Sleep No More
Page 39

“Well, keep trying. Hopefully you’ll be able to manage it soon.”
“I’m going to try to take a nap,” I say, feeling like I have to defend myself. “Maybe I’ll sleep lighter that way and be able to focus better.”
“Listen,” Smith says, “call me as soon as you get another vision and we’ll try to make a plan okay?”
“Sure,” I agree listlessly, then hang up. I lie back against my headboard and rub at my aching sinuses. I haven’t cried this much in one day in a long time and it makes everything hurt. I glance down in surprise when my phone buzzes, and I find a text from Linden.
Are you okay??!!!!!
He probably just woke up and found out about the third murder. A warm feeling slides through me. This time, someone is checking up on me. But then I sigh, and feel guilty all over again. I text back:
I’m okay.
I don’t have the energy to send anything else. And apparently neither does Linden. It’s over an hour later before my phone buzzes again, and I haven’t moved an inch.
No one knows who yet. Have you heard anything?
I text back a no and then, despite feeling bad about it, turn my phone off. He knows I’m alive; beyond that, he’ll live for a few hours. I have to focus—I have to work. I drag myself out of my room and to my mom’s office to set my plan in motion.
“I don’t feel good,” I say, only half a lie.
“Coming down with something on top of all of this?” she asks sympathetically, though her eyes are red rimmed too.
“Maybe,” I say with a misery I don’t have to fake. “Or maybe it just is this,” I add. “I’m going to lie down and try to take a nap, and just wanted to let you know so you don’t come knocking and wake me up. I got up too early.”
I go back to my room and discover just how hard it is to sleep when you really try. I’ve filled my room with all sorts of distractions to help me not sleep too deeply—music playing softly in my earbuds, curtains pulled wide to let the light in—but they’re keeping me from going to sleep. I start to concentrate on my breathing instead, closing my eyes and blocking out the noise as I breathe in for ten counts, and out for five. All the while I concentrate on the drawing of the domed world in Sierra’s book that seems too strange to be true.
Suddenly I’m swimming. My arms move slowly, but this time when I stroke, I move. I can sense a surface far above me and I kick with my legs and pull with my arms. I blink and see a light with the same all-colors-and-yet-none quality that the focus stone has and somehow I know—I just know—that’s where I’m trying to get.
I burst free of the strange air/water, and my knees hit a hard, flat surface. I stay there on my hands and knees, panting.
And when I look up, I know I’ve done it.
TWENTY
I push myself to my feet and take a tentative step forward. It seems like I was right about the napping and the concentration thing, because I’m definitely here. The floor is like a mirror, and it’s surrounded by a huge dome filled with rows upon rows of images—all playing at a low volume that sounds like a buzz when they blend together.
Squinting, I focus on one for a few seconds and the dome moves and spins, bringing that image closer.
Which completely disorients me and makes me fall to my knees, my hands spreading on the smooth surface of the floor to remind myself which direction is up, and which is down. I feel lost and dizzy.
I don’t like this.
But I’m here now. What do I do?
I start by grounding myself. I sit, push my feet out in front of me, and splay my fingers wide on the glassy floor. “Down,” I say to myself. “This is down, and now I won’t lose it.”
I remember the focus stone and when I tip my head, there it is, hanging around my neck. Probably because that’s where it was when I fell asleep. I grip it in my fist, holding on to the only familiar thing in this weird world. Then I look back up into the endless sphere of images above me and pick one at random. I focus as the dome rotates and brings it to a stop in front of me.
It’s a girl from school, at home fighting with her parents. I watch for about a minute, but unless this girl is the person who ended up dead yesterday, I’m not interested.
Smith told me I should be able to manipulate things in my dreaming more easily than in visions. Since I’ve finally managed to retain some kind of focus, I decide to try that. Can I get the answers I need here? Smith said this is every possible future, but what about the past? Can I see the past too?
I think about the news report I watched earlier today. I picture the scene in my mind and try to grasp on to every detail I can remember. The tufty grass sticking up through the snow, the reporter standing in a field of slush filled with dozens of footprints. When I open my eyes the dome is rolling and the crime scene is coming toward me.
I tamp down a feeling of success and focus on the square. It’s not quite the same as watching it on the news—it’s unedited. The reporter is blotting her eyes with a tissue as an assistant stands by with a powder brush. The reporter nods after a moment and the assistant covers up her slightly reddened nose with makeup. Then she takes a steadying breath and turns back to the camera.
Is this the past? The scene looks different.
It hits me like a punch in the gut.
The body is gone.
This isn’t the past. It might be the present.
So where is the body? As though answering my question, the dome rolls and I have to brace myself on my arms to keep from losing perspective again. A brightly lit room appears before me and I realize it’s the morgue.