She looked under her arm at where her wing should have been behind her, but all that remained was the bow-shaped stump of the vein. What remained of her wings hung from the smaller veins. Most of the scales on her wings had been torn free, leaving only the transparent, golden membranes, which flapped gently in the warm breeze.
She looked at her right arm and saw that a hunk of her flesh roughly double the size of her fist had been bitten roughly out of her upper arm. A similar bite had been taken out of her left calf. She tried to stand up straight but her legs wobbled and she lost her balance. She blacked out and collapsed in a heap to the ground.
Gen’s senses slowly returned and she focused first on a cool, damp feeling on her forehead. She took several slow, deep breaths and she heard quiet murmuring somewhere nearby. The cool dampness was suddenly lifted from her forehead. The abruptness of it gave her goosebumps. She felt the hairs standing stiff on her arms. Warm fingers rubbed gently at her temples.
Gen slowly opened her eyes, expecting to see Hope sitting above her, rubbing her head. She started violently and rolled quickly away when she saw that it was Slynn.
“Where the hell is Hope? What the hell are you doing to me?” Gen demanded.
Slynn looked at Gen sharply. “Genny, you watch your language.”
Gen blinked in disbelief. “Beg your pardon?”
“It’s me, Genevieve,” Slynn said.
“Yeah. I know it’s you.” She backed away, still on her knees.
Hope got up from where she was sitting nearby and said, “Gen, no, listen to him. Her. Him.”
“What?” Gen was confused.
“Genny,” Slynn said calmly and quietly. His voice didn’t sound quite right. “Genny, it’s me. Mom.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Genny! You watch your mouth!”
Gen’s mouth hung open. Slynn had on a painfully familiar expression: the eyes that her mother always had for her when Gen was hurt or sick.
“Did you… How… What?”
Slynn nodded. “It’s me. It’s really me.”
Chapter 4
Geoff hung up the phone and spun around in his office chair. He stared out his office window, sixty stories above the lakefront, and sighed. Gabrielle’s doctor wanted to proceed with the ECT. His wife would get her first electroshock treatment today.
He left his office and walked through the hallway, hoping that nobody would talk to him before he could leave the floor. He got to the elevator and smacked the down button. The doors opened immediately. He walked into the elevator and pressed L, then he rapidly tapped the button to close the doors. He made it all the way down and walked quickly through the lobby. He sat on a bench and looked at the fountain in the middle of the plaza, which was turned off for the winter.
“You’ll catch a cold if you sit out here with no jacket.”
He turned and saw Lorraine Cooley from HR. He shrugged and she sat down next to him on the cold stone bench.
“You okay, Geoff?”
Geoff shook his head. He didn’t feel like talking. He didn’t want to have an emotional episode at work.
“What’s wrong?”
Geoff sighed again and looked at the ground. He cleared his throat. “Gabrielle - my wife - is having health problems. She needs some extreme treatment and I’m… I’m worried.”
“Treatment? What kind of treatment? Is she okay?” Lorraine frowned and added quickly, “I mean, I’m sure she’s not okay if she has health issues and needs treatment for them. That was insensitive. I’m sorry.”
Geoff shrugged.
“Do you mind if I ask what’s the matter?”
“She’s been in the hospital for a few weeks. They aren’t sure how to get her better,” Geoff said.
“What happened?”
Geoff shivered from the cold but he didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry,” Lorraine said. “I don’t mean to pry. You’re freezing. I was just about to head to lunch. Feel like joining me?”
Twenty minutes later, Geoff and Lorraine were seated at a table at Annie’s Bistro. Lorraine had ordered a basket of fries and a martini for each of them.
“And then my sister, Violet, died. Gabby and Vi had a special kind of bond. They.. uh… They were… close. And after my daughter went away to school and my son Greg died, she just sort of lost her shit.” Geoff took a swig of his martini.
