The Truth Against the World (6 page)

“I was wondering … we don't have any relatives named Olwen Nia Evans, do we? On the Welsh side?” He lingered in the doorway, watching her work.

“That family tree again? Well, I'm sure I don't know every single relative of your father's, but if it's not on the list he gave you, then it's not likely.” His mum smiled at him distractedly and started scrubbing the potatoes. “There are loads of Evanses in Wales, you know that.” Her tone lifted, a bit proudly. “Our English side has got Huxleys, going back for centuries on my dad's side.”

“Right. Okay.” Gareth started pacing back and forth, trying to figure out what this meant. Apparently Olwen Nia Evans
wasn't
a relation—neither of them, actually. But that didn't explain why he was so convinced there was a connection—
why he felt so much like he knew Wyn already.

He shook his head. There wasn't any rational reason for there to be a connection. Yes, it was all a major coincidence. Coincidences were a matter of statistical probability—
they were bound to happen from time to time.

Right. At this point, he'd done all he could do. He was unlikely to find out any more information.

Finding Wyn's blog—well, that
was
an amazing coincidence, but she was just a girl, an American girl, who happened to have Welsh family, and …

No. Stop it
. This was the problem. He just kept going round and round in circles. No, from now on, he was only going to think about programming and his animation project, and reasonable everyday
normal—

It started as a tingle in his toes. Gareth looked down, surprised, and shifted his feet as if they'd fallen asleep.

But it didn't stop there. The odd tingling began to spread, on up his spine and into his head, which began feeling light and strange as if it were lifting off from his body. He leaned back against the kitchen doorframe, his skin prickling. The room started going dim, and he wondered if this was what it felt like to faint.

But apparently not, because after everything went dark, images suddenly appeared, as if on a screen in his mind's eye. With mounting horror, Gareth realized that he was in his own memory, back in Wales, walking along the grass clifftop overlooking the sea. A part of him noted distantly that he must have fallen asleep on his feet, but it was a very small part, and then it disappeared entirely as dream-images flickered past: A lonely cairn of stones. The grave plaque. And then he was standing in front of the cromlech, its huge boulders looming overhead, its yawning cavernous opening descending into darkness. He approached the hole and peered in.

Then he was inside. Black night surrounded him on all sides, but in front of him was a girl. Olwen. He started, bumping his head on the unseen rocky ceiling. The jabbing pain made his eyes fly open.

He was in the kitchen. He was home. He was leaning against the doorframe.

And his mum had turned from her potato-scrubbing and was peering at him from across the room with a frown. “Did you just fall asleep?”

Gareth swallowed, his throat dry, and felt his head start to throb. “Er. I suppose. Long day,” he tried to explain.

“You're looking a little peaked lately. Are you sure you're not ill?” She set the potatoes in the sink and came over to him, putting a hand on his forehead. He pulled away.

“I'm okay,” he said. “Just tired.”

“If you're tired enough to fall asleep standing up, you'd better have a lie-down before dinner,” his mum told him in a no-nonsense tone. “I'll send Tommy to wake you up.”

“No! I mean, no, I don't need a nap.” Gareth tried not to let his fear show. “I'll be fine tomorrow. I just didn't sleep well is all.”

“If you're sure,” his mother said, still frowning.

“I'm sure,” he echoed. But he really wasn't, not at all.

The next morning, Gareth woke late. The first thing he did was reach for his phone and check his email.

Nothing.

8

Coelia'n llai'r glust na'r golwg.

Believe the ear
less than the eye.

Welsh proverb

I was lying in bed reading, not quite ready to get up yet, when I heard the
ping
of a chat notification on my laptop. Probably Rae. Or Bethany, if she was somehow awake before 11 a.m. on a Saturday. I took a minute to throw on appropriate weekend attire—dark gray sweats—and brush my hair into a ponytail before checking the computer.

