by K. G. Duncan
“You need to come with me now,” Michael said.
Dr. Kinsey looked up from her desk and paused the recording, removing her head phones. Michael was shifting his weight from foot to foot, uncharacteristically grim in his demeanor.
“They’re going to take her away,” he announced. “She’s been sedated and they’re just waiting to fill out the paperwork for transport.”
Dr. Kinsey shot up from her desk. “A.B.? Where is she now?”
Michael answered, breathlessly as they both scurried from her office and darted down the hall. “She’s in the nurses’ room, under sedation. They got her on a gurney, ready to go. Joanna,” Michael pulled her to a stop as they rounded the corner to the reception lobby.
A small army of FBI agents were milling about, Special Agent Novak was talking to the receptionist at the desk, pointing down and gesticulating with emphasis. Dr. Kinsey only had a moment to take it all in before Michael spoke softly in her ear.
“Joanna, it’s okay. She’s in the room where she told me to place the flowers. I unlocked the window, like she told me to.”
Dr. Kinsey turned to regard Michael, who was now smiling sheepishly, but then Special Agent Novak’s booming voice filled the room.
“You’re too late, doctor. She’s mine, now. It’s all but done. I’ll just need your signature to release her.”
“What?” Dr. Kinsey stared at her staff receptionist, Rona, who just shrugged and threw up her hands. She glanced around the lobby and saw a few other staff members and orderlies nervously glancing around as the FBI agents loomed over the exits and blocked the various doorways. She fixed her gaze on the smirking face of Special Agent Novak. He was holding out a clip board with the release form waiting for her to sign it.
“You know I’ll fight you every step of the way,” she said, resisting the urge to slap him.
“You know I don’t care,” he chuckled and turned the clipboard around and offered her a pen.
“She’s gone!” Agent Browning suddenly shouted as he bounded down the stairwell and skidded into the room. “She’s gone, sir,” he repeated, panting heavily.
His pronouncement was followed by a few moments of suspended disbelief followed by an avalanche of action. Novak slammed the clipboard down on the receptionist desk then sprinted up the stairwell. He was followed by Agent Quick and Browning, then, with a glance at each other, Dr. Kinsey and Michael followed at full speed.
On the second floor they turned left and dashed down the hallway to the nurses’ office. They came panting to a stop outside the door. Agent Novak was in the middle of the room staring stupidly at an open window. Melody, the schizophrenic 12-year old artist and the only other occupant in the room, was sitting up in her bed clapping. An empty gurney, the constraints broken as if by force, was directly across from her on the other side of the room.
Dr. Kinsey pushed her way into the room, Agent Quick and Browning stepping aside to allow her to pass. Melody stopped clapping and pointed at the window.
“She flew away,” Melody said gleefully. “I will paint you a picture for your funeral parlor.” She was bouncing excitedly up and down on her bed.
Dr. Kinsey sniffed the air. Something was off—there was a very strong and out-of-place odor—a musky, urine-like smell that was pungent and vaguely unpleasant. It smelled like snake, if snakes had a smell. Dr. Kinsey was reminded of the smell of a pet store next to the terraniums containing the various reptiles. She turned to gawk at Michael, who was smiling from ear to ear.
“I swear, sir,” Agent Browning was explaining, “I was right outside the room the entire time. No one came in or out. There’s no way she could get out. Then this nut job started clapping, and I came in.”
“Roasted chestnuts,” Melody announced solemnly.
Novak and Agent Quick had gone over to the window and were looking down. There was about a twenty-foot drop with no visible hand holds or leverage on the side of the building, which was flat and smooth red brick all the way down.
“That’s a long drop,” Agent Quick uttered. “Not likely.”
“There’s just no way, no way,” Agent Browning repeated.
“Give me a perimeter around this building!” Novak snarled. “Make it two blocks! Now! She can’t have gone very far.”
Agents Quick and Browning snapped into action, and left the room talking into their devices.
“Oh, fly away, fly away! You won’t catch her!” Melody was singing from her bed.