“I’m really sorry.” Lorraine’s voice was full of sympathy. “That’s pretty rough. But still, if you keep going outside without a jacket in December, you’ll get sick. And we wouldn’t want that to happen, now, would we?” She clinked her glass against his and finished her drink, then waved to the waitress to order two more.
“I haven’t had a liquid lunch without a client in…” Geoff thought for a second. “I can’t even remember. Mike’s birthday.”
Lorraine smiled. “I remember Mike’s birthday. Barely.”
Geoff chuckled. “Yeah. He’s a good guy.”
The waitress brought their drinks and then scurried away.
“How’s your other son doing?”
Geoff nodded. “George. Yeah, he’s all right. He’s getting married in the summer. He and his girlfriend, I mean, fiancée, are staying with me over their winter break.”
“That’ll be nice,” Lorraine said, “not having to spend the holidays alone.”
“Yeah.” Geoff took another sip from his martini. “We wouldn’t want that, now, would we?”
-
Dr. Perry was already in the operating room when the orderly wheeled Gabby in.
“Mrs. Summers?” Dr. Perry shined a penlight into Gabby’s eyes. “Still non-responsive. Let’s prep her.”
They lifted Gabby from the wheelchair and laid her down on the hospital bed. The nurse fastened leather straps around her wrists and across her waist, then fastened a smaller strap across her forehead.
The doctor squirted conductive jelly into the cups on the electrodes and carefully positioned them over Gabrielle’s temples.
The nurse inserted a thick black plastic guard into Gabby’s mouth and attached the wires to the electrodes.
The doctor dialed in the controls on the machine and pressed the button.
Gabby’s body convulsed violently. Her back arched against the restraints. Her breath came in wet, wheezy, hissing gasps.
Gabby saw a huge, brown bear with huge, large, shiny eyes. It stood up on its hind legs and looked down at her with its pouty puppy-dog eyes. It was adorable. She looked at it and then a white flash blinded her.
Gabby convulsed. The fingers on her right hand spasmed and twitched repeatedly. Prestidigitation. Convalescence. Mesopotamia. Penultimate. Antepenultimate. Resplendence. Pontification. Archaic. Arcane. Arachnid. Comfortable. The world hummed loudly through Gabby’s head.
The nurse placed Genevieve into Gabrielle’s arms. “Oh, Geoff,” Gabby whispered. “Just look at her. Isn’t she gorgeous?” She kissed Genevieve on the forehead. “Hi. Hi there. Welcome to the world.” She cried and laughed and held her new, tiny daughter. “You’re going to be amazing.”
The white flash pierced through her temples again. Gabby felt her teeth vibrating. For an instant, she couldn’t breathe. She felt like she was choking on her own spit.
Gen was lying on the ground. She was badly hurt. Her arm was covered with blood and her leg twitched. Her wings were ravaged and shredded. Her cheeks were blackened and her eyes were bruised. “Genny? Are you okay?” Gen didn’t move.
The buzzing tore through her brain again. Every muscle in her body tingled and pulsed. She tightened and released. Then the hum stopped and the whiteness blinked into heavy blackness.
She opened her eyes. The sky was a bright, pale purple. The sun hung above her head and the moon sat shining next to it. A tall, strong-looking man with pointed ears and dark purple hair stood above her.
“Slynn? What happened?”
“What? What happened to what?” Her words were slurred and slow.
<
br /> A girl kneeled next to Gabby. She had bright red hair, drawn back into a ponytail. “Slynn? You just, like, fell over. Are you okay?”
Gabby sat up slowly. The world spun around her. She was dizzy.
“Whoa, calm down,” the man soothed her. He put his hand on her back and rubbed it in circles. His hand brushed against Gabby’s... wing? Gabby twisted around to look at her back. Black, furled, leather bat wings stuck out from her back.
“What in the world?”
-
Gabby opened her eyes. She was lying in a hospital bed. The lights were off in her room and it was snowing outside. She turned her head to look out the window.
“Gabby?”
