Sand Glass (13 page)

‘Will it
help?’

‘It will take
the edge off the dull headache this is going to give her.’

‘What is going
on Marcia? Why did she succumb and not the rest of us?’

‘It’s easy. She
isn’t like Hanson. Or that bastard Rimmington!’

‘Egocentric?’

‘Precisely. You
can divide them into a hundred bits and there’s still enough ego to
go round. But Janey is far too single-minded to appreciate being
two people at once. She has to find her counterpart self. Maybe we
need to find a way of joining the two back together.’

‘I thought that
all of us only existed as shadows of themselves in the cloud field.
Isn’t it an unreal thing, honestly?’

‘If only that
were true. No. it gets more real as we come closer to a final
moment where it all stands or falls. What is happening will be
resolved, like gravity resolves the act of falling.’

‘Janey….’ I
said softly, ‘How do you feel?’

‘Huh… Davey; I
guess I’ve felt worse at some point. But right now I can’t remember
when that was.’ She tried to smile and then lay back on the seat
again.

Marcia handed
me a coffee. She helped Janey drink some of hers. I saw it then.
Jared was all to his sister Janey. And Marcia loved Jared enough to
give up everything back to Janey. And Janey herself, despite her
terrified bewilderment, had steadfastly stuck to the plan. I found
it difficult to say how I felt at that moment. Lonely, and
strangely rejected. Reality itself would not tolerate my touch,
even on her hand. With a start I found myself convinced of one
thing. If we all survived this I would let her go. I was alone in
the vast darkness of this experience; and she felt like the only
light that touched me in any meaningful way. But it was a false
dawn. I had constructed for myself a castle of dreams that was even
more illusory than the visions of this place had been. I climbed
back into the front seat, shocked by my moment of lucid thought. I
had never thought of myself as part of the simple facts of other
people’s lives. What am I thinking? Janey…..who really loved her
like that?

‘Davey?’ Marcia
caught me out again. I turned. Janey collapsed on the floor. I
literally jumped into the back.

‘Tell me what
to do?’ I knelt down a close as I dare.

‘I don’t know!
It makes no difference now…..’

I took hold of
her by the fabric on her sleeves, and flipped her over. Her lips
were ashen. I couldn’t believe this was happening; had the drug
worked enough? Marcia was frozen to the spot. ‘Marcia! Help me!’
But she shrank from Janey.

‘I can’t. My
touch is affecting her as well now.’

I looked down
at her. I had a choice. Take a chance; or watch her die. There was
still one other who could carry out the choices she needed to make;
but who could say where she was now? Perhaps this was the only way.
Janey! I didn’t want to hurt her. Perhaps if Marcia had started to
affect her, then just maybe it was the opposite for me? What if I
was wrong?

I was there
hesitating. Was this to save or to kill? Was I poison or salvation?
Surely I could be her saving touch, as she had been mine!

Something was
happening. Her eyelids trembled. Still I held off. Until the moment
when I knew that nothing could be done, except that breath….

She was still…
nothing happened. Her chest was not inflating. I listened. The
drugs only worked to stabilise, they could not balance a system
totally out of harmony with the timeline surrounding it.

I leaned into
her. I tucked my arms around her, and then pressed my mouth around
hers breathing gently into her mouth. She tasted sweet, like
berries. I pressed her whole body against mine. It could only make
whatever was happening go faster. There was nothing else to do. I
breathed into her mouth again. Something happened. She flexed under
me. A little resistance, a sudden tension or rigidity and then
relaxation. I pulled back slightly. I traced my hand across her
lips, feeling for the exhalation of a breath. I dipped my head and
breathed into her once more… a third time. Something hurt in me
then, an ache in my left arm that spread like fire. I felt her
move. Her mouth moved against mine. The nails of her right hand dug
into my forearm. She was gripping me tightly in some kind of death
grip. I could almost felt the flesh puncturing. I sat up. She was
stirring. Her strength was focused, her eyes rolled and opened. She
took a huge breath in, gasping as if in shock. She was struggling
to sit up from the floor of the cab at the back.

‘Marcia! Help
me please.’ The pain was excruciating. But I didn’t want to force
her hand from me.

Marcia lifted
Janey’s shoulder until she sat up. I was trying not to cry with
pain.

‘Janey… please.
Let go. You’re hurting me. Please.’

But she was
staring without seeing me.

‘Sister! Be
calm,’ said Marcia to her, ‘we need to calm ourselves now.’

Janey’s head
turned a little towards Marcia’s voice.

