Merrin had plenty of friends at school, but he lived out in the suburbs, and the neighborhood he lived in rarely had kids his age. When Van first moved in across the street, the two became fast friends. Van was homeschooled by his parents, which Merrin thought was kind of weird and lame, but otherwise he was cool as shit. They were the same age, but Van always seemed older and smarter. In a weird way it was like having the older brother he’d always wanted. They’d spend hours playing games or out exploring, and over time, Merrin found himself wanting school to be over just so he could go hang out with his real best friend.
Yet as close as they were, it was nearly a year before Merrin even became aware of a strange custom Van’s family kept to every single day. Merrin already knew that Van’s grandmother also lived with his family, but she slept most of the time and never left her upstairs bedroom so far as Merrin knew. What he came to learn, however, was that every morning and evening, Van had to spend an hour with her. At first he thought it was just Van’s parents wanting him to spend time with his grandmother before she died, but over time Van said enough that he learned she was always asleep when he was in there, and it wasn’t just about him sitting in there bored with a sleeping old lady for a couple of hours a day.
Van was embarrassed, but eventually snuck Merrin in during one of his visits with his grandmother. Merrin didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t…
Van sat in a chair next to her and turned on a tape player that started playing some sad old song. He then picked up a brown spiral-bound notebook and started reading from it.
“Hello, granny. My name is Vanderbilt Amerson. But you, and everyone else, calls me Van. I don’t remember when I was born, but you do. It was a snowy night up in Empire, which is where we all lived back then. You sat with my father in the hospital waiting room, keeping him calm until the doctor came out and said I was born. You were fifty-three years old then. It was January 3 of 1972, and…”
“What are you doing in here?”
Van broke off reading as we both turned to stare at his mother. She looked pale and scared as she looked between us, but color came back as her expression grew angry. “Van! You know no one can be in here during this. Even your little friend. You go back to reading now.” As I started to stand, she grabbed my shoulder firmly and propelled me out the door, closing it behind us. She gave me a forced smile. “Sorry. He has to do that alone. It’s a private family thing, so please don’t mention it to anyone, all right?”
Merrin…I nodded with a frown. “Yeah, sure Mrs. Amerson. But what was all that? Why was he saying he was born so long…”
She gave my shoulder another firm squeeze. “Private, Merrin. I know you are his true friend, so I ask you keep this to yourself and don’t pry any further. Even with him. He’s very sensitive about it, you understand?” I didn’t, not really, but I still nodded. Seeming to be satisfied, she let me go and led me down to watch t.v. until he was finished.
Van didn’t mention it again when he came down, and I left it alone. We cautiously avoided mentioning it for the next several years, as odd as that might seem from the outside. It was weird, sure, and I was still curious, but I cared about him and his family, and I guess my desire to understand was outweighed by my love and respect for them.
When it came up next, we were fifteen, and Van was kind of the one that brought it up. A bunch of guys from school were going to go camping, and I’d invited Van to go, but he said he couldn’t because he had to read to his grandmother every morning and night. He was mad about it, said how he thought it was stupid, that nothing was going to happen if he missed once or twice, but that his parents wouldn’t hear of it. When I told him it wasn’t a big deal, that I could hang back and we could just camp in the back yard or something instead, he seemed to get angrier, though he was sad now too.
“No. You can’t do that. You’re my best friend, man, but you have to live. I don’t want you trapped just because I am.”
I wanted to ask what he meant, but I held back. If he wanted to tell me, in time he would. Instead, we just played cards for another hour and then I went home to pack for the camping trip.
The trip was fun, but it was all tempered by my guilt at leaving Van behind. It wasn’t fair how his family treated him, forcing him to spend so much time with someone who probably didn’t even know he was there. And really, what was the big deal if he skipped their dumb ritual once in a while? It was all frustrating, and by the second night, as I sat up late poking the campfire, I decided I was going to talk to him about it when we got back the next day.
“Hey, man. What’s up?”
I jumped and gave out a small yell. Looking around, I saw Van at the edge of the campfire grinning at me. “What the hell, man? What’re you doing out here?”
