Ashes of Foreverland

by Bertauski, Tony

“Why?”

  “We have to fall.”

  Her voice faltered. She was tired of falling, and that’s what scared him. He thought the falling was over. The way she emerged from the brick house, the confidence that brought them here had evaporated. They were two kids that kidnapped a goddess that someone would be looking for very soon.

  But the man in the coat continued leading the way. Someone was expecting them. Expecting the goddess.

  Cyn reached for his other hand. Even when he didn’t take it, she left it out there. They were two steps from the doors, the man in the coat latched onto the handle. The sirens were still audible, the police still at the front door.

  We have to fall.

  He took her hand and nodded. They would fall together.

  The man in the coat opened the doors.

  They took the last two steps. Alessandra shuffled between them. Cyn’s breath caught in her throat. There were two tables back there. A very old woman was on one.

  Alessandra was on the other.

  Alessandra crushed Danny’s hand. She was standing between them, but she was on the table, too. Unless that was a twin.

  That can’t be her.

  “You promised,” Cyn said, “you would leave!”

  Danny pulled Alessandra close to him, but he wasn’t holding Alessandra’s hand. He was holding Cyn’s hand.

  Alessandra was gone.

  31. Samuel

  Upstate New York

  Alex hardly ate.

  When she did, Samuel nuked a small bowl of soup. He’d spoon in a couple bites before her eyes started to roll, then dump it back in the pot. He did that for two weeks, same pot of soup. He never bothered to even put it in the refrigerator.

  She never knew the difference.

  Husbandry is easy.

  Alex was a first-class bitch in the beginning. The old man had warned him. “She’s a little difficult.”

  Difficult. Bitch. Same thing.

  But Dr. Tyler Ballard promised him a reward no fool would turn down. He put the needle in Samuel’s head and gave him a taste of heaven. “Get her to sleep and you can have that,” the old man said. “Forever.”

  Samuel didn’t understand how this world was in Alessandra’s head, what it meant that she was a host or how she could dream something so real, a dream he was in.

  He also didn’t give a damn.

  He punched that needle in his head and went to work. He smiled when she gave him that condescending look, turned away when she laughed at him. Where he grew up, you didn’t walk away from that. He just had to keep his eyes on the prize.

  He hadn’t heard a peep on the baby monitor all afternoon. That was his idea and it was genius. He found the monitor in the attic, buried behind boxes where no one would find it. Instead of hauling his ass up and down those stairs, he just listened for her smacking those lips.

  That meant she was waking up.

  He ordered a pizza and decided to smoke a bowl. His stash was above the stove, tucked behind a jar of pennies. Just in case Sleeping Beauty came downstairs, he went out to the back porch. He only needed a puff or two because his stuff was potent. Everything in a Foreverland world, the old man said, was potent.

  As potent as I want it to be.

  He stepped outside without a coat. The flame flickered near the end of the pipe.

  Footsteps.

  Someone had been on the back porch. A second set of steps had followed. Those were bare feet.

  He dropped the lighter.

  Samuel ran upstairs three steps at a time. The bed was empty, the covers thrown back, the robe gone.

  “Alex!” He went room to room. “Alex! Where are you?”

  He leaped down the steps and crashed through the front door. Samuel raced down the center of the street without a coat. He shouted until his voice gave out, ran until his legs went numb.

  Looked until the world turned dark.

  And then he found himself nude on a table, staring at a bright light. The smell of death was all around.

  He’d never see Foreverland again.

  32. Cyn

  The Institute of Technological Research, New York City

  “You promised,” Cyn said, “you would leave!”

  “Patience, child,” Barb said. “It’s been a long trip.”

  She dragged her fingers along the edge of the table, her bracelets ringing. Barb was in the back room, as if she’d been waiting. She looked the same as she did in the brick house—the red lipstick, the thin scarf and large oval earrings with shiny stones.

