I had a restless night. These things happen when one is told that they are involved in an ancient curse. Tossing and turning is to be expected when your mother tells you that you are the only person who can stop an evil presence from escaping his prison in the land of the paper sky and returning to our world.
Returning
is the key word here, because, according to my mother, he has been here before and the result of his visit was nothing short of catastrophic.
A restless night is the result of being told that you are not a normal girl of eighteen, but instead a guardian of two planes of existence, two worlds as different as night and day.
A restless night is being told by someone you trust, someone who knows what is true and what is false, that what you once knew as a dream was in fact a separate reality.
The paper sky is not a dream
, my mother told me.
It is another world, a place of beauty corrupted by evil. You have seen it before and you will see it again soon. You are a visitor now, Lori, but the day will come when you must stay there for a while. The day will come when you must try to defeat the evil that lives there.
Something touched my cheek, the wing of a paper bird, and I knew that I had fallen asleep. My mother had followed me into the night, a bird sent to keep me safe from harm.
The day will come when you’ll think the night will never end, and your journey may last forever.
Now I found myself standing in a strange - yet familiar - place, and many paper birds flew around me. I held out my hand and one settled in the palm of my hand.
Do you know where you are, Lori?
No. Wait. Yes, I think I do.
Good. That’s the beginning. Finding yourself. You need to do that first, and then all else will fall into place.
The voice in my head sounded familiar.
Do I know you? Have we met before?
The bird flapped its paper wings and lifted from my hand.
I knew you a long time ago, but we just recently met.
How can that be?
It did not answer. My mother did.
I once told you not to dream. That was a mistake. You must dream to find the answers you seek. They’re all there, waiting to be found. The journey is for you alone, though all of us will always be with you, to guide you, to comfort you.
The ground shook under my feet and the birds flew away, all but one.
I knew you a long time ago.
It flew toward me, its paper wings moving slowly up and down.
Do you remember me now?
Your voice. I remember your voice.
Look at me closely.
The bird fluttered in front of my face, and then it stopped and hovered in the sky, a sky of swirling colors. I saw something I had not noticed before, a ruffle in its paper skin, the slightest crinkle beneath its body.
It’s where you held me, Lori, when you carried me home.
The dawn sun had cast my room into light and shadow when I awoke. I could easily see the dresser and the paper bird that rested there. It no longer faced me; the bird now stared at my bedroom window.
I sat up in bed and cradled my head in my hands. There was too much to think about, too much to digest, and it was all coming on fast, like a tornado heading straight at me. It was at that moment that I thought I might be going crazy, or that maybe I was fine and my mother was the nutty one.
Speaking of my mother. “Are you up, Lori?” Her voice carried up to my room from the floor below.
“I’m up!” I shouted back.
“Hurry down if you want breakfast.”
I needed to tell her about my latest dream, my dream of the paper birds, and one in particular.
He may be one of us,
I thought she had said. I needed to ask her what she meant by that, and I needed to ask her if, at some point during the night, she had moved the bird on my dresser, moved it so I could plainly see its crinkled underside, the result of my carrying it home.
He saw me before I saw him. I made it to history class early, grabbed a back row seat and waited. It didn’t take long for the class to fill up. Barb sat to my left, and I was talking to her when my desk moved suddenly.
“Oops,” Brian said as he sat at the desk to my right. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation. Carry on.”
My conversation was further interrupted by the appearance of Shirley, who nudged another student out of the way to sit on Brian’s other side.
“Hi, Brian,” she said in a flirtatious way, batting her eyelids in case he didn’t get the message.
I was grateful when he ignored her, but not so much when he gave me the same treatment. What do you do with a boy who sits next to you in a class with many empty desks, and then fails to acknowledge your presence? If you’re me, you become a relentless force of nature in your quest to get his attention.
“We need to talk about your bird,” I whispered out of the side of my mouth.
Brian shot me a quizzical look. “Excuse me,” he said.
I leaned in closer. “The paper bird you made yesterday. We need to talk about it.”
“Oh,” he said. “We’ll talk after class.” Then he went back to ignoring me again.