He gave a small laugh. “Just coming to hang out. I planned on getting here earlier, but shit, this place is kind of far out and I had to walk the last part after catching a ride to the gas station.” Van glanced around at the campground, with its neatly cordoned off tent sites and built-in campfire. “Still, you guys aren’t exactly roughing it in the deep woods, so it wasn’t too hard to find you when I got to the parking lot.”
I was happy to see him, but I still felt a small worm of worry in my belly. I leaned forward, keeping my voice too low to be heard in the nearby tents. “But shit. Aren’t you going to get in trouble or something? Did you at least do your evening time with your granny?”
Van’s expression darkened as he shook his head. “No. Fuck that. I’m done with it, and if I’m ever going to convince my parents it’s bullshit, now’s the time. I didn’t read to her tonight, and I won’t be there to do it in the morning either.”
I puffed out a breath. “Okay. Well, yeah, man. If that’s what you want. But your mom is going to shit a duck.”
He grinned. “Let her. Maybe this will wake her up. I love them, but…fuck, man. They are waaaay too uptight about all this.”
Swallowing, I decided to get it out before I lost my nerve. “Yeah, about that. Why do you do it? Or why do they want you reading all that stuff? Is there more than what I saw that one time?”
Sitting down on a log across the fire, he shook his head slowly, and I felt bad because I could see he was embarrassed. I went to take the questions back, but he raised his hand to stop me. “Nah, I’ll tell you. If I’m going to tell anybody, it might as well be you. It’s weird shit though.”
Trying to keep my face neutral, I just nodded and kept quiet as he went on.
He sighed. “To answer your question, yeah, there’s tons more of it. Forty-five pages now, though it gets longer as I get older. It…” He paused, looking across the flames at me. “Jesus, you’re going to think we’re all freaks if I tell you.”
I shook my head. “I won’t. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to, but I won’t think bad of you or them. You’re my best bud. I know you’re cool.”
He grinned at me and shrugged. “Ok, fuck it. So…they have me read all this stuff about myself. The first part is really weird. That’s part of what you heard that day when we were younger. It’s all this stuff about me being born in 1972 and my grandmother being there and more stuff about me being a baby back then. Which is crazy, because I’d be like fifty.”
“Yeah, what’re they talking about? Why do they want you to read made-up crap?”
He smiled awkwardly at me. “Oh, it gets weirder.”
“Okay. I’ll shut up and listen.”
“Well, they have me read to her about me being a baby. What I looked like, time she spent with me, that kind of stuff. Then there’s like…a gap. Until that time I carried you up to watch, I didn’t know why the gap was there, but they sat me down and told me. Anyway, I’ll get to that. So after the gap, it jumps to when I’m a toddler. Things I say and do, trips I took with my granny. Then I’m older, talking about me going to school, her pulling my first baby tooth, and this just goes on until I’m caught up to the age I am reading it. That’s why it gets longer over time.”
I said I’d stay quiet, but all this was so insane I blurted out a question in spite of myself. “Why?”
Van nodded. “That’s what I always wondered. I mean I’ve done it since I was old enough to read it—when I was real young, Mom would read it, but she made me follow along. I have most of it memorized, but they taught me to always read it just to be safe. Said it needed to be said just right and always the same. But I’ve always known it was weird. I’m home-schooled, but I didn’t think other kids were reading stuff like that to their permanently sleeping…oh yeah. That’s another thing. She’s always asleep. Like always.”
I frowned. “How does that work? Is she like in a coma?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. They don’t feed her or give her medicine that I can tell. They just…well, they change the sheets every two weeks and wipe her off, but I don’t know how she’s alive like that. But she is alive. Just always asleep. Always dreaming.”
“Dreaming?”
I could see a shadow of fear on his face now. “Yeah. That’s what they finally told me, or at least, that’s part of it. It’s going to sound super fucked, so I apologize ahead of time.”
I gave him a smile I didn’t feel. “Nah, man. Go for it. No judgments.”
“Well, my parents told me that I was born in 1972. That them and my grandmother are older than they look, that most people in our family live really long lives, and that’s why what happened to me hit them all so hard.”
“Okay, what happened to you?”
“I died. They said I died suddenly when I was two years old. I think other kids in our family have died young like that too since, but I was the first. And when it happened, my parents and grandmother…they kind of went crazy. They…they have a lot of strange beliefs. And they said they tried different things to bring me back, but nothing worked at first.”
