In any event, I was not going to wait for Heather. She would insist I do what the doctors tell me, a slave to her maternal instincts. I left the toilet a little cautiously. I was supposed to be in bed. Discharging myself was not going to be pleasant. I knew they could not hold me there, if I didn't want to be, but if they suspected I had a head injury they could perhaps pull something under the mental health laws and keep me under observation. It might be better to make an unauthorised exit. I wasn't sure of the legality of that, either. But I had to do something.
A bold exit through the front door would be the best move, I thought. Just walk out. This was a major public hospital, who was going to notice me among a crowd? I looked around the corridor and realised I had absolutely no idea what floor I was on. It was a huge place. The first thing was to get away from the nurses' station and perhaps this whole floor.
I found an elevator and pressed the button.
The elevator came and I stepped inside. There was an orderly standing behind an old man in a wheelchair. The old man looked grumpy, as if he was about to be on the receiving end of something either painful or undignified. He glared at me as if it was my fault.
The ground floor button was already lit. I was on the fifth floor. The doors closed and the elevator descended.
When the doors opened at the bottom, I didn't step out. This was because the doctor who had seen me in my ward was waiting there to step in. He saw me in my street clothes and frowned.
"Hello, Miss Branwell," he said.
"Hello," I said. "Doctor...” What the hell was his name? “...Lesion?"
The orderly beside us chuckled, then turned it into a nervous cough. The old man apparently didn't hear, perhaps lost in his own gloomy premonitions of tubes and needles and invaded orifices.
The doctor stepped into the lift. The orderly suddenly remembered where he was and started to push the old man out. There was a moment's confusion as the wheelchair caught on the doctor's gown.
"Miss Branwell, I have to recommend you stay with us," he said, struggling to unhook himself. "We would like to keep an eye on you."
"I'm fine," I said, trying to edge past.
Then a sausage fell from the ceiling and landed on the old man's head. I almost didn't see it, so accustomed was I to their appearance by now. But the old man wasn't so blasé. He cried out, reaching up to slap it off. It fell into his lap.
"What the...?" the doctor started to say, his gown still caught on the wheelchair. The man's drip was now entering the confusion as he batted the sausage with the back of his hand, the drip tube flapping against the doctor's face.
I took the opportunity to step out of the elevator just as the doors closed. But the doctor recovered quickly. As I hesitated for a second pondering which way to go, the lift doors started to open again. I took another opportunity and ran like hell.
I was in a long corridor, and quite lost. There were signs everywhere, but none were marked "This way, Emily", which would have been most helpful.
There had to be an exit somewhere.
I could hear hurried steps behind me and wondered if it was the doctor. He was my own age and looked capable of a fair turn of speed. I wasn't going to risk looking round to find out. I turned a corner, saw a sign saying: Casualty Reception, with an arrow, and went that way.
I did glance behind me then, because I could no longer hear the pursuing footsteps. But the doctor was there, only this time he was talking on his mobile phone. Perhaps he was arranging an ambush at the main doors. Why wouldn't they just let me go? I had rights. Was there something they hadn't told me? Did they suspect there was more to me than normal? Were the lesions on my foot something unknown to medical science and they wanted me to stay around so they could examine them more closely? They were intriguing questions, but I had no time to think about them.
I decided against going to the casualty reception and ducked into another ladies toilet. There were three cubicles, the last one unoccupied. I entered and slid the catch to Engaged.
This was what my life had become, then: trapped in a toilet cubicle, all exits blocked.
Perhaps I should give in and go quietly back to bed. But no, I had to see this through. Once good old me started on some stupid, impulsive enterprise, it had to be followed through to the bitter and, no doubt, embarrassing end. No intelligence permitted.
But what now? Doubtless, if I tried to leave the toilet, they would be waiting for me. I looked around but there was nothing to inspire brilliant ideas: a toilet, a toilet paper holder, a sanitary disposal, a wall and, high up, a small, louvered window. I might be able to break the glass or remove the louvers, but the window looked too small for me to fit through.
If only I was in my star-state again, I could slide through the wall easily. But I wasn't.
Then I thought, maybe I could be. I had slipped in and out of that state involuntarily on several occasions now. What if I tried to do it? I was on the ground floor; there was probably nothing on the other side of the wall to get in the way. And even if there was, I could move through that too. It was worth a try.
I closed my eyes and concentrated. It's harder than you think to will yourself to be a patch of space. Ever done it? You stand there furrowing your brow, maybe with your tongue sticking out a bit, with random and quite irrelevant thoughts popping in and out like unwelcome guests, and the more you try to concentrate the more the other thoughts get in.
...Think, think, think, stars...come on, stars...
(...It smells in here...)
...Stars, let's see some nice inky black space, come on...
(...This is stupid, it isn't going to work...)
...Just a little more, I'll open my eyes and look down and there I'll be, nice and spacey...
(...How come my clothes always change with me?...)
...No, think! Concentrate! Ok, this time, we'll do it...
(...Seriously, why don't I end up naked each time?...)
...I'll count to three and then it will happen...
(...Did I hear a knock?...)
