In Dreams (21 page)

I am in the hallway of many doors. The sconces are there. I smile. Next to me are Dr. Koios, Morpheus, and Aphrodite.

“We’ll follow your lead,” Dr. Koios says.

We walk down the hallway, and I pause. I press my hands on different doors. Sometimes it is easy to decide, because I have Morpheus with me.

“Not that one,” he says, shaking his head when I touch a door that is the precise shade of a brilliant cardinal.

“Why not?”

“That’s a recurring dream. Flying.”

We get a little farther, and he points out other doors we can skip. Teeth falling out. Being naked in front of a roomful of people. Being in trig class and being unprepared for a test. I have that one a lot. Missing a plane.

We walk past the recurring dreams. Then he shows me some of my old dream doors.

“This one was the time you dreamed that you were a mermaid and could swim underwater.”

I smile at the memory. I always liked that one.

Aphrodite has her hand at the small of my spine, and she keeps patting me reassuringly. I feel so much more secure with them here.

We keep walking until I feel a pain in my side.

“Can we rest a moment?”

The four of us stop. From far down the tunnel, I hear growls. I look up at Morpheus.

He shakes his head. “They wouldn’t dare. Not with me here.”

I feel another stabbing pain. “Dr. Koios . . .” My breath is knocked out of me. The hallway looks hazy, and I am afraid I’m losing consciousness.

He feels my head. “I think she’s spiking a fever again. We should—”

“No, I won’t leave—we’re too close.”

I turn my head to look back where we came, and I let out a little scream. Thousands of cockroaches are crawling on the walls, a horrifying wave of bugs, like living wallpaper. I feel them on my skin, but when I look down at my arms, nothing is there. I’m losing my mind.

Aphrodite shrieks and starts hopping from foot to foot on her stilettos. “I hate bugs,” she says. “Morpheus . . . please . . .” She hides behind him, standing on tiptoe and peeking over his shoulder before burying her face against his back.

But Morpheus steps toward the bugs. He stares down the hallway and his eyes flash lightning inside them. The flames from the sconces grow larger. The flames flicker and dance, then lick the walls. Fire escapes the sconces and continues sliding down the walls, incinerating the bugs. The hallway smells singed. Black, acrid smoke lingers. I cough.

Speak to me, Mom. I want to get out of here.

Then I have another thought. Maybe I am going at this the wrong way. If I were Epiales, where would I hide them?

“Of course,” I breathe. I try to walk, but the pain is too intense. “I know where they are.” My knees buckle, and Morpheus and Dr. Koios support me on each side. I still can’t walk on.

“Carry me,” I say to Morpheus.

He scoops me into his arms as if I were light as a rag doll.

“Take me to the airport.”

“The what?”

“The recurring dream—the one where you miss your plane.”

We go back the way we came, and I feel as if my world is turning black. “Faster!” I urge. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

The keys are in my hand. I pass the ring to Aphrodite. “The one that’s hot will open it.”

She touches them, running her fingers over them. She shakes her head. “You have to, Iris. They’re your keys.”

I struggle, hands shaking. I find a key with a sleek line to it. I hand it to Dr. Koios. “Open the door.”

He does, and when we step through, we are in a crowded airport. But all the announcements say “Final boarding,” and all the electronic boards read
DEPARTED
. Every plane is a missed connection.

And there, sitting at Gate 112B, suitcases around them, are my mother and Grandpa.

“How did you know?” Aphrodite asks, baffled.

“Easy,” I say. “I’ve never had this dream. It would be the last place I’d look.”

My mother and grandfather see us in the throngs of travelers. Tears streaming down her face, Mom leaps from her seat and runs to me, Grandpa right behind her.

They both try to hug me in Morpheus’s arms.

“Why are you carrying her?” she asks my father.

She presses her hand to my forehead. “Oh my God, Iris. Dad, she’s sick.”

“Grandpa . . . Mommy . . .” The words flutter on my lips, and then I scream in pain, just before falling unconscious.

18

People who are most afraid of their dreams

convince themselves they don’t dream at all.

JOHN STEINBECK

I
lose two days of my life.

I remember waking and then falling into un-consciousness. Waking and falling, falling and waking. I remember spinning, the room whirling around me as if I was in the eye of a tornado.

I remember faces.

Aphrodite and Nico, Dr. Koios, Annie, Henry Wu, Annie’s mom and dad, Grandpa, and Mom. And my father. Their faces came to me in hazy images, like looking through eighteenth-century glass. I remember the doctor asking me to do things, like lift my index finger or blink my eyes.

But I couldn’t even open my eyes. I would tell myself to open my eyes, but my body betrayed me.
My eyes wouldn’t listen. My index finger wouldn’t lift. I sank deeper and deeper into illness.

Mostly, I remember voices.

My mother and father and Grandpa pleading with me to get well.

Aphrodite crying. I remember her tears splashing onto my own cheeks as she leaned over to kiss me.

