24. Olly
TWENTY-FOUR
OLLY
I was sleeping when I heard the high-pitched voice of a child in distress trying to get my attention.
As my eyes opened, I took in the dimness of a winter sun, and large snowflakes falling slowly on the sand.
At least I was somewhat dressed appropriately for the weather.
Rather, I felt like I had been getting dressed, and someone interrupted me, pulling me from one dream to the place I’d been unable to access for ages: East River Beach.
The bench, to be exact. Thank goodness I wasn’t lying on the ground, because with the size of my belly, I didn’t know how I would get up and moving.
I mean, I was freaking huge. When was the last time I’d seen myself, and had been conscious and not drugged enough to appreciate it? A month? Two?
Not seated on a rock as usual, there stood in front of me Thomas, holding the hand of a girl who looked about five or six, dressed in Star Trek pyjamas.
She had my colour red hair—only wavy and not a frizzy mess—and Shepard’s mesmerizing brown and gold eyes.
Her skin was a lovely light brown, and she had the shyest of smiles, just large enough to reveal her dimples.
“Thomas, and my Bumblebee,” was all I was able to manage without bursting into tears, and I could see that there was no time for histrionics.
I spread my arms out wide, and Bea dropped Thomas’s hand and ran into my embrace.
I rocked her back and forth for just a minute, smelled her hair and kissed her head, and indulged in holding the daughter that may never be mine to keep, given that awful drawing.
“Olly, there’s no time,” Thomas said, and I stared into Bea’s eyes and nodded. Of course, they had brought me here for a reason, not just a family reunion.
“What’s going on? Why is it winter here, and how did Bea...” I ever so gently brushed the surface of her mind, and saw the beauty of imagination and symphony of colours of a generally happy child. A gifted one, too. I smiled sadly then, but proudly, too. “You’re a psychic. A strong one.”
“That’s a Bingo,” Thomas replied, dryly.
“Clark has become a prisoner inside your mind. I don’t think you trapped him on purpose.
It probably has to do with the medications they are giving you in that hospital.
Now that Dr. Bell has you completely isolated, her favourite sadist Dr. Levy has been called in.
They are trying to pull the wings off the moth, as it were.
You know, cruelly try to get to the centre of what makes you tick by wearing down all your defences, running experiment after experiment on you. ”
“But Clark! Where is he? Is he...” I trailed off, because when I looked inward, I saw the peril Clark was in.
The kraken from the depths of the deepest trench in my subconscious had awoken, and it obviously didn’t take kindly to outsiders.
It must have thought Clark was responsible for what was happening to my body and mind lately, or it just didn’t care anymore.
It was in a rage, and I had to soothe it.
“I have to lie down and do a deep dive into my own mind. I don’t know who can access this place anymore, since everything is changing so fast in the outside world, and I seem to be unconscious for most of it.
Just...I need a favour. Thomas, you have to guard my body.
I don’t know what exactly can happen to me in here that could hurt me or Bea in the waking world, especially when I’m being kept unconscious. ”
“Well, you’re not unconscious now. You’re genuinely asleep. That’s how I was able to grab you. There’s an ally of yours in that place, working against the doctors. She stopped some of your drips, and...unlocked the garden door. You know what that means, right?”
“Yes! It’s got to be Elizabeth, and that all means I’m at eight months along. You’re right, we have to rescue Clark as quickly as possible, and then I have to wake up and get waddling as fast as I can to that door.”
“Mama, what about me?” Bea tugged on my arm.
“What about you, dear heart?” I asked, holding fast to her arm. Who the hell would have guessed that I would go from “parasite” to “dear heart” in just six months?
“I want to come with you, to find Clark. I know the me in your tummy went there to the sea a lot, so I know my way around. I can help make the kraken go to sleep, or at least not be so grumpy. Please, Mama.”
We were running out of time for arguments, and she was more powerful psychically than me, so I stared into those eyes, which looked like staring into Shepard’s eyes, and sealed our fates with a single word, “Okay.”
