“You took the words right out of my mouth, Sanjay. He’s right, Pebbles. IRT really helped me out. I think it’s worth a try.”
“All right. Let’s get to it,” Pebbles said. “I know just the dream to start with.”
CHAPTER 8: DESERT OASIS
Aboard Sol Seaker
Kona Kai Marina, San Diego, California
September 19
Who are you and why are you inside my head?
Pebbles had not really expected an answer, but she waited for one anyway. When nothing but black silence filled her mind, she prodded the interloper some more.
I know you’re there. I feel your presence. Why won’t you talk to me?
Rolling on her side, Pebbles pulled the top sheet over her head and curled her body into a ball.
If you would just talk to me, it would make things better for both of us. The dreams, the drawings, they’re too hard for me to understand. I can’t make sense of them. I mean, I can tell you’re scared but I don’t know why. I know you’re trying to protect something, but I don’t know what.
More silence. Pebbles inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled slowly through her mouth. In and out, she repeated the rhythm several times.
Just relax…everything is okay…you don’t have to be scared.
The sound of water lapping up against the boat was soothing, almost hypnotic. Pebbles adjusted the rhythm of her breathing to match the rise and fall of the sounds.
See how I’m relaxing? Now you do the same, okay? That way, when the dream starts, we’ll both be in a better place. You can show me more and I’ll be able to notice more. We both won’t be so scared, and we can help each other. Now, come on, breathe with me…in…out…in…out.
A sensation of relief passed through Pebbles just as she fell asleep.
The sand singed the soles of her feet. Above, the sun pounded down upon her head with so much intensity, her hair seemed afire. No wind to cool her, no trees for shade, she trudged on across the lifeless wasteland.
Do not fear them. They will not dare follow in daylight.
Her tunic stained with the salt from her sweat, her lips cracked and blistered, she pressed forward, her eyes locked on the shadow stretched out ahead of her. She could not believe how thin the shadow made her arms and legs.
It must be a trick. The desert is trying to trick me into giving up. It says to me: you are too weak, you are unworthy. Just lie down and die. There is no use in going on. You will never make it. It is too far. There are too many of them. Even if you make it to the river, they will catch you. They will take what they want. They will cut you into pieces and send your head back in a pot.
She sneered at the thought as she grasped the strap of the bag slung over her shoulder.
Never. They are too fat, too slow, too stupid to catch me. I will not fail.
The rocky debris beneath her feet began to cut into her skin. It was as if the desert had teeth and was biting her, trying to halt her crossing. She staggered and fell to the ground. The thin layer of sand coating the hardpan puffed up into the air as she landed, while her arms and legs scraped across the coarse surface. Rolling onto her hands and knees, she began to crawl.
You cannot stop me. I will not give up.
The desert howled with laughter…evil cackles that sounded like a thousand vultures gathering to feast. She lowered her head, sweat dripping from her nose, and kept crawling. The desert continued to mock her until a gust of cool wind flowed over her. It seemed to choke the desert, for the cackles quickly sputtered into silence. Another gust, this one even cooler. She craned her neck to look up. A cloud had passed in front of the sun. She closed her eyes and offered thanks. A voice responded. It was soothing.
“Relax…breathe in, breathe out.”
Her eyes snapped open. She looked around but saw no one. Just endless miles of shimmering desert in every direction.
“Close your eyes again,” the voice implored.
“You do not fool me, desert,” she shouted. “Try your tricks elsewhere and leave me be!”
Suddenly, the sounds of birds filled her ears. They were chirping happily…and splashing. She looked up again and saw a stand of trees and a pond in the distance. Flowers and fruit dotted the branches of the lush foliage. Birds swam across the surface of the water, their paths marked by tiny wakes. She closed her eyes to shake the mirage from her mind.
“It’s not a mirage,” the voice said. “Open your eyes, cool yourself in the water. I won’t let the desert hurt you.”
Eyes clamped shut, she felt water dapple over her fingers and toes.
“Come on in,” the voice said.
