There was some confusion but soon almost the whole Ugly column, still more than fifty able-bodied males and females, plunged into the thick undergrowth in a ragged line, each separated by only an arm’s length from the next. They beat the bracken with spears and clubs, stabbing and probing, but the two attackers could not be found.
Finally Brindle called off the search. ‘Not good waste more time here,’ he said. ‘Better get to Secret Place fast.’
Ria considered her position.
She’d been about to head back to the Clan camp but now it wasn’t so simple. The moment she left the protection of the Uglies she would be vulnerable to the two killers lurking out there. They’d be watching and if they saw her alone they’d hunt her down.
On the other hand, if she stayed with the Uglies then the important intelligence she bore – that armed strangers with devastating new weapons had infiltrated Clan lands – would be delayed. She wasn’t clear yet on the fate of Grigo, Duma and Vik. Were they working for the strangers, as she suspected? Or had they been murdered by them? Both alternatives were possible but, whatever the answer, something bad was happening and she had to warn her brothers.
‘Won’t be able to warn them if you dead, Ria,’ Brindle’s thought-voice reminded her. ‘You must stay alive. Come with Uglies to Secret Place. Will figure out how to get you home safely tomorrow.’
What Brindle was saying made sense. Earlier, Ria had been horrified when he’d asked her to spend the night at the Ugly hideout. But everything had changed since then, and she had to adapt. ‘OK,’ she said after only a brief hesitation, ‘I’ll come with you. Just don’t kill me and eat me when we get there!’
Brindle’s brow ridges puckered, his deep-set eyes clouded over, and a look of horror crossed his face.
‘Well, I don’t mean it, of course! It’s a joke!’
However, it wasn’t exactly a joke, and Brindle’s ability to peer inside her mind meant he must know that. The truth was Ria couldn’t quite rid herself of a nagging fear that the Uglies could still turn out to be cannibals.
* * *
Three males and a female had been killed by the strangers’ spears. There was nothing more to be done for them. Three more were injured. Now separate circles of Uglies, eight or ten to a group, gathered arm in arm around each of their wounded comrades where they lay and began a rhythmic, hooting chant much like the one they had sung for Brindle earlier.
Inside the first circle an old female crouched down beside an injured brave. Blood was spurting from his mouth – a spear had struck him in the cheekbone below his right eye, smashed his teeth and half-severed his tongue. Doubting that anything could be done about such a horrible injury, Ria watched in growing astonishment as the aged female held out her hands and a mysterious blue light began to pour from her open palms into the bloody wound. More of the same light streamed forth from all the Uglies standing in the circle, converging on the fallen brave and enveloping him in an eldritch radiance. The hooting became much louder and vibrated uncomfortably in Ria’s ears. She gasped as the brave’s body rose a handspan into the air and floated without any supports. The blood flow from his mouth reduced from a torrent to a trickle and Ria could almost believe the wound in his face had begun to close when the Uglies’ song reached a peak, and stopped, and his body sank back to the ground.
In the second circle it was a grizzled elder who poured the uncanny blue light into a deep wound in a brave’s back, and in the last it was Brindle whose big hands channelled it into the body of the third injured brave where a spear had smashed his collarbone.
While these rituals unfolded other Uglies got to work with spear shafts and ropes and as each of the circles broke apart the injured were lifted onto improvised stretchers ready for the march. The brave with the wounded face was sleeping. He looked peaceful and his breathing was clear. The other two were alert and even seemed energised in some way despite their injuries.
The whole column gathered around the bodies of the four who had been killed by the strangers. ‘Saying goodbye,’ Brindle explained to Ria as they marched off. ‘When Uglies die we must give proper funeral ceremony. But now is time of war. Have to leave them.’
After walking deep in her own thoughts for some while, Ria asked Brindle about the circles of braves, the hooting and the blue light she’d seen pouring from his hands.
‘When put heads together and sing,’ he explained, ‘all become one mind. Stronger that way. Use to make light for healing, use to figure out problems. Make big decisions.’
