The Nostalgia Gambit by Carmen Webster Buxton

Author:Carmen Webster Buxton [Buxton, Carmen Webster]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-03-22T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

I WAS in a very peculiar situation. I had gone downstairs to breakfast, but when I got to the table, there wasn’t a place set for me. In fact, no one paid any attention to me when I walked into the breakfast room, because they were all talking to Miklos.

I recognized him at once, even though he looked older than he had before. He was still in his academy uniform, but it was torn and bloody in places. His face was pale and bloodless, but showed no sign of burns. Tahirah didn’t seem to mind his appearance, as she hung on his arm, and even Mura was giving him admiring glances.

For some reason, I didn’t see it as strange that Mura was at the breakfast table, or Miklos, either. I looked around for an empty chair, but there wasn’t one. And then Miklos looked up and spoke directly to me.

“You have to decide,” he said, and his voice sounded different than it had in my previous dream—a little deeper and more sure of himself. “You can be me or you can get lost. There’s no place for you here if you want to be Tychon.”

“I can’t be you,” I said.

No one else paid any attention to our conversation until Miklos stood up, and then the Palatina turned to frown at me.

“Go away!” she said. “You can’t be here and Miklos, too. Go away! We don’t want you.”

“No,” Miklos said. “I have to go now, Mother, and I can’t come back. Let him stay.”

And then he was gone, just like that—vanished into thin air.

The old man looked up at me with sad eyes. “Sit down, Miklos. Have some breakfast.”

I sat up in bed with my heart pounding and realized I had been having another dream. Almost a nightmare, in fact. I looked around the room just to be sure I hadn’t somehow been transported to Miklos’ suite. It was my own room, but somehow it didn’t feel the same.

The dream was upsetting partly because I seldom dreamed—or if I did, I didn’t remember my dreams. The few I could recall were short, disjointed fragments of events. Sometimes they were unfamiliar in that I didn’t recognize the people or the setting, but they didn’t scare me. This scared me. When Miklos had been in my dream before it had been unsettling rather than frightening. Talking to a ghost about his parents didn’t seem as bad as having everyone in my dream act as if I didn’t exist. Even being Miklos in the skating dream hadn’t been as bad as that.

I lay down and closed my eyes determinedly, but it took me a long time to get to sleep again.

THE next day I was consumed by a desire to see Miklos’ room. I couldn’t give myself a logical reason, but it almost felt like Miklos wanted me to see it. I didn’t tell anyone this; I was well aware that the notion that Miklos was somehow speaking to me from the grave was more than a little bizarre.

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