I can almost see my younger self, marching along, trying to keep up with his big brother as we trekked near home. I think of my parents, and my throat closes as I conjure up our cottage in my mind’s eye. My sanctuary, the place that’s always safe. No matter how I try to stay focused on what’s real, what’s in front of us, I can’t resist the thought of home.
The path—maybe a path, anyway—that we’re following curves around the side of the mountain. As we clear an outcropping and a secluded valley becomes visible below, Lilac’s head snaps up. She draws breath to speak, her eyes widening. Then it’s gone, stamped out, and she’s quiet again as she turns away to start working her way around a boulder. She has one last longing glance over her shoulder, as if whatever she sees, it’s something far preferable to our reality. On cue I see her start to shake, shivering as though cold, fingers twitching before she shoves them into her pockets.
Another vision, then. A wave of dizziness washes over me, like a sympathetic reaction—I clench my jaw before my own teeth can start to chatter. At least she knows the difference now. I ignore the part of my brain that points out that if she knows the difference between visions and reality, she can’t be that crazy. I follow in her wake, and I glance down into the valley below us.
It feels like the air’s been sucked out of my lungs. I’m caught gasping for breath, grabbing thin air for something to support me.
There’s a cottage in the valley. My parents’ cottage. It’s all there—the white walls, the rich purple of the lilac, the curving path and the red flowers in the field behind it. The faint wisp of smoke from the chimney, the black smudge to one side that must be my mother’s vegetable garden.
The path winds its way out of the valley, vanishing into the distance, through the hills toward the wreck.
It’s perfect, to the last detail. It’s my home. It’s not really there.
I can hear her voice in my head. Just once, I wish you could see what I see.
I feel her presence beside me, and she reaches out to slip her hand silently into mine. It isn’t until her fingers wind through mine that I realize I too am shaking violently.
I’m going mad.
“As a member of the military, you’ve been trained to withstand a certain degree of shock.”
“If we weren’t, I don’t think we’d last long on the front lines.”
“At any point while you were on the planet’s surface, did your training…falter?”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.”
“Did you ever experience any side effects from your exposure to such harsh conditions?”
“I think I lost a few pounds.”
“Major, did you ever experience any psychological side effects?”
“No. Like you said, we’re trained not to let that kind of thing happen. Solid as a rock, and just as dense.”
TWENTY-TWO
LILAC
NEVER PUT YOUR HAND OUT TO A DROWNING MAN. I saw that on an HV special once. If you do, they grab on to you and pull you into their panic and hopelessness, dragging you both into the same watery grave.
But I don’t care. I step close to him and slip my hand into his. His fingers tighten around mine with a strength born of desperation. Which of us is shaking more, I can’t tell, but where our hands are joined, we’re steadier.
He’s drowning. And I’ll drown with him.
It’s a long time before he speaks.
“I can’t—” He breaks off, voice cracking. His eyes close against the vision of his family home in the valley. A vision both of us can see. The cottage looks just like it did in his picture.
I know from experience that he’ll be dizzy, disoriented, tasting metal and feeling cobwebs on his face. I know from experience that he’ll think he’s mad. My own ears are buzzing, my body trembling, but I push it aside, force myself to focus. He needs me.
“I’m exhausted,” he goes on. “I’ve had training on this. Your mind can—when you’re tired enough…”
He thinks he’s hallucinating. Maybe it’ll be easier if he believes that. I squeeze his hand, wrapping my other around his arm. “You should rest, have some water. I’ll sit with you.”
He nods, eyes opening to fix on the house below like a starving man would stare at a banquet. He lets me pull the pack from his shoulders, doesn’t protest as I tug him down to sit on the edge of the cliff, his face haggard and strained.
I’ve never seen him afraid.
I could be smug. I could rub his nose in the fact that he has no choice now but to believe me. Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But now, one look at him is enough to kill that desire. He doesn’t deserve it. And I know what it feels like to think you’re going insane.
I sit beside him, quiet, waiting. This isn’t like the silence of the past two days. For once, it’s simply that there’s nothing to say, not that there’s no way to say it. I’d wanted him to see what I see—but now I wish I could take it all back.
“I don’t know what to do.” Tarver’s voice, rough with emotion and exhaustion, trickles into the quiet.
I summon my steadiest voice. “I do. We’ll stop for the day here, and you’ll get some rest. I can make camp, I’ve watched you do it enough times. We’ll have some dinner and sleep and in the morning we’ll make for the wreck. We’ll keep going, and figure out a way off this planet, so you can go home for real.”