When You Believe

by Jessica Barksdale Inclan

  “Come on,” she said, tracing circles on his chest. “I promise to keep it all secret. It’s in my best interest to do so. Otherwise, I’ll be carted off to the loony bin in a white van. Straitjacket and everything.”

  Sariel pulled her close, kissed her hair, breathing in her scent. It really couldn’t hurt. He was going to take Miranda’s memories. Tomorrow. Just before he left. He had no choice. None at all.

  “Well? I’m waiting?” she said, her voice filled with a stubborn, pretend pout.

  Sariel smiled, trying to remember how Zosime taught them the basics of traveling by thought.

  “Not everyone can do it,” she had said. “But most of us can. You have to start imagining it when you’re young.”

  Sariel turned onto his side to look at Miranda.

  “If I tell you, you can’t write poems about it. Some odd secrets you have to keep secret. Not like you did about flying.”

  Turning to him, she smiled. “You read that? It’s a terrible poem. I’m not done working on it.”

  “You can’t even write a terrible poem about what I’m going to tell you.”

  Her eyes sharpened. “Wait a minute. You’re supposed to say it’s not a terrible poem.”

  “You don’t sound very interested in travel. Why don’t we talk about flying instead?”

  She punched him lightly on the arm. “Okay. I promise.”

  He kissed her forehead. “It wasn’t a terrible poem.”

  “Tell me.”

  He cleared his throat, wondering how to explain something that he did automatically now. It was like trying to explain how to swallow or breathe or cry. But he remembered his mother, Zosime, and how she explained it to him and his brothers.

  “So,” he started, running a hand through her hair, looping curls on his fingers, “here it is. Energy is everything, everywhere. The human body has about enough energy inside it that if we released it all at once, it would be like twenty or thirty hydrogen bombs.”

  Miranda snorted. “So why haven’t we all burst open and exploded?”

  “Because,” Sariel said, “most of us aren’t very good at releasing it. The energy is trapped.”

  “That’s good news,” she said. “Otherwise, what a mess.”

  “Miranda, you have to be serious. I’m not kidding.”

  “Okay, okay. I think I might still be with you,” she said.

  “Good. So energy doesn’t necessarily always flow but is made up in individual packets. You’re a packet. I’m a packet. These packets are called quanta. But even though we’re individual, we’re all part of the same field of energy. Energy is liberated by matter—matter is energy waiting to happen.”

  He looked at Miranda, who was biting her lip, her forehead creased. “Quanta?” she queried.

  “Look, we’re all together. We’re all the same. The same energy. The whole universe. The whole world. People, animals, stone, air, water. We look separate, but we’re not. Atoms and molecules are in continual movement, dense or not dense. In quantum mechanics, there’s a theory called—”

  “Wait,” she said, leaning up on an elbow. “This is too much for me. I can barely understand how a television set can pick up a show from the air,” Miranda said.

  “Well, that’s easy to exp—”

  “Don’t bother. I got D’s in science. It’s a miracle I got into college.”

  “You’re too smart. It can’t have been that bad.” He pulled gently on a curl, letting it go and watching it swirl back into shape.

  “Indeed it was. I still think osmosis is a metaphor.” She pressed closer to him.

  He laughed, remembering how he’d doodled while Zosime talked. Felix was the only one who really knew how a penseur de mouvement worked the atomic universe, though he rarely chose to use his talent.

  “Just tell me how you start,” she said, leaning over him again. “Tell me how it feels in the body. Tell me what you have to think about.”

  Sariel closed his eyes and tried to find the words. “Well, I have to hold you when I travel with you. I’m thinking for us both. So I put my arms around you, and I imagine the world like an infinity of atoms. Everything between me and my destination had been rendered into a large, moving wall of energy that I think of as the gray. All I have to do is think myself—and you—into the part of the energy I want to go as. And then I open my eyes, and we’re there. Because in a way, I was already there. It’s all one same big space. One giant pie of energy.”

