by K. G. Duncan
As she lay on the lumpy, hard bed in a detention cell somewhere in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, she knew that the answer drifted, unbidden somewhere in her mind. She was connected to the entire cosmos and the multiverse, for crying out loud. Surely it was within her power to change her situation if she could only find the thread.
The lights shut off at ten PM exactly, without warning. Abby lay there for quite a while, her mind full of questions, too tumultuous for sleep. She was trying to summon the dragon, but it seemed the harder she tried, the further away from the dragon she got.
Other thoughts kept pressing in. Maybe Stump wasn’t really gone? He looked dead, for sure, but even if he was dead in this world, maybe Abby would see him again in the Fold? Was it possible?
Seeing the image of Granny Jane had uncovered her memories of living among the Sihanaka, the Forest people—she was from the clan of the Spider. Halabe. These people were governed by a council of elders, which included Bo M’Ba Nesh. But such a revelation also brought forth a flood of questions: Was Bo M’Ba Nesh really the same person as Granny Jane? How did Abby visit with her before? Was it a real place? Was it locked away in the past or did it exist in the present, too? Could she “disappear” from this cell like Granny Jane? Just fade into the fold of another world, another dimension. How did she do that? Did it take years of practice? Would she need to move to some remote mountain top and live with Buddhist monks? Is it all in the mind or did she need to call the dragon? What was the dragon and where did it come from? Was she just going out of her mind?
Crazy. She was definitely just plum crazy. But maybe you need a little bit of crazy to travel through the Fold? Maybe there are others she could call—others who might be able to help her. Like Stump or Granny Jane. Like someone who was already a creature of the Fold. Another dragon like herself? How many were out there?
And then a face suddenly appeared in her mind, like the one on the spinning tree trunk a few weeks before. It was the face of a dragon.
Yes. Many. Soon. Good.
The dragon voice rumbled deep within again, startling her. The image of the dragon face lingered, then slipped away. She wondered why the voice came when she wasn’t thinking about it. What was the point of deeper meditation and focus if the voice only came when it wanted to? And now she was seeing faces, too?
At any rate, the voice was with her now. It was almost like she was getting approval. She could sense that she was on the right track. Or maybe there was evidence all around her? People open to her in ways she was yet to discover. Someone like Fina Lee, her autistic classmate whose future was to become a famous writer. Maybe Abby needed someone like Fina Lee, who lived in her own special world—maybe she was in her own particular way closer to the multiverse, more accessible to the Fold. Abby would have to meet with her and talk about it.
First, Abby would have to get out of this prison cell.
She lay awake for a while longer, and thoughts of the dragon had lulled her into a new frame of mind. She was drawing nearer to a higher level of awareness; she was on the cusp of something bigger than anything she had known before. The Fold was wide, wide open, and she now knew that it was at least possible for her to go there, into the whole of the cosmos itself, traversing space and time. Well, maybe she would start somewhere closer to home first.
Sleep came fitfully after that, and after a few blurry dreams of Stump and Olivia paddling in a boat on the bayou, her dreams took a turn that would not build on her newfound confidence. In fact, in her dreams, she was lying in a dark, cold place, being pressed down. Was that Balt Luster nearby working at a table beneath a dull green light? She could hear the metallic clang of tools, hear him breathing heavily through his nose. What was he building? She couldn’t quite move her head to get a good look, for she was paralyzed from the neck down and some sort of manic, demonic voice was whispering something dark and full of terror into her mind. No, wait… this wasn’t her nightmare it came from somewhere else—from somebody else.
Lizzy. The girl on the bunk bed above her. Only, she wasn’t in her bed anymore.
Abby’s eyes flew open, and she was wide awake instantly. Lizzie was sitting on top of her, the girl’s knees pressed heavily and painfully down on Abby’s shoulders. Abby was pinned down, and when she struggled to rise up, Lizzy’s legs clamped down harder, immobilizing her arms at her sides. That was when Abby noticed the emery board nail file clenched tightly in the girl’s hand, pointed now inches from her face, Lizzy’s face gruesome and grimacing above it in the gloomy dark.