The light level
seemed greater. Strong sun light gleamed into the cab. I looked
towards the pain. Blood dripped from my arm into the floor. Janey’s
grip at that moment ceased. She let go and withdrew her hand. I
could move. It still hurt. The skin was broken. It was right in the
centre of the first heart of the tattoo. Blood seeped out and fell
from that point again. I saw the other nail marks. Crescent shaped
dents in my flesh curving away; three more of them.

‘What shall we
do?’ It was Marcia who spoke first.

‘Help Janey.
Check her over. Pulse, blood pressure the lot.’ I pulled the large
case from out under the nearby seating with my right hand. Marcia
busied herself with the medical checks. I crawled up to the nearby
seat and cradled my arm; I looked out into the sunlight. The
landscape was glowing in the afternoon light. I looked towards the
dashboard. The instruments were measuring twenty-two degrees
outside temperature.

A few more
minutes passed. I realised that it was the wrong temperature for
the conditions we had been driving in. I turned, and then saw a
large bush laden with orangey-yellow fruits, just near the window
of the cab. I pressed down on the lever to move the front passenger
seat forward a little and then pressed in the three buttons to open
the side door.

I tumbled out
onto soft grass. The scent of summer was around, and the sound of
water running was somewhere nearby. I walked forward a few steps. I
knew this place. I had dreamed of it. Like the day by the pool in
the little glade. This was the woodland and the glades and streams.
It seemed part of Summerland.

‘How is it
possible?’ Marcia was standing behind me. Her face was softened in
astonishment. I turned. Janey sat on a seat inside the cab. She
seemed to be staring at me, and her eyes were filled with
wonder.

‘Am I dead?’
she said.

I went back to
the cab; ‘No. look. Come, the grass is cool and lush here. It is a
paradise. Another place. You brought us here Janey.’

‘I think it was
you.’ She said and touched her lips with her hand. She stared at my
face; ‘was it you?’

‘Yes.’ I said.
She looked at me carefully. And saw how I clutched the left arm.
‘You’re hurt…. I hurt you.’

‘It’s alright
Janey. We’re in a safer place than we were.’

‘You’re
bleeding Davey.’ She reached towards me. I let her take my wrist
gently in both hands and look at it.

‘I hurt
you.’

‘No Janey. You
helped me. It’s ok……’ I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, ‘You
are alive. That is what matters right now.’

In this rich,
warm afternoon we travelled. We had removed our ice suit inners and
several other layers. Marcia in typically practical fashion drove
the buggy deeper in to the land staying near the watercourse. This
was a bubbling stream that moved roughly North West.

We stopped at
four o'clock local time. Marcia checked the bandage round my
forearm. Blood was seeping through slowly. Janey looked over my
shoulder as Marcia redressed the wound. She looked away as I
winced.

‘There you
are!’ said Marcia, ‘and I can cook!’

The two women
gathered wood for a fire. Marcia was adamant that we would not be
spending a night here without a proper camp fire. She seemed quite
cheered by the prospect. As the evening began to cool, we set up a
small inner dome as a shelter. Marcia, with Janey’s help began to
prepare supper.

It’s strange
how the simplest things are the things that always stick in your
mind. Janey came back from yet another wood gathering walk. She
dropped a pile of sticks on the bundle already gathered.

‘We got enough
now.’ said Marcia.

Janey held one
of the fruits on her hand that she had picked from a nearby tree.
‘What is it?’ she seemed like a little girl pop eyed with wonder at
all the things around us. She had not spoken much since earlier.
And now was hesitant around me.

‘Davey?’ Marcia
gave me a look I could not mistake Deal with This.

Janey handed me
the fruit. It was orangey, with a slightly reddish bloom on one
side. It looked very much like a nectarine. On examination it
proved to be more like a small melon to judge by the firmest of the
skin. I took out my hunting knife (which had been rather
judiciously returned to me by George just before we left through
the gates earlier today), and prodded carefully on the dimpled end.
Suddenly the knife went in. we found it was hollow inside like a
coconut. Indeed when I prised it apart a minute or two later it
proved to be very like with an inner layer of firm sweet flesh.
Janey fetched a camping mug. We emptied the fluid from the little
gourd. It was fragrant and appeared cherry coloured in the fading
light.

‘What shall we
do?’ she asked me, holding out the cup.

‘Find out if it
is safe, I suppose.’ I said, ‘What do you think Marcia?’

