James in the Real World

by Owen Todhunter

  They prime themselves to devour their prey. James looks at her and has two crystal clear thoughts. The first is that he forgot to ask if dying here meant dying in the real world. The second is that he only had to form the words in his head, and salvation would come. He prays for wings. He prays for a hero. He prays for Eryr. Just as the beasts begin to charge forward, a beast emerges from the sky. James puts his arms around Shavoni, pulling her arms into her side. Bundled up in a safe package, Eryr plucks them off the earth. They do not take a second glance down. Instead they look forward, bracing themselves for the tail of the storm.

  Before long, they loosen their grip upon each other as they reach a great expanse of neon blue. James looks around to face the black clouds. In it he hears Hal’s distant voice. The It Shavoni keeps referring to is the Shadow that James knows too well. Fully aware of his presence in its domain, it now taunts him. James can run for now, but he certainly cannot hide. He reminds himself of his job.

  “I’ll see you soon little brother.”

  CHAPTER 16: Cancer

  James returns to the castle to find much has changed in the short time he was gone. The distant planets are no longer visible in the sky. All that remains are the two suns. The easterly of the two is noticeably dull. It most likely burnt out eons ago, dead to everything but the naked eye. There are no berry shades to describe the dusk this evening. It is a sickly pale yellow, its colour all bled out. It appears the universe is retreating, leaving this sorry place to fend for itself. The hills in the distance bulge with sad distinction. The lakes are drying up and the rivers turn grey with age.

  The snow-capped mountains begin to melt away, revealing the sandy stone below them. The harsh wind sinks its teeth into them, ripping away great chunks of rock. The mountain groans as a slow-moving avalanche grinds down its face. The sheet of rubble cuts deep into the soft surface, and finally comes to rest in the colourless valley. The very earth is beginning to turn against itself. As far as smells, there is only ash. It now serves a reminder that all the good salts of the earth will soon be taken by the fire.

  James is beginning to see himself as a cancer. He is an ungracious, unwelcome visitor. His fear and angst is multiplying and taking over the healthy cells of Navoeth. He has disrupted the ecosystem, and upset the natural order of things. Shavoni said things were bad before he arrived. The landscape is wretched, unhealthy, broken. James wonders how all this can be. He feels as physically strong and self-assured as he ever has. Why is the world growing weak? He grimaces at the irony of his situation. To finally feel at ease, is to watch the world suffer. The land has absorbed his grief, and he its strength.

  He tells himself he does not deserve to be here. Instead, he deserves to feel the pain of a broken body. He cannot do any good here. Whatever the Shadow is, it has a power over him he cannot defeat through physical force. He must find another way. He must find its source, somewhere beyond the farthest mountains. He must meet the Shadow on neutral territory. Perhaps that place lies back in the ruined city. He saw hatred in the wolves’ eyes. But he saw something else. He saw the look of an injured animal. The Shadow used the creatures as a smokescreen, but dared not to show its face. James needs to understand it. Then, perhaps, he can finally defeat it. The only other common occurrence is how quickly the Shadow comes and goes. It lingers in the distance, but to muster its full force must take a tremendous amount of energy. It cannot sustain itself for any great length of time. Not unless its victim chooses so. For the most part, it relies on the black clouds to slowly choke their victims into submission. James must catch it at its weakest.

  The very ludicrousness of James’ thoughts flood over him. He is standing in a castle, devising battle tactics to defeat an enemy which shape-shifts between rabid dogs and storm clouds. He wants to wake up but he cannot. Dream inducing drugs are making very sure of it. The only other thing keeping him here is the raven-haired girl he watches on the hill. She tends to a rugged chestnut horse, cleaning its hooves and feeding it from a bale of hay. The animal drinks from a trough connected to the walls of the castle.

  She turns to lead the horse inside the gates. Eryr suddenly emerges into the clearing near Shavoni. It spooks the horse and it gallops ahead. Shavoni stands her ground and smiles, dwarfed by the giant bird. She plucks from the trough a still thrashing fish, its scales glistening red against the fading sunshine. The eagle gladly accepts the catch and nuzzles its head into Shavoni’s side. James marvels at such compassion from another human being. He marvels at such love from a beast. How can something so powerful, of such aesthetic purpose, be so vulnerable? So loyal? It is as though Eryr and Shavoni depend upon each other, much like everything else in this world. Light upon darkness. Fear upon anger. Peace upon war. Creation upon destruction.

  Eryr has saved James twice already from certain death. Whatever death in this world means. He owes both her and her keeper his very life. James tells himself that they are the very brightest of lights. He cannot allow the Shadow to take them from him. Shavoni is the most kind-hearted person he has ever met. He created her, but she has become something much more intricate. She is capable of anything. Better still, when James is around her, he feels he might be capable of anything. Shavoni understands him better than anyone ever has. As James contemplates their chemistry, a stranger interrupts.

  “They won’t come back tonight.”

