Sleep No More

TWENTY-FOUR

Real life smacks me in the face as soon as I leave my bedroom. Sierra’s door is closed but Mom’s working in the office with her small television on. More about Clara. It’s been four days now and the doctors still can’t give a solid answer on whether or not she’ll live to tomorrow, much less the next fifty years.

Her parents have managed to come out of her room and make brief statements and every station just plays the clips over and over. Thanking people for their support, a call to find the monster that did this to their daughter.

Am I that monster, at least partly?

I tried to protect her from as much of her attack as possible, but I know I could have done more.

But then, what would the cost have been? Another kill I wouldn’t have gotten a vision of, like Eddie? And what if I had ignored the vision entirely? Clara would be dead. But I hate that I made that decision for her.

I’m not sure I can survive another day cooped up in this house with the television constantly reminding me of what I’ve done. What good is it to have power over the future when the tragedy is in the past? I wish I could just go back to bed and sleep the day away, but even I can only sleep so much.

I manage to pass the hours by playing my new Harvest Moon game, attempting to reread my favorite book, and taking one short nap. It’s the first time in my life I wish I had homework. I’m considering working ahead in my trig book just to numb my brain.

Finally it’s about time for Linden to arrive and I get nervous, hoping I haven’t ruined things by already living a version of what tonight could have been. I chide myself for being silly—real life is always better than dreams; it’s like books and movies. But even so, I pick different clothes from what I was wearing on the supernatural plane last night.

Just to prove that I can.

The weird sense of déjà vu doesn’t bother me when Linden walks in with the exact food he had last night, and especially not when it’s just as good in real life. My aunt joins us and I make those introductions.

That’s a change too. It was just the three of us in my dream last night. I try not to read any meaning into that, but I can’t help but wonder if she’s watching me.

If somehow she was watching me last night.

I don’t know how that would even be possible. But I’m starting to question every tiny thing.

Sierra sits silently at one end of the table while Linden keeps us all cheerful with new jokes and stories we haven’t all heard multiple times. I’d never before considered that the life of three single people all trapped living together might be a little, well, boring, but after the light and energy that Linden has brought to our table tonight, I wonder what it will take to make the house not feel empty.

As soon as the food is gone, Sierra excuses herself with a murmur and a quick grin, and Mom pleads a backup of work. With a significant glance in my direction, she declares that she will retire to her office instead of joining us for the movie. With zero adult supervision, there’s a chance that tonight’s reality might come close to the excitement of last night’s dream sequence.

Close. Surely I’m not quite as brave as I was last night in my own head.

We go through my DVD collection, debating the merits of this movie or that, but the looks we exchange make me pretty sure neither of us is going to actually watch much of whatever show we pick. We settle on The Princess Bride—nothing like a classic—and proceed to get rather busy not watching the movie.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Linden says, the tip of his nose running along the edge of my earlobe and sending a massive shiver of pleasure down my spine. “You must be going crazy cooped up here all day, every day.”

“Pretty much,” I whisper back as steadily as I can. For probably the hundredth time, I marvel at how odd it is that the best and worst things that have ever happened in my life are happening simultaneously.

But tonight I push everything else aside and just let myself be with Linden. To love the feel of his hands as they explore my body and the whisper of his lips on my skin, in my hair, and of course, on my lips. Despite the supernatural life I live, and the isolation that I know lies in wait for me in the future, this experience is so fresh and new I feel like a little kid.

The movie is almost over and my nerves are thoroughly, though pleasantly, exhausted when a tinny chime peals through the den. Linden pulls out his phone and the screen illuminates his face in the darkness.

“It’s my parents,” Linden says. “Time for Mr. Bodyguard to bring me home.” The alarm bells start to sound very softly in the back of my head as he nestles his lips against my neck. “I’d rather stay here.” His lips find mine, but I can hardly respond as he kisses me. I mean, I knew the scene I was in last night was a possible future, and it’s followed fairly closely tonight. But the word-for-word dialogue is a little disconcerting.

I laugh inwardly at my paranoia. It doesn’t have to be that way. It was just a dream vision, and I don’t have to play my part. So I try not to speak, to hold my mouth shut, but the words tumble out anyway. “I’ll walk you out to the car.”

