Thursday, July 22, 2004

With no explanation, I awoke to the same sound that had heralded my death: my heartbeat. I was back in the guest bedroom, in the same pajamas I'd brought with me from home. My suitcase was in the same place I'd left it, and after jumping out of bed and unlocking the bag, all my belongings were inside, just as I'd left them. Looking at the clock on the wall, I saw that it was almost two in the morning, so it was the next day, whatever that happened to be.

I hurried across the hall to Lily's room, and sighed with relief when I saw that she was sleeping soundly in her bed—and in her body, not someone else's. I did the same with Aunt Sophia, and finally myself with a brief check in the bathroom mirror. All seemed normal, but I couldn't help thinking something had to be off. Ever since I'd gone down the trapdoor, something had always been off upon my return. In a sense, I'd never returned at all.

Upon seeing things this way, I had another epiphany, and slapped myself (painfully) on the forehead. I wasn't expecting such an action to knock any more sense into the situation, much less myself (because really, who slaps themselves on the forehead), but it must have done just that. In my second straight epiphany, I realized that, if I'd never returned, maybe none of this was really happening. Maybe I was caught in a nightmare I couldn't get out of, which begged the question, at which point did I fall asleep and let my imagination take over? If this was the explanation, then there had to be a simple enough solution, a quick and easy route back to reality.

At first I thought about killing myself, based on the observation of not actually hitting the ground and dying when dreaming about falling. But I quickly reconsidered upon remembering that I'd died several times already and had only found myself in arguably worse circumstances afterward. Since I was no expert, the only easy out I could conceive of to escape from a bad dream was also ruled out. And that logic circled me around to the possibility that maybe this wasn't a dream after all.

None of what was happening was making the slightest bit of sense. I was just hopping from one messed-up reality to the next, with no consistent vessel from one to the other. If I had the tiniest clue how to fight this thing, I'd jump at it.

Exhausted from what I'd been through and continually thinking about what I'd been through, I wasn't even able to return to the guest bedroom before falling asleep again. I set myself down on the recliner in the living room, grabbed a blanket from the nearby sofa and threw it over me, pulled the lever on the side to lift my feet up, and sighed happily as I drifted back to sleep.

"Wake up, Claire!"

I groaned, recognizing Lily's voice but ignoring it, pulling the blanket over my head.

She pulled the blanket off me, and my hands were left hanging in mid-air, and that awkward feeling, along with the chill creeping over me, was what finally made me open my eyes and look at my cousin, who was already fully dressed.

"Good morning to you, too, Lily," I grumbled.

As I wiped my eyes with my fists, she told me, "Seriously, of all the days to sleep in, you chose this one?"

"It's summer vacation," I said, rising up out of the chair. "Every day is a day to sleep in."

"And normally, I'd agree with you. School can suck it. But that plane you have to catch can't."

"Plane?"

"Don't you remember?" Lily said. "You're going home today, Claire!"

She didn't have to tell me twice. I ran out of the living room and back to the guest room, and began quickly picking out clothes to wear from the suitcase.

"This is so unfair!" I remarked.

Appearing in the doorway and watching me from there, Lily added, "Well, I'm flattered that you like us so much."

"It's not that. That's not it at all."

"Bitch," Lily said, actually causing me to stop my rushing and turn my heads toward her. "Sorry. You do still like us, right?"

"Duh! I'm talking about the trapdoor, Lily! God!"

"Someone's touchy this morning. Maybe you should have some breakfast first."

"I'm touchy? You're the one who assumed I was talking about you guys! Don't you know what they say about people who assume?"

"Can we forget about that? You mentioned the trapdoor."

"I can't believe you ever showed me that horrible thing."

"After seeing that, I think it would make sense for everything else on this trip to be underwhelming for you."

"Underwhelming?" I scoffed, throwing the clothes I'd picked down onto the floor in anger. "I barely got to experience anything besides that trapdoor! Thanks to you, Lily, I've been put through hell, I mean literally, hell my entire time here! You're telling me I spent an entire week here with you? That's a lie!"

"Don't call me a liar!" Lily snapped. "You were here, Claire!"

"Then why don't I remember any of it?"

"You know what? I'm starting to think you really don't like us."

"Of course I like you! I love you! You guys are family!"

"If that's how you feel, then why are you trying to blame your boredom this week on a trapdoor you only went down, what, three or four times?"

"That is not all that happened."

"That's how we remember it. My Mom and I."

"What's going on?" Aunt Sophia said as she appeared from behind Lily. "What are you two fussing about?"

"I think Claire should see a doctor when she gets back home," Lily said, an opinion that I wasn't finding helpful in the least. "I think she's suffering from some kind of memory loss."

"I'm not!" I growled. "Aunt Sophia, I'm fine! It's you guys who are messed up!"

"Such kind parting words," Lily remarked to her mother.

"I'm sorry," I said. "But you have to believe me: something's wrong here. Something's very wrong. I went down the trapdoor last week, and…I'm starting to think I never really came back out."

"So…what?" Lily shrugged. "We're just figments of your imagination now?"

"I sure hope not," I gulped.

"We're real, Claire," Aunt Sophia tried to reassure me.

"But how can you be sure? How can any of us be sure?"

"You're just going to have to trust me. You should be getting ready. Finish packing and then wash up. Or, maybe do the reverse; that might make more sense. Your flight leaves in just a couple hours."

As she walked away from Lily and I, I realized that she had a point. Things seemed to be going great—there was no reason to lay undue stress on myself by fretting over things that might not even be true.

Of course, you know what they say about people who assume.