Chapter 3: Thanksgiving Night

“NOOOOO!”

It was more of a muffled bellow than a scream. Dad’s deep voice split through the warm soft blackness of sleep and dragged me back to the cold hard darkness of my room. I found myself sitting upright in bed, panting in shock. My heart was thumping so hard and so fast that it made my teeth rattle. I was surprised the vibrations from my thumping heart didn’t shake all my bones loose and send them clattering to the ground. Dad’s voice kept straining through the walls, his words garbled and meaningless.

I leaped out of bed, scooped up my robe and hurried out of my room. I raced down the hallway, slipping into my robe as I moved. By the time I was outside The Parents’ room, Dad’s voice had faded away and I could hear Mum calling his name, trying to calm him down.

I opened the door, stepped into the room and stopped. A small amount of street lighting spilled through the curtains and filled the room with a dim light. It revealed Dad standing against the wall – facing the wall – with his head and both hands against the wall. His chest was heaving as he took in huge breaths of air. Mum stood behind him with her hands out but not touching him. She was talking calmly – telling him that he was okay, telling him it was only a dream, telling him it was over.

As I watched, Mum reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. Dad flinched away from it and flattened himself against the wall. He seemed to be trying to crawl through the wall to get away from her hand.

Neither of them seemed to have noticed me so I decided to keep it that way. I stepped back out of the room and silently closed the door behind me. Then I turned and leaned my back against the wall. I was stunned. I was horrified. Dad had this huge nightmare and it was MY FAULT!

It had to be my fault. I’d pushed Dad way beyond where he was comfortable. Almost immediately he had this awful nightmare and now he couldn’t even let Mum touch him. It was all my fault. I messed up so badly. I should never have pushed him like that. I’d felt bad when I was doing it and now I felt a million times worse. I leaned against the wall and the tears came flooding down my face.

I know why it happened. I got full of myself. I had worked on Mira and that had turned out pretty well. Then I watched while Mum and Nana worked on Aunty Janice – I even helped a bit – and that worked out pretty well. It got so I stopped thinking about what could go wrong if I messed up. That’s why I took on Dad like that. But Mira’s problems are like nothing compared to what’s wrong with Dad. I got so full of myself that I figured I could do anything – solve any problem – fix any person. How messed up is that? And I thought calling myself Little Miss Hand Grenade was a joke. I had gone and exploded in the middle of my own family and completely blown apart my father’s fragile grip on his problems. The image of Dad flinching away from Mum flashed into my mind and stayed there – playing over and over.

I could feel myself spiraling down and down into a deep black hole. Further and further I sank into the depths. All those fake versions of me fell away – all those masks that I hide behind dissolved away into nothing. Soon there was nothing left but the real Bec – the small, weak, terrified, broken Bec wailing and cowering in a dark corner of my skull.

My brain starting picturing what would happen to our family now that Dad couldn’t cope with being touched any more. It was terrifying. I couldn’t face it. Even thinking about it filled me with pain.

I staggered away from the wall and stumbled down the hallway towards my room.

Unable to endure the pain, Broken Bec crumbled and fled. That left the very center of my being exposed. I don’t know what I expected to find there – maybe the vacuum of space, maybe a screaming infant. I don’t know.

There, in the very middle of my center, once everything that was me had been stripped away, I found B.

She was curled up into a tiny ball – a tightly wound up ball of total rage.

Uncovered and unbound she expanded and filled the available space, taking over my body, taking over my brain.

Bec had ceased to exist. There was only B. And B knew only rage.

It was like I was watching from a place on the wall of my room. Maybe, deprived of a body, I had moved into one of the paintings of Bec on my bedroom wall. I watched as B burst through the door. She threw herself down onto the bed. She punched down into the mattress. She punched and punched, over and over. She kicked and punched and clawed. She bit down onto the pillow to muffle her screams. She screamed and screamed. Her body writhed and jerked.

My multiple sets of painted eyes swivelled to watch this performance of uncontrolled fury.

Eventually tiredness set in and the movements slowed. The muffled screams were replaced with muffled sobs. I realized that it wasn’t B lying on that bed any more. I don’t know who it was because I was still watching from my place on the wall but she wasn’t B.

