by Rob Shepherd
There was a notebook hidden in the stable. Shannon flipped it open, still half-expecting to find a list of drug dealers’ phone numbers or worse. But all she found was what looked like wobbly Chinese letters on some pages and math equations on others, full of irritated crossings-out and false starts. It looked very advanced for a girl of her age. Shannon knew that Piper studied Mandarin and that Oliver was supposedly a math genius, but Mikaela was often prickly and defensive when the subject of schoolwork was raised, as if she was ashamed of her own quick mind. Shannon gently replaced the notebook in the stable and did not bring it up.
There was a little exhibit of sorts in the entrance to the village hall, the children’s paintings and artwork pinned on a board to brighten up the place. Shannon lingered over it while she waited for the play session to end. Mikaela had really come into her own in the last few months, and had even ousted Piper as the group’s leader. Her blue paintings dominated the exhibit. There was a cool, abstract sort of beauty to them that even Shannon could appreciate now.
She checked her watch. The group was still in progress and she let herself into the hall. The children were lying on gym mats meditating. A man with a greying ponytail and ropes of beads around his neck was sat cross-legged among them. She didn’t recognise him.
“It’s cold out here,” Oliver was saying. “It’s dark.”
The other children murmured softly in agreement.
“We need to sleep,” Oliver said fretfully, like a child kept up past bedtime. “To dream. I’m so tired.”
“Where are you?” the man asked eagerly. “What is your name?”
“Kssh.. thsshh..” Oliver’s brow wrinkled, making sounds like static. “I don’t know. I can’t say it!”
He sounded distressed. Shannon stepped forward uneasily.
“We have different bodies now,” Mikaela said. She sounded very calm. “Say it in your mind.”
“What’s going on?” Shannon’s voice rang out, breaking the spell.
“Shannon!” Audrey rebuked. She had been sat in the corner watching. “Colin was holding a regression session. You can’t interrupt these things.”
“It’s alright,” Colin said easily. “We can pick it up next week. I’ve never had such a naturally talented group.”
The children were getting up. Mikaela threw a thunderous look at her mother, her eyes the dark bruise-blue of storm clouds, and marched off to collect her coat and bag. Little Oliver struggled to his feet looking dazed and unsteady. He didn’t seem quite sure where he was as he tagged obediently after the others.
Shannon turned to Colin. “What are you doing to them?” she demanded.
“It’s a kind of hypnosis,” he said, offering her a sunny open smile. “Regression. We use it to help people remember their past lives. Indigo children, children from the stars, whatever you call them, especially tend to be old souls. Perhaps you’ve noticed that Mikaela often seems wise beyond her years or talks about ‘when she was here before’?”
“No,” Shannon said shortly. “I haven’t.”
“Ah, well,” Colin seemed unperturbed. “Indigos often feel like they can’t talk about this sort of thing with outsiders. They’re very misunderstood children. But Mikaela has been really making progress here. She’s been remembering all kinds of things, haven’t you?”
“I think I’ve heard quite enough,” Shannon said.
She took Mikaela and left the hall, ignoring Piper’s sudden flood of glassy crocodile tears as she caught Shannon’s sleeve. “You’re not going to take Mikaela away from us, are you? She’s our friend.”
Mikaela, for her part, didn’t seem upset. She trailed after her mother, in silence all the way home. When Shannon sat her down and explained that she wouldn’t be going to the village hall any more, Mikaela shrugged neutrally and went to her room.
Steve looked up a YouTube video that evening and played it for Shannon. A host from a daytime TV show was interviewing a man she recognised as Colin, who was allegedly some kind of indigo child expert.
“There’s nothing sinister about it at all,” Colin said calmly, rebutting some joke from the host. “What’s sinister is the way we don’t listen to these kids. They’re here to put the world to rights, to fix global warming and HIV and genetically modified food. They’re evolving. They’re being born immune to cancer and AIDS. They’re speaking to one another mind to mind right across the globe. And we stifle their voices, medicate them, put them into care homes when these kids are here to change the world-”
“What a load of shit,” Steve said mildly, then shivered. “It’s cold in here. Has Mikaela got her window open again?”
