by B. N. Toler
Immediately, his energy overtakes me, and I surrender to him. Our bodies press together, and I am shot into a world where people who have lost all concept of their better senses go. There is nothing, but want and desire here. The kiss lasts seconds, minutes…, I don’t really know, but when I come to, I’m torn between wanting it to last forever and wanting to escape.
When Rhett pulls away, I stare back, speechless. I fight the pull of gravity and force my body away from his as he releases me. He searches the bank while I stand in a trance, unable to move, then he hands me my clothes and walks two feet away to dress. I fumble, my hands shaking as I dress, in part because I’m buzzed and in part because I am flabbergasted by his kiss. When he finishes dressing, Rhett faces the water and stares up at the moon.
My emotions are mixed. Shouldn’t I be mad he kissed me? I should slap him, but something else is alive in me. I only felt this once before. I’m falling for him. How could this be? I barely know him, and given our meeting, feeling this way about him seems wrong. Why am I here? What is he doing to me? I remember a moment like this when I approached Thomas in my dream, naked and determined, begging him, but he vanished before my eyes. I scold myself for allowing the memories of Thomas to play out in my mind after Rhett has just kissed me. Not just kissed me, but turned my soul inside out.
“Why did you do that?” I ask, trying to tame the butterflies in my stomach.
“I don’t know. I seldom do what I really want to,” he mumbles at me. “I won’t do it again.”
I follow him towards the house, disappointed by his words. Why wouldn’t he do it again? In my twitterpated state, I can’t help but take in the property bathed in moonlight. It’s breathtaking. “I really like it here,” I say, not realizing I say it out loud.
“Yeah, it’s like a dream.” His voice holds an odd tone, almost like he’s joking.
My mind drifts back to the bank accounts. The numbers in the savings account would say “UP” if I used Rhett’s decoding method. That doesn’t make any sense. And for the checking account, two thousand, three hundred and eleven dollars and fifteen cents, two would be B, three would be C and one would be A. That doesn’t spell anything. My brain aches, as I try to match letters with the numbers.
“Rhett, what if the total is 2,311.15? The first three numbers aren’t single digit.”
“So the first number would be twenty-three?” he asks.
“W. Right?” I verify.
“Yeah, so the second number is eleven and that would be K.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Maybe the next number is meant to be single. So one would be A. W-A. The next two letters would be A if they were single digit. If the next number was a double digit it would be eleven and that makes it a K.” I continue sorting this out, not realizing Rhett has stopped assisting me.
“Come on, let’s get to the house.” He rushes me, but I remain focused on my riddle of numbers.
“W-A-K,” I spell out loud.
I continue to work out the rest in my head while I try to keep up with Rhett, who is in a mad dash for the house. The last number is five and that would be an E. W-A-K-E. Wake? That makes no sense. Wake would be the first word. Wake up? The code was “wake up”?
A popping sound fills my ears and a sharp pain stabs through my head, but it fades fast. I race the last few yards to the fence and I grab it to catch my balance.
Something bright lights up the darkness, just above the ground, about fifty feet away in the pasture.
Rhett continues to walk, not realizing I’ve stopped.
I can’t tell what I’m seeing, so I slide through the beams of the fence and run softly towards it, like a moth to flame. I make it halfway there when Rhett yells my name.
“Hold on, I’m just checking something out,” I yell back, now about five feet from the light.
“Wait, Aldo!”
Up close, the light looks like a hole in a wall with a light shining through it. I try to touch it, but my hand passes through. I bend down, looking inside of it, but the sharp pain returns. I close my eyes for a moment until it passes, then I touch the outside of the rigid hole again.
The edges are soft, like paper and it tears at the slightest touch. I jerk back. “What the hell?” I grab the edge and rip it back. A large piece of thin material shreds away exposing more of the bright white room behind it.
Suddenly, Rhett jerks me up by the arms, so hard and fast my teeth clink. “Aldo, listen,” his eyes are wide.
“What is this?” Panic enthralls me as another pain shoots through my head, and I cry out.
“Aldo, just stay calm.” Rhett’s voice is steady.
The pain subsides, and I stare back at the hole while trying to fight my way out of his grip. “Let me go!” I yell.
“Please let me explain.”
I continue to jerk, and hit at him, trying to break away. When he finally lets me go, I grab more of the wall and rip at it. It tears like paper, sound and all. More and more of the white room is exposed until I stop tearing and step through the hole into the white room.
At the snap of someone’s fingers, the entrance to the hole disappears, and I turn to see Rhett watching me, his face like stone.
We now stand in the white dome Rhett created the first night he brought me to the farm. Nausea washes over me, and I lean over, dry heaving.
Rhett gently rubs my back, but I jerk away from him.
“I’m dreaming?” I ask between heaves.
“Yes. Just breathe, Aldo,” he says softly.
I continue to heave, but nothing comes up. “Damn bourbon.” I stand and try to compose myself.
“It’s not the alcohol,” he says softly. “You weren’t really drinking alcohol; you just thought you were.”
I open my mouth to say something, scream, anything, but I can’t even speak I’m so confused.
“Please sit down and let me explain.” He motions behind me and a chair that hadn’t been there before appears.
