Awakened

by K. G. Duncan

  Abby held up two fingers opposite Olivia’s, then they both started miming the snipping of scissors. They moved their fingers in a circle counter-clockwise, then pointed them at each other like a gun, thumbs up, and they made “poofing” noises as their hands recoiled. Each girl staggered around in circles saying, “My oh my oh my,” and then they were facing each other again and laughing.

  Right about then, Olivia’s mom came and told them it was time to go.

  “See you in school tomorrow,” Abby said.

  “Not if I see you first!” Olivia replied as she walked away with her mother.

  Abby stood and watched them go. She had to suppress a laugh when she heard Olivia’s mom exclaim, “Good lord, child. What is that all over your face? And in your hair? You look like the cat just drugged you up out the river!”

  They got in their car and drove away, Olivia waving out the back window like a spastic robot. It was only then that Abby heard her mom call her in, and she turned to walk up the driveway.

  She told her momma that she wanted to take a bath, and her momma, after taking one look at her, wholeheartedly agreed.

  Later, she floated in the hot water of the tub after several minutes of stinging agony as the objections from her cuts and scratches subsided. She was just beginning to relax when she felt the rumble of the dragon stir once again deep inside of her.

  Only this time, rather than settling into the peaceful, comfortable feeling that usually accompanied the dragon presence, she was all aflutter and nervous inside.

  This time, she was thinking thoughts that she had never thought before, and her mind wouldn’t stop racing with each thought colliding into the others. This time, there was no relaxing because she had made a new and very important discovery that day.

  She wasn’t sure who or what she had seen up in that tree. But one thing was for sure: The dragon voice was not just in her head. There were others like her out there.

  She was not alone.

  From the Audio transcripts of Dr. Joanna Kinsey

  Chief Psychiatrist, CHNOLA Northshore Center,

  New Orleans, LA

  Audio File Transcript #AR10089-27

  June 23, 2022

  Subject: A. B. Rubideaux. Female. Age: 11

  Transcript of recording begins: 8:25 P M EST.

  Kinsey: Audio file number twenty-seven, subject A. B. Rubideaux not present. Blood and Lab work has been completed for A.B.. MRI’s and cat scans of her brain reveal hypomanic activity in prefrontal cortex and in the basal ganglia. EEG tests, however, reveal abnormally low levels of beta brain activity with unusually high delta brain waves. A.B. appears to have the brain activity of a person in a deeply meditative state of mind, although she was conscious and conversing throughout the process. Very unusual given the stress usually associated with these types of tests and procedures, and also the fact that such brain wave activity is nearly impossible without a subject going into a deep sleep or a trance-like state. Chemical tests reveal increased production of dopamine in the basal ganglia. Abnormal brain chemistry also noted in the limbic system. Both of these regions show altered connectivity with the prefrontal cortex. All consistent with signs of schizophrenia. Possible dementia. A.B.’s description of her response to intense light and colors, however, are not consistent with symptoms of schizophrenia. A.B.’s active seeking of the company of others and heightened but non-hostile emotional states also run counter to traditional measures of schizophrenic behavior. And her blood work, well, the blood work results are remarkable. Blood samples repeated three times: all come back as type A positive with traces of an unknown blood type. There’s never been any blood type like A.B.’s. Ever. She is unique. A possible mutation. With the evidence in front of me, I do not hesitate in my assertion that A.B. Rubideaux is a scientific anomaly that prior to these tests I would have insisted to be an impossibility.

  45 Days Earlier. May 2, 2022

  Abby, as was her usual habit, was sitting alone at a bench-table in the middle school yard, some distance away from the other kids. Julia De Champlain, a “princess” of the first order, was holding court with her minions across the way, and lucky for Abby, their attention did not seem to be directed at her—a good thing, as Abby was tightly gripping the bench of her lunch table, breathing deeply and just trying to keep it together by tuning out all of the school yard sounds, closing her eyes, and focusing on the slight breeze that gently caressed her face.