“I could take your eyeballs out in a heartbeat, meat. Try that again, and I will!”
Abby let her body go slack, all resistance melted away in an instant. Lizzy smiled gleefully.
“What do you want?” Abby asked calmly even though she was nearly overwhelmed by the intensity of emotion and hostility that was pouring from the girl and through her dragon senses. The crackhead was an agitated whirl of conflicting emotions. Through the girl’s bare knees pressing down on her shoulders, Abby could feel Lizzy’s whole being raging through her, transmitting thoughts and feelings in a torrent of wild images and, above all, pain. It was immediately clear to Abby that the girl was not in control of herself—there was no evident reason or compassion in her being. She was a distraught wreck of a person who used anger and aggression to cover her deeper hurts. There were very dark corners in her memories, memories that now assaulted Abby without mercy. It was all Abby could do to shut out the barrage.
“I want you to cry,” Lizzy spoke through clenched teeth. “I want you to suffer.”
Abby breathed deeply, calming her instinct to fight back. She knew it wouldn’t go well. Lizzy was a big, strong girl. And she was full of rage, a rage born from a much deeper hurt. A lifetime of hurt. And now she wanted to let that hurt out; she wanted to put it all on someone else. So, it was no surprise that Lizzy thought she could start right in on Abby once the adult supervision had left the room, once the room had gone dark.
Abby felt the rumbling presence of the dragon deep within herself. Through a flood of images coming from Lizzy—horrible things that had eaten at her life like a vicious monster that fed on her self-esteem and her dreams—Abby struggled to find something from Lizzy that remained in the light, something pure and full of love. Anything that still held out even just a sliver of hope.
The onslaught of images continued: “You’re not worthy of this, you little slut!” A woman, Lizzie’s mother, holding up a spatula covered in chocolate frosting, waving it in front of Lizzy’s pouting face, drops splattering on her cheek… The image was gone in a flash as Abby dismissed it. No, she wanted something free from fear, free of anger and self-loathing.
Abby went deeper, sorting through a whirl of images, more voices: the curling smoke of a crack pipe, hypnotically writhing through the air below a ceiling light; a towel snapping painfully on her bare legs—the giggling of her female tormentors echoing through a gym locker room; her dad, sitting in the cab of a large rental truck, all of his things packed, staring through the window as he backed out the driveway. “Good riddance, you prick!” Her mother mutters next to her, as Lizzy wonders if she will ever see him again.
And then there was the single pluck of a violin string. A child Lizzy, maybe eight or nine years old, at her grandparents’ summer house, on a beach in Carolina—a few weeks over summer break. Her grandfather was in the parlor, tuning his violin, smiling and beckoning to the young Lizzy.
“You want to make some music?” Her grandfather asked, beckoning her from the darkness near a stairwell. His hands were leathery and glowing translucent, like a sheath of old vellum paper—his veins clearly visible. Lizzy’s hesitant footsteps. Her grandfather’s kind face smiling, reassuring. “Come here child. You can touch it.”
Then later, with grandfather’s permission, alone in the parlor, polishing the wood of the violin with a soft cloth. The din of her family playing board games, laughing in another
room somewhere on the other side of the house. And Lizzy was at her happiest time in her life.
YES! The awareness of this thrummed through Abby like one of the plucked violin strings. A flash, and Abby could see Lizzy, a not-so-distant future Lizzy, maybe in her thirties? But she was in a concert hall, playing the violin with other musicians on a stage nearby—Lizzy was the star of the group, playing a beautiful fusion of folksy, Smoky mountain, Celtic rhythms, and something jazzy with, danceable intensity. It was pure joy, and it was pure Lizzy. Unique and wild and wonderful. And it was almost real… No. It was real. More than just a possibility. It was a reality within the Fold, a reality that was within Lizzy’s grasp if she just listened to her heart intelligence and followed her bliss.
Abby hadn’t realized it, but she had closed her eyes and wandered off somewhere else, lost in the Fold. Now the weight and the pain of Lizzy’s knees were making the feeling in both her arms go numb. She opened her eyes to see a now fuming Lizzy brandishing the emery board file dangerously close to her face.
