Parallel II - The Gift

by Paul Rice

  Chapter 19 - Precipice

  If you stand near to the edge, very near, you can look down and see things. Sometimes you can see absolutely everything. Be careful, though, because on some occasions there are certain things that you just don’t want to see...

  The last thing Jane remembered was the searing needle of pain through her side, and the sight of Ken’s worried face blurring in front of her eyes. He had been telling her not to worry but she knew he was lying, it was all over his face and that scared her. Fortunately, the amount of blood she was losing didn’t permit her to remain conscious for too long. She soon sank into the red mist, which rose slowly in her mind. In her netherworld, Jane dreamt of her father again – he was pushing her on a swing, an old metal swing, the one from the caravan park in Wales where they used to go almost every weekend when they were children. The rusty chains that suspended the seat, rasped as she rose and fell like a pendulum. She turned and looked down at him; he was a long way below her and seemed to be getting further away with every new push. In fact, when she thought about it, he was miles down below now, a tiny figure with long arms, getting further and further away with every new shove.

  As she looked back at him, Jane felt as though she was about to slip from the metal seat – the thought of flying seemed like a good idea. It almost tempted her. ‘Fly Jane, jump off and we’ll fly…’ The voice seemed to come from deep inside her head, she tried to ignore it but the temptation was definitely there, perhaps it would make the awful stitch in her side go away. Suddenly she heard her father whispering loudly in her ear, his voice drowning out that other, darker, voice. She wondered: “How could he do that when he was all the way down there?” She heard him quite clearly, though.

  “You just hold on tight now little girl, you hold on really tight! Don’t you dare fall off of that swing, missy, if you do then you’ll never stop falling…”

  Jane held tight, really tight, like he’d said. “Oww, my side, Dad stop pushing me, I want to get off – my side is killing me!” Then, with a solid thump, her father caught her. She banged into his shins and felt him as he took her in those soft caring arms. She fell backwards into him and as she did so Jane smelt her father. The familiar aroma of whiskey filled her senses – lawn-clippings and peppermints – the ones he sucked so that her mother wouldn’t smell the whiskey... All the aromas of her childhood cuddles with him came and rescued her from the dark pit, which lay beckoning from below.

  She looked up at her father and he smiled at her. “Good girl, we can’t have you falling off that swing, now can we? Good girl, there’s a love, there’s my little one.” Jane felt him hold her and then watched as the light came and smothered them. Her side flared with heat and she turned away from it to see her father as he walked away into the green glow. Turning one last time, he waved and did that little kick of his. As she faded away, Jane heard him say: “Just hold on tight lady, it’s not time to fall off, not yet, don’t you dare fall just yet.” The he said something else, words that she really did listen to: “Run Jane… Run!” The last thing she remembered was a sensation in her mouth. It was as though someone had filled it with water, living water. The coolness seemed to have a mind of its own and explored every inch of her insides as it made its sinuous way down into her stomach.

  Jane felt as though she was going back into herself.

  When she awoke, she thought the pain had gone; in fact she wasn’t even sure if there had been a pain: “Perhaps we’d just got a bit too carried away with the brandy in the bloody, blue bottle again!” Turning her head, she saw the swirling green curtain of energy surrounding her and knew that what she was experiencing had bugger-all to do with any brandy. “Oh shit – Ken, Kenny!” She croaked out her plea and then coughed with the effort. As her muscles jerked in reaction, Jane suddenly remembered what the pain in her side had felt like. A raw slice of stinging heat knifed into her abdomen and she shrieked in agony. Turning away from the pain, she found herself standing in the rain at an old bus stop. As she turned her face from the wetness and the wind, Jane realised she was surrounded by hedges and fields, it was the countryside and she remembered it. “Where the hell am I?” Her mind raced back: “Its Wales again, isn’t it… the bus stop by the park, where we used to play – Dad?” She turned and looked, but he wasn’t there. Only the rain and the cold wind kept her company this time. She shivered as the pain slithered back into her belly once more. This time it was much deeper, it reached up and clasped her heart within its thorny fingers. Jane felt it squeeze her soul and she cried out again: “Enough of this, you prick – get off me!” She rose up inside and turned to run, the pain dragged at her but she tore from its grasp. She felt something rip, deep inside of her, and then she was free, free and running.