“Get this person out of here, now.” Novak was glaring at Dr. Kinsey, fuming. “She’s a witness, though. I want to talk to her later. Nobody touches anything in here!”
Michael moved over to Melody as Novak stormed out of the room. Michael and Melody left the room, both smiling. Dr. Kinsey touched his arm and asked quietly,
“What did you do?”
“Nothing she hadn’t already known that I would do,” Michael answered, still smiling. “She left something for you.” He nodded over towards the end table where a fresh bouquet of flowers was standing in a vase.
Michael and Melody left the room, leaving Dr. Kinsey alone for the moment. She walked over to the flowers and saw the card attached. There was a big heart drawn the length of the card, and inside it in a precise, elegant hand were the following words written in purple ink:
Dear Joanna,
I’m only Dreaming of Dragons.
With Love,
A.B. (until next time!)
It was then that she noticed the small shiny object attached to the card. She plucked it from the little clip and held it up. It was a scale—reptilian or fish—about the length of her finger and twice as wide. She held it up to the light from the room, and it glimmered like the inside of a sea shell. There were sparkling tones of purple, maroon, and indigo contained within a sheen of green. It was beautiful.
Dr. Kinsey lifted it to her face and inhaled its scent: definitely a much stronger concentration of the musky aroma that had earlier filled the room.
She turned and gazed out the window. She could just see over the rooftops of the adjoining buildings. Twilight purples and streaks of orange and pink lit the western sky over lake Ponchartrain. The sun had just set, and evening was settling over the city of New Orleans.
Joanna breathed in the smells of the dusk. It was her favorite time of the day. Rain was on the way. And somewhere far away—she wasn’t sure if it was real or imagined—she heard the faintest trace of a screeching, reptilian roar.
It was the sound of a dragon who was happy to be free.
From the Audio transcripts of Dr. Joanna Kinsey
Chief Psychiatrist, CHNOLA Northshore Center,
New Orleans, LA
Excerpt of Audio File Transcript #AR10089-51
July 14, 2022
Subject: A. B. Rubideaux. Female. Age: 12
Transcript of recording begins: 10:48 AM EST.
Kinsey: So, this brother of yours. Should I be worried? Am I ever going to meet him?
A.B.: Oh yes, my twin brother. Fraternal. Not identical. Far from identical—Enoch is less inclined to peaceful resolution of the mess humanity has created for itself than I am. Yes, I think you shall meet him. Eventually. But, no. I don’t think you need to worry. You wouldn’t be able to do anything about it anyway.
Kinsey: Do anything about what?
A.B.: About his solution to the current crisis we, and all the creatures of this planet, are currently experiencing. Oh, he and I are very different. I happen to have taken a liking to humans. To everything that humanity represents—to an unfulfilled promise that yet yearns to be free. A beautiful potential realized. He, and many others like him, feel differently.
Kinsey: How so?
A.B.: They are less patient. It’s nothing personal, you know. It’s just a question of efficiency. Unlike I, who have come here to help humanity ascend to higher co
nsciousness, he and those who are of like minds, have taken a different approach. Well, it’s really more of an ultimatum.
Kinsey: An ultimatum? What kind of ultimatum? And to whom?
A.B.: It’s an ultimatum to humanity. One with a very simple message. “Evolve or be eradicated.”
Later That Same Evening: July 14, 2022
It felt good to stretch her wings. Just to be flying again. The movement of her wings, an effortless flapping, triggered responses throughout the muscles of her entire body. The cool, wet wind streamed over her. Yes, she was built for flying. She shivered in pleasure. She swooped and dropped suddenly, enjoying the rush and the sensation of her stomach dropping then rising up through the top of her head.
Better than any rollercoaster.
That was the little girl named Abby. The voice inside of the dragon. They were linked together, always, a connection that was electric and jolted down to each and every last neural synapse within her musculature. They were thought. They were emotion. They existed together, and they were one.
