Requiem

Hana

Out of the shifting liquid of my sleep, the dream rises and takes shape:

Lena’s face.

Lena’s face, floating out of the shadow. No. Not shadow. She is pushing up from the ash, from a deep drift of cinders and char. Her mouth is open. Her eyes are closed.

She is screaming.

Hana. She is screaming for me. The ash is tumbling like sand into her open mouth, and I know she will soon be buried again, forced into silence, back into the dark. And I know, too, that I have no chance of reaching her—no hope of saving her at all.

Hana, she screams, while I stand motionless.

Forgive me, I say.

Hana, help.

Forgive me, Lena.

“Hana!”

My mother is standing in the doorway. I sit up, bewildered and terrified, Lena’s voice echoing in my mind. I dreamed. I am not supposed to dream.

“What’s wrong?” She’s silhouetted in the doorway; behind her, I can just make out the small night-light outside my bathroom. “Are you sick?”

“I’m fine.” I pass a hand across my forehead. It comes away wet. I’m sweating.

“Are you sure?” She moves as though to come into the room, but at the last second remains in the doorway. “You cried out.”

“I’m sure,” I say. And then, because she seems to be expecting more: “Nerves, I guess, about the wedding.”

“There’s nothing at all to be nervous about,” she says, sounding annoyed. “Everything’s under control. It will all work beautifully.”

I know she is talking about more than the ceremony itself. She means the marriage in general: It has been tabulated and coordinated—made to work beautifully, engineered for efficiency and perfection.

My mother sighs. “Try and get some sleep,” she says. “We’re going to a church at the labs with the Hargroves at nine thirty. The final dress fitting’s at eleven. And there’s the interview for House and Home.”

“Good night, Mom,” I say, and she withdraws without closing the door. Privacy means less to us than it once did: another unanticipated benefit, or side effect, of the cure. Fewer secrets.

At least, fewer secrets in most cases.

I go to the bathroom and splash water on my face. Although the fan is on, I still feel overheated. For a second, when I look into the mirror, I can almost see Lena’s face staring at me from behind my eyes—a memory, a vision of a buried past.

Blink.

She’s gone.