Like Moonlight on Water: Chapter 16

Hot and Cold

Welcome! Like Moonlight on Water is the sequel to my speculative women’s fiction novel Daughters of Men, and unless you like spoilers, you’ll want to read Book 1 first.
Or, dive in with the beginning of LMoW here. ✨Paid subscribers will have full access to all chapters and receive the finished e-book.✨

Click here for the previous chapter in which Sal taught Adam a weakness in the modulators, and Lila promised to share everything she dreams—a promise she doesn’t intend to keep.

» » » This chapter has some PG-13 swearing. « « «

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Hot and Cold

I didn’t want to help.

I lay in the darkness, shadows and thoughts pulling me toward the sleep I wanted to avoid. If the beach house was real, then so was the twelve-pack Adam had shoved in the fridge. My daughter hated me. We didn’t have a daughter. I had to help them. I couldn’t help them. I didn’t want to hurt him. I always hurt him.

I rolled onto my side. I hurt Sal, too. But how could he have done that to Aislyn? And then to Eileen? Why had he thought Eileen was different? He'd known Mimi had a gift…had he really not considered her granddaughter might?

I missed Mimi. Wished I could ask her why she’d made me so small.

My breath caught. That wasn’t fair. Just wounded-child bullshit. She’d tried to hide me in plain sight. To keep the aliens from noticing just how strange I was. And I'd fought her every single day until she'd finally sent me away.

No! I threw the covers back and sat up.

Those painted eggs. My hysterical rage. I flipped on the lamp and counted…one, two, three windows. This had been my parents' room, then Mimi's. The smaller bedroom—Eileen's—had been mine. Mimi had moved in after my father died, because my mother was so sick.

No…Mimi didn't move in until I had no one else. I'd hated her house, and she'd told me she hated it, too. That the ghosts would have to haunt themselves or pack up and follow her. That's why I'd hated those eggs. I'd thought they were haunted.

My fingers gripped the edge of the mattress as my childhood reeled and skipped in my mind’s eye. The brushstroked faces and flames, the fragile curves of glossed shells, were spliced into my other memories like badly edited film. A surreal, arthouse horror.

Mimi had not given up on me. She had not sent me away at ten. I'd lived in this house my whole life until I left for college. I knew I had.

But another Lila hadn't.

A creak outside my nearest window reminded me Sal was out there. Trying to give me privacy, wondering why the light was on, wondering if I needed him. Wondering what atrocity he’d endure at his next dual-time. Wondering if the human could get her shit together and be useful for once in her damned life.

I snapped the light off and laid back down. I had a job to do. And no idea how to do it.

What did the aliens really need from me? What could I tell them that would be useful? All their technology yet they were still stranded in separate realities…alone. Angry. Terrified their worlds might be the next to end. They thought—they assumed—fractals were bad. But were they? In spite of what Sal had told us, and even though I’d finally understood his logic…it just didn't feel right.

Angels? I need your help…please?

I shifted my focus, but sensed nothing between the paler black of the ceiling and my own breathy sigh, so I closed my eyes. I never saw my angels in dreams—fictional or real. Never saw them around my daughter. Missed and needed them more than ever.

Another creak and Sal moved on. Lapping the porch like I had. I wished he could rest, though he seemed not to need it as long as he had food. Fuel the machines and he could walk forever. Or until he laid down and accepted soul-erasing torture. He wasn't a weak human like me. A grown woman dreading going to sleep and waking up beside her…

Soulmate, Lila. Say it.

I slid my hands beneath my t-shirt, feeling the rise and fall of my stomach. No knotted and puckered scar. One, two, three windows, with glass like obsidian beneath raised shades. Adam couldn’t be my soulmate.

Stop lying to yourself.

But I always hurt him.

I always love him, too.

Yes, we always loved him. Even now, as my dark bedroom became a twisting hallway lit by a fluorescent white snake. The walls were a cold green and when I looked ahead, the undulating white stripe on the ceiling became a long, straight ribbon of light.

“Can’t lose your way in here, Lilith Ann,” Adam said. “They don’t let you, even when you want to.”

