Alec tried hard to imagine the places he’d already visited, but it didn’t work. It was as though he remembered them, as if they were real, very real, memories, but... well, it just wasn’t the same. Reliving memory is a poor substitute for living in the Present. He had to experience his dreams in the Here-and-Now, not as some detached fragment of history. When he sat on the gilt throne of Russia, he sat on it in that very moment. He crossed the deserts, the wilderness of the Gobi, the unforgiving oceans, here and now.
2
Princess Sandra
At first he didn’t see her. He felt her. Very gently. It was as though someone were watching him from very close, yet without ever touching him. On the second day, he thought he saw a girl’s face smiling at him from the mirror. At first he was scared, but she was so beautiful. More beautiful than any girl he’d ever seen in his life. Not that he ever looked at girls very much. He had other things to do. But this...
The second time, he saw her image in the window when he was drawing the curtains. It was already dark outside, and the glass acted like a dark mirror. The face, a smile rather than a face, glanced at him and was gone. Alec pulled the curtains apart again, but to no avail. There was no one. In or out of the house. The room was quiet; there was no wind outside. The night was at peace. Alec was not.
He had to think about this. What was going on? Am I going crazy?
He almost went to tell his mother about it. She might explain it all to him. It was all very strange. It didn’t make any sense. Yes, he mused, my mother would know.
Or… on the other hand, she might decide to take another trip to Dr. Schmidthousen and his teeth.
The risk was too great. He couldn’t share his visions with a complete stranger. Even with mother it wouldn’t have been easy.
He lay flat on his bed in a position in which, until recently, he enjoyed such marvelous imaginary travels. He lay back and tried to think things through. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going crazy. Just relax, he told himself, as though nothing bothered him at all. As though he didn’t care. Eventually he convinced himself that it had been one of his daydreams. Slightly out of control, but a daydream. Slowly his mind cleared and he thought of nothing.
It was then that he heard a voice.
“I’m sorry,” it said.
Very slowly, Alec opened his eyes. There was enough light in the room for him to know that he was alone. Anyway, the door was closed, as were the windows.
“I didn’t know how to contact you...?”
This time the voice was just a little more distinct, although it wasn’t really a voice. It did not come from outside. Alec was used to hearing many voices on his travels. He assumed that finally, after a month’s break, he was finally getting somewhere. Only usually he ‘saw’ the places first—then he heard voices. Then he heard people talking. This was the other way round.
“Can you hear me?”
The voice was definitely that of a girl. Maybe the same girl he’d seen.
“Of course,” he said out loud.
“Ouch...”
“What?” he almost shouted.
“Please, not so loud,” the girl’s voice said in an urgent whisper. “I asked if you could hear me. There is nothing wrong with my hearing.”
“Sorry.” Alec didn’t know what else to say. “You’re the girl in the mirror,” he added, mistrust still in his voice. “Aren’t you?”
“I am Princess Sandra.”
“I am Alec,” he said. What else could he say?
“Of course.”
“You know me?” Slowly Alec was drawn into the conversation. He was not traveling anywhere; he was neither dreaming nor imagining things. His eyes were wide open, he was aware of lying on his bed, of the ceiling above him. There was familiarity all around. Yet he heard her voice as distinctly as though she were sitting right next to him on the... well, on the chair next to the bed. Perhaps more so. More clearly, I mean.
Alec was too experienced a traveler to ask her how come he could hear her. What’s more, after a whole month of doldrums, he was hungering for new experiences, new thrills, even if it meant talking to a girl.
“Why did you come?” he asked.
“Because you stopped traveling.”
“I didn’t want to...” He was instantly on the defensive. Then he interrupted himself, “You know about that...?”
He felt silly. Of course she knew. She’d just said so. He hated making a fool of himself, especially in front of a girl. Suddenly the passing image in the dark pane flashed before his eyes once more. A beautiful girl, he corrected himself.
There was a giggle. “You think so?” She giggled again.
“I think what?” He suspected what was coming. He cringed.
“That I am beautiful.”
“How do you know?” Alec was trying hard to maintain his composure. He’d never, ever told any girl she was anything, let alone beautiful. There was another quiet giggle followed by a moment’s silence.
“Where are you!?” His tone rose again.
“Shhhh... You know I can hear you. It hurts a little when you speak too loud. Anyway, you know where I am. I’ve been here for a long time.”
“What?” Luckily the shout of surprise came out as a whisper.
“Well, I’m your... there isn’t really a word for it. I’m sort of your other half.”
Of course. What could be simpler? I am talking to my other half, who is not in the room but I can hear her every word. I must sleep more and give up the Internet for a while.
“Oh no, not on my account...” Sandra pleaded. Her voice was sort of diluted, as if she were drifting farther away. Suddenly Alec got scared.
“Don’t go!” he said in a tone halfway between a plea and command.
He desperately needed company. Not of other boys who could only kick a football or swing their baseball bats, but someone to spend time with when he was alone. The moment he thought that, he realized that he was in trouble. How on earth can you spend time with someone if you’re alone?
