Awake and Dreaming - Kit Pearson [46]
The cemetery was exactly as it had been in the dream: a patchwork of rectangular mossy plots with towering trees above them. Theo even found the stone angel. This was where she’d spent some of her happiest times; but it was also where the wonderful dream had started to fade. She ate the rest of her lunch there, gazing up at the angel’s serene face to give her courage. She knew where she was going next.
Standing up, she followed another walkway that led back to the upper part of the road. She kept her eyes down, afraid of the disappointment of not seeing the row of white houses across the street.
But when she finally looked up—they were there! Three neat houses almost alike, the highest one the house where she’d been so happy.
Theo’s legs turned to rubber and she had to sit down on the grass. How could this be? It might make sense that she’d dreamt about streets and a path by the sea and a cemetery that she saw when she was little and somehow remembered. It might even make sense that she’d found the angel—maybe she saw that when she was little, too. Could she have once seen these houses as well?
Theo’s body seemed to take over, making her stand up and walk on trembling legs across the road and up the sidewalk she knew so well. Her disbelieving eyes drank in the house near the top of the hill—its windows lined with orange and green, the design like a sunray where the roof peaked, the glimpse of the arbutus tree in the back. Her legs walked her up the same green steps and paused in front of the familiar brown door.
I can’t! she cried inside. It was just a dream! But her shaking hand reached up and knocked on the door—first timidly, then louder.
The door opened slowly. A small boy stood there, holding a cookie. He was barefoot and his T-shirt had a dinosaur on it. Theo had seen that T-shirt many times.
“Ben?” she croaked. Then her voice and head cleared. “Ben, oh Benny,” she cried. “It’s me! I’ve come back!”
“Who are you?” asked the child.
THEO COLLAPSED into a puddle of arms and legs on the front doorstep. The next thing she knew she was being carried into the house by the same person who had once carried her in from the car after a late movie—Dad.
He laid her on the living-room couch while the others gathered around. Theo blinked as they came into focus: Dad and Mum, John and Anna, Lisbeth and Ben. Bingo licked her face and whined. Beardsley hopped onto the arm of the couch and switched his tail while he watched her.
Mum wiped Theo’s forehead with a cool wet cloth and kept asking if she were all right. But she didn’t call her Theo. The family gazed at her with curiosity—as if they were looking at a stranger.
“What’s your name?” Mum asked, as Theo sat up and Anna handed her a glass of water.
“It’s me—Theo!”
Six puzzled faces stared at her. “Theo who?” Dad asked gently.
Theo felt like crying—they didn’t remember her! This was as bad as when she had started to fade. No, worse—they could see her, but they didn’t know her! “Caffrey,” she whispered.
“Where do you live? Why did you come to our door?” demanded Lisbeth.
Theo winced at her blunt words. If she really was a stranger to them she’d better be careful. She thought fast. “I—I live with my aunt in James Bay. I was walking up the street and I—I felt dizzy, so I stopped at your house for help.”
“But why are you on your own?” asked Dad. “Does your aunt know where you are?”
Theo was too stunned to lie. She shook her head. “I went for a walk by myself, but she thinks I’m at my friend’s. She’s going to be really upset with me.”
The children looked sympathetic and Bingo licked her face.
“I think she’ll just be relieved to know you’re all right,” said Mum. “What’s your phone number, Theo? I’ll phone your aunt and tell her we’ll bring you home. On the way we’ll take you to the clinic up the street and have them check to see that you’re really all right.”
Theo whispered her number to Mum then sank back against