In Dreams (7 page)

I shut down my computer, then quietly leave my room and creep through the house to the living room. Grandpa and I have cleaned up the mess and the broken lamp, but I still feel the something terrible that happened in this long, strange night.

I peer out the front door at my tree house. That meeting with young Sebastian—did that really happen? I know what I have to do. I grab a flashlight from the desk drawer and then open the front door and listen. I don’t hear anything. Not a dog growling,
nothing. Just wind rustling the leaves, and far-off traffic. I slip out the door and run, barefoot, to the tree house.

I’ve been up and down this tree so many times in my life, I can practically do it blindfolded. I slide into the house, dusty and dirty with neglect; there are old autumn leaves on the floor. I smile. I can’t remember how many nights Annie and I slept up here.

I turn on the flashlight and go to the window. I point the flashlight, but I don’t see anything on the tree. No carving. Nothing.

My heart falls flat. Maybe I’m insane, after all, thinking the dream world and this world somehow mingle together—at least where I am concerned. But part of me is certain it will be here, somewhere.

So I lean out the window farther, sliding a knee up so I’m halfway out of the tree house. I move branches and leaves. I focus the beam of light against the trunk.

And I find it.

A heart carved into the trunk.

S + I.

And carved next to it:

4 EVER.

7

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

A
nnie and I have been best friends since the first day of second grade when she moved in two blocks away. We used to in-line skate down the street together. We even had strep together. In fact, I spent the entire week I had strep at the Caseys’ house so I wouldn’t give it to Grandpa. Though then there were only three Casey kids, and we all had strep at the same time. Annie is the person I told about my first real kiss (Mike Shanahan, summer before seventh grade). She’s the person I cried to when my mom first got sick.

But how do you tell someone the truth about yourself if that truth sounds like a big, fat, made-up lie?

But she believes me.

“You do?” I ask.

“Obviously. I mean,
come on
!”

“Um, no offense, Annie, it happened to me, and
I
don’t even really believe it. Not a hundred percent.”

Both of us are flopped on my bed eating popcorn. Some stupid reality show is on, and I think if they filmed
my
life, no one would believe it. But it might get good ratings. Drama. Romance. Danger.

“First of all, I know your grandfather. Have known him as long as I’ve known you. I know he loves two things in this world more than anything. The Yanks. And you. And only if some crazy guy with a three-headed dog was trying to rip your face off would he use
that
bat as a weapon—and break it! His Mattingly bat! So it has to be true.”

I smile at her logic. That’s my Annie.

“
And
don’t forget. I saw those
Men in Black
guys. And your ankle. And now the bruise on your face. Do you know it’s a combination of green, yellow, purple, and red?”

“Don’t remind me. I look hideous.”

“All right then, so your dad is not a sperm donor. He’s a god. So, like, what does that really mean? Do you have special powers or something?”

I shrug. “I wish I knew.”

“And will this mean he starts coming to parent-teacher conferences? ‘Hi, this is my dad. He’s a god.’ And what about the guy—the man of your dreams?”

“Annie, I don’t know. I’ve never, ever, ever felt like that around someone. Not even when I went to prom with Charlie.”

Charlie Jacobs was my
major
sophomore-year crush. He was a senior, and now he’s off at Brown. We e-mail each other still, and I saw him over his fall break. And I thought he was gorgeous—still think he’s gorgeous—but it’s different. When I see Sebastian, when I hear his voice, my insides do somersaults. And backflips. That’s about as best as I can explain it.

“I wish you could ask someone about all this,” Annie says.

“Me, too.”

We hear a knock on my door. “Yeah?” I say, assuming that it’s Grandpa.

But when the door opens, it’s my mother.

I scream “
Mom!
” and jump up from bed to hug her. “God, you have no idea how much I need to talk to you.”

She smiles weakly. “I think I do. I hear life has been pretty exciting while I’ve been sleeping.”

“How’d you hear that?”

“Grandpa. I woke up, and he filled me in. Then he sent me in here.” She furrows her brow at the sight of my bruise and reaches out to touch it.

I wince. “It looks worse than it is. But I could use a little less excitement. And I have a
lot
of questions.”

“I’m sure. I presume you’ve told Annie . . .” Her voice trails off.

“Everything.”

She smiles. “I figured. All right, you two, come with me to the kitchen. I need to eat. Carbs! Come on, and I’ll tell you all that I know. The story I should have told you sooner. The story I wish I’d had the nerve to tell you.”

Annie and I follow Mom. I don’t know how long we have until she falls back to sleep—we never know. So I need to be sure I ask her everything.

My mom carb-loads like a linebacker.

We watch her eat a huge plate of spaghetti covered in Ragú. Yeah. She’s not winning any cooking awards. In between forkfuls, she tells me about my father.

