by K. G. Duncan
Be still. Arms loose at her side.
There! A low snuffling sound up ahead and slightly off to the left. Abby snapped her eyes open and silently moved toward the sound. Parting fronds, stepping over the decaying trunk of a fallen tree, she drew closer and could hear rustling sounds and grunting—something big, something close, moving in the clearing just beyond the brush. Abby parted one last frond and then her heart skipped a beat.
The clearing was bathed in sunlight, revealing a rock outcropping consisting of several large boulders. But one of the boulders was moving. It took several moments for Abby to register what she was seeing: a huge cave bear, his brown fur streaked with gray along his backside, towered over Abby. Even standing on all fours, he was at least seven feet tall from paws to shoulders. He padded over to the boulders and rested his massive head in the lap of Granny Jane, who was sitting there, and she began scratching him between the ears and cooing to him like he was her very own little cub.
The bear moaned and shivered, clearly familiar with and enjoying the attention. Abby watched as Granny Jane—Stump’s Granny Jane—grabbed both ears and raised her face to nuzzle against the nose of the bear. The bear moaned even louder in response. Abby couldn’t move and finally remembered to start breathing again.
She felt a presence beside her and turned to see a much younger and lankier version of Stump standing next to her, smiling as he watched the bear and the woman interact. Stump looked like a dark brown Native American warrior, for he was shirtless and wearing only thick buckskin trousers. His torso was painted with a pattern of thick white and black swirls. Little red diamonds formed a dotted line across his forehead, and on his face, each cheek was adorned with a large spiral, one black and one white.
“Not much of a lover, is he?” Stump said softly. “I used to think there was some other reason why she spent so much time in the forest. I guess there is more than one kind of a love relationship, yes ma’am!”
Stump laughed and looked down at Abby and winked. Abby stared back at him, open mouthed.
“How… What…” she sputtered, recovering from the shock of seeing him in the flesh standing right beside her. “I saw you die. You were shot. How are we here?”
Stump chuckled and turned back to watch his grandmother rise and begin walking away with the bear at her side.
“Congratulations, Miss Aurora Borealis Rubideaux,” he said brightly. “Welcome to the new world! You a traveler, now. A proper wanderer!” He pointed at the retreating figures of Granny Jane and the bear. “Shall we follow?”
Abby stepped quickly to keep up with Stump, who did not wait for her to answer. They jogged across the small clearing and then up the slight rise between the largest of the boulders.
“You chose to be here,” Stump continued as Abby strode along beside him, “and you alone are in control.” He paused and glanced down to smile at Abby. “I see you found your anchor.”
Abby could smell the musky odor of the bear, who was only a few yards in front of them, Granny Jane’s hand resting on its side. The two of them, beast and human, were in perfect sync—the long strides of Granny Jane matching the ambling gait of the bear. The old woman looked back at Abby and smiled.
“Stay as long as you want,” she said. She turned back and led the bear up to the right and around a pine tree. They were following a small animal run, climbing a small, craggy hill. As they climbed, Abby could hear the growing sound of roaring water draw nearer.
“It doesn’t matter how long you spend here,” Granny Jane continued. “You won’t lose any time back home—everything will be as you left it. It always is.” She stopped and turned to look at Abby again, her smile widening as Abby stopped beside her.
“Or you could spend a lifetime here. Never go back,” The old woman spoke and put her arm around Abby’s shoulders. Stump drew up silently on her other side.
The odd company had crested the hill and stood looking down on a pristine river valley. A wide blue-green river tumbled down the ravine over many more boulders. The edges of the river were lined with smooth white shale and grey river rock. From their position, Abby could hear the water roaring below—the current was strong and brisk, and the spray from the water rushing over boulders reminded her of another river, somewhere far away, of small children with spider web cords criss-crossing their faces. It wasn’t the same river at all, but Abby felt that somehow these places were connected.
“Go on now,” Granny Jane spoke this time to the bear, and Abby watched as the bear ambled on, snuffling and snorting as he made his way down toward the river. The trio stood silently for some time, watching him go.
Abby took a deep breath and turned her gaze to follow the river downstream. She could see for miles, and the river made a wide, sweeping turn far below, disappearing behind a veil of mist into a high-walled, narrow gorge. It was truly one of the most beautiful places Abby had ever seen.
Stump and Granny Jane both chuckled, and Abby swung her gaze back to the bear, who was now splashing in the river. His moans and groans of pleasure could be heard above the roar of rushing water.
Abby reached up to grasp the bear claw necklace that hung around her neck. It was warm to her touch.
“The familiar and the strange,” the old woman remarked, reaching over to stroke Abby’s hand, her fingers lingering on the claw. “Sometimes the two exist together—well, more times than you might think!” She laughed, and Abby couldn’t help but smile back at her.
“This belonged to you, didn’t it?” Abby asked quietly. “In another time. Another place.”
“All times and places are connected,” Stump’s rich baritone voice chimed in. “You have learned that by now.”
Abby locked eyes with the older woman, who patted Abby’s hand before speaking. “I’m hungry. That is one thing that never changes in all times and places.” She laughed uproariously, and soon all three of them were laughing. The bear could still be heard chortling below at the river’s edge.
