Mikel heard a scream.
“Flora?” he yelled into the phone.
“Mikel, be care—”
But Casey had already terminated the call.
CHAPTER 3
This was not a dream. It was not a vision. All of this was real, and the physical stimuli were an assault on the mind of Caitlin O’Hara: the unfamiliar sights and smells, the loose touch of the clothing, the sudden and unfamiliar sense of agoraphobia—she wanted to be home—and her inability to will these things away… the onslaught drove her into a swift, ungovernable panic attack.
She struggled, she rose, she moved, and she remembered little of it until now.
Now? What is “now”? she wondered with considered clarity that was almost worse than the raw panic. What is “is”? She was obviously in ancient Galderkhaan in a body that was not her own. From the bracelet, she assumed it was Bayarma’s body, the mother of Bayarmii.
Standing with her back to the tall, powerful woman who had restrained her, Caitlin breathed slowly and pointed the first two fingers of each hand at the ground. Her vision was sharper, the smell of fish and jasmine filled her nostrils, the air was cool to the point of chilly and free of pollen, and there were no mechanical sounds anywhere in the world around her, her arms and fingers felt different. The sky was a rich blue, the clouds the same as her own time, and there was a thin tendril of black smoke that came from somewhere in the distance.
But she did not feel the one thing she wanted desperately to feel. She could not find the active stones in her own time, and the tiles here appeared to be quiescent. Without them, she did not know how to return to her own time. The one other occasion she was here—protecting souls in her time from aggressive souls in Galderkhaan—she was disembodied, a spirit, a conduit for energy. Caitlin felt none of that now.
Because the tiles are all in harmony and balance, she thought. Vol has not yet activated the Source. Who knows how many years—or weeks or days—until he does.
Panic was replaced by helplessness. Plugging into the earth calmed her and she somehow managed to remain calm. Perhaps it was the balmy air, cool and refreshing, with the salty smell of a nearby sea. Maybe it was this body, which wasn’t her own; it didn’t seem to want to panic. It didn’t seem to understand, even, what that was.
Caitlin was glad for all of that because she couldn’t afford to lose control again. She did not know if there were psychologists here—there didn’t seem to be a word for one, she realized, as she thought in Galderkhaani. The closest she came was galdani—a physician who heals with a kind of empathic energy. But she imagined that there were prisons and hospitals and she did not want to end up in either.
Being physically present in Galderkhaan felt different from being here in spirit. In her previous experiences with the Galderkhaani, Caitlin had felt like a hitchhiker. With Maanik, with the other children, she was not alive in a foreign body but merely observing through their eyes. Eavesdropping. This was not like that. She was inhabiting, controlling, this woman’s body. The chronic numbness in Caitlin’s hip, from childbirth, was gone. She looked at her fingers, saw the whorls of her fingerprints. The encroaching farsightedness, though slight, was also gone. She did experience a little difficulty breathing, however.
No, she realized suddenly. It wasn’t difficulty. It was simply different. Either her lung capacity was less or the oxygen content was diminished.
As she continued to take stock—quickly, intellectually, like when she was an aid worker checking her gear before boarding a truck or helicopter—she realized that her arms were shorter, fingers more slender, but both were stronger. Her upper arms were toned, bronzed, fit, either from whatever work Bayarma did or from speaking in Galderkhaani with the constant superlative gestures that gave depth and nuance to every spoken word and phrase.
Caitlin noticed all this as the woman continued to hold her supportively, gently, despite the obvious strength in her big hands.
The woman asked if she could let Caitlin go. Caitlin indicated that she was all right now. Her captor finally released her and took a step back. Caitlin made sure she could stand on her own, then turned slowly and looked behind her. As she gazed at that strange, alien face, the flesh ruddy bronze with oddly elongated gold eyes, Caitlin fought very hard not to freak out again.
This is real. I am here.
But becoming agitated would not help her get home—if that were even possible—and she did not know how much time she had. If she perished with Galderkhaan, what would happen to her soul?
They spoke, Caitlin gathering her thoughts, not remembering what she said after she said it—she was still trying to find the tiles, to feel comfortable in this body. She continued to breathe slowly. There was a pool of water to her left. She extended two fingers toward the ground near it. She closed her eyes and, through the pool, tried to connect to any of the waters around New York. She did not feel her soul reaching outward as she had when she was on the rooftop and used the harbor to find Yokane, the descended Priest living in the city. She pushed her fingers hard, curled them, tried to pull something, anything, from the water. She heard the sound of the sea nearby, but could not feel it. She pictured her body lying in Washington Square Park—just that—and attempted to return to it, to the moment she fell. There had been firefighters, flame, water from hoses.
Caitlin felt nothing. She sought the bodies that had been buried centuries before in the potter’s field under the park. Again, nothing.
Of course, she thought with rising horror. I can’t reach them because those bodies have not yet lived and died. Manhattan and its waters—perhaps they’re somewhere else on the globe in this era, nearer to the equator as they once were. There was no way of knowing.
My body has not yet been created, she thought with true horror. But then how did her soul exist? And not just her soul, but her memories. She thought about her son and tried to use that to get home. She imagined Jacob in their apartment. He was not born yet in this time, but his spirit lived strong inside Caitlin. That should help… it had to help.
It didn’t. Once again, there was no vibration, no sense of anything beyond her fingertips other than the unfamiliar Antarctic air, the distant cries of seabirds, the receding sound of leathery flaps from the airship not far, the crashing of waves.
“You seem better now,” the other woman said.
Caitlin nodded tightly. They spoke some more, she gestured as they spoke, she confirmed whose body she had… “borrowed.” Caitlin definitely was not better but she had to find a way to appear so. She did that for her patients sometimes, when she had problems of her own and was not quite ready to hear those of others: she compartmentalized, and she had to do so now. She allowed herself to submit to the present… this present, not her own present, millennia hence. She relaxed her fingers.
Caitlin knew she would have to learn more about her surroundings… and, most importantly, what was holding her here. Had she flashed here from the tower where she had faced Pao and Rensat? Or was that in the future? Or the past? Were the tiles of that structure binding her to this place?
If so, why can’t I feel them?
It was a struggle to remain focused, to try and prioritize.
They were talking about Caitlin’s home, about her having come from the north. The psychiatrist found herself doing what she always did, what challenged Ben, concerned Barbara, occasionally shocked Anita: she was telling the truth, regardless of the consequences. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.