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Title: Beneath the Surface
Beneath the Surface and its characters, settings, and plot all belong to me. Please do not take, copy, alter, or distribute without my permission.
“It’s getting late,” she said, confirming his thoughts as cleanly as though he had spoken them aloud. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
True that he had asked her here for a reason, but he had been hoping it would be a little longer before she brought it up. He had hoped she would give him a little more time with her. “I can’t really… tell you,” he said quietly, gaze dropping back to the glittering white sand. “I have to show you.”
“That wasn’t part of the agreement,” she said sternly, though he could hear what others might not have heard in her voice. There was nothing of her own devising which kept her from coming along.
“Barry wouldn’t like it,” he agreed bluntly. “But even so, I can’t. It’s something you have to see for yourself.”
“Just tell me,” she said, voice accusing him of withholding the information. Grit scuffed beneath her as she stood, the chain on the swing rattling harshly with the motion. He didn’t rise to the challenge, only flinched a little before looking back up to her.
“I can’t tell you,” he repeated. “Come and see why. When you leave, you won’t be able to tell anyone either. It’s something you have to see.”
She gave him a tired, hurt look, head tilting a little in pity. “Then I guess I’ve wasted my time,” she said, turning to leave. “Don’t do this to me anymore, okay? I’m tired of running straight into disappointment.”
“I did it,” he said suddenly, wincing as the words escaped. Body tense, she turned to look at him as though he had said something awful.
“What?”
Swallowing thickly, he looked her in the eyes and tried to silently convey how important this was to him. “We used to talk, remember? About… doing things. Doing… making something. A place.”
“That was a dream, Rikki. We were little kids. Please don’t do this,” she pleaded, voice dropping to a whisper. “Not after so much time.”
“I did it,” he repeated. “I want you to see. Just once. That’s all I ask.”
She sighed as though she didn’t believe him at all, as though she would turn and walk away, but her body betrayed her. Not another step was taken to leave and she only stared at him, trying to assess whether she should believe him this time. “If you’re lying to me…” she said finally, trailing off to leave the threat hanging between them.
One chance was enough for him.
Clambering to his feet, he reached out a hand to her. “Come on, then. My house isn’t far.”
With obvious resignation she slipped her hand into his and together they moved away from the playground. Sandy feet slipped into too-nice shoes that clopped loudly against the paved forest path. They left the schoolyard playground behind them more with each step they took through the thin, reedy-looking woods and into a cloudy little neighborhood. The houses all looked the same, with two stories and little white porches out front. The yards were not as green as some she had seen, nor as brown as others, but they were a little more yellow than she remembered. Everything was almost as she remembered it from her childhood, just a little older, a little more tired.
As they reached his house, he jumped a step ahead and turned to face her, staring her in the eyes in a way he had rarely done. “Take off your shoes here, and close your eyes. Only open them again when I tell you.”
“Why?” she asked, peering over his shoulder towards his backyard. She could just barely see it, dull and grey and lacking in everything that had made it so amazing when they had been children. At the back edge stood the dying woods they had just traversed, looking more alive than most of the neighborhood. “Where is it?”
“Close your eyes,” he repeated solemnly. “If you are busy looking at everything that is, you won’t see what cannot be.”
Though she gave him an angry look, she closed her eyes. “How much farther is it?”
“Only a few steps,” he breathed. “You remember how we spoke of it… think of everything we dreamed of as children. You saw what was there just now, but imagine that it was not. Imagine that you have no idea where your next few steps will take you. Then step forward with me.”
She took a couple of deep breaths, using the time to clear her mind of everything she had seen. They had done this so often as children that it was like tracing a familiar scar. Every blade of dying grass, every chip in the paint of the black shuttered houses, every noiseless grey cloud in the sky faded from her mind’s eye as she turned everything to blackness. In moments the world around her no longer existed save for the one, raven haired boy that touched her hand so delicately.
In the same instant they both stepped forward and she felt the hard sidewalk disappear, giving way to spongy ground. In her mind, she laid grass beneath her feet, the soft sort that she imagined would be the best kind to lay on in the middle of summer after a hard day of play. Another step and the ground became moist, squelching as her weight settled onto it, and she called water to her scene. Another step and Rikki released her hands so suddenly her eyes flew open.
Her heart stopped.