“I have fish and wild turkey—fresh caught this morning,” Stump finally said.
“What are we waiting for, then? Granny Jane perked up, and the three of them laughed and turned back to the forest.
But as they walked, Abby looked back, and her gaze lingered on the bear frolicking through the spray from the river. Was it just a trick of the light, or was there another figure emerging from the droplets of water?
Shimmering and ethereal, the figure emerged—a woman or creature from another plane. She was colorless and transparent but glowed with a powerful silvery light. Abby could see the rocks and the river through her wraithlike form. She was no specter, though, Abby decided on the spot. This was not a creature of the dark, but one that burned with the light of the stars. The figure was indeed strange and familiar as it stepped into the river and stroked the head of the bear. Even without color, Abby recognized the bearing and the shape at once. The headdress, the feathers, and the loose flowing robes. And now as the figure stroked the bear, the profile of a woman, ancient spiderweb scars visible all across her face.
Bo M’ba Nesh. I see you. Are you really here?
Abby’s voice sounded in the infinite ether. The Elder from the Clan of the Spider turned and stared back at Abby. She waved, and her voice came through, clear and strong in Abby’s head.
Always so many questions, little monkey. Little wanderer. Do you still not believe what you see before your own eyes?
Abby had stopped and was now fully turned back toward the river. She answered.
I do believe, Ancient One. I just don’t know how I am here.
A hand gently pressed down on her shoulder and squeezed. Abby glanced over to see Granny Jane, whose gaze once more returned to the river. They both stood and watched the bear as the shimmering figure winked in and out of the light and the spray of the river. Then the wind changed, and the water spray was whipped away into nothing. The shimmering figu
re was gone.
“How is always the better question than why,” Granny Jane said quietly. “You followed your breath, my dear. The mind is connected to your breath. The breath comes from within and without you. Follow the breath, and the mind can go anywhere. Everywhere and nowhere. You decide if the body comes along, too. It’s as simple as following your breath.”
“Huh,” Abby responded. “Breathing… and that’s supposed to be the easy part.”
“Who said anything was going to be easy?” The old woman replied and laughed.
The bear groaned, lifted his head and bellowed. He turned and slowly walked away along the river’s edge. It was a good time to catch some fish.
From the Audio transcripts of Dr. Joanna Kinsey
Chief Psychiatrist, CHNOLA Northshore Center,
New Orleans, LA
Excerpt of Audio File Transcript #AR10089-49
July 11, 2022
Subject: A. B. Rubideaux. Female. Age: 12
Transcript of recording begins: 9:37 AM EST.
Kinsey: I understand that everything is connected. In order for me to document your experience of… of everything that has happened to you, I need to proceed in a certain order.
A.B.: You know that your dependence on order will be your ultimate undoing, doctor. Joanna.
Kinsey: (Sighing.) Okay, let’s try this: Have you ever considered the possibility that none of this is real? I mean, in the sense of a quantifiable, objective reality, this is nothing more than an elaborate fantasy played out inside of your head? Or to put it simply, you are only dreaming of dragons?
A.B: (Giggling.) Oh, most assuredly so. Perchance to dream… none of this is possible without dreams. The only issue here is that what happens in my head, and hence in my dreams, is also happening in the Fold. They are connected, you know. And yes… I think you do know, Joanna. All of this is a manifestation. (Pause.) But I sense a note of skepticism creeping in here. One that I’m sure agent Novak would approve of. (Giggling.) He put you up to this, didn’t he? You do realize, of course, that Special Agent Novak is a giant sphincter? That’s an ass-hole by any other name.
Kinsey: A. B. Please. (Chuckle and long pause.) Do you really want to talk about Agent Novak?
A.B.: Not particularly. Any reference to him or just the mere mention of his name, especially if it’s coming through his own lips, tends to take all of the air right out of the room. I thought you wanted me to describe, once again, the non-local or quantum nature of space and time that I experience during the change. We’re kind of going all willy-nilly here, as a good friend of mine was fond of saying.
Kinsey: Absolutely. (Chuckling.) Willy-nilly. We can have a real field day. (Both laughing.) Please, go on.
A.B.: You’re very good, doctor.
Kinsey: What do you mean?
A.B.: It’s just that I’ve seen that look before, doctor. That smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. You don’t think anything I say is for real.
Kinsey: Now, A.B.. That I didn’t say. I have told you this before: it doesn’t matter what I think.
A.B.: It matters to me. And I think it matters to you that it matters to me. (Pause.) I’m not making this up, doctor. You know I’m not crazy. Can you just allow for one moment that the Fold is real? Every chaotic and beautiful wrinkle. Every wave of conscious thought and energy. It’s more than just chemicals in your brain. It exists within but also beyond your empirical, objective reality. What is it you’re so fond of saying?
A.B. and Kinsey together: “There is no objective point of view with an exclusive monopoly on reality!”
(Laughing.)
