Life Is but a Dream (25 page)

I take a deep breath and start to walk again—one step after the other with the sun behind me. I’m heading in the right direction again. I don’t know how far I’ve gone or how far I have left to go, but I’ll get there.

Across the bridge, the neighborhoods change.

Office space and stores transform themselves into houses. The houses grow in size—into mansions as I keep moving. But they quickly shrink again and stretch themselves into strip mall plazas.

There is static everywhere in the air. I feel it all over my body like a rash of insect bites. It spreads from building to building through power lines. It’s beamed down from satellites like disease. It’s woven into the skyline and feeds off the traffic rushing by. It buzzes inside every fragmented conversation taking place all over the globe. It infects people through cell phones. It copies them inside of its computers. People are thin like paper and the static is fire—devouring its way through the population and getting hungrier.

I’ve tried to point it out. To Kayliegh, my mom, my dad, but nobody ever sees it. Like passengers lost on a merry-go-round, they all miss it—too distracted by the motion and the blinking colored bulbs. They go around and around, spinning so fast it creates the illusion that everything is normal. I see past it though—I see what’s on the other side. I feel sorry for everyone else. They don’t even know the world is going to end at sunset, the second I jump off the ride with Alec. It’s all so clear to me now. Clearer than it’s ever been.

—
Don’t you think so?
—

I turn my head to the side, surprised that Alec isn’t with me. He felt so close for a second that it confuses me. But then I remember where I am and what I’m doing.

I need to hurry.

Time is running out.

As I move swiftly through intersections newly clogged with strangers, I feel as though I’m coming out of a dream that has lasted my entire life. Once I’m with Alec—once his hand is touching mine—I will be wide-awake and waiting for heaven to welcome me.

*   *   *

—
Do you even know where you’re going?
— Kayliegh shouts. She keeps saying we’re lost, but she’s laughing about it. We’re not really
that
lost. We just took a wrong turn or something. But we can’t call our parents or anything. We told them we were going to a pool party. They have no idea we came to the city to go to the beach. Her parents would ground her for life—mine for twice that long.

I turn my head. We’re both smiling nervously. —
We’ll find it
— I promise her. —
The palm trees will guide us there
.— I point to the row of trees lining the sidewalk like open umbrellas. Their leaves are so shiny—they pull me along the sun-soaked streets. —
I trust them to take us the right way.
—

—
Oh … great. I feel sooo much better now
— Kayliegh says, rolling her eyes. But she trusts me and I can tell she’s not as anxious.

She watches as I stop suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk. I spin around in a circle with my eyes closed and my arms out to my side. When I open my eyes again, the scenery changes. The streets evaporate and the city becomes weightless without its roads. Even the tallest buildings appear feathery. A strong wind could probably blow the entire city away. Some lucky person up in the hills would get to see it all—Los Angeles scattered to the wind like sparkling dust.

—
Sabrina?
— Kayliegh says. —
You’re lost, aren’t you?
—

There’s a palm tree behind her and from my angle, it springs from her hair like a flower. The leaves are long and drape to the side. A purple haze surrounds them and it hurts my eyes. When I squint, it’s like I can almost hear words hidden in the brightness. They are telling me to follow.

—
We’re supposed to go that way
— I say, aiming my eyes at the tree that is now waving in the breeze. Without waiting for Kayliegh, I dart through a parking lot and run toward it.

Kayliegh’s laughter gets tangled with her words as she shouts —
You’re completely nuts! Wait for me.
—

She’s falling farther behind. I reach out with my hand—stretching until my fingers slip into hers. I won’t let her rest or slow us down. We have to keep going until our feet touch the wet sand where the waves end.

—
Hurry. Let’s hurry
— I yell. My legs struggle to keep pace with my butterfly heartbeat. Ignoring traffic lights and horns and people moving in the other direction, I move right along—the one- and two-story buildings with their shop windows blur past. This is how it feels to fly. This is how it feels to leave the world behind when the hand I’m holding suddenly becomes an anchor—yanking me backward.

