “Oh, fine. But listen, he didn’t say anything directly. He was just so worried about you and your weird dream and fever or whatever. And that whole thing about Jack and the prize. He’s a nice man, Miranda. And after Jack, well, you deserve a nice man. Oh, hold on.” Viv clunked down the phone, and Miranda heard her groan as she stood up and began talking to Hazel, her youngest.

  Sitting back in her chair, Miranda knew Viv was right. She did deserve a nice man. A really nice man. But there was something too nice about Dan. He wanted her too, clearly. It was like what Groucho Marx used to say: “I’d never join a club that would have me as a member.” Miranda had fought for Jack, earned him by ignoring the bottles of J&B in the kitchen, the sticky, redolent reefers in the bathroom drawer, and the giggling, late-night phone calls he said were “wrong numbers.” Dan would never do drugs or drink too much or cheat on her, and she knew that was a good thing.

  But could he do what Sariel had managed to do with one touch last night? Could Dan awaken all her flesh with one hot touch? Even if the whole thing was a dream, Miranda knew she wanted that feeling, that kind of man. Of course, she didn’t even know what kind of man Sariel was—she didn’t know if he was a man at all. But even if he were a wizard or magician or devil, she knew that he was beautiful, kind, and sexy. That was magic enough.

  “God,” Viv said, breathing hard into the phone. “I’ve got to go. Hazel has decided to take this very minute to potty-train herself. On the brand-new carpet, though. I’ll call you later.”

  Viv hung up, and Miranda pressed the phone against her chest. All her life, she’d wanted to be just like Viv and had wondered why, with the same exact gene pool, she was her sister’s complete opposite. Where Viv had been confident, popular, curvy, big breasted, and smooth skinned as a teenager, Miranda had been wacky, bouncing between her simultaneous girlhood art projects, all buckteeth and frizzy, enormous red hair and freckles. Viv had gotten all the dates, gone to every junior ball and senior prom throughout her high school career, while Miranda stayed at home and wrote dark, mournful poems into her journal, sure that she was destined to be dateless. Sure, a late puberty had darkened and tamed her hair, filled her out, and given her breasts, and years of braces had straightened her teeth, but she’d still felt like a washed-out, jerky beanpole, especially when next to Viv’s blonde, dark-eyed lushness.

  After high school, Miranda had gone to Wellesley and the University of Iowa, published her first book of poetry, taught when she felt like it, copyedited when she had to. Between her first and second book there had been disastrous Brad, even worse Vladimir, and horrible Jack in succession.

/>   “You just don’t have any luck with men,” her mother, June, had said at least once or twice a month, more during the holiday season when Miranda was likely the only dateless woman at family and neighborhood gatherings. “Have you thought about using the Internet? Putting in an ad? Maybe an old-fashioned matchmaker? Your sister never had a problem.”

  That was true. Viv never really had problems. She graduated from Berkeley with her teaching credential and then married Seamus O’Keefe, who was gorgeous, smart, and loved Viv like crazy. All three of their kids were adorable and smart, and nothing had gone wrong for Viv, ever. It was like Miranda was the repository of bad karma, taking enough of it to keep her sister safe.

  And since their father Steve had died ten years ago, Viv had taken charge of Miranda as well as June, consoling Miranda after breakups and writing rejections, showing up to every single poetry reading (unless a baby was due momentarily), and inviting her to every holiday, school, and social function, Viv organized. Everything that their father had done—organizing Sunday afternoon barbecues and family trips to Playa del Carmen over Christmas and weeknight movie dates—Viv took over. Without her sister, Miranda would be an empty boat, paddling nowhere special.

  Miranda reached over and hung up the phone. She closed her eyes, wishing she could stop seeing what wasn’t really there: Sariel’s house, the Japanese robe, the sword dangling on the wall, the tray, the herbs, his strong, beautiful hands. Everything about last night was bizarre and totally mad, but she knew the experience was built of more than the strangers in the room and travel through time and space. When she’d looked into Sariel’s golden eyes, she’d felt connected. She’d felt safe. She’d felt as if she’d finally come home to someone she’d been waiting all her life to remember.