“I swear I will cut them out of you, you smug little bitch!” Lizzy was whispering, hysterically.
The commotion had aroused Heloise from her bed. She was standing up now, pleading, “Don’t you do it, Lizzy. Don’t you do it!” She hurried over to the door and pressed the button repeatedly. It buzzed, and a red light filled the room.
Ignoring the commotion, Abby continued to look deeply into Lizzy’s eyes. “I want to give you something,” she said calmly.
“You what?” Lizzy snarled, her hand wavering.
“I’m going to give you something,” Abby repeated.
“Yeah, I’m gonna take your left eyeball, actually. I’m taking it. You’re not giving it to me!” Lizzy spoke now in a quiet voice, but the pressure in her legs eased up, and she sat back slightly.
“Don’t do it!” Heloise squeaked from the doorway. “She’s done it before! She’s done it before! I know she has!”
Abby glanced over at her, then returned her gaze to Lizzy and smiled. “No, listen to me. I’ve got something else for you.” Abby paused as she could see uncertainty settling in, Lizzy’s angry resolve dissolving. “What I got for you… I need to tell you.” Abby’s voice was so calm, so… loving? At any rate, it was enough to completely throw Lizzy off her angry and hurtful intentions. The girl just sat there, perplexed, the file still poised upright in her hand.
“Yes, I think you know,” Abby continued. We were connected back then, yes? We’re still connected in our minds. Can you feel it?”
Lizzy stared down at her, wide-eyed, her bottom lip began to quiver.
“What are you talking about?” Heloise’s voice from the dark.
Abby ignored it. “There’s an old fiddle, a violin that belongs to your grandaddy. Yes?” Abby sat up slightly as Lizzy gasped and shrunk away from her. Abby’s arm was now free, so she reached out, gently grabbed Lizzy around her wrist, and slowly lowered her weapon.
“It’s still there, Lizzy. The fiddle. In the summer house. Right there where you used to polish it. Your grandaddy is waiting for you to come by and claim it. It’s his gift to you. And listen to me, Lizzy!” Abby’s voice remained low and quiet but had grown in its intensity. “I promise you. If you go back there and take that violin… if you put all of your heart and soul into learning how to play it—and it starts with your grandaddy. He will be your first teacher—if you do that, well, it’s going to change your life. You’re going to find your joy… your happiness. Do you understand? You know it’s true. You’re going to shine and find love in your life. And all of this… this shit! It’s going to go away. I promise you! I promise!”
Lizzy stared back at Abby, her anger replaced by a look of wonder, maybe fear? “How… how do you know those things?” Lizzy asked. “How do you know my grandaddy? Have we met somewhere before?”
“No, no,” Abby laughed warmly and sat up to grasp both of Lizzy’s arms and squeeze them comfortingly. “It doesn’t work like that. We’ve not met before today. It’s just something that I can do, with others like you. I can help you find what you’ve lost. What you need to move forward, out of your fear, from your shadows—away from your pain.”
“I’ve never told nobody about that fiddle.” Lizzy was now staring at Abby in something akin to awe. She suddenly quirked her head to the side and smiled. “How did you do that? Get into my mind? You some kind of witch?”
“Ha!” Abby smiled back at her and felt her own heart-fire well from within and radiate out toward the girl. “Something like that, I guess. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“Cool…”
A loud commotion interrupted them outside the door. Footsteps and then voices. The lock sliding open. Lights suddenly came on in the room. Then Officer Mills was inside with two other male guards.
“Okay Ms. Lizzy.” Officer Mills snapped. “That’s it! Confinement for you!” The two other guards moved forward to subdue Lizzy. They took the emery board and roughly lifted her from the bed. They hauled her up and rather unceremoniously started heading outside the cell.
Lizzy went quietly, without resistance. She just stared at Abby as they dragged her away and down the hall.
Officer Mills was there in the doorway, looming over the girls like a fussing mother troll. She looked first at Abby, then Heloise, then back to Abby.
