Ashes of Foreverland

by Bertauski, Tony

  “That’s why I like you.” Barb didn’t flinch. Her laugh had wicked notes, the husky crackle of tumbling cigarette butts. “Put that down before you hurt yourself. Sweet Jesus, have the coffee. I didn’t poison it.”

  Cyn heaved the coat rack into the wall like a spear.

  Outside, it was sunny and the weedy patch gone. The garden was back—straight rows of beans and beets and corn.

  Am I dreaming?

  “Of course you’re dreaming,” Barbara said. “But you’re not asleep. And that’s the problem.”

  “Then where am I? Tell me, goddammnit! Why the hell am I in the house like this, and the world is back to the way it was?”

  “You can thank your boyfriend.” She cleared her throat. “There’s some connection with him, something that pushes me deeper into your subconscious when he’s around. He forced me to discover parts of you that I’d never seen before, things that you don’t even know exist.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Beliefs, thoughts, the things that make you tick. Your psychology, child. I understand you far better than you ever will. Let’s say I’ve discovered some truths that needed to be learned. And now I understand what I’ve done.”

  “What truth?”

  “I can’t tell you the truth. You’ll have to see it.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Peace. I want peace.”

  “Then go away.”

  The old woman’s smile was grim. She stood with a slight groan and walked to the window, leaving a trail of expensive perfume. Birds fluttered around the corn.

  “What is real?” Barb asked.

  “Not this.”

  “And how do you know?”

  Cyn started to answer, but nothing would come out. Everything that defined reality—eyes, ears, nose, mouth, touch—was all here. To her senses, the garden, the music, the candles were all real.

  “Where am I?” she whispered.

  “You’re lost, Cynthia. Like so many in the world, you’re lost. But we can find our way back. We can find the truth.”

  The old woman faced her. Her steeled eyes had softened. She looked kinder. There was no smile, but there was no resistance. No more you should kill yourself.

  No more separation.

  Barb had been in her subconscious. She knew the underworld of Cyn’s thoughts, whatever was in there. What else did she know?

  “Why now?” Cyn asked. “Why are you friendly now?”

  “I told you, I learned the truth, down there in the dark subconscious. I suppose I have your boyfriend to thank for that, for forcing me down there and facing it. Let’s say I know how to solve this standoff between us. I’ve had a change of heart.”

  “Tell me what to do.”

  A kind smile brushed her lips. Barb walked softly across the room, stepped over scattered photos and reached for the door. The music, the candles, the grandfather clock faded as she pulled it open. Outside, the wind howled across a gray landscape, branches scratching the weathered railing and the slumping steps.

  “Remember how to fall.”

  “Fall?”

  “Open your eyes, child. See what I see. Know what I know. I bring you the truth of where you are.”

  Barb offered her hand.

  Cyn hesitated. It could be a trap. The old woman had fought her all these years and still lived inside her. Maybe this was a new attack: woo her with kindness before shoving Cyn into the dark subconscious.

  As long as it’s not the Nowhere.

  Cyn was tired. With one fist clenched, she reached out.

  She accepted Barb’s hand.

  Her body seized like she’d grabbed a hot wire, voltage gripping her nervous system.

  “Open, child. Open and fall.”

  This was the moment of standing on the precipice, looking into the chasm of the unknown. This was how she escaped Foreverland the first time, by surrendering to the present moment.

  By falling.

  Cyn unclenched her fist.

  She let go of the hatred, the piss and vinegar, the clinging to what was rightfully hers. She wiped away the separation in her mind so that there was no Cyn.

  There was no Barb.

  No us.

  No I.

  Just Am.

  In that moment, Barb’s thoughts rose to the surface, titans surging from the dark. They didn’t have teeth or claws, didn’t consume her. They simply told her where to find the truth.

  The door slammed.

  Cyn stood inside a dilapidated room with rotting furniture and a broken clock, the smell of mold and neglect. There were no pictures on the floor or coat rack stuck in the wall.

  She opened the door and took the steps one at a time to find Danny. She knew where they needed to go, what they had to do.

  You are the bridge.

  26. Danny Boy

  The wilderness of Wyoming

  Danny woke up shivering.

  The windshield was frosted. The rain had stopped sometime in the night. He heard sniffing and leaned against the driver’s window. A thick mane of fur was investigating the crease of the door. The pack circled around the SUV. The pack leader stood in front of the brick house. One by one, they trotted around the house.

  Danny looked through the brick house for the tenth time. He went back to the camp and sat inside the SUV until he stopped shaking, then started a fire.

  What if I’m all wrong?

  Doubt had punched him in the throat, convinced him that his delusion brought them out here to die. He read through the letters, held them up to the sky to reveal any hidden messages, imprints he may have missed.

  Once the past uncovered,

  And the demon cast out,

  Only then forward you move,

  To live without doubt.

  He’d brought her to the wilderness to fall again, to face her demons. But where the hell is she?

  The house was empty. There were no open windows, no back doors for her to escape. The door slammed like the house had swallowed her whole.

  Danny examined the two discs that had been sent with the poems. His disc had a blue edge; Cyn’s was yellow. Other than that, they were identical. They reflected the firelight across the beige fabric of his coat, the pattern mottled from the arrangement of pinholes and strange angles at which they were drilled.