She slid off the bed and sat on the floor with her knees tucked up into her chest and her back against the bed. She hugged her legs more tightly into her chest and sobbed quietly.

Soon even the sobs faded away into nothing.

Nothing.

No place.

No time.

No space.

No rhyme.

Nothing.

Then ... something.

There was a roaring in my ears. It wasn’t deafening but it was loud enough. I looked up through misty eyes. Light pouring through the open door made me blink and squint. He stood in the doorway with the light behind him so I couldn’t see his features. I think he was shouting but I couldn’t hear the words – just the roaring.

My body moved without my control. It rocked me forward onto my knees and I found myself bowing down before him until my forehead rested on the floor. I wanted to call out to him – tell him how sorry I was. I wanted to beg for forgiveness but no sound could escape past the huge lump blocking my throat. I wanted to run and hide – crawl into some small dark hole and hide but my body was frozen in place and refused to respond.

I knelt there on the floor with my forehead pressed against the ground. I felt small, defenceless, alone.

The roaring came closer. I wanted to cringe away but I was locked in that position – unable to move so much as a finger. I felt my panic building as he came closer and closer. Kneeling like that with my forehead on the ground meant I couldn’t see. Without a voice I couldn’t beg. With muscles locked I couldn’t move. The only sound I could hear was the roaring. What else could I do but panic?

Then the roaring went away and left behind a hole where the noise had been – an angry silence that was more frightening than the noise.

Time passed like a freight train in the night – loud and sudden and unstoppable but at the same time slow and ponderous. Each second clanked and rumbled and shook the floor as it rattled past in a never-ending stream.

I remained frozen in place with my forehead on the ground – shaking in fear, trapped inside my kneeling body like a chick inside a too-hard eggshell. I had struggled to break free but the struggles had drained my energy and now I flopped helplessly inside my skin-shaped shell.

A new urgently whispering voice shattered the silence – shattered the bonds that held me still. I sat upright on my heels and opened my eyes. A boy knelt in front of me. It was Sam but something seemed strange about him. Sam knelt in front of me with concern on his face. The dim light washed away the colour from Sam’s face and clothing. He knelt before me in shades of grey.

“Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

I nodded cautiously – unsure of the answers to either question.

He pointed down at my front.

I looked down. A large dark stain spread across the front of my once-pristine white nightgown. I looked at the stain in confusion. The stain covered most of my front, making the cloth heavy and clammy. In the absence of colour the stain looked charcoal grey.

“You’re bleeding,” whispered Sam. “I have to get you out of here.”

I looked at Sam.

“I can’t,” I whispered back to him. “I mustn’t.”

Then a tiny thread of a memory tickled the back of my brain.

“I was supposed to run away,” I whispered.

Something about running away when someone comes into my room...

“I should run away,” I whispered.

“I promised to get you out of here and now it’s time,” said Sam. “I have to get you to a hospital. Come on, Dan. It’s time.”

Now I was even more confused. I peered at Sam trying to figure out why he was calling me Dan. That didn’t seem right. I was fairly sure that I wasn’t Dan. I tried to think about myself and no name came into my head. But Dan didn’t seem right.

“Come on, Danni.” He hauled me to my feet. My body cooperated with him – allowing him to move me wherever he wanted.

Danni sounded more like it. Maybe I was Danni. This was all so confusing. Why couldn’t I control my body? Where was all this blood coming from? Why couldn’t I figure out what was different about Sam? Who stole all the colour?

Sam draped one of my arms over his shoulder and gripped me around the waist. I was kind of walking but he was half-carrying me as well. As he carried me past my dresser I reached out and picked up my grandmother’s locket. I clasped its solid shape to my chest as we raced out of my room and down the hallway.

The roaring came back. The shadow of a man appeared on the wall in front of us – looming gigantically over us. Oversized shadow-arms reached for us. Claw-like shadow-hands grasped at us.

“Run, Danni, run,” gasped Sam.

Hand in hand, we ducked and weaved and ran.

We didn’t stop. We hurtled straight through the front door and out into the cold English night – two frightened children fleeing from a nightmare.

My nightgown flapped against my legs as I ran. The cold of the night reached out and sank its claws into my unsuspecting flesh. I pulled my robe more tightly around me but I didn’t stop running. I had to get to the hospital.