I pouted and stewed through the next forty minutes, thinking more of dreams than the history lesson being taught. When the hall bell signaled the change of class, he beat me to the punch.
He stood and faced me. “So, you wanted to talk?”
“In private,” I said.
He nodded, and then turned to Shirley. “Would you be kind enough to save me a seat at lunchtime?”
“Gladly,” she replied before Barb pushed her through the classroom door.
Students were still filing into the crowded hallway as I got right to it. “Why the silent treatment?”
Brian sat down next to me. “Sorry, rough night.”
He placed his hand on mine as he said this. It was only for a second or two, but his touch wiped away what little anger I had inside of me and left me at a loss for words.
“You said something about a bird?”
I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts. “The bird you made for me yesterday, out of paper.”
“Oh, right, the origami bird. Sorry, it slipped my mind. I do remember making one for you now.” He shook his head. “It’s like a nervous habit. Sometimes I put one together without even realizing it.”
He moved in his chair until he faced me. “I was in my backyard writing one afternoon, a couple of weeks ago. I like to write to pass the time. Anyhow, my mind drifted off. I can’t recall why or what I was thinking of, but when I snapped out of it, five origami birds littered the yard.”
“You told me they fly away in a stiff wind,” I said.
“I did?” Something beyond the classroom windows seemed to draw his attention and he moved his head ever so slightly. He blinked rapidly several times. Were there colors in his eyes? I thought there might be.
“When you gave it to me you said
welcome to the neighborhood
.”
If he had gone away, he came back with a jolt. “I don’t remember saying that.”
Brian jumped from his chair as if it were on fire. “I need to get to class. We’ll talk later.”
He took off like a shot and disappeared from sight before I could stop him.
The lunch period didn’t go any better than the morning’s history class. Brian had already finished off one of the two hot dogs on his tray before I sat down opposite him. Barb and Shirley, on either side of him, did their best to charm him into a conversation, but to no avail. He was as sullen today as he had been jovial the day before.
Barb and Shirley had been my friends long enough for me to know that good looks only bought a teenage boy only so much time. They both required significant attention, with some dedicated fawning mixed in for good measure. To them, being ignored showed a bad attitude.
I could tell shortly after I sat down that Barb had given up. Her eyes wandered the cafeteria searching for laughing faces of both sexes. Shirley, on the other hand, had more persistence. She teased and coaxed Brian with words and gestures, not quite believing she had somehow lost the power to seduce.
Me? I just lay low, waiting. Sure enough, before too long, I had Brian to myself. Still, I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t easy, but I held my tongue. I was close to the breaking point when he broke the ice.
“I needed you alone. I’m sorry if I was rude to your friends. Maybe I could have handled it better.”
“They’ll get over it.” I saw that both had made themselves at home at a table of mostly guys. “In fact, it appears they already have.”
He stared at his tray and I believe he was sorting some things out in his head. “Have we met before, Lori? Have you and I ever met before yesterday?”
Now he stared at me, and to be honest, I felt a chill come over me.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said.
He stared some more. “I had a dream about you last night. Nothing sexy or anything, don’t get the wrong idea.”
I stared back. “I won’t.”
“You and I were walking together. We were…” he hesitated, “holding hands. We walked through a field on a sunny day. I think it was in the afternoon, but don’t ask me why.”
Two students strolled by. He waited until they passed behind him. “It seemed so real, this dream. I remember every word you said to me. You were telling me I must be strong because something bad was going to happen soon. You said it would happen when I went away. And then.” Brian looked around him before he continued. “You told me about what happened to me when I was little, something I’d forgotten about, something no one else knew.”
“The boy in the box!” I blurted out. “No, wait - it wasn’t a box. It was a refrigerator, and you got him out. I saw it happen. It came back to me in a dream last night. You were that boy, the boy who saved his life.”
My dream from the night before came to me so vividly that I felt dizzy. “I was with you when you found him, at the edge of the woods at the back of your house. I remember pointing to the old rusty refrigerator lying on its side. I thought I heard a noise from inside it, but you didn’t, you didn’t hear anything.”