She had. She was leaning out dangerously into the open air, and when Shannon hauled her away from the window, she seemed strangely floppy as if she had been asleep.
“I was talking to Piper and Duncan,” she said, watching her mother slam the window shut. “Since you won’t let me see them.”
“That’s not true,” Shannon said. “They can come round to play any time. It’s just all this indigo nonsense I don’t want you messing with. You’re a little girl, Mikaela, with a big imagination. There’s nothing wrong with that but I don’t want you losing touch with reality and thinking you can talk to people in your head. That kind of thing is dangerous.”
Something seemed to flash across Mikaela’s inky blue eyes, like a shadow beneath a river’s surface. “Piper says you’re being patronising and close-minded.”
“Piper is a smarmy little brat,” Shannon said sharply. “I’m beginning to think moving here was a mistake. Perhaps we should go back to Manchester.”
“If you like,” Mikaela said indifferently. Her lips curved in a slow smile. “It’s not like you can stop me talking to them. I can talk to them across the world if I want to. I can hear people in Beijing. I can hear whispering in space.”
Shannon nailed up the window the next morning, afraid Mikaela would fall out during one of her trances. She dragged the ladder out from the garage, planting the feet in the soft earth beneath the bedroom window, and climbed up with a hammer in her belt. From outside, she could see black smudges around the frame that looked like scorch marks but were probably mould. A fine black-silver grit rubbed away between her fingers when she touched the marks, and she tasted metal in her mouth as if she had bit down on foil.
Shannon scrubbed her hand clean against her jeans and began to hammer in the nails while Mikaela watched through the window. The glass was subtly distorted as if it had begun to melt, warping Mikaela’s features so that they didn’t seem quite right, like her face had been designed by someone who had only ever heard of a human being. For a second, Shannon had an uneasy thought that her daughter might throw open the window from the inside and send her mother and the ladder crashing down into the garden, but Mikaela only turned away from her.
She took Mikaela to the GP a week later. The doctor took several blood samples to look for anything that might explain the long periods of lethargy, the black circles beneath her eyes, and the darkening of her irises. Shannon wasn’t that surprised when she received a call back some days later asking if she could bring Mikaela in to redo the tests. The samples must have somehow been contaminated, the receptionist explained, because the results made no sense at all.
“It’s the DNA,” Mikaela said wearily behind her as Shannon put the phone down. “A lot of it’s just written off as junk DNA because it doesn’t seem to do anything. But it only needed to be switched on.”
“How do you know these things?” Shannon asked despairingly, and for a second, Mikaela looked frightened and uncertain and only eight years old again. But when Shannon knelt down to look in her daughter’s eyes, they were like twin voids open into the night sky and she could smell the dangerous tang of pear drops clinging to Mikaela’s breath.
She had packed their bags and was ready to go by the time Steve was home from work. He weakly protested that it was nothing but silly New Age nonsense, but he sounded uncertain when he looked at Mikae
la, and he went outside and started the car without any further argument.
They barely made it a mile before Mikaela screamed, and it wasn’t the scream of a frightened little girl, but a sound like a bird of prey. She thrashed as if she was having a seizure, caught up in her seat belt, her head striking the window with a thin crack. Her nose began to spurt deoxygenated blood as dark and glossy as ink. “Keep driving,” Shannon said, and climbed into the back seat with her daughter.
Mikaela was deathly pale, and the shadows beneath her eyes stood out as starkly as smudges of ash. When Shannon tried to scrub away the blood with her sleeve, she brushed Mikaela’s bare skin with the back of her hand, and for a second, her head was full of the soft thunder of voices. Thousands upon thousands of whispers layered over millennia came crashing over her like a tide, so many she was swept up and lost among them.