“You are now.”
Her voice was like a caress. Like the beautiful smile in the mirror. Alec blushed even as the thought crossed his mind. He half expected another giggle, but happily none came.
“Yes, I am, aren’t I…” he mused to himself. This was great! I mean it was nice, he quickly corrected his thought.
“Are you staying here long?” He tried hard not to sound too hopeful.
“Of course. I’m here all the time.”
“What do you mean?” His voice rose again.
“I told you. I am your second half. I really don’t know how else to put it.”
“You mean that without you I’m incomplete?”
“Of course!” This time her voice smiled but there was no giggle. “We are like two peas in a pod. A single pod, but two peas.”
Alec chewed that over. "How come we never met? Before, I mean?"
“I don’t know.” She sounded a little sad. “I suppose you never really wanted to, before, I mean.’ It was funny how she echoed his words.
“You mean it was up to me?”
“Oh, yes. It always is.”
Now this needed thinking over. There she was, true, a girl, but this couldn’t be helped. Anyway, as long as nobody else saw her, there wouldn’t be any snide remarks from the guys. They always had to make jokes about girls. No matter what they did. Girls were this, they were that. Always something. If girls were so bad, how come they could never stop talking about them? There were other subjects? He couldn’t tell them about his own fantastic voyages. They were his and his alone. Not even his mother or father knew about them. He’d tried to tell them once or twice, but then he overheard them saying that it was his overactive imagination. They said he would soon grow out of it.
That last thing they said really hurt him. Really hurt...
He did not want to grow out of it. Never. His journeys into the unknown were the most wonderful times he had. They were better than anything. He would r
ather die than give them up. Sure, he liked school, but he had few friends. Not really close ones, but still. None he could tell about his trips. They would laugh. Or call him a sicko. Or worse.
Perhaps it was his size. He was shorter than most boys in his class. Not very good at sports, the team sports, that is; he’d learned early to keep to himself. He could hold his own in chess or other games that did not require physical ability. He liked walking by the river, but others preferred to play. Together. Always together. In a crowd. He hated crowds. The very same boys in a crowd behaved differently. It was as if they were continuously in competition. As if they always wanted to outdo each other. What for? He never discovered. Alec had no desire to do anything better than anybody else. He only wanted to do his own very best. Regardless of what anybody said.
And now?
And now he had a chance not to be alone. To share his innermost thoughts and not be laughed at. Well, perhaps a little giggle, but not really a laugh.
“Can I see you?” he thought out loud.
“Yes and no.”
“What sort of an answer is that?” he wanted to know. He wished she wouldn’t talk in riddles.
“I’m not. You can and you can’t. Or can, depending on... Oh, I don’t know! This is the first time we are talking like this.”
Alec didn’t want to hurt her. Least of all lose her. Girl she might be, but she was here and now. In the Present. He didn’t have to travel anywhere to meet her. And, well, and she did appear to be beautiful.
“I didn’t mean to offend you.” He really was contrite.
“Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For still thinking that I am beautiful.”
“Oh...”
Alec was exasperated. The boys talked stupid, but girls weren’t all that easy, either. Why were they so obsessed with beauty? His father once said it was only skin deep. That was after his mother spent two hours in front of a mirror making herself nice for him. Alec remembered he thought his father wasn’t nice that time. Well, what if they are obsessed with the way they look? There are worse problems in life. Even if you’re just thirteen years old.
For a little while there was silence.
“Why is it so important to you?” he asked.
“How I look?”
“Yes.”
“It isn’t.”
“But...” Girls were always exasperating.
“It is not important to me how I look. It is important to me what you think of me,” she explained, and even as her voice formed in his head, he grew closer to this very voice. It was almost as though he were talking to himself, only much, much better. There was an intimacy that he’d never experienced before. Not even with his mother. Close, but not the same.
Alec supposed that she might well be right. He was never really concerned how he looked. His mop of unruly hair giving him the appearance of a precocious absentminded professor, his relatively big head, the object of some school-time ridicule, all seemed of little importance. His mother always told him that his blue eyes looked like the bluest sky on a late summer day. He always found the skies on late summer days on the gray side, what with all the pollution that Dad always talked about. Still, he seldom saw his own eyes. A mirror was something only girls used. Or so he thought.
And this brought him back to Sandra. Princess Sandra? He got up from the bed and walked out to the mirror in the hall. He looked and looked, but no beautiful girl stared back at him. In fact, she seemed to have disappeared.
“Sandra?” He whispered.
Silence.
“Damn.” He knew it was bad to swear. “Damn and damn again,” he thought.
He clenched his teeth. “Damn!” he repeated out loud. But Sandra was nowhere to be seen. Nor heard. She was gone.
***
“This,” Alicia thought, “this,” she repeated aloud with even more determination in her voice, “just isn’t good enough. No, sireee, not nearly good enough!”
There, she felt a little better now.