LewzerBoy:
wyn? it's me, gareth

I drew in a rapid breath. This was happening.
Right now
. In my head, I didn't feel prepared, but my fingers were already tapping at the keys.

OlwenNia:
Oh, wow! I just have a minute.
Sorry I didn't answer your email yet

LewzerBoy:
np

LewzerBoy:
it was so weird that i found yr website

OlwenNia:
That *was* weird. I never thought anyone was reading it. I'm a little embarrassed

LewzerBoy:
not embarrassing
yr a good writer

OlwenNia:
Thanks. :) It hasn't been that great lately, though. I haven't been getting enough sleep, I guess.

LewzerBoy:
ah don't worry, cdn't tell.
why didn't u sleep well? horrible california weather? lol
or a hot date
sorry, jk

OlwenNia:
LOL I wish. I had a nightmare.

LewzerBoy:
sorry. read about that on yr blog.

OlwenNia:
Yeah, I get them a lot …
They're kind of disturbing

There was a long pause. I realized I was breathing shallowly, nervously. But it wasn't a bad kind of nervous. In fact, despite our topic of conversation, there was a smile on my face. A big one.

LewzerBoy
:
meant to tell u …
asked my parents if there were any evanses
in our family. because i recognized yr name.
they said every good welsh family has an evans or 2 in it

OlwenNia:
Including yours? :)

LewzerBoy:
no evans my mum could think of.
wonder why u seem so familiar then

OlwenNia:
No clue. I asked my Gee Gee, but no Lewises in our family.

LewzerBoy:
so …

OlwenNia:
Yeah, I know. I'm confused, too.

LewzerBoy:
it's just that u look so familiar.
coincidence, I guess

OlwenNia:
Or something else?

LewzerBoy:
what do u mean?
like fate? or karma?

LewzerBoy:
wyn, are you there?
hello?

OlwenNia:
I'm here. You just startled me.
I was thinking the same exact thing!
Normally I'd say that's impossible
but my life has been weird lately.

LewzerBoy:
is everything ok? how's yr great-gran,
is she doing all right?

OlwenNia:
Yeah.
she's been talking about her old life a lot, back in Wales.

LewzerBoy:
really, like what?
uh oh, mum's calling me. gotta go

OlwenNia:
Can we talk again?

LewzerBoy:
yeah, i'll email you. or we could
video chat if you want
bye

OlwenNia:
Bye.

I closed the chat window and stretched back in the chair, the hard wooden slats pressing into my back. My smile had grown even bigger, despite our conversation being cut short.

And, of course, despite knowing better about random conversations with strangers online. My parents would freak if they knew.

The thing was, Gareth didn't feel like a stranger. And he was obviously a real person. I hadn't quite believed it until today.

He sounded really British, the way he talked about his “mum” and my “gran.” Maybe he sounded like a BBC star. We might video chat next time, and then I'd know for sure. Maybe he spoke Welsh.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I could have
asked
Gareth if he spoke Welsh. I should have asked where his family was from, even if we weren't related. I wanted to ask a lot of things, but maybe it was better to take it slow, especially with someone halfway around the world.

Of course, I'd be halfway around the world myself in a week and a half. Instead of waking up in my familiar old room, the sounds of the city all around me, I'd be sleeping in a cottage in Gee Gee's tiny home village, which probably had nothing going on at night. Would it be too quiet? Would there be the rumble of cars driving past? Would there be crickets, or night birds? Or nothing but the smell of the sea and the sound of the wind?

All of a sudden, I ached to talk to someone, tell somebody about Gareth. I hadn't confided in Rae lately, but … I didn't want to leave things the way they were. I wouldn't see her much this summer. Maybe not until school started in the fall, if Gee Gee hung on for that long. I'd have no way to put our friendship back the way it was, not from a distance. I unfolded myself from the chair and retrieved my phone from the foot of the bed.

“Hi!” she chirped. I could hear voices in the background; her dad's familiar rumbling laugh.