Kinsey: You know, on that much we do agree, and if it’s real enough for you, then it’s real enough for me. And for the record: I’ve never once said that the Fold isn’t real. That it isn’t possible. You’ve all but proven that much. It’s just up to me to convince some other very important people of that. And I am trying to help you, A.B.. I am trying to understand. And if there’s anything that I’ve learned from you—that you’ve taught me! Yes! It’s that, in my heart, I believe you. It’s only my head that remains to make sense of all this. So please, humor me and my insistence on an orderly process. Now, where were we?
A.B.: You see? That’s the doctor I like so much! Doc is being sincere. You really should stick with that, Joanna. (Giggling.) Where were we? Indeed.
45 Days Earlier: May 27, 2022
There were no cave bears or fish to catch in the Adolescent Behavioral Health Unit at CHNOLA. The daily regimen of life here would depress most people. The doctors and nurses and staff that worked here all tried their best, despite knowing deep down that the facility was like a sad old shadow from another century—an energy sucker that drained the life and hope right out of the very air itself. The irony is that several of the kids who were institutionalized here were depressed before they went in. Didn’t leave them much of a chance, the way Abby looked at it.
Still, this was where Abby chose to be. Was meant to be. A reunion with Stump and Granny Jane could wait. There was work to be done here.
There was no shortage of irony everywhere around her. Abby hadn’t even known what irony was before the thought popped into her mind. But she was used to that by now. This knowledge and wisdom that just appeared from nowhere in particular.
Abby had begun to refer to it as the download. She had access to it whenever she focused on it. The world of spirit and the quantum field were one and the same, depending on which books you read. Abby didn’t care to make any distinction or to insist that it might be one or the other. It was all just magnificently horrible and beautiful at the same time. She could continue breathing or she could just stop breathing. And it was up to her mind—her very being—to decide if she should dwell in the light or the dark. There wasn’t one without the other, and while it was certainly wonderful to revel in the light, there was no need to fear the dark either. In fact, it was in the dark that things were often the most interesting.
Take the inhabitants of this fine CHNOLA facility, for example. By all ostensible and measurable standards, they were a sad mix of mentally ill, chemically imbalanced, mentally retarded, scarred and traumatized outliers—outcasts who had been shunned or put to the side by their families and society as a whole, by the rest of a world that simply didn’t know what to do with them. And yet these outliers had depths that no one had plumbed. This was the irony.
Here at the hospital, for example, within the mind of a severely autistic boy named Will—a boy whose nanny would burn him with cigarettes because he wouldn’t follow her directions—within that boy, whose world was about as bleak and mean-spirited as a particularly horrific plane of hell, Abby found a soul who delighted in the simple things that were all around him. The patches of blue sky that peeked from behind the clouds; the smell of cinnamon buns in the morning cafeteria; the warmth of his mother’s hand when she held onto his. These were the daily scripts that ran endlessly through his mind. And all of the bad things—the heinous acts and callous apathy of the multifold of others—all the rest of humanity and a world that didn’t see or didn’t care—these things were instantly and unconditionally forgiven. They simply didn’t matter to him. They were not important or worthy enough for him to dwell upon. How does the most experienced or illuminated human on the planet find wisdom like that?
Then there was Melody, the schizophrenic 12-year old who had been diagnosed with a severe learning disability. She had been called stupid all of her life and had lived in a series of foster homes from the time she was a baby. They drugged her up and had her on a daily regimen of anti-depressants and stress inhibitors. She had every reason to be depressed and full of spit and venom at a world that had cast her aside, but instead, she found her way into the recreation room every day, where she sat and painted with water colors—beautiful pictures of flowers, animals, and the brick courtyard outside that Abby just marveled at, for thei
r details were so intricate and full of a light and color that simply wasn’t present in the dull, grey reality of the actual courtyard outside the window. When Abby had asked her about the beauty she expressed in the paintings, Melody had simply smiled and winked at her before replying,
“The barking flowerpots are horsing up spit. They know better. You only have to listen.”
Abby knew that most folks would just dismiss that as crazy talk, but she didn’t dare do it herself. Melody might very well have been on to something, and if she kept looking and listening and painting, well, she just might find more beauty and grace than anyone else in their “right mind.”
Right mind indeed. It seemed to Abby that Melody and the score of others she met in the facility were closer to truth and actual purpose than most of the folks rambling around on the outside. All the normal folks. It was their secret here on the inside, though. One the rest of the world wasn’t quite ready to discover.
So, while Olivia and Momma Bea would have been horrified by her current circumstances—living among the deranged and the chemically peculiar, Abby chose to experience it differently. With reverence and gratitude. Two feelings, by the way, which if you simply embraced and dwelled upon more often, just might lead you to remarkable physical and mental health. That would be a natural kind of intelligence that connects your body and your mind to a higher frequency—a healing frequency. Abby knew all of this and more, thanks to the download.
In such a state of mind, it was around her third day at the facility that Abby found herself waiting in Dr. Kinsey’s office. And such a marvelous place it was, full of books and curious knick-knacks. The doctor was a collector of mementos—of things that told the stories of places she had been and people she had known. She placed her hands on all of the items to feel them and sense their energy. She had discovered recently that it wasn’t just people but also objects that contained certain frequencies and memories—they told the story their past and of their meaning. If Abby held them and concentrated, she could access the information stored in them.