“First, my darling, I am so sorry. More than you could possibly know. I knew
eventually
I would have
to tell you the truth. But I didn’t want to burden you. It’s too much. Too impossible. I should have told you sooner, but I kept waiting until I thought you could handle it.”

“I understand.” I mean, when is the right time to tell your kid she’s part goddess?

“Where to start . . . ? At some point,” Mom contin-ues, “the gods decided to keep out of human affairs. Mostly. They are a tricky bunch, though. They break promises. Lie. Cheat. Kill. Have crazy love affairs. Sort of like a giant Underworld soap opera.”

I was right. I could be a reality show.

“But for centuries and centuries, all the way until now, most of the gods have wanted to be unseen by humans, to keep out of our world—most of the time anyway. But the dream world has always been something else. Someplace neither here nor there.”

“I dream of the hallway of many doors. It
feels
so real. And I know my body is in my bed. But I feel like I travel someplace. A different world that’s not reality but is more than a dream.”

She nods.

“I have dreams about forgetting my homework,” Annie moans. “Nothing exciting.”

“Look at my face,” I say to Annie. “You don’t want exciting, I promise you.”

Annie winces. “Sorry. I guess I didn’t mean it quite that way.”

My mother sips her ice water. Then she continues. “Iris and I are rare. We dream in a different way. It really is this other world. This other way we dream. In her case, it’s because of who her father is. In my case, I’m a lucid dreamer.”

“I still don’t get what that is,” Annie says.

“I assume somewhere back in time, centuries ago, when the gods were meddling in human affairs, lucid dreamers were touched by the gods. Edgar Allan Poe said all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. Some of his imagery . . . I think he went to the Underworld. In fact, I think some of the most creative people—writers and painters—they have glimpses of that faraway place.”

Annie looks at my mom. “I can believe some painters go there—like that guy who painted the melted clocks.”

Mom laughs. “Dalí? Yeah, I can believe that. But for most it’s just a glimpse, this little flicker of a glimpse, those occasional dreams that you
swear
are real. Feelings of déjà vu. Ever have a dream you just don’t want to wake up from? Or worse, a nightmare so real you’re desperate to wake up because it’s just too vivid, too real? And all your senses seem to be telling
you that it’s real. That’s the glimpses most people get. But for me, for Iris,
all
our dreams are like that.”

“When I dream, I swear it’s real. Like last night I dreamed of a tree, and I touched the bark. And I could smell the salt in the air from the sea in the distance. I heard the wind rustle the leaves.” I leave out touching Sebastian. Holding his hand.

My mother adds, “It’s like everyone else dreams in black and white, or maybe color, but she and I dream in high def. We
go
there. Actually, literally, go there. And one night, when I was a little older than Iris, I had a dream, and I saw him.”

“Morpheus?” Annie asks, hanging on my mom’s every word.

Mom nods. “You know that scene in the
The Wizard of Oz
where Toto pulls the curtain back?”

“Yeah,” I say. Mom knows it’s my favorite old movie. Every year, Grandpa and I buy gobs of junk food and watch it. And I still freak out over the flying monkeys. They get me every time.

“Well, just like in that scene, Morpheus was the Wizard. I don’t know, but I remember having this dream, and suddenly, I was thinking—in my dream—that I could see the man on the edges of the dream, controlling my dream. I was aware I was dreaming—
that
is lucid dreaming. I could
see
him. Only that was
supposed to be impossible. He was supposed to be behind the curtain. I turned to him—in my dream—and spoke to him. How? How could I see him? Then he told me it was because he had fallen in love with me. That he was drawn to me.”

“So what happened?” I ask. Not the typical how-your-parents-got-together story.

She smiles. “Like anyone with a crush, I started
trying
to find him. And soon, it got easier and easier. Every night, in my dreams, we would meet. I never wanted to leave. I was . . . in love. But sooner or later, I realized I needed to belong to this world. Have a life in this world. But how do you break up with a god?” She blushes. “But he loves me. He followed me here. He’s a god. He can take human form if he wishes.”

My eyes widen. “And?”

“And . . . there you are, my beautiful daughter.” She smiles. “One night of passion. I am a lesson for high school girls everywhere. It takes only one time to get pregnant if you aren’t careful.” She points a finger. “So pay attention to that lesson, you two.”

“So first you tell me my father is a Greek god. Now you tell me I’m an accident. Wonderful.”

“Oh, Iris . . . no. We were thrilled. Thrilled and sad. Sad because, I mean, I think we realized we couldn’t
live this sort of white-picket-fence existence. That it would be
complicated
. But to have a child with the man . . . the god . . . that I loved? When I was with him, I could barely breathe. It is still as thrilling as when I first saw him. I love him, Iris. I still do and always will.”

“Do you still go there to be with him? Is that why you sleep? Is that what your disease is?” I feel kind of hurt that she would choose going there instead of being here, with me.