It was hardly surprising. With Alex Senior apparently determined to make sure that all towns and cities north of the 60th parallel had airfields with melting equipment embedded in concrete runways, heated by geothermal energy, and Alec Junior spending endless hours hitting a tennis ball, she was destined to stay alone.
At home, alone.
“While both my husband and my son are having fun!”
She didn’t actually say all this, but as far as she was concerned, both men, well, men-and-a-half, in her life, must take it as said. “So there,” she added, this time examining herself in the mirror.
Not bad, she thought, not bad…
And then she added, “What a waste…”
Yet in spite of her appearance over which she was taking great care, she was determined to find herself a hobby to compensate for being a grass widow. Except for winter, when both her men stayed more at home, she was spending endless hours trying to determine which dress to wear, what to cook for dinner, or what was the latest gossip stimulating the lives of her lady friends who, more often then not, were in the same soup as she was, so to speak.
She had her books, of course. She’d read them all—some twice. Mostly on art. Sometimes she thought that she’d already read all the books that were worth reading.
And then it hit her.
Since she was a little girl, in school, she had been told that her little sketches and drawings, colored with her crayons, had been good enough to be published. Not that anyone had offered her an actual contract, but still…
“You should get a job as an illustrator of children’s books,” she recalled her bespectacled teacher telling her. Perhaps she had bad eyesight, she mused.
No. She really meant it. So long ago…
“I’ll do it,” she said aloud. She got in a habit of speaking aloud when she was alone at home. Somehow it made her less lonely. “I’ll do it!”
She did it.
Starting that same day she went out and bought some tubes of watercolor paint, a number of sheets of artist’s paper, a collapsible easel, and some brushes.
“Sable, Madam?”
She had no idea what sable was.
“Of course, these five,” she replied, with a straight face. So that’s sable, she smiled. Of course, she repeated, this time to herself.
The moment she got home, she set the easel up. Next she had to find something to paint. She had no idea what. There were no children’s books to illustrate.
And then she remembered the aquarelles she saw at Joan’s house, in Westmount. She had a number of paintings, mostly oils but also a few aquarelles. The watercolors were all of flowers in full bloom. They were light, in color and texture. They captured light that seemed to sit on the leaves and flowers in a magic garden.
She opened the window.
It was a bit chilly.
She went out again, and drove to the nearest flower shop. An hour later she was back with a two pots of amaryllis almost in full boom. One was salmon the other tending towards red, still unfolding.
This was the first time that she got nervous. Nevertheless, she spread a newspaper on the table in case she’d spill some water, squeezed some pain on her palette, and picked up a brush.
That was when time stopped.
The next thing she heard was her son slamming the front door. Not loud, but enough to break her trance. The painting was virtually finished. The two plants seemed to embrace each other, with the blooms on the verge of a flowery kiss. She smiled.
“They are as happy as I am this moment,” she said, still to herself.
Alec charged in as though chased by wild boar.
“Mom, that’s beautiful!”
She had no idea if her son was referring to the two pots of amaryllis or to her painting. She didn’t care.
Why did I wait so long, she asked herself? This time quite silently.
3
The School
The next morning as Alec walked to school, his head
was full of remorse. He was really annoyed with himself.
Walking to the mirror had been very rude. One doesn’t walk away in the middle of a conversation without saying a word. It just isn’t nice. He must have offended her. Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. A man behind him only just pulled up short of falling over his heels.
“Sorry, sir!” he said quickly. “I forgot something,” he lied.
The man didn’t say anything and walked on. Alec hated lying. He never did it on purpose. Sometimes it just popped out. “Sorry,” he repeated under his breath, this time to himself.
What stopped him in the middle of a busy sidewalk was something he’d just remembered from yesterday’s conversation. She said she was Princess Sandra. Princess! For crying out loud! He walked out in the middle of a conversation with a Princess. Without so much as a beg your pardon.
“I walked out on a Princess... How could I have been so stupid?” he asked himself. “How could I have been so stupid???” He shook his head from side to side as he walked on.
And then his parents went on holidays. For the first time Alec was left alone in the house.
Actually, this wasn’t quite true. There was a neighbor across the street that kept vigil over Alec’s welfare. She was a retired widow, who liked nothing better than to pick up a pair of binoculars and keep a keen eye on Alec. Alicia had asked her not to butt in, but if there was any suspicious activity to contact Pete’s parents. Pete was Alec’s tennis partner, and also lived next door. But under no circumstanced was she, the widowed Mrs. or really Madame Ouelette, to let Alec know that he was being watched. On the other hand, although in many ways Alec was a precocious boy, and although his father thought such precautions quite unnecessary, Alicia felt better knowing that, if need’s be, Alec can get all the help he might need.
As far as Alec was concerned there was no supervision, no babysitters, no neighbors looking in on him to make sure he didn’t set the house on fire. He was alone, free. He was the master of the house, the master of his time. He was the master of himself. That was when Sandra came.
ALEC: An Action & Adventure Fantasy Novel (Alexander Trilogy) Page 2