“I really need to go,” she says, blinking fast. “This is the LONGEST dream, and I’ve got to wake up. I don’t want to sleep the night away and miss the whole Mars approach. Well, I do want to miss it, but it’s important to my dad, so…” She starts pinching her arm again. Then she squeezes her eyes closed and open, closed and open. She takes a big gulp of air (we don’t have oxygen here, which begs the question of how she can breathe), holds it, then lets it out. “Ugh,” she says. “I’m still here.”
My father taps his large foot impatiently.
I repeat my previous question. “So, um, how did you get here again?”
“Honestly,” she says, “I don’t really remember falling asleep. One minute I’m looking through Dad’s scope at the sky where, as usual, nothing is happening, and then I must have fallen asleep because suddenly I see this old lady with flour on her face, pulling a pie out of an oven.” She pauses. “I think it was apple.”
“And then you were here, in my father’s office?”
She nods. “Pretty much. That dream faded into dark and then this one started. You know how dreams are.”
I don’t, actually, since we don’t dream here. We don’t sleep much, either, maybe once every few months. But I nod politely.
She looks around again, clearly trying to make sense of her surroundings. I try to see PTB headquarters through her eyes, with her limited senses. Like the rest of the universe, The Realms are made of concentrated energy disguised as matter. But in the rest of the universe, all the matter—all the stuff—is made of tiny dancing particles inside only slightly larger atoms. And except for hydrogen, almost all those atoms, including the ones that make up her own body, were forged inside exploding stars. Here in The Realms, those tiny particles aren’t so tiny. Humans are made of trillions and trillions of atoms, of all different elements. We are made of only a hundred atoms and only primordial elements, the ones that were here at the very beginning of space and time, the ones that no other beings in the universe can see. We are more gas than solid, more energy than matter. Our surroundings shimmer and glow, vibrate and pulse. Sounds weird, but you get used to it.
As for the people, the inhabitants of The Realms mostly look like the kind of people she’s used to. We have brains and hearts and skin like most of the species in the universe, but we are very different from them. Basically, we are only a bit denser than our surroundings. Like a liquid on Earth, we can mold ourselves to fit any container. Last century it was very trendy to take the shape of Blopies, the purple blobs from a planet with a really weak gravitational force in the Whirlpool Galaxy. The Blopie craze died out when people missed having hands.
I’m suddenly not sure how much I’m supposed to say to this girl, this living, breathing human. Do I tell her she’s in The Realms, and that this isn’t a dream? Do I explain that the PTB made it so her entire solar system never actually existed? All because of her? I want to ask about Kal, but it’s all too much to process. I glance at Dad for help.
“Permit me to explain,” he says, stepping closer to us. The girl flinches but holds her ground.
“I am Joss’s father, and you could say I run this place.”
No longer hindered by her huge coat, Annika crosses her arms successfully this time. “No disrespect, mister, but you don’t run my dream.”
A flash of anger crosses my father’s face, but it is gone so quickly that her senses wouldn’t have noticed even a flicker in his expression.
“You are right, of course,” he says. “I will defer to your nocturnal flights of fancy.”
“Good,” she says. “Whatever that means. Well, since this dream won’t seem to go away on its own, I’m gonna curl up and ignore it till it does. So… see ya.” She takes her coat from my hands, drops it to the floor, then lies down on top of it and closes her eyes. Instantly, gentle snores fill the cavernous room.
Dad and I share a surprised glance. The PTB grumble angrily. Really, no inhabitant of The Realms would EVER treat my dad this way. But Dad motions all of us to the other side of the room.
“Let her be for now,” he says. “Joss, you wait here until she’s ready to talk again.”
The PTB hurry out, probably glad to be released of any responsibility for the strange girl. Gluck the Yuck is the only one who stays with us.
“Dad, you promised to get Kal back.”
He glances at Gluck before answering. “It’s not that easy.”
“You’ve been saying that a lot today. Everything’s easy for you. You’re the Supreme Overlord of the Universe!”
“True,” he admits. “But I still have to abide by the same fundamental laws of nature as everyone else.”
Gluck puts his hand on my arm. “Listen, Joss. What happened to Kal is very straightforward. As the arrow of time sped backward, his parents got younger and younger. As the billions of years wound down, and the last of their essence was lost, Kal was lost, too.”
I turn to Dad for verification of this. He nods. “I’m sorry, son, but look on the bright side. Kal doesn’t know he’s gone, so he’s not suffering.” He gestures over to the sleeping girl. “And now you have a new companion. She seems… nice.”
“And she has a lot of spunk,” adds Gluck.
I know they’re just trying to be helpful, but do they really think Kal, who was supposed to be my sidekick for the rest of eternity, can be replaced by a strange girl from a terrestrial planet who hates red parkas and will live no longer than a few billion heartbeats? I shake my head. “Gluck has pimples that have longer life spans than her.”
“Now that’s just rude,” Dad scolds.
“I’ll let it go,” Gluck says, “since you’re obviously upset.”
“How can she even BE here?” I ask. “We don’t have an atmosphere like Earth’s at all. No oxygen or sunlight or any of the things she needs to live.”
