Chapter 2

As many times as it happened, he never could prepare for the moment when the world exploded into shapes and colors. He always thought back to when he was six, before his sight began to dim. After he finished piano practice with Dad, he skipped into Mom’s studio to watch her paint Farnsworth Cove outside the window. Sunlight fell all around Mom, giving her an angelic glow that froze him in place. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything that might spoil the moment, so he waited silently in the doorway as she painted.

When she finally noticed him, a smile came to her face. “How long have you been there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to help Mommy paint?”

“OK.” She picked him up and set him on a stool in front of her easel. On the canvas he saw the cove with a sailboat coasting along the peaceful waters. “It’s pretty.”

“You think so?” He nodded. “I hope my dealer agrees.”

Then she dipped her brush into a light blue spot on her palette. “This is robin’s egg blue. For the sky.” She pointed to a green-blue spot on the palette. “That’s turquoise, for the water. And this white is for the clouds.”

The world around Max now looked like one of Mom’s paintings. Max floated through a robin’s egg-colored sky. He drifted through fluffy clouds of the same white. Below, the water stretching in every direction was the exact same turquoise as on Mom’s palette. He almost called out Mom’s name until he remembered she had died and he was in the room of a stranger.

He wondered what kind of dream this was. A flying dream maybe, but then where was the dreamer? Max saw no sign of anyone. He was about to give up when he saw a sliver of beach ahead. He dipped closer for a better look. Against the white sands, he saw a woman dressed in black. He went lower until he was hovering over her right shoulder. Of course she could not see or feel him unless he chose to show himself. He existed in the dream as only a ghost.

The woman was more beautiful than any he’d seen in anyone’s dream before. Her blue eyes and sandy hair fluttering in the breeze reminded him of an angel his mother had painted and hung over his bed to ward off nightmares. Everything about this woman—legs, hips, and breasts—was in ideal proportion. She was perfect except for the tears running down her reddened cheeks.

She clutched a framed picture in her hands, hugging it to her chest. The tears, the photo, and the black clothes made him suspect someone close to her must have died. He could easily slip into the space between her body and the picture to see for whom she mourned, but he decided not to intrude on her grief. Yet she was so captivating that he couldn’t leave either. He continued to hover over her shoulder as she cried.

When she did pull the picture away from her body, he saw a family portrait. The young woman stood next to an older couple he assumed were her parents. In the foreground, a boy with an almost identical face to the young woman wore a green cap and gown and held up a diploma. The boy must be her brother.

The sky darkened as the clouds changed from white to gray and then to black. The water became choppy with waves almost knocking the young woman from her feet. She remained standing in the same place, oblivious to the growing storm around her.

“Danny, I’m sorry,” she said. Danny must be her brother. Another wave swept onto the beach and sent the young woman stumbling. The picture slipped from her grasp, washing out to sea along with the wave. “No, come back!”

She took off her black sandals before plunging into the water in search of the photograph. Max walked along the roiling surface of the water, but he couldn’t see where the picture had gone. The young woman kept swimming anyway, her limbs thrashing against the current.

He wanted to shout for her to turn back, but couldn’t. He couldn’t interfere in her dream. Even the slightest change might lead to terrible consequences, as had happened to his parents. He wouldn’t risk the same thing happening to this beautiful young woman.

Before he could leave her dream, he saw the ten-foot wave heading towards her. She didn’t see it until it was too late to do anything but scream. Then the water smothered her, pressing her down until Max lost sight of her. Wake up, he wanted to tell her. This is all a dream. Wake up.

Instead, she bobbed to the surface, coughing and spitting up water. She tried to swim back to the shore, but by now the current had become too strong. The beach disappeared from sight, leaving only the endless sea. The waves began settling, but still the current carried her farther away from the beach.

The young woman possessed only the strength to keep her head above water. “Someone, help me,” she said in a hoarse voice barely more than a whisper. “Please, help.”

