It is real this time, Alia knows it.
When she wakes up in the room that used to belong Clay’s sister, Brittany, Alia knows that she is finally in a home with a family that truly cares for her.
No medication. It isn’t even a thought to her as she rolls out of bed and goes to the bathroom for a quick shower. When she is done, she dresses and sits at the dining room table with Clay as Ivan portions breakfast on their plates.
“I’m sorry Alia,” Clay says, “I normally don’t let him do any of the cooking. But he’s feeling better so…”
Ivan and Alia laugh, then Ivan says, “I’m a better cook, no egg shells this time.”
He sits across from Clay and Alia looks back and forth between them. Then she grabs both their hands in each of her own.
“We’re not the most religious bunch,” Alia says, “but I feel like it’s a good occasion to pray. I just have to thank something for the two of you.”
“You say that like you didn’t just save everybody’s life,” Clay says.
“I didn’t, we all did. And I’m grateful for that.” Alia says sincerely. “Please Ivan,” Alia looks to him. “Will you say a prayer?”
Ivan smiles and looks to Clay and then everyone bows their heads.
“My life has changed a lot and I have seen difficulties that I didn’t think I could manage. But I did. Because of the people here, and a few who are not. Thank you for all of them, especially the two with me today, and our friend Kevin, where ever he is. We did not ask for the lives that we lead, but we do not cower away from them either. We are happy to meet any challenge together.”
They all said “amen” at the unconventional prayer that summed up all of their emotions in the moment.
After breakfast, Alia goes for a short walk to Gertrude’s house. She has not left the house since the incident with the Red Father and Alia visits her everyday, usually for most of the day. Alia’s powers allow her to help Gertrude access the mental plane of existence that she would not be able to access on her own, and there, Alia does what she can to teach Gertrude tricks to control her mind and her body. Alia had no formal training with meditation, just decades in institutions where she spent enough time alone to learn that the space between her ears was almost infinite. She had explored a lot of it, and she had witnessed her extraordinary potential and her worst nightmares, and she had learned to navigate them.
She finds Gertrude in her backyard, rocking in a chair and staring into the distance, just as Alia had taught her. Alia does not disturb the woman. She sits cross-legged on the ground next to her and stares directly into the sun. It has been a long time, and in that time, Alia had been duped by an ancient mystical force. This was the medication that she had been denying herself, the sunlight is what her body had really needed. Sitting next to Gertrude reminds Alia of her friends at the Institute for Brain Function, the IBF, and she enjoys the woman when she isn’t a frenzy of rage.
After the two sit for about an hour, Gertrude sighs and Alia shakes away the light from her eyes.
“You want to eat dinner?” Gertrude asks as she stands to go inside. Alia follows on her heels. “I just got some leftovers.”
“Come eat with us tonight,” Alia says, “Everyone would be happy to see you.”
“I really doubt that,” Gertrude says. She recognized Ivan as a tenant at her apartment complex, though the two did not know each other when she was still managing the business. She had seen him around, though, and she had cursed him like she had cursed everyone else as a nuisance. She had done terrible things as Crude, to both Ivan and Clay, but at least that was out of her control. She feels most guilty for the monster she perceives herself to have been before all that happened.
“Hey,” Alia says, “the only way to make up for bad stuff in the past is good stuff in the future. Trust me.”
Gertrude reluctantly agrees.
After Gertrude’s house, Alia convinces Clay to allow her to drive his car to Kevin’s house. Alia doesn’t have a license yet, but Ivan has been in charge of teaching her to drive because he is much more patient than Clay. Ivan supports allowing Alia the practice alone on the short trip. She has never been to the house where Kevin, the magician who could make real his imagination, lived as a child, but Ivan gives her directions, and she is overcome with emotion when she arrives at the forgotten home. It isn’t in bad repair, just obviously abandoned, and she hopes that Kevin had come back here in time to see his family before they left.
She wanted to see it because she hoped the home, the land where it sat, the community even, might give her some information, some feeling as to where Kevin may have gone after they parted ways. Alia had left him because she didn’t like the way she had changed his life, but recent events had showed her that it was unwise to burn bridges so flippantly with people who meant something to you, and Kevin had meant a lot to her.
She walked around the home and the surrounding lands. She saw the lake that Kevin had talked about and she imagined him there on the water alone, peaceful and happy.
She wasn’t able to gain any new knowledge as she stared out over the lake, but when she turned to leave, Alia almost jumped out of her skin. A young woman was standing behind her.
“Do I know you?” she asked. “Can I help you with something?”
Alia struggled to speak at first and then introduced herself. “I was hoping that a friend of mine might be here. He used to live here. His name is Kevin.”
The young woman looks surprised and hopeful then. “You know Kevin? Have seen him?”
“Not lately, do you know him?”
“I’m his sister,” the woman says. “I’m Vita.”
Of course, Alia thinks, as she really looks at the woman’s face. She is tall like Kevin and pretty where he is handsome.
“I’m Alia. I knew him, we were together about a year ago. We went in different directions, but I found myself in the area and thought I should try.”
“Oh,” Vita says disappointingly.
“I’m looking for him,” Alia says. “I’m staying with his friend Ivan…”
“Does Ivan know where he is?” Vita asks.
“No, but you should come over for dinner tonight. We can talk and maybe come up with some ideas together where to look. Do you still live here?”
Vita shakes her head. “I shouldn’t be here now. Once people started seeing his videos on the internet, it didn’t take long for them to track his family down here and come looking, asking questions. We moved, my parents don’t talk to nobody. I started coming back here once people stopped showing up.”
“Can you come by? I’m not worried about Kevin, really, just sad that it’s been so long. We were…”
Vita cut her off, “I understand. Seem like you care about him, and I remember Ivan was one of his few friends. Yeah, I can come by.”
Alia leaves feeling very good. She can’t know what happens next, but she can be prepared. She can be prepared and she can lookout for the people she cares about most.
When Alia arrives back at Clay’s house, he is lifting weights in the backyard and Ivan is levitating on the back porch, covered in his green flame. She smiles, the Alia loves her family. And then she remembers that it’s her night to cook dinner and she will have extra guests tonight.
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