“I'm not interrupting, am I?” I sank down on the foot of my bed.

“Nah. We just finished brunch. What's up?”

“Not much.” I shifted to face my laptop, which had already reverted to screen saver mode: a montage of photos. Rae and me. Me and my parents on vacation at Disneyland. Gee Gee from years ago, holding my dad as a baby. “Well, okay. This guy … Gareth. He emailed me about my blog.” I paused. “He lives in London.”

She squealed. “What? I can't believe you didn't tell me! Did you email him back? Did he send you a picture? Ooh: is he cute? English accents are
so hot.
”

“His avatar picture is really tiny. He has glasses. Don't sidetrack me!”

Rae gave an evil chuckle.

“Anyway, I was trying to tell you we talked on IM,” I said. “Just now.”

“You
did
?” She drew in a sharp breath. “That's, um, wow.”

“Yeah, I know.”

I gave her a quick recap of the conversation. “We thought we might be related. He said my name looked familiar.”

“Total pickup line,” Rae said.

“You
would
say that.” I felt kind of annoyed, even though that was what I'd thought at first, too. “He was serious, though.
He
reads my blog posts,” I pointed out.

“Oh, so maybe he's a stalker!”

I chose to ignore that possibility. “I did ask Gee Gee about it. Whether we had Lewises in the family. She said no, though, so I don't think we're related.”

“Great. It won't be incest if you guys hook up.”

“Thanks for that,” I said.

“So what now?” Rae asked.

“Well, we decided we should talk on Skype sometime, face-to-face. Then he had to go help his mom. His ‘mum.'”

“Ooh, Skype.” Rae laughed, then went quiet, as if waiting for more. “Is that it?”

“Yeah, but … ” I didn't know how to explain it to her, because I didn't know how to explain it myself. But it felt like Gareth and I were supposed to find each other, somehow. If I said that aloud, I knew Rae would laugh. Not in a mean way, but she and I looked at the world very differently. She didn't seem to have the same sense of … the magic in the universe.

When I was little, I used to believe everything. I believed the Greek gods and goddesses were real, and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, and of course all the stories Gee Gee read to me, of King Arthur and Taliesin the Bard and the mythological Olwen. I wanted them all to be real.

I wanted
this
, this one small good thing in my life, to be real.

“Are you there?”

“Yeah.”

“Is everything okay? How's your, um, family stuff? You know, just because you don't like to talk about it doesn't mean I don't care.”

“Oh, Rae, I don't know.” I felt my throat tighten. “I'm glad we're going to Wales, but this is so hard.” It wasn't just that I wouldn't be home this summer. Watching Gee Gee dying was the hardest part. But I couldn't get those words out. I could write them, but I couldn't seem to say them.

“I know it's hard,” Rae said quietly. “But you're strong. I know you. You'll manage.”

That was another way we were different, I thought after we'd hung up. Rae was the strong one, the one who took charge, the one who kept me from tripping over cracks in the sidewalk because I was too busy daydreaming to watch where I was going. On my own, I wasn't sure I
could
manage.

I hunched over on the edge of the bed, hugging my knees. Rae could sound certain because she had no idea what was going on under the surface of all this. And there was no way I could explain it to her—no way to tell her that it wasn't just the near future that worried me, the things that I knew were inevitable, like Gee Gee dying.

How could I explain the insistent feeling that there was more going on than even
I
knew? And that somehow, soon, I needed to find out what was real and true?

In the dream, I'm walking by the sea, along the softly rolling hills. Grass is under my feet, stretching away to either side. The ocean crashes against the rocky cliffs far below, and the faint sting of salt spray needles my skin. It's just like before, but this time, there's more. On one side is an old abandoned church, moss and leaves pushing through cracks in the crumbling stone. I'm moving as if propelled, stiffly, like a marionette.