The muscles in my shoulder twist uncomfortably. The city grows heavy again in an instant—tugging at us with so much gravity, our wings get clipped.

I rub at the soreness in my arm as I turn around. —
Why did you stop?
— I ask, but Kayliegh is not there anymore.

A guy stands at arm’s length from me. He has long brown hair and wears torn jeans, and I can still see the shape of my hand where I held his. —
This girl’s crazy, man!
— he grunts to his friend who is an exact copy of him with the same saltwater hair hanging loose on his shoulders. Same torn jeans. Their spines are curved the way apes’ are when they try to stand taller. —
She just grabbed my hand and started mumbling. Smiling and whatever.
—

I look at my hand and look at his and sense that they were once connected. My eyes are huge in my head as I listen to them talk about me as if I’m not there.

—
Leave her, man. She’s probably tabbed up, most likely.
—

—
Or a Jesus freak or something
.—

—
Nah, look at her … she’s drugged.
—

They are transparent, yet I can’t see through them as they walk away. Then they fade before my eyes. The sound of their voices scatters, getting lost in the crowded sidewalk. I tuck my hair behind my ears. It feels wet and smooth, but warm where the sun has touched it. Bringing my hand down to my mouth, I rub my lips. —
Kayliegh was never here
— I whisper in my birthmark’s ear—moving my mouth but not making any sound.

I spy a girl staring at me. People move past her in both directions. She stands still—waiting. She’s not really anybody—just my ghost reflected in a store window. A secret person sucking at her sleeve, which means I am too. She has black circles under her eyes dark as ink stains, pink skin around the edges and pale everywhere in between.

I touch my cheek to see if it’s really me.

I feel her fingerprints on my skin and I’m not sure which is me and which is the imposter. I don’t know where I am—trapped or free or somewhere in between.

Shadow cars zip past my reflection in the background. Clouds move in front of the sun like camera flashes. They all tangle together in my confusion and I have to concentrate to keep from being lost forever.

—
The beach
— I whisper. —
You’re going to the beach to see Alec.
—

The blue pen markings around my birthmark change shape in response—an invisible smile from an invisible cat, letting me know I’ve figured out something important.

Kayliegh and I were going to the beach too. I just got mixed up. But all of that happened before and can’t happen again. A thing only happens once and it won’t happen any more. Dr. Richards says I can’t control my episodes but she’s wrong. I just have to pay more attention.

I break into a sprint—swinging my arms wildly. I don’t care when I bump into people who stop to shout threats at me because it’s all starting to look familiar. I’ve been past these shops before—the ice-cream stand with the large vanilla and chocolate swirl sculpture rising from its roof. Kayliegh and I went there. The guys behind the counter looked at our bathing suits wishing they had X-ray eyes and gave us cones for free.

I know where I am.

I don’t stop there this time—I run right by. It’s how I will keep the past from absorbing the present.

I can hear the waves over the noise in the air. The coastal highway is right in front of me—four lanes separating the city from sand. There’s a swarm of people standing on the corner waiting for the light to change. I brush past them—rushing headlong into the screeching of brakes.

Faces stare at me through the windshields with identical expressions. Their mouths move rapidly, flashing angry teeth but I smile back. I push aside the sweaty strands of hair sticking to my forehead and walk between the cars like an angel as I step onto the beach.

There is a hot wind coming off the water, blowing in from a place much farther away than the other side of the horizon. The sky is brighter too. My feet sink into the sand and my steps become slower. Throwing my arms out like wings, I raise my head to the changing colors of the sky. When I turn around to face the city towering in the background, the glass windows sparkle and glow like so many wishing stones piled on top of one another.

—
I knew it was real. It’s happening just as I knew it would
— I say, watching the world dissolve before my eyes.

