Ness closed the closet door with nary a glance back, hoping this Jack had not seen what was inside. It was essential that she keep this quiet, though she was uncertain exactly whom it was she had to keep this quiet from. The strange new nurses that had apparently taken over the entire hospital didn’t seem harmful to Ness. But she could not be sure.
"I'm good for the night now," answered Ness, hoping to dismiss this “Jack” for the rest of the evening. She needed to be left alone for a long enough time to... No. She shouldn’t even think about it. She offered a warm smile. "I'll buzz you if I need anything." She headed over to her cot and pulled back the covers, showing Nurse Jack just how ready for bed she was.
Jack nodded once, glanced at the sleeping children, then stepped back and pulled the door quietly shut. Ness could hear a hushed conversation between the nurse and the guard just outside her door, but could not make out what they said. After a few moments, the conversation ended. She heard footsteps receding - Jack - and the squeaking sounds of someone sitting heavily in a metal folding chair - the guard.
Ness exhaled slowly and fully, then crept back to the closet door. She would have to work in the dark, her project lit only by the tiny lights on the machines and monitors, the light coming in under the door, and the distant lights from the cordon fence that filtered in through the window shade. She knew the children were being monitored back at the nurses' station, not only by the various instruments hooked up to them but by a video feed, the camera for which she could see mounted on the ceiling. She was fairly certain the camera could not see her cot. And she was fairly sure that there was no audio. She was glad of that. If she was quiet enough to not attract the attention of the guard outside her door, and if she could hide in the dark and avoid the camera as much as was possible, she just might pull this off without interruption.
Should interruption come, Ness would just have to hope that her authority as the President's advisor would be enough to prevent interference. It's not like she was hurting the children, after all. But she didn't want to take that chance. Best to just hurry her old carcass along and get this darned thing finished. Then it would be able to protect itself. After that, well... they'd see what's next, wouldn't they?
Pulling her purse from the closet, Ness reached in and found the small bunch of carrots she'd stashed there. She collected the rubbery sticks, set down her purse, and turned and walked back to the kids. Emily was in the middle, lying on her back with her hands on her stomach. Ness leaned over and placed the carrots on Emily's chest, just over her heart. She arranged the carrots in a triangle pattern, like a tiny, orange split rail fence. Then she stood and took a step back, glancing quickly at the video camera, hoping, if anybody was watching, that all they could see was a silly old woman giving a child a hug in a darkened room.
The carrots rightly sparkled with energy now. She'd been right to save them. This was magic, after all. And they were Life. And it always took a bit of life to make your magic work. That's just the way the universe was built.
With a quiet moan of satisfaction, Ness headed back to the closet for more of her supplies.
8.3
Cole shook his head and pulled at his eyelids, trying to force them to stay open. He couldn't believe how tired he was. The grandfather clock in the hallway, keeping time by virtue of the fact that it ran on gravity, which civilized peoples had not yet managed to screw up, said that it was just after eight. It felt much later than that. The heavy plate of food, the two shots of "fortifier" - these church folk did not mess around when it came to "strong drink" - and the warm, humid air, had gone right to his head. He was ready to call it a night. But the room full of people around him would have none of that.
Their trip to Boothbay Harbor had gone off without a hitch, as if it had been no more than a simple Sunday-afternoon motorcycle jaunt in a pre-Crash world. Though they encountered the smoking remains of a recent house fire, neither brigands nor highwaymen barred their way, and the only other vehicle they saw in operation was a diesel Volkswagen Jetta sitting at a street corner just before the bridge over Montsweag Bay, in what now passed for downtown Wiscasset. The two men in the Jetta - whom they suspected at the time to be the two that Vince had told them would be patrolling, and whom they knew now were called Simon and Keith - waved as Cole and Stan passed, then pulled out and followed the motorcycle at a respectful distance.
