by Sean Platt
Will said they were going to some place called the “Drury Inn.” Luca asked him about 100 million times how he knew where the people were and even though Will tried to explain it repeatedly, it didn’t make sense to Luca. Will said, “Instinct is the nose of the brain, and as long as you’re willing to listen, it usually tells you everything you need to know before your brain has a chance to figure it out.”
Luca was only 8, but he knew when grown-ups were keeping part of their stories a secret. There was something about Will’s dreams he didn’t want Luca to know.
Four Drury Inns were in the area where Will said the people might be, but Will had a feeling that they’d be in the one they were now flying to.
“I still don’t understand how I can help her.” Luca said. He didn’t believe he could do anything to help the girl from their dreams, but Will kept insisting that Luca would just know exactly what to do when the time was right.
“I’ll tell you how it works if you promise not to think I’m crazy?” Will offered.
Luca thought about it for a minute, then said, “But what if I think you’re crazy anyway? Will you be mad at me?”
Will laughed, “Of course not. Think we should give it a shot?”
“Okay.”
“I think, in fact I’m sure, you have something called The Touch. People, everything really, are packed full of energy. That energy blends with their environment. Most energy stays in the body, you know, the thing that lets you carry your brain with you everywhere you go.” Will tapped Luca’s noggin then gave him a wink.
“Am I making sense so far?”
“Only kind of,” Luca said. Then added, “Well, not really.”
Will laughed. “It’s simple. Because living things are always exchanging energy, someone with the Touch can clear the channels needed for healing.” Will was quiet for a moment, then said, “Do you know how often your mom used to get her hair cut?”
Luca thought, then said, “Yes. She goes on the same Tuesdays when she brings the bread home from the bakery that has the fruits that taste like candy. That’s one time every month.”
“Does her hair ever look much different?”
Luca shook his head. “No, it always looks the same.”
“Why do you think she paid for a haircut every month if her hair never looked any different?”
“Because she likes to look pretty.”
“Good answer,” Will said. “If your mom stopped getting her hair cut, her ends would split. Hair doesn’t grow well while the ends are split. People with the Touch, people like you, Luca, know how to make cells grow again, kind of like a hairdresser gives your mother a fresh haircut and makes her hair all thick and shiny.”
That’s probably why whenever Mommy was sad, I only had to hug her to make the smiles come back. Maybe it’s why Daddy calls me Liquid Sunshine.
Will’s attention was suddenly out the window. He slapped his knee, then pointed out the window and said, “There it is!” He swung the helicopter in a wide arc, heading left as he lowered them toward the hotel parking lot.
Luca saw the Drury, and it made something inside his stomach twist and tingle as the frames of reality and dreams started to overlap.
Will pointed below at the clusters of creatures that carpeted the concrete. They were a lot like the ones Luca saw laying in the empty corners in his dreams, except these ones were standing and moving around.
“What are they?”
“Not sure,” Will shook his head. “That’s the first time I’ve seen them outside my sleep, at least since the first day.”
“You’ve seen them before?”
“Yeah, two in fact. These look stronger, and they’re standing. Ones I saw could barely move. I don’t know what they are.”
“Are you scared?”
“Not yet,” Will said. “Besides, we’ve got our guard dog.”
Dog Vader barked, which made Luca laugh and pet the dog behind his thick, furry ears.
Will set the helicopter at the edge of the parking lot, then hopped from the cockpit and held his hand out for Luca. Luca’s eyes were wide with fear, but he took Will’s hand and jumped to the concrete.
“Don’t let go, okay,” Will turned to Luca and squeezed his hand. “Trust me.”
Will pointed to the lobby doors. “We need to get through those doors. Don’t take your eyes off the glass, and don’t let go of my hand. We’ll walk slowly. And we’ll get there in less than a minute, safe and sound. I promise. Okay?”
“Okay, Will.”
Dog Vader leaped from the cockpit, and the three of them walked side by side toward the front doors of the Drury. The dog’s lip was curled, and his teeth were bared, growling at the scary monsters that surrounded them.
To Luca’s surprise, the monsters kept their distance, as if he, Will, and Dog Vader were the scary ones, not them.
When they reached the front doors, three men came out to greet them.
“We’re here,” Will whispered patting Luca on the back. “You did perfectly.”
Will released Luca’s hand then walked to the man standing in front of the other two. The people in front of the boarded-up doors were the people from the dream, including the teenager and the woman standing behind them. She was the little girl’s mother.
Luca couldn’t see the girl, but he could feel her close by.
“I’m Desmond,” the man said, offering his hand to Will.
Will shook Desmond’s hand and introduced himself to the group, then cleared his throat. “I don’t know how else to say this, so I guess I’ll just pour the words from my mouth and see how they fall.”
He faced the woman. “Ma’am,” he said, “I believe your daughter needs some help, and I’m quite sure that’s why we’re here.”
