Lucy Lockhart: The Awakening

by Bryce THOMAS

  ‘Quickly,’ Lucy whispered and turned the handle, pulling the door open and waiting for Loanne to go in before her. The cupboard was high enough for the two girls to walk in and Lucy quietly closed the door behind them, shutting out all the light except for a dull glow along the bottom of the door.

  They huddled together, linking arms in the darkness, both gaining some strength from the closeness of each other’s bodies. Silently, they waited and listened. A moment or two later they heard the latch of the back door lift and, behind the creak of the hinges as it opened, a voice could now be clearly heard.

  ‘We can’t have lost him now. You look up stairs,’ a woman’s angry voice ordered. Lucy recognised it instantly. It was the same voice she had heard that morning at Doctor Murray’s house; the voice of the woman she now knew she hated with a vengeance, Detective Chief Inspector Norton.

  Footsteps above their heads thundered in their ears as someone ran up the stairs. Doors opened and slammed closed as that person searched the bedrooms before, once again, thundering back down.

  ‘Nothing,’ Albright’s voice said as the two visitors met in the hallway outside the cupboard.

  ‘Go and find something to stand on and look up in the loft,’ Norton barked. Footsteps faded as Albright ran out of the back door.

  They heard the squeaky cupboard door handle as it started to turn. A crack of light cut into the darkness as the girls huddled together as far inside and as far away from the door of the cupboard as they could. They clung to each other and, as the door opened wide, a dark figure blocked out most of the light. Despite the gloom of the hallway, it wasn’t dark enough to prevent them from recognizing Norton. Nor was it dark enough to prevent her from seeing inside the cupboard. She gave out a sharp, startled gasp and then there was a long moment of silence while Norton thought.

  ‘The girls next door I presume?’ she asked but didn’t wait for an answer. As the girls watched her slam the cupboard door closed, they heard a heavy scraping sound as the chair from the hallway was pulled along the bare floorboards and up against handle. The girls heard the chair knock against the door as Norton wedged it firm.

  ‘I haven’t time for all this; not today of all days. Get Ackley back here,’ the girls heard her screech. ‘He had a job to do, and we’ve now got another problem.’ Her footsteps seemed amplified as she stormed from the house. The outer door slammed shut and then there was silence.

  Lucy darted to the cupboard door handle and grabbed it, but it wouldn’t turn. ‘She’s jammed the chair against it!’ she exclaimed, trying desperately, with all her weight, to prize it down.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  ‘I haven’t been totally honest with you,’ Doctor Murray said as he chatted to Mrs. Lockhart in the kitchen. He was preparing a light lunch of salad sandwiches for them and the children, preferring to make them a proper Sunday meal later in the day when they could all sit down together.

  He waited for Mrs. Lockhart to speak, but she just waited for him to continue. She knew that the doctor hadn’t invited them to stay the weekend just for medical reasons, and she also knew there had been a certain air about him when she was near him that told her there might be an ulterior motive.

  ‘I did need to keep an eye on Lucy, I admit. Her symptoms of amnesia were quite unusual. But I rather thought that you would enjoy it as well.’

  ‘Which I am,’ Mrs. Lockhart said with a soft smile, waiting for him to continue. He seemed a little uncomfortable.

  ‘Oh, that’s good then,’ he said and busied himself with washing some lettuce. Concentrating on his task for a moment, he added, ‘I also thought… I also thought it would be good for Loanne.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Mrs. Lockhart said quite undisturbed.

  ‘Our lives are not simply two dimensions, I know that.’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps I underestimated your appreciation of the situation.’ He turned and looked at her, his dark eyes, soft and reassuring.

  ‘Well perhaps I did at first, or perhaps… no that isn’t right. I was glad you invited me, but, well, I expected you to be married when you said you were inviting Lucy and me to come and stay and meet your daughter.’

  Doctor Murray grinned. ‘Yes, well, I haven’t been too forward I hope?’

