Gaia Dreams (Gaiaverse Book 1) (54 page)

The Library, Cape Fair

Alex sorted through the books she'd found fallen
to the floor from last night's shaking. No shelves had fallen over, which was
more than she'd expected. Fortunately, the library was built in an earlier time
and had those huge, tall windows that let in the morning light so she could see
to work. The power wasn't back yet, but hopefully would be soon. She sat on the
floor surrounded by books, a breeze flowing through the open front doors. She
laughed and decided that she just might be happy, which felt awful to realize
with so many terrible things happening to so many people in the world. Still,
there it was. She was grateful to have the time among the books this morning
and glad that the others realized the importance of maintaining the library.
She liked these new friends in their little community of survivors. No, wait,
they were Gaians now. But what, she wondered, did the future hold?

If they were very lucky and careful, they might
survive to have a future. A future unlike any of their lives up to now. She was
sure Sam could tell her some things, but maybe Sam only got visions of
disasters. Alex hoped that wasn't the case. It would be an awful burden for
that sweet little girl.

She leaned forward until she could see out the
front doors. Yes, it was still there, her fancy red sports car. Of course it
would still be there. No carjackers here. No anybody here! Cape Fair felt like
a ghost town today as she drove to the library. It was amazing how the people
had all just left! Where did they go to feel safe? And how many were alive this
morning? She sighed.

"Well, I'll be damned! If that ain't the
prettiest little car this side of St. Louie." She heard a voice say from
outside. Scrambling to her feet, Alex grabbed her cell phone and darted to a
darkened corner to peer carefully out the window. John had drilled into them
the need for caution, especially when meeting strangers that might come into
town. She was dialing the phone as she looked out and saw a short, grizzled
looking man with a rotund belly standing by her car admiring it.

"Hello?" she heard in her ear from the phone.

"Black? Is that you?"

"Yeah. Alex?"

"Right. We've got a visitor here at the library.
He looks harmless enough, but--"

"I'm on my way. Don't approach him until I get
there. Where is he? Front or back?"

"Right in front checking out my car. If he hurts
my baby...."

Black chuckled. "We'll just steal you another
one. Hang tight."

Alex clicked off her phone and watched the man
as he walked around the car. He had a dirty white cap pushed toward the back of
his head. But his faded jeans and t-shirt were clean looking. She didn't know
if the salt and pepper whiskers were from not shaving lately or if that was
just his look. She moved slowly to stand next to the door, but out of his sight
so she could hear him better. As she did, she wondered if his talking to
himself was a good or bad sign. Then she heard a bark and realized the newcomer
wasn't alone and he wasn't talking to himself. He had a dog!

"Now you know, Mutt, if I was the owner of this
beauty, I woulda parked it in my garage, not left it in front of a library
where anybody could just come along and take it."

Then she heard him try the door and she ran
outside.

"Hold it!" she yelled. "Don't move!"

The man jumped a few inches off the ground and
whirled to see Alex charging down the library steps.

"Jumpin' jehosaphat! Don't do that to me again,
girl--you nearly scared the shit outta me!"

Alex stopped a few feet away from him. "Just don't
touch my car," she warned him. Her right hand was held behind her back. The
fact that she was holding a cell phone and not a gun was not a reassuring
thought.

"Okay now, don't get into a huff about it. I was
just admirin' it and thought someone'd just left it. This here town seemed
deserted when I drove in this mornin'."

"Well, it's not deserted. Some people left but--what
are you doing in Cape Fair, anyway? Why did you come here?" Alex asked.

"I was told to," the man replied.

"By the dog?" Alex asked, pointing to the dog
standing beside him.

"The dog? Now how the hell could a dog tell me
to come here, huh? You sure you're okay, girl?"

Alex blushed and said, "Well, then, why did you
choose to come here? Do you know anyone in Cape Fair? Family? Friends?"

He shook his head. "Nope, leastwise, I might
know one person, but I ain't sure she's here. She's the one told me to come
here. Name's Lisa I think. She was with a bunch of horses on my ferry--"

"Oh!" Alex smiled. "You're the ferry captain?
The one who helped Lisanne and Andy and Janine and the horses?"

"That's right, those are the names. All the way
here I was tryin' to remember the names of them folks. The girl, Lisanne, she
told me to come here. Said it would be safe. And after the rockin' and rollin'
last night, I like the idea of a safe place!"

Alex pulled out her cell phone and hit redial. "Black?"
she queried over the phone.

