My Familiar Stranger (5 page)

He said he would come whenever he could. That turned out to be every day for most of the day. Elora’s speech started to improve and soon she was able to enunciate her full name and correct the misimpression.

Storm didn’t ask a lot of questions nor did he reveal anything pertinent. He would make small talk about weather and ask how she was doing. Every day he asked if she needed anything and everyday she answered that she wanted a window, but one day she followed that with a request for “locket”.

“Locket.” He looked perplexed. “You had a locket with you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure it was with you when you came here?”

“Yes.” Although she could form words at this point, it was still with great effort so her sentences were as efficient as possible. “Saw them take.”

He said he would try to find it. He asked the nursing staff about the locket, but no one was on duty who had been there when she arrived. While he was there, he made sure they understood that the bursar in the Operations Office had been instructed to release funds for whatever she wanted when she was able to ask, unless it was a weapon or something that could obviously be used as one. He anticipated the day would come when she would want some of her own clothes or toiletries and such.

Storm came back into the room to let her know he would look for the locket and asked if there was anything else before he left for the day.

“Where am I?”

“You’re in a hospital unit on a military base. We don’t know how you got here, but, when you’re better, we’re hoping you’ll tell us. Right now just use your energy for getting well. That’s your only priority. Everything else can be sorted out later. Right?”

“Okay. And thank you. It’s nice they assigned me to somebody named Angel.”

“You speak German?”

“Some.”

“Well, don’t start setting the bar too high. It was wishful thinking on my mother’s part.”

Sol looked up from reading a brief when he peripherally noticed a shape standing in the open door of his office. Storm was waiting for an invitation. Sol took his feet off the desk and turned the swivel chair toward the door motioning Storm inside. “Sir Storm. What can I do for you?”

“Sovereign.” Storm replied in kind, using Sol’s formal title, nodding in the way men with combat experience greet each other, as if there was an unspoken fraternal consciousness that only they share. “It’s about the patient upstairs.”

Sol’s mouth, held semi-permanently in a rigid line, turned up just a little at the corners. “I suspected as much.”

“She says she had a locket when she arrived. Do you know where they would have put something she had on her person that was salvageable?”

Sol scrutinized Storm while contemplating whether it could do any harm to return the locket. He realized, of course, that the hesitation had already given away that he did, in fact, know something about it. The near-imperceptible release of tension in Sol’s shoulders was the tell tale signal that he had decided to give up the information.

“Go see Monq,” was all he said. When Storm left without another word, Sol called Monq and told him to expect a visitor momentarily. Then he gave Monq clearance to release the locket and brief Storm on the intelligence gathered so far.

After hearing Monq out, Storm paid a second visit to the infirmary. Elora was sleeping. So he pocketed the locket, planning to return the next day.

He decided to spend the evening researching Elora’s supposed counterpart in his dimension. He grabbed a club sandwich to go from the hub diner and took it back to his quarters. When Monq had mentioned the similarity between his name and the owner of the locket, Storm had reasoned that, if Monq’s hypothesis regarding near-parallel experiences held, there would be an Elora Laiken, or someone with a similar name, in their reality.

With relatively little effort the investigation revealed that there was, in fact, an Elora Laiken, born twenty three years earlier, died at the age of twelve, daughter of a Briton royal clan. Cause of death was a freak case of pneumonia that didn’t respond to any known treatment.

There was a short article written about her with a photo of her in equestrian gear, wearing a shy smile and holding a trophy with blue ribbon that was far too large for her.

The article said she had just won a steeplechase event and that she had personally trained the black, thoroughbred jumper named Crowers Keep. He noticed the photo had a video link. When he clicked it, the photo came to life.

The young Elora was telling an interviewer that the gelding, Crow, had been a gift for her ninth birthday, that he was two-years-old at the time, and that he had shown an extraordinary exuberance for running and jumping: the two skills required for steeplechase. With self-effacing humility and a relaxed and engaging style far beyond her years, she said she couldn’t really take credit for training him, that she had more or less just hung on for the ride.

As if on cue the horse nudged her from behind with his forehead forcing her to take a short step forward. She laughed, stepped to the side, looked up at him affectionately and began to rub him between the eyes. As she talked, she took the blue ribbon and tied it to the horse’s bridle behind his ear. “You should interview him,” she said. “He’s the one who ran the course.”

The reporter asked her how she felt about winning her division.

She grinned. “Who doesn’t love to win?”

She was as cute as a twelve-year-old could be with a slightly upturned nose and a scattering of freckles. It occurred to Storm that the little boys must have been crazy for her and it made him sad to know she didn’t live to be someone’s lover, someone’s lifelong friend, someone’s great grandmother.

Elora was awake when Storm arrived the next day. Naturally she was happy to see him. His visits were the highlight of her day. He came through the door smiling like he had a secret, walked straight to the side of the bed and, without saying a word, pulled the locket out of his pocket. He held it by the clasp, dangled it above her heart, then slipped it into her palm and draped the chain over her hand so she didn’t have to waste energy or hurt herself reaching for it. When he looked back at her face, he got all the thanks he needed from her expression.

“What else do you need?”

“Catheter. Out.”

The nurses smiled at each other when he brought the request to their station. They knew that a demand for removal of catheter is the harbinger of a patient getting well. He argued with the doctors on her behalf until they agreed that she could have the catheter out when she could walk back and forth to the bathroom by herself. She could start by trying to sit up on the side of the bed and he could help with that if he wanted.

When he returned to the room to ask if she’d like to try sitting up, he found her more than eager. Nurses stood on either side of the bed and acted as coaches.