The woman gasped, then nodded, and burst into tears. She gestured for Will and Luca to come inside the lobby. Desmond, the leader, put his hand on her arm and whispered in her ear. She nodded, then kept walking toward the makeshift bed where her daughter was sleeping.
Will and Luca stood side by side in front of the girl. “What’s her name?” Luca asked.
“It’s Paola.” Her mom said, brushing the girl’s cheek.
Paola.
“Are you ready?” Will asked Luca.
Luca said nothing, just looked at Will and nodded, then took a step toward Paola.
It’s just like when Mommy gets her haircut. The girl needs to be pretty so her energy will start working and make her better again. I know how to do it if I just do what I know, like when I don’t think about anything but hugging Mommy and then her sad spiders go away. She said I’m the best at that, and not just because I’m her little boy.
Luca placed his palms on Paola’s forehead and squeezed his eyes shut.
Forty-Five
Paola Olson
Paola had no idea how long she had been trying to figure out where she was, but it felt like forever. Time had definitely gotten weird. So had everything else.
The world was familiar, but ... soupy.
It was Daddy at the gas station, but something awful happened and he suddenly wasn’t Daddy. He did something bad to me ... something to my thoughts ... then he went away and left me ... here.
She was lying on the ground of the gas station for a while, until her mom and Desmond came to get her. They drove her back to the hotel.
Why can’t they hear me? They just keep looking at me, worried.
She didn’t feel like a ghost, or like she imagined being a ghost would feel like. It felt more like she was standing on the other side of the looking glass in a Lewis Carroll book. She could see her body, her mom, and Desmond in the vehicle, as if she were watching through a giant window that only she could see through. Paola pushed her hands hard against the world in front of her until the web of reality pushed back, seeping between her splayed fingers.
She gasped and fell a step back.
She looked around her again.
At the far end of the lobby was a giant, oak do
or. It hadn’t been there before, and couldn’t have been real since it was too tall to fit the lobby, with a small moat circling the front. A moat full of dead people.
That’s where the kitchen used to be.
The door turned into a drawbridge, and the moat multiplied 20 times in size. Paola started walking toward it. That dark thing that had pretended to be Daddy had promised her answers. It was probably inside.
She stepped through the large, oak door where the kitchen used to be, but no kitchen counters were on the other side. Just a black hallway with a small square of light at the center.
The hallway wasn’t long, but when Paola reached the far end and stepped into the light on the other side, she was obviously on some sort of neverending road. And while it wasn’t yellow, it was made of brick. The walls around her had fallen away, replaced with flowing fields of grass as far as she could see in every direction.
Above her was the clearest, bluest sky she’d ever seen — an endless canopy hanging over miles of neatly bricked road that wound through a meadow, across a flower-carpeted ground, then up into rolling knolls of emerald grass, where it vanished at the horizon.
The road was a thing of fairytales, but something about it was scary. False like the thing that had pretended to be her daddy. She turned back around, but her opportunity to return to the hotel vanished, along with the door and the entire hotel. Nothing but grass. And the road.
She took a step forward, and then another.
Paola kept walking for what felt like years, in that way that time seemed to sometimes stretch in dreams. She desperately wanted to run into the thick, tall forests that had cropped up on either side of the meadow and see everything she could not see.
It was wonderful where she could not go; she just knew it. That’s where the Fantasy lived, all the make-believe her mind had ever made, frolicking free, away from the memories and hard textures of truth.
But I have to stay on the path. It would be terrible to get lost ... here.
If she didn’t keep walking she would never get to the end of the road. And that’s where the answers were; her dream logic told her.
Without warning, the scenery changed, instantly shifting from rich, warm colors to a sea of grays. From Oz back to Kansas.
Flat landscape gave way to a tapestry of small, gray hills at the front, larger ones in back, growing in size until they crashed into charcoal- smeared mountains that stretched high and into churning, gray clouds overhead.
Paola was walking for hours, or perhaps seconds, when she realized what the mountains were made of. At first, they seemed like nothing more than ash-colored wedges of dull pulp, but as they grew in size, they sharpened in detail.
Piles and heaps and rivers of refuse were there; herculean hallways of nothing but garbage: cracked plastic, shredded paper, twisted metal.
The piles, along with the rising landscape getting closer to the clouds above, sent Paola into a cold claustrophobia. Paola saw a figure in the distance standing on the right side of the road, its shoulders slouched and its back to Paola. It looked like it was holding something close to its body as it swayed from side to side.
She inched toward the figure, and brushed against a gnarled root coming out of the ground. Only it wasn’t a root, but rather, more garbage. As she touched it, her mind flashed back to when she was 6 years old.
They’d been looking everywhere for her kitten, Doodles. But the cat had gotten out when Paola had accidentally left the front door open. Someone was at the front door. Their neighbor, Mr. Jerry. He said he’d found the kitten in the road. It had been hit by a car. He held it in his hands, its rear legs crushed. Paola cried both as a child, and now as she relived the memory.
