But she couldn’t remember if the fireplace bricks had been red or white.
“I’m hungry again,” Ty said, and this time Willa knew he was looking for nothing but attention. They hadn’t been hungry since they had found themselves here. They hadn’t gotten dirty, or had to brush their teeth, or even had to go to the bathroom.
Which had led Willa to conclude—
“And we’re not dead!” Ty said, reaching over to jab her in the ribs. “We’re just…here!”
“And where is that?” Willa responded.
Ty began to cry, true frightened sobs, which made Willa pleased and then, instantly, sorry. She reached over to brush the hair away from his forehead. “It’s all right,” she whispered, “We’re not dead.”
But he was consumed by one of his out-of-control times, and clung to her, shivering. She could feel the wetness of his tears against the skin of her arm, soaking into the upper cuff of her nightdress.
“Ty, it’s all right—”
“No it’s not, it’s not! We’re dead, we’re dead!”
“I was only joking—”
“You were right, you were right! We’re dead dead dead!”
The arm that wrapped around Ty began to tremble, and Willa felt her own tears rising, though she kept them down.
“There’s only one other thing we could be,” she said in the faintest of voices, and only to herself.
~ * ~
A while later the light show began, as it did every night before sleep came.
First came the yellow streaks, which crossed in parallel pairs overhead, cutting the maroon sky in half. Then the maroon sky split into two parts, like an overhead dome opening, and the darkest sky Willa had ever seen met the black glass plain and they could see nothing. But this lasted only a moment, not enough to keep them in darkness: for the lights of what looked like a billion stars came on overhead, coming brighter and brighter like novas until their light merged into one overwhelming brilliance like the Sun. They were blinded by the light and closed their eyes, seeing a round retinal afterimage against the insides of their lids, and when they opened their eyes again the world was as it had been, with maroon sky and black glass underfoot and the fine line of fuzziness at the horizon.
“I’m sleepy,” Ty said, and curled up on the black glass and closed his eyes, which is what he always did after the light show. Willa fought it but also found herself tired, and then they slept, and always when they woke up they expected to find themselves back in their sleeping bags in cousin Carla’s bedroom in the white two story house that, Willa was almost sure, needed painting and had an old clock in the kitchen that had a crack in the face and was a little fast.
But always, for nine sleep periods now, they found themselves here.
~ * ~
After this, the tenth sleep period, the same thing happened.
Only—
Something was different this time.
They were not alone.
In the near distance were two shapes huddled on the ground, one of which began to wail.
Ty roused himself and looked at them wide-eyed. “The sky was blue, I’m pretty sure…” he whispered.
“Yes,” Willa said, though she wasn’t positive anymore. In her own dreams the white house had been gray, the clock in the kitchen a minute slow.
The two figures saw them and began to approach, at first tentatively, then running.
“Help us!” the one in front sobbed.
Willa held on to Ty, and the two of them stood waiting.
The two figures stopped ten feet away.
They were children: two girls, younger than Ty. One had blonde hair and the other’s hair was red, curly all over.
They stared at Ty and Willa, then looked up at the sky, then back at Ty and Willa.
The red-haired one began to moan, but the other one got out: “Where are we?”
“Where were you?” Willa asked. “Before you came here?”
“In bed!” She had a breathy, annoying voice. “Asleep!”
“Where?” Willa demanded.
“At Janna’s house!” Seeing the probing look on Willa’s face, she rushed on desperately: “In Kentucky! In the U.S. of A.!”
“What were you doing at Janna’s house, in Kentucky?” Willa persisted, almost unkindly. “Why were you there?”
“We were having a sleepover!” the breathy girl answered, and then she too began to cry.
Ty joined them.
“Be quiet!” Willa shouted, staring sharply at Ty, and then at the newcomers.
All but the red-haired girl complied.
Willa looked at Ty. “They were in Kentucky. We were in New Hampshire. That means nothing.”
Tears threatened again, but Ty kept them down. “The sky was blue,” he insisted quietly.
“You’re sisters?” Willa asked the breathy girl.
She nodded, studying the sky with frightened eyes. She said, “How do we get back?”
Willa gave her a long steady look. “You don’t.” She turned to Ty, her back to the two new children, and said in a whisper, so only he could hear: “I know what happened.”
There were pooling tears in Willa’s eyes, which frightened Ty more than anything up till now.
~ * ~
The nightly light show was ending. Willa opened her eyes, still seeing a vestige of fading sun image. The two little girls, Eva and Em, were rubbing their own eyes, sitting Indian style twenty feet away where Willa had ordered them to be. Willa watched Eva, the blond-haired one, curl up on the floor and then Em nest into her like a sleeping cat.
In a few moments they were both breathing shallowly, eyes closed.
Willa waited another full minute, fighting the urge to sleep, and then shook Ty gently awake beside her.
He stirred, sought continued sleep, then rubbed his eyes and sat up.
“All right,” he said, yawning and stretching. “Tell me.”
“This is the truth,” Willa answered. She had decided not to cry, and kept her voice steady and low. “Do you remember the night we sneaked down after bedtime, and spied on Mother and Father through the stair rails while they sat at the dining room table with a bottle of wine?”
Ty was concentrating, his brow furrowed. “The dining room was brown.”
“It was white,” Willa said. “Do you remember holding your hands over your ears, because you didn’t like what they were saying?”
“The dining room was white,” Ty abruptly agreed, and then a further amazed spark of remembrance touched his face. He put his hands to his ears for a moment, then lowered them. “They said…”
“They said that some people should never have children.”
His eyes widened with a faint catch of breath. “I remember…”