  ‘Possibly.’ She smiled. ‘But I was looking forward to it in my own way, despite my reservations. I suppose, if I’m really honest, it was a bit of a relief. I mean, don’t misunderstand, I am ever so sorry you lost your wife and Loanne lost her mother, but it was a relief, all the same.’ She put her hand on his and squeezed it, a look of concern on her face. ‘I hope that sounded better to you than it sounded to me!’

  ‘It’s a multi-facetted world, Mary, you said it yourself. There’s Lucy and there’s you and there’s me.’ He paused. ‘And…’ he sighed, ‘there’s Loanne.’

  Mrs. Lockhart creased her brow inquisitively. ‘You say that as if there’s something more.’

  He put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Just another dimension,’ he said seriously. ‘And when you said dimension, perhaps that is exactly what it is.’

  Mrs. Lockhart looked up at him. ‘Do I have to brace myself for a shock or anything? You sound rather serious here.’

  ‘No, well, not really. It’s just that Loanne has… well she’s had problems at school.’

  ‘Yes, you told me. She’s missed so much of it with her illness, you said.’

  ‘True, but she was also bullied rather badly.’

  ‘But, but she’s such a lovely little thing. And I got the impression you had sent her to a private school. Who on earth…?’

  ‘There are bullies in all schools. Just because a parent has money it doesn’t mean the child is polite and well mannered. In fact I think that some of the better off children are even more hateful than those who have no choice which school they go to.’

  ‘I blame the parents,’ Mrs. Lockhart said abruptly.

  ‘Perhaps we are all guilty of working too much and not taking enough interest in our kids, but it doesn’t make it any better for the youngsters who are picked on, especially if they behave differently to the other children, or have a handicap or something like that.’ He thought for a second or two before continuing. ‘But Loanne… well Loanne…’

  ‘She looks perfectly normal to me, John. Her only handicap is that she’s been very ill, and she’ll get over that.’

  ‘Yes, but, Loanne, she’ll always be slightly different.’

  ‘Well we’re all different in our own way. I have noticed how intuitive she is. She seems exceptionally bright to me. Don’t misunderstand. Lucy is bright, but all she ever wanted to do really is play her football. I don’t really know why even. Why football of all things. Why not swimming or tennis? But that’s the way kids are John, full of surprises.’

  ‘Yes, well, Lucy’s definitely full of them at the moment.’ They both chuckled.

  ‘But Loanne isn’t just intuitive, she has a gift that…’ He paused and changed his approach to the subject. ‘Well I thought it was a good idea for her to meet Lucy not for Lucy’s sake but for hers. I invited you both for more than just one selfish reason, you see.’

  ‘The first being?’

  ‘That I wanted to get to know you a little better. Meeting at Lucy’s bedside wasn’t exactly… well you know what I mean.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  They chuckled again. Mrs. Lockhart knew perfectly well what she had felt whenever Doctor Murray spent time at Lucy’s bedside with her. But she had put it down to his bedside manner, and nothing else. And had he invited her to stay the weekend under any other circumstances, without Lucy, for instance, then, she thought that perhaps a marathon might not have been just far enough to run, let alone the proverbial mile. Sitting alone by Lucy’s bedside for hour upon hour, she’d had plenty of time to daydream, but at no stage had she ever thought that the handsome and rather appealing doctor would either be unmarried or the slightest bit interested in her. And she had never given him the slightest suggestion
in that direction. Her only concern had been Lucy. Or so she had believed. But then, spoken language isn’t the only way of communication. A look here; a smile there. A person’s body will often shout out when the mouth is intentionally and firmly closed, and often without any help or intent from the conscious.

  ‘And the second was?’ she asked.

  ‘Ah, well that is more complicated. Perhaps there’s not just a second dimension but also a third.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I had a feeling Lucy would get on well with Loanne, and I was right. So her coming here was the second reason.’

  ‘And the third?’

  ‘And I could see that Lucy, with her exceptional gifts would more than likely appeal to Loanne. Loanne likes the unusual. She hates the mundane. You see, she’s what would have been described in the history books as an adventurer.’

