When would I be back home? Why was I in this place? Couldn’t I have created a nicer environment if I had to be seizing?
Seizing. I wondered if I was having a terrible or worst-ever episode, and if this whole series of events was evidence that I was sicker than usual, or dying. Maybe I’d wake up in the doctor’s office, or maybe inside an ambulance. Well, that didn’t make sense, since the study took place at the hospital. Dumbass. I stood up, brushing off old leaves and clumps of dirt, and wiping my hands on the front of my wool pants. My hip, which stuck out farther from me than I was used to, ached from where I’d landed on it. I had wandered away toward a sharp curve in the river. It wasn’t as large as say, the Mississippi, but at this spot it was a good twenty yards across. Cool water met my skin as I put my hand in the river, and I could see the polished stones that sat at the bottom. Next to the flow was a puddle, some kind of spot where water occasionally overflowed here and got stagnant, and grew mosquitos.
I leaned over the puddle and looked at myself. Angular features, small nose, dark brown eyes and hair. A similar but less full jaw line than mine. I wasn’t very old yet, maybe eight or nine or ten, but I could discern how different this girl’s body was from my real one. My hands curled into fists tightly enough that I yelped from the pain of my fingernails in my palms. Geez, even my hands were different—slender, with tiny knuckles. Vision or not, I didn’t care. Without thinking I picked up a rock and hurled it into the river.
“Careful,” said a voice from behind me, “you’ll hurt the fish.”
I swung around, another stone in my hand, searching for whoever had spoken.
“Up here,” said a boy sitting high in a tall tree.
“Leave me alone,” I said. “I don’t care about the fish.”
“What an angry girl you are.”
“Go away.” For a place as desolate as this, I sure ran into a lot of people.
“Pray tell, why are you so upset?” he asked, shifting his weight. The branch fluttered.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Why not?”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“Shouldn’t you?” he asked. Even behind the large leaves I could tell he was smiling. God, I hated smiling.
“If you don’t leave, I’ll throw these rocks at you!”
“I don’t think you can throw that far.” He kept one hand on the tree trunk. He wore torn brown knickers cinched at his knees, a gray button down, collarless shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and thin laced shoes that each sported a small hole where the balls of his feet had worn through the hide. His messy, dark bangs clapped against his forehead and suggested he was not fond of a barber’s chair.
I considered showing the little brat that I didn’t throw like the girl he thought I was, when all of a sudden he came crashing out of the tree. It was a twisting, snapping fall that elapsed in several portions as his body hit strong branches and by the time he smashed onto the forest carpet I had made up the ground from the river bank to his tree.
He was breathing, wincing with each inhale. His legs flexed at terrible angles. Tears cut lines over his dirty skin.
“I’ve never fallen before,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “You’re bad luck, you.”
“You have to get out of here. We have to get you to a hospital.”
“A what?”
“A doctor. Your legs are broken. You could have internal bleeding.”
“I don’t see how you could know such a thing.”
“It’s obvious!”
“I’m done for, then. Just leave me be.” He lifted one thin arm a little and waved me away. What a strange child. Who talks like this?
“Why do you say that?” I looked around for branches I could lay on the ground so I could drag him up to the horse. I tried to remember the first aid health class I’d taken last spring of eighth grade. I knew how to make a cravat and deliver CPR, but he wasn’t bleeding badly anywhere and his heart obviously was still beating. His legs were a tangled mess, though.
“If it’s past noon, our doctor is in the tavern.” His words came out as tiny grunts.
“He’s drinking?”
He frowned at me. “My father owns the tavern. Doctor Traver shows up every day at noon and stays there until we close.”
I laid out a loose-knit set of leafy branches, and had them more or less woven together as quickly as I could manage. “Okay, I’m going to move you now, uh, what is your name?”
“Why are you still playing games with me?” he asked. “I’m Lucas.”
“Lucas, I’m Jacqueline,” I said, even though the name seemed foreign to me. “And it’s going to hurt when I move you.”
“Jacqueline, you are a strange girl and you enjoy stating the obvious.”
I crouched behind him and slipped my hands under his armpits, pulling him to the mat as he screamed. I worried about not lashing Lucas to the branches, but he seemed to be staying put as I hauled him up to where the horse waited. Every few feet I apologized for hurting him. Instead of answering me he just grit his teeth and moaned like a stuck cat.
Now out of the woods, I could see just how far we had to ride to get into town, and I was having trouble wrapping my head around how to move him. If I rode the horse we could go faster but I wouldn’t be able to keep him from sliding off. If I stayed next to him I didn’t know how to steer the horse. In any case I didn’t know how to secure Lucas to the animal, until I saw the small coil of rope at the back of the saddle.
“I hurt so much,” said Lucas, who had turned pale. He was shaking a little, which I imagined added to his awful pain.
“I know, I’m so sorry. Try not to move.” I fumbled with the rope and yanked on it to tighten whatever kind of knot I’d fashioned. I had never been interested in the Boy Scouts. Sanjay, the Eagle Scout, would have known what to do.
Freaking Sanjay. When is this nightmare over?
