A Circle of Time (2 page)

“Rebecca Lee Thompson! Here you are again, daydreaming. You haven't been wasting time thinking about that no-good Joshua Winthrop, have you?” The woman grabbed Allison's arm and pulled her toward the house. “Don't you care that we have to be at the estate early tomorrow, and you still haven't finished sewing Miz Teresa's dress?”

Allison jerked back, forcing the woman to face her. “Look, I'm not—”

A powerful hand slapped Allison across the face, drawing blood. “Don't you ever take that tone with me, you hear? Now, move!”

Too terrified to resist further, Allison let the woman drag her across the meadow. As they were nearing the cabin, Allison became aware of a faint voice, as soft as a whisper in the wind, traveling over the meadow and through the pines: “Allison? Allison, please wake up, sweetheart. ”

“Mom!” Allison tried to wrench her arm free. “Mommy, help me!”

“I'll help you all right,” said the woman beside her, refusing to loosen her grip. Instead, the woman used her free hand to give one of Allison's braids a sharp tug, sending waves of needle-sharp pain throughout her scalp. Allison stopped struggling and let herself be dragged toward the cabin.

“Allison,” the voice called again.

Drawing strength from the voice, Allison yanked her arm free from the woman's grasp. She bolted. Tall weeds ripped and scratched her legs as she tore across the meadow, crying, “Mommy, help me!”

“Allison, wake up,” the voice pleaded.

As Allison ran, she could feel herself lifting from Becky Thompson's body and floating into the air. In the meadow below, she could see a girl in a calico dress running, tripping, and falling, while a large, heavyset woman caught up with her and struck her again and again about the head. Then, the girl and woman were gone, and Allison was in the wind tunnel, speeding toward a white light.

 

I'm a feather, floating down to earth, alighting on a bed.

Mom's beside me, holding my hand. I feel warm and relaxed. I sigh. It was only a dream, a nasty nightmare.

Then I hear what she's saying; I focus on Mom's voice. She's pleading with me, begging me to open my eyes.

My heart flutters. I try to do what she asks.
I'm trying, Mom. I'm trying!
my mind screams. But as much as I try, my head won't turn, and my eyes refuse to open.

Mom, help me! Please, help! I can't move!

Then a thought consumes me—a thought too horrible to bear: Somehow, someway, my body has become a coffin, lid shut tight, trapping me inside.

I'm buried alive in my own body!

Outside, the storm rages. Thunder rumbles through my bones. The curtains must be open because I can sense lightning rip the air just outside the window. My mind starts at the sound—I want to scream and cover my face—I've always been terrified of lightning.

I try to pull the sheets over my head. But my arm lies limp at my side, as if the signal my brain is sending—telling my arm to move—is dissolving, evaporating, leaving my body before it ever reaches my arm.

My heart gives a sharp kick.
Am I paralyzed?

Maybe it's just my arm. I try my hand, then a finger. Now I try my other arm, now a leg, a toe. I concentrate on trying to sit up, and I realize my eyes are still closed. I try to move my eyes, to open my eyelids. But each part of my body refuses to obey my commands.

The word
coma
fills my mind. Someone, earlier ... today?...yesterday?...said “coma.” Referring to me?

Bits and pieces of memory return. Images bombard my brain: a woman in a white lab coat, hugging Mom; Mom calling my name, holding my hand. A floating sensation. A meadow. A boy. Machines
swish-swushing
and
beep-beep-beeping.
Getting ready for school Thursday morning...

 

I chose my favorite blue jeans with the rip above the right knee and my faded save the rainforests T-shirt. When I had finished throwing on my clothes, I shoved my books into my backpack and headed for the kitchen.

“Mom,” I said, giving her a quick peck on the cheek, “I'm late. Could you pour some granola in a Baggie? I'll munch on it when I get to school. ”

“Dry?” Mom made a face.

I gave her one of my “Mother, puh-leeze” looks.

“I like it that way,” I told her, raising an eyebrow, suggesting that I was in no mood for an argument. Then I took a sip of orange juice, and when Mom handed me the Baggie of granola I slipped it into my backpack and started for the door.