That’s when she realized that each piece of the garbage was, in fact, made from her memories. She wasn’t sure how she knew it, but she was suddenly certain that the memories were painful and could swallow her whole, if given the chance. As if the memories were stripped of nutrients and only the bad stuff was left.
The stuff that made you cry or feel lonely; hide or want to die.
Paola gasped when she realized the person on the side of the road was her father. He was pushing a broom and clearing the road of any stray or dangerous memories. He turned to Paola. “Not quite safe to pass yet,” he shook his head. “Been going as fast as I can, but they just keep piling up.”
“What happened?”
“Something upset the apple cart. Plowed right through, fast as it could. Looks like it took everything with it.” Paola’s dad pointed off the trail toward a black, bricked spire rising from the ground and pointing toward the sky. “See that, that’s where he is.”
“Who?”
“You know who,” he said. “Same one who sent you inside here.”
“Why is he inside me? I can feel him in me.”
“He’s not whole. Most of him already left, but a part of him broke off. Like a snake.”
“Do I have to go inside?” Paola asked, looking up at the black castle, and the dark memories surrounding her suddenly seemed less scary by comparison.
“No, sure don’t,” he shook his head. You could wake right now if you want to. Everyone will see you, and you’ll see them. But you won’t know who they are, no matter how hard you try. You won’t even know who you are, not ever again. Because all this,” he waved his hand at the mountain of memories. “Every bit of it’s gonna be gone.”
“What’s inside the castle?” Paola asked.
“I don’t know anything you don’t,” he said, “but I can tell you what you’d probably guess anyway if you think it will help.”
Paola smiled. The man who was only sort of a memory of her father had said that exactly like her real daddy would have.
“Okay,” she said. “Then tell me that.”
“That castle is the middle of you. It’s your soul. Inside, there’s something to fight or face, or team up with or tell off. I don’t think you can know until you get there, but you can expect it to get rough. Just make it through and never forget what’s on the other side of the spire.”
“What’s on the other side?”
“Me, your mom, the rest of your life, of course. But you can’t have it without this.” He snapped his fingers, and the warm colors of Oz flashed across the sky before going dim a second later.
“Are you still alive?” she asked.
“What do you think?”
Paola didn’t know how to answer the question.
“It’s time for me to go,” he said. “Time for both of us to go.”
Paola went to hug her father, but he disappeared just as she drew close. So did everything else, except the black castle, barely visible in the darkness. Paola couldn’t even see the ground, her feet vanishing in the clouds which flowed like thick, fast-moving fog blanketing the world.
Every step Paola took toward the castle caused it to move two steps farther away. She was walking a few minutes before deciding to try a step back. She was rewarded with the castle moving two steps closer toward her. Cold, wet wind whipped her and lashed at her hair, as she wrapped her arms around herself for warmth.
Paola continued to walk slowly backward, a foot at a time, careful not to fall over the edge of a narrow road, which was now high in the air with nothing but endless empty on either side.
Each step sent her back into another awful memory.
Small memories seemed massive, each one an attacker in the dark at her most unarmed. She longed to turn, run toward the barren land behind her, then keep running until her dying breath. It would be better than this.
But she couldn't.
The blackness swam over her face, threatening to swallow her.
She was going to die.
The dark memories were in her mind, her lungs, her body.
Every step back was another cool blade warmed by her blood, but she kept pushing forward, knowing that the icy black of a starless universe was better than the hollow void of a doused existence.
I’m suppose
d to be in bed, but Mom and Dad are asleep. And the movie I’m not supposed to be watching has horrible monsters and terrible screaming. And fires. Lots and lots of fires. When a mouse scurries across the floor, my screams bring my parents running into the room.
I’m 8, saying Bloody Mary into the bathroom mirror. I know it’s just my mind playing tricks, and not something staring back at me with red eyes through the glass, but my heart feels like it’s going to explode and no one can hear me scream.
I’m in Grandma’s room, just after she died. I’ve fallen asleep on the bed facing the mirror. I wake up slowly and can hear Grandma’s whisper behind me. Her image shimmers in the glass, and I’m sure there is more than one reality.
No more.
Paola peeled the black from her body, yanked it from her throat, then stepped outside her memories, letting terror drop to the road like an empty wetsuit. Paola found herself standing in front of the open castle door. A dim-red light bathed the walls inside the castle, making it seem almost warm. While she was so cold.
A booming voice thundered through the black.
“Very good,” it said. “You’re almost here. Just a few more steps.”
Paola crossed the bridge then stepped into a huge room with massive ceilings that she couldn’t see through the clouds. The floor was carpeted in plush black, with threads so deep and thick they looked like colonies of crawling worms.
Across the room was another open door. Paola stepped inside. It was a small room with nothing in it. She expected a throne room with evil claiming his castle seat, but fear and evil often thrived in whisper.
“What do you want from me?” she asked the empty room.
Except the room wasn’t empty. The voice was everywhere. And when it spoke, its waves rolled through Paola.