  Miranda was silent. He could feel her heart beating against his chest. For a second, he wished he could do exactly what he just explained and take her to his house in Marin, keeping her out of this world, her world. He wanted her to be with him, but ,even as he imagined Miranda working in his garden, traveling with him to Council meetings in England or to other countries for work, Sariel saw that it could never happen. Relationships with Moyenne weren’t impossible, but the Croyant member of the couple usually slipped away from the Croyant world, magic too confusing and too difficult for the Moyenne partner to accept. Then there were children to consider. It was always easier to slip into an ordinary life, stay under the radar, let the kids grow up ignoring the magic of one parent. But it was harder to stay under the radar now due to the threat from Quain. As Quain loosed his power on the world, such a relationship was dangerous on top of everything else.

  “Can you hang out in that energy wall? Can you live in there?” she asked. “I mean, can you get stuck? It must be pretty big.”

  Sariel caught his breath, and then exhaled, slowly. There it was. His dream, his nightmare, the one he’d had since childhood. In the dream, he is always running through the gray waves, matter streaming all around, through him. He can’t find, he can’t find… whoever it is he’s looking for. He’s calling out but makes no sound. He needs to find this person. He’s trapped. Alone. Something evil is coming for him, is next to him, is upon him. No, he cries. But then he’s awake and sweating.

  He shook his head and then pulled Miranda closer. “Not that I know of. But it probably wouldn’t be fun.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it. I’d much rather be here with you.” She kissed his shoulder, his ear, his cheek.

  “So you believe all this? My weird stories?”

  Without saying anything, she ran a hand along his side, down his thigh, and then back up, kissing his eyelid. “You’re here, aren’t you? I didn’t see a taxi drop you off. I never see you leave. If I’m crazy, you’re the best hallucination ever. If this is crazy, I want to stay this way.”

  “And you won’t write about it? Not even for another Holitzer?”

  She lifted her head and stared at him. “How do you—oh, I know. I must have been thinking about it.”

  “No, I saw the letter on your dresser.”

  Miranda laughed into his shoulder and then stopped, her mind filling with an idea. And that was when he heard her thought, her desire, felt it loud and clear. But before he answered her, he turned to look out the window. Early light was glinting on the bay, the morning dove gray and quiet.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Take me to that coffee place you were thinking about a minute ago. The one that opens before five. Serves the best coffee, makes the huge croissants.”

  “You are the spy, Sariel. Please don’t let anyone ever say different. Don’t let them say I was the spy.”

  Sariel pulled away the blankets and sat up, lifting her to his lap. “I won’t ever let anyone say a thing about you, Miranda. Not one thing.”

  They were the only two people out on the street. Periodically, a car would race by, the driver loving the feel of driving in the city unfettered, no traffic, long lights, or traffic cops cramping style or speed. The coffee shop had just opened, and they were the first customers, ordering lattes and croissants to go. On their way back to her apartment, Miranda carried the bag of croissants and her coffee, looking at him as they walked.

  “What?” he said, turning to her, smili
ng. “What is it? What are you thinking?”

  “About you.”

  “Me, what?”

  “You out in the real world. Drinking your coffee. Eating your pastry. Looking like a regular Joe just before dawn.”

  “What else am I supposed to do?” he asked. “How did you want to go to get coffee?”

  “I don’t know. Move us there by magic. Can’t you materialize food or something? Or is that too Star Trek?”

  “That’s too Star Trek.”

  “There’s no spell for food?” Miranda stopped walking. “What if you were trapped on an island or lost somewhere? Couldn’t you make something to eat?”

  He stopped, turning back to her. “Fine. Yes. We can do that. But we like to cook, too. You know. Enjoy the experience. Slice onions. Mince shallots. Taste the sauce.”

  “Are you enjoying this experience?”

  Sariel shook his head, watched her in the earliest of morning light, the sky opening into a slight pale blue above them. “I love this experience.”

  “Good.” She walked up to him, and as she did, he heard what she was thinking, the same thought she’d had in bed. She stared at him unblinking.

  “No, I can’t do that,” he said.

  “Please,” she said. “Oh, come on! Take me somewhere. Take me somewhere I can’t go because the flights are too expensive, even with the prize money from the Holitzer. Paris or something. Berlin. The Arctic. Cleveland, even.”

