Chapter 51: The Seed

Submitted by PeteMork on Wed, 10/24/2012 - 18:48

It was the third day of Hannah’s hibernation, and Richard was getting nervous. “She’s not a vampire, Elaine. I don’t think she’ll be able to survive months of hibernation like Eli did. She’ll die of starvation.”

“We don’t know what she’s capable of, Rich. She’s…unique.”

“We know she’s no stronger than Eli or Oskar,” he retorted. “And Eli just barely survived herself with her full strength.”

“That doesn’t sound like a rigorous scientific observation to me, Rich. You’re thinking with your heart now. Eli could have hibernated another month or two safely. Believe me, I know.”

He wasn’t about to argue with her about a vampire’s limitations. “But we don’t know HER limits, Elaine. I think enough time has passed now. We need to let Oskar try to talk to her, or at least to her…other.”

“I agree, Rich.” If the change has occurred, it would be complete by now, she thought, although even Elaine had never experienced a situation where a vampire had begun hibernation at the same time it had been infected. In Hannah’s unique case, she might have begun hibernating even before she was infected, depending on when Adrian strangled her. Who could know how that combination of events would play out?

“Really, Papa? Can he try tonight?” Eli stood up excitedly.

“Yes, Eli. Let him know, please. And if he has any second thoughts, tell him he doesn’t have to do it. We can wait.”

“He’ll want to, Papa.” She rushed up the stairs.

§

Oskar sat at his computer trying to do his homework, but his thoughts kept returning to Hannah. It had been almost impossible for him to concentrate for days now. He wanted desperately to try to talk to her but Mom and Dad had been reluctant to allow it yet.

He peeked at her over the top of his screen. She was lying on her back, arms at her sides, just as Eli had last left her. She’s been on her back long enough, he thought to himself. He went over to the bed and gently turned her over on her left side, bent her left arm and placed her hand under her pillow. There! That’s more like it. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“Papa says it’s okay, Oskar! You can try tonight,” Eli whispered. She kneeled down beside him and stroked Hannah’s hair.

“Really?”

“Yep! But I want to give her a bath first, Oskar. You know, like you did when I was hibernating?”

He smiled at her. “Okay, Eli. But you have to let me dry her hair. Okay?”

“It’s a deal.” They picked her up carefully. Eli cradled her head in her hands and together they carried her into the bathroom.

Oskar filled the tub, carefully checked the water temperature, then closed the door softly behind him on the way out.

He sat on the edge of their bed, towel in his lap and Hannah’s brush in his hand. And waited.

§

“Can you hear anything, Oskar?”

“Eli, you have to leave me alone! It took a long time with you. And it was the middle of the night before I saw…” his voice trailed off.

“I’m sorry, Oskar. What do you want me to do?”

“Stop talking, Eli. And just…hope there’s nothing there for me to find. Except Hannah.”

She put her arms around him, hugged him for a moment, then lay on her back beside him, hands behind her head, admittedly exhausted after everything that had happened.

Oskar rolled over and took Hannah in his arms, pressed his cheek against hers, and waited quietly.

They were both asleep almost instantly.

§

His eyes popped open. Damn! I can’t believe I fell asleep! He glanced over at the clock: 4:00AM. He could hear Eli breathing quietly beside him. She was still sound asleep. Hannah’s cheek was still pressed against his, but he had lost all feeling in his trapped arm. He gingerly slid it out from under her, grimaced when it began tingling, and shook it out. He gently turned her over, climbed over her and snuggled up against her from the other side.

Hannah? Are you there? He called to her over and over again in the darkness and listened intently. Nothing. He tried again, but then remembered how long he had tried with Eli without success, and sighed to himself, realizing they might be in this for the long haul. But she’s not Eli. She’s never hibernated before. And this time wasn’t a normal hibernation anyway. Hibernation is probably a life-saving mechanism for her, rather than a part of her life-cycle. He thought about all the science that Dad had developed around Eli’s former condition and all the talks they had about it when they were home-schooled, and it just sounded right to him. And besides, he realized, Hannah had his psychic abilities also; and even stronger. Eli hadn’t. Wouldn’t that make talking to her easier? Or more dangerous, he thought to himself.

He took a deep breath and with new determination, tried even harder. This time he felt something moving in a new darkness, a familiar three-dimensional darkness he had seen only once before, with Eli. He took a deep breath, hoping it didn’t mean what it had meant that time. Hannah? Is that you? Hannah?

He suddenly felt himself falling into that darkness, but he caught himself and with a powerful thrust of his wings, soared up over the house and flew south toward London. But something was wrong. He was holding a red rose tightly in his hands and he realized suddenly that his wings were…growing out of his back! And they were too small and frail. He knew instinctively that they couldn’t support his weight. And sure enough; he felt himself beginning to fall. He flapped his wings fiercely, but it was no use. He fell like a rock, head over heels toward the ground. He recognized the Shaw house, caught a glimpse of Mrs. Shaw through the kitchen window, then felt the sharp branches tearing at his flesh as he slammed into the wall beneath her.

