I tried to access the Thin Veil, to make the portal appear in thin air, but nothing worked. I was probably just some crazy old lady waving her hands about like some wizard. I almost gave up hope until I skipped on taking my medication for a few days. I had been a calm and pleasant patient most of the time, so the nurses weren’t as watchful over me as they were over others.
It was then, on one rainy night with water and wind battering the tiny window of my room, that the air around me moved and glistened and I stepped inside.
That familiar pressure pressed down on my head and made my eyeballs feel as if they were about to burst. It lasted longer than last time but soon enough the pain subsided and I was in a grey zone, the parallel world. Here, Jakob was in the room with me, sitting on the uncomfortable stool in the corner.
“Pippa,” he said with a jovial nod.
Tears sprung to my eyes.
“Jakob,” I cried out. I got to my feet and found them to be sturdy and willing. Here in the Thin Veil I was more able, stronger and I used this change to embrace the young guide in my arms and sobbed all over him.
When my tears finally subsided, I begged Jakob to go after Perry and to help her.
“She might have someone at some point,” he said. “There is no need for it to be you.”
“But can I help her? Can I use this place to reach her?”
He didn’t say anything for a long time, weighing his options in his mind. But I could see the truth in his eyes and he knew it.
After a minute he said, “You can use this place for many things, but it doesn’t mean that you should. The most you can do, the most you should do, is just watch over her like I have watched over you.”
“I’ll never get a chance to meet my granddaughter.”
“That might be for the best.”
I nodded at that, a sinking feeling in my heart.
“I should have listened to you,” I admitted softly.
“Yes. But what is done is done. I can only guide you, I can’t make your choices for you. You made the decisions which you thought were best at the time, and I don’t blame you for doing so. And you shouldn’t blame yourself, either. Perry and Ada-”
“Ada?” My head snapped up.
He gave me a wry smile. “Yes, I had said grandchildren. Perry and Ada will have to make their own choices in life too and it’ll be up to them to handle the cards they have been dealt. There’s not much you can do or say to change that.”
I mulled it over. There seemed to be a loophole somewhere in what he was saying. I could do anything I wanted in the Thin Veil, including watching over people. What more could I do. Could I actually use it like a mode of transportation?
Jakob watched me carefully and I was afraid he was reading my thoughts. If he had though, he gave me no indication of it.
“Would you like to see her, Pippa?”
I nodded eagerly.
He put his hands together. “Very well, just do as you once did before. But instead of creating a portal, create a window and concentrate on that image of Perry you have in your mind.”
“But the picture I saw is a few years old now.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I did as he said and concentrated hard on a window, willing myself to see a young toddler, one with giant stone blue eyes and long black hair, on the other side of it. I kept this rate of thought and power going until I felt more pressure inside my skull and before I gave into the pain and blinked, the air parted like the Red Sea and a glassy window was in place. On the other side of it, the real side of real life, was Perry. Now she was at least six years old, a little round thing but still so very beautiful. She had a type of beauty that was unique from her mother’s and Ludie’s and I cherished that I could look at her without feeling guilt or shame.
Perry was sitting in her room, surrounded by toys and reading a picture book filled with dragons. She chewed at her fingernails, more out of an anxious, excited gesture than one of worry. She was so young and so innocent and I knew it would be hard for me to stay away.
“Can I always come in here and do this?” I whispered even though I knew Perry couldn’t hear me…she couldn’t, could she?
The girl in the image shivered a little but that was it.
Jakob said, “You can…but…”
“But what?” I was afraid to take my eyes off of her.
“Time outside the Veil doesn’t stand still. You are not in your room at the hospital right now. If a nurse were to come in, you would see them but they would not see you. You must never give people reason to suspect the veil exists. Even though most wouldn’t believe it, it would be dangerous if the knowledge got into the wrong hands. It’s dangerous for you too. Not only would you cause attention to yourself but every time you visit, you will bring a different…disability back with you.”
I managed to look at him, only for a second, only to see how serious his pale grey face was.
“I’m not following…seeing ghosts? How can it get any worse for me?” I asked bitterly. “You’ve seen where I am. What I’ve become!”
“Things can always get worse,” he said. “I just know that a normal human body is not meant to continuously visit this world. One time might be enough to increase telekinesis or telepathy. It might be enough to create more energy within yourself, or attract others from the Veil. Or it might start to ravage your body and your mind, leaving you a little bit weaker. Maybe a lot weaker.”
I forgot about watching Perry for a moment. “You’re saying when I go back to my world, I may be in rougher shape than I already am?”
“It is possible. Pippa, I can only warn you.”
“Yes. And you have and I thank you.”
My attention went back to Perry who was now scribbling into a coloring book, her tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration.
“I will be leaving you now,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be around. I have other people to help, you know.”
He started walking to the door.
“Wait,” I called out after him. He stopped and looked at me from over his shoulder. “I met a boy…”
“Declan,” he said. He saw the wonder on my face. “As I said, I have been watching you.”
