Gaia Dreams (Gaiaverse Book 1) (65 page)

"You got it, Doc, I do." Her lovely lips pursed
into a pensive expression. "I saw Abby today, so I thought I should report to
you."

"Oh, oh, yes," he said, muttering around a
mouthful of brownie. "Please do."

He'd seen Abby that day as well. It would be
interesting to hear what Harmony's impressions were. She seemed to have such a
rose-colored view of the world.

"Doc, I hate to say this about anyone, but she's
freakin' nuts!" Harmony blurted out.

He choked on his brownie.

After a hurried glass of water and some
back-pounding by Harmony, she continued. "I took the roses over there, and we
sat outside under that big Silver Maple tree in back of the house. For the
first few minutes she seemed normal enough." She stopped and grinned at him. "Okay,
as normal as anyone seems these days, what with animal talkers and dreamers and
the end of the world and all."

He nodded.

"But then, she just went off! About how San
Francisco never had this kind of weather before and she was so worried about
her granddaughter's illness. Man, that was like, months ago! And she was saying
this wasn't her house, that she needed to go home. That kinda got me worried.
Like what happens if she gets in a car and starts driving to San Francisco? We
all know she wouldn't get far with the roads all messed up, but still."

Frowning now in earnest, green eyes narrowed, he
asked, "How did you handle it? When she started talking about all this?"

Harmony raised both hands, palms up, spread wide
and let them fall to her lap. "What could I say? I didn't want to argue with
her. I kept bringing up other things, like the colors of the roses, and how
Mrs. Philpott has grown them for years. About what Gracie was gonna fix for
supper later. Finally got her talking about recipes." A sudden sheepish grin
appeared on her face. "Actually, those brownies are from her recipe. I wanted
to give it a try. After she started talking recipes, I got her to sit down in
the kitchen and write them down. Then I pulled Gracie aside and told her to
keep an eye on Abby. Doc Clay wasn't there at the time. Gracie said maybe
Janine could have the horses keep an eye out too."

"Sounds like you handled it very well," Mark
said, unable to keep some of the surprise out of his voice.

She shook her finger at him. "Oh, Doc, you gotta
have more faith in me! I'm not a total flake."

He looked at her thoughtfully, and said, "No,
no, you're not. I'm not going to forget that again."

"Good! So what are you gonna do about Abby's
craziness? Besides hoping a psychiatrist shows up tomorrow?"

He burst out laughing. "Yes, yes, that would be
a help right about now." Then he continued, "First, we make sure everyone knows
she is getting worse and is perhaps fixating on the need to return to her home.
We need everyone's help to watch out for her, and right now we are all so damn
busy--"

"Um, Doc? Can't you just dope her up?"

He frowned again. "Not the optimal solution
here, Harmony. If at all possible, I'd like to avoid that. Hmm, let me think."

"Sure, Doc, you go right ahead. Hey, what kind
of music is this that's playing?"

"Uh, oh, that's acid jazz." He paused and then
snapped his fingers. "Perceval!"

"Huh?"

He got up and found the cell phone. Just as he
was about to dial the phone it rang.

Harmony jumped at the ringing, then laughed
weakly and sat back down, listening unashamedly to his end of the conversation.

"Hello? Mrs. Philpott! But I was just going
to...yes...yes, but how did Perceval...oh, well, yes, I guess he does have his
ways...still I would think since I'm not an animal talker, oh, I see, well,
yes, Sam is pretty powerful, I guess. Oh, I see...knew how bad Abby was...didn't
read my mind. Well, that is some relief. Okay, so they'll do it? The animals?
Tell Perceval that would be a huge help. We need her watched at all times, by
whoever can manage it best. I'll just leave the delegating of that chore to
Perceval to handle since I can't ask them myself...Birds? Oh, smarter
birds...no, not the dumb ones...quite agree there...okay then, thank you, and
him, very much. Yes okay, see you tomorrow up at the Samuels' house to greet
the new arrivals."

"Well," Harmony began, "that sounds settled. I'll
check in on her tomorrow also."

"Good, good, that would be a help," the doctor
replied, settling back into his chair. His mind was still reeling as he
pondered all the implications in that phone call. How it happened. When it
happened. Who was reading whose mind.

