“I’m really sorry I knew nothing about you when we met in the dream world,” she says. “I locked away the memories of our grandmother telling me about you and our parents because it’s just too painful to know you have family you can’t remember.”
“I don’t blame you,” I say. “If I knew how to create black windows, I’d probably lock away a thing or two.”
She stops and gives me an incredulous look. “You don’t know how to lock away memories?”
“I probably don’t know a lot of basic dreamwalking techniques,” I say and launch into my own story—one that starts with our mother not teaching me anything about dreamwalking or speaking about the past.
Since Asha does seem able to handle “unpleasantness,” I don’t sugarcoat anything. I explain how Mom thought she’d killed Asha, so she locked away those memories. I go over my theory as well: that on some level, though Mom couldn’t recall why, she’d feared I’d dreamwalk in her and stumble onto this horrible secret.
Asha grimaces. “Our poor mom. If I thought I’d killed Chloe, I’d end myself right then and there.”
“She couldn’t,” I say. “She had me. Well, she couldn’t until I was old enough.” Chest tightening, I explain about Mom’s suicide attempt and my inadvertent role in it.
We pass by the moat-ringed gate and the squadron of guards protecting it in a heavy silence. Meanwhile, the conversation between Valerian and Kojo grows more boisterous, and I overhear Chloe grilling Maxwell with endless random questions.
“Tell me more,” Asha urges, so I do. I tell her about the good memories with our mother on Gomorrah and about my efforts to keep her alive and undo the damage done by the car accident.
“What about him?” Asha asks in the middle of my story about Necronia. She nods in Maxwell’s direction. “You didn’t mention our father at all.”
“Right. That’s a whole other thing. We met only a few days ago, but it wasn’t until earlier today that I realized who he is.” That leads into yet another complicated story, which I do my best to cover as we step out of the forest and walk toward the structure we visited earlier.
“Bebe did mention something about a prophecy,” she says when I finish telling her about why we came to Soma. “It just never made sense to me. You and I are supposed to defeat Phobetor?”
“Call him Collywobbles, but yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. That’s just the prophecy. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I don’t think of myself as a hero. Do you?”
She chuckles and shakes her head. “Hardly. So you have no idea what Two as One means?”
“In our father’s memories, he and Mom talked about something we did as kids that sounded like it. The hope was that you’d remember what it was.”
She frowns. “I have no clue.”
“Me neither,” I say.
Bebe holds the door for us, and we begin to navigate the corridors to the medical bay.
Asha lets everyone go ahead again and falls into step next to me. “You know,” she says quietly, “my whole life I’ve felt like a piece of me was missing.”
A bittersweet ache pierces my chest. “Me too.”
“Could the act of our reuniting be Two as One?” she asks hopefully. “Is there any way we can consult the seer about it?”
“He foretold that Valerian and I would never see him again. So unless he talks to us via proxy, I don’t see that happening.”
We enter a room covered to the brim with medical equipment. Must be the medical bay. And indeed, I spot Mom here. She’s out of her portable bed and hooked up the way Asha and her family were.
Asha walks over to peer at Mom’s face, her expression so full of longing it gives me a knot in my throat.
Chloe tugs on Bebe’s shirt. “That’s your daughter who’s my grandmother?”
Eyes puffy, Bebe nods.
“And she’s asleep but not dreaming?” my niece presses.
“Something like that,” Bebe says thickly. She looks at Asha. “Can you push her into REM sleep?”
My sister lays a hand on Mom’s arm and closes her eyes, visibly concentrating.
“She’s one of the best dreamwalkers on Soma,” Bebe whispers into my ear. “Living with the Escapists has allowed her to hone her skills to perfection.”
Asha opens her eyes. She looks beyond disappointed. “It didn’t work. Should I risk going in like this?”
“No,” Bebe, Maxwell, and Kojo say at the same time.
She rounds on them, eyes narrowing. “Then what do we do?”
“You and Bailey need to prepare,” Bebe says. “Work together to figure out what Two as One could be.”
Asha scoffs. “Prepare to defeat Collywobbles? You don’t ask for much, do you?”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “How about we start by filling in gaps in my dreamwalking techniques?”
A faint smile touches my sister’s lips. “All right.”
“I’ll help,” Maxwell says.
“And me,” Bebe says.