Chapter 6



Emilia rolled over in her sleep, sighing contentedly. She heard a noise. It startled her awake. She grabbed her doll tightly in her pudgy fingers, sucking on the doll's foot. She heard her Daddy's voice screaming a bad word at her mother. Tears fell on her cheeks. She hated it when they fought. She rolled quietly out of her bed, and scurried into her closet. She was small, and she managed to hide between the dolls as she shut the door. She liked the dark, she wasn't at all afraid of the dark. But, she was afraid of her Daddy when he'd had too much beer. It made him mean.

Things were very quiet for a minute. Emilia reached up to open the door, and go back to her bed. She heard her daddy's voice, louder this time. She heard her mother screaming, crying, then she heard a great big bang. Emilia whimpered, and sunk deeper into her dolls.

She heard heavy footsteps on the stairs, and her father calling her name. She trembled, biting on her doll's foot so she wouldn't cry. She didn't want her daddy to see her cry. She was a big girl.

"Emilia! Come out honey! Daddy wants to talk to you!" Emilia shrunk into the dolls more. Her Daddy sounded mean, angry. It was late. Only Mean Daddy ever wanted to talk when it was late.

Emilia heard her father in her room. With a shaking hand, she slid the chain lock over.

"Emilia, Daddy doesn't want to play games." She heard a boot kick on the closet door, and felt it rattle. Her daddy kept kicking the door, and the door broke. Her daddy pulled it open. He had a gun. She screamed, and felt warm water running down her legs.

"I love you Emilia," he said in his Mean Daddy voice. He aimed the gun at her, and there was a terrible noise.

Emilia sat up with a start. She gasped, and looked down at her hands. They were her own hands, her seventeen year old hands.

"Why did you do that?" she cried.

"You asked me to," he replied softly. "You told me you wanted me to show you how I felt when I was running away. That is the most powerful fear Memory I have that wouldn't leave you senseless for hours."

Emilia tried to glare at her older adopted brother, but she just couldn't. He had that terrible image in his mind all along, and he had more where that had come from.

"Do you need anything?" he asked. "Explanation?"

"How did you make me believe it was me?" she asked. He gave her a bitter smile, and she instantly knew it was one of those things he didn't like to talk about.

"One of the secrets of memories," he replied softly, looking away, "is that I can show another person without actually giving them the original memory. I gave you a copy that I made. It would have been worse if I have given you an original memory. As it is, I'm sure your Mother and Father will not be pleased with me."

"They don't need to know." He gave her a sideways look.

"All these lies," he sighed, shaking his head. "I had a hard time telling my family one lie, and you seem to lie on a regular basis."

"Not telling someone is not a lie," she protested.

"Lie by omission," he countered. She heaved a sigh. There was just no winning.

Her little adopted brother stuck his head around the corner. Emilia grinned at the scrawny blond twelve year old.

"Supper!" he said. He grinned at Jonas. "You are allowed to go on the transmitter today, Jonas," he added. "It's all fixed." Jonas smiled. Emilia knew he was worried about someone, though she hadn't a clue who it was. Jonas never talked about his experience in his community, but she knew he used the transporter to go visit someone. She grinned.

"Maybe," she thought, examining her older brother's well defined physic, "he has a lover that he visits every night." She coloured at the thought. She knew Jonas would just die of embarrassment if she said something like that to him.

Emilia sat at the table with her family: her mother, her father, and her two adopted brothers, Jonas and Gabriel. They were brothers from a community. At least, that is what they had told Emilia and her parents. She could certainly see the resemblance between the two of them, both physically and their personalities. They were both serious, thoughtful and wise beyond their years. Emilia was only bothered by one thing. They shared secrets all the time, and Jonas would never explain why he found some things particularly offensive.

Jonas and Gabe had been discovered nearly eleven years ago by a friend of Emilia's father. The two boys had been half starved, delusional and hypothermic. Jonas would not let go of the little boy, though, until he had been sedated. He was wildly protective of Gabe.

The first thing Jonas had asked when he woke up, was, "Is this else where?" Emilia always thought that a curious question. Where else would he be? Her father had told her that Elsewhere was a community term,

Emilia began eating her dinner: perch and rice. She noticed that Jonas was barely touching his fish. She gave him a little smile, but he did not look up.

"Something bothering you, Jonas?" her father asked. Jonas looked up.

"Nothing ," he replied. "Just little things. My collage paper's got to be off tomorrow, and I'm not nearly done typing it."

"So you want me to check your grammar?" her mother asked, with a laugh. Emilia chuckled. They all knew Jonas had far better grammar skills then anyone in her family.

"No, I think I'm fine." He took one bite of the fish. His rice was all gone. "That was good," he said, pushing himself away from the table. "May I be excused?"

"Sure, Jonas," her mother replied. "But stay off the transmitter until after supper."

"I will," he promised, nodding his head once. Then, he disappeared to his room in the basement.

"Gabe, talk to your brother. See if you can rattle some sense into him." Gabe gave her mother a small smile.

"You mistake me for a miracle worker," he said softly. "But I'll try."