I’d never seen lighting like that—but suddenly knew I had. I’d been here many times before, inevitably down this same corridor without doors, a rat in a maze without cheese to guide me…just the glowing snake on the ceiling.

“No words today? No pep talk?” His voice was hoarse, coming from somewhere ahead of me, but all I could see was that bright light leading where I didn’t want to go.

“I’m asleep,” I told him. “This is a dream.”

A caustic laugh scraped my ears. “And I’m the one in here?”

In here. Here. A treatment center for the criminally insane. I was pushing him down this inescapable hallway to the door…the door to…

Oh, God, no! I moved in front of him and collapsed to my knees, horrified by how thin he was, how haggard, how abused.

“Why do you even come?” he spat.

He was strapped to a wheeled chair, immobilized by a tapestry of golden wires around his neck and torso, his hands gripping the arms of the chair even has his tendons strained against an unseen force pinning his arms. And his leg…his leg…

Memories engulfed me and his expression morphed with my emotions, always in sync, we were always together, I’d never leave him, but he’d…he’d…

“Don’t do this to him! She’s real!” I cried as arms pulled me away, arms with faceless uniformed bodies dragging me from my husband. “You don’t understand! She’s alive!”

“Just leave!” Adam shouted. “You make everything worse!”

“Aislyn!” I screamed, struggling against the hands grappling me—his captors, his guards. “You were right! I shouldn’t have trust—”

Pain seared my back and I jerked awake.

Primal instinct trapped my howl, as every sense flared in pure terror. The porch creaked under Sal’s weight, and I raced to the bathroom and shut the door. The light over the mirror drenched me in a sallow glow as I ripped off my shirt and contorted to see. Please God, please, no. But I knew.

A ring of five pink welts branded my left shoulder blade. Which meant that somewhere, right now, Adam was being tortured. Because of me.

“Mom?” Eileen called through the door. “Are you—”

“Just a sec!” I flushed the toilet and yanked my shirt back on. “Be right out!” I washed my hands and splashed cold water on my face—partly to compose myself and partly for listening ears.

My daughter stumbled sleepily past when I opened the door and shoved it shut behind me. Sal’s bulk loomed at the screened door, but I waved him away and he turned without a word.

Eileen’s sheets were twisted and sweaty, though the house was still autumn-cool. I billowed and fluffed, and when she came back in, she let me tuck her into bed.

“You can stay if you want,” she mumbled into her pillow.

“You’ll sleep better if you can stretch out,” I whispered. “School tomorrow, my angel.” I smoothed a curl from her cheek and left the room before I choked up.

My daughter and Adam were both in danger.

In the world I’d just seen, our government—maybe all governments—collaborated with the aliens. Surveilling and sweeping the population, unobtrusively culling people with too many fractals, people with unexplained abilities…and anyone who interfered. A few weeks ago, I’d been found. Singled out. Offered a way to live—if only I’d help them. They’d told me that if I could prove fractals could be reintegrated—or eliminated entirely—that none of their covert cruelty would be necessary. That they were sacrificing a few to save all. To save the world. To save their world.

But Adam hadn’t fallen for it. And they knew if they killed him, I would die, too. I’d made that clear. So now, he was suffering something worse than death. They were…rewriting him. My shirt rubbed the welts on my back. Maybe rewriting me, now, too. So I’d remember nothing except being grateful.

I made a circuit through the dark house twice, like an animal in a cage, then went back to my bed. Sal was outside somewhere. And the Servants…? I shivered and curled around my pillow.

Seven had examined me in that world. Had trapped and suspended me in…a blueish-white…gas? Light? The memory pulsed and slid—then cut to black. But my body remembered what my brain couldn’t.

Pain. In my deepest places, like wildfire and acid and ice scourging me from the inside out.

I’d seen Sal’s soul once. Touched it. I couldn’t explain how, even to myself, but in spite of the horrors he’d wrought, his soul was beautiful. Pure. He wanted to help. He wanted to atone. He would die—or worse—to protect Eileen. And he was strangely fond of Adam. But Sal was only in this world. And he couldn’t control what was gleaned from him during dual-time.

They’d taken the memory of that Adam’s child. Our child. They’d taken his grief and left him with nothing except me. The woman who’d destroyed everything good in his life.

