Olivia (63 page)

The madwoman blinked rapidly.

“Amanda, raise your left hand if you hear me.”

The madwoman’s left hand rose slowly into the air and hovered there.

“How old are you, Amanda?”

“Five.”

“I want you to picture the calendar again, Amanda.  The month is December, and it has your favorite picture on it.  Do you see the calendar?”

Amanda nodded and smiled timidly.  “Pony,” she said.

“Good.  Now I want you to reach up and turn the page so that the calendar says November.”

Amanda reached up with her right hand and mimed flipping a page upward.  Her expression brightened.  “Puppy!” she said.

“That’s right, now go back to August for me.  You can use your left hand if you need to.”

Amanda held the invisible pages in place with her left hand and turned time back with her right.  She frowned at the picture, concentrating.  “El’pant,” she said judiciously.

“Do you like the elephants, Amanda?”

“Yes, please.”

“Good, now go back one more to July.”

Amanda struggled with the invisible pages and the balding man took notes, despite the presence of a video camera in the corner.  Finally, she managed to turn the calendar page and see the picture.  She recoiled, lashing out with her hands.

“Amanda, it’s all right.  Nothing can hurt you.  You’re not in the room, you’re only watching.”

Amanda calmed down immediately.

“Now, what do you see on the calendar?”

Amanda shuddered. “Bats.”

The hypnotist made a notation on his own pad of paper, and then addressed Amanda again.  “Turn around, Amanda.  There is a window beside the calendar.  Do you see the window?”

Amanda turned her face and nodded, frowning.

“You can see your home through the window.  You can see High Hill Apartments.”

Amanda nodded again, still frowning.  “Dark.”

“It is dark, isn’t it?  Do you see any people?”

“Lots of people.”  Amanda leaned closer, peering as though trying to look through dirty glass.  “Ladies in the parking lot.  They cry and cry.”  She reached up and made trickling motions with her fingers over her cheeks.  “I see Amanda.”

“But you can watch her.  You don’t have to be the Amanda in the parking lot.  You can watch her and be safe where you are.”

“Watch Amanda.  See Amanda try to run.  Oh, run Amanda!” the hypnotized woman called in a breathy, little-girl voice.  Her face fell.  “No, he catches her.”

“Who catches her?”

“The bat-man.”

“Batman?” the bald man echoed, looking puzzled.  Clearly, he was imagining the Caped Crusader, blue tights and cowl, leaping onto the back of the fleeing Amanda.

“Look at Batman, Amanda,” the doctor commanded.

“Not Batman!” Amanda said loudly, very offended.  “Batman helps people like Amanda!”

“Okay, not Batman, but a bat-man.  Look at the bat-man.  What do you see?”

“Big with hair on his arms,” Amanda whispered.  “And wings.  And big, big eyes and teeth.  He wear a towel.  Got naked feet with sharp hooks, and naked hands with claws.  Pick Amanda up.  Take Amanda back.  Amanda cry and cry.”  Those trickling motions again.

“What happens now?” asked the doctor gently.

“Big bat-man come to Amanda.  ‘What do you want?’ he say.  Amanda wants to go home, but he say, ‘I cannot do that.’  He give Amanda to other bat-man, and he hold her.”  Both times when Amanda spoke as Vorgullum, she deepened and slowed her voice.  “Bat-man say to Amanda, ‘What do you want?’ and now Amanda cry.  So he take her back to home.  All the women go home and get things.  Amanda get a pan.”

“Why a pan, Amanda?”

“Amanda buy the pan yesterday.  She buy the pan, and she wants the pan.  She cry and cry.”  Trickle, trickle, go her tears.

“Now what happens next, Amanda?”

“Bat-man talk to other bat-men.  Amanda can’t understand them.  Then bat-man take them all to the road and climb up the road.  Take Amanda and say, ‘Turn around, please.’  Amanda turn and he hold her.  He jump and fly away.  Bye-bye.”  She waved like a child, her open palm flapping straight up and down.

The balding doctor shook his head, but the hypnotist continued.  “The window is like television now, and you can see where Amanda goes.  Where does Amanda go?”

“In the mountain.”

“Where on the mountain?”

“In the mountain,” Amanda insisted.  “It all black and can’t see.  Bat-man carry Amanda up a little tunnel and he put her in a hole.  He say, ‘This is a place to sleep in.’  Amanda wants to go to sleep.”