That was when Ria noticed with a jolt that the brave with the wounded back and the brave with the broken collarbone were already on their feet, disdaining their stretchers.
‘Blue light is a kind of magic,’ Brindle told her. ‘Needs much power. Helps if many Uglies make circle. Sick person must be close or healing doesn’t work.’
‘Can you heal all injuries?’ Ria asked. After what she had just seen she was ready to believe anything.
‘No. Not all. If heart, lungs or liver are pierced is very difficult.’
‘Difficult? Or impossible?’
‘Very difficult. Not impossible.’
‘Amazing!’ Ria said. ‘Now tell me about talking inside our heads. That’s a kind of magic too. How far apart can we be before that stops working?’
‘Maybe three bowshots. Maybe five if rope strong. Then can’t reach each other any more.’
‘And this rope you keep mentioning? You said there’s one between you and me. What is it? What does it mean?’
‘Means … something like love. Something like friendship. Ria saved Brindle’s life. Took risk for Brindle. Saw Brindle is human, not dumb animal. Brindle saw Ria not like rest of Clan. Doesn’t hate Uglies. Is human too. I open heart to you, you open heart to me. This way we get rope between us.’
As the afternoon of hard marching wore on, Ria’s familiar hunting grounds were left far behind, she found herself in regions she had never ventured into before and she grew more and more uneasy. She began to memorise landmarks – an old dead tree, a rippling flowing stream, an unusual boulder, a barren hill, a distant craggy peak – as she talked to Brindle.
Scouts had been posted around the fast-moving Ugly column to forestall any further surprise attacks but there were no sightings of the savage spearmen. The worst possible outcome, Ria thought, would be if they were part of a much larger force. The best hope was that they were loners passing through.
But in her heart she didn’t believe this and was unable to rid herself of the suspicion that they were following. Several times the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as they traversed a high, wide-open, almost featureless plateau. It was dead flat, but the ground underfoot was soggy and a cold wind howled across it from the ice deserts far to the east.
Ria glanced over her shoulder and just for an instant she thought she saw something move. It might have been no more than wind in the marsh grass, but it spooked her. ‘I’m certain we’re being followed,’ she pulsed to Brindle as they reached the lip of the plateau and entered the shelter of a steep valley. ‘I don’t want to walk into an ambush when I head back to the Clan tomorrow.’
‘Uglies send big war party with you tomorrow. You be safe.’
‘What about Secret Place? You didn’t want to take the risk of Grigo, Duma and Vik following us there. So it doesn’t make sense to allow these two savages to follow us, either.’
‘But what can we do?’ Brindle asked.
‘We have to kill them,’ said Ria.
Chapter Ten
She’d thought the doctor was good-looking but now Leoni decided he was movie-star handsome – lean athletic build, six foot three or four, mid-thirties, dark hair with just a hint of premature grey about the temples, warm, walnut-coloured eyes, firm chin, good lips. ‘Thank you, Dr Bannerman,’ she whispered as the sounds of her departing family faded. ‘Thank you for saving my life in the ER. Thank you for taking my side.’
He smiled. ‘Not a problem. Shall we sw
itch to first names, by the way? I know that you’re Leoni.’ He gave her a warm, firm handshake: ‘I’m John.’
Over the next five minutes she was relieved that he did not pry into the fight with her parents but asked her questions about how she was feeling, peered into her eyes with a bright little light, tested her reflexes and checked her respiration, pulse and blood pressure. ‘All in good order,’ he pronounced. ‘I don’t see any reason why we need to keep you in hospital much longer. Stay tomorrow for another day of observation, we’ll do a few more tests and discharge you the following morning.’ Suddenly he shifted gear: ‘Now … tell me about the drugs.’
‘You mean the OxyContin I overdosed on?’
‘Well, yes. For a start. How much did you take?’