‘It must be
alright. And how are we to know?’ Janey seemed to be determined to
try it. Perhaps it was the intoxicating effect of being in this
place so magically. If science could explain it, it could not
remove the wonder we were all feeling, as the stars above began to
burn in the sky, and the sun bled to death on the horizon of the
world. The day was ending. And scents began to steal into our
nostrils. The sounds seemed magnified and animated with a
background of music from breezes moving the grasses and the bubble
of the stream nearby.

‘Janey. I need
some water.’ Marcia held out the small canteen.

‘Yes… yes of
course.’ Janey handed me the cup.

I sat and
swirled it round. In the fire light the surface looked like blood
in colour, yet was clearly runnier than that. I was tired. I had
not slept much back at home, and this small stolen interlude might
be the only way to catch up on some rest. I set the cup on the
ground beside me. I laid down on the ground sheet and watched the
scene through half open eyes. Shadows of Janey and Marcia flitted
around the fire. I thought then for a few minutes I was at home. I
felt cold, and curled up. I supposed I must have dreamed then. It
was only for a few minutes. I was in a very cold place there were
confused images, and there was blood.

I jolted awake.
Just as you do when you have the sensation of falling. I sat up
slowly. Janey was coming back over to me.

‘Are you
alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ She sat down next to
me and handed me a cup of black coffee, ‘Marcia’s stew will be
about another half hour.’

‘Oh… ok.’ I
clutched the cup for its scalding warmth.

‘Shall I?’ she
held the mug of juice in her hand.

‘I don’t know.
It could be alright. We didn’t find any fruits that were poisonous,
but that isn’t to say….’

Janey sipped
from the cup. I stared at her. She wasn’t about to take any notice
of me whatever I said, so I might as well be quiet.

‘Good.. very
good. Hey Marcia! These are good.’

‘Yeah,’ Marcia
stirred the cooking pot, ‘but don’t spoil your tea.’

Janey grinned
at me.

‘You asked
Marcia just then?’

‘Of course.’
Janey seemed more like her normal confident self, ‘you don’t think
I just go drinking something unknown, do you? After all, that would
be so unscientific.’

‘Very.’ I
agreed, and downed some more of the coffee; ‘This is definitely my
brew.’

‘Do you want to
try it?’

‘Not today.
Perhaps another time.’

Janey stared
outwards into the dark then; ‘what is it like, this boundary land?
Everyone I asked can’t seem to tell me anything about it, except
the thing about the compass needle spinning.’

‘I’ve not been
any further than standing on the edge in daylight, well within
sight of the rocks and normal landscape.’

‘You mean the
egg things?’

‘Yes. They are
sometimes called that.’

‘What happens
if you go into that place? I mean, until you are out of sight of
the normal land?’

‘I don’t
know…’

Janey looked at
me, then back out at the fading sky. ‘That’s it. That’s where
you’re going isn’t it?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Tell me the
truth.’

‘That is the
truth.’

‘You are such
an unconvincing liar. You do know that?’

‘I guess.
Please don’t ask me anything else.’

‘I want to go
there too.’

‘You know that
you mustn’t.’

‘I can want it
though.’ She seemed wistful, ‘It’s a strange thing. Now I’m here.
It’s as if I’ve known it all along. Familiar almost. But not
quite.’

I hunched over
the remnant of the coffee, as if to suck the last bit of warmth out
of the cup. Janey got back up and helped Marcia finish our supper
preparations.

That small
journey so quickly gone into memory was as happy as I ever remember
being. The tension, if it existed at all between Janey and myself
was swallowed up in wonder. The two of them, Janey and Marcia
attempted campfire songs – Janey in a light clear treble and Marcia
with a firm alto. I just listened and laughed, but I could not
sing. That was for others… I had lost my lightness, and was diving
down deep into what I knew must come. The second night as I fell
asleep, it came…. Fear like the tide sucking at shingle. I supposed
I must have prayed… that is to say I squeezed my eyes shut and
begged for release from this. None came; only the imperative of the
silent stars saying: “Look!” I looked upwards but did not see. I
saw unknown constellations, a field of black strewn with silver
flowers bright and rich as a Christmas card. I wanted to remember
something normal; something from before. But it was gone; there was
the faded blueprint of my life against the bright illuminated
script of this Summerland. I could not feel anything about it
anymore. If I saw in my mind’s eye anything, it was only rain…
falling thick and cold on a dull day. Then I looked out into this
lush land a breathed it’s sweetness in and was glad I had been
blessed with these moments. As I knew they would not come
again.