  She ran her fingers over the very old woman’s bent knee, across her knobby hand and up to her hunched shoulders, where the thinning hair—like that of a doll from a bygone era—spread out. Her body sank in a thick cushion. The simple white smock was bunched around her like a potato sack.

  “Patricia,” Barb muttered.

  Cyn recognized the very old woman—the curling body, the smell of old skin. How could she forget? She’d hosted the wilderness Foreverland that imprisoned Cyn and the girls. And now, with the needle in her head, she was hosting it again.

  Cyn’s fist clenched involuntarily.

  “You said if we brought Alessandra here, you’d get out of my head.”

  That was the deal. When she took Barb’s hand in the brick house, her thoughts merged into Cyn and told her where to find Alessandra, where to take her, and where to find the truth.

  And that she would leave.

  Cyn wasn’t concerned that Alessandra disappeared, but a small pang of guilt tugged at her. She didn’t know where Alessandra was. When they stepped into the back room, there were two Alessandras—the one on the table similar to Patricia’s, wearing a baggy green gown. There was also the one they brought to the Institute and disappeared. What if we delivered her to the Nowhere?

  “You tricked me,” Cyn said.

  “We trick ourselves, child.” Barb traced the wrinkles in the old woman’s forehead, around the protruding needle. “When I first met Patricia, I had serious doubts that any of this Foreverland crap was true. I’d heard through social circles there was a way to cheat death, circles that only people like me are privy to, you know. Circles that run on money. I didn’t believe it, of course.”

  She sighed.

  “But stage 3 cancer will make you listen to anything.”

  Barb didn’t look like a cancer patient. She’d abandoned that diseased body long ago. The image in front of her was a concept built on memories that only Cyn could see.

  Barb flashed lipstick-stained teeth in a joyless smile.

  “I wasn’t excited about taking your body. I know you find that hard to believe, but it was murder, I knew that. But I was addicted to life, Cynthia. I wasn’t willing to give it up cold turkey and told myself I was doing you a favor. How’s that for rationalization?”

  Barb raked the old woman’s hair to the side and combed a part down the middle with her fingers. She smoothed the wrinkles on the white gown and stroked her cheek—a cheek so gray and thin that Cyn was afraid merely touching it would tear it like wet tissue.

  “Do you remember your first taste of Foreverland?” Barb asked. “The freedom? The joy? I went there a few times, sort of practice for crossing over when your body was ready. I knew, right then, Patricia had bigger plans than swapping bodies for rich people like me. This body-switching business that she and her son had been doing was just practice for something much grander.”

  Barb looked at Alessandra’s body.

  “I was right.”

  Alessandra was set up exactly like Patricia. Was she her replacement? Was she already hosting?

  Were there already boys and girls trapped inside?

  Cyn squeezed Danny’s hand, afraid if she let go, he’d take off running. He was watching her talk to empty space. Barb looked at their clenched hands and smiled—genuinely, sweetly. It reminded her of someone. Cyn sensed Barb’s memory. Her husband.

  Cyn’s memories of that man were not so sweet—an old man that murdered Jen and
buried her in the garden. He did it in Foreverland, but she woke up with the memory of the things he did to her.

  “He murdered, but don’t judge,” Barb said. “He was a good man.”

  “He was worse. You know the things he did.”

  Her smile turned hollow. “You’re too young to understand.”

  “Why are we here? You promised to tell me where we are.”

  “I promised to show you.”

  Barb looked across the room, over the tables, past Alessandra to the heavy curtain drawn across the narrow room. A stack of white boxes was on the floor and mail crates overflowed with envelopes. The Institute had been abandoned in a hurry.

  The curtain that separated Patricia’s and Alessandra’s tables had been pushed aside. Cyn felt the room spin, confusion swirling beneath her. The truth was lurking just beneath the surface.

  There are more tables back there.

  “Why are we here?” Cyn muttered.