“You injured?” She asked. And Abby shook her head. “Then you okay in here? Abby nodded and the broad-shouldered guard breathed in, then out audibly. She looked again at Heloise, then back to Abby. “It’s late,” she said. “I’ll want a report in the morning. We do not tolerate such disturbances. I will see about transferring you out of here. You don’t belong here.”
She nodded at Abby, then glanced again at Heloise, who remained uncharacteristically silent.
“Okay then,” Officer Mills breathed heavily. “Lights out. Try to sleep. Breakfast at 0-seven hundred, sharp.”
She turned around and left, the door closing behind her with a click as the latch slid fast.
Abby sat on her bed staring across at Heloise, who just stared back at her. Several moments went by with Heloise absently rubbing her protruding belly.
“What did you do?” the wide-eyed girl finally asked, barely a whisper. Abby did not answer.
And then the lights went out, and Abby lay back down to sort through her thoughts in the darkness. But her mind was far, far away from any darkness. She had burst into the light of her true gift and calling. She was connected to everyone and everything she encountered. Inextricably so. It was a humming thrum of energy and awareness just outside the perimeter of her physical body. And it connected her most inner core of being—her heart-fire and her soul-fire—to the infinite.
She was beginning to feel awakened.
Her mind would continue to race along, not settling down until breakfast came in the morning.
From the Audio transcripts of Dr. Joanna Kinsey
Chief Psychiatrist, CHNOLA Northshore Center,
New Orleans, LA
Excerpt of Audio File Transcript #AR10089-42
July 3, 2022
Subject: A. B. Rubideaux. Female. Age: 12
Transcript of recording begins: 10:22 AM EST.
Kinsey: So, what are we going to do about your mother?
A.B.: I’d rather not talk about my mother.
Kinsey: I’m sorry, A.B., but Beatriz has been asking about you. She wants you to come see her.
A.B.: Oh, that’s fine. I thought you were talking about my biological mother.
Kinsey: Yes, you’ve told me before when we first started having these sessions that you have never met your biological mother. I am talking about the woman whom you refer to as “Momma Bea.” I am sorry for the confusion. I only ask because there are no records of adoption, and that’s the primary reason that Beatriz is now being held in custody. Well, that and the fact that
her boyfriend, Henry Thierrey, turned her in.
A.B.: Yeah, I kind of figured that out. Boyfriend? I guess you have to call him something. Momma Bea was smart not to marry him. But boyfriend? Parasite might be more accurate.
Kinsey: Well, boyfriend or no, that’s part of the reason you’re here with me. Technically, neither he nor Beatriz are your legal guardians. They never filled out the paperwork. And we don’t know who your biological parents are.
A.B.: That makes two of us. But I don’t need to know who they are. Momma Bea has always taken real good care of me. Don’t need no legal guardian to be a good person. She shouldn’t be in any trouble on account of me.
Kinsey: I agree with that, on many levels. But the law looks at things differently, A.B.. Do you have any idea why Henry would have turned her in and denied any relation at all to you?
A.B.: Why? Sometimes there ain’t no why. He just a fly-sucking toad.
Kinsey: Well, you could help Beatriz by talking to the police about it. Mr. Thierrey has made some pretty stunning allegations.
A.B.: You have to go pretty deep to find anything “stunning” in Henry’s mind. He likes to talk—a lot, but he never really says much of anything.
Kinsey: (Chuckling.) Well, that puts him in the company of lots of people I know! But that does not appear to be the case in this instance. I don’t know if the substance of what he says is true, but these are things that may very well impact who has legal custody of you. It doesn’t bode well for Beatriz. If you know something that he isn’t telling—something that could help Beatriz, and quite frankly help you and your situation here—then you should tell them what you know. His statements have been very damaging, for both you and your Momma Bea.
A.B.: Damaging? Well, that’s something Henry has always been good at—causing damage—especially to Momma Bea. So, how come it’s only me and Momma Bea that’s in trouble? What about Henry? Why ain’t he the one answering all these questions?
Kinsey: His role in all of this will be part of the record as well. If they find anything that incriminates him, he will be held accountable.