  And then, as he looked at her standing on the sidewalk, her hair wild, her face so beautiful, he knew he wanted to take her everywhere. How they would travel! If only she were someone else. If only she were Croyant. They could be like he’d imagined he and Kallisto should have been, together always, moving around the planet, twined in each other’s thoughts, paired in a way Moyenne could never be.

  Miranda walked up to him, put her hand on his cheek, looking into his eyes.

  Sariel shook his head. This was intolerable. Why make it worse by pretending? Just as he was about to stop Miranda from asking him again, kissing her into forgetting her request, he felt the first tentative request in his mind—someone wanted to speak to him.

  Sariel closed his eyes, feeling for recognition. Who was it? Who was calling him now? Then he recognized the tone, the laughter, could almost see the raised eyebrow without seeing the face. It was his younger brother Felix.

  What now? Sariel thought. I thought you were going to be busy with that wild bunch from Hana.

  Turned out to be drug dealers. Moyenne drug dealers. They had some pals who were helicoptering in their supplies. I didn’t stick around once I called the authorities.

  So why are you bothering me?

  Bring her here. I heard what she wants. Just for an hour. I’ll make pina coladas.

  Don’t you need your beauty sleep? Sariel thought back.

  Not necessary. You know I’m the best-looking of the whole lot. So bring her. I’m juicing a pineapple as we think. Hurry up.

  I shouldn’t.

  Always the shoulds. Look how far that’s gotten you. Lighten up, bro.

  “You ready?” Sariel turned to look at Miranda, who was smoothing her white sundress and adjusting the slim straps on her shoulders. He brought a hand to her arm, whisking it up to her shoulder, cupping her smooth flesh under his palm.

  Miranda smiled. “I guess I’m ready. I’ve never been to Hawaii at night or ever, so my dressing options are limited. Is this okay?” She smiled at him, looking shy. She brought a hand to her hair and tried to press it smooth. The moment she took her hand away, the curls bounded back to life. Sariel wondered if Felix would mind if they didn’t show up—he’d rather spend what remained of his time with Miranda in bed, no dress, no pina colada. He’d rather spend the time alone with her because there was so little left.

  But she was so excited, her thoughts racing: trip, hug him tight, don’t let go, don’t get stuck in the gray. His brother. You’re meeting his brother. Don’t let go.

  Don’t let go, Sariel wanted to say. Ever. But instead he smiled and nodded. “Perfect. Just the right dress for a two A.M. visit to Hawaii.”

  Sariel walked up to her, breathed in her sweet toothpaste breath and the flowers in her face lotion. He put his arms around her, feeling her body against him. “Don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not scared,” she said, but she was lying. And it wasn’t just her thoughts of being stuck in the gray or lost that betrayed her. She trembled, her arms and legs shaking.

  He pressed her tighter and brought them into the gray, imagining Felix’s house in Hilo, seeing his brother sitting on his lanai, a drink in his hand, and then they were there.

  “Finally,” Felix said. “I’m already on my second.”

  Sariel let go of Miranda, but took her hand, squeezing it. She was dazed, her eyes wide, her thoughts almost electric. She blinked and then shook her head, looking at Felix.

  “Oh. Hello.”

  Felix smiled, put down his drink, and stuck out a hand. “Felix Valasay. Sariel’s younger, much better-looking brother.”

  Sariel rolled his eyes, knowing that it was true. When they were younger, people often mistook them for twins, both with the same shade of hair and light, almost golden brown eyes. But there was something about Felix—maybe it was that his eyes were just a shade lighter, verging on green in the sun. Or his hair was a bit longer, hanging down to the middle of his back. But Sariel knew it wasn’t what Felix looked like on the outside. Really, the three brothers were cut from a similar cloth, but Felix was just a shade different. It was his confidence, the way he could do what he was doing now: shake Miranda’s hand, smile at her as if she were the most interesting woman in the world. Of course, Sariel had to admit, she was the most interesting woman in the world. But he was acting with Miranda the way he acted with all women. Felix had always been able to bring home women whenever he pleased, but remained…

  Free, Felix thought, winking. Shut up. And let me focus on your lady love here.