For that last moment as she drifted with the voices, Shannon was overwhelmingly sad rather than scared. Those voices had always been there, she thought, echoing through empty space and waiting for someone to hear them. And now the children’s minds had been opened to let them in, and like Chinese whispers, Shannon thought the angels’ messages had been distorted beyond recognition long before it filtered down to New Agers who spoke of peace and love.
She was only dimly aware of the steering wheel wrenching sideways in Steve’s hands and the car flipping over and careening down an embankment, coming to a shuddering, sliding rest on its roof. Mikaela crawled out, unhurt.
Shannon tried to follow her daughter, but her chest felt as if it was full of splinters and the car was hideously crushed and crimped in around her. She tried to call Mikaela’s name, and all that came out was a soft, liquidy wheeze.
She felt the weight of Mikaela’s blue eyes fall upon the car, and metal shrieked against metal as the side tore open like a blossoming flower and Shannon spilled out onto the wet grass. She stared up into the stars, unable to turn her head to look for her daughter. Her vision was soft and grey about the edges, but she thought she could see blue-black wings beginning to bleed across the skies like running ink.
“I can hear them,” Mikaela said nearby. Her voice was full of joy. “We remember why we’re here now.”
“Why are you here?” Shannon asked. She didn’t think she said it out loud, not through all the blood bubbling up in her chest and throat, but they heard her anyway. The children looked back at her with eyes the colour of voids, and Mikaela smiled.
“We’re here to change the world, of course,” she said.
Chiaroscuro
By KR Jordan
Moonlight shines through the broken windowpanes down upon the girl Daisy, reflecting the squares of light divided by shadowed lines.
Dark hair surrounds her moonlit face in a soft halo; her lips tipped up in a slight smile. Underneath Daisy’s closed eyelids, her eyes dance back and forth, frolicking in a slumberous dream it seemed.
She lay curled on one end of a powder blue couch, her bony knees pulled up to her chin. Not far from her on the opposite end of the couch lay Daisy’s sister Sue. She was stretched out haphazardly, all knees and elbows akimbo. Sue’s mouth in sleep was slightly open her breathing slow and even.
The room around them is veiled in a bold interplay of light and dark. As if Caravaggio had painted a portrait that came to life. Each exhalation glowed an eerie white in the striated darkness of the room. Every puff belying the frigid temperature in the room.
In her dream, Daisy was standing in their living room facing the floor to ceiling windows that looked out upon the backyard. She was admiring her handiwork of window washing; the rag clutched in one hand the window cleaner in the other. Her smile widened as she heard a vehicle pulling up the driveway. Hurriedly she packed away the rag and window cleaner under the sink.
“Sue, Daddy’s home, hurry!” she called out excitedly.
“Give me a second to finish setting the table!” Sue said. Daisy hurried over to help. They each took the edge of the table cloth and fluffed it up on the air, pausing to watch it come down, mesmerized by the happy sight; remembering summer days when their mother would fluff the sheets over them before nap time. Baby powder scented cotton sheets that floated softly down upon them as they giggled and squirmed; the stark white sheet like a magical cloud.
In just a few minutes the table is perfectly set; a vase filled with Mom’s prized yellow roses as the centerpiece.
“Okay, I’ll get Mom,” Daisy calls out happily, running out of the room.
Her mother was dressed in her favorite yellow dress and brushing through her long auburn hair as Daisy entered her room. Mom’s face was radiant and her lips so pink they could have had lipstick on them, but they didn’t. Smiling brightly at Daisy, she lifts her into her arms and kisses her nose.
“Mom, Daddy’s home,” Daisy says, the soft wind coming through the open windows ruffling her hair. Mom had opened the bedroom windows to let the breeze run through, the bed beautifully made with her favorite royal blue bedding.
“Wonderful, mija, just in time,” she said. “Wash up and change for supper, he’ll be very hungry!”
Running to her room, Daisy quickly changes her shorts and tee shirt for her Sunday best; pale pink skirt and matching floral print blouse. Grabbing a scrunchie, she pulls her dark hair up into a high ponytail. She calls out to her sister to hurry as she slips on a pair of sandals.