The dank English mist hung low over the ground, parting for me as I ran forward, then closing behind me. Out there, hidden in the mist, was the marsh – dark and foreboding, ancient and powerful. It called to me – trying to lure me into its depths so that it could swallow me and feed its dark hunger. I ignored the call and ran on. I had to get to the hospital.

Eerie lights glowed through the mist. What terrifying monsters were these whose eyes glowed so balefully in the dark? What creatures of the swamps lurked in the dark, waiting to chomp on my young and meaty bones? I was getting tired so I slowed to a walk but I didn’t stop. I had to get to the hospital.

The mist parted to reveal that I had left the marsh behind and entered the town. I walked down deserted streets. The bitumen was cold and damp under my feet. The street lights glowed strangely through the fog. A car horn blared and I jumped sideways out of the way. Once the car was gone, I returned to the middle of the road – not trusting the eerie silent houses that lined each side of the street.

I don’t know how long I walked. Time seemed screwy in this strange and foreign land. A single second would stretch out long enough to see the birth and death of stars, while the minute that contained it would flick past in a heartbeat.

Brakes squealed and a horn screeched. I jumped again. Blinded by the glare of headlights I could do nothing but stand and blink in confusion as the car screamed to a halt in front of me – the hood only a few feet away from me. The car started up again and curved around me. It drove slowly past me while the driver hung out the window and abused me for walking in the road. I couldn’t understand what he was saying. It was like he was yelling noise. But he was yelling noise with an American accent. The American accent seemed strange and out of place.

Or maybe it was the only thing that did belong and everything else was out of place.

I leaned against a parked car and then jumped away as I felt the cold metal bite into me through the flannel of my pyjamas. I looked down at myself. There was no white full-length nightgown. There was no dark and clammy stain. There was no blood. There were only my flannel pyjamas and a robe. My once-white socks were wet and dirty. My feet were cold.

In my hand was the warm and familiar weight of Nana’s locket. I looped its chain around my neck and fastened the chain without even thinking about it. Then I tucked the locket inside my pyjama top and felt it nestle against the skin of my chest in its usual place. The gentle weight of the locket against my chest gave me something to hang on to while I worked out what was going on.

I know what you’re thinking, Dr K. You’re wondering when during all of this did I wake up? When did I realize I wasn’t running through Romney Marsh? When did I remember that I wasn’t Danni? You remember that Danni was Aunty Penny’s original name, don’t you? You’re probably even wondering when did I realize that I was actually walking through the streets in my pyjamas and not just having a really vivid dream. I have the same answer for all of those questions. I haven’t a clue. It all seemed like a dream. It all seemed real. I was always confused.

I shivered in the dark and pulled the robe more tightly around me. I looked around but in the night and fog with only the dim streetlights to help me, the street looked the same as every other street in suburban America. It was the middle of the night. I was lost. I was alone. I was cold. I was tired. I was confused.

My brain wasn’t functioning. The thinking part was unplugged. All my brain could do was observe and remember. Anything else was too difficult. It felt like I was still dreaming. That was probably a good thing. If I’d been able to think, I probably would’ve been scared. Instead I was numb.

I sat down on the curb. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to think of a plan but nothing happened. It was like when your computer gets stuck. It doesn’t matter what keys you press, nothing happens. The screen stays exactly the same.

I probably would have stayed there forever but my brain started showing me weird visions again. This weird vision involved a very tall and thin elderly lady wearing lime-green leggings with yellow polka dots, a purple house-coat trimmed in orange faux-fur and slippers in the shape of a bear’s claws. I guess at least now I knew I could see in color again. I blinked a couple of times but she didn’t disappear. She was talking to me and flapping her arms around. The words she was saying to me didn’t make sense. It sounded like, “blah, blah” then some arm flapping and then “blah, blah.”

I looked up at her feeling confused and puzzled. My brain sort of remembers the words she spoke but at the time they made no sense to me. I realize now that she was saying she heard the car. She thought it might have run into me. She was asking if I was okay. I think she was using very broken English but that didn’t matter because I couldn’t understand even a single word. It all sounded like noise. Since I didn’t understand what she was saying at the time, I couldn’t answer. All I could do was look up at her. I’m sure my face was kind of blank.