  Ridiculous! she thought. How could anything overwhelm the weirdness of her adventure? How could any connection she felt redeem the craziness of flying around through time and place? But there it was—there he was. From the moment she’d seen him sitting at the corner table, she’d felt as though she’d recognized herself in him. It had seemed, despite her terrible vantage from the floor and all those musty robes, that he’d really seen who she was, unlike any man, even Jack. Rubbing her eyes and then sighing, Miranda looked at the beginning of her poem hanging on the screen.

  If you had told me

  about your doors and handles,

  I would have opened you up,

  pulled you wide.

  Walked right in.

  O…

  For a second, she thought about working on the poem some more in order to make her two hours of writing worth something. But she realized she didn’t care what her O would do in the next line. She didn’t care about the next line one bit. Now, in the early afternoon light, the voice of her too-real sister still in her ear, Miranda knew that Sariel and his magic touch had been nothing but a dream. A vivid, intense, amazing dream, but a dream nonetheless. What was real and true was here: her sister, Dan, the Holitzer, her own loneliness. She didn’t need to waste one more second thinking about all that craziness last night. Traveling through thought. A terrible bad guy named Quain. Sariel’s eyes.

  Reaching her hands to the keyboard, she closed the file without saving it, turned off her computer, and left the room.

  Miranda, he said into her ear.

  Half in sleep, half awake, she reached out, felt her blankets, and didn’t bother to open her eyes because all she grabbed was fabric.

  Please, she thought. No more dreams. I’m busy being miserable, all right?

  There was no answer, so she let herself slide back into sleep. But then she felt his strong, firm hand slide up her leg, slowly moving up the contours of her body through the blankets. Her knee, her hip, her waist, her shoulder, his hand leaving a long, lovely swath of heat. Then he was stroking her hair, his touch as gentle as it had been the night before as he healed her ankle.

  I really am desperate, she thought, trying to open her eyes. Two wild dreams in two nights. What a total loser.

  But she couldn’t open her eyes. She kept trying, struggling to see if Sariel was really there, but her muscles wouldn’t work, her lids heavy, the way it felt to her when she tried to read something in a dream. A dream. Another flipping dream. It was so nice, though, feeling him next to her, touching her, and she stopped caring if this was a dream or not. He leaned over and kissed her forehead, her eyebrow, her nose, her cheek, her chin. She moved her face to where she thought his lips would be, and he kissed her softly, his mouth on hers. First it was lips, soft and dry, and then tongues, slow, smooth. He breathed in, pressed harder, wanting more.

  Oh, she started to think.

  “Enough,” he said. “Stop thinking. Quiet.”

  Like before, he smelled like oranges. His dark hair was thick and smooth against her face. He lay his body down on hers, taking her face in his hands. She arched back with her hips and chest, knowing how much she wanted him, feeling how much he wanted her, so hard against her. She wanted to reach down and touch him, everywhere, but she was trapped by his arms, his body, this blanket, her eyes stuck shut.

  “There’s time for that,” he said. “Be patient.”

  But you’re not acting patient, she said, pressing into him, listening to his quick breaths. You couldn’t even wait one night?

  “You’re magic,” he said.

  Nothing as magic as the body, she thought.

  He laughed into her neck, and then kissed her again and again.

  You’re supposed to be a dream, she thought, kissing him back. I wasn’t supposed to remember.

  His hand slid under the blanket, his fingertips snaking up under her nightgown, his hand trailing down her throat, chest. Then he was touching her breast, breathing against her neck. Miranda tried to follow his instructions to not think, willing her brain to shut off. Her body was on, though, every vein pulsing to his touch. She felt her insides slick and shimmery with heat, and she pushed against him again, wanting to connect with his heat and hardness, irritated by the blankets and sheet.

