The Truth Against the World by Sarah Jamila Stevenson Page B

missing from my life. Even if maybe it had already been missing for a while.

    Moonlight and shadows dappled my bedroom ceiling. I was too queasy to sleep. A cricket emitted muffled creaking outside, and I could hear Dad snoring all the way down the hall. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like in a tiny cottage. Not to mention on the flight. I hoped Mom had earplugs.
    I lay on my back, idly following the moonlit patterns as my eyelids began to droop. I had no idea what time it was, and I didn’t want to know, since my alarm was set for 5:45 a.m. and the airport shuttle was coming less than two hours after that.
    When I opened my eyes next, I was sure I was dreaming. The soft beams and the ambient light from a nearby streetlamp had coalesced into one wide ellipse on my ceiling, like a silvery spotlight. I sat up and peered more closely at the pool of light; but when I looked back down, I could see my sleeping form sprawled out on the bed, moving restlessly on top of the covers. Then I was floating up rapidly toward the moonlight, up toward and into it. It spread over my skin like a cool bath, spilling into my eyes so that all I saw was pearlescent darkness.
    Before I could see again, I could feel, and I patted my hands around me: grass under my left hand, tree bark under my right. There was a strong smell of pasture and wet sheep, and then a scene blinked into view. In front of me was a small valley, more like a dip in the hilly landscape. The slopes were dotted with cottages, crisscrossed with dirt roads and hedgerows, and bordered by newly tilled farmlands. Though dusk was gathering rapidly, there was not a single light to be seen in any window. All was quiet except for the occasional “baa” of a restless sheep, and a distant roaring, buzzing sound that might have been airplanes. And, a moment later, the low, rippling tones of a woman’s laughter, followed by a young man’s voice.
    â€œThey’ll be missing you at dinner—come on!” Two shadows separated themselves from the larger mass of tree-shapes, and I was drawn along in their wake, back toward the gloomy cluster of cottages.
    The two figures separated after reaching a main road, and I floated behind the smaller one, a woman in a dress hastening toward a cottage on one of the side roads. The windows of the cottage were pitch dark except for a line of candlelight showing through the slit of an open door. The woman hurried toward the strip of light and slipped in.
    One last insistent whisper escaped into the night.
    â€œCome now, Rhiannon, inside, or the warden will be catching you! There were air raids again tonight, you foolish girl.” The door shut and I heard the sound of a bolt being driven home.
    Had that been Gee Gee? Before I had time to wonder further, I was drawn backward, irresistibly pulled; but thickly, as if through mud, and buffeted with so many images that I could only discern a few: An older man, ravaged by age but wearing a dented saucepan helmet and carrying a rifle. A young man, handsome and blond-haired, standing in a line outside a shop clutching a fistful of ration coupons in a mud-stained hand. He smiled briefly, a moment of sun in a gray, sad landscape.
    A flood of children, mostly alone, but some clutching their mothers’ hands, spilling from a train, clutching battered suitcases and gas masks. This last image filled me with such a profound sadness that I began to sob, crying out into the dim pearly light that was surrounding me again as it had at the beginning of the dream.
    I awoke with my cheeks wet and throat raw. It had been a dream, but so much more than “just a dream.” Much more than ever before. It was far too real.
    I sat up and wiped my eyes. What had happened to Gee Gee back in Cwm Tawel, during the war? I needed to ask her this. I needed to talk to her alone—about the dream, about the things she wasn’t telling me. I didn’t know if I’d get the answers I was