The large man says, “We should go. The shadows grow close.”
He’s right. The mist has become a wall around us.
The king nods. “Meg?”
It’s not her name, but she nods. When had she become Meg? If she wanted us to call her Meg why didn’t she say anything? She studies me, like she expects to never see me again.
They will have children, my grandchildren, and I will never see them.
“I want you to be proud of me, Mom. I’m happy, with him. I need you to be happy for me.”
You try to be supportive. All I want to do is scream. But I nod.
She kisses my cheek, then lets go of me. The king holds out his hand to her, and she takes it. A look of such trust passes between them, I can’t understand it because I come from a world without princes. They have saved each other’s lives. He guides her back to the boat.
“Maggie!” I cry, stumbling forward, falling to my knees. “I love you! Don’t go, please—”
The boat, all its passengers aboard, fades back to the mist, without even a splash.
You did not answer when I called you.
Just after twilight, under a dark blue sky, Dave finds me lying on the dock, as if I’d curled up to sleep. He picks me up, carries me to the house, puts me to bed, and I don’t even notice. I pretend I’m dreaming. I wake up sometime—lamps light the room, the windows are dark—to smell hot tea and a crackling fire. Dave sits by the bed, watching me with something like desperation. He is no king or wizard from the mist. His brown hair is thin, the hairline receding. He wears a plaid flannel shirt untucked over gray sweatpants, not leather armor.
“What were you doing out there?” he says.
I know the words are crazy but I have to say them because she asked me to. “I saw Maggie. She was here. She said to tell you she loves you. She loves us. She had to go.” Rolling to my side, I stretch my arm under the pillow and hug it to my face. She came back, I think, strangely happy. She didn’t have to come back to tell me what happened to her, but she did. “She isn’t coming back.”
We stare at each other, because after all this time I’ve made it real. Saying the words has locked hope away, sealed its coffin. She isn’t coming back.
Dave puts another log on the fire in the bedroom fireplace, then watches it burn.
I don’t say another word about seeing Maggie and neither does he. If I say another word, he’ll say something like “therapy” or “hospital,” and we’ll fight. We’ve both had counseling, apart and together, and mainly it helps us get through the day, and add up the days so we can get through the weeks, and the months. But every day has felt like the one before it, and we don’t know how to move on. Dave is afraid that insanity is the next symptom of being frozen.
I can stay frozen for the rest of my life.
“We should get back,” Dave says the next morning at breakfast. “The neighbors’ll wonder what happened to us.” He smiles, trying to make it a joke. Never mind the neighbors, Dave’s job won’t wait. I left mine when I lost Maggie. Not going back is part of being frozen. But Dave is responsible.
“Just a little longer.” I lean on the edge of the sink, looking out the kitchen window at the lake, the dock. The sun is up, sending quicksilver sparkles over the water. She stood there yesterday. Like a dream. “Another day.”
Or week, or year. This is close to where she is, wherever she is. I think I should stay.
“I’ll pack up today,” Dave says. “We can leave tomorrow morning.”
After breakfast, I don’t bother changing out of my pajamas. I pull on a robe, slip my feet into canvas sneakers, and walk down to the lake. I sit cross-legged at the end of the dock, close enough to hear water lapping against the wood. I can spend a last few moments with her.
The mist won’t rise until evening. Still, I hear the water and think of oars. I keep very, very still, listening for the call. I don’t know why. I’d obviously never heard it before. Only whispers, easy to ignore.
I let Maggie learn to fight with a sword, learn to ride horses, like the princesses in the movies never did. Did I doom her, then? Made sure she heard the call, then left me? Or would she have found those things on her own, resented me for keeping them from her, and left me anyway? I don’t know.
She seemed happy. She seemed to be in love.
I am standing at the edge of the dock, toes hanging over the edge of the warped and weathered boards. The sun is setting. In moments, the mist will rise. I’ll call to her, as loud as I can I’ll call. Take me with you.
If she can’t stay here, maybe I can go.
A gray tendril swirls on the pewter surface of the water. I clench my hands. I step out.
An ancient, slender boat does not catch me, does not rise up to keep me dry.
I splash into ice-cold water, sink like a stone, gasp for breath and choke on water instead. Reflex takes over, because my mind is numb, startled at what I have done, because of course the boat wasn’t there, never would come for me, and what was I thinking? I thrash and kick, yet somehow I can’t find the surface, can’t find the air. The lake is a trap that has caught me.
Something grabs hold of me, takes my arm, a force pulls up. I try to grab it back, but my hands aren’t in the right place. Then, I touch air, then my face reaches air, and my mouth gapes open to suck in a breath. I sound like a bellows.
Hands pull at my shirt. I’m flopping like a fish in someone’s grasp. My back scrapes against the edge of the dock, then I’m sitting there. Dave hugs me close, clings to me. He’s shouting.
“What are you doing? What do you think you’re doing? I can’t lose you both, I can’t lose you too!”
He’s crying. I’ve never seen him cry.
I clutch his shirt in clawlike hands, to let him know I’m alive. He holds me, rocks me, and I curl up in his arms.
“I only wanted to see where Maggie went,” I say weakly.
He shifts, moving me away so he can look at me. He touches me, my face, my soaking hair. His eyes and nose are running, his whole face is wet.
“You think she killed herself,” he says.
My eyes widen. “No—oh God, no! She didn’t, I wasn’t trying—” But that’s what it looks like. I pull myself back into his embrace. I can’t explain it. Not now. “I think we’ll never understand what happened.”
“You’re shivering. Come in and sit by the fire.” He helps me stand, never lets go of me. My own true prince.
“We’re leaving in the morning, right?” I ask. Dave nods.
We reach the cabin, close the door, and shut out the night before the mist covers the water.
IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS
TIM PRATT
Tim Pratt has won a Hugo Award for short fiction, and has been nominated for World Fantasy, Stoker, Sturgeon, and Nebula awards. His most recent collection is Hart & Boot & Other Stories. He lives in Berkeley with his wife Heather and son River.
Pete was walking home from the revival movie house, where he’d caught an evening showing of To Have and Have Not, when he first saw the video store.
He stopped on the sidewalk, head cocked, frowning at the narrow store squeezed between a kitschy gift shop and a bakery. He stepped toward the door, peered inside, and saw old movie posters on the walls, racks of DVDs and VHS tapes, and a big screen TV against one wall. The lettering on the door read “Impossible Dreams Video,” and the smudges on the glass suggested it had been in business for a while.