My phone vibrated on the nightstand, receiving two texts.

I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to do the right thing.

I am too.

It was three in the morning. I put my phone back, and told myself that coincidences happened even in universes with aliens and alternate realities.

The spots on my back throbbed and itched, annoyingly out of reach for a good scratch. But my scars on my hands were blessedly cool. According to Sal—my only source of information—that night on the boat, I’d wandered. And dreams like tonight’s were called traversing. Current reality versus a different one. He seemed to believe I could learn to control my…transits. But he couldn’t teach me how.

I flipped to my other side, and a darker mass than the night moved past my window. Sal, still making his rounds. He needed a damn hobby. There was a whole world of people he could be helping if he really wanted to atone for his sins.

A whole world of people. Billions. I couldn’t be the only one. There had been the Picoji, an entire culture, and Aislyn, so any number of us could…

Aislyn. I’d called out her name as they were dragging me away. Was I trying to tell Adam about her? Or calling out to her? Was she there?

My head felt leaky, like everything I could recall from my entire life might drain from my ears while I slept. But I needed to sleep again. Now.

I didn’t know Aislyn…yet, I did. I was sure of it. Adam and I were always together in these other worlds, and she was his family. There should be worlds where she wasn’t given modulators, where she grew up and learned how to live with her abilities. She could be the teacher and ally I needed. That Adam needed. She could protect him from me. I just had to find her. Somehow.

My cell vibrated again, and I ignored it. Instead, as I’d done for my daughter, I billowed and fluffed my bedding and settled on my back—uncomfortably, thanks to the damn psychosomatic welts.

I closed my eyes and whispered, “We are each the boundless All. Our breath is the air for all worlds, and our dreams are the stars that light them…” I wanted Sal and the Servants to know I was trying, but the chant became a song, and then a scent on the breeze, and then a splash in the ocean…

And then it was morning.

Not acceptable. Not acceptable at all! But there was no reset button on the day, and the pace of life—normal life—propelled me forward. Racing to get ready for work, to make Eileen a lunch for school, to think of a thousand things that could go wrong, and to wring unspoken promises and sidelong looks from Sal that he would keep all of those things from happening.

Or fix what he could afterward.

“Eileen, please, sweetheart…if today is just too much…” Like if you’re about to be hysterical, or want to lecture your history teacher about ancient aliens. “All you have to do is say you feel sick and wanna go home. Sal will hear you from down the street and can check you out.”

By now we were driving to school, and the alien on the motorcycle was close behind.

“Okay, sweetie? Just let him know before.”

“Before he has to mindwipe an entire school, yeah, I get it.” She hadn’t looked at me all morning, and her profile was rigid with suppressed anger.

“Honey…” I reached for her hand but had to settle for the gear shift. “Do you still want to go?”

“Yep.”

We were turning into her school now, and the Coastal Achievement Academy sign was decorated with a cheery banner announcing an upcoming event.

“‘Be the Future Fair’? What’s that?” I asked. “Sounds fun…”

“I wouldn’t know, would I?” she sniped. The Bronco had barely stopped before she threw her door open and got out. “I can’t believe you let him call himself my brother!”

“Half-brother!” I protested. “And he didn’t—”

The door slammed.

And he didn’t ask me.

Sal’s hearing aids must’ve been on max-high, because he was grinning when I parked beside him and rolled down my window.

“Thanks for that,” I grumped.

“The school’s administrative software is outdated.” His smile was too wide to be anything less than annoying. “Emergency contacts must be immediate relatives or a legal guardian.”

“She’s been there for three years! What if—”

“Relax, Lila. You have more important concerns than gossip among staff.”

“Oh, double thanks. Hadn’t even thought of that.” I banged my head back against my seat. “I was going to say what if someone quizzes her about a brother she’s never—”

“Stop. Focus. Now tell us about your dreams last night.”

My jaw snapped shut. Us. The omnipresent plural.

It was unseasonably cold this morning. Dim and misty, as if the humidity wasn’t sure whether it wanted to be fog or rain. Sal sat across his bike so I wouldn’t have to crane my neck out the window to look up at him—so considerate—and his beefy body wrapped in a damp t-shirt and jeans attracted more than one stare from passing drivers. Male and female both.