  The voice startles James. He turns around to see a frail old lady. She wanders over until she stands beside him, placing a wrinkled hand upon the wall. With her other, she holds her miniscule weight against a wooden walking stick. Her hair is a greyish mess, her legs pale and thin. She looks out at Shavoni, then turns a soulful face towards James. Her eyes are deep and blue and full of pensive wonder. James imagines the million days they must have seen. Her body is cloaked in a flowing floral dress, several sizes too large. He has seen this dress somewhere before. His mind flicks the pages of family scrapbooks and photo albums, but comes up empty. He cannot quite put his finger on it. All he knows is the dress looks out of place. This old lady looks out of place.

  With a little extra gusto, she repeats, “We won’t be seeing them again, we won’t.”

  James knows her voice. He does not know where or when he has heard such a bouncy British accent. Each syllable that curls around and off her tongue is stretched out for maximum value. They present themselves in a series of “oo’s” and upward inflections at the end of the sentence. It is a simple statement that almost seems like a rhetorical question. Stranger still is the fact that no one apart from Shavoni has talked to James since he arrived several earthly days ago. Everyone around the castle seems too scared to even acknowledge his presence. They do not understand him, and when people do not understand something, fear becomes the default emotion. For some reason, this lady isn’t scared.

  “Why is that?” James finally replies.

  She smiles dimly towards him. The resignation in her face washes over any joy there was to be had.

  “The eastern sun. It is the younger of the two, and it has already burnt out,” she laments.

  She then turns James’ attention to the only bright spot in the sky.

  “The western one is not too far behind. It’s getting far too dark nowadays. Too dark even for the Shadow,” she dolefully adds.

  James looks to the western sun, still bleeding its colour across the sky.

  “What do you mean by that?” he asks hopefully.

  “The Shadow needs the light just as much as we do,” she says through paper-thin lips.

  “What will it do when there’s no light left?”

  James’ question seems to perk her up, as a flash of red blushes through her cheeks.

  “It will die too, I suppose. They know as well as we do, it cannot live forever. The best it can do is prolong its own existence.”

  She looks over at James, her face straining with deep concentration. She stands on tippy-toes, and with a nod of her head, silently asks James to bend down. He obliges, and her mist
y brown eyes meet with his.

  “What is your name young man?”

  “James,” he replies softly.

  “James, hey? Well that is a lovely old name, my handsome darling boy.”

  James is embarrassed by her flattery. Still, his curiosity gets the best of him.

  “What’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  She smiles once more, only this time her mouth stretches wide like the mouth of the Mississippi.

  “My name is Vanessa!” she excitedly announces.

  “That seems like an odd name for someone of your generation.”

  James instantly regrets his observation. Vanessa does not seem to mind.

  “I’m sorry James. Were you expecting Debbie or Beatrice?”

  “Well kind of, yes,” James says with a laugh.

  “Well maybe I’m not as old as I look. The years have not been so kind to all of us. Your lovely friend down there calls me Nessa. She makes me feel young, she does. I call her Von and she hates it. She is beautiful, isn’t she?”

  James knows what he wants to say. It’s a simple question with a simpler answer. Still, he feels uneasy expressing such a notion out loud.

  “Von thinks quite highly of you, she does. You do know that James, don’t you?”

  James is quietly confident, but he thinks of a way to deflect the attention of such a critical question.

  “Do you think she’d mind if I called her Von?”

  “Ha. I think she might slap you in the face if you ever called her that, James. Then again, she might just love you for it!”

  James looks down to Shavoni, herself looking back with concern.

  “I think she heard us talking about her,” he jokes to Nessa.

  Only, Nessa is gone. James is talking to the walls. He paces around looking for where the old lady went. When he finally gives up, he looks back down to see Shavoni making her way up to him. He walks down the staircase, and passes the family portrait he saw that first day. He sees the beautiful mother who reminded him of Shavoni. She wears a flowing floral dress. Shavoni appears through the doorway, panting heavily as she labours up the final few steps.

  “Who were you talking to James?” she asks.

  James’s eyes remain fixed to the portrait on the wall.

  “Is this your family in the picture, Von?”

  The footsteps grow quiet. Her breathing stops.

  “What did you just call me?”

  It is more a spiteful inquisition than a question.

  “Wow, I guess she was right. You really don’t like being called that.”

  Shavoni bounds forward, her footfall echoing loudly through the thin corridors.

  “Who told you that? Who were you talking to? Tell me now, James!”

  James is taken aback by her sudden brashness. He has never seen this side of her.

  “Calm down,” he pleads. “It was Nessa. Did you not you see her?”

  James’ explanation neither calms nor quells her bout of rage.

  “No James, I did not see her,” she says matter-of-factly.

  “Do you know why I didn’t see her James?”

  After such steady recent progress, James is once again unsure of himself.

  “Ah…”

  “Because James,” she interjects, “Nessa was my mother, and my mother is dead. I told you only today that she died. Is this some sort of cruel joke?”

  “No!” James appeals. “I…”

  “She is the only person that ever called me Von. How could you have possibly known that?”

  James looks again at the portrait. He scratches his head, before looking back at her.

  “I was just talking to her,” he begins. “I’m sorry, but this doesn’t make any sense. If this little girl is you in the photograph, the old lady I was talking to is way too old to be your mother. She must have been in her eighties.”

  Shavoni barely takes notice of what he says.