She gasped as she opened her eyes. In the center of the clear-water pond was a pale-skinned, naked woman. Her hair was shaved on one side and it was purple. Her shoulder and neck were painted with images. The woman smiled and said, “Lose the bag, take off your tunic and jump in. We’ll swim, we’ll talk. You’ll feel better, I promise. We both will.”
The pounding was so loud, so sudden, Sanjay jolted up from the bed with his fists balled, ready to fight. As his eyes adjusted to the dark room, he looked around. Over the pounding rose a weeping voice.
“Wake up! Can you hear me, Sanjay? Get your ass up!”
It was Pebbles. Of that, Sanjay was sure. He felt around for his robe at the foot of the bed and called back. “Just a moment. Is everything all right? Are you okay, Pebbles?”
The locked door’s handle rattled. “Just open the effing door!”
Sanjay gave up searching for the robe and groped his way from the bed to the door. Standing in his boxer shorts and T-shirt, he unlocked and cracked open the door. In the nightlight-illuminated corridor, he saw Pebbles, similarly clad, tears streaming down her face. Behind her was the disheveled duo of Anlon and Jennifer.
Pebbles pushed open the door and collided with Sanjay. Wrapping her arms around him, she squeezed him tight. “You’re amazing.”
“I…uh…”
She kissed him on the cheek. “It worked! It freakin’ worked! Come on, I’ve got something to show you.”
Grabbing him by the arm, she pulled him through the door. Sanjay darted looks at Anlon and Jennifer. Also in their underclothes, they looked as confused as he felt. But all three followed Pebbles as she scurried down the hallway and raced up the staircase.
On the way up the stairs, a steward appeared and asked Anlon if everything was okay. Anlon said he wasn’t sure and told the steward to join them. They tracked Pebbles to the living room, where they found her kneeling next to the coffee table, sketch pad open and furiously drawing. She stopped to look up and wipe tears from her cheeks. “I know her name! I know what she looks like! I know what’s in the freakin’ bag!”
She hopped up and hugged Sanjay again. He staggered backward, nearly tipping them both over on the sofa behind him. In a voice thick with happiness, Pebbles whispered, “Thank you.”
Sanjay lightly patted her on the back while he looked toward Anlon. “I am so happy for you, Pebbles. Tell us about the dream.”
Pulling back from Sanjay, Pebbles turned and hugged Anlon and then Jennifer. Her voice cracking, she said, “I’m not going crazy. I don’t know how she got in my head, but she’s real. She’s freakin’ real!”
As Pebbles returned to the coffee table to snatch the sketch pad, Anlon took a quick look at the nautical-style clock on the wall. It was 4:24 a.m. Anlon excused the steward and then lowered onto the sofa next to Pebbles. Jennifer and Sanjay sat on the opposing sofa. All of them gazed at the sketch pad. It was not one of her savant works of art. In fact, it was not even close. The pad showed three stick-figure-like drawings. One looked to Anlon like an arrowhead, another looked to be a clam shell and the last was either a spider or a chair.
Pebbles pointed her pencil at the three doodles. “Okay, so these are what she’s carrying in the bag. I’ll bet they’re in Muran’s collection.”
“Um, Pebbles?” Jennifer raised her hand. “I know you’re excited, but can we
take a step back? It may be because I’m half asleep, but I feel like I just walked in on the end of a story instead of the beginning. What dream was it?”
“Sorry. Guess I kinda did skip ahead. It was the desert one.”
As Pebbles began to describe the dream, Jennifer interrupted again. “Not to be a prig, but shouldn’t we talk about this dream the same way we’ve talked about the others? You know, you write down what you remember in the journal and then have you walk us through it.”
“Ugh, do you always have to go by the book?”
Jennifer shrugged. “Sorry, the cop in me likes to be methodical.”
“Yeah? Well, not this morning, sister. I don’t have the patience to write it down right now. I’ll do it later.”
Rising from the sofa, Jennifer said, “In that case, give me thirty seconds before you start.”
“Where are you going?”
