Page 78 of Meet Me in Another Life

“Peregrine,” he says.

The door opens. The man in the blue coat ducks through the curtain and stands by the end of the bed. Santi remembers how it felt when he tried this the first time: when he spoke a name to the air and the answer walked in. There in the memory house, he took Peregrine for a channel to God, a mouthpiece of the universe. But he was only another hollow revelation, a puzzle box with nothing inside. Santi takes him in, his lank hair, his bewildered face. He has freckles. Who thought to give an anthropomorphic construct freckles? “Peregrine,” Santi says. “Why do we have to die?”

Peregrine frowns. “I—I don’t...” He trails off.

Santi draws in a breath. However long it takes, he has to understand. “This is a simulation,” he says. “Whoever designed it could have chosen to compress time differently. To have us live one long life. Why not?”

Peregrine tilts his head. “Transit phase.”

We’re not in transit phase.A Thora response, jumping to the front of Santi’s mind as naturally as if it were his own. He closes his eyes, searching for the calm that used to come so easily, but it’s as impossible as grasping a flame. “What does dying over and over have to do with transit phase?” he snaps.

Peregrine’s face flickers from anguish to serenity. “Part—part of the plan.”

“Wow,” Santi says, scratching his chin. “Thora’s right. Thatisannoying.” Peregrine looks at him with open curiosity. “Why?”Santi asks, his voice thick with all they have been through. “Even if you have to kill us, why not kill us at the same time? Why do we come back the same but different, again and again? What plan is it part of?”

Peregrine’s mouth opens, then closes. He tries again. “Not enough. Two people. Need—every one. Of you, of him. That was—” His brow furrows. “Sorry. Something—”

“Happened. We know.” Thora pulls back the curtain. How long has she been listening? She looks at Santi, and what he sees in her face breaks his heart. “They’re discharging you,” she says. “We’re going home.”

She takes him back to their apartment in the Belgian Quarter. As she lowers him onto the sofa, Santi stares past her at the raindrops dotting the gray square of the window. His rage has subsided, leaving behind a quiet despair. “How do you do it?” he asks her.

She looks down at him with a pity he can’t bear. “Do what?”

“Go on. Live.” His voice sticks in his throat. “When you don’t know if there’s a meaning.”

Thora sits down next to him. “Spite?” When he gives her a look, she smiles. “I guess—I make my own meaning. From my life, the world, the people I love.” She brushes his hair back from his forehead. “That’s probably not enough for you, is it? You want Meaning with a capital M. A message written by God in the stars, telling you the way you should go.”

Tears spring to his eyes. He can’t look at her. “You don’t believe that exists.”

He doesn’t know how many thoughts she lets pass unspoken. “I don’t know,” she finally answers. “But if it does exist, I’mokay with not knowing what it says.” She looks at him seriously. “Maybe that’s the only way to survive this. To be okay with not knowing.” She stands, patting her pocket for the keys.

“Where are you going?”

“To find a way to wake us up.”

Santi tries to lift himself. “I’ll come with you.”

“Santi, you can’t stand up for more than five minutes without fainting. Sorry, but you’re not the most useful person to have around right now.” She pauses in the doorway. “I’ll come back.”

A memory, half-imagined: Thora in the life where she helped raise him, disentangling herself from his childish, clutching hands.I always come back, she told him then. This time, she doesn’t promise so much.

He lies on the sofa, Félicette purring under one hand while he slowly slips away. Thora comes and goes, but it seems to Santi that she is there more often than not: sitting with him, helping him to the bathroom, feeding him miracle food scavenged from the void. He watches her bring home a haul of identical bread buns, apples, cans of soup, and marvels at her: a survival expert adapted to the strangest of environments. She has always been stronger than him. Even when she was a seven-year-old child and he was her teacher, full of misapprehensions and doubts: perhaps especially then.

He’s suddenly angry with her. “Why are you wasting time looking after me?” he protests.

Thora looks over her shoulder at him as she opens a can of soup. “Because if you were me and I was you, you wouldn’t leave me to die alone.”

It’s true, but Santi doesn’t care. “This isn’t fair.” He tries to sit up. “It shouldn’t be happening.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Thora says in a calm voice.

He lies back, fuming silently. When she brings him the soup, he sniffs it suspiciously. “What kind is this?”

“The miracle kind. Why, does it smell weird?” Thora pulls the bowl back. “Maybe you shouldn’t eat it.”

He rolls his eyes at her. “What, in case it gives me some kind of incurable disease?”

She glares at him. “Stop trying to be me. It’s not cute.”

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