Hannahwhere

by John McIlveen

“Like the big lake.” Anna points to the immense blue body of water in the horizon. “And those tall, green trees. Those have to be yours because they look more real than ours do.”

  Debbie has to admit that the towering pines, spruces, oaks, and maples interlaced between the surrealistic blue, green, and golden leaved trees is a peculiar assortment.

  “If you didn’t have your own place, you couldn’t be here, could you? It has to be a part of you for you to come here,” Hannah says.

  “How do you know that?” Debbie asks.

  “Mom said so,” continues Hannah. “I can be here by myself, but when Anna comes she brings her place and her stuff. We can have our places together in one place, but we need to bring our place with us when we come here so one of us can stay if one of us leaves.”

  Great, more puzzles, Debbie thinks, utterly confounded. “How did your mom know this if she couldn’t travel here?” she asks. Both girls shrug.

  There had to be a sound reason for Elizabeth Amiel to tell the girls this, especially since she had been unable to travel here herself. Is it a reference point so they don’t get lost, or some kind of port of call?

  “It was prettier here when Mom gave us ideas. It was kind of like her place, too,” Anna says forlornly. “She’d show us pictures and we’d make them here, but we forgot a lot of it. There used to be better mountains and waterfalls and deers.”

  “Deer,” Hannah corrects her and Anna sticks her tongue out again.

  “So all of our places can mix together and become like one world?” asks Debbie.

  “Anna likes the bunnies and hummingbirds. I like the butterflies and kitties and bumblebees,” Hannah says.

  “They don’t have stingers,” Anna says with a reassuring nod. “They’re so cute!”

  “So the waterfalls and deer are not here anymore, since you forgot what they look like?” Debbie asks. Both girls nod their agreement.

  “Our deer looked dumb,” says Anna.

  “And the nice mountains,” says Hannah. “I tried to make some, but they’re yucky. Mom’s mountains were from Switzerland, but we forgot most of how everything looked.”

  Hannah made these mountains? The idea is staggering.

  “And when Anna goes back, the bunnies and hummingbirds go away?” Debbie asks.

  “They used to…” Hannah starts.

  “But I can’t go back anymore,” Anna finishes, troubled.

  “Why?”

  “Dunno,” Anna says and Hannah shrugs.

  “Did you forget where your body is?” Debbie asks, realizing how odd the question sounds.

  “That’s silly. You can’t do that!” Hannah says.

  “Why not?”

  “Because the thinking you and the not-thinking you are both still you,” says Hannah.

  “Of course! Silly me! It’s so clear! Okay, so the spirit and body stay connected is what you’re saying?”

  “Un-huh,” agrees Anna, but she doesn’t look all too sure.

  “Okay, that would explain why I can still see the hospital room. Bear with me. I’m new at this. So Anna, what does the body or the physical you see?”

  “I don’t see nothing.”

  “Anything,” corrects Hannah. Anna rolls her eyes.

  “Does this have anything to do with why you’re so cold?” Debbie asks.

  “I don’t know. I think so,” Anna says.

  “Can you remember where you were before you traveled over to Annaplace?” Debbie asks and Anna shakes her head.

  “Well, we’re just going to have to figure it out,” Debbie says and looks into the horizon.

  Hannah’s mountains—sleek and smooth like gray waves—slope to the extents of their realm, seeming to fade off into oblivion. They are simple and almost cartoonish, as if drawn by a nine-year-old, Debbie thinks and a sudden understanding hits her. The girls can only create to the limits of their experiences and their knowledge. They can’t create what they don’t know, and the same would have to be true with me.

  Debbie looks from Anna to Hannah and says, “What the heck, it’s worth a try.”

  Maybe she doesn’t know the Swiss Alps, but she’s been fascinated by Mount Everest for most of her life. Initially drawn by the tragedy of 1996, she’d become enthralled by the great mountain and the fates of Scott Fischer, Rob Hall, and so many others. She read many of the survivors’ accounts, from Jon Krakauer’s excellent Into Thin Air, to Beck Weather’s tragic yet hopeful Left for Dead, and mentally climbed Everest numerous times via words and pictures. Debbie had often visited Nepal in her dreams, flying and swooping over the majestic mountains as one can only do in such reveries.