From the top of the hill an older man driving an uncovered wagon bore down on us, his two large horses at full tilt. He wore the same dour expression as the schoolteacher, but masked by a full, yellow beard. I could tell he was tall even though he was crouched over the horses at the front of the wagon. Dust billowed up from behind him; the ground vibrated. He assessed that we were in trouble, and he softened a little, letting his shoulders relax at the top of his barrel-shaped chest.
“Well, so there’s the Griffith’s horse,” he said, jumping down and taking the reins. “Kentucky hasn’t killed anyone for horse stealing in a while, but the penalty’s still on the books, young lady.”
The word “lady” sliced into me.
“Uh, okay. Can you help me before you arrest me? My friend fell.”
He bent down and brushed Lucas’s bangs out of his eyes. “Took a tumble, eh, son?” I thought I saw a moment of shock in his eyes as he noted the boy’s broken legs.
“Let’s get you to the doc. I expect your dad will be there as well.”
Lucas looked even smaller as he scooped him up, held in the driver’s arms like a stringless marionette. The boy screamed again as his legs jostled. It made my own legs hurt to see it.
“We’ll talk about the horse later,” he said to me, motioning for me to sit at the front of the wagon. He hitched Lucille’s horse to the others, and we raced into town, the same square I’d seen during my last brain study session. My mind was nothing if not consistent.
The horses slowed once we pulled up to the tavern, and the driver leapt off his perch from behind them.
“Tie ‘em up,” he told me in a gruff tone, going to lift Lucas out of the wagon bed. I did as instructed. Lucas was past screaming at this point, mumbling mostly to himself and saying he was disappointed his father should know of his gracelessness.
I double-checked the reins and pushed one heavy door open, letting the light stream into the musty space. Lucas lay out on the bar counter, crying. In the darkness, his father, the bartender, rushed to him, dismayed at the sight of his crumpled son. They resembled each ot
her, with their blue eyes, underformed chins, and small frames.
The wagon driver noticed me in the doorway. “Girl, get over here and make the doctor some coffee.” Girl. I wished they’d stop calling me that. I walked behind the bar and asked where the coffee was.
“It’s out in the back office,” said Lucas’s father, pointing toward a door in the corner. “You’ll find the pot back there, too.” He took a small tumbler away from the man I assumed was the doctor.
I looked around the room, not sure where I would find what I needed. A desk, heavy with papers, a metal typewriter, and a large glass that looked like an hourglass over a bowl of mostly clear, off-white liquid. An oil lamp, that’s what it was. Towering bookshelves crammed with novels, a dog-eared encyclopedia, and a MacMillan book. Curled up under a table was a brown and white cat that looked at me with one eye, the other intent on sleeping. Why was I in here making coffee while that boy was stretched out in pain on a bar, maybe dying?
At least it was something to do, not that I had any idea how to make coffee appear in a cup. In the corner of the room, a few feet past a pile of papers, I found the wood stove, with a dented, black iron kettle sitting on top. I fumbled to find some matches to light a few logs, then dropped the box when I heard the screams. I ran into the bar. One of Lucas’s legs was now straight, for the most part.
“What are you doing in here, girl? Get out of here and don’t come back until you have coffee with you!” The wagon driver turned back and held down Lucas, who had a belt in his mouth, while the doctor set his leg. I hurried back into the office and looked for a coffee container. Why was I still here? Who would come up with such awful things in their mind like broken boys, and alcoholics, and shit, what was wrong with me that I’d imagined myself as a girl?
Hearing Lucas yell again brought me out of my thoughts and I stumbled over to the wood stove, lighting the chopped logs on fire. The kettle was about half-full, so I left it on the top of the burner to get hot, and found where Lucas’s father kept his provisions. A yellow bag on a low shelf read Arbuckle’s Ariosa Coffee, so I put two spoonfuls of that in the tin mug from the desk, and as soon as I saw steam rising from the kettle, I filled the cup to the brim and came back out to the bar.
Lucas’s dark hair lay matted against his sweaty forehead. He turned to me and watched while I handed the hot cup to the doctor, who looked sober enough already if not a bit unsteady from dealing with the gruesome details of this patient. The leather strap was gone from Lucas’s mouth and now lying at the end of the bar with deep bite marks. His legs looked reasonably aligned, and perhaps he had a little color back in his face. His eyes had a wild expression.
“Jacqueline, hold my hand.” He sounded haggard, shredded. I must really hate myself to have a hallucination like this, I thought.
I did as he asked. His fingers were tiny and frigid and it felt like cupping a frightened mouse.
“I think I’m dying,” said Lucas. I turned to the doctor.
“You’re useless! Why aren’t you helping him?”
Dr. Traver looked worn out, as if he had spent the whole morning walking here from the bottom of the valley. He was thin and reeked of cheap liquor; his fingers ended in clumsy clubs, and they would not quit shaking. He narrowed his eyes at me in a frown, and said through his stubble that I should just leave him alone and button my lip.
“You’re not going to die,” I said to Lucas. “You just—”
Bright lights, blinding me again, while I tried to adjust to the invasion in my eyeballs.
“Okay, Jack, there you are, buddy.” Dr. Dorfman, leaning into my face so closely I could see the pattern of his nose hair.
