Ghosts of Eden (16 page)

Perhaps that is best. No one should be forced.

I don’t want to die
, Kayla said.

Open your eyes
, the cat said.

Yes, open them
, said the elk.

And she did, as wide as she could, looking first at the leering animal faces, dancing with shadow, then up, up toward the sky, where the stars seemed suddenly like tiny holes puncturing a quilt of darkness. And as she looked, one of those stars streaked, cut a shooting line through the dark, and was gone. She could feel there was something on the other side of that quilt, a roiling energy, a looming potential, unconcerned with the fate chosen for it—to create and evolve, or crush and destroy.

Her next dreams were shrouded, more oblique. She was running through a dark jungle and savage animals were chasing her. Then she was hiding in a cave and a skeletal man was looking for her, dragging with him his sticky sack of wriggling offspring. Then she was in an alleyway in a nameless city of buildings so tall they obscured the sunlight and melting faces watched her from high-rise windows. Then she was climbing a tree and one of the offspring had spawned and came after her with its head that was covered on all sides with slobbering mouths and slurping tongues and the branches were becoming thinner and thinner and one snapped and she kept going and then a tongue gripped her dangling foot and there was another snap and she knew she was going to fall.

* * *

The next day, after breakfast, she was surprised to find Garty in the library before her—their uncle not yet arrived—yet all she could think about: the dreams were getting worse.“How’s it going?” Garty said.

“More nightmares.” She shuddered again.

“That sucks.”

Kayla looked at Garty. His eyes were glazed, half-open. She heard the slur in his voice. “Are you going to yell at Uncle Xander again today?” she asked him.

“Nah. I’m just gonna hang out and listen.”

“Good.”

She heard the door open, then close, the clacking of Uncle Xander’s dress shoes approaching. “The lesson today,” their uncle began, even before he’d reached the whiteboard, “is about mirrors. It’s always done with mirrors.” Their uncle stopped at the front of the room, spun to face her and Garty. “When they open the box on stage in an illusionist’s act, and the person who was just inside appears to have vanished—they haven’t really. That person—that scantily clad whore—is still in the box, still just lying there, but the mirrors show an empty box. Its just mirrors! That’s it! An illusion!” He swung his pointer, struck the whiteboard, sparks fizzed, left a black mark. “But the true illusion, the important thing to remember, to garner from this idea, is that people are easily deceived. They can be tricked, and they tend to perceive to be real only what they are shown, only what they can see before them. It is a lie. A grand illusion. Our grip on reality is tenuous. Modify our brain functions slightly and our perceptions change.”

Kayla sat stiffly in her seat. Uncle Xander was more energetic than she’d ever seen him. Garty looked very tired, but he was engrossed as well, looked like he wanted to say something.

“In physics, we measure the tiniest workings of the universe using the theories of quantum mechanics. Numerous testable hypotheses have shown that it is impossible to know a particle’s position, but we can know all of its possible positions and the probability of the particle being at each. We call this a particle’s ‘quantum state’ and some have theorized that said particle is actually present in
all
possible positions, that all results are happening in the same moment, in our universe or in others, ones parallel to our own.”

Uncle Xander rushed on, hardly stopping even to breathe. “This very idea is speculative evidence to the existence of other universes. Flip a coin in our universe and you get ‘heads,’ in another, at the exact same time, the coin is landing on ‘tails.’ This suggests we are living on a single layer in a quilted multiverse. This suggests we are small, that we do not occupy a privileged position, that we do not lie at the center of the universe or any of its neighbors, that most of us are of little importance, but there are ways we can change this. Those with the ability to travel between universes, to visit and speak with and influence the minds of the observers—what physicists call the inhabitants of other planets—on distant worlds, would hold the power to guide and shape the course of the multiverse itself. Such ability would be beyond reckoning, and the individual with such power would soon join the ranks of The Simulators, and soon be worshipped as a deity.”

