by Linda Marr
I hated him. He was nothing like I’d imagined him to be when I saw him in the park. He was still good looking despite the blue hair, but after talking to him for a few minutes, I knew he wasn’t the kind of guy I would fall for. Would’ve fallen for. In my old life. In the life that maybe never was. What a jerk.
“Welcome? Welcome where?” I said coldly. “If I’m supposed to believe my life was a dream, and you were in it somehow, then you owe me. Tell me what’s going on. You can start with who you are.”
“Kavan. From Irish Gaelic, meaning, ‘the handsome one.’ Fitting, huh?” He grinned.
Not exactly, I thought sourly.
“Your little brother told me. The kid’s always going on about stuff like that, isn’t he?”
“Troy,” I froze. “You’ve seen Troy? Talked to him?”
“I thought you’d be happy about that.”
But the look on my face must have told him otherwise.
“Tell me how you know Troy.”
“Same way I know you. From his dreams.”
Once again I wanted to hit him.
“Funny what’s real and what’s not,” he continued on. “What you think is real turns out to be a fantasy and then fantasy… who would have thought - it’s real.”
Kavan’s eyes were locked on my face and I couldn’t look away.
“So what do you like better, Elle Jennings? Fantasy or reality?”
What a stupid question. It wasn’t a question of liking one or the other. I had a life. And now I didn’t. Now I had whatever this was.
Kavan’s eyes were amazingly brilliant, a rich brown flecked with bright blue. I had no idea how to answer him. The only thing I knew for certain at that moment was that I loathed him.
And he saw.
A shadow passed across his startlingly bright eyes. Almost like regret. Then he shrugged again.
“Just so you know, Troy’s fine, but he misses you of course. And, he’s still… you know… Troy.”
What right did he have to speak about Troy as if he knew him? Troy was my brother. Or at least I dreamed he was.
“I can see you’re upset.”
“Really, you can tell?” My voice dripped with sarcasm.
“I’m perceptive that way,” he smiled again, a smile that I bet won over a lot of girls. But I wasn’t going to be one of them. “I’m sorry.”
For a moment he seemed like he really was. But then he pushed his plate away abruptly. “Gotta go.”
“See you,” I muttered.
But he hesitated after he rose. “I know you’ve got a lot more questions, even if you’re too mad to ask them right now.”
I shrugged.
“You can find me when you’re ready.”
***
I was standing. For the first time since I’d come to the farm house, I was on my own two feet.
“You did it,” Blair said, smiling.
“In record time,” Charles added, “and of course you had something to do with that.” He was looking at Blair now, and I couldn’t help seeing what they usually tried to keep to themselves. Charles and Blair were head over heels. I wondered if I would ever feel like that about someone. In my old life, I never had any doubts. But I didn’t even know what this life was now, much less whether I would have a partner in it.
Blair blushed, and squeezed Charles’ hand, but she kept her gaze resolutely on me. “You can go anywhere in the house now.”
So what, I thought. It didn’t matter where I went. I was still stuck in this life. At least they had each other. “How long have you two been – together?” I asked.
“About three years,” Charles said. “Almost from the time I was rescued.”
“You were a donor?” I asked, the word still sticking in my throat.
“Yes.”
“Do you miss it – people – your old life?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
He looked at Blair. “Not anymore. I miss school. I was studying to be a history professor. But of course the history that I learned ended decades ago.”
“You’re teaching me now,” Blair said softly.
“Putting my old donor gifts to use. Teaching was my gift from the computer, and you never lose what you were given. If you’re smart you’ll build on it and improve from there.”
What gift did the computer give me? The ability to adjust to the idea that everything I’d believed was real was nothing but a dream, a computer constructed fantasy? If there was anything else special about me, I didn’t know what it was yet.
Outside, the sun was beginning to set again and the room was bathed in soft light. I could feel my feet pressing against the warm wood floor, muscles straining and shivering but holding me steady.
When I looked over at Blair again, she was beaming at my success. Yes, I was standing! For a moment, I forgot about everything else and felt simply happy. I beamed back.
***
I couldn’t stand on my own for long, but once I’d done it, I stood up at the end of every session with Blair. And soon I was walking. It was harder than I thought. Each step was like winning a battle.
It was crazy that I had to be taught to walk. It seemed like just yesterday that I was playing soccer with my friends or raking leaves with my dad. But of course really, I wasn’t doing any of that, I was just floating in a vat in a warehouse. Just like my dad, and my mom, and Troy.
So now I believed what everyone kept telling me, that I really was a donor. But if I existed, my family had to exist, too, even if they were trapped in those vats the way I was.
I knew in my heart that I had to see them again, that I would see them again. Tears sprang up in my eyes, I brushed them away fast.
I desperately wanted to tell Blair what I was feeling. But if I did I knew she’d hug me and then I’d really cry. The person I should talk to was Kavan. He might make me angry, but I knew he certainly wouldn’t make me want to cry. Kavan. Why did I keep thinking about him? Was it because he was the one person familiar to me from my donor life? Or was it something more? He wasn’t anything like the golden boy he’d appeared to be when I first saw him. He’d never be my prom date – but then I doubted I’d ever have such a thing as a prom.