Anger boils thick in my blood. He’s controlling this. He has somehow trapped me in my subconscious and played me all this time. I close my eyes and focus hard, trying to create a glass box to trap him in. When I open my eyes, he stands inside of it, arms crossed, staring at me.
I smile at him, proud of myself for trapping him.
“Aldo, this isn’t necessary.” He places his palms on the glass. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Is that what this is?” I growl at him.
Suddenly, my body is jerked away by an invisible force, and I’m slammed against the wall of the dome. My head bangs against the wall hard and I yelp in pain.
“Sarah, don’t!” Rhett roars.
Sarah appears out of nowhere, and I eye her cautiously. She’s never entered my dreams before.
“So it’s a party? Why have you trapped me here?” I hiss. Why are they holding me hostage in my subconscious?
Sarah and Rhett exchange a glance that seems to communicate a thousand words in silence. The glass box I trapped Rhett in disappears and they stare up at me, plastered to the wall.
I struggle to escape the invisible grip holding me in place, but can’t.
“Happy now? Your stunt with the bank account did this.” Rhett glares at Sarah.
Sarah crosses her arms. “It worked.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Rhett shakes his head.
“I would.”
“No it didn’t. She’s still in here.” Rhett motions to me.
“Well, you can’t make her leave. You can only tell her the truth and let her decide.” Sarah’s arms drop as she approaches me. “Rhett has a long story to tell you. Try not to freak out.” She turns to Rhett. “Tell her the truth. You can’t stay here.” Rhett doesn’t look at her as she pats him on his shoulder and turns back to me. “Hope to see you on the other side.” She smiles and vanishes right in front of me. A wave of panic crashes down on me like a million pound weight. The “other side”? Does she mean death? Is he going to turn me? “What does that mean?” I can’t h
ide my anxiety.
Rhett waves his hand, and I fall from the wall to a soft ground of grass.
I look up and we are back at the farm, standing in front of the house. I stare up at it in disbelief.
“Let’s talk.” He smiles and walks up the stairs.
I climb the stairs, willing my legs that feel as if they are made of Jell-O not to fail me and join him on the swing.
He rubs his palms on his jeans. “Aldo, this is a complicated story.”
“Just get it out, Rhett!” I yell, unable to control myself. My body is stiff with fear.
He sighs. “Do you remember the day your aunt died?”
“Of course, I do.”
“You tried to walk into the house, Whit grabbed you, and then you went unconscious. What happened next?”
My fists are balled up at my sides, my nails digging into my palms. “Why are we talking about this?” I growl. “It has nothing to do with this.”
“It has everything to do with it. It will all make sense very soon.”
I sit back and roll my eyes. “Lucy came to my dream; or rather I brought her there. I cried and asked her what happened. She or rather my subconscious didn’t know.”
“Did she say anything?”
A lump rises to my throat. “She said goodbye.”
Rhett hesitated a moment before asking, “Anything else?”
“There was a black picture, but she couldn’t tell me what it was.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A black picture represents something I’m afraid of or something I’m not ready to process.”
“So you assumed the photo was of vampires?”
“I guess I did.”
“Vampires can’t come out in daylight.” He leans back, forcing the swing to rock us.
“Okay, then maybe blood healers.”
“Maybe.”
“What does it matter?” I rub my forehead, fighting a headache.
“Aldo, you passed out after Whit pulled your energy that day, and you didn’t wake up.”
His words give me mental whip lash. That just can’t be. “What do you mean?” I need a better explanation.
“You remained in your subconscious. You never came back.” He speaks gently, like I’m an emotional child.
“Yes, I did. We left for Florida that day.”
“You did, but in your subconscious.”
I sit back, thinking about this for a minute. “So you’re saying for the last six years of my life, I’ve been trapped in my subconscious?”
“It’s really only been one year, but in this world it’s been six.”
“This world?” I plant my feet to stop the swaying of the swing.
“This isn’t reality. From the moment I met you, we’ve been in your dreams.” He motions his hand at our surroundings.
“How do I know you didn’t trap me here the night you kidnapped me.”
“I didn’t trap you here. I’m telling you that the moment you passed out in front of your house burning down, you have been living in this world. Your dreams. Call it whatever you like, but it’s not reality.”
“I don’t believe you.” I cross my arms and look away from him.
Rhett leans forward and does a wide palmed rub of his mouth and jaw. “I didn’t think you would. That’s why I’ve been trying to help you figure it out on your own. Sarah, of course, decided to pursue another method. Let’s do this step-by-step. Some of this is going to be pretty hard to believe. Some of it you already know deep down, but you’re hiding from it.”
“Hiding from what?”
“For starters, that Thomas was not the man you thought he was.”
Are you?” I can’t disguise the anger in my voice.
He raises his eyebrows, surprised by my question. “I guess that’s for you to decide.” He stares at his hands for a moment.
“You don’t know anything about Thomas.” Why am I defending Thomas? I have many questions as to who Thomas is, but having Rhett tell me, makes me defensive.
