Black by Ted Dekker Page A

she listened with an intensity that undermined periodic scoffs until they stopped altogether.
    â€œSo every time you fall asleep in either place, you wake up in the other place?”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œAnd there’s no direct time correlation. I mean, you could spend a whole day there and wake up here to find out only a minute had passed.”
    â€œI think so. I’ve been there for a whole day but not here.”
    She suddenly stood and walked into the kitchen.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Tom asked.
    â€œWe’re going to test these dreams of yours. And not by jumping over guardrails.”
    â€œYou know how to test this?” He hurried after her.
    She grabbed the newspaper and flipped through it. “Why not? You claim to have gained some knowledge from this place. We’ll see if you can get some more.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œSimple. You go back to sleep, get some more information, and then we wake you up to see if you have something we can verify.”
    He blinked. “You think that’s possible?”
    She shrugged. “That’s the point—to find out. You said they have histories of Earth there. You think they would have the results of sporting events?”
    â€œI . . . I don’t know. Seems kind of trivial.”
    â€œHistory loves trivia. If there’s history, it will include sporting events.” She’d stopped on a sports section and glanced
down the page. Her eyes stopped and then looked over the paper at him.
    â€œYou know anything about horse racing?” she asked.
    â€œUh, no.”
    â€œName me a horse that’s on the racing circuit.”
    â€œAny horse?”
    â€œAny horse. Just one.”
    â€œI don’t know any horse. Runner’s Luck?”
    â€œYou’re making that up.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat’s not the point. I’m just satisfying myself that you don’t know any of the entries in today’s race.”
    â€œWhich race?”
    â€œThe Kentucky Derby.”
    â€œThat’s running today?” He reached for the paper and she pulled it back.
    â€œNot a chance. You don’t know the horses racing; let’s not spoil that.” She folded the paper. “The race is in” —she glanced at the clock on the wall—“six hours. No one on Earth knows the winner. You go and talk to your furry friends. If you come back with the name of the horse that wins, I will reconsider this little theory of yours.” A slight smile lifted her small mouth.
    â€œI don’t know if I can get that kind of detail,” Tom said.
    â€œWhy not? Fly over to the golden library in the sky and ask the attending fuzzball for a bit of history. What can be so hard about that?”
    â€œWhat if it’s not a dream? I can’t just do whatever I want there any more than I can do whatever I want here. And the histories are oral. They won’t know who won a race!”
    â€œYou said that some of them knew everything from the histories.”
    â€œThe wise ones. Michal. You think Michal is going to tell me who won the Kentucky Derby this year?”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œIt doesn’t sound like something he’d tell me.”
    â€œOh, stop it.”
    â€œI’m sleeping on a hill right now—I can’t just go on some crazy search for something this trivial.”
    â€œAs soon as you fall asleep here, you’ll wake up there,” she said. “You want to prove this to me—here’s your chance.”
    â€œThis is ridiculous. That’s not how it works.”
    â€œSo you’re begging off?”
    â€œThe race is in six hours. What if I can’t go back to sleep over there?”
    â€œYou said there wasn’t necessarily any time correlation. I’ll let you sleep for half an hour, and then I’ll wake you. We can’t afford to sit around here for much longer than that anyway.”
    Tom ran his fingers