“Does the bat-man let her go to sleep?”

“He say, ‘Take off this.’  She take off her nightie and be naked.  He take off his towel.”  Amanda’s lip was trembling.

“You aren’t there, Amanda.  You can watch and still be safe.”

“Amanda lost.  Amanda can’t leave.  Bat-man fold up wings little-bitty and lie down on Amanda.”  Her staring eyes welled with tears.  “Bye-bye, Amanda.  Bye-bye.”

“What happens to Amanda?”

“Bye-bye, Amanda.  Bye-bye.”

The balding doctor began to speak in a low voice, looking at the camera.  Olivia tried to hear what was said, but Urga took her arm and led her from the room.  She spread her wings in the hospital hall and flew away.

At first, Olivia though they were flying back to the mountain, but then Urga veered away and they landed in the police station.

Two men, one with graying hair and the other barely old enough to grow a beard, were being questioned by a police officer in a private room.  Another officer watched from the door.

“Where did you take the women?”

“I didn’t take them anywhere, I just took them out of the apartment,” said the younger calmly.  “They went to Jupiter to be with the Messiah.”

“Yeah, well one of the women fell back to earth.  She says she was on a mountain.  Tell me where the others are.”

“Jupiter.”

“Jupiter,” the older agreed.

“Jupiter, for Christ’s sake,” muttered the man in the doorway.

“Will you arrest us now?”

“Not until you are able to corroborate at least one piece of evidence, no,” the seated officer explained patiently.  “If you want us to arrest you, tell me where the women are.”

The two men exchanged glances.  “Well,” the younger said.  “Like I say, we didn’t transport them.  I guess it’s possible the landing site is somewhere on the mountain.”

“Possible?”

“The Messiah had a map,” the older suspect said.  “With a big X.”

The two cops exchanged startled glances.  “If we show you a map, can you show us where the X is?” asked the one at the table.

“Yes,” said the older suspect, smiling.

The officer in the doorway knocked on the mirror and left.

Urga took Olivia’s arm and flew again, back to the hospital.  The hypnotist and the bald man were alone in the room, talking among themselves.

“—views her captors as bat-men,” the bald man said.

“As a metaphor, of course,” replied the hypnotist.  “She was taken very quickly, so they have wings.  They loom over her like monsters, so she gave them monstrous features.  Sharp teeth and claws.  It’s a very common defense mechanism, much more so than people realize.”

“And the mountain?”

“There must be some sort of structure up there.  Maybe even a cave such as she describes, more than just a hole in the ground.  Perhaps an old mine shaft, where the other women are being kept.”

“There was no evidence of sexual trauma when she was found,” the bald man observed, checking his notes.

“No recent trauma, you mean.”  The hypnotist took off his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.  “In a way, that’s the most disturbing thing of all.  It means someone was taking care of her.  She was well-fed, clean, no signs of damage from exposure, no signs of physical abuse.  That’s a lot of work.”

“Well, Batman or no Batman, someone is up on that mountain.  Some of those women might still be alive.”

Urga touched Olivia’s arm, but Olivia resisted.

“We need to get some infrared equipment up on the mountain and see if we can detect any heat sources that might indicate a generator or electrical facilities.  Fly a search plane over there a few times, see if we can pick out any sign that a large group of people has set up some sort of semi-permanent residence.”

“Is this happening?” Olivia demanded, catching at Urga’s arm.  “Is this a dream or is it real?”

Urga looked calmly down at Olivia’s hands, so brown and rough looking against her starry skin.  She kept looking, motionless, until Olivia released her.  Then she brought her empty eyes back up, took Olivia in her arms, and flew.

Again, they circled the town, and now they landed at High Hill Apartments, dropping down through the roof and into Olivia’s old home.

A young, scruffy-looking man was sitting on the edge of his bed, smoking a cigarette and flipping through the TV guide.  All of Olivia’s possessions were gone.  The pictures she’d hung on the wall were not there, the holes left by the nails had been filled in and painted over.  The carpet had been shampooed, then re-stained by the new occupant.  The furniture was in a different pattern, and none of it was hers.  Her life, if it could ever have been said to be here, had been removed.

“Where did it go?” Olivia asked, only dimly aware of how childishly mournful she sounded.

