Not Quite Time, Not Quite Space

The new subdivision was made by a madman, Emma Mota concluded when her final attempt to gain entrance to the oversized gated community happened hours after she decided it to be necessary. The new subdivision winded up and down hills and scattered itself across Humbleville in a series of broken circles, eight house cul-de-sacs, and a massive iron gate that dived and rose with the land. Emma was not sure if the decision to plant thorny bushes and rough grass outside the gate was done on purpose or not, but between the stinging cuts on her hand and the increasing rain fall the young woman’s resolve for the good in humanity waned. Emma knew the weakness in the iron gate only through a myth she heard while looking for trash behind Humbleville Hotel.

Knee deep in the hotel’s dumpster, Emma had heard the slow talking of a cigarette smoking bellhop on break. The young man and his other unseen co-worker went back and forth about Humbleville and their wish to leave the town for good. Eventually that conversation landed on the subdivisions, both new and old, and how those maddening complexes angered them. The bellhop let slip a weakness he used in the gate, between the tallest oak tree and a hidden drainage ditch, for the single purpose of accessing the new subdivision’s members only arcade and sports complex. Emma spooled that knowledge back for later, knowing it might come in handy one day.

Emma found the long, mote like drainage ditch by simply following the rivers of rainwater. However, her success stopped there. The early morning and its cloudy, angry sky offered no light save for flashes of lightening every so often. Judging the height of the oak trees was difficult when one was standing beneath them, but trial and error yielded the two dented iron bars that concaved from one another just enough to allow the passage of one adult human. Emma was in the new subdivision and from there it was only a matter of guessing the right house she needed to visit. The intergalactic travel Emma did with Audra Tholos transformed Emma into an assured visitor. One who, by reoccurring experience, did not fumble with thoughts over trouble and ‘getting caught’. Emma took to the center of the two-lane road between houses and ran up the street until she sighted an untethered bike and used it.

Emma waited for the same feeling she observed with Audra the first time she met the older woman. An interest that subdued wariness and gave way to undreamt possibilities. That inclination tapped Emma’s mind when she crossed a magnolia bricked home with obvious HOA violations in the form of a small fountain with a baker’s whisk at the top and illuminated white lights beneath each tier meant to simulate vanilla batter.

“This is it.” Emma said, after screeching to a stop. Emma dropped the bike where she stood and ran up to the front door. The young woman’s mind reached for her earliest memories with Audra and rested on the time the older woman told Emma if they were to get separated and Emma returned to Humbleville in search of help, she would need a password to get it. “Who do I go to for help?” Emma remembered asking before ever knowing the password. Audra had shrugged, “It changes, but you’ll know.”

Emma knocked on the mahogany door, feeling its depth beneath her knuckles so unlike that of the barn she lived in. Given the early hour, the young woman expected she would have to knock again and perhaps a third and fourth time, but what she was not expecting was a woman to answer her mid-first knock. A brilliant, tawny brow held back in quizzical speculation met Emma at the door. The woman, perhaps retired, wore a black apron speckled over in both flour and printed stars and every planet of the Earth’s solar system. Emma swallowed hard, willing back the tears that had afflicted her since she returned to Earth only hours ago. “I heard a rumor that just because you live in a house like this doesn’t mean you’re happy.” Emma spoke the password phrase, but hated saying those words and hated approaching the idea they might be true. She lived in a barn, one she receded to when her parent’s abuse became too much. The point was not the size of the house, Emma reminded herself. It was the life lived. That was what Audra taught her.

The old woman’s brow leveled, and Emma swore she saw the briefest let in relief spread across the woman’s glowing cheeks. She stepped back, allowing Emma into her home while introducing herself. “I am Rosette Gok.” Her voice, soft and meaningful, rested in Emma’s ears and dried the tears both on her cheeks and those not yet fallen. Inside Rosette’s home it smelled of vanilla, not too strong, but fragrant enough to welcome other scents; the pine cleaner recently used on the hardwood floor, the polish shinning the dining room table, the hand-picked flowers in a vase on the kitchen island. Emma followed Rosette as the woman was in the middle of baking an early hour cake, something of a good luck charm Rosette often used for days she thought might be tougher than usual. At the kitchen counter where Rosette was in the middle of spinning a chocolate cake to level out the chocolate frosting, Emma found more desserts. A vanilla cake, a rack of cookie brownies, two metal bowls of strawberry pudding, golden pastries packed away in covered plastic containers, and five different varieties of cookies.

“I’d invite you to try what you want, but if my instincts are correct, this cake is for you.” Rosette turned from Emma to invest her attention back on the cake. From behind, Emma watched the woman methodically shape the cake’s frosting to the very end of her will. “Audra told me one day someone would show up at my door. I waited for years to the point I expected it would never happen.”