Dad shrugs. “And yet she lives.”
“For now, anyway,” Gluck adds.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You saw how easily she fell asleep.”
“So?”
“Never mind that now,” my father says. “We have more important things to worry about than her sleeping habits. We have a living human in The Realms for the first time in the history of the universe. This is exactly why the consequences for viewing The Realms are so swift and dire. Anomalies like this.” He grimaces, but I wonder if it’s heartfelt. My father enjoys a good mystery too much not to be enjoying this at least to some degree.
My thoughts are swirling. Kal is gone. Annika is here. And then it hits me. “But Dad! If Annika is the one who saw Aunt Rae, and she’s stuck here in The Realms, then she can’t tell anyone about us. That means you can bring back her planet without having to worry about upsetting the natural order of things, or whatever you said before. And then Kal and his parents will come back!”
Dad grips my shoulder. “Joss, I cannot bring her planet back. It does not exist anymore. You must accept it. Kal will always be alive in your memories.”
I cringe at his words. I can’t accept it, no matter what he says. I have no experience with losing anyone. Immortality in The Realms can be incredibly, mind-numbingly, chew-your-own-foot-off boring, but on the plus side, no death. Except now, apparently, with a chain of events that started with some girl looking in the wrong spot at the wrong time and ended with my best friend going poof, never to be seen again.
I shake my head. “There must be something—”
“She’s waking up,” Dad says, cutting me off. “Go over there and convince her this is still a dream.”
But I don’t move. I don’t want to talk to the girl ever again. All of this—ALL OF IT—is her fault. I’ve never ignored a direct order from my father before, but I just can’t do it. I dig my heels into the floor. Literally, I push them in a few inches.
Dad scowls. “You don’t have a choice, Joss. If she figures out where she is, who knows what the cosmic consequences would be. At the very least she can’t know what happen
ed to her planet, her family and friends. It’s up to you to protect her. To protect The Realms.”
Dad always did have a flair for the dramatic. How am I supposed to take care of this girl? Mom won’t even let us have a pet even though we all promised to help take care of it. Forget a pet, she won’t even let me have a plant! I’m about to dig my heels in even further, when a gasp from across the room diverts our attention.
Annika is standing in front of the huge window, staring wide eyed at the billions of galaxies swirling before her. Slowly, she lifts her arm and points straight out at them. “WHAT in the WORLD is THAT?”
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
—Henry David Thoreau, philosopher
I know Annika can see the billions of blobs of light hanging in the blackness of space, some very close, some so distant they are hard to make out, even for me. And the blobs, the galaxies, are of course magnificent. But that’s not really the true picture of what’s out there. The dark parts of space are glowing, too, with the heat from the very birth of the universe. For perhaps the first time in my life I am struck by how lucky we are in The Realms to be able to truly see.
She taps her foot.
I try to remember what someone from Earth would call what lies beyond Dad’s see-through wall. We’d call it the universe. Everything that exists, as far as we know. Before I can try to explain it, she presses her face right up to the transparent panel. “Are those… galaxies? Those swirling things? Like the Milky Way?”
“Yes. Each one has billions of stars.”
“And how… how many galaxies are there?”
I shrug. “A few hundred billion, I think. More are still forming.”
Across the room my father clears his throat and I remember my duty here. I force myself to smile, when really I want to yell and scream and tell her what she’s done. “Great job on that, by the way,” I say in the breeziest voice I can muster.
“On what?” she asks, not tearing her eyes away from the trillions of glowing stars surrounding us.
“On dreaming up all those galaxies. I see some nebula, too, with some young stars forming. And over there? Nice touch to add that globular cluster.”
She blinks, twisting a yellow chain on her wrist back and forth. “I made all these?”
I cringe at the very thought of telling her yes, when really it took almost fourteen billion years and an untold number of pies. One low growl from Dad and I say (with much more enthusiasm than I feel), “This is your dream. So that means you must have made everything.”
When she doesn’t answer, I keep going, as much as it pains me. “You made the roof and the floor and that table, too.”
Finally tearing herself away from the view, she grins. “I guess I did!” Then she looks me up and down. “So what are you, then, my love interest? Hmm… I’d have thought I would have picked someone, I don’t know, cuter for my first dream crush.”
I frown.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she says. “Some girls might like you. You’re probably not smart enough for my friend Rachel because she’s like, a genius, but Lydia likes guys with really strange haircuts, so maybe her. Weird that you’re in my dream, though. Hey! I bet that means Lydia’s going to show up!”
While she crawls under the table to search for Lydia, I pout. My hair actually looks a lot better than usual because Aunt Rae tried to straighten it out, and she’s very good with scissors. At least I thought she was. I peer under the table. “Hey, didn’t you say Lydia would hate me for my perfect skin? Which is it? Hate me for my skin or like me for my hair?”
She doesn’t reply. She’s just sitting, cross-legged, under the center of the table. I sigh and crawl under. “Annika? Are you okay?”
“She’s not here,” she replies. “Lydia, I mean. If this is my dream, I should be able to make things happen the way I want them to, right?”
“Um, I guess so.”
“Maybe I’m stuck in someone else’s dream.”