The dragon dove deeper, sweeping closer to the ground. She glided over bayou land, misty rain dancing and curling in the wake of her swift flight. She spread her awareness out over the very land beneath her and felt the warm patches of air hovering over the cooler water of the swamp below. She felt the sighing music of the trees, a spiderweb link of awareness that spread from roots through soil, up through trunks and then leaves, finally releasing into the very air itself. A murmur of eons, as old as the stone beneath the earth’s crust. She felt the warm pulse of small mammals, mice and squirrels and rabbits in their burrows, hearts beating, life force thrumming. She felt the fish in the water, a concerted rhythm of impulse and cool flesh beneath glittering scales. That made her belly rumble.
Hunger.
But she resisted the temptation to dive into the waters. The fish and her meal could wait.
She caught an updraft of warmer air, rising off the oily slick of natural gas that was bubbling up from a sink hole within the swamp. She tucked her wings and spiraled and accelerated through space. Her senses reached further, spreading everywhere and nowhere all at once, nudging into the infinity of awareness through time and space that was the Fold.
Oh, she could fly forever, but first, there were unfinished things that needed to be done. For Abby.
The town of Houma appeared ahead, soft lights winking in the evening through the trees. The dragon turned and flew over a stand of trees in the bayou, hugging low, her belly almost brushing their tops.
There!
The small white house with forest green shutters occupied a clearing at the end of a cul-de-sac. The young girl with frizzy red hair was standing on the porch looking up, waiting. She turned and saw the dragon approaching.
Olivia.
The dragon dipped then pulled up, arresting the pace of her flight. She hovered briefly in the air, wings flapping once, then twice before lightly landing on the lawn in the front yard of the house.
A blast of warm air and a flurry of leaves brushed past Olivia, who stood gaping, hands on hips, with the biggest, goofiest grin anyone had ever seen plastered across her face.
“Well, I’ll be a suck egg mule!” She pronounced, taking in the majestic spectacle. She was giddy, and she couldn’t believe what just happened.
Well, don’t stand there gawkin’! Get me something to cover up with!
The voice sounded telepathically, directly inside of Olivia’s head.
“No way… This is so cool!” Olivia breathed out breathlessly.
Hello? I need a towel, or a bathrobe. A change of clothes? Anything? Go on!
“Oh, right,” Olivia giggled then dashed inside the house. She came out just a moment later with a blanket in her arms, just in time to see a fourteen-foot tall dragon with purple and indigo scales, slowly spin, blur, then morph into the naked figure of a five-foot-two girl named A. B. Rubideaux.
Abby collapsed on the lawn and shuddered like a newborn pony. Olivia quickly moved forward and covered her with the blanket. Abby was shivering and covered in a sheen of sweat.
“Thanks,” Abby breathed with a grateful smile.
“Well,” Olivia responded, “That’s not something you see every day.” She helped Abby to her feet and after a few unsteady steps, guided her back up to the porch and into her home.
They walked past a small parquet floored entry way and into a cozy family room. “I got your message,” Olivia smiled and tapped her temple. “Just like a download. Everything is prepared.” She handed Olivia a bundle that was a change of clothes. “I think these will fit you. The bus ticket to New Orleans is in the right front pocket of the pants.”
“Where’s your mom and her new boyfriend?” Abby asked taking the clothes.
“They went out,” Olivia clucked, “On a Wednesday night. Yeah, like that has ever happened before. We are alone.” Olivia paused to regard her friend with something like joyful amazement on her face.
“How are you doing all of this, Abby?” she asked. “I mean there I am sitting in the parlor doing my math lessons and WHOOMF! There you are inside of my head, giving me instructions!”
Abby chuckled and spoke over her shoulder as she passed into the bathroom, “Call it a trick of the dragon trade.” She smiled and ducked behind the door to change into the clothes.
“All right,” Olivia said, pacing the room like a cat in heat. “I’ll buy that. But tell me this: You could go anywhere. Do anything you want. Why come back here to see me? Why not just go directly to New Orleans?”
“First of all,” Abby called from the bathroom. She poked her head out from behind the door. “I missed you.” She popped back out of sight but continued talking. “You are my best friend. And I need your help. I can’t do all of this alone. I’m still finding my way.”