  … Or in Hannahwhere.

  The thought gives her pause. She reflects on the dreams, and a tendril of dread begins slithering its way through her as the memory of her dreams start to solidify. Feeling nervous and uncomfortable, she pushes the images away and redirects her memory to the high-resolution still from Dave Breashear’s IMAX movie that hangs in her spare bedroom. In her mind’s eye she brings forth her best memory of the great mountain and the surrounding Himalayas, and as with the chocolate, she wills it into existence with her whole being. Far in the horizon, a majestic seam of black and gray granite sluggishly emerges behind the smaller hills, expanding across the skyline in jagged peaks and rising to breathtaking heights. Hannah, Anna, and Debbie all stare in wonder as the monolithic mountain line forms. Whether cerebral or actual, it’s exhilarating and hard to fathom.

  “Will that do?” Debbie asks.

  Transfixed, Anna and Hannah both nod their approval.

  For Debbie, everything switches from surreal to beyond bizarre. I have just created or recreated a mountain range, and not just any mountain range, but one with the tallest mountains on earth! Again, she wonders: is this a different realm or just undeniable proof that I’m as nutty as a PayDay bar? If this is real, shouldn’t I be able to carry the ability back with me?

  Back to what? Reality? Isn’t this a reality? For the sake of sanity she labels it surreal time. SST: Surreal Standard Time. You won’t find that option on your computer time settings, kids.

  More questions rush over her, pulling her in countless crosscurrent directions. It is a riptide of certainties and uncertainties… what-was-truth versus what-is-now-truth. If the ability to create was transferable from surreal time to real time, it could affect so many things.

  Wouldn’t somebody have done it by now? she wonders.

  Surely, Hannah, Anna, and now Debbie, aren’t the only ones ever to have this ability. Somewhere along the historic timeline, someone else must have. In modern times, any being having these abilities, whether good or evil, are fictitious or Hollywood creations: angels, demons, witches, genies, superheroes. Two hundred years ago, they would have been burned at the stake.

  Does God even exist… or Satan? If a seven- or nine-year-old child can be a creator, any human can be a god or a devil. Is that the purpose behind religion, to keep this knowledge at bay through fear and control? If you can do these things, then you are evil and must be destroyed? These abilities could improve the world… or ruin it.

  Hannah, Anna, and Debbie all jump to their feet as the ground starts trembling beneath them. A deep rumbling fills the air, thundering louder and deeper than any of them has ever heard or felt before, echoing and rolling over and through them. Frightened, they search the clear, blue skies.

  “What is it?” Hannah yells through the noise.

  “I don’t know. An earthquake I think, though I’ve never been in one before,” Debbie says and embraces the sisters and prays that a chasm doesn’t open beneath them.

  It continues for nearly a minute and just as quickly as it started, it is over, the colossal peals rumbling off into the distance in a recurring echo. Both girls look up to Debbie with wide and frightened eyes, yet still intrigued.

  “Wow!” says Hannah, “That was cool!”

  “I don’t like it,” says Anna.

  “Oh, honey. I’m sure it was nothi
ng,” Debbie says, her words much nobler than her hopes. She scans the skyline and the distant mountains for the source of the tremors, and then it clicks.

  “Oh my God!” Debbie blurts.

  “What?” Anna and Hannah say in nervous unison.

  “It was an earthquake,” explains Debbie. “But a safe one. The rumbling came from the mountains! It took that long for the sound to reach us.”

  She smiles encouragingly at Anna and does the math in her head. Sounds travel around 767 mph—give or take on conditions—and it probably took two minutes for the sound to reach them. Therefore, it is approximately twenty-five miles to the mountains, which convinces Debbie of two things. Hannahwhere and Annaplace could be endless and must be real. Mach 1 might factor in Einstein’s dreams, but never in her dreams… even subconsciously.

  Maybe we are in a different universe or an alternate plane.

  “If we were on the same plane as the hospital,” Debbie says, “there is…”

  She feels something change in the atmosphere. It’s subtle and hard to put her finger on.

