CHAPTER 6
"No! We were there! We found him!" screeched Maria hysterically.
Liz clamped a hand over Maria's mouth. "Shhhh! You'll wake up Mr. & Mrs. Evans!"
Pulling Liz's hand away from her face, Maria continued agitatedly--but much more quietly--"I cannot believe this! We found him. We were just about to get to him, and poof!! Here we are back in reality. This really sucks."
Alex put a hand apologetically on her shoulder. "We agreed on an hour. An hour passed, so we woke you up."
"It wasn't enough time," said Isabel. "But you weren't to know that."
"Fine," Maria burst out. "So next time give us longer. I am going back in there and I am coming out with one sorry spike-headed Spaceboy, if it kills me! Or him!"
Max spoke up from his place beside Isabel. "All right, we'll try again. But give us a few minutes, will you? Holding the connection between you and Isabel is harder than I'd thought."
Liz glanced at Maria and noticed what she hadn't seen in all the commotion. "It's evidently hard on you, too, Maria. What happened to your shoe? And your forehead?" Her eyes widened as Maria explained.
"Oh, that. I ran into this invisible wall."
"Invisible wall?"
"Uh-huh."
Isabel confirmed her statement. "There's an invisible, cylindrical barrier in the middle of Michael's dream desert. Maria thinks he's inside it."
"I don't just think he is. I know he is," Maria said stoutly. "Didn't you hear him, right before we were pulled out?"
Isabel shook her head. "What did he say?" asked Max.
Maria chuckled a bit. "He said, and I quote, 'What the hell?' Typical."
Isabel nodded, her eyes shining. "Sounds like Michael. Our Michael."
Maria smiled brilliantly back at her. "So let's go give him a piece of our minds, shall we?"
Isabel placed her fingers lightly on the swelling on Maria's forehead. "Just as soon as I fix this, okay?"
A short while later, Isabel and Maria found themselves back in the desert, where the trail of footprints began. "You know," remarked Maria innocently, "we still didn't bring any bottled water with us."
Isabel glared at her and then burst into laughter. "Tell you what," she said. "Let's take care of Michael, and tomorrow I will buy you an entire case full of bottled water. And a box of alien-shaped bendy straws. How's that?"
Grinning, Maria cried, "You're on. Race you to the wall!" And with that, she took off across the sand.
Isabel easily caught up with her, and they jogged in tandem along the line of footprints, slowing as they neared the circle that marked the otherwise intangible barrier. "What next, oh one-shoe-wonder? More yelling?"
"Uh-huh. Little Mikey is going to come out and play now, whether he likes it or not," Maria said in a determined voice. "I will knock down the entire barrier if I have to. I've already knocked down a stone wall; a little old invisible one is certainly not going to stop me." Isabel looked at her, impressed, then gestured for her to have at it.
"First things first," Maria decided. Crouching down, she began to search the sand for her missing shoe. When she was unable to find it, she shrugged and pulled off its mate, preparing once again to set upon the obstruction before her. "Michael," she called sweetly, gripping the shoe, "Oh, Michael...If you don't want me to bash in your little wall here, you might want to step outside it for a minute."
There was no movement before her. Gritting her teeth, she called once more, "Michael?" then muttered, "Fine. If that's the way you want to play it, Spaceboy." Lifting the shoe, she counted aloud, "One! Two! Thr--"
An oh-so-familiar voice arose out of nowhere. "Maria?"
"Michael!" she squealed. "It's me! And Isabel. Where are you?"
The voice ignored her question, barking "What the hell are you two doing here?"
"We came looking for you, you idiot," said Isabel affectionately.
"How did you--You shouldn't be here. Get the hell out!"
The two girls smiled broadly at each other. This was definitely their Michael, not the automaton who'd been parading through Roswell for the last few weeks. Maria spoke up joyfully. "We just found you, Spaceboy, and we are not leaving until you come out of there and tell us what's wrong with you."
"No. Get out of here."
"No?" the girls said threateningly.
