by T Swanepoel
Chapter 8 – Linked
To my great relief, Alex was in a different hospital to the one I’d been in. Who knows what I would have done if I had to see Bridget again. Not that I was scared, I was prepared this time: the Reds were with me, all of them. In preparation I’d told Benjamin about the episode with Bridget, not in detail, just the outlines. Then I’d explained roughly where the hospital was the way I remembered it from walking. Benjamin assured me that it wasn’t the same one, but I’d been worried ever since he had woken me.
We were lucky, visiting hours had just started when we arrived. Peter talked to the lady behind the counter at the reception, and she pointed us in the right direction.
The image of Alex lying there motionless was shocking. I couldn’t believe how weak he looked, as pale as the sheets, with the heart monitor beeping insistently in the background. It had me really upset, so I could understand why Lisa was going bonkers.
She clearly knew the Reds, because when she saw all of us, she tried to smile. Alex looked bad, but so did Lisa. She was pale with bright red cheeks, red puffy eyes; she was sloppily dressed and her hair was standing up all over the place. She tried to speak, but instead she started to cry.
I blamed myself for leaving her over the weekend. I should have stayed with her for support. After all, she was a very good friend. And to think that Alex had been with me for a good part of the weekend, when she’d been the one worrying about him! Guilt pushed up bitter into my mouth. For the second time I vowed to stay away from Alex on Lisa’s behalf.
Only after Peter hugged her and told her over and over that Alex was going to be fine, did she calm down a little.
I felt even guiltier when I found out that Lisa had brought him in some time during the early morning hours, after he had phoned her and told her that he was getting worse. She drove all the way out, helped him into the car and brought him here. Apparently he fell into a coma shortly after they arrived at hospital.
What bothered me the most was the fact that she must have seen me there, in the cabin alone with Alex. And that in the midst of all her trouble and his illness, the two of them thought about me, because they left me Alex’s car, clothes and the GPS to get home. These two people had been having real problems of their own, but they’d put me first. They had supported me despite my childish tantrum-attack.
Oh, I felt like such a selfish idiot. And to be honest, I was very nervous to see her reaction towards me.
We all stayed a while and then persuaded Lisa to take a little break from the hospital. She needed something to eat and a bit of rest, seeing that she had been guarding his bed since who-knows-when this morning. I wanted to ask her how she was holding up, but I couldn’t get myself so far; I was too afraid of her response.
We left the hospital, and on our way to the dorm we stopped at a roadhouse to get Lisa something to eat. We arrived thereafter at the dorm with a fleet of cars: mine, Alex’s Lexus, Lisa’s little white Mazda and the Reds’ two Mercs. It was conspicuous but luckily it was after ten on a Sunday evening and quiet.
The guys insisted on checking our rooms first, but juniors weren’t allowed to have any boys in their rooms. So we had to sneak them in, especially as we had parked in front, overlooked by all the senior rooms. In spite of the fact that I had vowed not to use the emergency stairs again, there wasn’t any other option. I definitely didn’t want to risk public humiliation or the prospect of the Reds potentially witnessing an embarrassing scene with a statue. With a crack in my voice, I mentioned the alternative.
No one looked intimidated when they saw the stairs, not even Lisa. Maybe she was too tired to care. But for me, this time was even worse than before: these four guys weren’t exactly lightweights. Lisa went up first, slowly, and then the guys went up one at a time while I waited below. There was one little step that really squeaked, close to the top. It bent under Benjamin’s weight, and made a loud knocking sound. Luckily it didn’t give and everybody made it safely.
The guys walked though the emergency door with us and checked our rooms thoroughly before doing the hallway, the stairs and the bathrooms. Peter and Leo would take turns to guard the dorm during the night and Benjamin and Wilfred would do the next day. It had been a long day for them as well and they left immediately.
Lisa fell onto her bed, face down.
Then there it was, the awkward moment that I feared, alone with Lisa. She definitely had hard feelings towards me, because she pretended that I wasn’t there. After a moment of standing with a mouth full of teeth, I couldn’t take the pressure any longer and I just blurted it all out.