Gone were the grey houses and yellowing lawns. Gone were the heavy clouds and the weighted air of her old neighborhood. All around her was green the color of limes, the sky painted with the purest of blue. Spread out at her feet was a huge pond the color of a tropical ocean, the water clear enough that had it not rippled around Rikki’s ankles she would not have known it was there.
Across the pond lay woods unlike any she had ever seen. The trees were thin and their placement was sparse- she could see the green and blue carpet of the forest floor for miles. Slender bridges of soft, mossy soil arched over glistening pools of water, all connecting back to the quietly lapping waves at her feet.
A flash of color caught her eye and she gasped as her thoughts came fluttering back to her. There were fish of all colors swirling in the crystal waters. Brow furrowing, she took a step into the warm water, swallowing as it lapped up against her ankles. She inched closer to the nearest fish as one who is drawn to something new that is mysteriously familiar. She had seen fish like it before, the little fire-tailed guppies she had kept as a child, but none so large as this- it was longer than her hand.
“Do you like it?” Rikki asked from beside her, drawing her attention away from the fish, which startled and sped away from them.
“How?” she murmured, turning around abruptly to search for the neighborhood they had just left. The pale ghost of reality shimmered on the breeze, transparent and gone again in an instant. The more solid reality seemed to be the endless, pond-dotted woods she stood in with Rikki where the only civilization seemed to be his quaint little house. Unlike the world they had just left, here his house was in good repair, beautiful in white and blue splendor as though it had just been built. “How did you do this?”
“I told you you’d have to see it,” he said, smiling. “After you left, I spent weeks not knowing what to do. I… lost touch with reality. I sat outside on my deck, my feet hanging over the edge, and I wished I could see everything that we had always imagined. I cleared my mind like we always used to as kids, and for hours at a time I would just… sit. I would think of this place. One day when I closed my eyes, my feet got wet for real.”
“Just like that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I called this place here or if it was always here and I just found it. I kept coming back, seeing what I could do and what I couldn’t do. I brought fish here to see if they would survive or if they would leave with me when I left but they stayed and the water changed them.” He extended his hand to her with a smile. “Come further, Ani, let me show you.”
As though in a trance, she placed her hand in his and allowed him to lead her further into the water. Big as dog, koi of all colors glided through the serene waters around the edges while six-inch tetras in blue and red flickered around their footsteps. Goldfish, fantails, guppies, danios, angelfish, Oscars… fish which should have been small and dull here were bright and larger than any she had seen. There were more than just tropical fish; tangs, lionfish, puffers, blue damsels, gobies in rainbows… all swam together in the waters.
She hung back then, uncertain. “This can’t be real,” she told him.
“It is,” he replied, sadly because somewhere in him had known she would not believe it, even if she saw it. Even though she felt the water at her heels, she did not really believe. “Everything here is real. Don’t say it is not.”
“Rikki, it can’t be real! Goldfish don’t live in the ocean, and lionfish don’t live in ponds. They don’t live together. They can’t.” Reality was setting into her mind fast as she realized what she was seeing. “This is just a dream.”
“Don’t say that,” he pleaded, remaining where he was even as she backed away from him toward the shore. “Maybe new worlds exist right alongside of ours all the time! Maybe we just have to know how to find them, or how to make them.”
“You can’t create a new world just because you want one!” she shouted at him, turning away. “I don’t know where you’ve taken me or what you did, but undo it. Now. I’m going home.”
“Anika!” He splashed a step toward her but she was already fading. His eyes closed as he stopped, knowing that she was already disconnected from where he was.
“Don’t call me again,” she said firmly, still not facing him. “I don’t need this anymore; it only makes Barry mad when I come to see you. Especially when you do things like this, and I come home upset. Okay?”
“I’m sorry,” Rikki whispered, knowing she would not hear him. “I only wanted to make you happy. I only wanted you to see your dreams for real, just once.”
“Okay?” she repeated, as though she hadn’t heard him at all. When she looked back her face fell in disappointment. The clean shores of the world she had so briefly visited had disappeared and Rikki along with them. In front of her, indeed all around her she saw but dilapidated houses in a fallen neighborhood. “Goodbye then,” she said quietly, turning from him for the last time.
“Goodbye,” he whispered sadly, watching as she at last faded to the same shimmering, lucid consistency as the rest of the world he had left behind. Without her there for him, he would never return again.
