by Dale Mayer
“We don’t know what her story is,” he said.
Jamie spoke up. “No, but we need to find out. And not just her story. I hear things. We all hear things. The guards assume we’re nothing but dumb idiots, and they talk freely around us all the time. I know somebody named Parsons was brought in during the middle of the night. Some wonder-boy genius who the family didn’t want involved in the company. Apparently he had a psychotic episode,” Jamie said in a surly voice. “And now he is unstable. It makes me wonder who caused the episode and just how unstable Parsons was, or whether he had come up with some information that would destabilize the company.”
She stared at him. “Right now you sound like you’re a hundred percent normal.”
He gave her a ghost of a smile. “I can’t maintain it for long because I don’t really like this state.”
She stared at him in wonder. “You mean, it’s a choice?”
Samson snorted at that. “According to Jamie, it’s always a choice. And he prefers to be off in the ethers.”
“But that wouldn’t help today, would it?” Jamie said. “So I had to make sure I’m here to deal with whatever needs to be dealt with. And, if that means showing the cops that I’m not a hundred percent loony-bin material, then that’s what I have to do. Besides”—he looked at his brother and flashed a wicked grin—“I owe you my thanks for bringing me back here again.”
“Don’t make me regret it,” Samson said.
Jamie’s laughter pealed through the helicopter. “I won’t,” he said. “The fact of the matter is, you shouldn’t have sent me back to the clinic in the first place.”
“Then you shouldn’t have attacked somebody,” Samson snapped.
“You mean John?” Jamie asked. “You know he is all about making up stories.”
“Except Dad also said he watched you attack him.”
“‘Watched’ being the operative word,” Jamie said, his voice suddenly tired. “Did you ever wonder about that?”
“Wonder about what?”
“About how he watched me attack my brother but never stopped me?” he said. “That’s because Dad wasn’t there. He’s never seen such an attack. It’s just him siding with John and ganging up against me.”
Their headsets suddenly got staticky.
Whimsy looked out the window at the water churning below, wondering if it was a weather thing.
“Witness?”
“Proof.”
“What?” she asked, leaning in to hear the conversation. But it was breaking up through her headset.
Samson motioned out the window; a storm was definitely churning and was affecting whatever was going on inside the helicopter. Almost instantly the winds buffeted the small metal bird in the sky. She couldn’t keep herself from gripping the handrails tightly.
Samson leaned over, squeezed her fingers and murmured close enough that she could hear. “It’ll be fine.”
She shot him a disbelieving look, and he just chuckled. “I thought the weather was better when you returned to the island?”
“Good point. Goes to show how messed up things are right now.” He appeared to shrug it all off.
And she realized, to him, this was what Mother Nature was all about.
She watched below as the waves churned and tossed. She could see a piece of debris. Or maybe it had been her imagination. She stared but didn’t see it again, just the sea-foam as it bounced from side to side in the waves—just like she had been tossed and turned and lost on the waves.
She pointed out the window.
Samson leaned over to look where she pointed. He pulled his headset back ever-so-slightly and asked, “What about it?”
“It could have been me,” she said sadly.
“It was you,” he said. “But you drowned. Whereas that sea-foam gets to float on the surface, you were churned under with the waves. Honestly, it’s a miracle you’re alive right now.”
“No miracle at all. It was meant to be,” Jamie said.
“Did you have something to do with it?” Samson asked. “Other than sending me to the beach to find her?”
“To a certain extent, yes,” he said. “But then so did she. And Stefan.”
She stared at both of them. “Are you saying some network of special people out there helped me?” She’d made a joke earlier of a network of dead people tossing her out of the water, so a network of disembodied people wasn’t far off.
That was way too bizarre for her. She was much better off thinking a dolphin had helped her. Only she knew that, size-wise, any dolphin wouldn’t be big enough.
“And that dolphin-like sea creature, only bigger,” she said. “I’m assuming it was a huge mammal, and I don’t know who or what it was, but I know it was for real. It wasn’t some nebulous energy field moving through the waves. Because, if it were something like that, it should have just lifted me up right out of the water and saved me. And, if it were some alien force, why didn’t it take me and put me on land or return me home again?”
Jamie just looked at her and blinked. He subsided into his seat, seemingly back in his out-of-body state.
She frowned at Samson, who shrugged as if to say, Deal with it, and remained quiet. She settled back in the helicopter too, wondering how many of Jamie’s episodes were really by his choice. He seemed to say they were. How could she confirm that? Even if she could tell, what was she supposed to do about it? Obviously Samson was more aware of his brother and whatever ploys he used than she was.
She watched as the island came into view. Lights—maybe security lights, nightlights, she didn’t know what—were still glowing at the house, but the pilot seemed to have no trouble coming to rest on the island’s landing pad. He helped them unload as the sun started to dawn in the sky.
She stood and stretched. “Thank you very much for the lift,” she said with a big smile.