“Wait a sec, wrap yourselves up in this. It manifested here for Clark, but he left it behind when he went looking for you.” Thomas handed me a folded-up, large red cloth.
I pulled Bea close to me, wrapped it around her small body, and used the rest to cover my chest and belly.
Holding Bea’s hand, I lowered us to the sand and lay down straight, tucking Bea into my side with my arm around her much smaller form. I closed my eyes and waited.
The very water felt almost enraged. Its denizens projecting various states of sadness, loneliness, anger, or fear.
Mournful cries penetrated the deep, and that’s when I realized we were in the deep, just at the point where the light from above stopped illuminating the water.
I squeezed Bea’s hand, and instead of finding a frightened child, I found her with her eyes closed and one arm extended, reaching for something.
A great...humpback, for lack of a better term, swam up beside her, and she took one of its six flippers and held on.
I wasn’t letting go of her hand for anything, so I positioned myself beside her so I could hold the flipper with one hand and entwine my other arm with hers. We held hands as tightly as we could.
I felt a sense of urgency now, like we needed to get Clark as soon as possible.
There would be time for this Bea to show me the coral gardens she had placed when she was still in utero, and introduce me to the new, small animals she had created.
Small creatures...like turquoise or green fish who only got brighter the darker it got?
They looked like glowworms you’d find in a cave, and the light they gave off was enough to light the way downward, if they meant to guide us.
I reached out to the Bea that was still growing in my tummy and brushed her mind, sending her wave after wave of love.
She might well have given us the very tool we needed to free Clark.
I sent a message to both versions of Bea—and wasn’t that a weird thought—and the whale we still clung to, letting them know what my plan was.
As the horde of tiny fish gathered around us in a school of hundreds of thousands, the way became clear, the light of each one brightening our way.
The whale let out a hopeful song and surged forward, down into the depths I’d never explored, because I never had a glowing army before.
After just a minute or so of straight diving, the scene that we came upon gave me cause to scream internally and tighten my hold on my daughter.
The mighty kraken, colossal and frighteningly beautiful, lay on an enormous shelf protruding out from a wall which was part of a series of undersea canyons, by the looks of it.
It saw our approach and remained perfectly still, even the tentacles which were wrapped around almost every inch of Clark.
I shuddered. If you die in a dream...or a dream within a dream...
did you die in the waking world, too? I shrugged off such thoughts and decided to leave it as a philosophical matter for another time.
Right now? We had to get friendly with the being which might as well have been made of all my rage, my frustrations, my failures, and my pure malice.
I looked it in the eye as I projected to it my lack of intention to cause the being any harm.
I sent out soothing wave after wave, showing it that I understood it could not help its nature, but that it possessed something that would destroy me, the kraken included, if it were taken permanently or killed.
I watched with both muted horror and fascination as a long, thin tentacle made its way up toward us, yet the whale remained calm, so I did my best to remain calm, as well.
I watched as the gigantic creature ran its appendage over the whale, the whale singing in response, a song of yearning.
And then, I got it. I understood. I reached an arm out as far as I could get without pulling Bea away from the relative safety of being shoehorned between myself and the whale’s side, and the tentacle did exactly as I’d hoped.
It reached back. I ran a soothing hand down the side without suckers, and showed it as best I could that I knew now that she was taking the brunt of the experiments being run on my physical body, but even more of the attacks on my psyche.
I projected thankfulness for all she had endured on my behalf, and that this would all be over soon if only she would release Clark.
I instinctively knew that he was the key to my escape, a prophetic picture of me “dead” or not, and I likely wouldn’t survive this ordeal without him.
How I knew this I couldn’t say for certain, but when it came down to it, for the experiments to stop, for us to be free, the kraken had to give up her prize.
While I projected thankfulness, I felt great animosity in return. I wasn’t sure what to do: if she grew too angry with our presence down here, she could just squeeze, and that answer about dying in this world and what happens to you in the waking world would become abundantly clear.