16. Olly #2
He stood and the beach towel, which I now realized wasn’t a towel at all but rather a large cloth loosely tossed around his shoulders, fluttered in the wind behind him like a red cape.
I recognized a scene that I had drawn dozens of times as a child.
How was this possible? Another superhero had come from goddess knew how through the multiverse, not to save me but to help me save myself?
“I know you don’t understand, but it's time to wake up, Olly. No more indulging in dreams. You’ve got to breathe, or you and your baby will die eventually.
You will die on that awful mattress. Wake. Up. Breathe.”
So I did.
“A fishing boat found you, and none too soon.” My bed was being raised just a bit, and Fatima placed an extra pillow behind me for support.
I tried to speak, but it wasn't easy with my throat that felt like it was torn up. In the end, I choked out, “How…here? New Zealand? You're Canadian. You…protected me…when I had my baby.”
She beamed a beautiful smile at me, lighting up the room, wearing the same pink scrubs and matching hijab I always saw her in.
Always? That had to be right, but I didn’t know this woman at all.
“We are in Canada now, lovely. We’re in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, remember?
And I didn’t help you when you had your baby, because it’s still in there, see?
Give your belly a feel.” I reached a hand down to discover she was right.
The bump with my little Bumblebee was there.
“Now comes the hard part.” She pulled a chair over to my bedside and took my hand with the IV gently in hers, causing me to feel instant comfort and peace, even though she was a total stranger.
“As I was saying, a fishing boat from Big Tancook Island pulled you from the water two weeks ago. They found you way out, and all alone, floating like you were dead. You weren’t making a lick of sense, because once they brought you back with CPR, you begged and begged the fishermen to put you back in the water.
That same cold water should have killed you and your baby, but you’re a stubborn pair.
Refused to die. They radioed in the LifeFlight and it flew you here to Bridgewater Regional Hospital, because it was the closest hospital and actually had a bed available for you in an ICU.
The Bridgewater Town Police, the hospital, and the RCMP all have questions.
We’ll put them off for as long as possible, shall we? ”
We? I nodded numbly as fear washed over me, as sure as those turquoise waves in Pauanui.
That just happened minutes ago, at most. I reached up to my hair, which was tangled yet dry, and felt the hospital gown—the only thing I was wearing.
No way I was in the water a few minutes ago.
I was gripped by fear and squeezed the hand that was offered to me.
“Fatima, if I tell...they’ll put me in the Mental Health Inpatient Unit.
” I stopped to catch my breath. It was so hard to talk, but I had to keep at it, managing my breath and the sore throat at once.
“I can’t go into psych. I’ll never come out again...
nothing...believed, and I am a horrible liar.
” I concentrated and took several large breaths before continuing. “How do I know you are real?”
“Dearest Olly. Oliver.” She dropped my hands and touched the top of my head just enough to be comforting. “Yes, I know about your real, secret, name. It’s just one of the many secrets you’ve kept all your life, isn’t it?”
I got it, then, but I was terrified to realize it.
“You’re...another psychic. You’ve been looking after me in here because you can see I’m one, too.
We’ve actually never met before, except in my vision of having Bea.
” My experience with other psychics was all shades of horror, as they burrowed their way into my mind and manipulated me by force or blackmail.
That was one of the few things I remembered about my childhood with The Organization.
What was Fatima—if that was her real name—going to do?
I kept thinking that I would be facing new dangers at her hands because the only other psychic I could really trust was Thomas.
My stomach roiled and I grabbed for the vomit bag, making sure it was nearby, while doing everything in my power to make sure she didn’t see my hands trembling as I picked it up.
“Are you even a nurse?” I asked, my breathing getting shallow again as I thought of my medical care being in the hands of some random psychic who wanted to play with me.
“Yes, I am a nurse, and in a former life I was a doctor. You’re weak right now, Olly, but you can trust that I’m in your corner.”
“Can I, now?” I asked with intended sarcasm, but I just sounded afraid.
She made a noise of affirmation and reached up, smoothing some of my hair back off my face.
“Let me see if I can find a proper brush or comb. They aren’t used.
We get donations of personal supplies,” she explained, mostly because she probably saw me shudder at the thought of using someone else’s comb.
Or she plucked that wayward thought from my mind because I could feel how weak my body still was, and that impacted my shields.
She returned quickly with a little clear kit that was obviously intended for a man, what with the brands included.
Rummaging around, she found a black comb at the bottom.
Triumphant, she pulled a chair closer to the bed.
“Come and twist around a bit, so I can start work on those knots. I’m good at doing hair,” she confidently declared.
By the time she was finished combing through my hair and patiently untangling what my grandmother used to refer as a “rat’s nest,” I had relaxed significantly, enough that like an unexpected triple-slap to the face, I remembered my family, mostly—Clark, Shepard, my brother, the little girls and the baby—and that wherever I had been, they were here.
I tried desperately to ground myself in this reality, instead of floating between them.
I thought of my own Clark sitting in his red cape on the rocks talking with Thomas and Shepard at the Beach at the Edge of the World—the guys picked that name—and my Bumblebee, who was still in my womb.
Then the little impish but adorable girl who I remembered, Maya and her braids, looking about eight, even though she would be fifteen by now, had she lived.
There was another girl, but I had no clue who she was, other than that she was connected to Clark.
I’d forgotten them, my family that is, and had been prepared to leave them and our life together behind just so I could escape.
Maybe it would be better for them all if I did escape, one way or another.
The thought no sooner entered my mind than I got a huge spike of pain in my right temple, and the headache moved across my forehead, sharp and oh, so familiar.
“Clark, Shep, and Bea,” I finally said, tears streaming down my face, growing to large sobs which grated on my sore throat.
Of course that was my daughter’s name, Bea.
Short for Beatrice, my mother’s name, though I’d always think of her as my little Bumblebee, fluttering her wings inside me.
The girls? I wasn’t sure where a pair of little girl ghosts fit in my family, but I would do my best not to forget them moving forward.
“I need my family, Fatima...need them so damn much.”
An answer came and not from where I expected it.
“Fatima is on break, remember? You really do need to work on your memory, which is something we will help you with downstairs. You’re going to be in good hands, so you can just relax a bit...
” She trailed off as she injected something into my IV that made me instantly feel stoned, like the wall in front of me wasn’t staying in the same spot, and my vision was generally off.
“Who...you?” I asked, and the woman turned to me, giving me a smile so hideous that I thought spiders were going to emerge from her mouth. Goddess, what was in that shot?
She replied in an almost singsong tone, “Why, I’m Dr. Bell. Your psychiatrist. You remember me, don’t you, Olive? We had so much fun when you were an Asset under my care as a child.”