The Anesthesia Game

by Rea Nolan Martin

  “I have to win,” says Syd.

  “Yes, you do,” Roz says.

  “This is it,” Syd says. “The end of the game.”

  Roz nods. “Yes. Or the gypsy presides.”

  Seeking the answer, Syd’s mind searches lifetimes of events, questions and answers, causes and effects, challengers and allies, until all at once she perceives the answer in a flash of purple light. “Anjah,” she says. “Her name is Anjah.”

  The anesthesia is administered, knocks her out, and she returns clutched between the claws of two eagles to the mountain where Pandora waits.

  Pandora

  “We did it,” Syd says as she’s dropped into Pandora’s arms by the eagles.

  “Not yet,” says Pandora. “That was the easy part.”

  Syd says, “There was nothing easy about that.”

  “You’re stronger now?” Pandora asks.

  Syd nods. “Much.”

  “Okay.” Pandora places her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Now we both become waves, open time and slip through.”

  “Why?”

  “To recover your lost light.”

  “Stolen, you mean,” says Syd.

  Pandora’s lips tighten. “Yes.” So much signal enters Pandora’s head at once, her head spins. But with the signal, come the bits and pieces of information she requires to complete her task.

  She clutches Syd’s hand and says, “Focus on the rim of infinity, nothing else. Let nothing interfere. Not one thing. This is a task of quantum faith. There is no room for doubt.”

  Together, they bear down, split, disperse, and move freely, rolling toward the horizon, up and down.

  At first it’s easy. But Pandora is wary of changing her focus. Not only hers, but Sydney’s. She is in charge of the child. She stays close; her energy enveloping the outskirts of Syd’s to keep her contained. They move unfettered into the next dimension and the next and the next until they are stopped abruptly at the end of the continuum. For them, space and time end here. Moving past it is a trick of the karmic wheel.

  The wheel spins.

  The wheel spins through births and deaths, marriages and children, pageants and battles. They run through wildflowers and killing fields. They celebrate the living and commemorate the dead. They morph gender to gender, race to race, status to status. They are male, female, black, white, aristocrat, peasant. But then the wheel squeaks, hesitates, and pauses. When the wheel pauses, they enter.

  Behind it is a tent.

  Within the tent is a gypsy queen. Resting on a cypress stump beside the queen is a sparkling crystal globe containing an orb of the purest inchoate light Pandora has ever seen. It is innocence itself; the stem cells of creation. The queen stares at the globe, unable to look away. She stares and stares. She covets the light, wills it within her, but it remains in the globe. Without the child herself, the light is powerless to the queen. The queen knows this. Pandora knows this, too. All of the queen’s resources have been spent in search of the child.

  At the sight of the queen both Pandora and Syd return instantly to particle form. They have arrived.

  Hovering above the tent, Syd says, “She has the light.” She turns toward Pandora and blinks. “But she can’t use it.”

  Pandora shakes her head, aghast, as her memory of this life materializes fully. “After she expelled me from the tribe for saving you and your sisters, I never knew what became of her,” she says. She points down. “But I see she never reincarnated. She just sat there, staring, waiting, separated from her own energy, obsessed by yours.” Her attention is drawn up and to her left where Anjah pulsates madly.

  Sydney bristles when she sees him. “The Taker,” she says.

  “No, dear,” says Pandora. “That’s Anjah. He’s here to help us.”

  Sydney tries to talk, but Pandora rushes on. “We’re out of time,” she says, and darts for the tent.

  Anjah blocks her, his violet energy a shield.

  “Anjah!” she says, “for God’s sake! You’re in my way! How do you expect me to do my job!”

  Every time she moves, he blocks her path.

  “What are you doing?” she says, confused. Frantic! “This is what we came for! This is what you led us to, for God’s sake! Get out of the way so we can reclaim the light!”

  Sydney glides between them.

  “No!” Pandora tells her. “Return to the edge of the continuum immediately! I’ll retrieve your light and return it!” For God’s sake listen to me!

  “Anjah and the queen are the same,” Sydney says fiercely. “Anjah is The Taker.”

  Pandora knows this is ridiculous, but something in her core freezes.