After a minute or so things settled down a little. I tried to remember how I felt before I had become star-like on the earlier occasions, but could not recall if I had been thinking of anything or doing anything particular when it had happened. Once outside Max's office, once on Joanna's back veranda.
I gave up and opened my eyes.
Me: darkness and vast interstellar distances; a few nearby stars, and a big blob of something cloud-like in the foreground, near my navel. I was space again, and my real body had slipped aside somewhere. Nothing to it.
I turned to the wall and hesitated a second. Sliding accidentally through the edge of a swimming pool was all very well, but I had never done this deliberately before and my mind was holding me back from just walking forwards and stepping through a wall. There was no knowing what was on the other side. I might turn corporeal again half-way through. That would be a real problem for the cleaners. Would I die immediately, the atoms of my body mixed in with those of the wall, or slowly and painfully, still conscious and encased in brick? Or would everything just explode as two solid objects tried to occupy the same space? But of course the longer I stood there deciding if it was going to work the more likely I would lose the ability to do so.
Flinching a little, I stepped into the wall.
Things went black as my body moved through concrete, steel reinforcing, more concrete, and then the outside world came into view.
I was standing in an industrial rubbish bin, garbage piled around and through me. It smelled bad. I kept walking, passing through the garbage and then the metal side of the bin.
Safe. I was in a little courtyard, several doors from the building leading into it. I closed my eyes again, concentrated on not being space-like, but when I looked again I still was.
Hmm, this could be a problem.
"Hey!" someone shouted.
I turned to see a hospital orderly standing in one of the doorways. He was staring at me, mouth-open. I
felt like saying "What are you looking at?" but decided against it. There was an open side to the courtyard that looked like it led to a parking lot. I started running. The man in the doorway yelled something but I kept going. It would be something to tell his grandchildren.
I ran through the parking lot, and could hear people shouting or otherwise expressing surprise. I really couldn't blame them: I probably would have muttered some mild expletive myself in their place. A couple pushing a pram were a little perturbed when I ran through their baby, but I hadn't seen them until it was too late. Then I gained the street, and saw a taxi rank. Ignoring the calls and the stunned people, I went to the nearest cab. I looked at the driver through the window.
"Hello," I said.
"Where to?" he asked.
That was a very calm reply to give to a drift of stars. I looked at myself and found that, without noticing the change, I had ceased being ethereal. This was welcome, but it would be even more so if I could learn to control both sides of the equation, the coming and the going.
I opened the door and climbed into the cab. But I had forgotten my public. Several people who had seen me running through the parking lot had gathered round the cab. One was trying to reach me through the window.
"Excuse me!" he was yelling. What did he want? An autograph?
"What's going on?" asked the driver.
More people were gathering around now. I must have made quite an exit.
"Nothing," I said. "Just some fans."
"Fans? What, are you some kind of movie star?" He was looking at me over his shoulder.
I gave him Joanna's address. He squinted at me again, as if trying to recognise me, then shrugged. The people around pulled back when they heard the engine start.
I was trying to wind the window up against the arm of the man who had reached inside. I didn't want to hurt him, much less catch his arm and drag him through the streets, but he was being persistent. I grabbed a couple of sausages that had appeared on the seat next to me and put them in his hand. He felt their clammy coldness and pulled his arm out of the window just as I wound it shut.
We eased out into traffic. I looked behind at the little group of people on the pavement, staring after us. It looked like I was going to be in the news yet again. The driver was still trying to place me.
"You in TV?" he asked.
"No."
A few moments later: "I know, sports."
And then: "You a model?"
I was tempted to admit to that one. But I just kept shaking my head and glancing behind all the way to Joanna's house.
***
"You panicked."
"I didn't panic."
"Emily, it's ok to panic. You've been through a lot."
"What's all this, anyway?"
There was a large star – Joanna called it a pentacle – drawn on the floor of her study, which had been cleared of furniture. Candles had been arranged around it, and some herbs were burning in a bowl somewhere. So this was the stuff the Maestro had gone to purchase this morning. The set-up looked a little too much like devil worship for my liking – and was very reminiscent of the two circles in chalk on the floor of my house. I kept well away from it.
"The Maestro is preparing a ritual." At least Joanna had the decency to look a little dubious when she said this. Astrology I could cope with, but I was less tolerant with friends who indulged in the arcane arts. I had read a few books on magic, and thought it all very interesting, but best left to complete strangers. The Maestro was weird enough already; I didn't need Joanna to emulate him.
"What sort of ritual?"
"He calls it a warding."
That was information, even if it meant nothing to me.
"Who is he, anyway?" The question, which had been hanging around ever since I had met the man, nevertheless surprised even me when it suddenly stepped forward.
It seemed to upset Joanna, too. She deliberately avoided eye contact and paused ominously. "Um – he's a wizard. A white wizard. The best one I ever met, actually. He's very good." She was trying a little too hard to convince me.
"A wizard? What, turning people into frogs and stuff?"
"No," she said earnestly. "He doesn't do that. In fact, he doesn't like the term wizard at all. We call him Maestro."
"So he's not a musician?"
"It's Italian for master."