Uncle Xander stopped, eyes glazed, not really seeing the library, or his two staring pupils. He slumped onto his stool, hanging his head, as if his aging frame had grown weary of supporting his massive intellect. He was quiet for a time.

Kayla watched closely the rise and fall of her uncle’s shoulders as his excited breathing began to slow. She could feel Garty shifting uncomfortably next to her. She had no idea what her uncle was talking about.

“When I was young,” Uncle Xander began again, without lifting his head, “only eight years old, there was a solar eclipse. I was excited because even then I had an intense interest in stars and space, in things wondrous and greater than myself. My father did not understand why I was so eager and interested, but I begged him to let me go up on the roof of our house so I could be as close as possible to the phenomena. He reluctantly agreed to set up the ladder for me, but my mother said it was too dangerous, said that I needed a special scope to look at a solar eclipse without damaging my eyes. So I sulked quietly in my room until my parents were distracted and then snuck outside and climbed up the house. I tiptoed carefully across the roof so my parents wouldn’t hear me, and took up a position on top of the protruding chimney. When the eclipse began, I took short, furtive glances as the moon became a dark blot over the sun, then the sun became a crescent, then a sliver. When the moment of complete eclipse arrived, I turned fully to look upon the fiery ring of light and I remember laughing to myself. I remember laughing with complete joy at seeing something so rare and amazing.” Uncle Xander sighed. “Then the world went black.”

Kayla watched her uncle slide his pipe from his lab coat. In an instant it sparked to life and those lightly bearded lips drew deeply on the slender instrument.

“I was blind. All was blank. Then, slowly, a face began to coalesce in the dark, ghostly and half-formed, but I could still distinguish her features. She was young—my age—but I already knew what she would look like when she was older. She smiled, looked at me. I felt strange, like I was seeing something I shouldn’t. I was warm suddenly, even though the air was brisk and chilly on the roof. I was in a forest and there were other faces watching me, but mostly all I could see were their eyes, reflective and glowing. Then the vision was gone. I blinked my eyes, but still my sight would not return. I groped from my perch upon the chimney and slid to the roof. I began to panic; I called out for my mom; I rubbed my eyes frantically; I lay on the roof and I cried. When my parents found me, I was in such a state they couldn’t be angry with me. My sight returned a couple of hours later, but I haven’t looked at anything the same way since.”

He puffed on his pipe. His eyes remained cast downward in thought.

“My first year in college, I had a difficult time making friends. I’m from a small town and up to that point I’d lived a sheltered life. Now I was in California, in a big city. I didn’t feel comfortable. I didn’t fit in. But I took refuge in my studies and I excelled. One day I was sitting at one of the tables in the commons area of LeConte Hall studying, when a woman approached and sat down across from me. Startled, I stared at her, my tongue like a melted glob in the back of my throat, unable to find words. She smiled at me, flicked hair from her eyes. She leaned over the table, clearly comfortable with the situation. ‘Hello, William,’ she said, and I knew where I’d seen this woman before: she had the soft-featured face of the girl I’d seen right after being blinded by the eclipse. ‘Hi,’ I stammered. ‘You…’ I began, but she shushed me with a finger to her lips, stood, beckoned me to stand, took my hand in hers. She led me up the stairs and I soon found myself being pushed into a dark cramped room.

“‘This is the janitor’s closet,’ I said.

“She just smiled sweetly, already working the buttons on her blouse.

“‘Wait,’ I said. I was inexperienced, uncomfortable with such casual encounters. ‘I can’t… I…’

“But then she was stroking me, and her legs were bare in panties and her breasts were pushed against me. I had never been in such a situation. My thoughts seemed distant and unimportant. Her skin was smooth and perfect, the subtle line of her belly. My hands reached out, as if they weren’t my own, and slid her panties down over the curve of her hip. She guided me to my back on the floor, then into her, and rocked gently over me. She didn’t make a sound, not a gasp, nor did her breathing increase. I assumed she was quiet so no one would hear us. She brought me quickly to climax, smiling down at me as I spasmed within her. Then she remained straddling on top, letting the juices run down my inner thighs. She seemed frozen in the moment, smiling close-mouthed without moving. I nudged her, but still she didn’t move. Then, a feeling rose up in me, emotions like I’d never quite felt before. She moved her head slightly, cocking it to the side as if she was waiting for something, still smiling. Her skin was very white, like cold marble. I nudged her again, but she only cocked her head to the other side: what was she doing?

