Dream Walker (17 page)

“No. I’m sorry for what he did to you. That he left you like that. That he was so weak—and irresponsible. All he could do was send money and teacups? I never hated him as much as I do right now.”

They sat with that, looking at the fragile cup on the table, Aislen trying to absorb the details of her mother’s revelation. The fact that, although he had abandoned them physically, his presence had been lingering with them all along. With every birthday, with every morning ritual, every sip from each cup, he was there. Then Aislen thought of something.

“But Mom, there are only twenty-two cups. Shouldn’t you have twenty-four by now? I remember that every year you would get a new cup and find a place for it on the shelf...and then, you stopped. What happened?”

Her mother shrugged. “I don’t really know. I wish I did. Every single year, a new teacup would arrive, postmarked from a different place on the planet. I couldn’t help but wonder why he was always moving,
always running
. The note always read the same, ‘My love to you from across eternity.’ I kept believing that he would be here if he could be—that he might come back one day. I could never let that feeling go. His presence was constant—inside and around me. Then, two years ago, the packages stopped.”

Aislen sat with that, thinking of her mother’s life, how it had been on hold all these years, waiting for him. Work and raising Aislen was all she had to show for it. There was never anything given to her in return, besides the stupid teacups and a little money. But where was the love? Where was the support?

It made Aislen incredibly sad and filled her with fresh anger toward her father. She thought about her hallucination that afternoon, how he’d begged her to talk with her mother about the cups.
Fuck you
, she thought, wishing he would get the message. She wanted to go back into that vision and punch him in the face.

The phone rang, breaking the silence. Aislen got up from the table and answered it. “Hello?”

“Aislen! Girl! What are you doing? I haven’t seen or heard from you in forever!”

“Hey there, Gen.” Aislen looked at her mom and mouthed, “It’s Genesis” to her. Her mom threw her a “no shit” look and got up to clean off the table. “What have you been up to?”

“I finished my certification hours today!”

“That’s awesome, Gen! Congratulations!” Aislen did her best to sound enthusiastic, though it had completely slipped her mind. What kind of friend was she? She had been so caught up in her own drama she forgot her best friend was graduating and about to get her Holistic Health Practitioner license.

“Ready to hit the town and celebrate? Because I am so ready!”

Aislen felt like complete crap. She had promised Gen a night of celebration and now she was going to disappoint her. “Gee, Gen, I’m really sorry...but tonight isn’t a good night for me. I’ve got some...stuff...going on.”

“What?
What stuff? What’s wrong? And why haven’t you called me about it?”

“Just stuff. And I don’t want to bug you with it.”

Aislen felt a hand rest on her shoulder. Her mom whispered in her ear, “Go, Aislen. It will be good for you.”

Aislen shook her head vehemently. The last thing she needed right now was time with anybody, let alone a crowd in public. She wanted to bury herself in her comforters and hide.

“Come on, Aiz,” Gen pleaded. “I have been looking forward to this for months. And you are the only one I want to celebrate with. Just come over. If you don’t want to go out, we can chill. I can make us a snack, you can tell me about ‘stuff’ and I can practice my new voodoo skills on you.”

Aislen felt torn.

“I am fine, Aislen,” her mother said. “You need a little time with a friend. Let all this go for a while and embrace something happy for a change. Please? Do it for me.”

Aislen hesitated. It went against everything she was feeling inside, but she would do it if it would make both of them happy. “All right,” she said to them both. “Let me get some clothes together and I’ll be over in a few.”

Gen’s ebullient squeals twinkled through the phone line making Aislen smile. Maybe this was what she needed after all.

CHAPTER 13

Aislen rang the doorbell. “Coming!” She heard a shout from inside. The porch light came on, the door opened, and Genesis appeared like a fairy princess: pixie blond hair framing her elfin face, deep blue eyes, and dimples in each cheek when she smiled—which was always. She was so utterly adorable, sweet, and effervescent, forever throwing glitter dust on everything in life. You wanted to pluck her up and keep her in a jar. But pity the fool who made the mistake of thinking she was a vapid, dumb blond, because with the flick of her sharp wit, she could cut him to the quick.

Genesis threw her arms around Aislen and embraced her. Aislen immediately relaxed and was happy that she had made the choice to come.

“Goddess, I have missed you,” Gen squealed. “Get in here out of that cold!”

Aislen stepped into Gen’s little apartment. Unlike Aislen, Gen had moved out of her parents’ house a couple of years ago. Working as a massage therapist at a day spa, she made her own hours and enough money to pay for her own place. It was small, but quintessential Genesis, painted in calming sages and muted tans, potted plants, repurposed furniture, and found treasures, all arranged to optimize feng shui.

“I made us a happy hour happy,” Genesis said as she skipped into the kitchen. She returned bearing two martini glasses containing a day-glo aqua concoction with a fiery red cherry floating in it.

“Holy cow! It’s really pretty, but...this does not look organic, at all.”

Gen giggled. “It isn’t. I am breaking from my organic-holistic-puritan traditions for the evening. A girl needs a little fun once in a while.” Genesis put the drink in Aislen’s hand and held hers up. “A toast! Here’s to health, happiness, and maybe a future that includes a little dancing! Cheers!”

Genesis clinked her glass to Aislen’s and they both took a sip of the electric blue juice.

It was fruity and sweet. Aislen was surprised she actually liked it. “Interesting. What is it?”

“I call it The Avatar!” Genesis swirled her glass with flourish. “Hpnotiq, vodka, and a splash of energy drink. A few of these and everything will be backwards, the dream will be the real world, and
we
will be the dream,” Genesis laughed.