  Anjah glowers at Pandora. “Thank you for bringing her to me,” he signals smugly. “Well done, Dorenia!”

  Pandora’s ghostly screams reverberate across time, depleting her.

  “As if you’re innocent,” he says. “As if you’re pure.”

  “What…”

  “All those years—lifetimes!—you followed the child, wishing to possess her as much as I. You had her once and lost her through sheer negligence. You pretended to help those women, yet you hoarded my knowledge like I hoarded her light. You shared nothing. You and I are complicit.”

  Pandora weakens. He’s right—or is it she? Anjah and the queen are one thing; masculine energy in female form.

  Behind the tent, the gypsy queen throws back her head and cackles.

  Pandora bows her head. She’ll never make it into the gypsy tent now. She knows this. She’s too exposed. “Sydney,” she whispers. “Circumvent us. This battle is mine, not yours. Get your light and leave. I’ll protect you.”

  “But you’ll…he’s stronger…” she stammers. “You’ll never…”

  “Go!” Pandora says. “NOW! You must!”

  The girl bolts.

  Pandora remains to battle Anjah, blocking his every attempt to pursue the girl again and again and again. She won’t let his light merge with the gypsy queen’s to reanimate that persona; she won’t have it. For the first time in her life, or all their lives together, she will not give in or give up. She will fight this to the end.

  Even if it kills her.

  Sydney

  Syd is a flash of light, a burning torch. She streaks down, down, down into the new continuum, behind the curtain, into the tent where she shimmers boldly before the queen. The queen, delighted from a distance, is literally blinded by her speed. Her twisted scepter flies into the air as she howls in protest. Syd dodges the queen’s dense energy, laying her own spirit directly on the globe of what she now knows to be her original light. This light belongs to her. It is hers. She absorbs it. Reclaims it.

  Becomes it.

  Her center solidifies with vitality and she rises above the smoky scene, above the tent, the inanimate queen, and the now soupy puddle of toxic purple waste outside. Pandora is nowhere to be seen, though Syd feels her presence deeply. Did she escape? Where are you?

  “Come with me,” she calls out to Pandora. “Please!”

  Her words echo into a void. But in this void is a peace Syd hasn’t felt in a very long time. Still, she must find Pandora. She must! She returns to the mountain peak, searching, but Pandora isn’t there. She is drawn downward to the pine valley at the mountain base, and from there, to a crystalline beach at the edge of a sparkling indigo lake. There is nowhere else to go. This is it; the end. She must be here.

  Where are you?

  Nothing. No one.

  She whimpers, kicking the heavy sand. “I’m going back now,” she calls out. “Come with me! I owe you my life!”

  Below her resound her mother’s howling cries, the sucker punch gasps of her father’s grief, and the sorrowful lament of her beloved aunt. And Dane, sweet Dane calling out to her in silence, a silence that nevertheless lives and breathes. Dane is in trouble.

  He needs her.

  “I have to go!” she calls out in desperation. “Pandora, come! Please!”

  To her left, a gentle w
ind arises carrying her long hair in its embrace. She can’t wait. She has to go. Will she see her friend there? Her mother? Her savior? Or carry on alone?

  Just as she pivots, initiating her return, she stops and turns back toward the water. Her heart is inscribed with a deep understanding that arrives on the cusp of a glistening wave. She waits with reverence as it rushes in, caresses her feet, and lingers like a kiss. She reaches down to collect it, but before she can cup her hands or beg it to stay, it kicks up a pearl-white froth and retreats wistfully into the blue.

  Epilogue

  Jonah stomps the toes of his worn Frye boots against the cement step twice to loosen the dirt then scrapes the bottoms on the edge of the threshold. How many times has he entered this mudroom? This house that he loves? And yet never has he been more nervous than this.

  “Anybody home?” he calls as he enters the kitchen.

  “Oh my God, it’s Jonah!” shouts Syd from one of the back rooms. “Uncle Jonah is back, everybody!”