“Bring you back? From being dead?”
He sighed. “I know. But you just have to go with it for now. So they spent years and years trying, and nothing ever worked. Then finally, after over thirty years, my grandmother found a way. My parents call it The Grand Sleep. Basically, they claim she entered this permanent sleep, a magic sleep, and while she’s sleeping, she can dream things and make them real. Only one thing at a time though, and it takes all her focus to keep it going all the time.”
“Okay. Weird, but okay. So what did she dream of?”
He looked pale in the orange firelight. “Me. According to my parents, like eleven years ago she went into The Grand Sleep and after a few months of them talking to her about me every day, I came back. Or…well, I wasn’t exactly the two year old dead version of me. I was four now, but as far as they could tell, I was otherwise the same little boy they’d lost. I lasted a week before fizzling out, and they freaked out, but they managed to get me back and keep me by reciting stuff about me to her twice every day.
“It wasn’t because she didn’t want to keep me alive, they said. She loved me very much too. It was just that, even with her knowledge and talents, when you were in The Grand Sleep, you were in a dream. And in that dream it was very easy to forget what you were doing or even who you were, and if that happened for too long, the thing you were dreaming into life would disappear.”
“Jesus.”
Van gave me a pained smile and shrugged. “They…that’s why they have me read it to her. Said it works with them, but it’s better if the dream talks directly to the dreamer. Makes it easier to remind them of why they’re in the Sleep and how important it is to keep the dream alive.” He gave a shaky laugh and wiped at his eyes. “Fuck. I told you it was crazy shit.”
I felt my jaws tensing with anger. “It’s fucked up it what it is. It’s child abuse. They taught you that you had to read that crap to her or you’d die? Stop existing? Who does that to a kid?”
“Merrin, they believe it. They really do. They’re good parents and they really do love me. They’re terrified that if I don’t…
The sound of him died the same moment that Van disappeared, as though a shadow had fallen upon him and devoured him whole.
“Van? Oh God, Van?”
I looked for him, but of course he wasn’t there. And once I accepted that, I woke up my other friends, not to tell them Van had been erased in front of me, but lying that I was sick and had to get home right away. It was three in the morning when I got to the neighborhood, but when I turned to go to Van’s house instead of my own, I saw his mother waiting at the open door. I started crying.
“I’m s-sorry. I didn’t know.”
She stepped aside to let me in. Looking at her, I could see she’d been crying too. “Of course you didn’t. How could you have.” She leaned over and gave me a brief hug before pulling back to look at me. “You were with him when it happened? You saw it?”
I nodded, sniffling.
“And had he told you of his nature? Why we had him do what he did?”
“Y-yeah. Tonight. Tonight he did. He was still telling me when it happened. How did you know it happened?”
Her expression was stricken. “Because my mother died two hours ago. After so long of sustaining him, they were inextricably bound. She couldn’t survive without him anymore than he could her.”
“I…but I…I thought we…I thought maybe she could bring him back again.”
Mrs. Amerson smiled at me sadly, touching my face gently. I let out a gasp as I felt a sting on the side of my neck. Behind me, Mr. Amerson was pulling back a syringe.
“Not with her, Merrin. But we still have hope in you.”
I have tried to be a good mother, Merrin. I tell myself I have been. But I have no illusions about the fact that all my efforts to protect my son have also limited his life in so many ways. That’s why you have been such a blessing to us all. You gave him a life outside his family. A true and good friend that, in many ways, knows my son better than any of us.
That’s why it has to be you. Before you were placed into The Grand Sleep, you shared your memories of Van and your innermost thoughts, and most of it was given willingly. For those things I had to pry free, I hope you will forgive me. But writing all of this down, it reassured me that, like us, you truly love Van and want him back. That perhaps you know him better now than even his own mother.
So I’ll read this to you every day for as long as it takes. The words are correct, and I feel sure that our dedication and desire to have him back will overcome any deficits as a dreamer you have compared to my mother. It just requires willpower and patience, time and love. And we have all these in spades, don’t we?
So dream deep, dreamer. Dream well. Dream of your friend. Our baby. Think only of that, and one day?