She hadn’t realized that Geoff was in the room. She turned her head to look for him. He sat in an uncomfortable looking chair on the other side of her bed. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. He hadn’t taken his tie off after work and it hung, loosened, around his neck. The top two buttons of his dress shirt were undone. She looked at him and opened her mouth, but she couldn’t figure out quite how to make words come out. She knew that she could speak before but now, she couldn’t remember how. She started to cry.
“Oh, Gabs!” Geoff stood up and leaned over her. He took her into his arms and held her.
He’s so warm. He feels so… what’s the word? Gabby’s heart pounded in her chest. The world didn’t feel quite right. Something’s missing. Something’s gone. What am I missing? Her breath came in fast, shallow gasps as the panic bubbled from her stomach and into her throat. She groaned in a wordless, frustrated hum. He feels so… He makes me feel… I don’t know. I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?
“It’s okay, honey. It’s okay. I’m here.” He tried to pull back a little but she gripped him tighter. “I’m not going anywhere. Just let me hit the call button, okay? Let’s let the nurse know you’re awake.”
Gabby clung to him and shook her head vigorously. She grunted again.
“Okay,” Geoff tried to calm her down. “Okay. Take your time. It’s okay. I’m right here.”
Gabby noticed that her fingers had tightened and curled into an unnatural, claw-like shape. She tried to flex them, to relax them, but she couldn’t seem to make her fingers move. She wrapped her arms tighter around Geoff’s shoulders and cried.
“Ssh, ssh,” he tried to calm her. “It’s okay. I’ll always hold you when you cry. I promise.”
She gripped him and hung off of him like that for minutes until she relaxed again and slumped back onto the bed. There were three large wet spots on his shirt from her tears and where she drooled on him. He took a deep breath and tried not to cry, himself, then he smacked the call button.
It took almost fifteen minutes for the nurse to arrive. “How are we doing, Mr. Summers?” She asked and gently placed the back of her hand on Gabby’s forehead.
“She was awake.”
“Was she, now? That’s great news.” The nurse checked the machines that record Gabby’s vitals and made some notes on her chart. She still hadn’t looked at Geoff. As she was writing, still looking at the clipboard, she asked, “Did she say anything?”
“No. But it looked like she was trying to.”
The nurse nodded, dropped the chart back into the box at the foot of Gabby’s bed and left.
Geoff shook his head and flopped back into the chair. It was terribly uncomfortable and he was getting a little tired of sleeping in it. Finally, he stood, kicked the chair out of the way, and lay down on the floor, holding his wife’s hand. This is much more comfortable, he thought, and he nodded off.
It was still dark in the room when his watch beeped at him. It was six in the morning. He opened his eyes. Dr. Perry stood at the foot of Gabrielle’s bed, reading the chart.
“I was trying not to wake you,” Dr. Perry said. “But you solved the mystery of the chair. Good for you.”
“The mystery of the chair?”
“Yeah. Don’t try to sleep in it.”
Geoff rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up. “Why didn’t you just tell me I should sleep on the floor?”
“Some things,” the doctor said, “you simply need to figure out for yourself. Angela mentioned that Gabrielle woke up last night.”
“She did.”
“Was she coherent?”
“Well,” Geoff considered, “I think she was. She didn’t say anything. She looked panicky, anxious. Confused, I guess. But she recognized me.”
“Good. I’m very pleased to hear that. I’m hopeful that when this round of treatments are complete, we’ll have her back with us.”
“This round? What do you mean?”
The doctor cleared her throat and replaced the chart. “Today was the first application of ECT. I recommend five more over the next five days.”
“You want to shock her twenty five more times?” Geoff scrambled to his feet.
“No. I mean, once per day, for the next five days. The therapy is like an antibiotic regimen. You need to see it all the way through. It won’t be nearly as effective if you stop it part-way through.”
“But what about the side effects? What about personality changes and memory loss and that sort of thing?”
“That’s something we’ll have to address with CBT later on.”
“Excuse me?”
“Cognitive Behavior Therapy. We’ll work with her to restore anything that may have inadvertently slipped away during her treatment. You’ll have your wife back soon, Mr. Summers. Don’t worry.”
