That weekend passed simply enough. I spent most of it studying for an exam, with a few breaks where I lounged around with friends.
It was weird seeing Audrey in class later that week. She sat in her usual spot, taking down a note here and there. I stared at the back of her head all through class. I didn’t know what I expected from staring at her, but I went home that day with a blank notepad. Once, I leaned over and whispered her name, calling it louder and louder until it seemed everyone but her turned around and gave me looks. Several times, I thought to run after her when class was over. But what would I ask? “Excuse me, are you from another world?”
It was hard that first week to forget the dream. My dreams were usually so dull they could be confused with reality. My life ticked on over the next weeks and soon finals were looming ahead of me. In the rush of essays and tests, battling against the crush of paperwork, the dream faded into the background of my mind, forgotten amongst mundane chores.
After the last day of astronomy lecture, I watched as Audrey left, pushing through the crowds into the corridor. I could see her dark head bobbing away.
Before I knew it, I was chasing after her. “Audrey!” I said loudly. I wasn’t sure what I thought would happen. I only knew if I let her go, she would be lost to me forever. “Audrey!” I said again.
We were outside, students pouring into the bright air, filling the sidewalks. I smashed past their heavy backpacks, bearing the brunt of several annoyed looks as I ran. She was just ahead of me. “Ryloha!” I shouted the name before I even realized it. I stopped, looking at her back.
An eternity passed. Then she turned in the thick of the crowd and smiled wryly. She walked to me, stepping from my dreams and changing my reality.
“Kevin,” she said in that airy voice, “you look pale.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I – I was about to get lunch before my next class,” I muttered. Something about the conversation was normal, and yet surreal at the same time.
“I can walk you,” she said.
I fell into step beside her as we headed towards Bancroft Way. “What happened to me?” I asked after a while.
“The touch didn’t take more than a few minutes, but it was a lot of information. Afterwards, you passed out.”
I pulled my coat around me in the face of a sudden breeze. I constantly questioned whether I was sane. I wondered if I was one of those homeless people wandering the streets, talking to myself when there was no Audrey speaking to me of things that were impossible.
“What are you thinking?” she asked. “You seem worried.”
I studied her in the Berkeley sunlight and she was frightening to me, a hallucination that was speaking to me. “It’s just – it’s a lot to take in,” I said.
She paused, the wind ruffling through the silence. “Kevin, why didn’t you go back? You had a chance to return to your normal life. You could have forgotten me as a dream. Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. We stopped outside of Caffe Strada. I could smell the warmth of its coffee. The coziness of the café beckoned and I wasn’t sure what to do. “Are you hungry?” I asked. I placed my hand on the café door.
“Sure.”
Lunch, with the princess of Alhallra. I laughed; the comfort of the ordinary with a spice of the extraordinary. “We should have lunch more often,” I said. I opened the door to let us through.
• • •
Finals came and went. Often I’d sit with Audrey at the café, sipping coffee in front of my laptop, surrounded by piles of paper. Around us, other students did the same. When we met up, we would discuss classes, finals, and studies. It was all so ordinary.
When Christmas neared, I knew Audrey had no home to go back to. So I invited her to Los Angeles with me. I was glad to have someone over for Christmas who wasn’t a tiring relative; it would be a refreshing change.
After finals, I drove her to Southern California, bugs splattering against my windshield on the 5 freeway. Audrey said the bugs were a shame. The first time she saw my car, she’d mouthed a ‘wow’. It was a silver BMW Z4 convertible.
“I got it for my birthday,” I said, patting it with love. “Easier for me to drive to LA more often. Don’t worry about the bugs. They come off in the car wash.”
As we drove down an endless strip of highway and sun, I told Audrey about Christmas with my family. For me, this time of the year always meant family upon family upon family upon family. Around Christmastime, we usually had extended family over with their extended family and their extended family. Thankfully, Christmas Day itself was just my sister and our parents spending the evening at the local church. But until then, at the big family dinners, there were inevitably more people than food, and no matter how quickly I grabbed the portions on the table, they always seemed to disappear from my hands, leaving me hungry afterwards. So when it came to the holidays, I’d developed a habit of eating dinner before going home and eating dinner.
“We’ll stop here and get dinner before, uh, before we arrive for dinner,” I said.
“What?” She was puzzled, a reaction that didn’t surprise me. “I thought we were eating at your house?”
“Yeah, but – you see… there’s a lot of competition to get to the food… and… unless you’re gonna bust out your sword and kill the competition, well… – it’s better to eat dinner before dinner, just to be sure.”
I drove down a street lined with palm trees and pulled into Downtown Disney. The place was swarming with people. Shoppers rushed through their last-minute shopping amongst a multitude of outdoor shops. Tourists on their Christmas vacation stampeded across the sidewalks. I thought I would starve to death searching for parking, but I was finally lucky enough to find a spot close to the stores.
We passed the Rainforest Café, an amusing theme restaurant with Mayan architecture and elaborate tropical foliage. Nearby, a mariachi band played to a crowd with cameras. As we walked past, a myriad of shops opened in front of us. “Where do you want to eat?” I asked.
“There’re so many choices,” she said.
“We could walk around, and if you see something you like, let me know. I’ve eaten at almost every restaurant there is in Southern California, so it doesn’t matter to me.”
“What’s good here?”
We strolled to the Disney Store with a jumble of Disney characters glaring at us through the windows. “I like the Rainforest Café back there.” I thought of the fake animals decorating the restaurant foliage. “It’s kinda for kids, but it’s still fun.”
She laughed. “Then we should eat there.”
We began to head back when she stopped.
Fear shot through me when I saw her rigid with attention. She was looking at a street lamp draped with thick potted plants. Perched on it was a plain black raven.
“What is it?” I asked nervously.
“It’s a messenger,” she said.
“A messenger?” But the bird looked normal. I wondered what was happening. The uncertainty, the oddity of it all, pressed against me – the excitement of it reached out to fulfill a longing. Yet there was also a part of me that just wanted to have dinner with a girl.
The raven flew down and perched beside Audrey. She unfolded its wing, and there beneath the feathers was a small roll of paper. She took it out, reading it in the light of the lamp. As she did, her expression transformed into one of agony.
“What?” I said softly, peering over her shoulder. But I couldn’t read the curling letters. I remembered the Alhallren language had been as plain as English to me in the touch. Now it was enigmatic and I couldn’t recognize a word.
Audrey gazed vacantly ahead of her.
“Is everything alright?” I asked.
“I can go home.”
Chapter 18