  As she half ran and half staggered into the green mist, Jane heard the noise of an engine. Looking up, she saw there was a bus heading towards her. It was the old one… a cream and red coloured bus… the one they would catch a ride on down to the beach every Saturday. The one where they would all sit across the long back seat, messing about, feeling the cracked leather surface, scratching their bare legs. The one where that faint smell of oil seeped through the hot metal floor. It was that bus, all right. She suddenly had a thought, a memory: “Is this my bus, the one Ken meant – Oh no!”

  Jane fought to stay alive, but the pain tried to drag her back down into the mire once again. She heard it speak to her: ‘Just relax lil’ lady, yore bus is right on time. Hop on-board, why dontchya? It’s a free ride, yessiree, it’s completely free!’ Then she heard another voice in the background; it whispered thickly: “Only thang is, yoo won’t be getting off this here free ride – yoo won’t be getting off it ever, not ever, ever!” The awful voice chuckled and Jane felt it echo in her heart. Fear and anger suddenly jerked her from the stupor she had been sucked into. Pushing the dark things from within her, she looked up at the bus and saw the driver. He looked like Red, only older and meaner. His ginger hair was unkempt and his face wasn’t quite as round, either. “I thought he was dead…” It was the only thing Jane could think of as she stood rooted to the floor and watched the old bus approach her. She heard him grind the gearbox and listened as the engine whined and jerked its way up the slope. The bus became silhouetted in a dark halo of diesel fumes as it struggled towards her. The man was waving to her; as Jane looked he leaned out of the window and spat a long trail of tobacco juice into the green, Welsh hedgerow. It was to be his undoing.

  “You are nothing but a filthy bastard!” She screamed at him and then turned and ran, ran as though her very life depended upon it.

  And it did.

  She heard him laugh behind her: ‘Aww, c’mon Lady-Jane, where’s yore sense o’ huumorr?’ His thick, rusty voice mocked from inside her head. She didn’t look back and kept running, dark hair swirling in front of her face, gut screaming in protest at the white heat of pain. Pushing them all to one side, Jane ran into the mist and the blackness. The ethereal curtain surrounding her suddenly parted with a swirl of white light. Looking up through tears of pain and fear, she saw George. He came and stood at the edge of her bed and lifted her hand into his. Jane felt his cool dry skin. The pain ceased immediately and she could feel it running up her arm into the old man. He stood and smiled down at her, those blue eyes looked into her inner being and she let him take her. The weird thing was, in her mind, Jane could have sworn that George was wearing her father’s old trilby…

  In the darkness she followed George to a place, a quiet restful place where neither the pain nor any bastarding bus drivers, were invited. She heard him say: “Sleep now my dear, you have no need to be awake. Just sleep, when you awake the pain will be gone. Trust me…” She did trust him and she did sleep, slept for a long time.

  When she awoke, really awoke this time, Jane found she was lying in a large white bed, a bed that stood in the middle of a large white room. There was a large white duvet and even larger white pillows. In fact, when she looked around, the whole place had
a ‘large white’ theme going on. Walls, floor and ceiling, everything was in the gleaming neutral shade. Even the slowly spinning fan blades, which rotated slowly overhead, were all large and very white. She lay there and rested. Jane remembered everything and knew that she had endured some terrible experience. She wondered: “Am I dead?” Looking at the room, and sensing the warmth of her own body, she knew that she couldn’t be dead. But it must have been close. “Very close…” The sensation of having been near to death remained very real to her and she realised how lucky she had been. “That’s if I am still alive, mind you?” The whiteness, which she was currently surrounded by, was somewhat disconcerting. “Perhaps I fell off the swing after all?” She smiled to herself as the sensation of her father’s arms returned, Jane knew she hadn’t fallen. “Just a little stumble is all, a little trip perhaps? It’ll be fine.” She was correct and needn’t have worried about the whiteness too much, either.