"So, Doc," Harmony continued, "did you ever try
to dance to this music? Cause I think it would be pretty nice to dance to."

"What? Oh...yes...no...uh...." He stumbled to a
stop.

"You know, Doc, I think maybe you need to relax
and clear your mind," Harmony said, rising slowly from the floor. She twirled
around in front him, skirt flaring outwards, and reached for his hand to pull
him from the chair.

"Hmm."

"Shall we?" she asked, moving toward him. "Dance,
that is?"

"Dance...yes," he replied, his mind catching up
with events. He put an arm around her, thinking, it may be the end of the world
as I know it, but the possibilities in this new one are just damn fascinating.

Jessica stood next to her daughter on the front
porch in the morning sunlight, watching as a line of cars approached the house.
And a man on horseback. Black had mentioned him on the phone, an honest-to-god
cowboy of all things. But he rode that big chestnut horse like he was welded to
it. As the cars slowed and parked on the sides of the road, she turned to her
daughter.

"Sweetie, you're okay with this, right? With
meeting these new people? There seem to be quite a few of them."

Samantha looked up at her mother and gave a
sunny smile. "Oh, sure, Mom, I want to meet them. Some of 'em I already kinda
know. But dreams are different. And it's not so many coming today. Only
thirty-one. Day after tomorrow, there's gonna be more."

"Oh," Jessica said, taken aback yet again by her
little girl's prescience as well as her general aplomb at accepting all that
was happening. "Okay, then. Black says they are all fine, no trouble-makers,
but I guess you already knew that?"

Sam nodded her head. "Oh, look! It's Jimmy, the
cowboy! His horse Mandy is just so cool! And there's Olivia. She's almost
eleven. She hates wearing that back brace, but maybe Doctor Mark can help her
so she doesn't have to wear it anymore. Her mom didn't have much money and I
don't think they had a good doctor. Her mom's name is Truc--I kinda thought it
was a weird name, since I never heard a name like that. Like Luke but with a 'Tr'
on the front of it. But then Perceval 'splained about Vietnamese names. He says
it means 'beauty, as in nature,' which seems so nice. I wish my name meant
something like that."

Jessica barely followed Sam's rambling chatter,
watching a thin girl climb awkwardly out of a beat up old Chevy. Surprised that
old car made it here, she thought. Her heart went out to the young Asian woman
who was helping the girl out of the car. Also thin, and exhausted looking, with
the same straight, very dark brown hair as her daughter and the same olive skin
tone. The little girl walked gingerly up the sidewalk to the porch steps and
stopped, staring at Samantha.

"Hi," she said in a very quiet, but delighted,
voice. "You are real, aren't you! See, Mom, I told you. This is Sam."

Sam walked down the steps and carefully gave
Olivia a hug. "Ooh, I'm so glad you are here! I was worried at that flooded out
place on the road, but you made it." She turned to Olivia's mother and said, "Hi,
Truc. I hope you weren't scared by the wolf. He could show you the way, but he
couldn't tell you not to be scared. But you ended up hearing me, right?"

Truc stared at Sam. Then raising a shaking hand
to her forehead, she said, "You know, I really think I feel a bit faint. Maybe
it was seeing so much chaos and destruction, maybe it was the wolf, maybe it
was hearing a voice in my head...but I think...I really think...I'm...I'm...."

Jessica ran down the steps and caught the
collapsing woman, calling out, "Doc! Alex! Get out here! Now!"

Sam patted Olivia on the hand and said, "Don't
worry. It will all be okay now. It really will."

Jessica glanced up and saw looks of relief on
the faces in the small crowd gathered around them. Heard the whispers, "She
said it will be okay." Saw one man pushing his way to the front of the group,
his eyes wildly searching until they fell on her daughter. Where was Black, she
wondered, suddenly alarmed. Ah, there he was, right next to the man. Watched as
her little girl stared calmly into the man's face. Saw his features still, his
mouth begin to smile. Heard him say, "You
are
real! Thank God you are
real," as he knelt down in front of Sam.

Sam said with a giggle, "Well, o'course I am,
silly. So are you, Harry." Then she burst out laughing, pointing to the golden
retriever next to her side, as always. "Harry, the man--meet Harry, the dog."
The man looked surprised.

"Nice to meet you, Harry the dog," he said,
chuckling.