“Hmm. Well, do you see anyone else you know?”
“I’m under a table! How am I supposed to see anyone I know?”
I shrug. “Then that means it’s your dream, I guess.”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Then I want Lydia to appear next to me!”
Lydia, not surprisingly, does not appear.
Annika’s shoulders sag.
“Maybe Lydia’s in the middle of her own dream,” I suggest, “so that’s why she can’t come.” My theory is ridiculous, but she brightens.
“Maybe you’re right! I’ll try something else.”
She eyes me again, tapping her finger on her chin as she thinks. I have a sinking feeling I’m not going to like what comes next.
“Okay,” she says. “When I count to three, you will have two noses.”
I grimace. Dad is REALLY going to owe me after this. “Two noses?”
She nods. “And the extra one should come out of your chin.”
“You want me to have a chin-nose?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. But when you wake up from this dream, I hope you feel bad about this choice.”
She watches me expectantly. If this is what it takes to convince her she’s in a dream, I have no choice. I focus so intently that I get a sharp headache. Instantly I sprout a chin-nose.
She clasps her hands together and squeals in delight.
From under the table I can see Dad walk out the door and close it behind him. I don’t blame him. I’m hideous. “Can you get rid of it now?” I ask. “I have to sneeze and that could be really embarrassing.”
“It’s actually pretty gross to look at,” she says. With a wave of her hand she adds, “Be gone, chin-nose! And hello… elbow-eye!”
I make the extra nose disappear but have no intention of adding an eye to my elbow.
“Hmm, that’s weird,” she says, checking out both my elbows. “It didn’t work that time.”
I shrug. “Dreams have strange rules. Maybe you only get to change something once a day.”
She considers this. “Maybe. But you know what? This is a really long dream. No offense or anything, and you seem like a nice kid, but I’d really, really like to wake up now. I kinda miss my dad, even though he’s probably watching me sleep with a disappointed look on his face. I wish he would wake me up. He’d want to hear about how well I can make globular clusters.” She tries to smile, but it wobbles and disappears.
For the first time since she arrived I study her face. Kal often got to visit his parents OnWorld, but since I’ve never left The Realms, I’ve only seen humans in the Afterlives, where their essence lives on inside a simulated body. But Annika is a living person still, and there are very real differences. For one, if I look closely, I can literally see the deep red blood pulsing in her veins. The Old Ones, like Aunt Rae, would be able to see through her skin and muscles and bones down to the tiniest atom.
I find myself returning to her eyes. They are deep brown, almost black, and are currently filling with a clear liquid. She wipes at one of them with the back of her hand while trying to make it appear like she’s not crying.
This girl is never going to see her father again. She doesn’t know this, but I do. Even though Dad and I have a complicated relationship, I can’t imagine not seeing him again. Or my mother. I don’t even know if Annika has a mother, but if someone told me mine was whooshed out of time forever, I’d do everything in my power to get her back.
My eyes widen. That’s exactly how Kal must have felt about his parents! Only he never got a chance to get over the shock and start planning. I have to do something! I start to stand, forgetting we’re still sitting under the table. I bang my head, which, thanks to the Powers That Be programming our cells to feel things, hurts. A lot.
“Where are you going?” she asks as I rub the spot.
“I have to go find my father.”
“You can’t just leave me here, in this strange place.”
She’s right of course.
“Fine
. Come with me, then.”
She scrambles out from under the table, grabs her jacket, and follows me out the door. We get only two steps down the narrow flagpole-shaped hall when Gluck appears and steers us both by the arm into another doorway. I’ve never been in this room. It’s more closet than room, with only a small table and chair and no windows. On the table sits a tray of food and a planet view screen. It’s tuned to an old Earth television show, something about three yellow-haired girls and three brown-haired boys who have to become a family, or like some kind of bunch. A bunch of what? It’s a little confusing.
“Hey, my mom has that series on DVD,” Annika says, gazing fondly at the screen. “She used to watch it on TV when she was a kid.”
I guess she has a mother after all. Had a mother? I feel queasy again.
“Sit,” Gluck orders her. “Enjoy. We have a whole bunch of snacks, too.”
I can just picture one of Gluck’s assistants frantically running around trying to find out what kids from Earth like to eat. He watches anxiously as Annika peeks over the edge of the tray. She points to each plate in turn, her voice rising at each discovery. “A Twinkie. A mug of hot chocolate. Marshmallow squares. A bagel with cream cheese and Red Hots on top. And, for the main course, a turkey club on rye with a pickle! Wow, you guys really know the way to a girl’s heart!” She flashes me a smile. “Maybe I can stay in this dream a little longer.”
Visibly relieved that he got it right, Gluck pulls out the chair for her. She sits and begins to stuff the yellow cake she called a Twinkie into her mouth. It looks equal parts delicious and disturbing. Soon she is happily watching the screen and sipping her drink. Gluck puts his finger to his lips and pulls me back into the hall.
“What’s going on?” I ask as Gluck quietly closes the door. “I really need to talk to my dad. I need to get Kal back right away.”
“Wait,” he says. “I need to talk to you first.”
“I can’t. And I can’t babysit this girl much longer. I feel bad lying to her.”