‘I snorted eighty milligrams. Stole the pills from my mom’s medicine cabinet. Ground them into powder with a nail file. I’ve seen friends of mine take much bigger doses and none of this shit happens to them.’
‘That’ll be because they’ve built up tolerance. OxyContin is an opiate and if you take it a lot, like your friends must do, then your body gets used to bigger and bigger doses. You were using it for the first time, I bet?’
‘Yes … and the last time.’
‘What about other drugs?’
‘You want me to be honest?’
‘Of course.’
‘I do quite a bit of cocaine.’
‘How much is quite a bit?’
Leoni shrugged: ‘Thirty, maybe forty lines – on a night out clubbing, or at a party. Then I’m clean for a few days. Then I might have another binge over a long weekend, get through ten or fifteen grams. You know how it is.’
‘Would you say you’re an addict?’
‘No. I wouldn’t. I snort a lot of coke, but I think I can take it or leave it.’ Leoni paused: ‘I’m planning to leave it in the future.’
‘Have you used heroin?’
‘Ugh! NO. Never. Not my thing.’
‘Crystal meth?’
‘Couple of times. Maybe three. Liked it a lot but I won’t be going back for more.’
‘You sound pretty sure of that.’
‘I am. Some things happened to me when I was dead …’
‘Which made you want to fix the problems in your life?’
She was surprised. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Right after you came round in the emergency room you told me you’d met an angel …’
‘Yes. She’s got indigo skin!’ Leoni retrieved her sketch pad from its hiding place under her covers and opened it at her drawing of the Blue Angel. ‘This is what she looks like.’
Bannerman leaned forward and poured over the sketch. ‘Very interesting,’ he said. ‘Tell me … did she give you a lecture about how much you’d screwed up?’
‘Now you’re really freaking me out. She said I’d squandered my potential. I don’t understand how you know this stuff.’
‘My guess is you went through what we call a near-death experience – and people who’ve had NDEs very often come out of them with a whole new attitude.’ A look of boyish enthusiasm had spread over Bannerman’s face: ‘Actually, this is a special research project of mine. I’ve been investigating NDEs for five years. If you’d like me to, I may be able to help you understand a bit more of what you went through.’
To her surprise, Leoni found she was crying and blurting out what she wasn’t yet sure she should reveal. ‘The Angel told me something really weird. She told me I have to make the veil between worlds thin to see her again. Do you have any idea what that means?’
‘I think I probably do have an idea,’ Bannerman answered after a moment, ‘but I also think you need a good night’s sleep. Why don’t we pick up this conversation again in the morning?’
Leoni dabbed her eyes with a Kleenex. ‘If you know anything that can help me deal with what happened to me then I need to hear about it right away.’
‘Why so urgent?’
‘I was … out of my body. For a long time. Seemed like for ever. I was able to move about – like I was flying. I could go through walls. I could see and hear other people but they didn’t know I was there. Can I say that without you thinking I’m crazy?’
‘I don’t think you’re crazy. The near-death state most often involves two stages. In the first you’re out of your body, much as you describe – in fact we call this an “out of body experience”, OBE for short – but you’re still very much in this world. You can move about at will; lots of people describe it as flying. You see everyday life going on around you but nobody can see you. Then comes the second stage when you leave this world behind. You go through a tunnel, or a corridor, or it could be you’re carried down in a whirlpool, and you find yourself … somewhere else … Not here. Not the Earth. You’re in another world. Very often you’ll meet … entities there. Sometimes deceased friends and relatives who’ve come to welcome you or to send you back. Some people report meeting an angel. Sound familiar?’
Leoni nodded: ‘There’s scientific studies, right? Which prove all this?’
‘Plenty of scientific studies. The phenomenology of NDEs and OBEs has been thoroughly documented. These are truly universal human experiences.’
‘Never mind phenomen – whatever. And I don’t care about universal. I only want to know one thing … Is this stuff real? Or isn’t it? Because it felt real to me – more real than real, in fact – and I got some information, and it’s just blowing my mind.’
‘What sort of information?’ Bannerman asked.