Urga said nothing, did nothing.

Olivia walked up and down the small apartment.  The grungy young man in the bedroom was a stranger.  The filthy bathroom was filled with shaving supplies and manly tonics.  The kitchen was squalid and matted with old food.  The living room was cramped and deep with someone else’s junk.

“Why are you doing this?” Olivia screamed.  She wanted to grab Urga and shake her, make her answer, but didn’t dare.

Urga held out her hand impassively.

Having no choice, Olivia took it, and let herself be carried away.  Finally, they left the town behind, but did not move back towards the mountains just yet.  Urga flew above a narrow road, past a wooded place to a garden of stone set in a clearing.

“No,” Olivia moaned.

Urga landed gently on a sloping hill in the cemetery.  She took Olivia’s hand like a mother walking a small child across the street and led her through the monuments and flowers to a small outbuilding away from the memoriam hall.  They walked through the wall and down the stairs into a storage bay of coffins and marble slabs.  She nudged Olivia forward and pointed.

“I don’t want to see this.”  Olivia tried to twist away, but Urga took her firmly by the shoulders and turned her bodily around.  Again, she pointed, her tapered finger pointed at a flat, dark headstone.  All it needed was the final date.

OLIVIA ARDETH BLAKE

Olivia screamed, an anguished, horrified cry of rage.  She turned and struck out wildly, battering the luminescent body of the First Woman.  Her blows did not seem to land, glancing harmlessly off a cushion of air that surrounded Urga like armor.  Urga only watched as Olivia tired herself out, and when the dreamer slumped weeping to the ground, she simply reached down and pulled her up again.

Wings of moonlight beat the air and they flew out into the night again.  The snow-covered landscape was beautiful in the moonlight.  It hurt Olivia’s eyes to see it, and it hurt her heart to think of it, but she looked and thought all the same.

Urga flew past Hollow Mountain and kept going.  She flew to the north, along the mountain ridge, over caps of snow and jagged rock, until the forests became a single vast, black sea.  She flew until Olivia couldn’t see any sign of human habitation, and then she landed.  She put Olivia down in a pack of ice and snow and waved her arm at the horizon.

Olivia looked.  She saw high, white mountains, a broad valley, a slightly higher thicket of wooded foothills, and then a sloping roll of evergreens.  She turned the other way and saw a rushing river, stabbed with jagged lines of broken ice and bleeding froth and foam, plummet over the side of the mountain and down into a glassy lake. 

Urga waited until she had filled her mind with the sight of this place, then turned her and pointed at the mountain itself.

There was a cavern, and it looked deep.

Olivia started to walk towards it, but Urga took her arm and dropped down through layers of rock instead, until they came to an opening hundreds of feet below.  In the glow of Urga’s ethereal body, Olivia could make out a system of tunnels and caverns filling the body of the mountain like a network of veins.  Still, Urga continued to fall deeper, until she arrived in a small, stone enclosure, and released Olivia to look around.

In this silent and long-empty chamber was a sleeping pit, a fireplace with fragments of charred wood now gone grey with dust, and there, in the corner, stood a low, stone bench with indentations for a prone gulla’s wings.

“
Remember
,” Urga said in a death-dry whisper.

“I can’t—I don’t understand.” 

Urga gathered her up and pulled her back out of the mountain.  She stopped again, turning Olivia so that she could see everything around them.

“
Remember
,” she commanded.

“I don’t know where we are!” Olivia wailed.

“
Remember
.”  Urga leapt into the air and pulled Olivia northward over the mountain ridge, back to the hollow mountain where the gulla tribe slept.  She flew down through dark stone into Vorgullum’s chamber, and there was Olivia, sleeping in his arms.

“
Remember
,” Urga said again, placing Olivia down inside the pit.

Olivia could feel her physical body pulling at her.  Though she struggled, she was being drawn in, inhaled like a breath of air. 

“
Remember
,” Urga said a final time, and spread her wings to fly.

Olivia fell exhausted into her body and opened her eyes.  The world drew into painful focus.  Weight and sense and smell assaulted her, overwhelmed her.  Every facet of her dream stood out in her mind with crystalline clarity, especially the view from the mountains to the north.

Urga’s only word pounded in her ears with the beating of her heart, until Olivia couldn’t stand it anymore.  She did something she had never done before.