And Annie. I remember her crying. And Henry Wu standing next to her, promising her that somehow, someway, I would survive. And that he would be here for her, no matter what. Forever.

But all the voices of the people I love weren’t enough. The medication wasn’t enough. I wanted to fight, but my fight was exhausted.

I knew my father was searching everywhere for Sebastian, was searching the River of Sorrows, casting nets, dragging the river for his body, sending out spies against his brother. As I would sink into the darkness, I kept waiting for my angel’s voice to call to me, to tell me to fight. I kept waiting to see him in this strange netherworld where I lingered, in the netherworld where I dreamed, but his voice never came.

And then suddenly, here, now, on the third day, I bolt upright in my hospital bed and look out the window into the parking lot. I feel healed, like stones have lifted from my chest. Fine, actually, as if I had
never been sick. In the time I have been unconscious, winter has arrived for sure, frost creating a pattern on my hospital window. I think back to the last days I can remember. How much time has passed? I wonder how soon it will be until Christmas.

I take a deep breath. I do not feel any pain. I touch my own forehead. It is cool. I feel along my belly, even pressing in near my spleen. Nothing hurts.

“It’s gone!”

My father, who is dozing softly in a chair next to my mother, their hands entwined, her head on his shoulder, opens his eyes. He leans over to kiss her on the top of her head. “Sofia, she’s awake.”

My mother’s eyes spring open, and then just as instantly, they are full of tears. At the sight of me sitting up, her tears rapidly turn to loud, messy sobbing.

“I’m okay, Mom. I’m okay. I promise.”

She waves her hands at the air. “I know. It’s relief. Relief.”

My father presses his fingertips to my forehead. “She’s completely cool.”

“And your stomach?” Mom asks through sniffles.

“Nothing. No pain.”

“Thank God,” Mom says. Then she looks at my father. “Thank the gods.”

My father presses the Call button for my nurse. She races in. I tell her I feel totally well.

She shakes her head in amazement. “We almost lost you last night. Your fever was teetering to one oh six. Your counts were worse. . . . Let me call the doctor.”

She walks over and quickly checks all my IVs. As she turns to leave, she smiles. “Sometimes miracles happen. Best part of my job.”

My mother says, “I’ll call Aphrodite and Koi and Grandpa.”

“Hand me my phone, Mom,” I say. “I want to call Annie myself.”

As soon as she hears my voice, clear and steady, Annie says she’ll be right over. “I just have to find someone to watch the Tiny Terrors. My mom is Christmas shopping.”

“Don’t worry. Come later. I’m okay. I swear. Pinkie promise. Cross my heart and hope to . . . Nah, forget that. Just promise. I really and truly am all better.”

All afternoon and into early evening, a parade of doctors and specialists poke and prod me. They murmur and furrow their brows, looking very serious, wondering how I could have made such a startling recovery. Vials of blood are taken. Aphrodite and Nico come to visit. Grandpa does, too, and after
a hug so big I think my ribs are bruised, he becomes so choked up he has to leave the room.

Dr. Bingham says there’s no explanation. Not a logical one, at least. Every level in my blood is normal. My spleen is back to the size it should be. But she won’t release me until I eat food and don’t relapse. Twenty-four hours more, at least. I am aching to leave. And as relieved as I am to be well, and for my mom and grandfather to be okay, my mind turns to Sebastian.

My mother looks exhausted. I send her and my father down to the cafeteria to get coffee. He’s tireless. A god. But she is mortal, and the stress is showing. But at least she’s awake.

I am sitting cross-legged in my bed, clicking through the TV channels, when Annie and Henry arrive. She throws herself on me in the bed. We hug for a long time. Then she kisses me on the top of my head and climbs off and stands next to Henry.

“Please tell me this is all over.” She waves her hands around wildly.

I don’t know whether she means Epiales or my illness or what. But Henry is here, so I can’t go into detail. Love agrees with him. His hair is combed in a cool new style—I think he’s even got a little gel in it. He looks different somehow.
More confident. Not the boy who looked as if he was going to hurl his lunch because Annie talked to him. With him here, though, I can’t ask Annie exactly what she means.

“I told Henry,” Annie says. “Everything.”

“What do you mean, everything. Ev-er-y-thing?” I ask, thinking Annie is being Annie and maybe she’s a tiny bit confused.

“No. Everything. You know. My best friend is a goddess. Half goddess. Demi-goddess. Whatever.”

My eyes widen.

“And he
believed
you?” My eyebrows shoot up. This is Henry. Smartest guy in our school. That he hasn’t run off thinking we’re both insane
must
mean he is a soul-mate match.

“Well”—Henry grins—“I have to admit, when she was first talking about stigmata on your ankles, I was confused.”

“But then I told him about Aphrodite.”

“And then we had our first kiss.”

“And definitely top-twenty material,” Annie blurts out.

Henry blushes.