“If you’re not going to write it down now, then I will,” Jennifer said. Before she reached the cabin door, she turned back to Anlon. “While I’m getting my notepad, any chance we can get someone to whip up some coffee?”
“Good suggestion. I’ll take care of it,” Anlon said. He leaned over to kiss Pebbles on the cheek. “Be right back.”
On his way out of the room, Anlon heard Sanjay say to Pebbles, “If we are going to take a quick break, I am going to get my robe. It is a bit chilly.”
Pebbles’ retort caused Anlon to smile. “Geez, Louise! What’s wrong with you people?”
As Anlon approached the galley, he was surprised to detect the aroma of brewing coffee. Before opening the door, he peeked through the porthole and spotted Cindy Tanner, already attired in her pressed uniform, preparing a tray with coffee mugs. He slid open the door and said, “Hey there, Cindy. Whatcha doin’ up so early?”
“Good morning, Dr. Cully.” Tanner smoothed her hands over her uniform as if preparing for a military inspection. “Um, there’s a storm coming our way. Captain Hansen and First Officer Ellis have been up for a while tracking it. I was making some coffee for them.”
“Oh. Okay. When you get finished with theirs, we could use some coffee in the living room. Four mugs, please.”
“Yes, Dr. Cully. If you wish, I can take care of yours first.”
“No, that’s not necessary. Captains keeping eyes on storms take precedence over passengers up early.”
When Anlon returned to the living room, he received a second surprise. Jennifer had returned and so had Sanjay, but they were not seated on the sofa. Instead, they stood behind Pebbles whispering to each other. Anlon looked more closely at Pebbles and saw she was in the midst of drawing again.
Jennifer turned and looked at Anlon as he began to walk toward them. She broke from the conversation with Sanjay and intercepted Anlon halfway across the room. Now dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, she whispered, “She’s in a trance. Van Gogh’s returned.”
The robed Sanjay joined them. In a low voice, he said, “It is fascinating to watch her work. There is no hesitation in her strokes, no stopping to ponder what she is incorporating in the scene. It is almost as if she is copying a photograph.”
“Or a memory,” Jennifer said.
Sanjay nodded. “Or a memory.”
“What’s she drawing? The items in the bag?”
Jennifer bit her lower lip and shook her head. “It’s a bit racier than that. Matter of fact, Sanjay and I should probably step out before she comes out of the trance. If she isn’t aware of what she’s drawing, she’ll probably be embarrassed to know we’ve seen it.”
“I agree,” said Sanjay. “We will just tell her we have not seen the picture. If she chooses to show it to us later, then it will be her choice.”
“What the hell is she drawing?” Anlon asked.
Jennifer nodded in Pebbles’ direction. “Go see for yourself. Call us when she’s ready to talk.”
After the two left the living room, Anlon quietly walked up behind Pebbles and peered over her shoulder. Her drawing showed a pond surrounded by palm trees and flowering bushes. Without her colored pencils, the scene was produced in shades of gray, but the details were still beyond belief. Whether one focused on the birds perched on the treetops, the clouds reflected on the surface of the water or fruits dangling from drooping branches, the drawing had an eerie three-dimensional feel to it.
In the center of the sketch, resting on a grassy patch behind the pond, were two women, both sans clothing, engaged in conversation. As Anlon gazed upon them, he thought Pebbles would likely be proud of how accurately she had drawn the tattoos on her body…not so much for how explicit she had been with certain other anatomical features. For though she was beautiful from head to toe, Pebbles was not the type to put it all out there.
As his eyes lingered on Pebbles, Anlon found it ironic she had incorporated such detail about her own body when the true focal point of the drawing was the other woman. Not because of her appearance but because of her commanding presence.
In contrast to Pebbles who lay stretched out on her side in a relaxed pose, the other woman squatted like a baseball catcher, one hand resting on her knee, the other pointing toward the water’s edge. In the image, the woman was speaking to Pebbles, her facial expression animated as if trying to drive a point home. Pebbles was listening, lips slightly parted, as if absorbing the woman’s words.