But for whatever reason, Kavan was on my mind.
When Blair left, I raised the tee shirt I was wearing, and took a long look at the scar that had formed over the place where my belly button should’ve been. The redness was gone and pretty soon my stomach would be smooth. Evidence of what I really was.
“Contemplating your navel?”
I jumped. Kavan was leaning against my door grinning. Almost as if he knew I was thinking about him.
“You could try knocking,” I said.
I dropped my shirt quickly. What I felt looking at myself was none of his business, and nothing to joke about.
“Not my style. I just show up sometimes.”
“Yeah, like the way you popped in and out of my old life.”
“Right. You thought that was pretty cool, didn’t you?”
I wasn’t about to tell him what I’d thought about him. Besides, I had other things to talk to him about. He was the only one around this place that didn’t seem like he cared enough about my feelings to protect me from the truth.
In fact, Kavan didn’t seem at all upset by my sarcastic tone. He sauntered in and dropped down on my bed.
I wondered why he’d been following me in my donor life. Was there a reason?
Kavan was still looking at me in his unsettling way. “So, how’re you doing?”
“Ready to ask you some more questions,” I said.
“What are you waiting for?”
“Okay, tell me how you managed to show up in my old life.”
“I told you how, but you don’t want to accept it,” he was smiling at me now, a superior look on his face.
I wanted to make him lose it. “You didn’t tell me anything useful. Just that you’re a dream walker and you enter people’s dreams.”
“See, you’re
beautiful and smart.”
“And you’ve got blue hair.”
“You like it?”
“Not really.”
“I think it looks great. Besides when I look in the mirror here, I know I’m not dream walking.”
That was interesting, but I wasn’t going to let him distract me.
“So, how do you do that… dream walk, I mean?”
“How do you think I do it? I go to sleep.” Kavan said, sounding a little wary, now. “Speaking of walking, I heard you can. Thought I’d stop by and see for myself.”
I knew he was changing the subject. “I always could walk. Before I came here.”
“You thought you could. Once you get into the real world, nothing is as easy as you think.”
There it was again, that matter of fact acceptance that I had no life until now. Whether it was entirely true or not, it made me angry. But I swallowed my feelings, I wanted to get him back on track. “Have you seen them lately-my family? Are they worried about me?”
“Look, the best way for you to get over this whole thing is to forget about them.”
That was a ridiculous thing to even imagine. I would never forget who I was. And this conversation was not going the way I hoped it would.
“I don’t want to forget them,” I said.
Kavan stood up. “Look, Elle, you have to forget.”
His eyes burned into mine. There was no mocking in them now. He was absolutely serious. But I couldn’t accept what he was saying.
“Can you at least talk to them? Can you tell them I’m okay, and that I’ll find them? Soon?”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Then tell me how it does.” I was begging now. I didn’t care.
He hesitated, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft. “You’re tougher than that.”
“How do you know?” I was angry again.
“I know more about you than you think. I heard you’ve hardly cried since you’ve been here. Everyone says you’re the strongest rescue they’ve ever had. I know you can get over the past.”
“No,” I said again, “I won’t get over it.” If I was so strong, figure out how to find my family.
He was still staring at me, his gaze unwavering. He was standing so close, I could feel the heat of his body. It was almost as warm as a touch.
But his words were cold.
“Listen, Elle. If you want to live, you have to let go of the past. So you will.”
***
Kavan’s words echoed in my head until I finally fell asleep that night. I dreamt of a family. But it wasn’t my own. There was a mother, a father, an older sister and a younger brother. I was watching through the front window of their home. It was early evening, and as twilight faded, the flickering fire cast a soft amber glow on the family photographs hanging over the mantel.
They were gathered around the fireplace in their family room, laughing and talking. When I woke, I was panting. Jealousy burned in my gut.
I would find my own family. I didn’t care what anyone told me. I would get my life back.
CHAPTER SIX
But I couldn’t get my life back yet. I didn’t have any idea how to go about it. Besides, they kept me busy on the farm. I was so busy that sometimes I didn’t have a moment to even think about my family.
There was a lot to do. The farm was a sprawling multi-story place in the middle of nowhere. Beyond the grasses and wildflowers were enormous glass greenhouses. Rising behind the greenhouses were endless fields of wheat and corn, and dozens of metal windmills, their tremendous blades providing power for the farm.
The dull grey light of day no longer hurt my eyes, and the brightness of the emerald fields didn’t surprise me anymore. I hardly noticed the colors of the flowers or the faint ashy smell from the city that drifted in on the wind.
It was so different from my old life, the sky always blue and the flowers in neat rows planted in gardens – perfect flowers with barely any scent, wind that hardly ruffled my hair.
I’d been assigned to work in the kitchen. Peeling, chopping, washing up – it was so exhausting at first, using my new real world body, that I often went straight to bed.