  “We have to go,” Hannah says, grabbing her hand. She’s smiling, but there’s a thread of urgency to her words.

  “How?” asks Debbie.

  “Just make yourself look at the hospital, and when you see it more than you see here, jump back there,” says Hannah.

  “Easy as that, huh?” asks Debbie, but she feels herself being catapulted into darkness.

  “Hey!” Hannah says.

  Monday

  June 28, 2010

  Chapter 19

  Riverside, Massachusetts

  The nurse nudged Debbie on the shoulder, and then again, more insistently. Debbie woke up, startled. Someone had turned the room lamps off and the nurse was little more than a haloed shadow. The only light in the room was the warm, golden glow from the hallway spilling around a mostly closed door, some hazy moonlight, and a smattering of cold white twinkles from distant city lights stealing in around the blinds.

  “You’re a sound sleeper,” the nurse said good-naturedly. “You’ve both been there quite a while. I figured you’d want to put her into bed before you both cramp up.”

  “Too late for that,” Debbie stammered, still disoriented. “Okay. I’ll put her to bed.”

  “I can, if you’d like,” offered the nurse.

  “Nah, I’ve got her,” Debbie said.

  The nurse smiled and it looked somewhat ominous in the dark room. “Okay. Just buzz if you need anything,” she said cheerily and left to continue her rounds.

  She wondered if the nurse tapping her on the shoulder had prompted her return from Hannahwhere, if she had truly been there at all. The nurse called her a sound sleeper, which implied that it took a while to wake her. If that were the case, then maybe it was the light being turned off that had caused a sensory change and gotten her attention. It was a distressing thought, especially if the same were true with Hannah and Anna. Could a subtle change in the environment be more effective than a physical touch, which seemed to her to have gone unnoticed? Wouldn’t the ability to block out the physical be the perfect escapism, especially when avoiding something unpleasant? Yet wouldn’t it also open an avenue for a tormenter to act out his or her heart’s desire without the victim even being aware? The implications had Debbie feeling as if she was in a vortex.

  “Hold on, girl,” Debbie instructed herself softly.

  Regaining her equilibrium, she sighed deeply. Everything was so confusing. She was certain she could still taste the candy. Real or not, I have to remember what brand Hannah said they were… they were succulent. Debbie was hungry. There was a churning in her stomach, but it was the wee hours of the morning and she would have to wait until breakfast.

  She gave the cord for the wall-mounted light over the bed a sound tug and the light flickered on with a barely audible buzz. Her left leg was asleep from Hannah’s weight on her lap and numbness traveled from her right buttock to her foot. She shifted and the heat of her blood rushed through her leg. Hannah moved on her lap, sending electrical surges through the awakening nerves in her leg. Debbie looked down to see her staring back with startlingly alert eyes. She was so light-skinned that she nearly glowed. She brushed a few errant strands of hair away from Hannah’s face.

  “Well, hello there,” Debbie said.

  “Hi,” Hannah replied in a voice as light and sweet as cotton candy. She rose to her knees, wrapped her arms around Debbie’s neck, and hugged her cheek-to-cheek with a fervency that nearly relocated vertebrae. A great relief washed over Debbie that Hannah didn’t hold her responsible for Davenport’s poor behavior. Debbie returned the hug, wanting to bring her somewhere free of all the trauma and madness that only promised to escalate in the near future. Debbie backlit her phone display and was surprised to see it was only 12:22 a.m. It felt like three o’clock in the morning.

  Hannah rested her head on Debbie’s shoulder for a few moments and then pulled back. She put her palms to Debbie’s cheeks as if to hold her head still and looked her eye to eye, as she had earlier.

  “When Essie and the detective were here, you said shit two times,” Hannah told her.

  “I did?” Debbie asked and Hannah nodded with such sincere conviction that Debbie had to laugh. “Okay. But now you said it, too.” She smiled and affectionately poked the tip of Hannah’s nose.

  “It’s okay. Mom says it’s better to spit it out than keep a mouthful of it.”

  “Sounds like good advice to me.” Debbie laughed again and hugged Hannah. “You’re delightful. I just want to keep you.”