Where Pebbles had depicted her own body as small-breasted and willowy-thin, she had drawn the other woman with more cleavage, sinewy limbs and a chiseled abdomen. While Pebbles was light-skinned in the drawing, the other woman was darker-toned. Her distinctly Anglo facial features seemed to imply she was a tanned Caucasian, but without further clarification from Pebbles, it was just a guess on Anlon’s part.
Interestingly, Pebbles had drawn her own hair as long and wavy instead of her current style, a short-cut fade. She’d also depicted herself with dark hair instead of approximating its present soft lavender color by using a thin layer of gray shading.
The other woman’s hair was long and straight, save for elaborate braiding that circled the crown of her head. Pebbles’ exclusion of any shading for the woman’s hair seemed to suggest it was white or very light blond. This assumption was reinforced by Pebbles’ unmistakable depiction of darker hair further south on the woman.
Returning his gaze to the woman’s head, there was one oddity Anlon could not reconcile when compared to the rest of the picture. The back of her head was elongated, stretching upward at a steep angle. If Pebbles had included other abstract elements in the sketch, Anlon might have concluded the odd-looking skull was intended as symbolism, or just a vagary one experienced in dreams. But in every other respect, the objects in the drawing were of normal proportions.
Besides, it was clear Pebbles had drawn the woman’s hair to fit the elongated head. On a man, the woman’s hairline would have been considered receding because it began so far up the skull. But it was an illusion. For, from the beginning of the hairline back, the woman had a full head of hair with tresses dangling down from the braided crown circling the bulbous peak of her head.
As Anlon watched Pebbles insert a distinctive-looking necklace onto the other woman, he couldn’t help but think of the necklace as another contrast between the two women. I’m delicate, you’re strong. I have questions, you have answers. You talk, I’ll listen. I’m lost, you point the way. I’m just the peasant, you’re the queen with the necklace.
With the last stroke completed, the kneeling Pebbles gently set the pencil down and sat back, resting her buttocks on her heels. She lifted her head and stared forward with a vacant expression, her mouth hanging open.
Anlon spoke to her in a soft voice. “Hey there. You okay?”
She did not seem to notice, she just kept staring at nothing.
“Pebbles?” Anlon said, his voice now a tick louder. “Pebbles, it’s Anlon. Time to wake up.”
She closed her eyes and lowered her head, her body swaying slightly. Thinking she was about to slump to the floor, An
lon reached out to catch her. But the swaying stopped, and her eyes opened. In slow motion, she reached for the pencil, leaned her torso over the picture, inserted an additional feature and then collapsed. Anlon grabbed hold of her before her head hit the edge of the coffee table and eased her the rest of the way to the floor.
He wiggled the pencil from her grip as he pondered whether to lift her onto the sofa or let her sleep where she was. Not knowing whether she was truly asleep or now in the midst of another dream, Anlon decided to leave her where she was. He snatched a pillow from the sofa and carefully placed it under her head, then retrieved a throw blanket from a storage chest across the room. After laying the blanket atop her sleeping body, Anlon picked up the sketchbook and examined Pebbles’ last-second addition. Squinting at the page, he mumbled, “Now what the heck is that?”
While Pebbles slept, Anlon stepped out briefly to have one of the stewards bring back Jennifer and Sanjay. When they returned, both were fully dressed. Sanjay in Bermuda shorts and button-down shirt, Jennifer in yoga pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. She carried a coffee mug which she handed to Anlon as she looked over his shoulder at Pebbles. “She’s asleep again? Did she finish the drawing?”
“Yeah, she did.” Anlon took a quick sip of the coffee and nodded his head in the direction of the storage chest. “Sketchbook is over there. Go take a look. You should see it, too, Sanjay.”
“In a second,” Sanjay said.
While Jennifer headed for the chest, Sanjay bent down next to Pebbles and studied her face.
“Is there a problem?” Anlon asked.
“No, just looking for rapid eye movement. Most dreams happen during REM cycles.” Sanjay looked up at Anlon. “How long has she been asleep?”
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