Abby walked out of the bathroom in a pair of blue jeans and a Saints tee shirt. She was pulling a green knit sweater on around her shoulders. She paused to grin at Olivia as she buttoned up the sweater.
“Really?” she said. “Sponge Bob underpants with matching socks?” She looked down at her feet and wiggled her toes. Sponge Bob and Patrick grinned up at them.
“Hey!” Olivia laughed. “I’ve outgrown them, and you’re more petite than me. They fit you okay, right?”
“No complaints,” Abby smiled and the two girls high-fived each other. “And second of all, to finish answering your question, I can’t just go flying around in a city like New Orleans. It would raise a few eyebrows, to say the least. Plus, I’d rather wear your clothes than bust into a thrift shop or steal them from some homeless person, which I would have to do if I went there directly.”
“Yeah, totally,” Olivia snickered. “Your like the Terminator when you arrive here, butt naked only not nearly so pissed off.”
“Oh, I’m pissed off, alright,” Abby said. “I just wear it well. And I have a mission. I need to meet my brother, Enoch. I know, I know!” Abby held up her hand to placate Olivia. “Until a few days ago, I didn’t know about him either. Well, actually, I didn’t remember him, that he actually existed. But he’s been there in my mind the whole time, kind of lurking. Toying with me, actually. That’s closer to the truth.”
She blew a stray bang out of her face and sighed, turning to face Olivia. “So, it’s not like I’ve been holding out on you. I would’ve told you about him, but since the last time we’ve met, so much has happened! I’ve unlocked so much! I can do so much more, Olivia! It’s truly incredible.”
“Well, I’m happy now,” Olivia replied, smiling. “I’ve seen you in dragon form. It’s real.” Olivia walked into the kitchen, still talking and Abby could hear the refrigerator door open and close. “Now I can die and go to heaven, I guess. What more is there to do in this life?” Olivia came out with two Snickers bars and handed one to Abby. “Hungry?”
“Oh, yes!” Abby took the choco
late and immediately went to work on it with several quick nibbles. Between smacks of chocolatey caramel, she continued. “You ain’t nearly done with this life, my friend!” Abby said and waggled her snickers bar at Olivia. “We’ve got plans for you. You signed up a long time ago, whether you knew it or not. You’re on board.”
“On board for what, exactly?” Olivia had wolfed down her chocolate, and she now crumpled up her wrapper and tossed it squarely off of Abby’s forehead. “Yes!!” Olivia bent over and pumped her fists like she had just made the game-winning shot.
Unphased, Abby took another bite of her candy bar, savored it for a few moments, then replied nonchalantly, “Oh nothing much. We’re just here to save humanity.”
“Of course. All in a day’s work. I’m in.” Olivia grinned. “What are we saving them from?” Olivia rocked back on her heels and held her head up higher. All she needed was some suspenders to grab on to and her look of smugness would be complete.
“From themselves,” Abby said slowly. “I think. But it might be more complicated. Most of them, I think, just aren’t ready for the download. I need to help them first.”
“O-o-o-kay,” Olivia said, grabbing her backpack. “Can we be a little more specific? What’s the plan?”
“There is no plan. I need to think it through a little more.” Abby said, suddenly feeling rather dismal. She collapsed on the couch and hugged her shoulders, rubbing the tops of her arms and taking deep breaths. She really had to resist the urge to take a nap.
“And this brother character of yours?” Olivia asked. “What’s he got to do with it?”
Abby looked up at Olivia and sighed. “Oh yes. Enoch. Well, that’s the first order of business. I need to talk to him. He’s the missing link. Things are happening out there, all across the Fold. I just hope I’m not too late.”
“The Fold?” Olivia asked, scrunching her face in the very picture of perplexity.
Abby glanced at her and chuckled. “Gosh, I missed you. Yeah, the Fold. I will tell you all about it sometime, when we’ve got a whole week or something. For now, it’s something I’ve got to do on my own. You’ve done enough, Olivia. You’re the best friend, ever.”