"Yeah. You okay? I'm nearly there."

"No problem. It's the guy from the ferry boat.
The one who brought the horses over the river. Lisanne told him to come here."

"Oh, okay. You think he's safe? And what are you
doing talking to him, Alex?" Black said sharply.

"Yeah, I think he's okay. How about I show him
the way out to the Samuels' House?"

"All right," Black responded. "But you have him
drive his own car out here. I'll be waiting. I don't want you alone in the car
with him."

"Okay, fine." She hung up.

The man was looking at her quizzically.

"That was the head of our security team," Alex
explained. "He says for me to show you the way out to--to--our headquarters, I
guess you'd call it."

The man nodded. "Name's Cap'n Joe, ma'am. Nice
to meet ya."

He stuck out his hand and she shook it,
replying, "My name's Alex Hobson. Let me just lock the doors to the library and
we can be on our way."

As she ran back up the steps, Cap'n Joe looked
down at the shaggy dog by his side. "Now who does she think is goin' to break
into a library? What are they gonna steal--books?" He shook his head and walked
toward his pick-up truck, chortling in amusement.

The Farm, Cape Fair

"We want the plants without any blooms. If they
have those little flowers on them, then pinch them off," Gracie was telling
Janine and Clay. She'd had Harmony clear out the nursery in town of all the
tomato plants that were ready for transplanting yesterday, and decided this
morning to get them planted. She was dressed in her new blue jeans and a blue
work shirt with a straw hat planted firmly on her head to shade her face from
the sun.

Janine watched as Gracie pinched off a bloom on
one of the plants. The horses were out running in the fields and she was happy
to learn something that would help their new head farmer.

"Then, we put them in the hole like this--after
we check to make sure the roots are white and healthy, like this one. Now the
trick to getting a lot of tomatoes out of each plant is to put them deep in the
soil, so that they're in the dirt right up to where the first leaves start.
That way we get more fruit."

Clay nodded. He'd planned on setting up his
veterinarian office, but decided to work here at home to be near Abby today.
She seemed calm and cheerful this morning, but he knew she still wasn't right.
Dr. Shapiro was coming over in a while to talk to her.

Janine asked, "So we just stick them in the
ground like this and they grow? This is so cool! I never grew any food before."

Gracie made a wry face. "Not exactly. They'll
grow, but we'll have to stake them so they don't fall over when the tomatoes
get big and heavy. And we'll have to watch out for pests. Which reminds me--later
we'll prune off the first six inches of these leaves to prevent some diseases.
Also, we'll have to make sure they get enough water--I'm not sure of the weather
here and rainfall. Maybe Andy can tell us about that."

Janine frowned. "So doesn't that take a lot of
time, doing all that to them?"

Gracie said, "It takes some time, not too much."

"But won't we have lots of other vegetables too?"
Janine asked thoughtfully.

"Hopefully, yes," Gracie replied. "What's wrong?"

Clay spoke up. "I can tell you what's wrong. You're
going to need some helpers, more people. Each of us--Gaians--" He smiled as he
used the new word. "We Gaians all have things already that we're responsible
for, and you're not going to have enough help, Gracie."

"I know," Gracie answered. "That's why you
always needed to have such a large family on a farm!" She laughed. "But I got a
few minutes with Sam late yesterday and asked her if more people were coming
and she said yes. So we'll just have to recruit some more farmers. And if there
are kids among the new people, they can help out too."

She sat back on her heels and looked out over
the planting area they'd prepared. Definitely she would need help. And at
harvest times, everyone would have to pitch in. But it was doable. With decent
weather and as long as their group didn't grow too big too fast.

"Hey! There's a worm in this dirt!" Janine told
them in surprise.

"That's good," Gracie replied. "Worms aerate the
earth. We like worms, Janine."

Janine looked at her. Gracie laughed. "Okay, we
don't really like them, but we need them. Does that work for you? And Clay
probably will like them when he goes fishing."

"You betcha," said Clay, grinning at the
teenager kneeling in the dirt. "You bring me all the worms you want. And I'll
bring you back some great tasting fish for dinner. Deal?"

"Deal," Janine said. She suddenly went still.
The adults watched her, recognizing the look she had when communicating with
the horses. After a moment she turned to them. "Nathan thinks maybe he found
the broken pipe. He and Andy are going to try and fix it."

"And who told you that, Janine?" Clay asked with
curiosity. The human to animal communication fascinated him.

