by M. Kircher
"What's so bad about being trapped there, anyway?" I had asked while Mom was still awake. "Seems like a pretty decent place to get stuck, if you ask me."
Mom got this dreamy look in her eyes then and ran her hand over the soft golden waves of her hair. "Hmm," she murmured, and I could tell she was remembering the garden and all its lush glory. "It was a nice place, dear. It was heavenly. But only after your father arrived."
"You mean the prince," I corrected her.
"Yes, of course," she answered absently. "For the book." She rested her chin in her hand and stared at me with a ghostly expression in her blue eyes. "Before he got to the garden, I was alone though. Alone in paradise, with no way out." She had grown troubled then, her face falling. "No amount of beauty or pleasure amounts to anything when you're alone. Remember, Emily — loneliness is the worst feeling in the world."
I had remained silent then, knowing all too well how it felt to be alone.
I snap back to the present and still can't quite absorb the fact I'm actually standing here in the hidden garden. I breathe in through my nose and find the air sweet and warm. Gabe's arms are still wrapped around me, and my whole body is tingling from the kiss we just shared. My arms squeeze him back, comforted that, for the moment, he is still with me.
"I love you," Gabe whispers unexpectedly in my ear, and my heart does ten thousand jumping jacks.
Wait, did I just hear right?
"I just wanted you to know," he continues. "In case — well — in case I fade away and don't come back next time."
"Don't say such an awful thing," I whisper back and tilt my face up to his. "I love you too, Gabe. I'm sorry I brought you here."
He stares deep into my eyes, and my heart clenches. "I'm sorry I blackmailed you into doing it. But I wouldn't change any of this for the world."
Well that's it, then. I am not about to let the first boy I've ever kissed — and loved — die of dehydration because he's stuck in a dream with me. It's just a dumb way to die.
I shove my shoulder under Gabe's armpit so he can lean on me. "Come on," I announce with more confidence than I actually feel. "We've got a princess and a book editor to find."
"Yes, ma'am," replies Gabe, not questioning my actions. Together we start winding our way through the garden, calling out for Mom and Evan. The going is slow because of Gabe's injury, but I urge him on. He could fade out of the dream at any moment.
The light in the garden is soft, like early evening after the sun has set on a summer day. Everything is tinged a warm pink, but I can't see any kind of sun. And there are soft tinkling sounds, like fairy bells, gently ringing in the background.
I sort of feel like I want to fall asleep — it's so calm and peaceful — but I make myself keep going. Gabe's life is on the line. Every square inch we half-run, half-hobble through is covered with green, but there isn't a single tangle or thorn in sight. It's all soft, waving plants with delicate leaves and colorful, pungent flowers. There is no sky. In fact, it's as if we're standing in an enormous greenhouse where the plants have just taken over completely. The ceiling is covered with leaves that curl down over our heads and watch us, silent and still.
The best part about the place is the lights. I have no idea what they are. Lightening bugs or fairies or just tiny twinkles — they're scattered all over the garden, half-hidden beneath leafy fronds and winking out underneath translucent petals.
And then I hear the singing. It starts out so quietly I can hardly distinguish it from the tinkling bells, but it grows and grows, and my heart leaps up into my throat.
"Gabe," I exclaim and tug on his sleeve. "It's Mom — it's her voice! I'd know it anywhere."
Gabe's eyes are starting to go glassy, and more of him has become permanently transparent. There are parts of his shoulder missing now, and the whole bottom half of his arm is gone.
"Yeah?" Gabe mutters, and he stares blankly out over the lush green carpet in front of us. "That's great."
Oh, this is bad.
"Mom," I cry out. "Mom, over here. We're over here!" I spin around in a circle, and the singing gets louder. Where is she?
"Do you see her?" I ask Gabe, but he doesn't answer at all this time. Instead, his entire body flickers again, like the flame of a candle that's about to be snuffed out.
"Follow me," I command him loudly, and he nods. We shuffle our way over to where the sound of Mom's singing seems to be the loudest, skirting around a quiet little pond filled with water lilies and frogs gently hopping from one green pad to another.
Gabe and I stagger through a patch of what must be wild flowers, whose size and shape are so extraordinarily and exotically beautiful they don't even look as if they'd be from planet Earth.
"Mom," I call out again, but the only answer I receive is the haunting sound of her singing. And just when her voice seems so loud I could swear she's just around the next bend, Gabe and I hit a wall of solid green. The barricade is so high, and so dense, there is literally no way to get through. The wretched thing seems to stretch for miles in either direction. We've hit a total dead end.
Then the singing stops.
The almost transparent Gabe blinks at me. "What happened to the music?" he asks in a faraway voice.
I snap my fingers in front of his face. "Gabe, stay with me," I order him loudly, and it seems to have some effect. His eyes clear, and he becomes a bit more solid looking.
"I don't feel right, Em," he says, and he gulps.
