The Bookseller(38)

“Here’s your coffee.” Lars comes up behind me and hands me a warm cup. I wrap my hands around it. “See anything new and exciting?”

I shake my head, sipping the coffee. “It’s pretty, though.”

He puts his arm around my waist. “Sure is. I love this view.”

I laugh. “Of the neighbors’ houses?”

He shakes his head. “Of potential,” he says. “Of the future.”

Squeezing my shoulder, he goes back to the kitchen.

Just as I am wondering why Lars is making breakfast instead of me—isn’t that the wife’s job?—I am attacked.

“Mamamamamamamamamamama!” I manage to hang on to my mug, but the hot coffee goes flying. It does not land on my attacker or me, thank goodness, but it splashes all over the picture window and the carpeting.

I turn to see a small, bespectacled boy with an enormous grin on his face. But there’s something off about his smile, and with a start I realize what it is: although he is beaming, he’s not looking directly at me. He is looking sideways through his thick lenses—at the couch, the coffee table, perhaps the floor.

At nothing.

“Jesus Christ!” I yell at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

And then a noise arises from the boy that doesn’t even sound human. It’s the shriek of an animal in pain—one caught in a trap, perhaps, about to be devoured by a predator and fully aware of its fate. I’ve seen some disturbing fits by children, in restaurants and the like, but never in my life have I heard a child scream like this. I stagger backward and stare at him.

Lars rushes in from the kitchen. Simultaneously Mitch and Missy arrive, tumbling down the stairs and into the living room.

Lars firmly takes the screaming child by his shoulders. He holds him tightly, but I notice he does not actually hug the boy, nor move in any closer than arm’s length. Instead, he starts softly repeating, “Go to the river, go down to the river, go to the river, go down to the river . . .”

I step back, transfixed. Mitch quietly walks over and stands next to me. “Is he always like that?” I whisper to Mitch.

He nods, and we both continue to stare. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, but is likely only a few minutes, the screaming subsides into whimpers. And then there is silence.

Lars slowly releases the child’s shoulders. “Mitch,” he says, turning toward the other two children. “Why don’t you and Missy take Michael back upstairs?” He presses his lips together. “I’ll have breakfast ready in just a few minutes.”

One on each side of him, like pint-size, protective parents, Missy and Mitch walk the third child across the room. Their hair color is identical; their three heads are at exactly the same height. I watch as they quietly climb the stairs.

Lars stares at me without speaking. His blue eyes are narrowed; for the first time ever in this world, I see a blaze of anger in them. The eyes that focus on mine are unblinking, and I realize, quite abruptly, that Lars’s fury is not aimed at the child who has just left the room.

It is aimed at me.

“Katharyn,” he says finally. “What the hell is the matter with you?”





Chapter 14


And again, before I can react—it’s over. I am back in my apartment.

It’s dark and silent when I awake. I look at the little green-lit alarm clock beside my bed. Four in the morning. Aslan purrs contentedly beside me.

I turn over, adjust the covers, and tell myself to go back to sleep. “Just a silly dream,” I murmur to Aslan. “These are just dreams. They don’t mean anything.”

But they are so real. I feel like I truly experience everything in that world. I know precisely how snug the quilted robe felt, wrapped around my body. I can recall the touch of Lars’s kiss, the warmth and softness of his mouth on mine. The snow on the ground outside the window—I see it in my mind’s eye. I can still taste the coffee in my mouth.

I can see those three children.

The two delightful ones. And the frightening one.

I shake my head in the darkness. That’s not fair, I tell myself. You have no idea why that child acted that way. True, something was off with him. Something was not right in that boy’s head. You could tell by looking at him, by how his eyes did not meet yours. By how he seemed to lean to one side, as if he were having trouble holding himself up.

And that scream. I have never heard anything like that scream.

But the child—like Lars, like Mitch and Missy—is a figment of my imagination. All of this is nothing but my head playing tricks on me. If I had even the slightest doubt of that before, I have absolutely none now.

Because what mother could completely fail to remember her own child? What kind of mother would I be—if I actually was a mother, and that world was real—if I had somehow forgotten that Michael even existed?

It does not occur to me to question whether Michael is my child. I know—have always known, since the dreams started—that in the imaginary world, Mitch and Missy are mine. And I know now that Michael is, too. I don’t know how I know these things, but I do. In that world, that world that doesn’t exist, those three children are mine. Lars’s and mine. And they are all the same age; they are triplets. I am certain of it.

I put my hand out and stroke Aslan’s warm fur. I feel his solid weight under my hand. I ground myself in his simple authenticity.