Geoff looked down at Gabby, who was sleeping peacefully, then he looked out the window at the snow. “I hope so.”
Chapter 5
January 4, 1777
Outside Princeton, New Jersey
Colonel Egan regrouped and led his grenadiers to New Brunswick, where he and his men would rejoin Major General Lord Cornwallis. They’d lost every position they had in New Jersey except for New Brunswick. Egan hadn’t lost many troops, but he couldn’t understand how the Americans had pulled through. Washington’s men were fleeing from Assunpink Creek, and there was even a report at one point that General Washington himself was dead. That turned out not to be true. The man the British had killed was General Mercer, and Washington was still alive to lead the rather bold charge at Princeton.
Egan didn’t know how so many British soldiers had been killed during the attack. The Americans were on the run, already feeling defeated, and outnumbered. But somehow they managed to kill over a hundred Red Coats quicker than Egan, or even Cornwallis, thought possible. Egan led the grenadiers into the garrison at New Brunswick, saw them settled, then went to the Officers’ Quarters. He collapsed into a bunk, exhausted and defeated.
It was still dark when he awoke. He had slept through dinner so he went looking for food. He was on his way to the officers’ mess a little before midnight. He hoped there would still be something, anything, or it was more travel rations.
“Eh,” Egan sighed, “One more day of this isn’t going to kill me.”
There was a small voice next to him. “It might!”
Egan looked to his left. There was no one there. The furrowed his brow and stared across the green. Then shook his head and started walking again.
“Come on, then.” the voice said. “You don’t need any salt fish and beer at this time of night!”
Egan stopped again and looked off to his left. There was no one there.
“Up here!”
Egan looked up and jumped backwards in alarm. A small figure about five inches tall hovered about a foot above his head. It was dressed in red, a similar color to the coats the British soldiers wore, but in an odd, old-fashioned style. The tiny man had no wig, instead he had a ponytail of slicked-back black hair. It hovered, quickly beating dark-colored bat wings.
“No, hey,” it said. “Don’t be scared. It’s okay!”
“What manner of creature are you? Am I hallucinating, hungry and tired after such a day?”
“No, I don’t think you’re hallucinating,”
it said. “I’m called Wasson. And you and I, we’re connected, you know.”
“Connected?” Egan was tired and confused. His impulse was to flee back to the Officers’ Quarters but he was rooted where he stood.
“That’s right,” Wasson said. “And if we don’t do something, we’re going to lose this war and the patriots will turn this land into a mighty empire of their own.”
Egan gazed up at Wasson. He still couldn’t move away. “What is this? What’s going on here? Why can’t I move? Answer me! I demand that you answer me at once!”
“Whoa,” Wasson said. “Calm down. I just didn’t want you running away. If I release you, you promise you won’t run away?”
“I give you my word as a–”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine.” Wasson looked over Egan’s head and spoke to someone. Hellek, let him go.”
Egan nearly tripped when he could move his feet again, but he regained his balance and, true to his word, he didn’t run away.
“This is Hellek,” Wasson said. “Sorry for taking such extreme measures, but we didn’t know how you’d react. Most humans don’t take too well to meeting us.”
“Us? What manner of creature are you?” Egan demanded.
“I’m your pixie.”
“My pixie? What is a pixie? And why are you mine?”
“That’s a long story,” Wasson said, “And I don’t have much time for it right now. Let me say that you and I are connected. We have been all our lives. And this is of critical importance. I really need you to listen to me. Are you listening to me? Because I need you to listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“I don’t think you’re really listening yet. But I can tell you how your men are being defeated. I can tell you why you’re losing so many battles against these colonists.”
Now Egan really was listening.
“Some humans are connected to fairies,” Wasson explained, “and some humans are connected to pixies. It’s more complicated than that, but we’ll stick to that for now. Are you following me so far?”
“Fairies and pixies? This is superstitious nonsense. Children’s tales.”
Sovereign (Realmwalker Book 3) Page 4