I pass the church, and the ocean cliff grows nearer. Then I see it: a group of huge rocks stacked on top of one another like a low, sunken doorway. A strange electricity gathers in the air under the gray, overcast skies, and suddenly I'm beyond the stones. In the grass a young woman is kneeling, her back to me. Her long dark hair spills over her shoulders, which are heaving, shaking. Over the loud pounding of the sea, I hear quiet, keening sobs.

The hairs on my arms stand up, as if the atmosphere is charged with static, and then abruptly there's a profound silence, the sounds of the ocean receding into the distance. In the stillness, I hear the young woman let out an anguished cry.

A shiver crawls up my spine. Her voice, low and rich and rough with sorrow, seems somehow familiar. “Olwen,” she cries again.

Then the dream is slipping away and my eyes are opening.

Someone was calling my name. It was Gee Gee.

“Olwen … Wyn, are you here?”

Her voice drifted down the hall, quavering but insistent. I hauled myself out of bed, glancing at the clock: 6:27 a.m. I turned off the alarm I'd set for 6:30 and padded quickly in my slippers to Gee Gee's room. Inside, it was dim, the curtains blocking most of the early morning light, and all I could see was a slender, shadowy shape sitting up in bed, surrounded by blankets.

“Are you okay?” My voice was tight with anxiety. I lingered in the doorway; I didn't know what I would do if something was really wrong. “I was just getting up. Do you need me to get you anything? Do you need help up?”

Gee Gee pressed a button, and the back of the hospital bed slowly hummed its way upright. “I should be the one asking you if you're all right,” she said with a gentle smile. “I thought I heard you crying out.” She started to scoot her legs over the side of the bed.

“No, don't get up.” I hesitated. “I'm fine. I was having another nightmare. I guess I was talking in my sleep.” I walked in and tucked the blue-and-green quilt around Gee Gee's shoulders, my heart twisting as I felt their fragility, their narrowness.

“Oh, my dear,” she said. Her voice was sad, as if she felt sorry. I wouldn't be able to take it if she felt sorry.

“It's okay,” I said quickly. “I'm getting up for school now anyway. Are you sure you don't need anything?”

“No, dear, I'm quite comfortable.” She patted my hand, her touch papery, ghostlike.

I hated to think about it, but I knew she didn't have a lot of time left. We'd go to Wales, and then … It struck me that I didn't want to be left wishing we'd talked more. Or regretting the fact that I hadn't asked her all the questions I could possibly think of before she was gone.

I sat down at the foot of the bed. “Gee Gee, I know this might sound silly.” I swallowed, my throat dry. “Can I tell you about the dream I had?”

“Of course you can, dear.” She looked at me, and I could see the worry lines etched into her forehead. “This dream, though. Was it what we talked about before?” I tensed up, waiting for her to elaborate. “A sensitive dream?”

“I don't know.” I hooked one arm over the bed's metal safety railing and stared down at the quilt. “I saw … I keep seeing a woman who looks like you, but younger. Everything's green, and I know somehow it's in Wales. There's an old church, by the sea. And she's crying, like someone's died.” Tears sprang to my eyes. “It's so sad. Was it … ” I swallowed hard. “Was it real?”

“Oh, Olwen
fach
.” Gee Gee squeezed my hand. She didn't seem surprised. If anything, my dream seemed to have plunged her into her own memories. “You know, life was very hard in those days when I was young. I know I've told you about the times during the war when we had to go without so much.” There was a long pause. I opened my mouth to ask how I would even know if it was a sensitive dream, and if so, what it meant—why she'd cried my name in it—but she continued, in a soft voice.

“We were very poor in Cwm Tawel. All the villages were.” She was looking somewhere past me now, her eyes vague and half-closed. She seemed to want to talk. And I wanted to know, so I kept quiet. “It was a hard time, with so many gone to fight. The men too young or infirm, of course, had to find other work, in the coal mines and the munitions factories. Dad was older, so he was on night watch with the Home Guard.”