“My emotions roiled: what I felt was a deep and rising dread.

“I reached up to push her away, but when my fingers touched her skin, I drew them back with a gasp. I was revolted, as if I’d touched something soft and sticky without knowing it. She stood, leaving me to groan on the floor. I watched her dress, then she waved at me, like a child, said, ‘Hello, William,’ and left me alone in the dank closet.

“She never told me her name; I still don’t know it. ‘Hello, William,’ were the only two words she said to me the entire time, as if she’d memorized them, as if speaking a language foreign to her.”

Uncle Xander’s shoulders were heaving again as his breathing became labored, as he relived his old memories. Kayla watched, fascinated, completely enamored with her uncle’s stories. No one had ever talked about such things around her, especially not the sex stuff.

Next to her, Garty mumbled something. Kayla glanced at him. Garty tried again, raising his voice: “You’re disgusting.”

Uncle Xander lifted his head, his eyes slowly focusing.

“You probably get some kind of sadistic pleasure out of telling your fucked up stories to little girls, don’t you? God damn—you’re insane.”

“I have an important point to make if you’ll let me finish, Garty,” Uncle Xander said, his voice even but threatening.

“It’s okay,” Kayla said.

Garty shook his head, sighed loudly, but didn’t speak further.

“I had a dream last night,” Uncle Xander said, continuing as if he’d not been interrupted. “I dreamed a cold breeze woke me in the middle of the night. She was standing in my bedroom by the open window with her back turned to me. ‘Hello?’ I tried, but she didn’t move. ‘Is something wrong?’

“She turned slightly, so I could see the pale glint of her chin but not her face. She remained silent, only continued to look out the window. The room was filled with a frigid chill. ‘Close the window, would you?’ I said.

“But she ignored me, her white slender body fading against the shadows. ‘What’s your name?’ She would not answer and I still could not see her face. I lay down and a more complete sleep overtook me and I remember nothing more.”

Uncle Xander looked up. He glanced at Garty, then brought his eyes to rest on Kayla. “That woman has haunted my entire life. I’ve dreamed of her before. The memory of my brief encounter with her in the janitor’s closet stays with me, marks an important point in my life, a pivotal moment. Every time I’ve been with a woman since, I think about her close-mouthed smile, her gently rising hips. Even my revulsion to her seems now to have been only a reaction to the inexplicable. I know now that she came to me that day to see what potential I possessed, to assess my mind and abilities. She was testing me to see if I possessed the stability to go beyond the tired limitations of the accepted scientific fields. She only wanted to know that I was worthy of inclusion in The Council.”

Uncle Xander sighed. “Still, it is strange I continue to dream of this nameless woman. Perhaps it wasn’t a dream. The things that happen in this house…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Garty interrupted. “Get to the point. If you even have one.”

“Yes, of course,” Uncle Xander said, sweeping to his feet. “I digress. I did not mean to stray into such personal things. Please forgive me.”

Kayla glanced to the side: Garty was shaking his head.

“The lesson today—conjuration.” Their uncle cleared his throat. “I mentioned earlier that our perceptions can easily be deceived. When we are intoxicated, or sick with a fever, or have sustained a concussive injury to the head, we sometimes see things in ways different than we normally would see them. Sometimes the belief in something, spread over time through the collective unconscious of the human race, can spawn things into existence, that a notion, an imagining, if it remains truly steadfast, can become something real. Garty, would you come up here?”