For the time being, Anna had two different worlds she visited regularly. She could probably do more, but her grandmother had told her to try and limit it. In order to not confuse herself too much. "You want to make the most of your life in every world and you can't do that if you have too many."
In the beginning, when she was younger, Anna had traveled around in hundreds of different worlds, but as she grew older, she had started to get more selective.
Igoshi had told her other things about her abilities as well. "Sometimes your travels can be premonitions too. You travel into a future dimension instead."
That was the scariest part to Anna. She didn't really like to know what would happen. She hadn't had many of those types of travels, but the few she had, had scared her senseless. Especially when she had seen Igoshi on that kitchen floor. Even though she knew she would see her again, in this world, it had frightened her to see her like that. Anna hoped she would never have to do it again.
But Anna had been lucky, Igoshi had told her. Usually, the traveling didn't start till people were much older, often far into adulthood before they did it the first time, and that could be really scary. Some people never knew what they were doing and just thought they had very vivid dreams or many nightmares, some even—and it was far too many according to Igoshi—lost their minds and ended up locked up in mental institutions, especially when they started rambling about things they had seen and people who were still alive and speaking to them or things that were very different, like countries that didn't exist. Sometimes people traveled in the new world they visited and then woke up in a strange place when they returned to what they believed was the real world, far away from where they had gone to sleep. Strange disappearances and reappearances that no one could explain were often seen and Igoshi was one of the few who could actually explain them. Sometimes, something happened to a traveler in one of the other worlds, and once they got back to the world they started in, they were hurt. The worst part was when something happened in one world, like a person going into a comatose condition or becoming unconscious. Then they were unable to return. Igoshi called those glitches. Some even forgot how to speak their maternal language, but that was very rare.
Since Anna had been able to do it since birth, she didn't need time to get used to it, and there were no surprises. She had time to polish her ability and that was truly special. She could get very good at it, even better than what Igoshi had been, and she was one of the best.
Anna was just grateful for Igoshi and for the fact that she could help her, but she also sensed there were things her grandmother didn't tell her. She rarely spoke about her past lives in these worlds, but Anna could see something in her eyes, a worry that seemed to grow every day.
“How about an ice cream?" Igoshi asked.
"I miss Mom," Lucas said and kicked a shell.
"I know," Igoshi said.
"Why can't I travel the worlds like you two can?" he asked.
"You have other abilities," Igoshi said. "We can't all have the same gifts. If everyone was good at math, then who would build the roads? If everyone could write books, then who would sing the songs?"
"But I don't have any gifts," Lucas snorted. "I don't know how to do anything."
"Sure, you do. You just don't know what they are yet. Now, you never answered me about that ice cream."
"It's January, Nanny," Anna said.
"So what? You can't have ice cream in January? It's Florida."
Anna shrugged. "Okay. I could eat some ice cream."
Igoshi ruffled Lucas's hair. He was beginning to look so much like their father. Anna could sense Igoshi enjoyed his company immensely and thought it was probably because she missed her son. She was going to make sure she told her father when she got back to him. He was going to think she was weird and give her that look that he always did when she told him stuff, but she’d do it anyway. One of these days, he would realize that the things she said were true.
"What do you say, champ? Igoshi said. "Mint chip? Sprinkles or no sprinkles?"
Lucas's eyes lit up. "Sprinkles!"
He took off towards the restaurant where they always stopped for ice cream when walking the beach. Anna chuckled and looked at her grandmother. "So, do you still travel?" she asked.
Igoshi sighed. "My nights have been dreamless lately, I’m afraid. I have died in more worlds than what I care for. I think I might be stuck here, and then it's the end. I don't think I have any more travels in me."
Chapter 27
Fort Lauderdale, January 2010
After their ice cream, they walked back towards the car. Anna enjoyed these lazy Saturdays. She was thinking about what Igoshi had told her while they were still on the beach. How she believed it was over for her, the traveling. She wondered if it was an age thing or if you could lose the ability just like that? No, it had to because she was old. She had died in those other worlds and therefore couldn't return.
Eight-year-old Anna had a lot on her mind while walking on the pavement with her grandmother, younger brother, and dog. Not just about her ability or her dad's hardness of his heart after his mother dying. No, right now as they walked on the side of the road, she realized her grandmother wasn't going to be around forever. She had never thought about it before, but now she did. She was going to lose her again at some point, and this time she might never see her again. She was getting old. And then who would take care of Anna and Lucas? Who would teach Anna about life and watch Lucas so he didn't run into the street?
It was a lot to take for an eight-year-old.
Anna knew there was plenty of family at the reservation and they would be well provided for, no doubt about that. There were many uncles and aunts and so many cousins she didn't know half of them. But what would she do without her beloved Nanna? She was the only one who understood what Anna went through, what it was like to live in several worlds.
Igoshi sensed Anna's worry and squeezed her hand. Anna looked up at her and their eyes met. Anna calmed down. Nanna smiled.