Running out into the hallway, Daisy notices that Sue was also dressed in her Sunday best; khaki slacks with a pearly white blouse. Walking out of the room, Sue steps into her leather shoes. Her auburn hair was pulled back from her face with a shiny silver barrette.
Both girls rush into the hallway simultaneously, almost tripping on each other, giggling joyfully. Sue reached over and straightened Daisy’s collar, Daisy brushing her sister’s hair back from her face. They hugged impulsively and continued on to the living room to await their father’s arrival.
Mom was just walking to the front door to open it for Daddy; the smell of his favorite supper of fried chicken, creamy mashed potatoes, green beans cooked with bacon, and corn on the cob permeating the air.
The girls held hands and smiled because their mother had to stand on tiptoe to look out of the peephole. Mom straightened her dress, running her palms down her thighs nervously, and opened the door wide, a smile on her face. From where the girls stood, the light shining through the doorway was brilliant and they both squinted slightly until Daddy stepped through, blocking out the light. Mom led him through and shut the door behind him.
“Daddy!” the girls call out, “we missed you!”
The girls and their mother circled Daddy and embraced him in a warm greeting. Daddy kissed each of them on the nose, but kissed Mom on each cheek. Giggling at the sight of Daddy kissing Mom, the girls turn away blushing happily.
Daddy sat at the head of the table, Mom opposite him; Daisy and Sue on each of side of them. After he said grace they passed around the food, Dad exclaiming at how perfect it all was. Neither of the girls could control their smiles as they ate the supper that Mom had lovingly made.
When supper was ended Sue and Daisy cleared the table while Mom and Dad washed the dishes.
In a few minutes, the kitchen was pristine. They each made their way to the living room, Mom turning the power on to the old console stereo. The raucous tunes of Chubby Checker’s The Twist filling the room.
Daisy ran to Dad and Sue to Mom, ready to dance as they usually did after supper when Daddy was home. Dad set Daisy’s feet upon his own as they danced away in circles. Mom and Sue twisted their hips to the music, one toe pointing out. When the song had finished, they made their way laughing and out of breath, to the couch. They lay their heads back against the couch as their laughs dwindled in increments and their breathing became regular.
It seemed only moments later that Daisy jumped up with a start, a smile spreading across her mouth knowing that she was first to awaken from the family nap.
Her smile freezes in confusio
n when she noticed it is nighttime; the striated darkness blinding her temporarily.
As her night vision came back her heart skipped a beat in bewildered confusion, tears instantly coming to her eyes. The room she looked out upon was dilapidated and filthy; the carpet threadbare. Glancing quickly around the room, she sees rude graffiti painted across the now boarded up wall of windows. The walls themselves were water stained and moldy, pieces falling away in long strands, dark soot framing everything.
Then reality came crashing down on Daisy, along with the memories.
Sue and Daisy had left for school as usual that fateful day. Mom had bought donuts and we’d eaten the sweet confection quickly and ran out the door to catch the school bus. The fire that consumed most of the house; school officials taking her and Sue out of class; walking home because there was no one to pick them up; Aunt Rachel yelling at Mom; Daddy finally showing up; Daddy turning away and leaving forever; Mom breaking down; Sue crying and crying. Daisy’s body felt pummeled with every passing moment.
How could she have forgotten? Why could she just not stay in the happy dream? Tears of betrayal streamed down Daisy’s face; low moans escaping her lips in a steady whisper of no, no, no.
“A dream. Was this all just a dream?” She whimpers miserably, circling her arms around her middle.
For the first time since she woke from her dream, Daisy notices her clothes. The pale pink Sunday clothes she had been wearing in the dream. Surprise and confusion fills her as she looks down at her beautifully clean crisp ensemble, her shining sandals and warm tanned skin that seem to glow with health.
Looking up again to the tumbledown room, Daisy notices a soft ray of moonlight cutting across the darkness of the room. A piece of the board covering the windows had fallen away, letting in the moonlight. Her gaze follows the moonbeam down to a child lying on the couch.