The pilot grinned. “It’s quite the flight. I’ll take off as soon as you’ve unloaded. Let me know if you need a ride back again.” He handed them his cards and soon was back on the helicopter and flying overhead again.
Samson grabbed several suitcases, whereas Jamie walked away empty-handed, but she called him back. He turned toward her; then he was directed to the bags by her outstretched arm, and he gave her that insolent look a fourteen-year-old would.
“Help,” she ordered in the same tone she’d have used with her sister. “Everybody pitches in. Everybody helps out.” She again motioned to four of the bags. “You take those. I’ll grab these.”
She had four items herself, but one was a box that was awkward to hold, and another was a bag she dangled from her fingers. The remaining two she managed to grab with her other hand. It was a heavy load for her, but she was bound and determined that she would show Jamie that everybody helped out here, even a five-foot-four woman with two bullet wounds who had just drowned seven days ago.
Nobody was exempt.
Jamie gave a long-suffering sigh and grabbed his allotted four items, following his brother.
Samson turned back, looked at him, then at her, and his eyes warmed. Without saying a word, he led the way to the house.
Only as she entered the house, quite exhausted, did she remember the white room was Jamie’s, and she was effectively out of a bedroom. She’d pushed for an invite back here when there was no space for her. She frowned as she walked into the kitchen, wondering what she was supposed to do.
Jamie dumped the bags on the kitchen floor, turned and walked into his room, formerly her room, and closed the door. She stared at the door, then turned to Samson.
“I told you that he can be difficult.”
“It’s by choice,” she said. “My sister Marion was like that too.”
“He has very quick-changing moods,” Samson said. “Not really an excuse but, because of being in a hospital situation so much of his life, he has this sense of not having any responsibility for his own care and welfare.”
“If he wants to live outside of an institution, then he has to c
hange that attitude,” she said. “It’s as simple as that. We’re not his slaves.” She walked over to Jamie’s door and opened it. “Jamie, get out here and start helping.” Her tone brooked no argument.
Jamie made an exclamation that bordered on expletives and stormed out to the kitchen with his hands on his hips. He went to open his mouth to rant to Samson, but Whimsy turned on Jamie.
In that same tone she had used with her sister, she said, “You are responsible for your life. We are not your servants, and, if you want to live free and clear of a mental institution, then you will help out here. Without being asked.” She stood her ground, challenging him to argue.
He looked at her, and she could see the changes in his features as something else settled over him.
“We have to go,” he said, his voice suddenly urgent.
Samson stepped forward. “Go where?”
“To the beach,” he cried out. And, just like that, Jamie bolted from the house, going toward the rocky path that led to the beach.
Samson was on his heels.
Not wanting to be left behind, Whimsy followed, suddenly noting she had seen no sign of the dogs.
*
What the hell had gotten into Jamie now? Samson was already trying to work through Whimsy’s behavior in terms of her treatment of his brother. At first he’d been offended, and then he realized how good she was for him, how much this was exactly what his brother needed. Family, normality, chores, routine, a life that wasn’t institutionalized, but also a life that wasn’t freewheeling. A life that had some boundaries, where he was expected to help. It was one of the reasons why, although Samson loved having his brother on the island, it was wearing.
He’d spent his time catering to Jamie. She was right, and Samson hadn’t seen it. He’d been so caught up in looking after his brother that he hadn’t been thinking about living with his brother.
There was just enough dawning sunlight to see the path as they raced down the cliff edge to the beach where Samson had found Whimsy. As he reached the tide, the dogs had already arrived. They looked at him, wagged their tails, but their gazes went immediately back to the dark water that churned at his feet. Jamie was on a nearby rocks, leaning into the surf. “Jamie, you be careful,” he warned.
He could hear more footsteps behind him. And, sure enough, there was Whimsy. She stood beside him and stared into the deep depths, and he could see the fear across her face.
“You need to be careful too,” he warned.
“I will,” she said quietly. “I’m not looking forward to reenacting my first experience in that water.”
“Good,” he said, “because I don’t know what’s down there. Jamie’s not talking.”
The two turned to see Jamie with a faraway look in his eyes, as if he were communicating with something.
Samson looked back at her. “Can you hear the conversation?”
Startled, she stared up at him. “Is he really talking to something?”
“He so is,” Samson said. “He does this regularly. But I never know what he’s saying.”
“Just a minute.” She dropped her butt onto the sand, wrapped her arms tight around her knees, closing her eyes.
Astonished, he watched as she almost got the same look on her face as Jamie did. “I don’t have a clue what you two are doing,” he mumbled to himself.
King shoved his nose into Samson’s hand. He crouched down and hugged first one dog and then the second. “We weren’t gone for very long, were we?”
The dogs had never been extremely demonstrative. They were half connected to the wilderness and only half connected to him. They were the true Guardians of this island and whatever it was that swirled in the waters beneath.
He waited with both dogs at the beach. He expected, if nothing else, for Whimsy to open her eyes and to say something. But, when he glanced at her, he saw her face lifted to the sky, a look of almost rapture across her features. He frowned and stepped closer. He wasn’t jealous, but he was curious about what she saw, what she felt. He looked at Jamie, but his expression hadn’t changed. “What is going on here?”