  Lunch time was not her favorite time, especially when she was having vivid dreams again. Maybe it had something to do with that dragon she saw up in that tree, but in any case, the flood gates sure seemed to be open now. Most of the time, the dreams came to her while she was sleeping. And those were okay—she didn’t have to worry about losing control while she was all alone in the middle of the night and in her own bed. But sometimes, they would come to her while she was awake, and most unfortunately when she was at school. Like she was right now, in this moment. Clear and powerful visions. Knock you down to the floor kind of visions—which were not very convenient when you were just trying to be a normal kid who wanted to fit in.

  Normal kid. Right. Who was Abby fooling? There wasn’t anything normal about any of her dreams. Especially since most of them seemed to be coming from other people and one person in particular: Balthazar Luster.

  Now Balt—and that’s what everybody called him, and woe be onto anyone who dared to call him Balthazar—was a classic bully, so full of rage and hurt that it took Abby’s breath away. In the normal scheme of school yard universals, Abby wouldn’t pay a bully much never mind. It would be a waste of time and effort for Abby to go into any depth with someone who was just plain mean and stupid. Like the way you would figure most bullies were. Only with Balt, it wasn’t that simple, you see, first of all because it’s wrong to think of all bullies as stupid—and Balt certainly was no dummy. And secondly, and more importantly, it was because Abby had been connected to him ever since her first day in the fourth grade, two years earlier.

  Now this connection might not be what you expect it to be. Most people know a bully when they see one—especially eight and nine-year-old fourth graders. Abby, having lived her entire life with Henry—and being in the possession of an ancient dragon’s soul, knew quite a bit about bullies. But that knowledge did not make her immune to the depredations of one bully in particular. She knew, for instance, that among your garden variety bully, you will find an individual, male or female, who acts strong on the outside but is weak on the inside. She also knew that the bully has often been deeply traumatized by some scarring event or regular and persistent abuse, usually at the hands of a relative (like a parent or an older sibling). The bully is not necessarily stupid, for abuse does not discriminate for intelligence, but he or she is definitely full of anger and hurt, and it was Abby’s observation that there is a classic outward projection of this anger and hurt onto others around them, especially those who are perceived as weaker.

  Of course, projecting your own anger and hurt on to the innocent may seem like a senseless thing to you, or at the very least, it is an unfair thing to do. But you must understand, the bully is not motivated by a desire to be liked or accepted by others, nor does he think logically. He is an emotional being who is motivated by acquiring the power and sense of self-worth that has been lost or taken from him by his abuser. It’s about self-esteem, or rather the lack of self-esteem! It’s like a reaction to every wrongful action that the bully has himself endured. And anyone who is a top-notch, brainiac solver of mathematical equations, or a phenomenal athlete, or an expert at fixing machines, or at building things with their hands, or someone who is just a lazy couch potato that plays video games all day—any one of these individuals and countless others yet to be described here—are subject to this same reaction. They hold on to their hurt, and the emotional memory of what caused that hurt, and that is what informs and shapes their actions.

  An
d yes, then eight-year-old and now eleven-year-old Abby, was in the habit of making these types of clinical observations.

  Now, anyone who understands the nature of school children will not be a stranger to the concept of classroom universals. And certainly, as a dragon who exists simultaneously in multiple dimensions of space and time, Abby had certain insights into these universal archetypes. By the time she was eleven years old and in middle school, where everything is hormonally amplified by one thousand, she might as well have had a PhD in the subject, for she was a master.

  The fact of the matter is that humans are all very much alike, and we are connected together in ways that can only be explained by sequences of DNA, mundane planetary experiences, predictable patterns and habits, and the fact that most folks are afflicted with a somewhat limited imagination. But children are wide open and more susceptible to their environment, and they haven’t developed the internal resources or had enough life experience to overcome the flaws of their predisposed natures. In other words, and just to keep it easier to understand, let’s just say that there are certain types of children that you can always count on when dealing with the classroom and, perhaps even more to the point, the relatively unsupervised schoolyard.