From there it was a short drive south to Boothbay Harbor and The Thieving Seagull, which appeared to be a long-established, and still operating, restaurant and pub at the end of McFarland Point Drive, right on the water. It was a local landmark, impossible to miss, and from the deck you could just make out Squirrel Island in the distance, which is why it had been chosen. Stan and Cole pulled into a parking space. Keith and Simon pulled into the space beside them. As they were shaking hands, out of the front door strode Ken Swathers. Vince was right: they liked him right away.
The last leg of their journey was made in Ken's old Dodge Caravan. Ken drove. Cole sat in front passenger seat. Stan sat in the middle seat and Simon and Keith piled into the back, leaving their Jetta at the pub. It was another couple of miles to Southport, where Ken lived with his wife, Celia. Vince's Harley would be returned to him, so Cole and Stan were not to worry about that. When Stan made mention of the amount of fuel they'd expended to cart himself and Cole sixty miles or so, Ken just laughed. "This is the Wayfaring Stranger," he said with a snort, pointing at Cole, but looking at Stan. "Him we spend gas on." Simon and Keith laughed in the back seat.
Since arriving in Southport, it had been a long succession of hugs and hellos and let me show you this-or-that and you need to meet so-and-so. The whole congregation had shown up for the potluck supper, it seemed to Cole, filling his head with more names and faces than he'd ever be able to remember: Gordon, Curt, Sally, Joe, Ann, and a couple of dozen more. It didn't seem to matter whether he could remember their names or not. To them he was the Wayfaring Stranger, some sort of savior, and it was their honor and privilege to help him in any manner they might, and they were just glad to have met him.
Ken and Celia were kind and gracious hosts, though Celia seemed distant and worried. The congregants brought venison and chicken, potatoes and onions and salad greens. There were zucchini fritters with real butter and baked beans with real maple syrup. One woman, Ellen, brought Greek yogurt with dried blueberries. A man named Ryan brought corn bread hot out of his brick oven. One person, an older fellow whose name Cole couldn't recall, brought a whole case of six unopened Mylar bags full of Cape Cod Salt & Vinegar potato chips, a treat he'd been saving because, as he put it, "Where else would the Wayfaring Stranger come but to Boothbay Harbor?" The food was better, and more plentiful, than either Cole or Stan would ever have expected. And the people were happier. Save, it seemed, for Celia.
"We're not really a church, you know," an old woman named Annabelle told Cole after the meal. She'd grabbed him by the elbow and ushered him to the back porch as the others had gone about cleaning up. Five-feet-two at best, with short, iron-grey hair and a Roman nose, there was more than a little of Ness about her. But where Ness was all sweetness and comfort, Annabelle was quiet and firm, with no time for nonsense. She got right to her point. "We organized as a church to give us some cover with the State and Federals," she said. She glanced over her shoulder, back into the kitchen, to make sure they were alone. "And to keep the Pastor Clinton crowd off our backs. You understand?"
Cole shook his head. "I'm not..."
"Churches are about God and Jesus," said Annabelle. "We're not. Or not all of us, at any rate. But after all the craziness, and with the good Pastor on television every night rousing the rabble, it feels much safer to pretend that we are. You heard what happened in Oakland, right?"
Cole shook his head. "No, I don't think-"
"They executed a coven of Wiccans in a public park, Mr. Thomas." She pierced him with her gaze. "The Clinton folk. Just last week. They killed eight people. Then burned down three blocks of the city.
'God-fearing Christians,' this was. We're not that."
"So what are you?" asked Cole. He nodded toward the others in the house. "You just seem like regular people to me," he added. "Like I was, before I met Linda."
Annabelle reached out to take Cole's hand. "We're the ones who've been paying attention, Stranger. The ones who've long known that society as we knew it would soon unravel. The ones who could see that there was much more going on than any of us were being told. The ones who knew to prepare and make ready." She stepped closer to Cole and gazed up into his eyes. "We were the ones who were laughed at and dismissed. UFO buffs, they called us. Conspiracy theorists. Doomers. Contactees. Abductees." She pointed to the stars above. "Most of us have met the Strangers, Sir," she said, her voice hushed. "Many have been taken by them, taken into what appear to be their ships, or their homes, though that doesn't happen these days, as far as we can tell. Not since the Grid appeared." Annabelle took a moment to stare up at the Grid she had just mentioned, then turned back to Cole. "When an artist, musician, and blogger named Derrick Lasko published The Book of the Stranger, which he said was given to him in a vision on the very day the Grid went up, those of us who saw his posting knew. It was as if something inside of us was switched on. Something put there by the Strangers. We knew then that we'd been taken into their confidence for some vital purpose. Made ready. Instructed. We remembered being shown a small black cube. And we remembered being told..." Annabelle stopped to wipe a tear from her eye like she might flick off a mosquito. She let go of Cole's hand and turned to take hold of the porch railing, gazing out over the Grid-lit yard.