"Andy told Waldo and Waldo told Feathers and
Feathers told me. Feathers is really easy for me to hear from far away. I can't
hear all of the horses as good as I can hear her." She paused and then smiled
at Clay. "But you could hear them, too, if you tried, Dr. Ames."

"I've told you, Janine, you can call me Clay or
even Doc. You don't need to call me Dr. Ames. It sounds so official for talking
here in the dirt!"

They all laughed and Janine continued, "You just
have to open your mind more, Doc. Feathers says you are too worried right now
to do it. Worried about Abby, I mean."

Clay sighed, "I am worried about her." He looked
sharply at Janine and asked, "Could the horses help her? Help her to understand--if
she opened up her mind?"

Janine looked uncomfortable. "Um, well, it's just
that--the horses say her mind is all messed up right now, Clay. I'm sorry!"

Clay looked disturbed by this news, but said
calmly, "I figured that. Thank them for telling me, Janine."

Gracie watched Janine smile in relief, knowing
the girl had been afraid to tell Clay about his wife. What we need is a
therapist, she thought. We're all entering into a world that is new to us.
Doing work that is new to us, or in her case, work that she hadn't done for a
long time. The shocks of the disasters, of finding out humans could communicate
with animals, of so many people dying in the world--would they end up with a
group of stressed-out, anxiety-ridden lunatics? How many more of them besides
Abby would end up overwhelmed by all the changes?

Pumping Station, Cape Fair

Waldo paced around the desk where Andy sat
huddled with Nathan. He didn't understand all the dials and buttons they were
looking at. But he'd done a good job today so he was wagging his tail and happy
to walk around the two guys in circles. He'd listened to the earth and to the
little creatures in the ground. He never thought of doing that before today,
but it was fun. When they were at the Samuels' house this morning, Harry tried
to tell him what he had to do to find the broken water pipe. But even though
Harry was his friend, Harry wasn't too good at explaining how to do stuff. So
finally Sam had kneeled down in front of him and grabbed hold of his muzzle and
said firmly, "Look at me, Waldo!" And when she said stuff, sometimes it was
loud in his head. Not in his ears but inside his head! Then she explained
inside his head about listening to all the animals--she called it tuning in--around
him. And then he got it. He could even hear beetles and worms and grasshoppers
if he wanted to. But he didn't really want to do that all that time because
they were pretty dumb and boring.

When he found the broken pipe, Andy and Nathan
got all excited and jumped up and down and hugged him a lot. He'd had fun
digging a hole in the ground to the pipe. Waldo didn't know why the pipe was so
important to them, but he was happy if they were happy. And Nathan had been
talking about how sig--how--what was that word? Significant. How significant it
was, yeah. How it meant that the animals could help out in all kinds of ways.
Which Waldo thought was kinda dumb to be saying because everybody knew lots of
animals would help out. Only nobody ever asked them to! Until now. Now it was
all different. Even the cats were different. No way would he chase Perceval or
Merlin around the yard. He didn't want to make them mad, no, sir!

Waldo sat down next to Andy's chair. Andy's hand
automatically settled on top of his head, patting him gently. Waldo loved Andy.
He liked that he belonged to Andy and that Andy belonged to him. He could feel
Andy, know where he was even when he couldn't see him. And he could feel how
much Andy loved him back. Andy thought he was the greatest dog that ever lived!
Waldo thought maybe he wasn't the greatest dog that ever lived, but he liked
that Andy was so sure of it. Andy said Waldo saved his life, getting him away
from that bad storm. Waldo shivered as he thought about the bad storm. Nope, he
didn't want to think about that. He decided to think about all the hamburgers
Andy and Nathan promised to give him because he found the broken pipe. He loved
hamburgers. Hamburgers were about the best thing in the whole world. He could
probably eat a big huge pile of hamburgers if--why was Andy jumping out of his
chair? Nathan and Andy were slapping each other on the back and talking about
flushing? Waldo had heard of flushing a toilet. Andy always told him not to
drink out of the toilet unless it got flushed first. But this was something
else. Flushing the system? What did it mean? Waldo wanted to be excited too! He
listened inside Andy's head this time and saw a picture in Andy's mind and then
he got it. Flushing the water system. They figured out how to do that, so the
water would be clean again. Now he could wag his tail and woof and run around
and be happy. Clean water. Waldo knew that was a good thing. Clean water to
drink and lots of hamburgers very soon. He woofed and woofed.