He opened his eyes. He was sitting on a bench at Vista Point. There was a clear velvety-black sky and a full moon, so bright he could see his shadow. From there, with his new eyes, he could see Phoenix Park, and was startled to see what appeared to be a small figure sitting at the base of the sculpture. He got to his feet, brushed off the leaves and twigs still clinging to his clothes, and walked slowly down the hill to White Road. He turned right up the hill toward the ridge, and picked up his pace when he saw the wisps of fog just beginning to peek over the edge; he was determined to reach the park before it. He was intensely curious now as to who might be up there alone at night, and why.

Just as he turned down the narrow path to the park, there was a gentle gust of wind, and the fog, freshly energized, rose up just a bit, wrapped itself carefully around his ankles, and poured gently past him toward the valley. He felt vertigo as the stable ground on which he had been standing was rapidly transformed into an ocean of rapidly moving fog, undulating slowly up and down in waves never higher than his knees, and stretching off to the south as far as he could see, vast and white, brilliantly illuminated by the ghostly blue-white light of the moon. To the north, it poured gently into the black abyss of the valley. The sudden irrational fear of being swept off the ridge into the darkness made him lose his balance. He stumbled, caught himself, took a couple of halting steps, then stood there motionless, trying to get his bearings again. His eyes fixed on the Phoenix, which for a magical moment, appeared to be in flight over the rapidly-moving fog.

And there she was, sitting casually on one of its huge talons, one arm around its scaly leg. And oddly, she was wearing Eli’s fairy pajamas, just as she really was as she lay next to them in Eli’s bed.

“You’re funny, Oskar!” she giggled. “I thought you were going to fall flat on your face!”

“Hannah! What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you, Oskar. I just knew you’d come for me.”

“But, why didn’t you just come home? You know the way.”

There is no ‘home’ Oskar. Can’t you see?”

He turned and looked. The valley he had just left, previously aglow with amber street lamps and scores of porch lights, was dark and quiet. Without being able to see, he suddenly knew the compound was no longer there either.

“I looked, Oskar, but nothing’s here; not even the lighthouse. Only…this.” She put both arms around the leg of the Phoenix and clung tightly to it.

Oskar sat down beside her and put his arm around her. She let go of the Phoenix and grabbed him tightly in her arms. “I was afraid I’d never see you again,” she whispered. “I’ve been here alone for weeks, and the sun hasn’t come up once, and the moon stays in the same place, and the stars…” she buried her face in his chest.

“But Hannah. What about Adrian? Do you remember? He bit you! He infected you! Why aren’t you…?”

“It died, Oskar.” The tears welled up in her eyes. “I picked it up, it got dark and ugly and disgusting, and then it died. And it burned up in the moonlight. And I was alone again.”

“What, Hannah? What died?”

“The child, Oskar. Adrian’s child. It was so beautiful and it had that sweet baby smell, and I just had to pick it up. But it changed when I kissed it on the cheek.”

“But…where is it, Hannah?”

“There!” She pointed at the fog as it swirled silently around the base of the sculpture.

But whose…?” He realized, then, he didn’t want to ask her, because he wasn’t sure what it would mean if she answered, ‘mine.’

“I don’t know, Oskar! But it was so pretty lying there, I just had to pick it up. And then…”

“You…killed it just by kissing it?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know, Oskar.”

They sat there quietly together until Hannah finally stopped crying. Oskar rocked her gently in his arms, showering her with sweet thoughts of Eli, and Einstein, and Jack, and reminded her how she got her fairy cup that night when Eli’s Papa presented it to her and shared with her the story of his great loss. And how he told her on another very different night that there wasn’t a single boy in the whole world who was worthy of her.

“Let’s go home, Hannah,” he said quietly. He stood up and took her hands in his.

She put her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, and pressed her cheek against his. “Carry me, Oskar,” she whispered.

He walked slowly down what he guessed was the path, using the tops of the trees in the distance to guide him. He could feel the pavement beneath his feet and concentrated on its firmness and stability, trying not to let the relentless flow of the fog into the valley distract him. “The path is here, Hannah. I can feel it. All we have to do is follow it home.”

She kissed him on the neck and held him tighter. But she knew that, before the fog, there had been no path at all.

He slowed down in the area where he thought the path met the road, and felt ahead carefully with his foot. After several attempts, he felt the familiar rounded shape of the curb, smiled to himself and turned left into the valley. The fog hadn’t made much headway, in spite of the fact that it continued to pour over the ridge and downward, hugging the hillside. It petered out no more than 100 meters down the hill. When they passed below it and reached the sharp turn in the road, the lights of the village haltingly winked alive again, just like the neon sign over the old theatre marquis, he thought to himself. He breathed a sigh of relief. “See how easy that was, Hannah?”