They lowered the bed so that her feet would touch the floor, then told Storm he could gently pull her arms while she tried to maneuver her legs and turn her body. She groaned, but told him not to stop. By the time she was sitting on the side of the bed she was breathing hard. He sat down beside her carefully and she slumped over, leaning against him. The nurses praised her for making a big leap of progress and shuffled Storm off so that they could take advantage of the moment to give her a sponge bath and change the bedding.

Since she was staying awake longer at a time, they gave her a TV remote. That’s when she began her second life in a new world. She quickly realized that the tunnel Monq pushed her through might as well have been Alice’s rabbit hole. She was in a world similar to the one she left, but with differences that were inconsistent, surprisingly so.

She was a stranger in a strangish land.

Two days after sitting up for the first time, Elora’s doctors gave approval for her to try to get out of bed and walk to the bathroom for a shower. It was a task equal to racing a triathlon. By the time she got to the bathroom with catheter and IV unit in tow, she was tired but exhilarated by the promise of feeling completely clean and having a few minutes privacy. Her first peek at the mirror was shocking. Intellectually she knew that her face must look like the rest of her, but that didn’t prepare her for the emotional upheaval. The face that stared back was a monster mask framed by flat, lifeless hair that could be road kill. They had given her some soap, shampoo, and an ugly, cotton gown to change into after her shower.

The shower was adequate in size with nice water pressure and a powerful, triple shower head. Normally these are good things, but not in Elora’s condition. There were no handles for starting or controlling water. In the end she had to give up and ask a nurse who showed her that you simply enter the water temperature you want on the keypad just inside the shower door and press on or off. Not knowing what temperature that might be, she reasoned that she couldn’t go too wrong with her own body temperature so she punched in 99.2. That felt pretty good, but she made upward adjustments a couple of times after she got used to the water. Washing her hair and body was no small accomplishment because even the shower stream was painful.

She hurt in places she thought had no nerve endings. After she toweled herself off like she was made of blown glass, she tied the gown in place and thought that, without the catheter, she might feel almost human. There wasn’t enough energy left to comb through her hair, but one of the nurse’s aides did it while she sat on the side of the bed and tried to eat solid food for the first time.

She was still sitting up, her hair almost dry when Storm arrived. He didn’t so much enter a room as conquer it. Like always he strode in like a person used to having his way, not arrogance or entitlement, just good old fashioned self-assuredness. At least her long hair had managed a full recovery. With renewed life and volume, it shined with her true color: light brown with streaks of blond, out-of-this-world fiery red, and a hint of pink. In her dimension it was a common color usually thought boring. In this world it would only be made possible by spending many hours with the best color salon in New York and leaving many dollars behind.

“Wow,” he smiled, “look at you.”

The locket hung from its chain, surrounded by beautiful, thick hair that fell around her breasts trying to separate into curls where it was dry. She still looked gruesome, but the swelling had receded around her eyes a little more. And now there was this gorgeous hair. For the first time he wondered what she was going to look like when she was well. Her speech was good. She had a beautiful voice, a pleasing accent unlike anything he’d ever heard, and a slight, but noticeable formality in her choice of words.

Doc du jour came in with a nurse while Storm was there and spoke to him as if he was a representative family member advocating for the deaf, mute patient. “Damage to organs or systems is minimal and the fractures have practically healed. No lingering evidence of concussion.” The doctor glanced her way without really looking at her. “Now she’s just one big bruise. Never seen anything like it really.” With that he looked her way again. “Tomorrow, we need to get her up and moving around more. How would you like to help her walk up and down the hallway, big guy?”

“Sure.” Storm looked happy about the prospect of having something physical to do. “Tell me what to do.”

“We’ll talk you through it tomorrow.” He turned to leave.

“Hey, doc,” Elora called. The man froze, as surprised as if she was a talking monkey. “What about the catheter? The agreement was that it shall be removed upon performance of a successful, unassisted round trip to the facilities. Isn’t that right?”

With a little half smile, he capitulated and gave the order, adding that the I.V. could also be removed since she was tolerating solid food.

The next day’s trek began with the nurse bringing traction booties. To Storm she said, “We have to get her on her feet again.” After putting the booties on the patient’s bare feet, they helped her to a standing position, nurse on one side, Storm on the other. “Just crook your arm like this so she has something stable to hold onto and let her lean on you for support. Let her set the pace. It will feel tortoise slow to you, but like a marathon for her. Once to the end of the hall and back today. Maximum. If she can’t make it that far it’s alright, but try. Okay?”

He turned to Elora. “Ready?”

Elora put one arm between Storm’s powerful body and his bicep, then nestled in close. Looking at the top of her head he said, “Hey! You’re tall for a girl. I hadn’t noticed before.”

Two inches shy of six feet does look tall on a woman.

“Uh-huh.” Her equilibrium was off so looking around was risky. Plus she might be a tiny bit queasy and really didn’t want to yak in the hall. That’s what she thought they had called it on TV. Inching along at a snail’s pace was still a big adventure, the first time she’d been out of the hospital room. It was exciting, but also so exhausting that she was practically asleep before she made it back to the bed.

The next day she was sitting up when Storm came in carrying a bag and looking very pleased with himself.

“What’s that?” she asked.

He beamed. “I still can’t get you a room with a window, but I’ve brought you the next best thing. A laptop.”

A thousand images rushed across the screen of her mind. “That’s a portable computer?”

“I guess that means you know what the internet is.” She nodded. “How about credit cards?” She nodded again. He pulled the rolling table over, set the laptop up and plugged it in with an Ethernet cord. It had a mouse that detached from the housing for easy browsing. He pulled a plastic rectangle from his pocket and handed it to her. “Here’s a credit card that you can use to get stuff on the internet. I can trust you not to buy cars, right?”