  “None of this makes sense. You think you saw my dead mother, James. What else did this lady say to you?”

  “Nothing. That was all she said.”

  James did not want to reveal too much. The suggestion that Von may have feelings for him was too much to divulge, for fear she would deny them.

  “She had a different voice, a different accent to you. Like a British accent.”

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Maybe I was just imagining it.”

  “Well you are in a dream James, perhaps you’re imagining all of this. How could you possibly see the ghost of someone you’ve never met?”

  “I don’t know. I swear to god. But it wasn’t like that. It was like I had met her before. We couldn’t remember each other but there was something familiar about her. That accent, I’ve heard it before. Dammit, where have I heard it before?”

  And then it clicks. James’ emotional intelligence floors him once again. The castle evaporates. Navoeth vanishes. The scene changes but Von remains. He is seated in a wooden chair. He looks into the mirror behind Von and sees a 12-year-old version of himself. He sits at the kitchen table trying hard to comprehend his maths homework to the soundtrack of Sticks and Stones. The battery on his iPod runs flat. Instead of Jordan Pundik’s soothing nasal tones, he is forced to listen to an obnoxious unidentifiable British sitcom playing on cable. His mum moves from the kitchen to the couch, and James’ eyes slowly wander off the page. His mother lets out a belly full of laughter at the screen. There’s a heavy-set black-haired character, her shoulder tattooed with a Welsh dragon. A boiling sound gives way to the pleasant smell of spaghetti and meatballs as dinner overflows upon the stove. Suddenly the annoying lady on the show seems a little less annoying. The sitcom continues. Gavin enters the room with Stacey in tow.

  “Hiya Nessa!” Stacey asks excitedly.

  “What’s occurin’ Stace,” Nessa deadpans in return.

  They all take turns speaking like Yoda, speaking their sentences in reverse until another joke sends James’ mother into further bouts of hysterics. Her face turns Napolitano red, before she leaps up and daintily skips to the kitchen to rescue dinner. The memory lasts less than a minute before the scene turns black, neither in Navoeth or in the past. The 12-year-old James is gone. His mum is gone. All that remains from the memory is the table, with James and Von sitting at opposite ends. The background to the dream is blank; nothing more than a beige canvas surrounded by rough black edges. He runs his fingers over the red-cedar table, admiring the chipped corner. It is a result of one of his clumsy efforts at clearing the table, dropping a ceramic bowl which suffered a far worse fate than the sturdy table top. His dad cursed him, while his mum praised him for the voluntary effort of completing the nightly chores. Von is confused by the entire scene, but feels a warmth as she looks at James’ face. He has not smiled for some time now.

  James imagines the possibility of such a peaceful moment in the real world. Could Von ever be more than a dream? More than a memory? Could he ever bring her back? If he could, he would love to see the look on Dr Shaw’s face when he told her she was wrong. He would ask his therapist if she has ever had a dream within a dream. The way James felt it just now, is like chasing water down the drain. One can feel the substance, but it is nothing more than a figment. The subject matter is not yours to hold onto in the first place. They involve an initial rude awakening, followed by the realisation that the subject is still asleep. The washed-out filter is the only way to know the subject remains within the dream realm. Waking up twice from a dream tricks the subject into believing the day has already been spent. It is disconcerting to say the least. When it happens, it is best suggested that the subject spends the day completely out of routine and character. This will help to alleviate the dreaded déjà vu that engulfs every waking minute.

  Then he considers the other possibility, the idyllic state of Navoeth. Not waking up at would be something entirely different. The day would be endless. Navoeth is endless. When the sun sets here, another takes its place. At least
that was the natural order. The two suns are slowly dying. Soon, it is the nights that will be endless. James does not know how meaningful his days will be if he ever fully recovers from his coma. He has no choice but to find meaning in his dreams. He feels a pressing sense of urgency knowing Hal has little time left. Perhaps he never stood a chance.

  CHAPTER 17: Alone in the Woods

  Once the smell of meatballs disappears, James and Von return to Navoeth. She hates being called that, but it rolls off his tongue so nicely. They do not return to the castle, and instead find themselves back inside the cave; James’ birthplace into the new world. He breathes a sigh of relief from the damp, stagnant air around them.

  “Where was that?” Von asks.

  “My house,” he answers.

  “And how exactly did we get here then James?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can we call out?” Von says as she feels around the cave walls. “We need to get back home,” she hurriedly adds.

  “Eryr can’t hear us. Something is blocking us out,” James says in a resigned tone.

  “We shouldn’t be here James. I have a bad feeling about this.”

  Though James cannot see her, her shaky fingers feel around and finally latch onto his. She attempts to pull him but he resists. Accepting she does not have the strength, nor the sense of direction to get them to safety, she decides the best course of action is to talk their way out.

  “Answer me this then James, why did you bring us here?”

  “I didn’t mean to. I’m not controlling this.”

  Deeper within the recesses of the cave, they hear a low growl. Ahead of them a set of red eyes pierce the veil. She starts to panic.

  “It’s here James. We need to get to go.”

  “No, it’s not that,” James assures her. “It’s something else.”

  “How do you know that James?”

  “Because I just do. Wait here.”