The Felix Chronicles: Freshmen (62 page)

“You’re the one who’s late,” Bill pointed out. “All right then, I don’t want you to miss out on your
things
. So here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll induce a state of deep relaxation. It’s a little like hypnosis, but you won’t be susceptible to suggestion or anything like that. You’ll always be in control. Once you’re relaxed, I’ll ask you questions about your dream. You told me you’re in a room, right?”

Felix nodded.

“But you can’t see very clearly because the room is hazy?”

He nodded again.

“I’m hoping that once you’re relaxed, the details of the dream will become clearer.”

“Then what?” Felix asked, confused. “What’s the point of that?”

“I think what’s happening is your mind is making a big deal out of nothing. In this dream of yours, you’re in a room and you can’t see what’s around you. Your conscious mind isn’t coping very well with the unknown. It wants to know what’s lurking in the shadows. And the only way to get a peek is to dream.”

“So my mind’s hitting the rewind button and bringing the dream back?” Felix said, finally understanding where Bill was going. “Is that what you mean?”

“Exactly. Once your conscious mind knows what’s hiding in this dream room of yours, there’ll be no need to have another look. The dream should just go away like any other dream.”

“So you’re gonna break the rewind button?” Felix asked.

“Smash it if we can,” Bill said, smiling. “I’m almost certain you’re dreaming about Allison’s room. I think there’s still some small part of your mind that’s trying to comprehend exactly what you did that night.”

“So how’s this deep relaxation thing work?”

“You’ll be sort of half-sleeping,” Bill explained, folding his hands and resting them on his lap. “You ever have a dream where you know you’re dreaming?”

“An elf tree,” Felix replied with a grin.

“A what?”

“Never mind.”

“Anyway,” Bill continued, giving him a look, “half-sleeping may feel a little strange to you. But don’t worry. When I clap my hands
twice
, you’ll come right out of it. Got it?”

“Twice. Sure. Okay.” Felix rubbed his hands on his jeans, wiping off the sweat that had gathered in the creases of his palms. He was nervous, but excited.

“Okay, then. Let’s do this.” Bill shuffled his chair over so that they were facing each other, their knees nearly touching. “Make yourself comfortable. Close your eyes.”

Felix leaned back and let his eyelids drop. The room was silent except for the patter of rain against the window. The silence lengthened.

“Relax and breathe slowly and deeply,” Bill said, breaking the stillness.

Felix took three long breaths and let the air out as slowly as he could manage.

“That’s it,” Bill said, his voice low, soothing. “Breathe deeply and relax. Let everything go. Try to empty your mind. Now open your eyes.”

He did.

A tarnished coin attached to a silver chain dangled in his face, spinning clockwise, and then when it had spent the force of its movement, it sprung back and spun in the opposite direction.

“Keep your eyes on the coin,” Bill intoned. “Relax and breathe. Focus on your breathing. In and out. In and out. Nice and easy. That’s it. Now follow the coin with just your eyes. Keep your head still.” With a slight turn of his wrist, Bill began to rock the coin back and forth in a smooth, steady, undulating arc.

Felix followed its graceful motion with his eyes. There was something strangely magnetic about it; he wasn’t sure if he could take his eyes away from it even if he wanted to.

“Watch the coin and listen to my voice. Can you hear me?”

“Yes.” To Felix’s surprise, his voice sounded flat, almost a monotone.

“I want you to return to the place in your dream. I want you to return to the room where you saw the fire. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

Felix was standing in a room, a room that looked nothing like Bill’s office. He looked all around, wondering if he was dreaming. If he was, he was sharing it with Bill because Bill was right beside him, still holding the silver chain in his hand. The floor was heaped with clothes. Posters—concerts and sports—covered the room’s dark blue walls. Thumbtacked to the back of the door was a Seattle Seahawks cheerleader calendar. A blond wood Ikea desk sat near the wall in one corner beneath a window that looked out onto a road with streetlamps some distance off and houses shadowed save for their porch lights. Scattered across the desktop were books, an iPod, stacks of CDs, a laptop and an orange cereal bowl with melted ice cream at the bottom. A clip-on desk lamp with a stretchy flexible neck was radiating down directly onto the varnished wood, amplifying the bulb’s wattage, illuminating the room with streaky diamond-patterned white light.