Emma rested a hand on the marble island, taking in the wild flowers at the center and the many desserts circling them. “The only help I can offer comes in the form of cake and truth.” The old woman sighed as things she needed to say rushed to her tongue. Too many things to say. “None of us are real, you know? We are all parts of Audra’s dreams and if my instinct is correct, your sudden appearance this night and my sudden sleeplessness are a strong indication, that Audra is dead.” Rosette did not look over her shoulder to witness Emma’s reaction and she did not pause with reverence at the death of Audra. “We are Audra’s greatest sin. Her most mutinous act against nature, time, and space. We exist only through her loneliness and now that it is gone, so we must be gone.”

Like the hard truths Emma lived through, or thought she had lived through, she clenched her jaw, allowed her anger to rise, and then moved on. “I’m not real?” Emma asked.

“You’re only as real as a dream.” Rosette put aside her frosting spatula. “I made the cake batter with three kinds of chocolate; milk chocolate, some dark chocolate, and a third kind that only exists in Audra’s dreams.” Rosette cut a slice of the chocolate cake, revealing the inside to be marbled in various shades of rich brown. Nudging the slice onto a floral painted plate, Rosette offered the plate to Emma, who took it along with the fork.

“I was with Audra. We traveled together.” Emma offered, but her eyes did not leave the marbled cake.

“You did travel with Audra. In the same way a thought travels with the mind.” Rosette smiled weakly. No matter how many times she shared this truth, it never made the burden any easier. “Go on. The truth is better served with something sweet.” Rosette smiled again, this time with less pain. Emma pierced the cake with her fork, scuttled a bite onto the utensil, and put it in her mouth. Closing her eyes, Emma allowed her thoughts to race with each flavor. Through her life there was pain in her parents that was passed on to her. Emma now realized it was possible that pain was a response to the subconscious knowledge of being just a dream. Emma relived the night she met Audra and then all the voyages they went on until the end; at a party enclosed in a temple-home where Audra and Emma descended to the lowest floor and met the tall man who only offered death, but there was someone else there among the partygoers.

“Audra has a son.” Emma whispered after her first bite, but before her second. Emma knew Audra’s son both in person and through Audra’s reminiscing, as he had some time ago turned from his mother and invested himself into all kinds of nefarious acts. His presence at the party that night, Emma remembered, was just another sign between Audra and Emma that the party was one for a more corrupt group. More corrupt than dreaming up people who believe they are real, Emma questioned. “Is her son real?” Emma questioned. “He certainly looked real.” Emma added under her breath.

“What do you mean, looked real?” Rosette asked, her brow returning to quizzical, but this time dashed with hints of…fear? Surprise?

“I saw Audra’s son at the party. The last place Audra and I were before some tall guy murdered her.” Emma answered, feeling her confusion bubble back up. “That tall man is Count Gree. Him and Audra don’t exactly have a good relationship.” Rosette spoke quickly, untying her apron and tossing it to the side. Hands on her hips, Rosette approached Emma and looked deeply into her eyes. “Did you see Audra’s son?” the woman asked again.

“Yes. I saw him. I’ve spoken to him. I’ve even fought him.” I may have even kissed him too, Emma kept that thought to herself as not even Audra knew about it. Or did she? Emma was getting annoyed with the question. What difference did any of it make?

“You saw a blood relative of Audra’s. Her only blood relative. No one. Not a single figment of Audra’s dream would be allowed access to a blood relative. Audra allowed you a kind of personal space.” Rosette spoke, her voice shaking and wavering, but Emma still did not understand. “When a dream from another person is able to connect and share an interaction with someone known to be as real as the dreamer it makes the dream a shade more actual.” Rosette continued, “Do you know his name? Audra’s son, do you know his name?” Emma nodded at the question, but asked “Is it possible Audra dreamed of her son and I met him that way? In which case he wouldn’t be real, just a version of real.”

“There’s only one way to find out.” Rosette said, “Say his name. No one knows his name. Not me, not anyone of Humbleville. Except you.”

Emma thought for a moment, and then that thought turned to fear. Emma did not know what to expect upon saying the name, but she knew it would be a confirmation, nonetheless.

“Auden.” Emma pushed the name through pressed lips and out of a soul she hoped was real.

A pop in the air, like electricity, produced something at the ceiling and then falling to the floor, a tall figure with ebony ringlets at his head like his mother, stubble around his face, and rich umber skin swaddled in layers of damp clothing. The man, around Emma’s age, looked up from the kitchen floor, surprised and then angered.

“I need a bow and arrow.” The young man growled.