Max floated next to her, knowing he could save her in so many ways. He could summon a rescue boat to pluck her from the water. He could scoop her up and fly her back to the shore. He could evaporate the sea and leave her standing on dry land. None of those ideas would take a lot of effort for him; he’d done far more in the dreams of others and regretted the tragedies resulting from his interference.

He didn’t know how much time went by. The sun went down and the moon rose while the young woman still floated in the water. He didn’t know how much longer she could hold out, but she was beginning to tire. Her eyes drooped and her breathing slowed. Before long she wouldn’t have the ability to stay afloat and would sink beneath the water.

She began to whisper her brother’s name, tears running down her cheeks again. She wasn’t going to make it; she was going to drown unless he did something. He scrambled to think of some way to keep her alive without interfering in a way that could turn deadly.

Then he imagined a piece of driftwood, large enough and strong enough for her to climb onto. He nudged the driftwood into her arm and she latched on. After three tries she managed to mount the driftwood, and then closed her eyes. She must not have lost consciousness, because the dream continued. She floated in the moonlight while Max hovered over her, keeping watch for any waves that might swamp the makeshift craft.

As she lay there, he imagined running his fingers through her hair and whispering to her that everything would turn out all right. He imagined the feel of her lips against his and their arms wrapped around each other. He could turn this piece of driftwood into a magic carpet and go anywhere. At least until she woke up and saw that her savior was a blind man just released from an institution.

She continued to mumble her brother’s name all through the night. She must have really loved him, he thought and conjured up the picture she’d lost in the ocean. His own graduation had occurred three weeks ago when he earned his GED. No one had gathered around him to take a picture. Dr. Lee shook his hand and praised himself for convincing Max to take the test.

Max wondered why he’d gone to the trouble of sitting for the test. He supposed they had kept pushing him to leave the hospital until he decided to humor them by giving it a try. Now here he was on an imaginary ocean with a strange woman who couldn’t see him, sitting on a piece of driftwood and waiting for her to wake up. Dr. Lee would say he was imagining the whole thing, that there was no girl, no ocean, and no driftwood. But Max knew this young woman was real and that’s why he would end up back in the hospital. He possessed a power too dangerous to live a normal life among normal people.

The young woman moaned her brother’s name again as the sun began to rise. Maybe she’ll never wake up. He couldn’t sit here on a raft with her for the rest of his life and he couldn’t just leave her out here for all eternity. With a flick of his finger, the current reversed direction, carrying the driftwood back towards land. Then he left the photograph next to the young woman so she would find it when she woke.

On the trip back, he considered what to do after they reached the shore. He wondered if he should show himself to her in the dream and in the real world. In the dream he had the advantage not only of being able to see, but to make himself as handsome or hideous as he wanted. Only one time had he used that ability, on his first night at Gull Island Psych. After that night, he told himself never to inject himself into someone else’s dream again.

In the real world he was blind and “gangly” as one of the nurses at Gull Island Psych had described him. A beautiful young woman like this would probably scream at the sight of him standing over her bed. If he tried to explain what he’d done, she’d only think of him as a creep.

The driftwood beached itself on the shore and Max picked up the unconscious girl to carry her onto a dune. She can’t weigh more than one-ten, he told himself. At five-nine, that made her almost anorexic. Maybe that’s why she was in the hospital.

After placing the family photograph next to her on the dune, Max lifted into the sky. The blue of the sky, white of the clouds, and yellow of the sun became a uniform darkness as he opened his eyes. He had made it back into the real world.

He listened to the beeping, humming, and hissing of machines as he crept towards the young woman’s bed. He touched the mattress and discovered her foot. Then, using his estimate of her height, he laid his hands on her shoulders. He shook her gently and then waited for her to wake up. Her breathing remained even. He shook her again with an identical result. He touched her face as he had with his parents and Dr. Perry, feeling a web of scars along the left side of her face. Everything became clear to him.

She had been injured and now lay in a coma. An IV stand jangled as he hurried out of the hospital room. Someone called for him to slow down as he ran, but he couldn’t stop. He had stayed too long already.