In the closet next to the door, shirts hung from a sagging wooden rod, and carelessly stacked bundles of pants and sweatshirts leaned against each other on a shelf mounted above it. On the closet floor, shoes, more piles of clothes and several shoeboxes competed for space with baseball bats, a basketball, footballs, a lacrosse stick, baseball gloves and a pair of heavy dumbbells. A bed stood under a window hidden behind cream-colored curtains. There was someone in it. He appeared to be sleeping. His hair was thick and sandy blond and his arms were at his sides resting loosely above the covers.

An icy shock of recognition coursed through Felix. He knew where he was.
But it wasn’t possible.
That room no longer existed. “Holy shit!” he stammered, baffled. “This is my room. That’s… that’s me!” He pointed hesitantly at the bed. “What the hell? What happened? This is
my
bedroom!” He stared at himself lying in bed. “What the hell’s going on? This isn’t the room from my dream. This is
my
room.”

Bill was just as surprised. He stood stock still, stroking his chin, assessing the room. “Hold on,” he said, his voice rising a notch. “Just keep it together.”

Felix crossed the room—his feet lifted, his knees bent, and his legs extended forward like he was walking, but it felt different, like he was half-floating and half-treading water. The floor wasn’t exactly supporting his weight, and he wasn’t sinking through it either. He reached out for a
Coldplay
poster and his hand passed cleanly through it—and the wall—all the way up to his wrist. But that’s where it stopped. He couldn’t force it in any deeper. He kicked at a T-shirt lying on the floor and his foot didn’t disturb it.

 “Weird,” Felix said, his head swimming in confusion. “It’s like we’re ghosts. But this… this isn’t the right room. What are we doing here?”

Bill didn’t say anything. He was staring at the door with an odd look in his eyes, as if he was expecting something to happen.

“What’s going on?” Felix demanded. “Bill! Hey! What is this?”

“I’m not sure,” Bill said thoughtfully, turning to face him. “We’re not really in your bedroom. We’re still in my office.” He glanced down at the chain in his hand. “I think we’re actually in a memory. And in this particular memory”—he gestured at the bed—“you were sleeping.”

“How can we be in a memory?”

“When you read your aunt’s journal, you felt what she was feeling, right?”

Felix nodded, staring at himself sleeping in bed.

“And why is that?” Bill asked.

“Because it’s cursed,” Felix said quickly. “That’s what you told me.”

“Right. And because it’s cursed, whoever reads it feels your aunt’s emotions, what she felt when she was writing in the journal. And now, we’re…
inside
your memory.” Bill paused, scratching his chin. His voice sounded different, like he was thinking out loud. “But we’re not just experiencing your emotions. We’re actually
experiencing
the memory. We’re seeing what happened. But why would that be? Why… why would—”

Almost immediately, the pieces of the puzzle shifted into place for Felix. “The memory’s cursed,” he said.

A frightened expression crossed Bill’s face. Then very abruptly, he struck his hands together in a single sharp clap and drew them apart—

“Stop!” Felix shouted, pointing at Bill. “We’re not going anywhere! Why’s this memory cursed? What’s going to happen?”

“Felix,” Bill said softly. He’d gone slightly pale. “You don’t want to see this. Let’s go. There’s nothing you can learn from this.”

“We’re staying!” Felix told him sternly. “Don’t clap your hands! Promise me!”

Bill clapped them together twice in rapid succession.

But nothing happened.

Bill looked confused. Then he frowned and shook his head. “That only works if you want it to work. You’re in control. Please, let’s go. Trust me. Let me get us out of here. You don’t want to see this.”

Felix looked around, ignoring Bill. Here he was, standing in his old room, seeing all his things exactly as he remembered them. He had to be here for a reason, and he wasn’t going to leave until he knew what it was. He went over to his desk and found the iPod that was lost in the fire. He’d bought a new one a few months ago, just before midterms, but the old one was a present from his mom and she’d had it monogramed on the back.

“Felix!” Bill shouted, breaking his reverie. “Something’s happening.”

The sleeping Felix—his past self—was moving. His arms were twitching a little. Then the movements gradually grew more pronounced. He flipped up the blankets and they fell in a tangled heap at the foot of the bed. Drenched in sweat, he was wearing only a pair of dark gray boxers; the perspiration soaked into the sheets around him, forming an outline of his body.

“Please,” Bill pleaded, moving toward him. “Let’s get out of here. You don’t want to see this.”

