The City of Mirrors
Page 213

“I guess you noticed,” she said.
“Hard not to.”
“Don’t try to cheer me up, okay? A lot of people are doing that, and it’s already getting old. Now, what’s this I hear about you not eating?”
“Hardly seems worth the bother.”
“Nonsense. Let’s scoot you up.”
He was too weak to rise off the mattress on his own; Lore drew him to a sitting position and wedged a pillow between his back and the bulkhead.
“All right?”
He offered a faint, courageous smile. “Never better.”
On the tray were a cup of water and a bowl of porridge, also a spoon and cloth. She draped the cloth over Greer’s chest and began to spoon the porridge into his mouth. He worked his lips and tongue hesitatingly, as if these simple actions required tremendous concentration. Still, he managed a good amount before waving her off. She wiped his chin and held the cup of water to his lips. He took a small sip; she could tell he was humoring her. She had noticed, while feeding him, a basin at the foot of the bed, stained with blood.
“Happy now?” he asked, as she put the cup aside.
She almost laughed. “What a question.”
“Michael picked you for a reason. That’s no less true now than it was thirty-nine days ago.”
Suddenly the tears came. “Oh, goddamnit, Lucius. What am I going to tell people?”
“You’re not going to tell them anything yet.”
“They’re going to figure it out. Probably a lot of them already have.”
Greer gestured to the bedside table. “Open that drawer,” he said. “The top one.”
Inside she found a single sheet of heavy paper, folded into thirds and sealed with wax. For several seconds she just looked at it, dumbfounded.
“It’s from Michael,” Greer said.
She took it in her hand. It weighed almost nothing—it was only paper—but it felt like far more; it felt like a letter from the grave. She wiped her face with the back of her wrist. “What does it say?”
“That’s between the two of you. All he told me was that you weren’t supposed to open it until we arrived at the island. His orders.”
“So why are you giving it to me now?”
“Because I think you need it. He believed in you. He believed in the Bergensfjord. The situation is what it is; I won’t tell you different. But things may work out yet.”
She hesitated, then said, “He told me how the passengers died. How they killed themselves, sealing the ship and channeling back the engines’ exhaust.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Lore.”
“I’m only saying he knew it was a possibility. He wanted me to be ready.”
“We’re not there yet. A lot of things can happen between now and then.”
“I wish I had your faith.”
“Feel free to use mine. Or Michael’s. God knows I borrowed his lots of times. We all did. None of us would be here if we hadn’t.”
A brief silence passed.
“Tired?” Lore asked.
His eyes were heavy-lidded. “A little, yeah.”
She put her hand on his arm. “You just rest, all right? I’ll come check on you later.”
She rose and went to the door.
“Lore?”
She turned at the threshold; Greer was looking at the ceiling.
“A thousand years,” he said. “That’s how long.”
Lore waited for more but there was none. Finally she said, “I don’t understand.”
Greer swallowed. “In case Amy and the others fail. That’s how long before anybody can go back.” He took a deep breath and let the air out slowly, closing his eyes. “I’m only saying this because I might not be around to tell you later.”
She let herself into the passageway and returned to the pilothouse, where she sat at the chart table. The sky beyond the windscreen showed evening coming on. A mass of clouds, as thick and textured as wads of unspun cotton, had moved in from the south; perhaps they’d be lucky and get some rain. She watched as the sun dipped to the horizon, flaring the sky with its final light. A sudden weariness enfolded her. Poor Lucius, she thought. Poor everyone. The world could do without her for a while, she decided, and she laid her head on the table, cradling it with her arms, and soon was fast asleep.
—
She dreamed of many things. In one dream, she was a girl again, lost in a forest; in another, she was stuck inside a closet; in a third, she was carrying a heavy object of unknown type and could not put it down. These dreams were not pleasant, but neither were they nightmares. Each unfolded seamlessly into the next, depriving them of their full power—no climax was reached, no mortal moment of terror—and as sometimes occurred, she was also aware that she was dreaming, that the landscape she inhabited was harmlessly symbolic.
The final dream of Lore’s thirty-ninth night at sea was hardly a dream at all. She was standing in a field. All was quiet, yet she knew a danger was approaching. The color of the air began to change, first to yellow, then to green. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck rose, as if with a static charge; simultaneously, a great wind swirled up around her. She tilted her face to the sky. Clouds of black and silver had begun to form a whirlpool overhead. With a crackling explosion and a biting smell of ozone, a bolt of lightning jagged the ground in front of her, blinding her utterly.
She began to run. Sheets of rain commenced to fall as, above her, the furious, whirlpooling clouds congealed into a single, fingerlike cone. The ground was shaking, thunder crashing; trees were bursting into flames. The storm was pursuing her. It would sweep her into oblivion. As the finger touched down behind her, the air was rent by a deafening, animal roar. Its power seized her like a fist; suddenly the ground was gone. A voice, far away, was calling her name. She was lifting into the air, she was soaring higher and higher, she was being hurled off the face of the earth…