  Build the bridge.

  That was the message, yet the discs didn’t contain any directions on how to build anything. There were no images or messages in the reflection, no grooves that contained data. The pinholes could be some rudimentary code, some altered form of Morse code.

  Or maybe they draw code.

  He found a pencil in the glove box. Using a manual as a straight edge, he stuck the tip into one of the holes and rotated it like a wheel, producing a scribbled mess. He reached for Cyn’s disc, the one with a yellow edge, and the discs magnetically stuck together. They were easy enough to pull apart. He rotated them until the holes were aligned.

  The patterns were exact matches.

  “What bridge?” His voice echoed in the distance. “Build what bridge? Tell me where you are, Reed! What the hell are we doing?”

  He stomped around the fire, kicked up clods of mud, and heaved logs as far as he could. The pressure of survival weighed on him like stones. Somehow he’d lost Cyn, there wasn’t much food left, and winter was almost on them. He had to keep moving to avoid letting the weight pull him deeper.

  Pretty soon he was running.

  He ran in no particular direction, zigzagging across the field, coming back to the fire, then up the hill, pumping his arms until his ankles burned and his thighs were numb and his chest was blowing up.

  He fell on his knees.

  The cabins and brick house were just over the hill. He wanted to throw the discs into the great wilderness, lose them in the obscurity of nature. If Reed wanted a bridge, he could mail plans next time. Danny curled his finger along the blue edge of the disc, tested the weight, imagined the sun flashing off the
silver surface as it twisted into the gray air—

  A wolf howled.

  It was long and lonely, rising from over the hill. Danny turned for the campsite when the pack answered. They were striding around the SUV, all of them except one.

  The alpha male howled from over the hill again.

  Danny stayed on his knees, his heart thudding in his throat. There would be no running. No hiding. He had given in to a moment of weakness, took the bait, threw a tantrum. This was the end. He dropped his chin.

  This is where it ends.

  At least he found her. At least, for a moment, when he held her hand, he slept without guilt. In those moments, he left Foreverland behind and dreamed of a better life. He hoped Cyn felt that, too.

  Wherever she was.

  The howling had stopped. They were coming for him. The alpha male came into view and stopped at the crest of the hill, looking down on him while the pack snuck up from behind.

  Danny closed his eyes. I’d rather the wolves take me than the needle.

  The alpha male sniffed the ground. Eyes still closed, Danny felt the weight of the pack circling. Their footsteps grew louder.

  A shadow fell over him.

  “Danny.”

  She stood in front of him—short, ragged blonde hair and a baggy sweater billowing in a sudden breeze. She was calm and deep, as still as a midnight pool, yet he sensed the tension of a predator, one that could spring without notice.

  “Is it you?” was all he could say.

  She reached out and took his hand. Warmth flooded his arm, filled his mind. Her presence was as large as the distant mountains.

  Doubt was vanquished.

  She touched his face, dragged her fingers down his nose, over his lips, and drew him close. She smelled of sweat and things old, but her kiss was sweet. There was something else, something so intense that it tingled in his sinuses, something wafting out as they held each other near the crest of the hill—fragrant and floral, richly permeating everything that was her.

  Lilac.

  Somewhere, the wolves howled.

  ——————————————

  They slept in the SUV that night.

  Danny did not dream, not of tomorrow or today. It was just a long blank dream canvas where all his hopes rested in complete silence. They woke with hands clasped, saints in prayer.

  They packed the camp before the sun rose, left no trace of their existence.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “To make a delivery.”

  She wouldn’t tell him where she had been or what happened. She told him to set the GPS. The wolves stood across the meadow and watched them drive out of the wilderness forever.

  Toward New York City.

  WINTER

  To have everything,

  Is to have nothing.

  The opposite is true.

  Jonathan sat at a round table.

  The man across from him was overweight and sweating. His eyes were set too close. He stared at Jonathan, unblinking, as his fingers rapped against the desktop like the tips of ten-penny nails.

  Monitors were mounted side by side. Video, which Jonathan could only assume was streaming from other labs, was on display with bar graphs and dynamic charts and scrolling numbers.

  The door opened. Neither Jonathan nor Beady-eyes looked up, holding each other’s gaze. A man in a gray suit, jacket open, leaned over the table, red tie dangling. Beady-eyes spun in his chair and the two proceeded to whisper, occasionally looking over the table.

  Jonathan waited patiently while Beady-eyes pointed at the screens and pecked at various keyboards. The suit stood back, arms folded, and watched. Beady-eyes turned his small eyes back on Jonathan.

  The suit pulled up a chair.

  “Mr. Deer.” He sighed. “This is all very complicated.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m sure you do.” That was sincere. “You understand there is no room for error in what we’re doing? We can’t estimate, not one single item. Vagary will leave the result up to chance, and neither you nor we have the right to guess at what you want us to do. You understand?”

  “Of course.”

  “So when you say you want to use your memory, we have a problem.”

  “I didn’t say memory.”

  Beady-eye’s knuckles whitened, fingers interlaced like a wrecking ball.