  When George entered, he was in stark contrast to it… the whiteness… and the old man looked like an extra from some Kung Fu movie she had seen along the way. He was dressed from head to foot in black and looked very fetching. Even his usual brown sandals had been swapped for a pair so new that Jane could almost smell the black leather. They still had the shiny buckles, though, winking at her. George wore one of those suits which didn’t possess a collar. It matched perfectly with the black silk top that lay under it. It looked very Asian, Indian, perhaps. Under his arm he carried a small black box and it was, of course, covered in black velvet. Striding across the room from an entrance that Jane hadn’t seen open or close, he crossed the gleaming floor and came to the side of her bed. Placing the box on the table next to her, George moved closer and took hold of her hand.

  “Hello my Lady, how are you?” Jane felt his hand tremble and then, to her utter amazement, George began to cry. She stared into his face and watched as the faded blue eyes filled with tears. He stood there looking down at her and let the shining droplets roll down his face without any attempt at wiping them away.

  “Oh dear George, don’t do that,” she whispered. “I’m fine, I’ll be OK.” Jane squeezed his hand and he smiled through the tears at her. Reaching into his breast pocket, he extracted a fine, black silk handkerchief. Using the cloth, he brushed the tears away and then tucked it back into his trousers.

  George sat on the bed next to her and said, “Yes, yes, you will be fine my dear… I am so overwhelmed with relief that I cannot begin to tell you?” He breathed deeply. “We were this close,” he said as he held up his hand. Jane looked at the tiny gap he left between his thumb and forefinger. “So close – too close! We very nearly lost you, and if it had not been for…” He stopped, almost as if he was confused, or perhaps in fear of alarming her.

  Jane finished it for him: “If it hadn’t of been for my father, you mean, George?” She looked at him and this time it was her turn to smile knowingly.

  He nodded. “Yes, I’m not quite sure what to say really, that is not something we have had any experience with before, my dear.” He looked serenely at her.

  Jane answered him with another smile. “Well, let me tell you something, George: It’s not the first time that my Dad has come to me; I used to see him regularly until Ken came along. He is always in my thoughts and I have asked him many times before to help me. It’s no surprise to me he that was there when I needed him the most? My Dad was an extraordinary man and I know he loved me dearly. I know that.” She squeezed his hand and tried to sit up.

  George helped her with a slight pull on her hands and then, when she was upright, plumped the pillows into a better position behind her. “There you are my dear, is that better?” Jane said it was just fine and asked if she may have a drink.

  Leaning across to the table next to them, George handed her a beautiful crystal goblet, and just as Jane thought about the things Ken had spoken of, George kindly introduced her to the astonishing self-pouring jug. The double act it performed with the goblet was so amazing that she very nearly dropped the vessel from her hand. Only George’s gentle pressure on her wrist prevented, what Jane would have considered to be, a catastrophe. She looked at the water for a moment and then back to George. He nodded. “Its fine Jane, water is the essence of everything, the very centre of all that we are – please, enjoy it!” Jane nodded and drank. After another two glasses she was sated and turned to the old man.

  “So, what do we do now, George, what happened to me, I felt as though I’d been shot? Where do we go from here, how are the boys by the way, did they finish with O’Hara?” Jane felt much better and was working up to the point where we she was going to ask about getting back to Ken. George told her that she had, indeed, been shot and had been both extremely lucky, and also very unlucky, if there was such a thing? The small calibre round had passed harmlessly through the fleshy part of her hip – that was the lucky part. But, then it had glanced off her pelvis, the impact had fractured the slug and sent a minute piece of the copper jacket on a detour. A detour leading straight towards one of her main arteries, the fleck of metal had left a hole the size of a pinprick in the vessel and Jane had begun to bleed to death – that was the unlucky part. The rest of the bullet had exited through the small of her back, narrowly missing her spine but not hitting anything else vital. But she was in trouble, deep trouble.

  “You were but a few minutes from death, Jane.” The sincerity in those old blue eyes told the truth. “Had the puncture been any larger, then I am afraid that we would not be having this conversation? We had to act quickly and so we sent Melias to you.”

  Jane was surprised. “Melias… who is Melias, I don’t…” She couldn’t remember seeing anyone else, but then again she couldn’t really remember much except the pain, and Ken’s green eyes.