Felix stayed put.
He had to see this.

Everything near the sleeping Felix began to glow a deep shade of red, lighting up the room. His body spasmed as if he was having a seizure. Then he instantly grew calm. He lay there for a while, hushed and sedate. Seconds passed. He levitated off the bed, ascending slowly, incrementally, until he was close enough to touch the ceiling. And then he went quiet again, perfectly still, suspended horizontally as if he was lying on an invisible mattress. The bed bounced up and down violently, the metal legs slamming down so hard on the carpeted floor the light fixture on the ceiling shattered. The red light began to expand, edging outward, spreading languidly and inexorably across the room like a cloud, enveloping everything in its blood red embrace.

Chaos ensued: a scorching wind blistered through the room with a deafening roar. Books, CDs, clothes, dishes and shoes lifted into the air and hovered for a moment before taking direct aim at the sleeping Felix like iron filings to a magnet. Larger objects soon followed in their wake: the Swedish-made desk and its matching chair; the shelf in the closet; and the pair of dumbbells, which smashed into a mural of the Cascade Mountains next to the bed, leaving two gaping holes.

And then the flying objects burst into flames.

Lit up like kerosene torches, books, magazines, and hundreds of DVDs, began zigzagging crazily, crashing into walls, spitting out puffs of blazing ash and splintered plastic. Burning fragments whistled like arrows and fell to the floor, igniting the carpet and the curtains behind the headboard. The fire spread quickly. Smoke filled the room. And yet the sleeping Felix remained undisturbed.

“Felix!”
a man’s panic-stricken voice shouted from outside the room. “Felix! Open the door! Felix! Open the door now!” The doorknob rattled.

“Felix!” a woman’s voice cried out. “Felix! Oh my God! I smell smoke! Felix, please open the door!” She sounded terrified. There was a resounding thump on the other side of the door; the molding and wood trim around the hinges made a creaking noise. “Come on!” screamed the woman. “Break it down! There’s a fire! Break it down! Use your shoulder!”

“I’m trying, Patricia!” the man shouted back. “I’m trying!” The door shook, but scarcely moved inside its frame. “Felix! Come on, son! Felix!”

“My parents!” Felix shouted at Bill. “Mom! Dad! You’re alive!” He ran to the door, reaching for it, and his hand went right through the doorknob like it was mist. He tried to shimmy his way to the other side, to pass through it, but it was as though the memory had made him a prisoner and the room was his cell.

A constellation of flaming debris was gathering around the sleeping Felix, circling him slowly as the swirling cloud surrounding his body began to pulsate like a pumping heart. Each ear-shattering beat released an explosive shock wave of energy, flaring like the sun.

The room was quickly becoming an inferno.

And for the first time, Felix realized what was happening: this room—
his bedroom
—was the room from his dream. But it was more than just a dream. It was a memory. A memory of the night he turned eighteen. A memory of the night his parents had died. At some cognitive level, Felix now understood that he wasn’t really in his bedroom. He knew that he was inside the memory. And in the memory, his body had no substance. He was just a shadow. But he had to do something. He turned away from the door and jumped through the fiery rubble encircling the sleeping Felix, screaming at him—
screaming at himself
—to wake up. It had no effect. He was perfectly at peace, his face an emotionless mask.

“Get outta here!” Felix yelled at his parents, running back to the door. “Get outta here! Run! Get mom outta the house! Run!”

“Felix!” his dad shouted back, as if he had heard him. “Open the door! I can’t get it open! Please, son! Wake up!”

“Dad! Run! Run!” Felix screamed until his vocal cords ached. Until it felt like his throat would split open. He looked over his shoulder at Bill, who was standing in the center of the room, watching him, tears flowing freely down his face.

“Bill!” Felix called out to him, his voice frantic and filled with desperation. “Help me! Do something! Oh God! Help me! Help me!”

“Come on, Felix!” his mom screamed in terror. “Open the door! Wake up! Please! Wake up! Open the—”

Fire and sound consumed Felix, a simmering gaseous ball of molten orange flames he could see and hear, but not feel. The room shook and rippled, surging upward as if it was resting on the mouth of an erupting volcano. Something passed through him—fluttering pages from a book?—followed by floorboards, pieces of glass, two-by-fours and chunks of drywall. Overhead the sparkling night sky stretched away endlessly.