“What is to become of him?”
He shrugged. “I do not know.”
“But is he going to have a guide too, someone to look after him?”
“Not everyone gets someone like me. Your power has never been latent. Perry and Declan’s is and will most likely remain that way.”
“Most likely?”
“People make their own choices,” he replied rather ominously. “Declan is closed off to our world. Perry is just a young girl. Neither possess the power that you have, therefore neither of them would warrant it.”
“But how do you know that? What if their gifts develop and they end up just like me?”
“Just try and worry about yourself, Pippa,” he said. He smiled, waved then opened the door to the hallway and stepped out.
I was alone in the Veil version of my room, grey and stale-smelling. But I wasn’t alone was I? No, I could see young Perry through the window in a lavender haze. I could see her. But was that all? Could I make her see me?
We all make poor choices from time to time and I believe they shape who we are. The Lord knows I have made so many in my long life. Standing in that hazy, dull room, in a world parallel to the one I was born in, I made a decision that I would regret ever since. It was a selfish decision that I masked as selfless one. I wanted to reach out to Perry to warn her of the difficulties to come, to let her know that I would be there for her, no matter what. And that was the truth. But the larger part, the selfish part, was that I didn’t want to be alone anymore and I wanted her to know who her grandmother was, to love me like I loved her mother.
So, I concentrated, made the window into a door, reached into Perry’s room and pulled her into the Otherside.
The shock of it
working knocked me backward onto the floor, but sure enough there was little Perry beside me, her blue eyes grey. I wasn’t sure how to make it look like she was in the Thin Veil version of her room and from her confused and frightened face, I knew she had no idea where she was.
“Mom!” she wailed, looking around her frantically, her long hair whipping past her. I quickly put both my hands on her shoulders, careful not to scare her any further.
“Perry, don’t be afraid, it’s me, it’s your grandmother, Pippa,” I told her in hushed, soothing tones. “I’m your grandmother, Perry.”
It didn’t matter what I said, Perry struggled to get out of my grasp and then the tears began to spill down her round cheeks.
I really had not thought any of it through. Just what was I hoping to do with a six-year old girl? Did I think she would have a notion of where she was or, more importantly, who I was?
I bit my lip and looked at the portal I had just pulled her out of. I could still make out her room there, although it was fading and getting hard to see. The thought of never returning her to her family made my heart skip a beat.
“Perry!” I said to her. “I’m sorry, do you want to go home?”
She looked at me and nodded through the tears.
“Ok darling,” I told her and reached for her with my hand. “Don’t be afraid of me. I’ll take you back. You’ll go back to your room OK? You’ll go back and it will be like none of this ever happened.”
I didn’t know if I had the ability to control someone’s mind like that, to erase memories. It’s obvious that Perry never remembered the incident, even with her therapy sessions and regression. Either it had worked or Perry naturally blocked the traumatic event out of her head.
Perry wiped her tears on the sleeve of her plaid dress and gingerly put her hand in my outstretched one. My skin looked so papery thin and faded with dark grey smudges of age spots. By contrast, hers was as smooth as cream. I grasped it tightly and looked at her little face, thinking it would not only be the first time I saw her but the last. A tear spilled out of my own eye, which seemed to calm Perry down.
“Why are you crying?” she asked. The concern in her face was genuine and graceful.
“Because I love you and I have to give you back,” I said, choking on the words. For the first time I felt the blood of myself in another. It felt like I had known Perry for all her life.
Then, she did the sweetest, most wonderful thing. She took a few small steps toward me and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“If you don’t cry, I won’t cry,” she whispered into my hair. I was so shocked at her affection that I couldn’t move my lips at first.
“It’s a deal,” I said breathlessly. I squeezed her back and then composed myself. “Let’s put you back where you belong.”
So, with a gentle nudge I pushed Perry through the portal and back into her room. She stumbled a bit, falling to the softly carpeted floor but she seemed OK. I couldn’t bear to watch anymore so I closed my eyes until the portal faded and its place was the one back into my room.
I stepped through, succumbed to the horrible pressure, and everything went black.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I woke up days later in the medical ward. Apparently the nurse had found me passed out the next morning and completely unconscious. However, even when I came to, nothing was the same. Jakob was right once more. I was so far gone that there was no hope for me. My body was weakened, my mind was gone further than it had ever gone before and I saw demons everywhere I looked. Everywhere. Even in my reflection. I started acting out again, attacking nurses and other patients, until they had to put me on the strongest drugs they had.
It’s how I spent the next five years of my life. The last five years of my life. I don’t remember any of it, except for brief flashes until the end. It skips around like an old roll of film. I see myself laughing alone. I see myself dressed up in drapes and funny clothes, and putting outlandish makeup on myself and on others. The nurses indulged me with that, letting me relive my times in the theatre, so long as I took my medication and did what I was told like a good girl.