"I think that was good ice cream, don't you? I think it was excellent," she said. "Nothing like ice cream to take all your troubles away. Am I right?"
Anna nodded. She forced a smile, but the worry still lingered.
"You know what I say about worry, don't you?" she asked.
Anna nodded. "It's like a rocking chair. Gives you something to do, but takes you nowhere."
Anna chuckled. She could picture Igoshi in a rocking chair trying to force it to move forward.
"Now remember, there’s no guarantee for anything in life. Every day is a gift, no matter what world you wake up in. You make the best of it, you hear me? No rocking chairs for you or your brother. I might die tomorrow or in fifteen years. Do you want to spend the next fifteen years worrying if I am going to drop dead, huh? Sounds like quite a waste of time."
Anna smiled and nodded. Her grandmother made a good point. Anyone could, after all, die at any point in life. It was just that she was closer to it than anyone else Anna knew.
"How about I make some fry bread for dinner, huh?" Igoshi looked down at Lucas. "And some Sofkee?"
"Yay,” he said.
"Maybe Anna will help me, hm?"
Anna nodded happily. Those were both traditional Seminole dishes. Most Seminoles were known to be excellent cooks and their grandmother was no exception. Igoshi had started to teach Anna how to prepare some of the dishes and she had learned she liked it, even though she wasn't very good at it yet.
"That sounds awesome," Anna said, then let go of her grandmother's hand in one unforgiving second, just as the driver of a red Toyota Corolla leaned down to pick up his lost cigarette from the floor and swiped her off the pavement.
Chapter 28
Fort Lauderdale, January 2010
Anna woke with a gasp. Her pillow was soaked in sweat. Above her stood her parents. Both with that worried look in their eyes.
"Lucas?"
Her mother smiled, her head slightly tilted as she spoke
. "You had a bad dream, honey."
"Lucas?" Anna repeated.
She tried to recall what had happened. She could still hear the sound of the car approaching and remembered feeling the pain when the car hit her before everything went black, but what about the others? What about Nanna? What about Lucas and Peppi? Were they hurt too?
"Who is Lucas, sweetie?"
"Lucas. There was a car…it…an accident…Lucas…I don't know if he's all right." Anna started to cry.
Her mother hugged her. Anna cried on her shoulder. Her tears made her nightgown wet and left a mark when she pulled away. Julia wiped a tear away from Anna's cheek with her thumb.
"Shh, baby. It was just a dream. It's all over now."
Anna looked up at her mother. Their eyes met. Anna could hardly breathe between sobs.
"No. No, it's not, Mommy. Nanna was…I need to know if she's all right; I have to find out."
Andrew had been standing behind his wife but stepped forward. He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes, his look determined, furious even, yet deeply troubled.
"Nanna is dead. I don't know how many times I have to tell you. Even though you dream about her at night, she is still dead. It doesn't change things. I know you dream vividly, but they are still just dreams. It's not reality. You must learn this, Anna, you have to learn how to distinguish between what is real and what is not."
She cried, hard. "But it is real, Dad. It IS!"
"Don't get her more upset," her mother said. "It might be very real for her. We don't know that. She's just a child, Andrew. She's eight for crying out loud. It's okay to believe in stuff when you're eight. Heck, I used to believe unicorns were real when I was her age."
Andrew exhaled. He threw out his arms, agitated yet resigned. "It's just important that she learns this. I don't want her to end up in some mental institution just because she thinks her dreams are real. I’ve seen enough craziness in my life." He sighed and rubbed his head. "Why can't I get you to understand this? Why are you fighting me over this?" He looked at his watch. "It's four o'clock in the morning. I need to get some sleep." He exhaled. "We'll talk about it in the morning."
"Go ahead," Julia said. "I'll be right in."
Andrew left. Anna was still shivering. Her mother looked into her eyes, then down at her arm. A bruise had shaped on it and was still growing.
"What is this?"
"The car…it hit me," Anna said, crying again.
"Oh, dear God," Julia rolled up Anna's sleeve. More bruises appeared, some even while they looked at it.
"It happens sometimes," Anna said. "Only when I’m hurt really bad. Like once when I had been climbing the tree in the back and fell down. The bruises are never as bad as they are in the other world."
"From this, I take it you were hurt pretty badly, huh?" Julia asked. She looked around like she expected someone to be standing behind her, and then turned to face Anna. She spoke with almost a whisper.
"Now, don't tell your dad this. I know he thinks your grandmother was crazy, but I don't think she was. I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Ever since she died and you saw her on that floor. I’ve seen enough to believe you. I don't know anything about what it is you go through or what happens to you, but I believe your dreams are very real to you. More real than to any of us. And it scares me. Now, tell me what happened, who is this Lucas?"
Anna took in a deep breath, then told her about the son they never knew they had, about them dying in a car accident when she was younger, and about Nanna raising them on the reservation.
"So, you do see Nanna still?" she asked.
Anna nodded. "She teaches me so many things."