  Hannah looked at Debbie again, a sad, hopeful question in her eyes. She put her forehead against Debbie’s, looked into her eyes and asked, “Can I keep you, too?”

  She pushed Hannah’s hair behind her ears, completely taken by how large and stunningly soulful her eyes were. At that moment, Debbie understood that she would probably do anything to protect this little girl… this little wonder. Debbie smiled and said, “I think that would be the best thing that could ever happen to me.”

  The probability was that Hannah and Debbie would never see each other again after the case closed, and the reality of that thought hit Debbie with startling force. The ache and longing that built in her chest wasn’t logical—she’d only known Hannah for days—but it was acute, undeniable, and rooted deeply inside her. It was as real as the child before her, and as real as the fact she would never biologically have her own. Despite rationality, Debbie would be willing to do whatever was required to make Hannah legally hers… and hopefully Anna. She would mortgage the equity on her home, or even change careers, if that was what it took. The thought of letting Hannah and Anna out of her life, even after such a short period, was unbearable and profane. Especially knowing what she now knew, and what would likely happen to the girls if the wrong people found out.

  “So, Sweetie. Was it a dream or were we really in Hannahwhere with Anna?” Debbie asked, still eye-to-eye with Hannah.

  She was self-conscious about the question and half-expected Hannah to say, don’t be so silly, you big, dumb adult. Hannahwhere is only in my imagination. Instead, Hannah offered her a demure smile that seemed too wise for her age. She reached down into the crease of the chair, retrieved something and bopped Debbie lightly on the forehead with it.

  A tennis ball!

  Hannah reached down again and returned with Debbie’s Montefiore pen. Debbie slowly accepted the items from Hannah.

  The ball was unspectacular and could be any Wilson #4, but the pen had her name engraved in fine-filled gold along its length. This pen had been a gift from Kenny when she graduated college. She kept it in the top drawer of her desk at home. There was no other pen like it, so that meant transference. She had summoned it. Hannahwhere and Annaplace weren’t just cerebral… they had to be physical, too.

  Un-fucking-believable! Debbie, ol’ girl, life as you have known it has just taken a U-turn…

  Unless…

  Could she have created an exact
duplicate? If the pen was the actual one from her desk drawer, then the climbers on Mount Everest must have had an interesting day. The idea that she could relocate Mount Everest was preposterous, but so wasn’t the idea that she could transport or create a duplicate pen from thin air.

  Flummoxed, Debbie let her head fall back against the chair and she let out a frustrated groan. She looked at Hannah, who looked back at her with a knowing, smug smile.

  “Are you enjoying my confusion?” Debbie asked her. Hannah’s smile expanded into a toothy grin that transformed her back into the nine-year-old girl.

  Hannah and Anna had proved one concept that would set many in the psychological field on their toes. In situations of severe trauma and abuse, sufferers usually had a tendency to do one of two things. They could withdraw and hide within themselves, making their bodies both a haven and a prison, or they could do the opposite and dissociate.

  Or, as Debbie had now experienced, they could do both, as Hannah and Anna had done.

  When trouble arose, Hannah and Anna had trained themselves to ‘leave’ the questionable sanctuary of their physical consciousness—and the source of their torment—by mentally projecting outward and going away to another place in their mind. The difference with Hannah and Anna was that they had found a way to project or create physical items like the pen and the tennis ball, and they had somehow taught the ability to Debbie, or shared it with her.

  What if the physical self could project, too?

  The notion defied logic, yet there was the tennis ball, the pen, and most of all Hannah twice disappearing from Debbie’s lap. What more proof did she need?

  “I drank your soda,” Hannah admitted.

  Debbie looked at her with increased appreciation. “That’s okay, you clever little girl. You brought me proof. You knew I‘d be a doubting Thomas, didn’t you?”

  “Who?” Hannah’s brow furrowed.

  “You knew I’d have a hard time believing everything that happened in Hannahwhere once we got back here.”

  “You had a hard time believing it when we were there,” Hannah said, again impressing Debbie with her unusually mature logic. “Anna made me bring the ball and I thought you’d want your pen back. Mom told us not to bring things out of our places, but we knew we had to or you wouldn’t believe it, or think it was a dream.”