CHAPTER ELEVEN
Nobody
XVI
Except… except this time, Wilburn did remember. His consciousness popped up a level, thanks to the untangling of his memory rope, and he became aware that he was reliving a memory. He could not alter the memory, so it unfolded exactly as before; but now his mind was in two places, two distinct layers of experience, overlapping seamlessly in the present moment. One layer of Wilburn understood this greater context, while the other layer simply stood in it, scratching his head, looking up and down the Dream Road, oblivious to the fact that he was dreaming, and ignorant of ever having met such people as the Girl in Black, Alfajean, Buttrom, and Iddo.
He was lost. But not too lost, because, hey, at least there was a road. It was the nicest road Wilburn had ever seen, perfectly level and paved with identical square bricks, pleasantly smooth beneath the soles of his bare feet. He began to walk. He didn’t consciously choose a direction; he just went for it, as if all along he’d known which way he meant to go. Dream logic.
It took some time, or perhaps no time at all, for Wilburn to grow bored. Nothing changed. Nothing happened. The farther he walked, the more he seemed to be going nowhere. Gradually, a sense of uneasiness crept over him, and he began to glance back over his shoulder more and more, convinced someone was watching him. There was no one there. At least, there was no one he could see…
His paranoia steadily intensified. Wilburn tried to tell himself that he was being silly; there wasn’t enough cover to hide a beetle in this wasteland, much less another person. But he didn’t believe himself. The watched feeling was too strong, and it was only getting stronger. Someone was coming. An invisible someone… a presence… feminine, but inhuman…
Wilburn broke into a run. From that point on, he did not look back. Because he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to find out who or what the presence was. Completely forgetting that he could fly, Wilburn took the road at a dead sprint, his bare feet almost silent on the stone. The only sound was that of the wind rushing past his ears.
A toothpick appeared on the horizon. As he approached, the toothpick grew into a signpost planted at the intersection of four roads. Somehow, Wilburn didn’t need to consult the signs to know that home lay straight ahead. He pelted through the crossroads with his head down and his stomach in his throat. The presence was close behind and gaining on him quickly.
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To all appearances, the Real Life Road stretched on for miles into the distance. Wilburn ran. He had no choice. He couldn’t let Her catch him. He ran the way a drowning person swims toward the surface. It was do or die. But Wilburn wasn’t going to make it. The presence was upon him, and there was no shelter in sight.
XVII
Thunk.
Wilburn jolted upright, a blanket sliding off him. This wasn’t his bed. He was downstairs, sitting on the guest cot in front of the fireplace. And the whole cottage was buzzing.
Thunk.
The sound had come from overhead. Mom was peering up into the rafters with concern.
Thunk.
The buzzing ceased, and in the relative silence, a cacophony of clicks and skitters filtered down, as if a squirrel-circus was performing on the roof. Wilburn didn’t understand. He had escaped. He had awoken from the nightmare. He was safe. Except he wasn’t. He could feel Her in the air around him, Her presence, Her measureless intelligence, Her power.
“She’s here,” Wilburn said, numbly.
“What?” Mom asked. “Who?”
But before Wilburn could answer, there came an almighty crash. Debris rained down from the ceiling, as the vexpids tore their way into the cottage, into Ez and Wilburn’s lives.
XVIII
And then… he was back. Wilburn resurfaced from his memories into the stillness of the frozen autumn afternoon. He was back with Iddo under the boughs of the old sycamore, the orange leaves conspicuously unmoving in the non-time of this private closed-loop sub-dimension of Higher Astral Sector-1 Parallelaspace.
Mom and Gramma sat at the base of the old tree, Mom’s lips shaping a silent aaaa… In the background stood the ruins of the cottage, and a short way down the sunny hillside stood the statue of the black stallion, a sprig of grass protruding from his muzzle. As for the weenies, they continued to be roasted over the motionless campfire by Wilburn’s equally motionless Real Life avatar.
Nothing whatsoever had changed—except him. For now, Wilburn remembered all that had transpired on his first journey to the Astral Plane. He remembered Iddo. He remembered the ritual. And he remembered the Girl in Black, who was the reason he’d forgotten it all in the first place. Yes, Wilburn remembered. He remembered everything. And now that he remembered, Wilburn had a few questions to ask.
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