But tonight, I felt restless. Leaving the farmhouse, I made my way across the tall rough grass and through the lush fields until I reached the windmills. I was drawn to them. I’d never seen anything like them before.
“They make you feel really small, don’t they?”
I spun around. There was Kavan. As usual appearing when I was lost in my own thoughts. His eyes glinted in the moonlight.
“They’re – overwhelming.”
“You haven’t seen anything.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but then it seemed like I hardly ever did. Why did being with him always make me feel like I was losing my balance?
“C’mon,” he said, and he led me across the field to the one windmill that wasn’t spinning. “This one’s down for maintenance.”We walked beneath it, to the rungs of a metal ladder extending from the base of the tower. He tugged on them, and they slipped to the ground.
“After you,” he pointed to the ladder.
For some reason I didn’t even question him. I just climbed the ladder. He stayed close behind me, protecting me, in case my still new-to-me legs stumbled. But I didn’t think they would. It was incredibly good to use them again. All these weeks, flat on my back, just learning to walk, then peeling potatoes and washing pots in the kitchen - and now – I was climbing. I felt free.
Up and up and up we went. The height exhilarated me. Until we reached a metal platform, jutting out across the fields.
Kavan scrambled up ahead of me, and pulled me onto it. His grip was strong, and for a moment I wanted to keep holding his hand. But I pulled free.
“What do you think,” he said. “It’s easier to understand the world if you see for yourself.”
I looked out over the farm, which seemed to stretch forever. Beyond it at the edge of the grey horizon, there was a distant city. Tall buildings, long metal spires on top, rectangles, squares, some round. And that one tower, shaped like a triangle…was this San Francisco? The city I could see from my old hometown? It looked both the same and different. The skyline was a mosaic of architecture. Despite the clouds, the glass windows glowed, it looked more like an enchanted kingdom than it ever did in my donor life.
“It’s different than when you last saw it, huh?”
“It’s still beautiful.”
“It was once. Just watch.”
I followed his gaze toward the horizon. A warm wind churned from the other windmills, and blew my hair from my face.
Out of the thick cloud cover, there was a bright flash. Something streaked from the sky, it looked like a meteor. It struck one of the buildings. Flames shot from the roof, and smoke, thick and black, billowed out into the clouds, darkening them.
“What’s happening?”
“Another bomb,” Kavan said simply, “they’re always going off.”
“Why?” I stared out at that skyline, part of it now in flames. I felt heartbroken. Now there were jagged broken places where the bomb had fallen. The beauty of the city, destroyed in an instant. For a moment, I just stood there, stunned.
“I thought they told you there was a war, and why donors exist.”
I pressed my lips together. How I hated that word, donor. I forced myself to turn away from the crumbling skyline. “Who’s fighting?” I asked, trying not to focus on what I was.
“Who knows? They make peace for awhile, and then it starts up again. More people die or are put back together with plastic body parts and donor harvested blood.”
He would not let that donor thing go. My anger flashed out. “They should just let people die. Then maybe there wouldn’t be anyone left to fight.”
I turned away and stumbled. Kavan put his hand on my arm to steady me.
“Easy there, it’s a long way down.”
I could feel the heat of his skin through my
shirt.
“I’m on your side, Elle. Whether you know it or not.”
I was angry. I wasn’t angry at him, none of this was his fault. But it wasn’t mine either. I kept thinking somehow I should’ve known sooner that my life was a lie, before I loved my family as much as I did. But that didn’t make any sense. I wanted to tell him what I was feeling, but what was the point?
We were both quiet for a moment. All I could hear was the heavy metal thwacking sound of the windmill blades turning around us.
With each spin of the blade, the reality of who I was settled deeper into my heart. I was a universal donor who lived in the future. The wars were endless. Nothing was the way it should be, but I would go crazy if I tried to make it the way it had been. Maybe it was enough that I was here now with Kavan. I turned back to him.
“You’re safe,” he was trying to reassure me. “No one bombs the farms. There wouldn’t be any food.”
But what about my family? Who protects them? I wondered. My legs began to tremble. I told myself it was just because of the climb. He must’ve noticed.
“C’mon, let’s get down,” Kavan said.
I nodded.
Kavan swung himself onto the top rung of the ladder first, and reached for my hand again. “I’m all right,” I said.
“No, you’re not, but you will be. You need my help right now.”
All it once, it struck me, I did need his help. Not only to get down the ladder, but to find my family.
I watched him as we climbed down. He was strong and sure, the same way he was when I’d seen him in my dreams. The way I was beginning to see him here. And the same way Troy must see him, too.
As we reached the ground, he put his arm around me to make sure I stayed steady. And I knew I was right, that was the only way. I had to convince Kavan to help me find my family. And in the meantime, I had to hope wherever they were, the bombs remained distant.
***
Every morning there was always a knock on my door. Blair still worked with me, massaging and using electro-current on my legs. I was getting stronger all the time, and she knew it, too.
“Too bad you’re such a fast healer,” she joked, “I was hoping for more time away from garden duty.”