"You remembered being told..." coaxed Cole in a gentle voice.
Annabelle raised her shoulders slightly and cocked her head. "We were told about your coming," she said evenly. She turned back to Cole and gestured toward the house with her hand. "Most of us. By the Strangers themselves. Not about you, specifically. But about the Wayfaring Stranger, one of their kind, come to Earth as one of us, to give us aid in a very grim time. Believe me, we were just as surprised as you, to learn that the Wayfaring Stranger was the President's husband. But of course, in retrospect, it all makes perfect sense."
Cole smiled and shook his head. "And that's what I don't get," he said. "I mean. Because of some flashes of lights that came out of my hands? I mean... really? If I were this Wayfaring Stranger guy, wouldn't I know about it? Wouldn't I remember if I was an alien from another planet? Wouldn't I be having nightmares or... or memories or something? And strange..." Cole stopped. His face had grown dark with confusion.
"You have been, haven't you," said Annabelle. "Having nightmares? Memories? Glimpses into past lives? The Book of the Stranger says that you've been here before, many times. Learning the ways of human beings. Adding your consciousness to the human spirit. And now there's a power emanating from your hands, Stranger. Vince saw it, and we believe him. And you snatched one bullet from the air, and survived the impact of another."
"And the coloring book..."
Annabelle nodded. "Drawn by Derrick Lasko himself," she said.
Cole looked down at the porch's worn planking and sighed heavily, then rubbed his eyes. He remembered being a kid, building tunnels in the haylofts on the family farm. He remembered growing up, going to school, holding hands with his first girlfriend, getting that horrible sunburn that itched so much they'd had to sedate him. He remembered his Mother singing in the kitchen and his father's love of maps. It was all so... human.
"Let me show you something," said Annabelle, pulling open the back door and disappearing into the noisy house. In a moment she was back with a book in her hand. "This is The Book of the Stranger," she said, holding out the thin, trade-sized paperback. "An original copy from the first print run supervised by Derrick himself, just before he was murdered." She handed the book to Cole. "Look at the title page." She reached back inside the door and turned on the porch light.
Cole took the book in hand and turned to get the best light. The cover was lurid, a black and white star-field with a classic "flying saucer" graphic zipping through space. It reminded Cole of fifties UFO movies and comic books. Flipping to the title page, he found another line drawing, this one more finely rendered than the coloring book image, but undoubtedly by the same artist. It showed the Wayfaring Stranger apparently walking on water, a shoreline in the distance, with squiggles of what looked like light or energy emanating from his entire body.
"The resemblance is uncanny, wouldn't you say?" said Annabelle, peering over his shoulder.
Cole nodded. It was.
"Lasko was murdered?" asked Cole as he stared at the image.
Annabelle sighed heavily. "Last October. He was living in Brooklyn and they were moving people into the Shelters before winter hit. Tried to stop some kids from stealing his blankets. They attacked him. Nearly took his head off.
"Jesus!" muttered Cole.
Annabelle pointed at the image of Cole. "It's a wonder none of us made the connection," she said, looking from the drawing to Cole and back again. "I mean... it's not like your face wasn't known to us."
Cole leafed quickly through the rest of the book. Seeing no more illustrations, he closed it and handed it back to Annabelle. "So Lasko was in Brooklyn. Is the Church of the Stranger centered there? Is it all over the country?"