"He's not Italian. He's Turkish."
"Well, I guess we could call him Üstat.” Her voice was now a little hysterical. “But more people understand Maestro."
"Where did you run into him?"
"In England. He's a world authority on alternate planes of existence. I studied with him in Istanbul. We..." she hesitated.
"You what?"
But she said nothing, just flushed red a little, and in doing so spoke volumes. I had this nasty feeling Joanna had been more than a student of the Maestro, and I looked back at the pentacle to avoid betraying myself.
The pentacle was drawn on Joanna's polished wood floor. Strange and mystical runes had been scrawled at various points around it. The candles dripped wax onto it as well. There was going to be trouble, I could see: Joanna cherished her floors.
"What does he intend to do?" I asked, not quite sure if I wanted an answer.
"He's going to protect you from the force that tried to abduct you."
"Does he know what it is?"
"He believes it's some form of evil force from beyond our universe."
"Well, that's a relief. I thought I was in trouble."
"Emily, please." She looked at me and pouted a little. "I'm a prognosticator. Astrology, tarot, palm reading. That sort of thing. He's – he's a higher order of psychic. If he knows something that can help you, then let him try it. His idea of putting you in the circle almost got you - well, the Maestro says something tried to take your soul. He's very sorry. But he thinks this way is better."
"Do you believe that?"
"I don't know."
"So the Maestro wants to put me in a pentacle. May I ask how that differs from a circle, except that it's pointy instead of round?"
Joanna said nothing.
I rolled my eyes. This was getting ridiculous. "Ok, you foretell the future. Why don't you tell mine, then? Tell me what's going to happen to me. Am I going on a long journey, meeting a tall, dark stranger or something?"
Joanna looked really angry. I regretted my outburst, but refused to apologise.
"I've tried," she said at last in a quiet voice. "It doesn't work. Somehow you're blocked. Remember how your presence threw my computer program out? I wasn't able to make any sense with it. It's the same with cards."
"So if I'm blocked, how is the Maestro going to get through?"
"He's very powerful."
"You sound unconvinced."
"I'm frightened, Emily."
At least I wasn't alone.
"I thought the Maestro was happy that this is happening to me. All that bit about being a 'patch of space' and so forth. He seemed to want this to happen. Now he wants to protect me from it."
"He's revised his opinion. He thought you were the focus of some enormous cosmic energy that was coming to our primal plane. Initially, he was going to perform a ritual to enhance the process, but since he heard what happened to you in the circle..."
I shook my head. Despite having my mind opened to new possibilities lately, this magic pentacle demon-warding crap was going too far. My allegiance had swayed again: I was now leaning heavily towards the Scientists and their possible explanations, rather than this stuff which looked just as dangerous as what was happening to me already.
"What do you think, Joanna? What's going on?"
Maestro Birgili suddenly walked into the room. He was quite a sight. He was dressed now in a long white robe, with a white hat on his head, and clutching a book. I wondered if it might be some esoteric tome of mystical power, then saw it was a paperback and still had the price sticker on it – bought at the same New Age shop he purchased the candles, no doubt
. He looked ridiculous, although his expression was set on Extremely Serious.
"Merhaba, Emily," he said, with some degree of warmth, certainly more than he usually had. "I am so glad you have come. I will be ready in a few minutes."
"Fine," I said. "Hang in there. Love the look." I gave him two thumbs up and hoped he understood the sarcasm.
I took Joanna by the arm and led her out of the room. I needed to get away from the heavy stench of burning herbs and the wacky figure in surgical white.
We sat in the lounge and I asked my question again. Joanna looked sad.
“Well?” I asked.
"You want to know what I think?"
"Yes."
"Me?"
"Yes. You. Put aside everyone else's opinion and just give it to me straight. You and David are the only ones I really trust anyway. He hasn't formed any conclusions yet. How about you?"
"Neither have I. But," and she lowered her voice, "I don't think it's a demon."
"That's good."
"I think you're tapping into cosmic forces on a major scale. That's all I can offer you at the moment. These are paranormal things and there has to be a paranormal explanation."
"Ok. And I know you can't foresee anything about me, but what do you think is going to happen?"
"Oh, Emily…"
"Please Joanna."
"I think – I'm worried you're going to get hurt."
Me too.
***
Joanna and I had lunch: pasta and salad. Birgili was not with us. He was conducting his ritual, having taken samples of my hair, fingernails and sweat. He had cut the lock of hair and fingernails himself and used a white gauze pad to collect sweat from my forehead. There was plenty there: I was thinking about what Joanna had said and I was feeling very hot indeed. I had no intention of watching what he was going to do with these. I didn't want to know. We let him get on with it. It was a crock anyway, with his paperback spell book, economy pack candles and hastily-sewn bedsheet.
David rang. I was closer to the phone and answered it with my mouth full of fettuccini. There was a large amount of static on the line. We had noticed the TV reception was shot, too, when we tried to watch the news updates. David and I went through the "Yes, yes, I know I should be in hospital" bit fairly quickly. He had rung there first and was told I had discharged myself unofficially. He didn't sound too upset.
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