  “Because I and others made a mess, child, but there’s a young man that’s going to fix all of it. He’s going to balance the scales.”

  Cyn grabbed Danny’s arm.

  “I’m not talking about your boyfriend,” Barb said.

  Danny began spouting questions and tried to let go, but she wouldn’t let him. He’d been patient with her talking to an empty room, but panic was setting in. The crazy train was at full throttle.

  “Reed sent the letters,” Barb said.

  “Reed?”

  Danny yanked her off balance. “What the hell is going on?”

  She stilled him with a look, but it wouldn’t last for long.

  “Why send letters?”

  “So they wouldn’t see,” Barb said.

  “They...who are they?”

  “Reed sent Danny to find you, child. There’s a connection between you two, something that calms your minds, has something to do with your shared experiences, I don’t know how. All I know is that when you were together, I was pushed deep in your subconscious. And Reed was waiting for me.”

  “You saw him?”

  “I saw the truth.”

  She looked down, her expression sagging, her shoulders slumping. An emotional weight had been slung over her like a blanket of chains. Was that guilt?

  “I am no longer blind to my blindness, child. I know what I’ve done, and what I need to do to balance the scales.”

  Barb looked up and half smiled.

  Cyn hadn’t noticed that Danny let go. She stood alone facing Barb. He went to the stack of boxes and began digging through the mail crate.

  “What’s back there?” Cyn asked.

  “I think you know.” She glanced at the heavy, plastic curtain. “I think you’ve always known.”

  “Reed showed me the folly of our situation, you and I. Even if I managed to possess your body and stuffed you into the dark subconscious, our fight would continue. One of us has to go.” Barb held out her hands. “And it’s your body, child.”

  “So you’re leaving?”

  Barb smiled.

  “Where?”

  “To visit some old friends.”

  This didn’t make her feel better. She had the sense that Barb was going to haunt someone else’s mind, that leaving only meant she would no longer be inside Cyn. After all, her cancer-ridden body was gone. She had nowhere to go.

  And she wasn’t keen on dying.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s all very complicated, child.” Barb slipped her hand into Patricia’s curled fingers. “You’ll understand once you pull the curtain.”

  The boxes crashed. Danny stood in a mess of papers and large beige envelopes. Cyn trembled and wished he was next to her. The truth felt like a monster.

  “If you don’t want to know the truth, that’s up to you. You’ll be lost until you do. But that wouldn’t be fair to Danny, now would it?”

  “Fair?”

  Her smile faded. Who was she to speak of fairness, the old woman that refused to die? But Barb’s face was so heavy, her eyes slumped with guilt. A thief was no judge of fairness. Barb continued holding onto Patricia, and reached out her free hand and wiggled her painted fingernails for Cyn to take it.

  “I’m sorry, Cynthia. This wasn’t your fault.”

  Hesitantly, Cyn began to reach out but stopped. It could be a trick, all of this a bigger plan to throw her into Patricia’s mind. Or Alessandra’s.

  “You didn’t deserve this,” Barb said.

  Sadness stirred in Cyn’s chest. To take her hand was to risk it all.

  To fall again.

  Barb let go of Patricia and offered both her hands.

  “You won’t hurt me?” Cyn’s voice sounded as childish as the words, a little girl afraid of what an adult would do to her again. She hated the mist filling her eyes.

  “You’ve hurt yourself enough.”

  Cyn finally slid her fingers into Barb’s palm. Jewelry jingled.

  Just like that, her hands were empty. No grand explosion, no insights of truth or fireworks. Barb just disappeared.

  And the weight that held her down all these years had been lifted. She threw her arms around Danny and began to weep.

  Alone, at last.

  33. Danny Boy

  The Institute of Technological Research, New York City

  She collapsed like a windless sail.

  Cyn had been speaking to herself, arguing with her imagination and pausing to listen. Danny let it play out, afraid an interruption would kick the legs of her sanity. She had been so stable since leaving the wilderness, so confident and powerful. But her sanity was a slippery slope. All he could do was watch her slide.