‘I left my body right after the overdose hit me. Flew out of my bedroom window and down into the kitchen. I wanted my parents to rescue me. Fat chance. They didn’t have a clue I was there. They were talking and they said … they said some things to each other about me that I didn’t know before.’
‘And these things. Did they make sense?
‘Yes. In a horrible sort of way what they were saying made perfect sense. So what I’m asking is – could I really have heard them say that? Or do you think it was just some kind of hallucination made up by my brain?’
‘Well, that’s actually the million-dollar question.’ Bannerman’s face was animated. ‘First off, you have to rule out the possibility that what you heard reached you in the normal way through your physical senses. Where did you take the OxyContin?’
‘In my bedroom.’
‘OK, from your bedroom – maybe with the window open? – are you able to hear people talking in the kitchen?’
Leoni thought about it: ‘Sometimes I know when there’s a conversation going on there. Sometimes I hear voices, but they’re faint. Even if they’re yelling I can’t hear individual words or sentences. Besides, what happened wasn’t just about hearing. I was down there in the kitchen with them. I could see their faces. I just wasn’t in my body. My body was on the floor upstairs.’
‘I know that’s how you experienced it, Leoni,’ said Bannerman, ‘but sceptics would say that you weren’t a hundred per cent unconscious up there on your bedroom floor. They’d argue that you heard what you heard through your ears in the normal way and then hallucinated or fantasised the rest of it.’
‘Is that what you think?’
‘Not necessarily. A lot of new work has been done in this field and some of us are willing to consider other explanations for these sorts of experiences. Consciousness is one of the big mysteries of science. Maybe the biggest mystery. The dominant view is that it’s a function of the brain, that it’s somehow generated by the brain the way a factory makes cars, but actually there’s no proof of that.’
‘But if consciousness doesn’t come from the brain then where does it come from?’
‘I don’t know. No one does. Maybe it just is. Maybe it’s a fundamental force of the universe like electromagnetism or gravity, free-floating everywhere, residing in everything. And maybe the essence of consciousness isn’t physical at all – in which case our brains might not be generators of consciousness but simply vehicles or receivers that medi
ate consciousness at the physical level … It would explain a lot – not least OBEs and NDEs.’
Leoni thought about it: ‘OK. I guess I can see that. If my consciousness isn’t generated by my body and brain, and if it doesn’t depend on them to exist – if it’s like the TV signal, rather than the TV set – then there’s no reason why it should die when my body and brain die.’
‘No reason,’ Bannerman affirmed. ‘On the contrary, you’d expect it would continue to have experiences separate from the body. So maybe that’s what OBEs are – non-physical consciousness, liberated from the body and brain, continuing to witness and overhear events in the physical world.’
‘In which case that conversation between Mom and Dad could have been real?’
Bannerman shrugged: ‘I’m not saying that. I’m saying we – I mean doctors, scientists – actually don’t know what OBEs are. They’re mysterious. Unexplained. Most of my colleagues would reject the idea that you really are out of your body when you have these kinds of experiences …’ A pager attached to his belt began to bleep: ‘And they’d think you were delusional if you tried to tell them that you’d accessed real information in such a state. But honestly, after what I’ve seen and heard in the ER I’m not so sure …’ He silenced the pager and picked up the telephone by Leoni’s bed: ‘Excuse me for a second. I’ve got to respond to this, OK?’ He dialled a number, listened and hung up. ‘I have to go,’ he announced. He was already heading for the door. ‘Get some sleep, Leoni, and I’ll see you tomorrow. I still want to hear about that angel you met.’
‘Wait. Dr Bannerman … John … Orange sneakers. Purple and green laces.’
He paused: ‘Sorry … I don’t understand.’
‘Something else I saw yesterday while I was out of my body. There was a receptionist. Behind a desk in the main lobby of this hospital. She was wearing a dark suit. Looked very prim and proper. But she had orange sneakers on her feet, with striped purple and green laces …’
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