“Can't you at least finish your juice?”

“Mom, I'm late. And I'll be late tonight. It's April eighteenth, remember?”

Mom gave me a blank stare.

“My interview at the rangers' station.”

“Oh,” Mom said, “be care—”

I didn't wait to hear the rest. I ducked into the garage and rolled my bike to the driveway. As I was about to climb on the bike, Mom darted out the front door.

“Allison, your helmet.”

“Oh, Mom...”

“It only takes a second to put it on, sweetheart. There. Now be careful on that mountain road—”

“Gotta go, Mom—I'm late!” I swung my leg over the bike and rolled into the street.

“Late, late, late,” I muttered, checking my watch.

 

“Late, late, late,” says the White Rabbit as he checks his pocket watch. He slips into the rabbit hole and begins to fall down, down, down a dark tunnel. “I'm laaaaate...”

Now
I'm
falling down the tunnel. Floating, falling, floating ... allowing myself to be propelled along. I land in a meadow. The smell of fresh, rain-soaked earth invades my senses; the crisp spring day caresses my skin.

Images form again, flashing in my brain like the flickering scenes of a silent movie: I see a cabin; a boy running; tall pine trees, towering; a woman pulling me ... her?...pulling who? I'm running. I'm floating. I'm lying limp in a strange bed.

What's happening to me?
my mind screams.
Somebody, please help me!

“Shh-hh...,” a voice whispers. “I'll help you. Don't you fret none. I'll help you, and you'll help me.”

Who's there? Who said that? Can you hear me?

“I can hear you. Don't you fret.” The voice is fading.

Can you help me?

“I can help you.” The voice is barely audible. “And you can help me.”

Lightning flashes, electrifies the air. I feel myself rising from the bed and floating above it. I remember, now—I remember the last time this happened!

No! I don't want to go! Please, don't
—

A sudden wind lifts me up, envelops me, and whirls me through a long tunnel toward a rosy light.

Noo-ooo!

She was consumed with terror. A desperate need to run, to escape imminent danger, kept her legs pumping, running blindly.

Branches reached out and ripped her face as she tore through the forest. Her heart, throbbing, throbbing, felt as though it would explode. Her lungs burned, her legs ached. But she knew she could not stop running. Whatever was chasing her grew closer.

She could hear its chest heaving, rasping, struggling to suck in more air, and branches slapping and breaking as they hit the approaching force. Or was it
her
breath she heard,
her
body against which branches slapped and broke? She couldn't stop to find out.

She crashed through a final crowd of branches and stopped at the edge of a clearing. Her throat was dry. Her limbs trembled from overexertion. She bent forward to ease the painful stitch in her side. A thin stream of moonlight illuminated the calico dress.

It was smeared with dark stains. She held up her hands. They felt gooey, sticky. She sniffed. Her stomach lurched as her brain recognized the smell.

Blood.

She was covered in blood!

 

“Allison, sweetheart, I'm here. Allison...”

Mom's voice draws me back through the wind tunnel. I see the tiny room below me, and I feel the pressure of the bed as I sink into my body.

The warmth of Mom's hand feels good, safe. I will my fingers to curl around Mom's, but they refuse to obey.

Mom strokes my cheek. “I tried to get back as soon as I could. I know how you hate to be alone during thunderstorms. But I closed the curtains—to keep out the lightning. Can you tell?”

Warm, moist lips touch my forehead. I breathe in the faint scent of Mom's tea-rose perfume mingled with French-roast coffee. My mind relaxes, lets go, releases the fear and dread of whatever is happening to me. For the first time since this nightmare began, I feel safe.

Don't move, Mommy. Stay close. Hold me.

As if she can hear my thoughts, Mom says, “You know I'd stay here twenty-four hours a day if I could, sweetie. My heart breaks each time I leave this room with you lying here”—her voice catches—“like this...”

Mom rests her head against my side and holds me. She begins to sob.

Even as the strong tug rips me from my body, my mind yells,
Don't cry, Mom. I'm trying to come back. I'm trying!

Something hard and cold pressed against Allison's forehead. Her back ached. Slowly, she opened her eyes and lifted her head. In front of her stood an old-fashioned sewing machine, its metal body crouched before her on its wooden stand like a giant black cricket. Allison's head had been resting on its cold metal back. She rubbed the painful dent the metal had left on her forehead. Still dazed, Allison glanced around.

The room was silent. A musty odor mingled with the thick, greasy smell of cooked lamb hung heavily in the air. Her eyes took in the rough wooden table and four chairs pushed under a tiny window framed with ragged curtains. A black cast-iron stove squatted next to a wooden counter that supported an iron water pump. To Allison's left, a curtain had been pushed back, exposing a bed covered with a faded quilt. Above it, a crude ladder led up to a shadowy loft.

Her heart began to pound. Where was she? She spun around to look behind her. A stone fireplace covered most of the back wall. In front of it, an old wooden rocker sat between a woodpile heaped on the hearth and a basket brimming with
coarse
yarn. The only source of light was the single window in the kitchen.

Allison felt as if she were a wax figure in the museum display of a log cabin she'd seen last year when her eighth-grade history class had taken a field trip to Sacramento. Was this another of those bizarre dreams she'd been having? One minute she'd find herself in a hospital bed unable to move, her mother sobbing at her side, and the next minute she'd be in another time and place—a time and place totally alien to her—and in another girl's body. Nightmares from which there was no escape.

Allison looked down. She groaned. She was wearing Becky Thompson's faded calico dress. She looked at her feet: They were bare and propped on the wide wrought-iron pedal of the sewing machine. She lifted a trembling hand to her hair—it was braided—two long, blond braids. Allison was a brunette with chin-length hair, and she didn't own a calico dress.

Then it hit her—this must be the rough cabin in the woods she saw the first time she was in Becky's body. And if it was, Becky's horrible mother would be back any minute.

Allison jumped from the chair and bolted for the door. The latch was awkward, stiff. She fiddled with it. Her heart pounded fiercely. Her whole body shook. Finally, the latch let go. Allison threw open the door and froze.

She was staring into the angry eyes of Becky Thompson's mother.

“And just where do you think you're going?” The heavyset woman shoved Allison back into the room and placed a basketful of eggs on the table. She turned to the sewing machine. “You ain't going anywhere till you finish that dress we promised Miz Teresa for next week. How far have you gotten?”

The woman lumbered to the sewing machine, boots hitting
clomp! clomp! clomp!
beneath her long cotton skirt. She picked up the piece of rose chiffon that was still attached to the needle, eyed it with displeasure, and let it drop. Then she sorted through other pieces of the same fine fabric folded in a large straw basket next to the sewing machine.

“That's it?” Mrs. Thompson turned, her face contorted with rage. “One sleeve—that's all you've done this morning?”

Allison stared at the woman in confusion, her eyes wide with terror. In one mighty leap, the woman was towering over her. Drawing back her arm, she struck Allison across the face with the back of her hand, propelling her against the wall. Pain shot through her entire body; her mind was a blur. Allison could taste blood. Her knees quivered.

“You stupid, lazy girl! I'll teach you to daydream when you should be working!”

Mrs. Thompson pulled back a closed fist, aimed directly at Allison's face, and let go. An explosion of pain and colors and flames burst inside Allison's head. Then the burning pain and brilliant colors faded to black, and Allison was back in the wind tunnel, whirling toward a voice.

 

At first, the voice seems muffled and far away, as if it's in another room and I'm listening through the wall. Slowly, the voice clears, and I can make out the words.

“... The nurse brought me a cot so I can stay with you at night. And I brought your boom box so the nurses can play your favorite music for you when I'm at work.”

Mom! Oh, Mom, help me out of this nightmare! I've got to get out of here.

I can hear Mom moving around the room as she talks. Paper crackles. Now she's next to my bed. “And look what else I brought. Feel.”

Mom places something soft and light on my arm, resting it against my shoulder. “Recognize it? It's PoPo, your old teddy bear. I found him in the back of your closet. Remember how you always made me drag him out when you were sick?”

Thunder crashes outside the window.