Harry woofed. Harry ran up to the man and licked
his face. Harry knocked Harry over onto the grass.

The crowd laughed and talked excitedly. Good old
Harry (the dog), Jessica thought fondly. Ice broken, the feeling of awe
dispelled, for now, anyway.

Power Station, Table Rock Lake Dam

Sergeant Wachowski was waving his unlit cigar
around again. Merlin watched it with a twitching tail, trying to decide whether
it was to kittenish to just swat it out of the Sergeant's hand. The man never
lit the cigar, just chewed on the end of it. Probably best to leave the cigar
alone. Sergeant Wachowski had some pretty big meaty looking hands--they could
swat a cat clear across the room most likely. Merlin gave a low growl and
curled up on the papers in front of Lisanne.

"Why in hell would anyone want to attack the
power plant? That just makes no sense! Sure, I've known it was always a danger,
but now you sound like it's a near emergency. Listen, without power, things are
going to go downhill pretty damn fast," Wachowski stated forcefully.

"I know, I know, you don't have to tell me,"
Lisanne said. "But Sam sent word--actually she sent word to Merlin--that she had
a dream about it."

"What?" Wachowski said explosively. "Well, why
didn't you say so in the first place? If she dreamed it--"

"Wait, wait," Lisanne said, holding up a hand. "Not
so fast. She had a dream that she says is a
possibility
--not a certainty.
I'm not totally clear on it, but Merlin says she can have dreams that are
possible future events, that are determined by the actions of the people
involved. Like the bomb thing--she thought at one point it could be stopped. Of
course, now we know that isn't going to happen, but up until the time that
General Whatshisname died, it was still a possibility--could have gone either
way. Now it's become a certainty."

Sergeant Wachowski scowled. "So what are you
saying? We need to do something? Someone else needs to do something? Just tell
me who needs to do something to make it a certainty the plant isn't attacked."

Lisanne pressed her fingers to her temples,
closing her eyes. "Argh! That's what I'm telling you--we don't know yet. All we
can do is to get more help out here to watch over the place, make sure we have
someone armed here at all times, and pray that whoever it is doesn't make it
this far."

Lisanne thought how her old physics professor
would have had a field day with all this possibility-certainty stuff. Man, oh,
man, she thought. This is giving me a massive headache.

Merlin nudged her arm with head and her hand
automatically dropped to his fur, slowly rubbing along his spine, up between
his ears. She realized, after a minute, that the headache was easing up. What
the hell? She stared into his eyes, and then muttered, "Well, I'll be damned."

Sergeant Wachowski looked sharply at her. "What
is it now? What's the damned cat saying?"

Merlin growled. Lisanne opened lavender eyes
wide at the Sergeant. "Nothing about the attack--but he just got rid of my
headache! Is that fucking amazing, or what?"

Wachowski jammed the cigar into the corner of
his mouth. "It's fucking
something,
all right, just not sure what." Then
he stomped off, grumbling, "Damn cats, kids, astronomers--can't someone just
give me a straight answer? Cured her headache, humph."

The Samuels' House

Mrs. Philpott sat in a wicker chair on the patio
with Perceval in her lap, watching the newcomers in the backyard. Nathan and
Andy had taken over the barbeque grills since John was surrounded by people
asking questions. The smell of hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken almost done
wafted over the gathering. The clouds had cleared away, so they sat under a
bright blue sky. But Mrs. Philpott wasn't relaxed. Neither was Perceval. And as
she looked across the lawn, Mrs. Philpott saw that Samantha seemed tense as
well. A group of children aged eight through sixteen were gathered around her,
laughing. A group of various animals were getting to know each other, but Sam
was quiet. Her little face suddenly looked...scared.

Mrs. Philpott stood up and located Jessica
talking to Alexandra. As she approached them, she asked sharply, "Are either of
you watching Sam?"

Jessica turned quickly to glance over at her
daughter. "What is it? What's wrong? Is something--"

"Yes, Jessica, something is about to happen, and
I think Sam knows it. She looks terrified," Mrs. Philpott replied.

Jessica ran over to her daughter. Alex stayed by
Mrs. Philpott's side and, taking the older woman's elbow, commented, "You look
white as a sheet, Mrs. P. Why don't you come sit down and tell me what's going
on?"