"What else? You always used to sing these songs that I never knew, by The Beatles. You'd tell me they were their songs, but I wouldn't recognize them. Are they from there too?"
Anna nodded. "Everyone listens to their songs in this place." She didn't like to use the word world since she knew most people had a bad reaction to it. They refused to believe there could be more than one world, she had learned. So, she had stopped talking about it for the past couple of years. When she was younger, she had believed everyone knew what she knew, but most people were limited to only one world. If they had an open heart, a lot more people would travel like we do, her grandmother often said. Only an open heart catches a dream.
Anna's mother was smiling. "A baby brother, huh? What's he like?"
"He is nice. Really annoying though, always tells on me to Nanna, but he looks so much like Dad. I think Nanna enjoys being with him so much because he reminds him of Dad when he was a child. You should see those two together, Mom. It would make you so happy."
Julia sighed lightly. "I bet it would. I never told you this, but I always wanted to have a boy…but your father didn't want any more children. Not after…well, we tried a few years after we had you, but I lost it. It was a boy, they said. You're going to think I’m lying, but we were going to call him Lucas."
Tears welled up in Julia's eyes. One escaped and rolled across her cheek. "I can't believe…I mean…he is really there?"
Anna nodded and put a hand on her mother's cheek and caressed her like she used to do to her. "In this world…I mean, in this place, he survived."
"It's a nice thought though, that he is out there somewhere, even if I never get to see him."
"I know. I'll tell him you know about him when I see him…” Anna stopped, her look turned serious. "If I ever see him again."
"What do you mean, If?" Julia asked.
Anna fought her tears as they welled up in her eyes again. " I don't know if I will ever be able to go back there again. I don't know if I'll ever see Lucas or Nanna again."
"Can't you go back tonight?"
She shook her head in despair. "I don't know. Not if I’m dead. If that car killed me, I can't. I'll never see them again.” She broke into a deep sob. "Oh, Mom, I don't know what to do without them."
Chapter 29
Fort Lauderdale, January 2010
She was covering the night shift. Mia Green walked down the hallway of the Trinity Hospital Center. Even though it was a non-profit hospital, it was rare they actually had patients in with no insurance, but today they had received a girl earlier who was hit by a car. She was from the reservation, it was whispered by her colleague, Tina, like it was some deadly disease.
Mia had once known a guy who had grown up on the reservation. She dated him a few times in college, but it never became more than that. She knew her mother would have a heart attack if she brought a brown skinned man home, no matter if he was Muslim, Asian, or one of the natives. To her mother, they were all the same. The brown eyes and skin would dominate and ruin the fair skin and blue eyes they had always had in her family, from way back when their great grandparents migrated to Florida from Sweden. Her mother was very proud of her fair skin and blonde hair and wanted Mia's children to carry that on.
But that wasn't the reason she stopped seeing him, what was his name again? Oh, yes, Pete. Not much of an Indian name if you asked her, but other than that he looked the part. Pete had been crazily handsome. Not like those warriors from that movie with Kevin Costner, but close enough. Mia had enjoyed being with him and just wanted to look at him. And she had no problem bringing him home to her mother. As a matter of fact, she would have loved to see her mother's face if she brought this guy home. But they never made it that far. She stopped seeing him because he was extremely dull. The three dates they went on were, by far, the most boring hours of her life.
Instead, she had married Joe. Joe was big and ugly, but crazy fun. He always made her laugh and that was worth a lot more in her book.
"Can I get some water?" a female patient whispered. She had a cup of water next to her but had trouble reaching it. Mia helped her. She sat up and Mia held the plastic cup while she drank. Mia couldn't stand the sound of people drinking, the slurping and sounds their throat made when swallowing, made her skin crawl. It had been like that since childhood, g
rowing up with a father that slurped and smacked his lips so loud she wanted to throw up whenever the family ate together. She never understood why her mother never corrected him or how she could stand listening to that day in and day out, along with that cussing mouth of his, for so many years. She sure knew how to correct Mia whenever she had bad table manners or cussed. But apparently, other rules applied to her father.
Mia closed her eyes and thought of something nice while the patient drank, trying hard to not listen to the sounds, ignoring them to not get agitated.
"Thank you so much,” the patient said and she put the cup back with a relieved sigh. She liked taking care of people, but it wasn't always easy.
The door to the room opened and Tina peeked inside. She signaled for Mia to come. "No problem. Now, get some sleep," she said to the patient, then rushed to Tina waiting by the door.
"You have to see this," Tina said and it wasn't until now that Mia realized Tina was paler than a ghost.
Mia hurried after her down the hallway. "What's going on?"
"It's that girl, the native."
"The one who is still unconscious? Do we need to call Dr. Anderson?"
Tina looked troubled. "I don't know if she'll even be able to explain this."
Mia's heart sank. She knew the girl's grandmother and baby brother were sleeping in the relatives’ area, waiting for news. She was terrified she was going to be the one who had to give it to them.