  Just hearing the sound of that bright voice, so strong, so confident, is enough to make him weep. All over the world people suffer, he thinks. This household is not the first or the last. Even now, this very minute, it’s happening everywhere—grief, devastation—entire families hanging by the thread of a crippling diagnosis. Will they survive or won’t they? And how? How will they do it? How did we? How did we all keep going? Only in the safety of the floating aftermath can one even contemplate these sinking questions.

  But oh, how things change in the wake, he thinks. How they transform. Nothing is the same.

  At the end of the open kitchen, Syd flies at him, followed by the 100 pound lobbing, loveable beast they call Godiva. “Rrrrruff!!” she barks, stopping cold and sitting back at Syd’s stern command.

  Jonah steadies the large package under his right arm as he grabs the feather-light Syd with his left; lifting her, treasuring her powerful life force against him. Breathe it in. It’s real! She survived. He never knew what it was like to love a child until Syd snuck into his life these last few months, and nearly left.

  “Hey darlin’,” he drawls. “I missed you out there.”

  She grins, grabbing his arm and leading him into the living room where Mitsy, in full riding gear, reviews catalogs of what look like tractors. When she sees him, she stands, hands on hips. “How was it?” she asks earnestly. “What did you find?”

  Before he can answer, an erratic flutter of footsteps on the adjacent front stairs is interrupted by a long hard slide, followed by an “Oh my God! Oh my God, ouch!”

  Jonah’s heart skips at the sound of Hannah’s melodic treble. How will she take what he has to say? How will she deal with it? He holds his breath as she flies around the corner on bare feet, her lean body dressed in uncharacteristically wrinkled denim; her long hair in a casual braid. She looks like a girl.

  “Hey,” she says timidly.

  “Hey,” he replies. “Are you okay?”

  She rubs her rump. “Just…” she shakes her head. “I’m fine.”

  Behind them, Syd jumps up and down like a pogo stick. “Tell us, Uncle Jonah! Tell us!” she says. “Come on! Don’t make us guess!”

  “Yes,” says Mitsy. “The house looked so interesting on the screen, but what was it like to actually be there?”

  “As soon as they finish the medical study on Syd, you have to come out,” he says. “You have to see it for yourselves. It’s unbelievable.”

  Mitsy nods. “Soon,” she says. “October, they say.” She looks off in the distance, drifting. “We’ll distribute the ashes then,” she adds plaintively.

  “I know just where,” says Jonah. “The cabin looks out at a peak called Heavenly. It’s spectacular. We can sprinkle them from there.” He adjusts the cumbersome package beneath his arm and places it delicately on the surface of the antique cabinet.

  “What’s in the package?” says Syd. She runs her fingers anxiously through her unruly, gold hair, ear-length now and glistening in the late summer light that streams unfiltered through the room.

  Jonah glimpses beyond her, out the window, where giant, carmine red Cana lilies border the long fence and wild honeysuckle sways in the breeze. Guru treads the paddock fence like a tight rope walker, his tail high.

  “Uncle Jonah?” Syd urges. “The package?”

  “Oh,” he says, snapping out of it. He reaches into his pocket for the jackknife, and clips the twine that secures the brown wrap. “I found this in her living room,” he says.

  He bunches the paper in a ball, and tosses it at Godiva who lunges playfully. After pausing a dramatic moment, he turns the portrait in their direction.

  They gasp collectively.

  “Oh my God, it’s beautiful!” Mitsy whispers reverently.

  Syd steps forward, reaching. “Can I touch it?” she says.

  He nods. “As much as it looks wet, the paint is dry,” he says. “But she must have been working on it when she left for Virginia. It’s so fresh.”

  “Like she painted it yesterday,” says Hannah in a hushed voice. “And the colors…”

  Jonah nods. “I know. The aurora.”

  “How did she do that with ordinary paint?” says Hannah. “I mean, did she pull the colors right out of the sky, or what?”

  “There it is,” says Syd. “In the eyes.” She points. “The girl’s eyes. That…blue!”

  “She kind of looks like you, cookie,” says Hannah. “But not…really.”

  “But something,” says Mitsy. “Something deep. Integral.”

  Jonah centers the canvas carefully on the top of the cabinet and steps back so they can all drink it in. He points to the neck. “See the tattoos?” he says.