  While there are a few individuals who defy stereotypes and archetypal typecasting, the truth of the matter is that most human beings fall somewhere within the spectrum of particular classifications. In school, these classifications include spoiled Princesses, like Julia, and a whole array of others: dorks, gamer-geeks, science nerds, jocks, clowns, stoners, goth chicks, cheerleaders and bullies. And Balt Luster was no exception. He was the classic bully.

  And Abby loved him.

  Now, why would anyone love a bully? It doesn’t make much sense to those of us on the outside looking in. For Abby, however, it wasn’t complicated at all. Most bullies, and Balt was no exception, are unaware of their motivation—of what makes them do the things they do. For some bullies, they could be made aware of it when placed into the proper hands of certain wise souls who know how to empathize and reach out to people like them. And a bully who becomes self-aware is usually no longer a bully.

  Abby was in a position to help Balt Luster. When she opened herself to him, she could find out exactly what it was that made him act the way he did. Be forewarned, however: some bullies are sociopathic—that means they are incapable of feeling the normal range of emotions that most people extend to others when monitoring their own behavior. Maybe they were born that way—like Henry; or maybe they were traumatized. The point is, most people know what it means to be hurt, and most people don’t like to hurt others. But for bullies, it is different. Sometimes a bully is so damaged or maybe their internal wires are so crossed up that they lack the fundamental awareness and compassion that most of us use to inform ourselves and become better human beings. Bullies can’t help it, in other words. That may give you grounds for feeling compassion toward them. But that doesn’t make them any less dangerous until they find help or get medication.

  Medication was something Balt Luster never had. And his meth-addict parents—who just happened to be clients of Henry the Toad—were not the kind to go find help, so Balt was kind of on his own. Except for Abby. Only he didn’t know it. Abby never let on to what she was truly capable of. All it took was that one time she came into physical contact with him—that first day of school back in the fourth grade.

  That was when it happened.

  Now, Balt had already established a reputation by the time he had reached the fourth grade. Most of the children had known Balt since preschool, and experience had taught them that Balt Luster was a person to avoid. He was that odd mixture of mean and calculated cunning that made him a bully to be extra wary of. But Abby was new to school and didn’t know about any of that. On the first day of class, Abby had made the mistake of saying “hello” to him.

  In return, Balt had reached over and pinched the skin of her arm, holding on like a vice grip and drawing her in close so that Abby could look up into his hard, cruel blue eyes. “You don’t talk to me, freak.” Those were the words he spat at her, twisting his pinch real hard before letting go. It had left a welt and a bruise that painfully persisted for days.

  What Abby didn’t tell Balt, or anyone else, was that in those few painful pinching moments of contact, she had access to all of Balt’s life—his horrible evenings at home, as he lay awake in bed at night as his father would start in on his mother, loud voices followed by the smack of hands on flesh. The one time he would try to stand up to him and defend his mother—that was the time his father turned on him, and his balled-up fist struck Balt quickly, without warning. Abby knew that was how he would lose his front tooth and miss a good week of school because the shame of his broken face was too much to bear before others.

  That was just one thing she knew about Balt. That thing just stuck in her mind because of the little details that accompanied it. Like the fact that despite the bone-crunching hurt of the punch, which made him see stars and ring his bell, he still managed to hear the tiny tick-tacking sound of the tooth as it fell and bounced on the linoleum kitchen floor. Later, Balt would crawl under the table to retrieve his tooth and cry when everyone else had gone to bed.

  Yeah, she remembered that one—it was hard to forget. But she was able to see dozens of the myriad pathways of his current and future possibilities, most of them leading to a life of addiction (like his parents), dysfunctional and abusive relationships (ditto), and in most cases, prison (ditto again). But there were also moments of humanity and gratitude. There was the little puppy he had hid away out in the barn before his father took it away. Balt loved that dog more than anything. Had it already happened or was it going to happen? Oh, Abby would get so confused when she tried to focus on any one thing, any one detail, for the visions and the memories all came so fast and spilled together in such a flurry.