“Everything will work out fine, Lisa.” I tried Peter’s approach, which had worked on her before.
She started crying again, and then lifted up to face me, with an angry expression.
“Don’t you know what’s going on? Are you dumb or blind? How can a person be so thick?”
I expected a harsh reaction, although it was strange coming from Lisa. But she was jealous, even though it hurt my feelings a little that she didn’t trust me. I started babbling nervously.
“I’m sorry Lisa, I truly am. I didn’t plan to see Alex over the weekend. He came out of nowhere. I really didn’t mean to interfere with your relationship and definitely not to upset you. Please, you have to believe me, nothing happened. We only talked...”
She interrupted me in surprise. “Whatever are you talking about?”
The words struggled to find a way out of my mouth. “About him saving me and... and... spending the weekend...?” I stuttered.
Her screams interrupted me. “NO VALERIE! That’s not it!”
Her violent reaction froze me wordlessly in place, but she flew up and grabbed my arm to pull me down onto the bed, facing her.
“My patience is up with you! Everybody keeps on telling me to wait and let you figure it out by yourself. But it’s taking too long and I can’t handle this any longer.”
I was astonished at her anger.
“What, Lisa?” I asked in a hurt whisper. I felt like crying.
“Everything is about you. You, Valerie. All of this is about you. And to think you take astronomy! Couldn’t you figure it out?” she scowled.
I slowly shook my head.
She got up from the bed and switched on the kettle in the corner of her room. We waited for the water to boil in absolute silence. Then she made us tea and handed me a cup before she continued more calmly.
“Okay, sorry, I shouldn’t have screamed at you. I shouldn’t take out my frustrations on you. Sorry, Val.”
“It’s okay, I probably deserved it,” I replied feeling sorry for myself even though I didn’t know why.
“Don’t be such a martyr,” she sighed. “I’ll help you in the right direction, but only a little and only because I care for you. You’re more than a friend to me, you’re like a sister, and not without reason.” She examined me before continuing. “What I’m about to tell you might sound impossible but you will know it to be true, if not now, soon enough. So bear with me, okay?”
My hands were shaking. This is what I had been afraid of all along. “I’ll try.”
“Here goes. Valerie, you have experienced a ‘connection’ with the earth, right? Connection might not be the right word. It’s more like a... a bond. It might have presented itself in the form of an answer to a need, such as healing?”
I nodded. I recalled the night that I had jumped from the hospital window. The mud in the park had certainly had a healing effect on me.
“Well, it is unique in the sense that your connection is with earth. But there are similar types of connections or links with other people and their... planets. ”
I frowned at Lisa. It sounded absolutely impossible, but right in a sense. If I really believed that my ‘connection’ existed, it was only logical for others to exist as well.
“It’s all about distance. You have the strongest connection, since you are directly in contact with your planet. It also makes you the most powerful human on earth. Yo
u, and only you, can harness the earth’s power to its full potential, unlike the others who have lesser power. Not without consequences of course, but theoretically, it is possible.”
Her words were incredible. Why on earth would silly me be so powerful, out of all people? It was a mistake, of that I was sure.
Then a part of me hesitated and considered the recent weird events. Was there a possibility it could be true?
“Wow,” was all I managed.
“So you can understand now, why you need protection.” Assuming there was truth to any of this, the danger about the situation became clear as sunlight. That was why there were people after me. It gave me goose bumps as I thought about it.
“How do you know all this?” I asked, sipping my tea.
“Well, I have a unique connection as well, with Venus, the earth’s sister planet. You might know that from astronomy,” she said slightly sarcastically.
“Yes, I know. Is that why we are such good friends?”
“I believe so, yes.” She inspected me before she continued. “I think that’s enough for now. You need to digest this first, decide if you believe it or not.”
I wasn’t finished with her yet. “But what has all of this got to do with Alex?”
“Let’s just say that he and I are both on your side. And someone is trying to attack him for protecting you.”
It was my fault, all of this, as she had said. I didn’t like the thought of it.
“Isn’t there anything that I can do... with my connection... to help?”