He could feel a hum, a buzz, almost as if Jamie were trying to talk to him. Samson bowed his head and followed the steps as Stefan had once told him. Empty your mind, open the door and allow your brother to speak to you. Stefan had said it as if it were so easy. But this time it was, as if he could actually see a road, a tunnel. As he watched—seemingly out of body—his hand reached out and opened the door, giving him access to the tunnel.
Instantly, incredible colors blasted outward at him. Noise—not just sound, but sound on top of sound, noise on top of noise—blasted at him too, blasted through his head, blasted through his mind. He cried out, and a voice whispered, It’s okay. It’s okay.
He shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around the voice, trying to wrap his tongue around the words he needed to say. “How can it be okay? It’s too powerful.”
Open your mind, and let that tunnel have an exit through the back. See yourself as not just being a person walking through the tunnel but a tunnel that’s walking through you.
He didn’t have time to think about it before that exact visualization opened up in his head, and all the noise streamlined in a racing stripe through his brain and went out the other side. He could only stand here as images and sounds and words rippled back and forth from one direction to the other, as if two were speaking but not on the same wavelength.
So adjust the wavelength, said the same voice calmly.
More adjustments were made that he didn’t know about; more adjustments were made that he didn’t comprehend; more adjustments were made that he didn’t do himself. And then suddenly there was silence. He took a shaky breath, happy to hear the absence of all that noise.
It’s not that it’s absent, the voice said, but that you now have a true communication network established.
“Yeah,” he said. “But with whom?”
I’m here, Whimsy said, her voice small. I’m not sure how I got here or why I’m here, but I can hear you, and I can hear whoever that other voice is.
That other voice is me, Jamie said. I’m always here. This is my preferred mode of speaking. This is my highway of truth. And I’m very pleased to meet you here.
Samson could hear the smile in his brother’s voice, could hear the joy in his brother’s tone as he realized somebody else in this world could speak the way Jamie spoke. So why am I here? Samson asked telepathically. I’ve never been here before.
It’s Whimsy, Jamie said in delight. Somehow she’s connected to you, and you’ve connected to her. And, because she’s connected to me, I can now talk through her to you.
Samson turned to look at his brother, to see his brother looking back—absolute joy and delight in his gaze. How is this possible? Samson asked.
This is one of those times where you need to suspend that questioning scientific brain of yours, Jamie said, and just feel it happening. Isn’t that good enough?
Chapter 18
Whimsy didn’t know how to explain what was happening to her, like she could communicate with multiple people at multiple times, without moving her lips.
That’s exactly what you’re doing, a voice said.
Jamie?
Of course, he said. Who else? This is my space. My physical body keeps me tethered to your world, but here, … here I’m free.
So those moments of a lucid rational person speaking to us are really just small parts of your life? she asked.
Absolutely, he said. I understand the need for it, but I really can’t be bothered with that plane. It’s only because my brother was in danger for helping me that I even understood the danger and could be lucid long enough.
Did you do that on your own?
He sighed. You figured that out, didn’t you?
Hell no, she said. I haven’t figured anything out.
He chuckled. I draw on Samson for those moments. It’s also why they’re short-lived. Because not only does he not
know but he needs the energy he has to handle these dangers as well.
She reached up to touch her head but realized in absolute wonder and almost horror that her arm still rested on her knee. An ethereal hand, or a form of a hand, slipped off her body and rubbed her temple.
He chuckled. It’s a hell of a trip, isn’t it?
Oh, my God, she whispered. What the hell is happening to me?
You see? I used to do drugs, Jamie said, his tone conversational but so young, so naive sounding.
She was amazed at the absolute lucidity of who he was right now.
And I did them so I could escape my physical world. What I didn’t realize was that I had the tools available to escape that physical world anytime I wanted to. I just had to step up and to step out.
She gasped, holding back her constantly rolling reactions that made no sense of this.
They make lots of sense, Jamie said. And, by the way, while you’re out here in the ether, all your thoughts are available too. So anything you think I can hear too.
She shuddered.
I can’t tell if you’re absolutely in awe or absolutely horrified.
I’m both, she said. I didn’t do drugs, like you. I was one of those studious, stay-at-home, do-my-homework and get-ahead-in-life types.
What a waste, he said affectionately. But what this truly says is, we all get to where we need to be, no matter the path we take.
She couldn’t imagine drugs that would allow for such a trip. But, if not drugs, then what?
Drugs was the name of my game. Resistance against the norm—the status quo. I was fighting against the life we were supposed to live, against the establishment, Jamie said in his dream state. Me and my buddies did everything we could to fight it. Everything we could to step away from it. Everything we could to revolt. It’s just nobody seemed to know how. I found my way through the drugs, as if I could see another world out there, one I could reach out and touch, but this veil was between it and me. The drugs were my vehicle to cross that divide.