“Hi,” I said. It was all I could manage.
“You just had a little seizure, is all,” said Cindy. “We’re done for today. Try and relax, honey.”
Words came out of my mouth; I heard them as if from a great distance.
“What did he just say?” asked the doctor.
“I think he asked for someone named Lucas. Who is Lucas?”
Then darkness fell over me, and I was gone from the lab, the saloon, all of it.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE ADOLESCENT ROOM of the neurology ward was full when I was brought in, so I’d been admitted to the pre-teen room, which had six beds facing each other. Disney characters were painted on the walls, their smiles frozen forever against the puke yellow paint color. I could only imagine what travesty of animation was plastered in the teen room. The Disney cartoons looked creepy at night with the main lights turned off and the flickering fluorescent bulbs over each bed giving everything in the room an undead blue tinge. I lay on my flat mattress and counted my worries—I was missing quarter exams at school, my brain was somewhere between mush and Lala Land, and I wasn’t sure what body I was in at any given minute. Nice list!
Mom had taken to sleeping in a stained orange chair that had broken sometime in the last seventeen years and no longer fully reclined. She heard me sit up in my bed, and stirred.
“Oh, Jack, you’re up. I’m so glad,” she whispered. The worry lines in her forehead seemed to have deepened.
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“You are not fine. You haven’t been fine since that day in the lab.”
“Mom—”
“Don’t ‘Mom’ me,” she said, and a nurse at the station just outside the door looked up at us.
“Something is wrong and nobody’s talking about it, and I don’t like it.” Her nails were bitten past the beds of her fingers, and the skin there was uneven and raw. In better light I could have told if it was red or not.
“I’ve only been here a couple of days,” I said. I didn’t have the energy to help her settle down.
“Oh, see? You have no idea, Jack. My poor boy.”
One of the nurses walked in, smiling all fake at me. “Look at you, doing so much better.”
“So what he’s awake,” said my mother. “He thinks he’s been here for two days. You tell him he’s been in that bed for a month. You broke my son!”
***
Slowly, the people in my life relayed the story to me: I’d had a fifteen-minute seizure during the study session and Dr. Dorfman worried that I was at risk for brain damage, as I spent some of that time not breathing well enough. Hypoxia, he called it. The staff brought me to the emergency department of the hospital where they flooded my system with whatever drugs they thought would settle my synapse activity. I spent the next month in and out of consciousness, mumbling about coffee grounds, a boy named Lucas, horses, and one-room school houses. People pondered what I meant by all of it. My friends Sanjay and Jeannine came by most days after school, telling semi-conscious me about all of the stupid things on the bus and in class that I’d missed. And my father and mother took turns staying at my side in case I woke up, even though before my bad seizure, my Dad spent most of my life at his auto shop. I had caused everyone to focus on me.
A simple EEG gave the doctors hope that I was better from whatever funny business had ensued in my head. Dr. Dorfman came in to talk to me. He stood at the side of my bed as still as a statue.
“Looks like you’re ready to go home. I hear you got out of your midterm exams.”
“I guess so,” I said. This was news to me.
“So we’re not going to keep you in the study any more, Jackson. I’m sorry about that.”
What am I supposed to think about this?
“So that’s it? I’m going to have seizures forever? Like Mom?” My throat hurt.
Dorfpoodle stared at his shoes in the least helpful way possible, thinking I don’t know what.
“Well, most people who have epilepsy in childhood outgrow it in adolescence. You may still see a shift in your alpha waves—become non-epileptic.”
He stared at me some more, and I thought about telling him that he was creeping me out.
“You still seem worried,” he said finally.
Why, because your doctor-speak isn’t reassuring?
“The
seizures I had in your study…were different. Like long hallucinations.”
Dorfpoodle pulled up a plastic visitor’s chair that had a big Mickey Mouse on the seat. I wondered why anybody would want to smother a beloved, famous mouse just by sitting down, but maybe chair designers knew something I didn’t.
“It’s common for the brain to insert flashes of images or memories in the midst of a seizure. It happens to a lot of people.”
I pushed myself up straighter in the bed.
“These weren’t flashes, this was a full-length movie.” Don’t tell him any more, he’ll think you’re crazy.
Instead he cleared his throat. A lot. Like, for ten seconds. I was about to hit the nurse call button, or I thought about it, at least.
“Some patients report having more involved images during a seizure, it’s true. You are a bright young man, I’m sure your brain wants to do all it can to reconcile the hyperactivity with whatever material it has.”
He really needed to work on his bedside manner. I gave up arguing with him. He was the neurologist and I was just the child, right?
Half an hour later, some woman dressed head to toe in purple came into the room and handed my mother a paper saying I could go home. I said goodbye to the kids in the room with me who felt they knew me. I had no clue who they were, having slept through most of my stay there. One girl, only five, had a heart condition and couldn’t leave her bed. Her almond-shaped, dark eyes reminded me of Lucas’s—pleading, vulnerable. She smiled and waved. “Now I won’t have to listen to you snore anymore.”
The Unintentional Time Traveler (Time Guardians Book 1) Page 4