“It’s too dangerous, Val. Your link is still very new, and because it is so powerful, you cannot afford to test it. Your body needs to grow stronger, to adjust to it over time. It has to happen at your pace.”
“Oh.”
“Now, please, I’m dog-tired and stressed to my limit. Go and think about it, get used to the idea, make peace with it. You have been affecting the weather and we’ve noticed your bad moods and struggles.”
So that was what Alex had meant, that he needed me to accept myself. He knew about my inner conflicts, could read them, based on the condition of the weather. I felt embarrassed that my insides were so exposed.
“You’ll be safe, don’t worry, the Reds are outside. They’ve been around for a while and they know exactly what they are doing.”
I felt guilty again. Lisa was the one in a state and here she was again trying to talk me into a better mood.
“Thank you, Lisa. I really appreciate you. You need to know that.”
“Sure,” and she finished her tea. Then she placed the empty cup on her bed pedestal, fell to her back and closed her eyes.
“Can I get you anything? Water? A sleeping pill? Anything?”
“No!” she urged, her eyes flying wide open. “Don’t ever drink sleeping pills, it only weakens your connection and therefore you as well. I’d rather suffer through weeks of insomnia than drink even a single sleeping pill!”
That cleared up another matter for me: Bridget. Bridget had given me sleeping pills because she wanted to weaken me.
“Okay, no one told me that. I won’t take sleeping pills. But can’t I get you something? I can run you a nice hot bath?”
“No thanks, I’m going to try to sleep now.”
“Me too, it’s been a very long day. G’nite.” And with that, I walked out of her room.
I took a long hot bath that worked wonders for my troubled mind and my feet, still hurting from all the walking and running away over the weekend.
I had barely dealt with my parents knowing, and the veldt showing me the way, and now there was all the stuff that Lisa had just told me. I was starting to worry if I would be able to finish this year without being booked into the funny-farm a time or two.
At least I was safe, really safe for once. It made the other worries look a little smaller.
Lisa had said it: I have a unique connection with earth. In that moment I knew it was true. It had been staring me right in the face. That was why I had all the memories of being in the wild.
I felt special. And humble. And so, so proud.
The earth chose me.
It was awesome. I have always loved nature, and this was an honour. The way that the earth had responded to my need earlier this afternoon by showing me where to run and where to hide was absolutely incredible, special. I wished I had the words to describe my feelings: I wanted to phone my mom. And Duncan, to thank him for my gift, or for his contribution. Not that I knew exactly how he fitted into all of this. But I knew that I owed him one massive thank you.
But it was very late already, and I decided to phone them both the following day. Duncan wouldn’t mind me phoning, even though I’d stolen his number. Not if he had given me such a big gift. After all, he had started all this, he was the trigger. I trusted Duncan more than anyone else - not that it made sense, but I just did. Deep down, I knew he was more than a mere acquaintance, much more.
As I got out of the bath onto my throbbing feet, I decided to test the healing part soon. My mind wandered again to Lisa’s revelation. It was an intriguing thought, having the earth’s power in my custody. The way She answered my need the other day had been extraordinary. Who knew what else was possible?
My studies so far had taught me much about nature in botany, chemistry and physics, and also about the larger universe in philosophy and astronomy. But even with all these subjects combined, I still couldn’t figure out what this power was exactly.
Or more importantly, why it existed.
Then I thought about the other planets. If Lisa had a link with Venus, then maybe Alex was Mars. Or maybe Duncan was Mars? Neither felt right. I’d have to ask each of them. And what would their powers be like? Was each power bound to the specific properties of that planet?
If the person’s power was linked to the properties of the planet, I would imagine Mercury, being the closest to the sun, giving power to its ambassador to melt stuff. Or maybe it didn’t work like that at all. Maybe it was more a mental type of power.
And what about the Reds? Maybe they were the gas planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto? It couldn’t be, Pluto was too small, and it wasn’t even a planet anymore.
Suddenly astronomy became an amazing subject, my favourite subject of all time. I couldn’t wait to get outside again and have a look at everything. Or to see if I could get back that old feeling of being watched.
***