There was no hope for me. No respite. Memories of my other life, of Karl and Ingrid, of Declan and Perry, of Sweden, even of Ludie…they all faded and became inconsequential in my haze. There was no way out but death.
One night, I smuggled some of the makeup back to my room. I took my chair and as quietly as I could I crunched an eye pencil sharpener underneath its heavy leg. The sharpener shattered, spitting out the shiny puzzle piece I lusted over.
The blade.
I picked up the tiny danger between my shaking fingers, and before I could give it any more thought, I sliced it up both my wrists.
I felt no pain – not physically. The blood ran a shiny dark red down my failing arms and I marveled at it with an eerie sense of detachment. It felt peaceful.
At first.
Then, as I lay down on the floor and the life began to drain out of me in a stream of silken crimson, I felt immeasurable pain. They say your life flashes before your eyes but mine didn’t flash. It crept along slowly and I was forced to relieve all the pain and the few fleeting moments of glory. I clung to those moments with Declan and Michael in Atlantic City, to me and Ludie making love in the theatre, to giving birth to Ingrid, to having my granddaughter’s arms around me despite the impossible odds. I tried to let them live in my mind, to win out over the pain and sorrow that was oh so present and oh so persistent. And I don’t know what side won. Was it the brief happiness I felt in the small things, the simple joys in my life? An accepting look or forgiving touch or sunshine in the backyard? Or was it the feeling of being deserted, abandoned, unknown and unloved?
Either way, I died with an aching heart for the things I suffered through and the things I loved. In the end, it’s all the same.
In the end.
~~~
Oh, but my story doesn’t end there, does it? I don’t think anyone’s does, I’m just one of the first people to tell you so.
Death seemed like an eternity of blackness but who knows how long the moment of emptiness and shadows really was. I opened my eyes and I was no longer on the floor of my room. I was no longer bleeding. I was standing beside the lake back in Sweden, back at my old house. It was grey here, it was dull and grainy but it was still home. I had gone home again.
I heard a throat clear from behind me so I took my eyes off of the shiny, beautiful lake and looked to the forest. Jakob was standing at the edge of it, leaning against a birch tree.
He smiled at me and held out his hand.
“Come with me, Pippa,” he said gently. “You’re not home yet.”
I grinned at him in return, pleased to see that I was no longer my incoherent self, but younger and able-bodied. I walked toward him up the slight grassy embankment that ran up the side of the house. My house where I grew up with its stone and wood and silence.
I was happy to see him, happy to go. But…
I stopped a few feet away and looked back at the lake. There in the middle of it, the water shimmered more than normal. A portal!
“Pippa,” he said in a warning tone.
I shook my head and looked at him apologetically.
“I can’t go yet.”
“There’s nothing you can do for them. They have their own lives to live.” He knew I was thinking about Declan and Perry. “You have yours to continue living. In another place. In your home.”
“No,” I told him, the lake holding my full attention. “If I can help them, at least help them find each other…”
“Fate will bring them together if it’s supposed to be that way.”
“Curse you and your fate!” I sneered at him, my anger surprising me. How had it followed me from one plane of existence to another?
His boyish face, forever young, showed no sign of annoyance. It’s like he expected it all along. Maybe he knew this to be my fate no matter what I said to him, no matter what I did. Fate would find me.
r /> I looked down at the ground, at my feet that were no longer in the hospital slippers but in glossy, beautiful dancing shoes, ones I only dreamed of owning once upon a time. The sight of them made me smile again and I willed the anger to disappear.
I must remember these little joys, I thought to myself. Even in death.
“You’re not coming then?” he asked.
Somehow, even in the Thin Veil, I heard the call of birds across the water.
“No. I will not go. Not yet. I’ve made some mistakes that I’d like to make up for.”
I glanced quickly at Jakob. I could see he knew that I brought Perry across into this side all those years ago. I wasn’t sure if I ruined her life by doing so, if I made her see ghosts where there were no ghosts before, and I had to help her if I did. I had to help her anyway, because I cursed her to this life. As for Declan, I knew the potential he had and the life that knocked him around. He’d need me too. I just wasn’t sure how I’d make a difference at all.
But I had to try.
Jakob gave me a salute and walked into the woods. I knew I’d see him again. Until then, I wouldn’t move on.
I had to keep trying.
~~~
I’m still trying.
Continue on to read the first two chapters in Experiment in Terror #6 Into the Hollow…
Into the Hollow
CHAPTER ONE
Whiteout.
That’s all I saw when my eyes finally pried themselves open, my lashes sticking to each other with the glue of tiny snowflakes.
White. White. White.
Where was I?
I rolled over with a groan and felt an explosion of pain in my side. I looked down and as my vision began to right itself, I saw a rock jutting into my stomach. It came out of the cold, snow-blown ground like a weapon.
I went over onto my back, feeling the chill come in through my jacket. My bare fingers tingled as I ran them over my body. I felt intact, nothing bleeding or broken.