Jonas waited for Gabe to join him down in the transporter room. The fair haired young man came down. Jonas shivered as a sudden awareness swept through him. Gabe would had started his training this year if things had been different.

"You shouldn't worry, Jonas," Gabe said. He began to punch buttons, entering the coordinates for Lily's bedroom. Jonas strapped the returning device around his waist.

"I can't help it. You know how I feel. I cannot let them claim her as they claimed our parents. I need to talk to her, to explain war. She was so upset. . ."

"Can you blame her, Jonas? You destroyed how she looked at her world."

"Her world is a narrow world, Gabe."

"Our world was a narrow world," Gabe clenched his fist. Jonas shook his head sadly, wondering once more how much his little brother remembered from the colourless, soulless world, devoid of love, of true happiness. "You saved us both from it. You can save her too."

"How much do you remember her?" Jonas asked, stepping into the transporter device.

"Very little, I must admit. A smiling face. . . A little girl, brown hair, brown eyes. Plain, but she loved playing with me, and wanted to take care of me."

"She's a Nurturer now," Jonas whispered. "That is why I had to give her war. I wanted her to see what they did to those children. I thought she could maybe change what I could not."

"They were going to kill me, weren't they?" Gabe asked. Jonas looked up. The little boy had never once questioned why they had run away from the only home either of them had ever known. He had always just accepted his new life. But, now, he was older. He had to know, and Jonas was the only one who could tell him.

"You were going to be Released the next day. So, I ran. What choice did I have? I couldn't have lived with myself if I knew I had let you be killed. . ."

Gabe came forward and gave him a quick embrace, what Emilia called a "hug".

"You did right, Jonas. Thank you." Jonas smiled.

"I got to go, Gabe. It's nearing midnight. She'll be expecting me."

"Be careful, Jonas."

"I always am."

Gabe activated the transporter. He faded from Jonas's view, and another room formed around him. The plain walls of a community child's room formed around him, and then he saw a bed, and a child lying in the bed. Jonas was startled. There was a little boy in his sister's bed. He frantically checked the coordinates. He was in the right place. . . .

Jonas leaned over the little boy, not daring to touch him. He was an ordinary little boy with dark brown hair. His cheeks were stained with tears, and there were wet spots on the pillow. Jonas started to wake the boy, to find out why he was crying, when he remembered that he was in the community, and that the little boy would surely be frightened by him.

Jonas did the only thing he knew how to do. He slipped his hand up the boy's night shirt, and called forth a memory of a beach. He tailored it, making the colours leave, and inserting himself and the little boy there, so that they could talk.

The little boy stared up at him with dark eyes. Jonas hated seeing only black and white, but he knew it was necessary.

"Who are you?" the little boy asked. "And where are we?"

"This is the land of dreams," Jonas lied. "I am a dream-dweller."

"A dream dweller?" the boy's face crumpled up in confusion.

"Yes. You seemed sad, so I came to talk. Do you want to talk, little one?"

"I'm not a little one. I'm a seven. And my name is Jonas." Jonas could hardly keep his surprise back. So, this was his replacement.

"Why are you sad, Jonas?"

"My big sister was Lost today," the little Jonas said. He started to cry. Jonas bent down to him. "I'm such a newchild, crying for her!"

"It's okay to be sad, Jonas," he said. The little Jonas shook his head.

"I'm not supposed to be sad anymore. We had her ceremony of Loss today. I's not supposed to think about her anymore."

"Things aren't always that easy, Jonas." He put his hand out. "I'm sure your big sister will be all right in Elsewhere."

"You know about Elsewhere?" the little boy asked, his eyes wide.

"I do. I have seen it, and it is beautiful. She will be happy there."

"Are there newchildren there?" asked the little boy. "She likes newchildren."

"There are," Jonas replied, trying to smile. Lily had been Lost? In the river?

"Well, at least she won't be lonely when she travels to Elsewhere," the little boy continued. "And then she can play with all the little newchildren when she gets to Elsewhere! I'm glad she'll be happy, even if I'm a little sad."

"Jonas, this is very important. Why won't your sister be lonely going to Elsewhere?"

"Because," the little boy replied with authority, "she was Lost with someone, a Care Taker of the Old, named Fiona." Jonas blinked stupidly at the boy for a moment. Fiona? What was going on? Did Lily really drown then?

"Do you feel better, Jonas?"

"I do," little Jonas replied. "Thank you, dream dweller, sir."

"It has been my pleasure. Do me a favour, though?"

"What?"

"Never forget your big sister. Keep her in your heart," he touched the boy's chest, where his heart was.

"But, we are supposed to forget. To dull the pain." Jonas smiled bitterly.

"Lily would not want to be forgotten. Remember her." Jonas then pulled his real hand off the boy's back. He played with the returner, and let himself fade. Before he faded, he heard the little boy whispered Lily's name, and Jonas had to smile. If he touched this little boy, maybe his replacement would be able to help his community. Now, all he had to do was find out if Lily had truly been Lost, along with Fiona, or if Lily had planned her escape.