  ‘An adventurer? Loanne?’ Mrs. Lockhart said incredulously.

  Doctor Murray continued unperturbed. ‘And likewise, Lucy quite obviously is on some kind of adventure at the moment. In her mind, that is. I’ve found it most intriguing but I am sure she is also as intriguing to Loanne.’

  ‘And the gift? You said Loanne has a gift?’

  Doctor Murray set about finishing off the sandwiches, silently thinking. ‘It’s not intuition,’ he said eventually.

  ‘It’s not?’

  ‘She answers the phone before it rings. You saw something similar yourself when she opened the door to you. She always does that. She’s there before you can knock on it. And at the dinner table…’

  ‘Yes, I saw that.’

  ‘You did?’ He wasn’t sure what she’d seen. He looked at Mrs. Lockhart, his eyes asking for some confirmation.

  ‘She passed the pepper before Lucy had asked for it.’

  ‘Ah, so you have noticed!’

  ‘She’s slightly psychic. So what? There are lots of people like that.’ She shrugged her shoulders dismissively.

  ‘Oh, well I wasn’t sure if you believed in that sort of thing.’

  ‘I don’t believe in it at all. I don’t believe in cars and buses. These things just exist. I don’t believe in radio waves or electricity either. But a couple of hundred years ago, I might have had to be convinced when I didn’t know they existed. Just because we can’t run something through a wire or an aerial, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.’

  ‘Right, so you… know about psychic gifts then?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ She waited for him to continue with what he was trying to explain, watching his face and thinking just how much she liked his slightly pained expression.

  ‘I’m sorry, but as a doctor, I come across a lot of colleagues who won’t accept things that have not been put to a material use. The medical profession is based on science. Or should I say the modern Western approach to medicine is. And scientists are notoriously closed minded as you probably know.’

  Mrs. Lockhart nodded. ‘I agree with that.’ She leaned against the kitchen worktop. ‘So you’ve realized that Loanne is slightly psychic.’

  ‘She’s more than slightly psychic, though. That’s the problem.’

  ‘And you say that made other children bully her? I

  can’t believe that.’

  ‘No, not exactly. You see, Loanne is a waif of a girl, and that attracts bullies. They don’t pick on people their own size. That would defeat their purpose. Bullies are usually cowards at heart. Getting thumped isn’t part of their remit. So they pick on children who look unlikely to fight back. And Loanne never fought back, but she never gave in either. Her teachers have explained how, she would simply weave out of the way when the bully or bullies tried to grab her. She was always just one tiny fraction of a second too quick for them.’

  ‘So she wasn’t bullied really, then?’

  ‘Well yes. She was humiliating them, you see. A bully’s psyche hasn’t got space for humiliation. Her behaviour just made them worse. In their eyes, it was as if she was taunting them.’

  ‘Good for her, I say.’

  ‘No, but it doesn’t work like that. The bullies became more determined and sooner or later overcame their obstacle by gathering followers. When you are surrounded, it is impossible to shift out of somebody’s way. The teachers told me they saw it happen, or one of them did, anyway. Loanne got really seriously beaten up.’

  ‘Oh, poor child.’ She paused, taking a moment to sit down at the table, as she felt a feeling of anger rising in her breast. She didn’t realize it at the time, but she couldn’t have felt more anger if it had been her own daughter.

  ‘Oh, it makes me so cross thinking about it,’ she said with an exasperated sigh.

  ‘And me,’ Doctor Murray confirmed, his jaw tightening as he reflected on what had happened.

  ‘Was she badly hurt?’

  He relaxed his jaw a little and let his mind come back to the present. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and then continued. ‘Yes, quite badly. But in a way it turned out to have been a blessing.’ He went on before she could ask in what way. ‘You see, until then, we hadn’t been aware that she had the same illness as her mother. With her mum, we were too late to cure her. But because Loanne underwent surgery for a stab wound…’

  ‘A stab wound! You mean they actually stabbed her?’ Mrs. Lockhart exclaimed incredulously.