“I know he led a young girl on, waiting for her to mature fully into her gift so he could sell her for top dollar.” Rhett raises his voice and runs his hand through his hair. The muscles in his jaw tighten as if the thought upsets him.
Tears stream down my face, and my head feels like it is going to cave in. “That isn’t true.” Because if it’s true, it means I’m an absolute fool.
“It’s really easier for you to believe that the woman who raised you would sell you versus a man you met by chance in a parking lot?” he questions with a tone of disbelief and disappointment.
I look away, shamed by his words. Do I really believe, deep down, that Lucy lied to us our entire lives? The answer is no. Deep down, I don’t believe she was this vile person Thomas described to me. But why would he lie?
“Aldo, I have some theories as to why many things have happened here in your dreams. Please just let me explain,” he begs.
“Can we walk? I need to move,” I manage through my sniffling.
“Of course.” We stand and walk down the steps and out towards the barn.
Silence separates us briefly, while we walk. Rhett has shoved his hands in his pockets, while I remind myself to keep breathing.
“I know Sarah told you about what happened to her when we were taken.”
“She didn’t get to finish the story. Bruno threw me.” I wipe my nose with the sleeve of my shirt.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I was trying to spook Esmeralda, but it didn’t work.”
“You made Bruno buck me?”
“Sarah wanted to tell you about all of this, but I wanted to be the one to tell you.”
So when Sarah looked around as she put me on Esmeralda, she was looking for Rhett. “So tell me.”
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Sarah was only seventeen when they took us. The same age you were when you met Thomas. It may be hard for you to believe, but she was very much like you once: naïve, funny, and smart.” He smiles softly, but it quickly fades. “When I came home the night we were taken, she was on her knees, hovering over our mother’s body.” He clears his throat and I cringe at the image of a young Sarah sitting next to her mother’s dead body. She must’ve been so scared.
“That image still haunts me to this day,” he continues. “I was knocked out and taken, never given an opportunity to say goodbye to my mother. I told you they kept us for months before we were changed, and I was tortured because I wouldn’t cooperate with impregnating some of the other females there. They drugged me, trying to make me lose my will, but I would push all of my energy out until I passed out. They wanted to kill me, but Sarah begged them to spare me, promising cooperation for my life. So she endured horrendous things for me.
“When she failed to produce, they agreed to change us if we cooperated. I refused, but once again Sarah negotiated with them to spare me. Even after we were changed, we were held for months before they allowed us to roam the property. It was our luck they knew nothing of my gift to dream walk. We were able to plot an escape, but as you know, Sarah once again sacrificed herself, to save me. In those early days, I was unable to get to her while she was still on the inside. They didn’t trust her after I escaped, and she was guarded or locked up at all times. I spent those years working hard to save money for when we got her out. I invested well, made my money work for me, and swore once I got her out I would always take care of her. Eventually, she earned their trust again and they used her to guard the women. There weren’t many, maybe four at most at any given time. After each female produced three offspring, some were changed if they possessed another gift found to be beneficial to the nest, or if they caught the eye of one of the higher ups, but most were disposed of.”
Dusk is settling in, or Rhett is making it settle in, and the crickets fill the silence that stretches between us as I try to absorb more of his story. The distance to the barn is longer than it has been before, but I know it’s Rhett controlling the scene, making it th
at way.
“They killed them?” I stop in my tracks. The thought of those poor women being used, forced to give up their newborns, and then murdered is unimaginable.
“After a female produces three offspring, it’s believed that the gift of healing weakens, meaning any other offspring thereafter will not be as strong, if they possess the gift at all. Sarah’s gift of seeing the past was the only thing that spared her when she didn’t produce offspring. She used it to barter for my life as well. Had she not been useful to them in any other way, they would have killed her.” A long thick stick appears in Rhett’s hand and he swings it at his side.
How does Sarah exist with such pain? “She loves you very much Rhett.” His eyes glaze over and I touch his arm, trying to comfort him.
“I know.” He clears his throat, still swinging the stick.
“So how does this link you to me?” I stare up at him.
He begins walking again and I follow at his side. “We were finally able to plan an escape for Sarah, but she cared deeply for a young, pregnant woman there and insisted we help her escape as well. I could’ve never told Sarah no at that point, even though I knew it made our plans far more dangerous. When the day to escape came, the woman…” He pauses and clears his throat again before he finishes, “Lisa went into labor.”
I look at him and his eyes shift to the stick in his hand. My heart feels as if it’s done a swan dive into my stomach. We’ve finally reached the fence, and I grab the top beam to support myself.
“Sarah assisted in the delivery because it was considered high risk. She didn’t usually assist in deliveries; she was more of a guard for the women.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. “Lisa delivered triplets that day, a very rare occurrence in the healer world.” His gaze falls to me.
I’ve stopped breathing, but can’t seem to start again. Lisa was my mother’s name. Lisa and Lucy, twin girls. He examines me, brow creased with concern as to how I will react. I look up at him, my gaze hanging with the question I already know the answer to. He nods so that I understand I’m correct. He continues, undeterred from his mission to get the truth out.
“Immediately after Lisa delivered the three of you,” he says, knowing I’ve already connected the dots, “the remainder of her blood was drained for feeding later.”