“Lila.”

“Sorry, distracted by an adult son and another fake marriage. I’m only thirty-eight, you know.”

He groaned, “And I am twenty-one thousand plus a few hundred. Do you need me to cha—”

“No, I don’t.” But couldn’t he have said he was her uncle or something? “Look, I really tried last night, but I only had one dream. One transit, or whatever.”

When I didn’t volunteer anything else, he glanced at the sky and then raised an eyebrow at me.

Right. Here goes. “I don’t remember hearing buzzing or anything like I do sometimes. And I could tell it was a world where technology was…different. Like weird light fixtures.” And golden mesh for torturing prisoners.

“Why have you been scratching your back all morning?”

“Mosquito bite.” Forgot about the techno cattle prod. Bastards. “I need to get to work, so what else…”

Sal’s eyes narrowed, but I cut him off.

“Oh! And I was aware I was dreaming right away. That’s useful, isn’t it?”

From his relieved nod, that was indeed useful, so I elaborated. Cautiously.

“I was in a hallway, and at first the walls sort of moved and I thought there was a snake on the ceiling—you know, typical dream weirdness. But then I realized the snake was a light…and then I realized it was a dream—the abnormal kind.”

“And did you feel there was a purpose to the transit? Did anything about that reality resonate with you? Who was with you other than Adam?”

Damn it. Of course they’d assume Adam was there. “Just faceless people. I didn’t get a good look. It was just a hallway. No windows or doors, and I woke up right after I realized it was a dream.”

He cocked his head, and I would have bet money he was listening to my heartbeat.

Offer something useful. Be useful, Lila!

“I don’t see angels in any of these realities…is that helpful?”

“Perhaps.”

A car full of teenage girls zoomed past, whooping out the windows at Sal. Saved by the distraction, I started the Bronc back up.

“Alright, stud. I gotta go. Thanks for sticking around. I’m sure she’ll be good, but…” But we both knew he needed to be close to preempt anything that might make the Servants suspicious.

He stood and laid a hand on my door. “Lila, we need more than—”

“Of course you do!” I gushed, “Let’s come up with a plan. Naps, maybe?” I popped the parking brake and started easing away. “We’ll talk later. Make sure Eileen wears her helmet on that thing!”

And so I bought myself another day. And in between mundane things like customers and reconciling invoices, I searched online for tips on lucid dreaming. Can’t hurt, might help, I told myself. And feeling squeamish, I also searched for anything about Aislyn, but she’d died so young that all I could find was an obituary that made me have to hide in the dressing area and weep.

You can count on me. Adam’s third text message last night. He’d been in college when she died, and he’d told me he blamed himself and his parents. That he’d quit school and joined the Marines. Driven to fix what was wrong. To fight for those who couldn’t fight for themselves.

I replied, ten hours late: You can count on me, too.

I would learn to control my transits. I would find Aislyn and enlist her help. The Aislyns who had never received modulators could teach me and help protect all the alt-Adams from my reality-hopping drama. We’d just have to keep her abilities under the radar so she didn’t become a target, too. Except she was probably already targeted in the realities with aliens, because Servants in this one already knew about her…

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

No. I could do this. We could do this. There must also be Aislyns who’d survived modulators. Who’d found a way to thrive in spite of losing their abilities. Aislyns who could help me teach Eileen how to control her moods and stave off depression.

My child was not going to suffer like Adam’s sister had. Nor was she going to end up in some sicko alien mind-rape torture session when she came of age. What did “of age” mean, anyway? Sick bastards were thousands of years old and she wasn’t even fourteen yet!

Dual-time. I used my sweater to dry my face, then tugged it straight around my hips. I’ll show you dual-time. Head up, shoulders back. Normal life and dream lives, check and check.

You got this, Lila.

Damn straight, I do.

Except I didn’t.

Thank you for reading! If you’re enjoying this story, please tap the heart and let me know! Writing to the void isn’t as much fun as you’d think. 😉

Chapter 17, “Flailing” is next…