  Syd’s hand rushes to her mouth. It’s a moment before she can speak. “Wings,” she whispers.

  “Oh my God,” says Hannah, “wings!” She moves toward Syd, embracing her from behind. “Is that how you imagined them?”

  “Exactly,” Syd says. And then more quietly, “Exactly.”

  “It’s Sydney, but it’s not Sydney,” says Mitsy. She looks up at Jonah for confirmation.

  “Oh, it’s Syd all right,” he says. “In some form or other.”

  They all stare ahead until Hannah finally says, “What about the house? Were you able to list it?”

  He nods. “It already has an offer,” he says. “I didn’t want to close the deal without Syd’s approval, though. After all, she’s the heir, not me.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” says Syd quietly. “Why me? Of course I’m honored, but… a whole house!?”

  “Such a mysterious woman,” says Hannah.

  Mitsy says, “Jonah, we gave you power of attorney. Free reign, seriously. If you think it’s a good offer, accept it, right? You’re the only one here who knows anything about real estate.”

  Hannah says, “What was the offer?”

  He rocks his head back and forth nervously. If they had any idea what a wreck he was, they would sit him down and offer him a shot of whiskey. But he soldiers on. “How does a million dollars sound to you, young lady?” he manages to say.

  “What?!” says Syd. “A million…what?!”

  “I thought the comps were in the neighborhood of $650,” says Mitsy. “How did it get to a million?”

  “Easy,” he says, “the view.”

  Syd turns to Mitsy excitedly. “Mom, can we buy a new broodmare now? Please?”

  Mitsy sighs, still reeling no doubt from the death of Daizee. “We can do that,” she finally says. “Or…we can buy Aunt Hannah out of the farm.”

  Hannah frowns. “I know I want out, but…that makes it sound so final.”

  “Well, not the corporation, Hannah,” Mitsy says. “Just the house. You’re still a partner.”

  “Still,” says Hannah. “Where would I go?”

  Jonah’s heart beats so loudly he can barely hear the conversation. It’s a steel drum in the silence of a river in repose. Pa-boom! Can they hear it? He has to sit down. Backing into the over-si
zed rocker behind him, he leans forward, arms resting against wobbly knees.

  “Anyway, we’ll take it!” says Syd. “Right, Mom? I’ve gotta go tell Dane. He won’t believe it. Maybe he’ll even move down here. Do you think he’ll move down here, Mom?”

  Mitsy smiles. “We could certainly use the help,” she says.

  Syd hugs her mother before charging out the door, dancing on one foot then the other, a kinetic sculpture on a windy day. Godiva follows, stopping for a stick she brings to Syd. In seemingly one motion, Syd tosses it down the hill as she pulls out her cell phone to call Dane. So much excitement. So much life! It would bring Jonah to his knees if he were standing.

  Mitsy says, “I’ve gotta go, too. Jesse’s giving me a dressage lesson at the lower barn in five minutes.” She gives Jonah a kiss on the top of his head and flees. “Thanks a…million…” she says chuckling, as she runs out the door.

  And there they are, alone.

  Jonah sits quietly, mining courage.

  “Well, I guess that’s that,” says Hannah. She leans against the wall, arms folded. “But it’s kind of a shame if you ask me.”

  He raises his head. “Oh?”

  She shrugs. “The cabin, I mean. Just looking at it on a flat screen takes your breath away. Those mountains! Forests! That lake!”

  His eyes avert hers. “So inspiring, right?” he says.

  “Hell yeah,” she says. “Anybody could be a mystic up there.”

  “I would have to agree,” he says then pauses, inhaling all the courage he can muster, and stands.

  “Well, I’ll see you later,” she says, pointing upstairs. “I finished two more chapters while you were gone, and destiny awaits.” She raises her eyebrows. “Up to ten now,” she says. “Ten out of probably twenty, I don’t know. But I’m doing it, Jonah. I’m really writing this thing.”

  “That’s terrific, Han,” he says. “Before you go, I have something for you.” He reaches into his pocket and retrieves a small velvet envelope. “If you want it. No obligation, of course.”