  ‘Yes, in the back. The knife hit her shoulder blade. I think perhaps she was trying to get out of the way when it happened. It could have been much worse.’ He went on before Mrs. Lockhart could say any more. ‘The hospital did lots of tests; all the usual ones, blood tests and so on; and because of that, we found and caught the disease in time, thank God,’

  ‘All the same, bullies like that ought to be… ought to be…’

  ‘They were punished, or at least, one of them was, the one with the knife. But it did cause Loanne serious problems after that.’

  Not knowing what to say, Mrs. Lockhart diverted the topic. Inside she knew how she would have felt if it had been Lucy who had been the victim. But then, Lucy had always been able to stick up for herself. She had always had a natural ability to either walk away from trouble or stand up to it. ‘Well, at least she’s okay now,’ Mrs. Lockhart said consolingly. ‘You couldn’t wish to have a more beautifully behaved child. You must be really proud of her.’

  ‘Oh, I am. But don’t be too dazzled by her. She has a bit of a dark side to her as well.’ He smiled to himself as he thought about his daughter.

  Mrs. Lockhart noticed how his face lit up whenever he pictured his daughter in his mind. She knew the feeling. Why anyone could call pride a sin, she couldn’t ever imagine.

  ‘In some ways it’s changed her,’ he continued, his eyes now looking directly into those of his guest, as he paused to consider just how to say what he wanted to tell her.

  She watched him, patiently waiting for him to continue. As if to distract himself for a moment or two, he got some plates out of the cupboard and set them in a row on the worktop. Eventually, after forming his thoughts in his mind, he said, ‘It’s like Loanne’s two seconds ahead in time. At first we put it down to her having fast reflexes. In fact we tested her response times and it was verified that she responded faster than any normal person. You see, there is something called a flicker fusion rate. If I watch a film made up of individual frames then those frames are likely to have to be played at around fourteen frames per second in order to make the movement flow smoothly.’ He looked at Mrs. Lockhart. She was still listening, riveted to her seat.

  ‘But some creatures would see that as a slide show. Their reflex times are much faster than a human can respond. We move in slow motion compared with them. To them we look the same as sloths do to us.’

  He looked at Mrs. Lockhart to see if she understood what he was saying.

  ‘Go on,’ she said, nodding to indicate she was with him.

  ‘Right. Well, Loanne’s response times were so fast that, at first, we thought she had the reflexes of a cat.’

  ‘And you’re going t
o tell me that it turned out not to be the case?’

  ‘Yes!’ He looked at Mrs. Lockhart, inwardly appreciating her grasp on the topic. ‘What was happening really was that she was anticipating things. She was reacting to things before they happened, not after they had happened, if you get my drift. Response times are purely historical. We normally respond to events after they have taken place, as do all creatures, cats included.’

  ‘And Loanne wasn’t responding, she was anticipating. I see.’

  ‘Quite! She was actually reacting…’ He lifted both hand in front of his chest and did the sign with his fingers for inverted comas, ‘before the events happened, or at least before they were completed. She was seeing a person’s intention before they actually moved themselves.’

  ‘So that’s why she was so good at being a goalie when they were playing football yesterday!’

  ‘Exactly,’ he chuckled.

  ‘Well is that such a bad thing?’

  ‘Oh no, not at all. But her ability seemed to get much stronger after her operation.’ He looked at Mrs. Lockhart, their eyes locking for an instance. ‘You see where I’m going on this, don’t you?’

  Mrs. Lockhart nodded. ‘Lucy has also changed since her operation. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?’

  Doctor Murray tried to qualify that statement. ‘Well, Lucy has amnesia, so it may be that her capabilities are a result of her losing her original memory, but I certainly began to draw a comparison between her and Loanne. So, you see, I thought it would be interesting to see how they got on together.’

  Mrs. Lockhart feigned hurt. ‘So it wasn’t me you wanted to come and visit you after all!’

  Doctor Murray grinned. ‘As you said, there could well have been more than just one dimension to my invitation.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR