Page 84 of A Theory of Dreaming
The snow had begun to fall in rushed flurries, carpeting the cobblestones with frost that was too wet to stick and instead melted into a dangerous shine. Floes of ice groaned and cracked on the surface of Lake Bala. And in the distance, the artificial thunder of warplanes and rolling tanks rumbled.
Preston closed his ears to it all and tried not to slip as he ascended the steps to the hospital. They recognized him at the door and let him through, the nurses at their station casting him pitying glances. He shook out his damp hair and turned down the corridor to Effy’s room.
She lay in her bed in that same perfect, suspended stillness. Her eyes were closed, her breathing slow and labored. What little color had remained in her cheeks seemed to have vanished entirely.
Angharad had not moved from her post. She sat at Effy’s bedside, bent over a book in her lap. When Preston entered, she snapped it shut and looked up at him.
“It’s my book,” Angharad said, flushing a little. “I know it seems a bit self-important, but I thought it might help. If she could somehow hear me reading it aloud...”
Preston lowered himself into the chair on the other side of Effy’s bed. “‘I had not known that the seam of the world was notbetween the living and the dead, but rather between the real and the unknown.’”
Angharad drew in a breath of alarm. “What did you say?”
“Your words,” Preston replied. “From your diary. I understand now. This world isn’t safe. No one can survive reality. We have to find our solace in dreams.”
The corners of Angharad’s mouth turned down and her chin quivered as she swallowed. For a long moment she did not speak, and when she did answer at last, her voice was thick with emotion.
“If only it were possible,” she said, “to shelter in dreams forever. But we have to live.”
“I know,” said Preston. “I understand that now, too.”
The machines connected to Effy’s body beeped their relentlessly steady rhythm. She was as white as marble and, when Preston dared to brush his thumb against her hand, she felt just as cold.
His heart seemed to be sinking slowly down into his stomach. He looked up at Angharad and said, “Do you mind if I have a minute alone?”
“Of course,” she said softly, and rose to her feet. “I’ll wait just outside.”
When Angharad was gone, Preston remained, for several moments, completely still. He listened to the rhythmic pulsing of the machines. He felt Effy’s chilled skin under his palm. Then he scooted his chair closer, until he was near enough to the bed that he could lower his head onto the sheets.
“It’s hard,” he whispered, voice muffled by the fabric. “I know it is. I know. It’s hard holding on. But it’s harder letting go.”
There was no response, of course, from Effy’s unmoving body. Preston curled his fingers around her cold hand. And then, at last, he let his heavy eyelids slide shut.
He tasted the salt and smoke of the air before he even opened his eyes. Briny condensation gathered in freezing droplets on his skin. His knees smarted against the marble floor.
Without any of his earthly unsteadiness, Preston rose. The walls of the palace erected themselves around him, as if he were building them with his gaze alone. There were the statues that he recognized: the young man in academic garb, the mermaid perched on her rock, the ancient king slumped on his throne, the knight in armor, and the maiden with seaweed in her hair. The chamber was just as he recalled it, just as he had always dreamed it.
Except for one thing. Several yards ahead, gleaming in the impossible light that beamed through the windows, was a glass coffin.
His legs suddenly became shaky as he approached it. His heart pounded in his ears, loud enough, for once, to drown out the incessant sound of the bells. He knew what he would find, but the knowledge did not lessen the pain.
Effy lay inside the coffin, hands clasped over her chest. Her golden hair streamed out around her, tangling with the pale flowers that were scattered within: winter camellias. She wore agossamer nightdress, half-sheer, itself a relic of another time, or perhaps another world—one that was both impossible and eternal. Her face was white and her eyes were closed, in a deep and imperturbable slumber.
Every dream is a living death.
Trembling, Preston knelt. He laid his palms flat on the glass. He could not tell if Effy breathed; he could not discern even the faintest rise and fall of her chest or the slight parting of her blanched lips.
Preston leaned over until his forehead was pressed against the glass. His throat began to tighten, the corners of his eyes began to sting, and, at last, he wept.
It was weak at first, restrained, and then all at once it was not. Sobs fell from his lips, tears wetting and blurring the glass. He wept at the astonishing beauty of her humanness. What a ruthless privilege it was, he thought, to love.
“I love you,” he whispered. The words came so easily now he couldn’t even fathom what had stopped them before. “I love you. Please come back.”
Tiny fissures began to appear in the glass, as thin as strands of spider silk. Preston lifted his head a moment and watched in awe as the barrier between them shattered. And when the glass broke apart, the shards did not fall; they merely vanished, leaving no remains of the coffin that held Effy’s sleeping form.
He waited, his breath squeezed agonizingly in his chest. Effy’s expression did not shift. Moments seemed to drag past, like some heavy flotsam caught in the drift. The green-fire torches smoked intheir braziers. The sea remained at a slender distance, kept at bay by the marble walls.
“Please,” Preston said. “Don’t leave me here alone.”
