“Then it doesn’t matter. I’ll wait.”
“No,” Ose says firmly. “You have to go, Kyle. Now.”
I look at him. I can see from the fear in his face that he knows something that I don’t.
“What is it?” I say.
“Jonah’s coming back. He won’t let you leave.”
I shake my head, disbelieving.
“I killed him,” I say.
“Jonah has epilepsy just like you. He can’t die in this world either. Why do you think he took such a shine to you in the first place?”
Realization spreads through me like pins and needles. My legs feel like the blood has emptied out of them and I resist the urge to sit down.
Jonah has epilepsy.
Of course. How else would he know so much about this place?
I feel it now, the place where Jonah is still falling and falling but not falling. The place where he is not dead and not alive.
I feel him caught in rushing lucidity and raging terror.
How many times has Jonah made this journey?
How many times has he faced It?
I wonder how Jonah faces that feeling, whether he squares up to It just like he claims to, or if It is enough, finally, to bring him to his knees.
“I killed him once,” I say. “I’ll kill him again.”
“No.” Ose shakes his head firmly. “There is a time to fight and a time to run. This is your time to run, Kyle.”
FORTY-TWO
I stare at the sliding bed where Farah lay only a few moments ago.
“If I go now, I might not remember,” I say.
“If you stay, he will burn the machine just to watch your face.”
“He’ll know you helped me. He’ll hurt you.”
“I made my choices a long time ago,” Ose replies. He smiles thinly. “But if you get on with it, I might still have time to get away.”
I look around one more time, desperate. “What if I don’t remember—”
“Go and get your girl,” Ose says.
The thought solidifies inside me. Go and get my girl? Sure, why not.
“OK,” I say, at last.
I lie back on the mechanical stretcher, my heart tightening. I always hated these things. The bed jerks into action and I feel myself sliding towards the arched plastic casing of the main coil.
Jonah stands face to face with God. It’s not the first time.
“Hold still,” Ose murmurs.
The noise is getting louder and I can feel my thoughts falling over themselves.
I’m scared. Scared of not being in control, scared of not being here.
As someone with epilepsy, I always bring back a little of the Stillness whenever I have a seizure. The sound, the sense of movement, the rushing. I’ve lived this and dozens of other horrors that I only half remember.
If I make it, what am I going back to?
I’m brave. I always was. Even if I have to go back to the version of me who wouldn’t leave his bedroom, even if I forget every memory I ever had of this world, I know now that I have the capacity to become this person again.
But I hope I remember. I promised Farah I would, and I need to go back and find her. I need to hold the idea of her, my love for her, clear and simple, in my mind.
Maybe we’ll be lucky. Maybe the protocol Benedict keyed in for Vikram will work after all.
I hope I remember. I hope … I hope…