She lowered herself to the ground, and took Oskar’s hand firmly in hers. “Oskar I…thank you, Oskar. She squeezed his arm, and they started down White road together. “Look Oskar! The school is rebuilt.”

“Yeah, it seems so Hannah. At least in your world. And it looks like…” he craned his neck, then did a double-take. “There’s an observatory now, Hannah. Is that real?! Will there really be a telescope in the school?”

She smiled. “It seems so, Oskar,” she mimicked him, teasingly. She probed even further into the future, desperately looking for something wonderful just for Oskar. She simply had to do it. She closed her eyes a moment, straining to see…Yes! It’s there! She smiled at him, then pointed toward the meadow high up the hill on the north side of the forest, just visible from where they were standing; the meadow where He and Eli had stood that day before the flight of the Phoenix, looking down on the compound and planning their future together. “What’s that, Oskar? I don’t remember that being there…before.” She gave him one of Eli’s beautiful pixie grins.

He could just make out a low, white, three-rail fence, and a lot of big well-lit windows right near the edge of the meadow, casting a warm friendly glow down the steep hill. “I don’t know, Hannah. But there can’t be anything there! That’s where Eli wanted to build our house…”

Her grin was now ear-to-ear. “You’re welcome Oskar. It’s the least I could do.” The lights in the meadow winked out suddenly. And Hannah’s short trip into Oskar’s future was over.

Oskar took her in his arms and squeezed her tight. “You are ...amazing, Hannah. I just don’t know what to say to you anymore.”

“Let’s go home, Oskar.” They walked silently, hand-in-hand, down White Road and finally along the low seawall toward home. No hurry. It was as though they had all the time in the world.

§

He opened his eyes. He could see the pink sky through Eli’s window. He still had his arms around Hannah, and his cheek was still pressed against hers, but she hadn’t moved a muscle. He sighed to himself. I…hope it was real. I hope it was real. I hope it was real.

“What, Oskar? What do you hope was real?” Eli propped herself up on one arm.

“Oh, Eli! I had the most magical dream. First I flew with Hannah and crashed into the Shaw’s house, then I walked up to Phoenix Park through the most beautiful fog, and found Hannah sitting on the sculpture. And she was wearing your pajamas.”

“Was she…did she…”

“No. She was Hannah. Nothing else. And she was lost. So I brought her home. And she showed me beautiful things, Eli.” He paused. “She’s Hannah, Eli; and only Hannah. I’m sure of it. Adrian’s child is dead. It died in Hannah’s arms.”

Eli understood immediately what that meant. She gently shook Hannah’s shoulder. “But she’s still hibernating, Oskar. Why is she still hibernating?”

“I don’t know, Eli. Let me try…” He shook her gently, then poked her a bit harder in the ribs.

Nothing.

“Maybe it was just a dream, Oskar.”

“NO! It wasn’t!”

“I’m sorry, Oskar. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I was so certain, Eli! We walked down the hill together and we could see the house ahead of us clearly just before I woke up.”

“I know, Oskar. Let’s…” They gently rolled her over on her back, lay down next to her again and pulled her arms up around them. They lay there quietly next to her until the pink sky turned blue and the smell of bacon cooking wafted up the stairs.

“Mama’s up,” Eli whispered. “And Papa too.” She could hear the soft sounds of their voices through the open window.

“Eli, Hannah’s breathing.” He spoke so softly, she could scarcely hear him.

And so she was. And at the same time, Eli knew she had been breathing for a while now; she just hadn’t realized it, because waking up in the mornings with Hannah beside them was such a natural thing for them.

§

“They’re still asleep, Rich. I peeked in before I came downstairs.” Elaine turned the bacon and adjusted the burner.

He shrugged his shoulders, resignedly. “I suppose it was too much to hope for. It’s only the first night he tried, after all. I’m just afraid, because we have no idea what’s going on inside her head. You and Eli were predictable in these matters; Hannah isn’t.”

Elaine smiled when she noticed that he had put Hannah’s cup on the table this morning. “Rich, every time I’ve convinced myself that you’re a scientist through and through, you do something like that.” She nodded at the cup.

He blushed. “I’m sorry, Elaine. It’s just that…” he grinned sheepishly, and set the teapot on the table.

“It’s what I love most about you.” She kissed him on the cheek, then took the last of the bacon out of the pan and put it on the strainer.

“Should I go get them?”

“No. Let them sleep a while longer. Besides, it’ll give us time to talk.” She poured him a cup of tea, and put the now-drained bacon in the oven to keep it warm. She sat down beside him. “Richard, I’m really worried about Eli. I don’t think she can take much more of this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at what she’s been through since the three of you first found each other. She killed the chief detective in Karlstad after he shot Oskar; Oskar almost killed Seth after he threw a rock through her window, almost killing her; she was almost killed again by the Other One—once when she was alone, and again when the three of you went after him.”

“But look at what she got in return, Elaine. You.”

She smiled at him. “Let me finish, Rich. After that, Gudmund came into our lives, and after endearing himself to her, committed suicide.”

“But he gave her Hannah, Elaine.”

She sighed. “Richard, please let me finish! You’re completely missing the point. Even Hannah’s introduction into the equation wasn’t without problems. Remember the boys who almost raped them? After that came The Four. I know; it wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just happened. But that whole episode took its toll on her too. They invaded our home, and I almost died before her eyes! Rich, she’s still just a child!”

She caught her breath and started again. “Then there was the island, and I thought; ‘Now at last her life will settle down and she can have the chance to be really happy.’ Then there was Marcus. And she was almost killed again. And Oskar! Again, right before her eyes. And that wasn’t the end of it. The BbC got involved, she suffered through the kidnapping of both you and Oskar, in which Oskar almost died again, and then her latest adversary, Adrian, took it upon himself to make her life even more miserable, and the island and everyone she loved might have disappeared in a flash of light. And now this! For way too many long hours, she was absolutely positive that Hannah, her soul mate and blood sister, was dead at Adrian’s hands. I can’t even imagine how all this has affected her, Rich. There’s a big difference between living alone for over 200 years living off the blood of strangers, and living for only 16 more, during which almost everyone she has taken into her heart has nearly lost their lives; primarily because of her and her very existence in this world.”

“But that’s not true, Elaine. None of it is her fault.”

“Eli doesn’t see it that way, Rich. I’m certain of it.”

“Well, I think you’re wrong. I think Eli is happier now than she’s ever been. And Hannah is going to be back with us in no time. I’m certain of it.”

“That’s because you’ve always looked at the upside of everything, Rich! The odds are stacked heavily against us with Hannah. You must know that! Even though she’s alive, she could have sustained brain damage from lack of oxygen. She might never wake up. Why would she have hibernated in the first place? Vampires don’t hibernate when they’re attacked and almost killed; and humans certainly don’t. There’s simply no evolutionary precedent, at least in Vampire DNA, to account for what’s happened to her! She can’t just conjure up these abilities as she needs them. You need to be more realistic,” She scolded.

“That’s your job, Elaine. And you do it quite well, I might add.” He winked at her. “I think they’ve slept long enough. I’ll go upstairs and…”

Elaine glanced up as the two of them came around the corner “There you are! It’s about time! Come in, sit down and have some breakfast.” Elaine got out the eggs. “How’s Hannah?”

They sat down at the table, but Richard could tell there was something off. “What’s wrong Eli? You look so serious. Has something happened to Hannah?”

“No, she’s fine,” she said stoically.

“Oskar? What’s going on?”

“Nothing, Dad.” They grinned at each other.

“I know what it is! I’m sitting in the wrong seat!” she slid over, picked up the teapot and filled up Hannah’s fairy cup.

“Eli, what on earth are you doing?” Elaine didn’t need this right now. In fact, she couldn’t believe Eli would actually do something so flip.

“Nothing, Mama! I just got here. Sorry I’m late.” Eli peaked around the corner, grinned, and sat down next to Oskar.

Elaine’s teacup shattered on the floor. She crouched down and started to pick up the pieces, but her hands were shaking. She just couldn’t do it. Finally, she burst into tears.

“Mama! I’m sorry! We didn’t mean to upset you.” Eli was next to her in a flash. Hannah sat there, dumfounded, mouth wide open.

“I’m not upset, Eli. I’m…” she choked up.

“Mrs. Dawson, I never would have done it if I had thought…and now I’ve made you break your teacup!” Hannah started to get up, but it was too late.

“Welcome back Hannah!” Richard lifted her out of her chair and hugged her. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon!”

Eli helped Mama to her feet and threw the remains of her cup in the garbage. “I’m sorry! I’m really…”

“Stop, Eli. There’s nothing to be sorry about. I’m just happy, that’s all.” She wiped her tears away, and kissed Hannah on the cheek. “Welcome back, Hannah,” she whispered. “I…I honestly didn’t think we’d ever see you again.”

“Poor Elaine! Always expecting the worst and never prepared for the best!” Richard put his arm around her. “Oskar! Have you told her parents? Jack? Sava?” He hated to think that they might not know yet.

“Yes, Dad. I told them all when we were coming down the stairs.”

“Then, I suppose we’d better get ready for them, Elaine.” He put a few more chairs around the table, filled the kettle with water, and put it on the stove.