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"Susanne?" Roger called as he entered the house. "Suzie, come help me with the groceries!" Silence. He could feel that she was in the house, of course, but she wasn't answering. Maybe she was asleep. "Guess she didn't have enought coffee this morning," he mumbled as he set the bags on the kitchen counter and turned to go out for another load.
He paused when he saw a letter open on the edge of the counter, and picked it up.
"Dear Sir or Ma’am," it read, "I’m sorry to inconvienience you, but I had a dream of your address, and decided to see to whom it may belong. I thought that you may even, perhaps be able to tell me what you know of a girl who goes by the name Susanne. Again, I am sorry to incoveneice you." It was signed, "Umi."
*What the hell...* Susanne had read this, of course. Had she left it out for him to see, or had she merely been forgetful when she left it there? He went to the car and got the rest of the groceries and brought them inside to start putting them away.
Who was Umi, anyway? Someone from her past... Roger tried to remember back to before the Game, when he divided his time between making money, visiting this place, and keeping an eye on a young Susanne. She'd had a fair amount of friends... he couldn't quite remember all their names. Well, the ones who had found their way into the Game were easy... Was Umi the little girl with glasses who had lived on the farm? No, that didn't fit... Umi meant ocean, anywa--
Ocean. She'd had a dream, a dream clear enough for her to have gotten a complete address. Of course.
Roger whirled around as he heard the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him. He found Susanne standing in the doorway.
"Weren't you the one who told me I could lose my head if I got copmletely lost in my thoughts?"
"Where's our guest?"
"The studio. I happened to look out the window and saw you hauling groceries in, thought you might like a hand, so I excused myself. He's having fun just having the studio to himself, anyway. Oh, and he agrees with me that we need to get the piano tuned."
Roger rolled his eyes. "You know, it has been slightly over a year since it was last tuned. It can't be *that* out of tune. But yes, I stopped in and talked to Oliver about coming over here, and he said he could come and tune it tomorrow evening."
Susanne smiled, walked over to Roger, and patted his head. "Good boy!" she said teasingly.
He pointed to the letter, which now lay on the counter. "Is that from who I think it's from?"
"Mm-hm. It's from Elizabeth. Everyone still calls her Umi, I guess." She smiled. "Maybe it's just because my memory is warped, but I seem to remember coming up with that nickname for her."
"I thought your family and friends and everyone thought you were dead."
"That's what they were told. Well, you told me that the council pulled strings or whatever and that I'm 'dead'. But you don't know Liz... I remember how she scared me sometimes. She'd tell me about dreams she'd had, where she saw so-and-so wearing this or that, and I laughed because I knew that they had nothing in their wardrobe remotely similar, and then the next day, I'd see that person, and before I mentioned that she had dreamed about them, they showed me the new clothes they had bought the day before -- exactly the clothes Liz had described. And other things, too. Things I knew but hadn't even hinted to her about -- she already knew. All kinds of things. I'm not that surprised that she'd start to think I'm still alive."
"So what are you gonna do?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" Roger was a bit surprised.
"Not a thing. The last thing she needs is to get caught up in all this. Any of it."
Roger shrugged. "Well, it's your call. She is your sister."