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

The sun has moved out over the waves. It sits behind the Ferris wheel like a spotlight too bright to stare at directly. The amusement park ride fades into flakes of white paint and metal rods that crisscross and divide the sunbeams into fractions. The colored cages blend together as they go round, making a rainbow ring around the sun.

I sit in its shadow, facing the ocean.

The boardwalk is covered in the scent of cotton candy billowing from the small snack stand a few feet away from me. The smell is so strong I can nearly see vapor trails of dissolved sugar spreading gently out over the pier. Here and there, pink clouds of candy sprout from the thin crowd of people like markers counting down the end of time.

Off to my right, there is a row of houses built right on the beach. If I squint, I can see future explosions hidden inside each of them—their tall windows holding back an intense orange light like transparent teeth trying to hold fire in a dragon’s mouth.

The palm trees along the highway sway in the breeze that blows inland. Sand scatters in the wind’s grasp as it grows stronger. The sand will soon become sudden tornadoes rising from the ground—the windows will burst and the trees will shed their leaves.

It’s already starting. The future is rushing toward me. The shadows of another world are visible under the surface—moving around like fish under frozen water. Now that all of the medicine has left my body, there’s nothing to blind me to it. Soon I will blink and all of this will be gone.

One little girl walks by me with a red balloon tied around her wrist. She’s maybe six years old and the outline of her body against the sun’s glare is heavy—drawn with a thick marker like my own. The two adults with her appear to be made of light pencil markings.

The girl smiles at me and waves her hand. She must see what’s happening too and it doesn’t frighten her. As she approaches, the balloon sags in the haze that has settled around us. She stares at my hand. —
I like your cat
— she says, pointing with a small finger that comes close enough to touch me by accident.

The sky bursts open—changes from a watery blue to a golden fog.

—
Annabelle! Leave that girl alone
— one of the ghosts shouts, and the little girl is yanked away. I hear a mumbled apology in the same thin voice but it is easily lost in the wave of sounds gathering like a flock of gulls.

—
It’s okay
,
it won’t be long. You’ll see
— I whisper to the girl. The faces of those she is with flicker and flash. For a split second, I see the distorted skeletons of snakes under their skin. I’m thankful the girl will never grow up with their slithering lies. —
Don’t worry
— I call out. —
I’ll look for you after.
—

As they disappear, the sun grows larger than before, racing toward the horizon. In just a little while, it will fill the sky. That is when Alec will come.

I close my eyes and wait.

I imagine my skin has turned red and caught on fire. If I open my eyes too soon, the wind will turn my bones to dust, scattering them to the ground like burnt snow. I must stay perfectly still.

The muscles in my legs and arms ache. They twitch and beg me to move—sending searing pins and needles through my nerves. I shut out their cries and concentrate even harder until the pain is almost like breathing.

Shapes begin to form on the inside of my eyelids—coming clearer into focus as my pupils adjust each passing second. Out on the horizon, the ocean retreats. Tall grass grows up from the waves, long enough to swallow me if I were to walk barefoot into it. Houses emerge like sand castles from the ground. They are painted the same colors as the houses on the street where my parents live. One of them is supposed to be ours but it’s turned at the wrong angle so that the front door faces the setting sun.

I can’t see it from where I am, but I know there is a tire swing swaying from the tall oak tree in the backyard. I hear the unmistakable creaking as the rope twists. It’s not the sound of someone swinging but of someone having swung, and I hold my breath.

His steps are deliberate as he approaches me, his hair lost in the sun. Every part of me wants to rush and meet him but I know if I move before he touches me, he will disappear. It’s torture to be so still when I want to be so close.

—
Sabrina?
— he says each time his feet strike the ground but I don’t answer. His voice rings inside my ears —
Sabrina, Sabrina
— louder each time until it dictates the drumming of my heartbeat.

His hand hesitates before touching mine. Time stops and I stop. After that, everything accelerates.

Alec is standing there when I open my eyes. The blazing sun burns the sky orange behind him. The Ferris wheel rotates like a slow propeller attached to his back. —
You came
— I say, smiling brightly.