Wait. No. This isn’t right. I should still have a choice.

“No.” Linden says, just like last night. “The guy will come to the door. I don’t want you exposed to danger for even a second.”

I look up into his face and again, I fight to hold my mouth closed. I don’t need to ask him this. I don’t have to. “Are you afraid?”

What’s wrong with me?

The hesitation—the flexing of his facial muscles. They make me want to cry. “For you? Yes.” Where do these words come from? Are they his and I simply heard them ahead of time last night, or did I make this happen?

“For yourself?”

“Sometimes,” he says. And before his fingers make contact with my face, I’m already familiar with the feeling. “But I would risk a lot of danger to see you.”

I stand in the doorway and watch his guard escort him out to the car. He pauses before he slips into his seat and I know he’s waiting for me to close the front door. He won’t leave until I do.

I made all of those choices last night. I decided which paths to follow. So is it my choice when I step back and close the door, or did I dictate my own future in my dreams last night?

The scenario was different. I wasn’t a third party like I have been all the other times. I was playing myself in the dome. Does that change things?

And the way I got into the scene in the first place—the way it rolled down without me willing it to. Did I do that? Did someone else do that?

And if it was just me, was everything Linden said and did tonight a lie?

I trudge down the hallway, almost forgetting that my mom is still awake. She turns her chair around with a smile. “So?” she asks.

I have to smile for her. I have to make the edges of my mouth go up even though I feel like my world is crumbling to pieces in my hands. “I think I love him,” I say, shocked at myself when the words come out. I wish I could take them back. What the hell will Mom think of that? Even though she’s known about my “crush,” she doesn’t really understand the years of pining, of wanting, of knowing I would never have him. Only to get him after all.

And not know if it’s real.

The Christmas party, I tell myself. That was before I’d figured out anything about my second sight. I couldn’t have possibly made that happen.

Mom simply smiles at my declaration and says, “Are you kidding? I’m half in love with him myself.”

I laugh, but inside I want to cry, especially when she takes my hand and squeezes it. “It’s about time you had someone in your life. And lord knows we could all use a little happiness right now.”

That may be true, but some of us deserve it more than others.

I’m turning to leave when my mom adds, “The doctors are saying that Clara’s condition has moved to stable, but that if she doesn’t wake up soon, she probably won’t.”

I back out of her office, slowly and silently, in case she hears me and decides to say something else. I can’t handle any more tonight.

In my bedroom, I pull on stretchy yoga pants and an old, faded T-shirt and climb under my comforter. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t think much about the fact that I had put myself actually into the scene with Linden while on the supernatural plane. Did that make a difference? Did I dictate my own future because I put myself in the scene? Or did I simply live out the one that was going to happen anyway?

But it was so exact! Sure, I was able to wear a different outfit, and Linden did tell us ahead of time that he would be bringing Italian food. And there were other differences. Most notably, Sierra joined us.

But that conversation. Not only was it word for word, I felt like I couldn’t not say the words. It was like a strange compulsion. That was how Smith always described what we do in my visions.

There was an Oracle using her powers on me, somehow.

But was it someone else, or was it just me?

A tiny spark of an idea begins to shine inside my mind. If I can put myself in a dream scenario and make it come true, shouldn’t I be able to put myself in a real vision? One I know is going to happen?

I don’t think I can just create a scenario in my supernatural plane that has me revealing the murderer—even the dome only holds possible futures as of that moment. I don’t think I can invent a future from nothing. But if I get a vision of the next murder and take the victim’s place in it, I can bend the future to my will. Can’t I?

I dig the pendant out from under my bed and loop it around my neck with the stone clutched in my fist. I have to practice putting myself into my dream scenarios tonight. Because if I can put myself into a dream vision, surely I can put myself into a foretelling vision. And that is central to my plan.

A plan that will only work if I can do the two things I think I can—the two things that Smith told me I couldn’t: affect the physical world while in a foretelling, and change the future while dreaming on my supernatural plane.

Which begs the question—did Smith actually not know, or has he been lying the whole time?