Aislen blanched and set the cocktail back on the table, not sure she had an appetite for it any more. It was just like Genesis to unwittingly hit the nail on the head.

“Gee, was it something I said?”

“No. It’s nothing.”

“Don’t try to fool me! Girl, you need to remember whom you’re best friends with. Does it have to do with your so called ‘stuff’?”

“Kind of, but not really.” Aislen really didn’t want to talk about it. She came here to get away from it. But who better than Gen to talk to about the strange and absurd? “It’s just that I’ve had a couple of strange dreams lately—
disturbing
really. And I seriously would not want to flip-flop the real world with them.”

Genesis laughed. “Well, first...this,” she pointed to her drink, “is a mixed drink, not a magic potion.” She picked Aislen’s drink up off the table and handed it back her. “Second. It was only a line from one of the best movies
ever
...not an invocation. And third? You need to tell me about these dreams, pronto.” Gen flopped down on her soft, overstuffed couch, grabbed Aislen’s hand, and pulled her onto it. “Spill it.”

Aislen felt warm and relaxed for the first time all day. Only Genesis had that effect on her. She could tell Gen anything, never fearing that she would be criticized or judged. And it never failed, Gen would have a perspective completely off-kilter from the rest of the world: fresh, out of the box, and perfectly right.

Aislen began spilling the beans, the whole can of them, filling Gen in on the details of her dream the night before: the mutant world, her father’s voice churning up long-buried memories, the magnetic and ruthless soldier who killed her, and the little boy named Blake. She shared about the day, how the little boy from the dream was a real live boy, that she had seen him with her own eyes and that he possibly killed his father. She told her about the second dream in the shrine, her father appearing as a homeless man urging her to ask her mom about the teacups, how she came home to find her mother crying over a shattered favorite, and the whole story about how they all had came from him.

By the end of it, Genesis was sitting deep into the cushions of her couch, her mouth and eyes wide open. “Holy shit, Aiz! That’s freaking intense! No wonder you are so off tonight.”

“So—do you think I’m going crazy? I seriously think I am in the beginning stages of insanity.”

Genesis burst into a fit of laughter and took Aislen’s hands in hers. “No. I don’t think that at all. I think you had an amazing experience, a premonitory dream
and
a message from your father.”

“Well, I think that sounds pretty, freakin’ crazy.”

“You would. You are such a realist. I hate to be the bearer of bad news...but what you hold onto as real isn’t the only real that there is.”

“That isn’t very comforting, Gen.”

“Aha! Maybe that’s really what your problem is. The ‘what you see is what you get’ philosophy you cling to makes you feel comfortable and safe, but something happens that strays outside of the ‘provable’ and you are thrown into an ‘I must be crazy’ panic. So the question is...do you want to stay in your safety net? Because if these experiences keep happening, and you keep trying to rationalize them away, you
will
make yourself crazy.
Or
I can give you a little ‘world according to Genesis’ speech about these dreams.”

“After today, I’m game for anything. Do tell, oh wise one!”

“Okay. Your dream last night was obviously, precognitive. I mean, it was symbolic, but it was definitely a vision of an actual event. Precognitive dreams are not uncommon, but for you, not being used to this kind of stuff, it would be shocking.”

“Really, Gen...not uncommon?”

“Absolutely not. People have precognitive dreams all the time. Life-altering dreams showing them getting on a plane that crashes. They choose not to get on a plane the next day, only to find out the plane they were scheduled to be on,
crashed
. Or mundane premonitions—where they dream they are eating fresh cookies and wake up and find their mom getting out the ingredients
to make cookies
! That was one of mine, by the way. Even Abraham Lincoln—he dreamed
his own death
three days before he was assassinated! Weird? Maybe. But common? Yes.”

“Scary.”

“That, too, sometimes.”

Aislen mulled this over for a little bit. She should have called Gen earlier. Even though it seemed nuts, the idea that it was common to have dreams that actually occurred in real life reassured Aislen. Just a little, but enough.

“So, what about my father? Why him? I haven’t thought about him for years. Yesterday, I couldn’t have told you a single thing about him. And today, I can hear him and picture him as if I had always known him.”

“Well...there are different theories about this. Some people think that people in our dreams are not really those other people, but just aspects of ourselves. Maybe all these dreams and visions are surfacing because of the stress you’re under with finals and work and your subconscious is diving down deep for resources, pulling up a lot of repressed stuff, like the memory of your father’s voice and his visit when you were young. Maybe, in some way, you are reaching for that lost aspect in your life for strength ...or maybe, because it is something that needs to be healed so you can move forward into the next chapter of your life as a whole person...
Or
...” Gen stopped talking, contemplated something, then seemed to think better of it, “Nevermind...”

“Noooooooo way! You can’t do that!” Aislen playfully hit Gen on the arm. “You started it. Now finish it.”

“I think it will freak you out, too much.”

“Now you
have
to tell me!”

“Well...” Genesis took a deep breath then spoke the next sentence super fast. “Maybe your father is really trying to speak to you so he is coming to you in your dreams.” She closed her eyes in a wince ready for Aislen to punch her in the arm again, but harder this time. When it didn’t happen, she opened one eye. Aislen was staring at her.

She thought about her father, how he had known her mom was pregnant. How he timed his first package with the night of her birth. How he always seemed to be one step ahead of every event in their life. She thought about how his voice actually helped her in her dream and how that afternoon he told her she was going to need help.

A shudder ran deep through the center of her, a quake of foreboding. She picked up her Avatar and swallowed it down in a big gulp.

“I think we need to go out after all,” she said, jumping off the couch. “I’m feeling that need to dance you mentioned earlier. How about you make me another Avatar, call us a cab, and I’ll get ready?”