Wattys shortlist 2021. One morning the sun rises a few hours early, striking levitating skyscrapers in Soliara ahead of schedule. People in the streets stop to look up at the sky and then down at their watches. Most of them, puzzled but disbelieving...
Nova dreamed that she was tossing and turning in the bed of her childhood home.
It wasn't because she was trying to sleep, but because there was nothing to get out of bed for, even in the full light of day exposing her white bedroom.
In her dream the sheets wrapped around her; she couldn't remember how long she had been like that, days?
After days wrapped in sheets she wriggled and pulled herself up, and from a crossed legged seat in the middle of the bed she saw not the fourth wall of her room but as if through a link portal she saw a dining room table, every chair occupied, and she knew it had been three days, the boss was dead, her parents and siblings were (still) dead, Stephen Potestas was dead (now) and the man in the fox mask, three days had passed since everyone died (she dreamed), and the only people alive wore full face masks at the dining table she could see through the portal.
They ignored her; she was safe.
Drinks clinked, she saw through the link. Drinks were drunk through the mouth holes on their masks.
Grateful that they had forgotten her, she lay back down. It was her fault. She wouldn't avenge the dead. She would just lie here. Feel the sheets cocoon her in not caring. A tangled rope of sheets coiled around one wrist, then the other, like handcuffs. Comforting knowing she couldn't do anything about it, her wrists were tied. In her dream the ropes pulled her arms up like the strings pulled on a marionette.
It was her fault. It wasn't her fault. It was her fault. It wasn't her fault. It was.
She opened her eyes.
Really.
She opened her eyes in bed, woke up, as if the dream were over, but it wasn't. In her bedroom in Potestas Tower, much less light filtered in through the window in the early dawn, the early time before solis ortem, sunrise, one hora to prima, somehow she knew exactly the time, and somehow she still saw the dream world in her mind's eye simultaneously. She still saw the white bright bedroom. The compulsion came, and she ran to her desk, pulled out a page, and began to write.
Back in the bed in her childhood home, in the tangled sheets that bound her wrists. She opened her eyes (she wrote). Stared at the ceiling (she wrote) and Cristo appeared above her (she wrote). He popped into the space that had been empty before. Cristo with the fox mask, had he been dead? With a slash (she wrote) his knife cut her throat.
Nova gasped (actually) and panted in her desk chair, eyes wide never wanting them to close again, yet that didn't stop the dream. She wrote and with eyes wide open she saw warm blood as it slid down, she felt and wrote how her heart's beating slowed, felt the pumps slow down and sputter when they should have sped up, inhales shallow, last exhales deflating lungs until they stayed like that, compressed like an empty plastic bag, the last heartbeat faint like the pulse of a tiny (the size of a pencil eraser) hummingbird heart. And a sound, a sound shrill before fading to quiet (she heard, actually, and she wrote), the impossible (the dead don't hear) sound of a baby's cry, no idea why.
Chest heaving, skin sheening with sweat, as she wrote the last words, "no idea why," she dropped the pen as if it were a weapon, stood, knocking the desk chair back and over, and backed away from the desk. A layer of sweat on her. Nova inhaled, staring at the page from afar. Refocused, tore her gaze away, forced herself to look away. Sprang to the bathroom, turned on the faucet to start a steaming bath. Just a dream, just a dream. Just a dream, Mother would have said, let go. Clean up, get to work. Just a dream, as they said. The boss isn't dead. It was only a dream. That makes it okay, they said. It was okay because it was only a dream, they said.
Slipping into the tub, some of the pain from the dream slipped away. The dreams. The visions, the need to write them. Usually they don't hurt so much. Brain still half convinced it had been real. Damn psyche, why would it put me through that? Why would it do that to me? Whatever people want to say about — that I'm latching on to the Potestas Family for financial survival, I care about Ilan. I actually do. His charity, it goes straight to the heart.
Scrubbing fast, even rushing the water feels soothing. Slowly the mellow sadness seeps out, but it's replaced by another feeling. Because something's wrong, I know it. If someone means Ilan harm, it's going to be me protecting him. Me, not some stranger with conspiracies and theories. And not because I'm trying to cling to the powerful, like they all say, if I wanted that power I would have accepted my father's board seat when it was — What is wrong with people? Any other day I could handle the rumors along with survivors' guilt and bad dreams and afraid I'm not living up to the Dasilva legacy every day I'm living on charity — but today I must worry about losing Ilan next too.
Giving in to the swelling, pulsating, overwhelm of feelings, the words just came out, out loud, "The boss isn't stupid; he knows you're in need, and his response is pity and charity." Water sputtered through her lips into the rising steam. Nova stopped scrubbing and threw the washcloth into the water with a smack.
Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream. Clean yourself up, and get to work. Nova felt close to her mother, as if she could hear a dead woman from somewhere out beyond the world, and then she thought, that's crazy, I'm crazy, those are just my words, my thoughts. It didn't make the feeling any less real.
Work. to. be. done. Back to scrubbing.
When she was done, she felt renewed, and soared back into the bedroom wrapped in a soft towel to get ready for the day.
Just inside the door, something waited for her. A thin black box tied with a red velvet bow. She opened it, mind half on what to wear today, and found a beautiful necklace of gems inside, small identical cerulean jewels illuminated from within by a bit of star the size of a pencil tip (without the heat).
Smiling, she hung the chain around her neck immediately and rushed to find a dress to go.
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