This pregnant girl from Nicaragua presented her with yet another
mystery, the nature of which she could not unravel. She had a lovely little girl with her,
Richard’s daughter, with shiny blond hair and shining dark eyes. A quiet, solemn child who remained firmly
attached to her mother’s side. They were
communicating, Doris and this child. They could read each other’s thoughts
clearly. She said that her mother had
just been crying in the car while they were on their way over, that this had
frightened her, and she didn’t want to be here, that she missed her kitty-cat
and the big fat lady who had been looking after her, and her granny, too. She didn’t like her Canadian granny, who was
cold and didn’t like her, though she did like okay her Canadian grandpa. She wanted Doris to be her granny, and Doris
answered that she would be delighted but they must first ask her mother for
permission. This was a game Doris often
played, but only with those, usually children, who knew what was going on and
were willing to play along. She felt
that most people were able to communicate with telepathy, but few were aware of
it. She felt rather glad about this,
since some thoughts ought not to be widely known.
Like the refuge,
the code name for the house of rest and world gatherings. She was being summoned to another meeting
there, soon. The planet was in crisis
condition and the watchers would be meeting with their agents in order to
devise the next strategy. In half a
decade, the map of Europe would be redrawn again, the nuclear threat would
recede only for new problems to arise.
There was great danger approaching, for persons, nations, for the
biosphere. She had no wisdom as to
whether the madness of war, greed and environmental destruction would be halted
and reversed: only that so much would depend on the choices that people
made. Choices could not be enforced—they
would have to accept whatever the princes of darkness had decreed for the
nations over which they still ruled and then work to undo the damage. She had received from the elder of the Refuge
a telepathic message just last night.
Within a fortnight she must be there.
No one really knew the location.
There was a beach on the Saanich Peninsula, near Victoria where they
would gather at night, then board a boat that took them to an island. No one
knew the name or location of this island.
They would moor at a small beach, then climb a path up a steep forested
hill, eventually coming out onto a large clearing with a huge rambling mansion
in its midst. There the elder—she was
called Eleanor, though she had many different names—would stand waiting to
welcome them, along with her daughter, a lovely fair-haired girl who always
wore white, and then….
For how long had
she been dozing? She had been dreaming,
she knew this. She couldn’t remember.
She was suddenly thinking of her childhood in England, her parents who’d
both perished in their Kensington terrace while Doris had gone to the market.
She was eighteen, and went to stay in a bed-sit in Camden Town. She had aunts and uncles in the country, all
of who had insisted that she give up her stubbornness and come live with them
in relative safety. Doris had to be with
her people, her fellow Londoners, she must suffer with them, she could not
conceive of living if it had to be with a survivor’s guilt. She also remained for her parents, though
they too would have insisted that she flee.
Doris didn’t care. There was a
boy there that she loved, then he died in an air raid, while fire-watching,
which hardened to iron her resolve to stay in London while the Luftwaffe rained
down upon England the Fuhrer’s wrath. On
her immediate right she could feel Stephen watching her intently.
“Pleasant dreams?”
he asked.
“I can’t
remember. Sorry to have gone off like
that. It’s so warm and cozy in here that
it became too easy to slip into a nap.
And what do you like to do, Stephen?”
“Suck cocks. What do you like to do?”
“Knit, read. And I
love gardening.”
“Do you have a
garden?”
“Well, I tend the
grounds of the apartment building that I help manage.”
“Who are you,
anyway?”
“I beg your
pardon?”
“Who are you, how
do you fit with everyone here?”
“I have been a
friend of Glen and his mother since he was about thirteen.”
“What was Glen like
when he was thirteen?”
“Very bright and
highly artistic. Quiet. Pleasant and rather shy.”
“He hasn’t changed
much?”
“I daresay that he
hasn’t, though the fire he almost died in seems to have permanently changed
him.”
“In what way?”
“I wish I could
find words to describe the change I’ve seen in him. He seems almost other-worldly, now.”
“Like an alien?”
“I suppose.”
“Hey Glen. Guess what?
You’re an alien.”
“Just don’t
alienate me”, he said.
“So when are we
going to eat?”
“Soon, if you stay
quiet.”
“He’s a good cook”,
Pierre said. “You don’t even notice that
there isn’t any meat in it.”
“And if it’s meat,
you’d notice it”, Stephen said.
“Please. Not in front of his mother,” Pierre said.
“Not to worry”,
Alice said. “I’m not exactly squeamish.”
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