"Yeah, I know." I sigh.
Then Gabe jerks oddly. With a confused expression on his face, he holds his hand out into the air — the hand we can still see. Little drops of water plunk down onto his skin from the greenery above. Plop. Plop, plop, plop.
"What the…?" I mutter and squint up into the dense ceiling of plants. "It's raining." I throw up my hands in frustration. "Of course it's raining, when there's no sky, or clouds, or flipping atmosphere." I kick the wall of magnificent shrubbery in front of us as hard as I can. "Blast," I yell. "Blaaaaaast!"
"Em, hey. It's okay," the foggy Gabe insists.
He's trying to calm me down, but right now I don't want to calm down. The rage that has bubbled inside for over five years now is finally starting to erupt. It's the rage — and hurt, if I admit it to myself — of an abandoned twelve-year-old girl.
I whirl around, and the fear of losing him almost chokes my throat closed. "No! It's not okay, Gabe. Nothing is okay. Mom was supposed to be here, and she's not. So now what? What's the plan? You're dying, and so is Evan, wherever he is. Your body is shutting down out there, and I can't help you without sacrificing the other two. And I can't help them without sacrificing you." I can taste the desperation and hopelessness rolling off my tongue. I have to admit, it feels good to let things out for a change. My emotions have always been bottled up inside so I could take care of Mom, but now that my life has completely fallen apart, I have nothing to gain by staying quiet.
And then I start to get angry. Mom is the reason we're all in this mess in the first place. She should be the one dealing with it. How long do I have to just sit back and let her abandon me? I'm her daughter, for goodness' sake. And all I've ever done since Dad's death is try to protect her. She should never have put me in this position.
I start ripping at green wall in front of us, feeling the roots of the plants detach from whatever they're anchored to. I know I'm acting like a baby, but I don't care. I'm beyond reason.
"She left me, and she's never apologized. She gets to waste her life dreamwalking while I take care of everything," I rant. "What if we didn't have some freak genetic ability, huh? What then? Would she have killed herself to be with Dad?" I rip out more of the plants and throw them on the ground. It feels good to destroy something. "And now there's actually a hot guy who cares about me, and I'm stupid enough to embroil him in our family problems. I'm probably going to cause his death and the death of a squirrely book editor I hardly know but don't want to die. I'll be shipped off to jail — or a lab to be dissected. So th
is is just great. I hate her! How could she do this to me?"
"Emily, I don't blame you at all for hating me," a soft voice pipes up behind my right shoulder.
At the sound of the voice, my hands still, and my breathing catches. I drop the clumps of gnarled fern that are still smashed in my fists. Slowly, I step away from the wall and turn around.
And there is Mom, standing right in front of Gabe and me, her white-blond hair shining and a troubled look in her eyes.
A troubled look, but not a crazy one, I realize. My mother hasn't completely lost her mind after all.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Despite the millions of things I could say right now, I'm totally speechless. Mom reaches out and grabs my hand, and then I notice Evan standing by her side. He appears a bit pale but otherwise okay, with his awful plaid shirt, big glasses, and slightly goofy expression. His arm, however, is coiled protectively around Mom's waist. Well that's interesting, I think to myself.
"Hello Emily," Evan says and grins at me.
But before I have a chance to ask the two of them what's going on, or to tell Mom she needs to wake us all up pronto, Mom pulls me into her arms. Her familiar scent envelops me, and I breathe in vanilla and lavender. She smells like home.
"Mothers are supposed to take care of their daughters," Mom murmurs into my hair and gently strokes my back. The angry part of me wants to pull away — to yell, and scream, and punish her for all of the ways she's abandoned me since Dad's death. But there's another part of me that's not angry at all and just wants to melt into her embrace and be a little girl again.
"I'm so sorry, Emily," Mom apologizes, and she squeezes me tight.
I know she heard all the horrible things I just blurted out only a moment ago. "I don't actually hate you," I whisper into her shirt.
Mom pushes me back and holds me out in front of her, gazing deep into my eyes. "No, don't make excuses, Emily," she admonishes. "You have all the right in the world to hate me. I should pay for how I've treated you these past four years. I've been awful, letting myself become consumed by your father's death when I needed to let him go. And you're so mature, so good at handling things. I just allowed you take over." Two teardrops drip out of the corners of her eyes and run down her smooth porcelain cheeks. "When I saw you and Gabe being swarmed by those wasps, it all came back to me." She shakes her head and wipes the tears away. "I don't know how I let the depression get so bad that I'd allow myself to forget you. How could I let you be in danger and do nothing?" A shudder runs through her body. "It was the worst moment of my life."
I can't believe what I'm hearing. I grind the toe of my sneaker into the soft green grass and look down.
"Even worse than when Dad died?" I ask in a small voice.