  Lilac overwhelmed the medicinal scents and animals in the next room. It made no sense.

  He tried to peel off her dead weight. He couldn’t hold her up anymore. His knees were getting weak and the floor was spinning. He locked his knees and leaned against the door. The walls jittered, but the tables never seemed to move. He gulped at the thinning air.

  “Breathe, Danny.”

  He focused on her face, expecting to see the haunted emptiness of a broken soul. Instead, the unblinking confidence was back. Her eyes, still puffy and red, cheeks slick with tears, were relaxed; the pupils large and calming.

  The room flickered.

  Sometimes it would turn then stop. Occasionally, an overlay of the same room was slightly askew. That’s how Santiago sometimes felt, like a projection, an illusion.

  A mask.

  “What the hell is happening?” he asked.

  “Foreverland messed me up, Danny.”

  “It messed us all up.”

  “My demon was different than yours.”

  Danny abruptly grabbed the table, his fingers accidently brushing against Patricia’s arm, the skin like brittle paper. My demons are different than yours, but we all have them, just the same.

  They were surrounded by beige envelopes with preprinted labels. He was holding one in a fist. He’d seen it from across the room when Cyn was ranting. It was beige, also. But there was no preprinted label.

  Large green letters.

  “What is it?” Cyn asked.

  He held it up to the bright light. Danny Boy, Cyn and Alessandra.

  It was addressed to all three of them, as if waiting for them to arrive. This entire experience—the traffic lights turning green, the empty Institute, the man in the lab coat waiting for them—was warped.

  But nothing had made sense since that first letter arrived.

  He slid his thumb under the flap. Three discs fell out. They were the same discs as before—weighty and perforated. The edges were different colors. There was the blue one and yellow like before.

  The third disc was forest green, the exact shade of Alessandra’s gown.

  “Three discs,” he muttered. “Three discs.”

  “What do they mean?”

  He shook his head. He never figured it out. And now three of them had been mailed to the Institute. What does he want us to see?r />
  A tremor inside him, a fault line breaking loose a current of fear. They were in danger. “Cyn,” he stammered, “I think we should go...”

  “We can’t.”

  He could feel her pulse in his hand, could feel her chest rise and fall like the long easy strokes of the ocean. She looked at the heavy plastic curtain.

  “Why?”

  “We have to look.”

  “We can come back.” He held the discs up. “I need some time to think.”

  “It’s why he sent us.”

  “Who?”

  “Reed.”

  “When did you...”

  The tremor returned. This time he felt it below his feet, not inside his chest. The building shook like something very large fell on Fifth Avenue. Was she talking to Reed?

  “What’s back there?” he asked.

  “We have to look.”

  “You know, tell me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  But she did, she knew what was back there. Some part of Danny knew, too. He knew the truth was back there. That’s why Reed sent them here. He didn’t want to know the truth; it would be too much. He also knew that if they didn’t look, if they didn’t know, they would continue searching for it.

  And it’s right there.

  Another tremor rattled items on the wall.

  “It has to be now.” Cyn reached out. “Because only now exists.”

  He took her hand.

  Cyn clutched the curtain. She waited with her knuckles white, the heavy plastic bunched in her hand. Danny placed his hand over hers. Together, they pulled it aside.

  The rings slid in the metal track.

  Two more tables.

  34. Tyler

  Somewhere outside Philadelphia

  Tyler!

  The old man snapped upright.

  He had fallen asleep in the transport van. The straight-back seats were rigid, but he hadn’t slept in days. Exhaustion ran him down within an hour of leaving the Colorado penitentiary.

  He wiped the spittle from his chin, using both hands since they were bound with plastic ties.

  His head roared. The voices.

  Someone had shouted his name above the fray.

  Gramm was across from Tyler, his head leaning against the wall separating them from the drivers. His eyes were closed, lips parted.