  Sariel turned to Miranda, taking her hand. At his touch, she softened, relaxed, her body uncoiling, her thoughts turning lighter: the air is so warm; is that the ocean? Am I here? She looked at Sariel and then back at Felix.

  “Well, I’m not sure about better-looking,” Miranda said. “It might be a tie. But I am a bit partial to him, especially because he’s going to really save me a bundle on airfare.”

  Sariel smiled but felt the feeling fake on his face. Felix heard his thought and thought back, Enjoy the moment. Sariel shrugged.

  “Wait a minute,” Miranda said, taking her hand from Sariel’s. “Are you two talking? That’s not fair. Turn it off, okay? I can barely handle a conversation with Sariel through regular channels.”

  “Okay,” said Felix. “Will do. Bro?”

  Nodding, Sariel turned off his thoughts, the world going from omnidimensional to almost flat, sound becoming a one-note tune. It always took him time to adjust to the plainness of the world without telepathy. And it made him sad that Miranda would never know what it felt like to hear and feel it all.

  “Shut down,” Sariel said. “So where are these drinks?”

  Felix asked them to sit down, and he poured them each a large glass of a frosty concoction. “Here you go. My specialty. Cheers.”

  They raised their glasses, and Sariel sipped, watching Miranda, who was smiling even as she sipped.

  “So,” Sariel said. “What are you doing up at three in the morning? Not tired after checking out the tourists? Don’t you have better things to do than send your feelers out to me?”

  Felix put down his drink. “Just a little restless from work.” He shot Sariel a glance. “A little follow-up to do. So I thought to myself, what is my big bro doing? What could that sad sack possibly have going tonight? And to my surprise, well, sorry to interrupt!”

  Miranda flushed, but she was still smiling.

  “So how long have you two known each other?” Felix asked.

  Miranda looked up from her drink. “Just a fe
w days. But your brother saved me from a gang of your pals. And fixed my broken ankle. But it took me a while to realize he wasn’t a dream or a ghost. I’m still not totally convinced. I have this feeling that any moment I’ll wake up in the insane asylum with a nurse standing over me, yelling, ‘Doctor, Doctor, she’s come to.’”

  Felix laughed. “Stay with Sariel long enough and that will happen no matter what.”

  “Very funny,” Sariel said. And then he really heard Felix’s words: Stay with Sariel long enough. There would be no long enough. He took another sip of the too-sweet drink and tried not to cough.

  “So what do you do, Miranda?” Felix asked.

  “Oh, I’m a poet.” Miranda flushed and shrugged.

  “Hey,” said Felix. “You said that in the same tone you might use to say ‘axe murderer’ or ‘sex offender.’ As far as I know, a poet is a good thing.”

  “I hate saying it out loud. Some people think it’s pretentious. Like I live in a garret wearing a beret, smoking Gauloises, drinking absinthe, and talking about Nietzsche. Mostly I say I’m a writer, and people assume I’ve got steady work at a newspaper or something.”

  “What does a poet do, then?” Felix asked, smiling. “I mean, I always assumed smoking and drinking and writing about death was an industry standard.”

  Miranda smiled at Felix, and Sariel realized he’d never asked her how a poet lived. But then again, he’d watched her, seen her thinking and typing in front of her computer just yesterday. He’d first seen her after she’d read her poetry. Poets lived, well, like Miranda.

  “I spend a lot of time reading. And I sit in front of my computer staring at the screen trying to figure out how to turn ideas into words. How to describe the heart with language. How to take a moment of indescribable beauty and not weaken it as I write it down. Mostly, I sit around writing drivel, waiting for the miracle.”

  “Don’t listen to her. She’s a wonderful poet,” Sariel said, suddenly feeling so heavy and stuck in his own thoughts that he wanted to get up, wrap his arms around Miranda and leave. How could he just watch her, her skin pale in the Hawaiian moonlight, her eyes dark with excitement? How could he listen to one more minute of this when he knew it had to end?