Mom grabs my chin and tilts it back up. "Worse than when Dad died," she says firmly. "You're my baby. Your father's death ripped my heart out, but losing you would rip out my soul." She crushes me against her chest again.
"Mom, I can't breathe," I tell her, but the words come out all muffled. Inside though, I'm happy. There's this peaceful warmth spreading through me, and the ache in my heart begins to ease a little. Maybe things will be okay.
"Ahem," a deep voice rumbles beside me, and I'm jolted out of my gooey reunion moment. Things are not okay — not yet.
I pull away from Mom and glance over at Gabe. He's getting worse. His body flickers in and out faster now, and I can tell how hard he's trying to hold on.
"Anytime now, Em." He grimaces and points over at Evan.
Evan hasn't noticed it yet, but he's starting to fade out of the dream as well. We have only moments before the two of them completely disappear, and then it'll be too late. Their minds will be trapped in here while their bodies die outside in the real world.
"Mom," I exclaim, taking her hand. "We have to wake up, right now. Gabe and Evan won't last any longer, can't you see? They've risked their lives to come in here and find you, but our warning alarms went off a long time ago."
Mom appears shaken, but she squeezes my hand. "Yes, of course. But the dream hasn't begun to shift so how can we wake up?"
Blazes, I didn't think about that.
Great. Now what are we going to do? "Mom, you dreamed this dream on purpose, right, so I would know where to find you?"
"Yes," answers Mom.
"So you can change things in this one."
"I guess…" Mom looks doubtful.
"Mom, you have to try it. You have to make this dream end right now so we can leave."
"Emily, I don't know if I can."
I look over at Gabe just in time to see half of his body completely disappear.
"I don't care. You have to try," I order and pull her over to Gabe. I seize the hand of his that's still visible and hold tight to Mom. Mom grabs onto Evan's hand, and together the four of us form a complete, connected circle. One moment I can feel the warm pressure of Gabe's fingers against mine; the next I'm holding nothing but air.
"Come on. Do it," I urge her.
"Okay," Mom breathes and closes her eyes. "Let's all wake up," she states loudly. "For good, this time," she adds in a whisper, and I wonder if I've heard her right.
She squeezes my hand, once, and then everything goes blank.
I am nothing and nowhere.
And then…I am awake.
Chapter Thirty-Four
I blink once, then again. My vision is blurry, and my mouth feels as though it's been stuffed with cotton balls. Smacking my dry lips, I arch my back, feeling each vertebra creak in protest, and push myself up so I'm on my hands and knees. I rock back onto my heels and press the palms of my hands into my eyelids, rubbing them so hard a million tiny pinpricks of light burst into view.
I blink again, and this time my vision clears. It takes me a second to get my bearings, to remember where I am and why there are two people lying in front of me on the soft white carpet.
I glance up, and there is Mom, sitting up in her bed and running a hand over her hair with a dazed expression in her eyes.
Then it hits me. Gabe and Evan. They're not moving.
"Blazes!" I exclaim. "No, no, no. We can't have been too late." I force my jelly-like limbs over to Gabe. "Gabe, wake up," I command and shake him hard. But he doesn't respond. I can see his eyeballs moving back and forth underneath his closed eyelids, yet he doesn't stir.
"Mom, try to wake up Evan," I cry, and she immediately gets off her bed and hurries over to him.
"He's breathing," she informs me as I continue to try and rouse Gabe. "But I can't wake him." Mom is kneeling on the carpet beside me, her hands on both sides of Evan's face. "Oh Evan, don't do this, not now," she pleads with him.
"Why aren't they waking up? They were still with us in the dream," I cry out. "Mom, do something!"
It can't end like this. We can't have two dead people on our hands. Especially when one of them might just be the love of my life.
"I don't know what to do, Emily. I'm not a doctor." Mom slaps Evan gently on his cheek. It seems to have no effect. "Their bodies are weak, and they need water. How long have they been asleep?"
I remember we're back in the real world now, with wonderful things like electricity and food and running water — and wrist screens. I bring my screen up to my face and punch in a couple of buttons.
All the air whooshes out of my lungs at once. "Oh-thank-goodness. It's Monday! It's only Monday."
"What day did you come in after me?" Mom inquires nervously.
"Saturday morning," I reply. "That means it's only been two full days that they've been asleep." They're going to be okay, I tell myself. Gabe is going to be okay.
Two days without water is bad, but three will kill you. I checked it out on my wrist screen before we left. I take Mom's arm. "We have to get some water into them, pronto. Do you think we could wet a washcloth or something and drip it into their mouths?"
"There's only one way to find out," she says, and together we race into the kitchen.
* * * *
They're now sitting contentedly on our couch, wrapped in blankets, and we're all happily munching on a couple of sandwiches I whipped up.
I can't seem to stop touching Gabe. I want to make sure he's actually here next to me — that somehow we managed to pull off this whole ridiculous scheme. For a couple of minutes there, I thought I had lost him forever.