  What wasn’t confusing at all, however, were Balt’s future pathways that burned brighter than all the others. In those pathways, Abby was together with him—she was older and living out west somewhere in California, and they were together, and she was loving him like no other. In those pathways there was a life of hope and immeasurable joy. It was possible, yes! In that vivid and vibrant lifetime, Balt was a wise and gentle man. He was a builder—a maker of things. He had a workshop that he just loved. He was an architect and a designer and a craftsman that built things with his hands. Beautiful things that sometimes came to Abby in the form of gifts—little carved animals, a wooden birdhouse, an exact and highly detailed model replica of the town they lived. In that lifetime, with all of its myriad visions of realized potential and unrelenting happiness, in that future possibility of what could be, every one of those moments led back to one seemingly insignificant incident that occurred between Abby and Balt, which if followed up with action and intention, would lead to a life of success, fulfillment and happiness. For both of them. And in that lifetime, Balthazar Luster burned so brightly, and he was so beautiful that it brought Abby to tears.

  Of course, Balt and the other kids in school watching at the time just thought it was the brutal pinch that caused Abby to cry, but in that moment, Abby had fallen in love with the “Balt-to-be,” and she had resolved herself to finding the right time to tell Balt about this wonderful, shining, life that could be his. This was the nature of the dragon inside of her. This was her true calling in life—to help others find their way to happiness and to their higher self. And, yes, well, what would it matter if it could also bring just a little bit of happiness to herself, too?

  In the case of Balt, however, finding the right time to tell him proved difficult beyond what she imagined. She always knew that the time would present itself, and that she would instantly know when that time had arrived, but Balt, two years later, was sure as heck making it seem like that time might never come. It didn’t help that Balt’s uncle was a gator tour operator who just happened to discover Abby one morning a
few years back out in the Bayou.

  Now, wandering around without one’s clothes in the bayou may not be a big deal from a dragon’s point of view, or even for someone like Olivia, who was true to her word and told nobody about the sitting-up-in-the-tree incident, but for most two-legged human denizens of the swamp lands, it was notable behavior, to say the least. Secrets are hard to keep in a small town like Houma. Things happen. People talk. And folks have very long memories. And Balthazar Luster’s uncle sure liked to talk. A lot.

  After the tornado, the “Miracle of Mandeville” clamor persisted, and it was only a matter of time before Abby’s odd behavior would be discovered in Houma and add fuel to the fire. Now, there was that time a few years back when Sug Messier claimed to have seen a dragon flying over the swamp waters, but he was an old Cajun swamp rat and the town drunk, so nobody believed him. But this other time when Abby had first arrived in town… well that one had a little more staying power. And folks knew all about it. When Abby was seven, she was found early one morning wandering stark naked in the bayou by uncle Luster’s gator tour group. Why he was giving gator tours at the crack of dawn on that day remains a mystery to Abby. From her perspective, it was just one of those unearthly and divine dawns, with the sun swimming up over the lip of the bayou, spreading yellows and oranges across the purple skies. It was beautiful. But then Abby came across the tour group and everyone was so anxious that the beautiful moment got lost in all these strangers’ wild speculations.

  And wild speculation is the polite way to characterize it. The way Abby saw it, folks’ minds were wandering every which way, and some of those turns that people made in their minds were not worthy of being repeated. It was a whole lot of fuss that young Abby just couldn’t understand.

  Well, needless to say, the police got involved, and they had to call Momma Bea early in the morning. The general consensus was that something evil had befallen this naked little girl, and everybody around Abby sure seemed intent on making a big fuss. Well, long story short, it turned out that the doctor couldn’t find any signs of trauma or physical abuse, and Momma Bea kind of made up a white lie about Abby often going a sleep walking in the night, and as it turns out, this happened not too much after the incident with the tornado, so the authorities and just about everyone in town, actually, had it in their minds that there was something kind of “off” and even downright strange about Abby and her Momma Bea.