Annabelle clutched the book to her breast. "There are church members all over the world now, Stranger," she said. "But in the past couple of years, a large percentage have moved to New England, with the largest concentration right here in Maine. Partly because many other areas of the country were more quickly unraveling, from the drought and fires and violence. Partly because Derrick said in The Book that the Wayfaring Stranger would most likely appear somewhere in the Northeast United States. And partly because you and President Travis came to Augusta." She reached back in and turned off the porch light so they could better see the Grid.
One of the dishwashers, Philip, came to the door and started to say something, but Annabelle shook her head and closed the door on him. She stepped closer to Cole, took his elbow, and walked him down the steps to the back yard so that they could see more of the sky. "When Linda Travis broke the silence," she said, looking upward, "we paid attention. We were experiencers and researchers and writers, doctors and PhDs and scientists and contractors and housewives, seekers and thinkers and knowers. We knew that her revelations were the most important news in the world. We knew that everything would change. And we knew our time was coming." She glanced at Cole, then stared again at the stars, beckoning from beyond the Grid. "The Book of the Stranger served to bring us together," she said. She reached out and grabbed Cole's hand again. "And here we are." She turned to face him. "And now here you are. And we're so happy to have you."
Cole frowned, remembering Ken's wife at the dinner table. "So what's up with Celia?" he asked. "She does not seem happy."
"Ah..." said Annabelle. "It's Celia's sister, Beth. She woke up this morning with a rash across her face."
"Oh, my," murmured Cole.
Annabelle nodded. "Yes," she said. "Greensleeves got here before you did."
Cole sighed, closing his eyes, trying to assemble the pieces that did not seem to fit. He glanced down at his hands, remembering the flames that he'd seen spouting from them, then turned to the house at the sounds of laughter. Somebody was tuning a violin. He pointed at the book in Annabelle's arms. "Does that book say what I'm supposed to do?" he asked.
Annabelle looked away, only for a moment, but long enough for Cole to notice. She did not want to answer this. The porch light came on and Ken stepped out, his face a question. Annabelle held up a single finger and Ken nodded and went back inside. She looked up at Cole. "They want us back inside now," she said. "It's time for some music. And then they'd like you to say a few words."
Cole opened his mouth to protest but Annabelle held up a hand to stop him. "But we can't do any of that until I tell you what I brought you out here to tell you."
Cole froze at the gr
im tone of her words. "And what is that?" he said at last.
"The Book," she said. "It says only one thing about what you are here to do." Annabelle cleared her throat. "He comes to stop his greatest love from destroying the human race," she recited. She held Cole's gaze. "We think that refers to Linda Travis, Stranger."
8.4
"Just watch," said the Fisherman. Linda looked where he pointed as they hovered in space a few hundred feet above the Herschel Colony. Below was a complex of buildings - domes and spheres and one enormous cube - all connected with covered tramways and glass-domed tunnels. The complex was roughly triangular, each corner marked with a huge tetrahedron constructed, it seemed, from stainless steel. William was pointing at a wide, flat expanse of what appeared to be stone or concrete. Up through it, as if passing through smoke or fog, rose a small, silvery disc perhaps twenty-five feet across.
The disc cleared the concrete pad by fifty feet, tilted approximately thirty degrees, glowed brightly, and jumped away into space. Not toward the Earth or Sun, but away from them both. Off into the depths beyond. In a moment it was lost from view.
"Probably a supply run," said William, turning to Linda. "The extra-Solar colonies are not yet self-sufficient in many things."
Linda shook her head in frustration. "This is all too much, William," she said. "I know you're having fun showing off your secrets, and I have so many questions, but I need to get home. Please. Tell me what I need to know. And tell me how this all relates to your thinking that you can talk me into pulling the plug on the human race. Give me the Reader's Digest Condensed version, okay? I'm tired of this."
The Fisherman raised an eyebrow, as if Linda had just committed a major breach of protocol or politeness. Linda didn't care. As charming as William could be with his accent and his stories, she'd reached her limit. Enough was enough. She had a family to get back to. She had a country to run.
Rumi's Field (None So Blind Book 2) Page 26