  “You aren’t supposed to remember,” he said, his voice quieter, and then he pulled his hand away, his body lifting off hers. “But I couldn’t go through with it. Not yet. Not now.”

  Go through with what? she thought, trying to open her eyes again; but then there was darkness again and silence, his touch lifting slowly off her body and then evaporating away into the darkness.

  Come back, she thought, her mind drifting, fading. Don’t go. Come back. Then she felt the pillow, the blanket, and she turned on her side, already asleep.

  Chapter Five

  “Are you out of your mind?” Brennus Broussard slammed his hand on Sariel’s table. “At any other time we could understand. Or at least tolerate your behavior. But now? With all that is going on?”

  Sariel sighed and shook his head, trying not to yawn. He’d stayed up late pacing his wooden floors, until he couldn’t help himself and went back to Miranda’s for another look. One last touch. Another taste. Merde! She was beautiful. And there was something else, something he recognized in her, like an oldie on the radio that brings back a memory, fuzzy but compelling.

  Come back, Miranda had thought, just as he’d left. Come back.

  He hadn’t wanted to leave. It had taken everything inside him to go before they were doing more than kissing.

  “Listen, Brennus,” Sariel said, irritated. “I haven’t broken any laws. We’ve established that Miranda Stead is not, in fact, a spy. And anyway, I’m going East soon to… work.”

  “Yes.” Brennus’s mouth was grim and serious. “And you should value how important your work is to all of us. You— of all people—close to Kallisto and connected to Quain.”

  Sariel crossed his arms, his jaw tight, and stared at his bookcase, his gardening books in green rows on the shelves. He knew what was coming, the lecture he’d gotten from everyone since he could remember.

  Brennus slammed his hand again on the table, the sound a flesh crack in the air. “You o
we it to your father. It’s your duty. It’s your legacy to do everything in your power to stop Quain.”

  Sariel uncrossed his arms and shook his head. “You don’t have to tell me that. How could I possibly forget? He took everything from my family. And Kallisto tried to, as well. I don’t want to see them succeed. I want to see them—”

  “So why,” Brennus said softly, his shoulders falling slightly, “would you put yourself at risk? Leave a vortex with a Moyenne woman? Manage to not take her memories? She’s walking around San Francisco with our meeting in her mind, with faces and names. And you’ve left thoughts in her mind, thoughts Kallisto could extract to work on you.”

  Sariel opened his mouth to answer, but he couldn’t find a reply. Why had he chosen to whisk Miranda from the meeting? Brennus would have found a way to get her home safely, if not scared out of her mind and hobbled by her broken ankle. And that was it. Sariel hadn’t wanted her to be hurt or frightened. As the people had parted and he’d seen her looking at him from across the room, all he’d wanted to do was take away the fear she had so tried to hide under bluster. Her fear had pulled him away from his beer, across the room, and to her side.

  “Look, no one will find Miranda or me,” Sariel said. “I’ll take her memories. All of them. Soon.”

  Brennus nodded, satisfied, buttoning his robe.

  “But why would he want me?” Sariel asked. “He’s done with us, my family.”

  Brennus looked up quickly and stared at Sariel, his eyes slits. Sariel tried to touch his mind, but Brennus had wrapped a veil around it.

  “Just do as we ask,” he said.

  Fine, Sariel thought, standing up and walking to his window, which overlooked windblown Cyprus trees, brown coastal hills, and the Pacific Ocean. What he wouldn’t do to be outside right now, tending to his rhododendrons or hiking Mount Tamalpais instead of being trapped inside with Brennus. For too many years now, the Croyant world had constricted, pulled tight, kept itself separate from the other worlds around them. Everything now was fear—who would attack them, steal from them, kill them—and Sariel had to slip into the world as an observer until he found those he needed to.