"Look, I...I can't, all right?" the voice said in frustration.
"What do you mean, you can't?" cried Maria, as Isabel put in, "Can't tell us what's wrong, or can't come out?"
The voice came again, crossly. "Can't come out."
Maria began to feel her exasperation build. "Can't or won't?" Receiving no answer, she spit out again, "Can't or won't, Michael?"
"Can't, dammit!"
"Why not?"
The answer was abrupt. "No door."
"Well, it's your dream, Michael," said Isabel. "So dream up a door, and do it fast."
"It's not a dream."
"Not a..."
Silence. Then a hesitant "What do you mean, it's not a dream?" from Isabel. "I dreamwalked you, you're here. It must be a dream."
"You're in my dream, okay? I'm not."
"Well where are you, then?" shouted Isabel.
There was a pause, and then the two girls barely heard a muttered, "Doesn't matter." Another pause, and then the voice rose again, more commandingly. "So would you just get out of here already? Go take your little dreamwalking games and play them someplace else. You're not wanted here."
Speechless for a moment, Maria looked at Isabel, whose forehead was wrinkled with concern. She lifted an eyebrow and motioned with her head towards the barrier. Isabel nodded firmly. Pointedly ignoring Michael's last few comments, Maria said, "He can't get out, you can't use your manipulation powers...I guess we're back to Plan A, an evening of good old-fashioned demolition. Michael," she called, "we're going to try and knock a hole in the wall."
"Did I or did I not just tell you to get out of here?" he snapped. "Besides, I already tried that."
"And now we're going to." With that, Maria began flailing away at the wall with her shoe. Isabel immediately joined in, beating on the barrier with her fists.
After a few minutes of unsuccessful pounding, Maria called out, "You could give us a little help here, Michael! Pick something up and start busting through."
The sarcastic response came quickly. "Pick what up? All I've got in here is this shoe."
Maria came to a standstill. "Shoe?"
"Yeah, a little while ago, this shoe fell out of nowhere and hit me on the head. So?"
Once again, Maria's eyes met Isabel's before she answered, "Michael, that's my shoe."
Isabel began to pace, thinking aloud. "Sand goes through, as if the barrier and what's behind it doesn't exist. People don't go through, but one of your shoes does? I don't get it."
Maria leaned against the wall, once more resting her forehead against it. "This is really weird, Michael. We're in your dream, but it's not a dream. What happened to you? Who put you in there? Who did this to you?"
For a moment, no answer came. Then Michael spoke softly, reluctantly admitting, "I did." Her heart broke.
"Oh, Michael..." Opening her hand, she placed it flat against the smooth surface of the wall. Her eyes welled up. She could almost feel the confusion and hatred and turmoil breaking off of him in waves. She closed her eyes and swallowed convulsively.
The smooth surface beneath her hand began to roughen and grow warmer. Maria opened her eyes only to be transfixed at the sight of a strong brown hand inches away from hers, on the other side of the invisible wall. She jerked back several steps in shock, then tore her eyes away from his hand. Almost reluctantly, she slowly raised her head to meet the brown eyes that gazed hungrily into hers. "Michael," she breathed.
Behind her, Isabel gasped.
The only thought in Maria's mind was to get to him. Now. She rushed precipitously back towards the wall, her sock-clad feet slipping in the sand. Losing her balance, she found herself falling once more towards the barrier that she couldn't see but knew was there. This time, there was no flash of intense white light to pull her away. She flinched, anticipating the hard smack of her body against the unyielding surface; instead, her body plummeted to meet a strong, muscular one, knocking Michael off his feet and landing on top of him.
"Maria! Michael!" Isabel cried from a few paces away. Then, for the second time that night, she woke abruptly in her own room. Sitting up quickly, she looked at her brother, Alex and Liz, and then followed their shocked gazes to the empty spot on the bed next to her...
...and across town, a calm, unemotional Michael Guerin woke and lay staring dully through the dim gloom at the ceiling above him.
TBC...