Brian went to say something. I didn’t give him a chance. “I did know you when we were children, you were the Brian who lived up the street, the Brian who played by himself all the time.” I nodded my head with the realization that he was right, we
had
met before.
“Lori.”
“Yes.”
“Listen to me for a second.”
“Go on.”
“Did you dream of us walking together in a field?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“I need for you to be sure. Think about it.”
I racked my brain. Nothing. I shook my head.
Brian stood and picked up his tray. “Sorry if things got a little weird just now.” He started walking away.
“Wait,” I said loud enough to draw a few stares. “We need to talk about when we knew each other, you know, when we were kids.”
He hesitated and then turned to face me. “Lori, when I asked you if we had ever met, I wasn’t talking about when we were children. I meant at another time.”
He threw me a weak smile. “I might have been mistaken.”
“But when we were younger?”
“Lori.” The weak smile vanished. “I didn’t have many friends back then, especially of the opposite sex. I would have remembered you.”
“The refrigerator. The boy was locked inside. I know what I saw.”
The hall bell rang. The distant look came over his eyes once more. “It took to the air. The breeze was strong and it flew. I chased after it, followed it, to the edge of the woods behind my house. An old rusty refrigerator lying on its side. I heard the voice then, faintly, and I pulled open the door. The boy tumbled out. He was younger than me.”
“And he had red hair,” I added.
Brian tilted his head. “Do you remember what he said, Lori? Do you?”
“I remember. He said ‘Don’t tell my mommy. I promise I won’t do it again,’ See, I told you I was there. You weren’t alone. I was with you.”
“Yes. I was wrong.” The faint smile had returned. “You were with me.”
I stood, satisfied. “Still, this whole thing is quite strange. I guess we’ve both been having weird dreams lately, huh?”
“I guess so,” he agreed.
We were at the doorway to the hall and I had forgotten to ask him something. “What were you chasing in the wind? You said something led you to the refrigerator. I don’t remember anything like that.”
“Oh, right.” He turned to face me. “It was a paper bird that took me to the boy. At least that’s what I thought, until now.”
He leaned forward and kissed my forehead, right there by the crowded hallway; just a quick peck, but it got my attention. It’s funny, because at the time I thought it highly inappropriate. It was only later that I realized it was the perfect thing to do.
Each time I asked a question I would get an answer that led to more questions, but I couldn’t help myself. Brian had regained his cheerful disposition by the time I met him in French class. If his moodiness puzzled me earlier, his carefree attitude now caused me concern. Was I the only one freaked out by these crazy dreams and memories? It certainly appeared that way, at least from Brian’s antics.
I didn’t know where to start when he sat next to me, and I had little time. Miss Lindbergh was still writing at her desk, but class would start soon. I let slip the first thing that came to my head.
“What was that kiss all about?” I whispered.
“Excusez-moi?” He replied.
I pointed to my forehead.
“Oh, that. Too early for lips, don’t you think?” He said quietly.
I opened my mouth but no words came out. My time had come and gone. Miss Lindbergh was up and pacing, her eyes searching for misbehavior. Brian knew this. I heard him chuckle quietly beside me. I decided to ignore him and concentrate on my studies. It wasn’t easy to put the questions aside, and it was harder still not to steal a glance at him from time to time, because now I thought that he might be a part of my dream. My hold on reality had become that tenuous.
Reality or dream, Brian was now a piece of a puzzle growing more bizarre by the minute. The time had come for a long, uninterrupted sit-down with both him and my mother. No more riddles or double-talk. I needed to know as much as I could about the paper sky and the birds that flew there. My mother had said
he may be one of us
, I was pretty sure of it. Was she talking about Brian? I thought she was.
I grabbed his arm as soon as the hall bell rang. “We need to talk.”
No French this time, he smiled at me. “I know, but I can’t be late for class again. It’s my second day here and I’m already getting a reputation for being tardy.”
“After school then,” I said.
He nodded. “Fine. I’ll drive you home if you’d like.”
“Sure,” I replied.
“I have the red Ford Mustang in the back row of the parking lot,” he said. “Like you, I have a thing for the back row.” He winked at me. “See ya then.”