  “Melias is what I suppose you would refer to as a ‘Flying Doctor’?” George said. “He was despatched and brought you back to us. Even with his expertise we still nearly lost you. In fact, at one stage we did lose you. Then something happened, the thing with your Father… and that has, once again, changed the way in which we view your planet.” He shook his head. “That was most strange, most strange indeed!” Looking at her he said, “What is beginning to become apparent to us, is the fact that there are so many things we have never even considered, we are the advanced worlds and therefore we must have all the answers!” He shook his head again. “How wrong we have been, how arrogant we are! We thought that we had chosen you but it is starting to look as though we were destined to choose you, almost as though you chose us… At the very least it is as if someone made us choose you?” He explained that the Council had found it strange that Ken and Jane had both turned out to be quite extraordinary in their own right. He said it baffled them…

  It was probably an understatement, Jane guessed, and by the look in his eye, George seemed a little bit more than simply baffled. “I guess the thing with Dad has put the wind up their knickers?” The thought nearly made her giggle. Turning to George, she asked: “When can I go, George… I need to see Ken. I must have been here ages and he’ll be worried sick?”

  He nodded and agreed. “Yes, the time has come for you to leave, the men are both fine and I have kept them updated on your progress. Oh, there is one other thing, Jane, before you go?” He picked up the box from the table and placed it on the bed next to her. “Open it” he said, “It’s for you and Kenneth?” Jane lifted the box and slid the small metal clasp open. Lifting the hinged lid, she looked into the box. Inside, nestling amongst the ruffed black silk lining, lay what appeared to be some sort of medal; it was in fact larger than a medal and was fashioned in the shape of the spearhead.

  When she looked closer Jane could see the exquisite object was a miniature of a ship ‘The Ship’. It was truly beautiful and exuded the wonderful liquid sheen, which Ken and Mike had told her of. On the bottom in small letters lay an inscription: ‘For Sacrifice’. The words were simple but extremely poignant and when Jane extended her finger tip and touched the object, she could
almost feel the energy, which lay within the ship. It flooded up her arm and filled her with a strange feeling. It was as though she could see everything and her whole life blazed with clarity. Her past, her present and, she had no doubt, most likely her future, too. It was though she had a direct connection to life itself. It filled her with light.

  She whispered: “What is it, George?”

  He looked at her and said, “It is merely a small token of our gratitude and admiration, a symbol of thanks for all the sacrifices, which you and Kenneth have made. It is one of only two such things and they have been hewed from the rarest of metals, one so rare that only a handful of people have ever seen it and even less have touched, we are still not sure of what its reason is?”

  Jane looked at him. “Some things don’t need a reason, George. Some things are just the way they are, that alone is reason enough?”

  George blinked and then looked at her in admiration. “Yes!” He smiled. “Yes, I shall tell them that!” Remaining sitting, he said, “There is one other thing we would like you to do, I wonder if you would be interested?” Jane asked him what it was. George obliged her with the answer: “As you know, there is a man called Red. He has been at the centre of this story, this situation?” Jane nodded and the old man continued. “Well, no matter what we have tried we cannot seem to navigate our way around him. At every turn and in every dimension, Red is always there. Lord knows we have even tried to kill him on several occasions! But the changes we tried to make never seem to have worked. He outwits us every time, or at least fate and the Dragon do?”

  “The Dragon…?” Jane stared at him.

  “Yes, the Dark side, the Demon, the Devil… or Dragon… call it what you will, but something of that nature makes moves amongst us. At least, that is what we are now starting to think?” He looked at Jane. “But, whatever the reason is, we must stop Red becoming the man he does, the one whom Kenneth and Michael battled with in the end game, the final scenario. Although, there is still the possibility we will ultimately send him into the Rip, it isn’t certain by any means. Red causes so many differing changes to be made that he very nearly changes everything!” He paused. “We are totally unsure as what to do next as the only thing we have been shown, by those with the ability to see these things, is that if Red continues along his current path, then we will probably end up with the same inevitable events, the ones which Michael and Kenneth suffered?” He stood and walked around the white room for a while. Reaching across, the old man pushed a button on the wall. Turning to Jane, George said: “I think you are ready for this now, my dear.”