  “I’m capable of carrying the data,” Jonathan said.

  “For two hundred and four fabrications?”

  “I’ve given you the physical specs for each one.”

  “But not the personalities.”

  Jonathan nodded slowly. “I don’t have them yet.”

  “And you want to start production without them?”

  “I’ll have them.”

  “Timing is critical, Mr. Deer.”

  “I understand.”

  “I don’t think you do.” Beady-eyes pounded the table. “When fabrication is finished, there has to be a personality matrix uploaded immediately. If you’re late or there’s a problem, you’ll stand by and watch them rot.”

  Obviously, Beady-eyes had seen this before.

  “I understand the timing,” he said. “And I’ll be there.”

  The suit and Beady-eyes argued some more. In the end, they couldn’t stop Jonathan. He’d paid for the service, their bosses accepted. Jonathan would make the delivery.

  Or die trying.

  27. Alessandra

  Upstate New York

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  Liquid sunlight dripped onto a desert in steady, even strokes. Like a clock. A metronome.

  A heartbeat.

  The beat measured the seconds of the day. But it wasn’t sand that caught each golden drop. It fell into Alex.

  Heavy, heavy Alex.

  She floated in a dream, not knowing it was a dream—a nowhere of sweetness—until she neared the surface, close enough to taste real life.

  Her eyelashes cracked.

  She stared at a popcorn ceiling. Up there in the catacombs of her misty mind was her name, but she couldn’t see past the fluffy grit, the swirly texture. It was just a ceiling.

  There was no name.

  There was a warm place beneath the covers. She reached under the downy comforter, expecting to feel a dark spot spreading across her midsection where she had wet the bed. She was nude, but dry. Her bladder, full.

  The blinds in the window were dark. She began drifting beneath the surface again where nothing mattered, where her dreams would cradle her in a warm embrace.

  What’s my name?

  When the bedroom door opened, she didn’t recognize Samuel at first. It took a few seconds to recognize her spouse, then a few more to remember his name. He appeared fuzzy. Even after she blinked several times, he still appeared to be a double image out of focus.

  “Hungry?” He placed a tray on the dresser.

  He had gone away for a few weeks.

  She seemed to remember a sudden business trip and complications, something to do with the government and CIA, top secret service that required his anonymity. He texted and emailed, but didn’t have the service to call.

  But now he was here, every day. He appeared when she woke up, always with food and a smile. Steam rose from a teacup; the scent of chamomile mixing with her body odor rising from beneath the covers. It wasn’t a bad smell, but it made her wonder when she showered last.

  Samuel sat on the bed; his musky scent, his manly allure pushed into her senses. He took her hand and massaged her fingers one at a time, kneaded her palms, rubbed her arms until her eyes began to roll. She smiled. It was impossible not to.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “It’s about that time.”

  She looked around. Where are the clocks?

  “I got to pee.”

  “Want a pan?”

  “What?”

  “Joking.”

  Samuel made shushing sounds, rubbing and stroking and caressing. If there wasn’
t pressure in her midsection, she’d have pulled him under the covers and let him do things to her.

  She peeled herself away and urinated in the bathroom for what seemed like hours. Her head, resting on her knees, was a sandbag. Thoughts and memories trickled through the fog, things she should be doing but no longer wanted to.

  There were interviews and drafts to write, chapters to edit. Deadlines to meet. It could wait. It could all wait. Even, she thought while flushing, personal hygiene.

  Samuel was under the covers. His shoulders were bare and bronze; muscles bunched along his arms. She slid next to him, fell into his embrace and forgot about those deadlines.

  Life was too damn good.

  ——————————————

  Samuel was gone.

  Sunlight cut between the blinds.

  That side of the house faced west, which meant it was afternoon. Judging by the angle and length of the dusty sunbeams, it was late. Had she slept an entire day?

  It was impossible to know.

  She wrapped a robe around her nudity and bent a single blind. It was clear and sunny, the window chilled. A school bus rolled down the street, followed by laughter.

  A pang of guilt struck her. Or is it sadness? Or both?

  Somewhere in the endless blue sky, thunder rumbled.

  The bed is new.

  She couldn’t remember ever sleeping in a king with comforters that thick. And she slept right in the middle, like it was all hers. She couldn’t remember falling asleep, just remembered the rhythm of Samuel’s embrace. Now it was mid-afternoon and there were things to do, but the thought of sitting at the computer, of punching those keys and staring at the screen was empty. She wanted to sleep, to sink deep into the mattress and into a dream where nothing hurt, and nothing bothered her.

  Pots and pans rang downstairs. Samuel was cooking.

  The front room was spotless. All the shelves had been dusted, the carpet cleaned, the throw pillows just the way she liked them. Samuel was stirring a warm pot of stew. She loved stew on a lazy winter day.

  “Don’t you have to work?” she asked.

  “Working at home.” He sampled the pot and stirred. “Skyping a conference a bit later. Thought we could watch a movie tonight.”

  The laptop was on the kitchen table, a background photo of Alex on the screen, her eyes closed, a slight smile. She couldn’t remember that picture—maybe Samuel took it while she was sleeping.