Foreverland Is Dead

other fences in the dream?”
    She shakes her head, remembering something else that ignited the lump. Something the old man had, like a remote control. “I’m not sure. I don’t remember.”
    She doesn’t remember other fences. It seems like there was another place around there that initiated the lump and knocked her out. She’s sure there is. And she doesn’t want to go back there.
    “Do you want to go back to the tent?”
    “No. I don’t think this is on.” She rubs her neck again. There’s no tingling, no sensitivity. “There was always a warning when we got near one, I’m not feeling it.”
    Still, she has trouble breaking the hold on her knees. She puts a hand on Linda’s shoulder. She doesn’t mean to close her eyes—it’s more like a long blink during that first step.
    And then she’s on the other side.
    “Nothing?” Linda asks.
    Cyn shakes her head. Nothing.

    Dead things are inside.
    Cyn stands at the front door, impulsively sniffing the foul air. The hairs on her arms bristle. “Where is it?”
    “In the very back,” Linda says.
    “Old woman?”
    “Yes. The body was removed weeks ago. The smell probably won’t ever go away.”
    They look around the front room. The couches are spotless, the tables clean. The front window is intact. The stone that Roc threw was in another dimension.
    In the dream, she reminds herself.
    “We’re still trying to determine how they built this?” Linda says. “It’s a gorgeous house.”
    Cyn cringes. Gorgeous.
    She can see the paltry shelter through the window. She feels left out, ignored. Banished.
    “It’s built like a fortress,” Linda adds. “Retractable shutters, security cameras. Quite an architectural feat.”
    “What were they doing in here?”
    “Well, it’s mostly living quarters. The upstairs is all bedrooms and a bathroom. There are a few bedrooms on the first floor, a kitchen down the hall.”
    There are voices in the back of the house.
    They stop at the first bedroom on the left. Cyn is filled with the odd sense of comfort, peeking into someone else’s bedroom without their permission. She’s not supposed to be in here, but no one can stop her.
    The bed is large enough for three people. Probably only slept one. Plastic containers are stacked on the bedspread. The desk drawers are open and empty. So are the dresser drawers. The closet still has a few items.
    Cyn walks past the desk. The perfume smells expensive.
    “Her name was Barbara Graham.” Linda’s voice sounds more distant than it should. “She mostly lived in the San Francisco area but had houses all over the world. She was married to a man named Michael Graham.”
    Cyn is careful not to touch anything, afraid she’ll never want to leave if she does. There’s a set of crystal figurines gathered on the dresser. She leans in closely. The Buddha looks like it’s made of ice.
    “Michael went by another name,” Linda says. “Mr. Williams.”
    Cyn looks back. Linda is still in the hall.
    “The men from the Foreverland used aliases. It was on a tropical island, and when it failed, we discovered this one.”
    “He said he was lost, that Foreverland collapsed.”
    “He was still plugged when it did. He’s dead.”
    Cyn’s chest contracts, sharply. “No, he’s not.”
    “Cynthia, we’re still not sure what’s going on. We were surprised when you mentioned him yesterday. What we do know is that his body is dead. And so is the body of a boy who was in the bed next to him.”
    “Sid.”
    “Yes.” Linda’s not shocked to hear the name. “Maybe their identities were in Foreverland when it failed and they couldn’t get back to their bodies. We assumed that since the body was dead, so were they. But obviously there’s more to this than we know. Somehow there was a connection between Foreverland and the world you were trapped inside.”
    They were lost in the gray for a long time. How long? There’s no sense of time in the gray. Just eternity.
    And suffering.
    Files are stacked in one of the open containers on the bed. A leather spine sticks out among the manila folders. Cyn doesn’t ask, just digs it out. Miranda gave that leather-bound journal to her in the dream.
    But she remembers what she told her. She warned her that one of the girls is dangerous and to be careful. Miranda was sure it was Roc.
    The Fountain of Youth… This is Hell.
    Cyn almost laughs. Even surrounded by this posh palace, she has the nerve to comment on suffering. This book will burn