She grasped my hands and tugged until I stood up. Her hands felt warm in mine. Or maybe my hands were cold. She went “tsk tsk” at my pyjamas and my robe. She flapped her hands at me and then at the house behind me and said, “blah, blah.”

Using her grip on my hands, she turned me around and started leading me towards the house. The porch light was on and lit up an area crowded with potted plants. A large old man stood wringing his hands on the porch as well. He was wearing plain blue pyjamas covered by a red tartan robe. He had blue tartan slippers on. Compared to the woman he was a bit drab. He looked out of place among the plants. The woman suddenly called out to him in a musical sing-song voice. The change from her broken and clumsy words to me to her fluid flowing speech to him was very dramatic. I still didn’t understand what she was saying but somehow my brain understood that she was talking in another language.

“Soom, soom, soom,” she said to him.

The big man nodded and answered back in the same musical language. “Soom, soom, soom.” Only his voice was deeper. A rich deep rolling voice. I decided he had a nice voice.

He turned and disappeared back into the house.

“Blah, blah,” she said and flapped her free hand at the house. Then she lay an arm around my shoulders and guided me towards the house. There were two cars parked on the driveway. They both had stickers that said “Lithuanian Methodist Church of America.” The newer car was smaller and also had a sticker that said, “This IS my other car.”

The man came back about the time we stepped up onto the porch. He was carrying a blanket which he quickly wrapped around me. We didn’t stop walking. He kind of hovered beside me and put the blanket around me as we walked into the house. I blinked up at him – he was a very big man.

One of his hands was right in front of me as he arranged the blanket around me. Without any conscious decision of mine, my hands floated up and grabbed his hand. It was big and thick. Holding it made me feel safe. He looked surprised when I held his hand and then pleased.

“Soom, soom, soom,” he said to me in a soft voice.

I decided he was probably speaking Lithuanian. I don’t even know if they have their own language. I mean, some places don’t. Like I found out that Austrians don’t speak Austrian. They mostly speak German or sometimes French. And I guess Mexicans don’t speak Mexican, they mostly speak Spanish. But it feels right to say that he was speaking Lithuanian so maybe he was.

Because I was holding his hand, the man couldn’t fix the blanket any more so the woman started doing that. They took me into their kitchen and sat me down. I kept holding the man’s hand. The kitchen was warm and cosy. It was small and cluttered and smelled of herbs and spices. There was no space on the wall that didn’t have something hanging on it – calendars and photos and wall hangings and painted plates and a wooden cross and a piece of needlepoint that said, “God so loved the World that He sent His only Son.” There were a couple of others like that but I couldn’t read them. I figure they were probably in Lithuanian. There was no shelf or bench that wasn’t crowded with a wild mixture of objects. The table was the only uncluttered thing in the room. It had a table-cloth on it with lace edgings and needlework flowers all over it. A vase stood in the center with a little collection of fresh flowers.

“Soom, soom, soom,” said the woman.

“Soom, soom, soom,” said the man.

He put my hands down on the table and patted them. Then he turned and walked out of the room. The woman picked up a picture frame from a shelf cluttered with dozens of photos in all different sizes and shapes of frames. She put the photo in front of me on the table.

“Blah, blah,” said the woman to me. She pointed at herself and then at the photo and then smiled happily.

I leaned down and looked at the photo. It showed the old couple and a young woman standing between them in a crisp new nurse’s outfit. The couple were smiling so hard that it must have hurt their faces. The nurse wasn’t smiling quite that hard but she looked pleased.

“Blah, blah,” said the woman and pointed at the door. I looked up in time to see the man return. He ushered someone else into the room who turned out to be the younger woman from the photo. She wasn’t wearing a nurse’s outfit now, she was wearing a white nightgown and a baby-blue robe and slippers. She looked a lot more coordinated than the older woman. She was carrying a little bag that was marked with a big white cross.

The nurse came across to me and gave me a gentle smile.

“Blah, blah, blah,” she said to me. My brain told me that she was speaking English but I still didn’t understand her.

She took some white gloves out of the bag and put them on. She asked me some questions but they didn’t make sense so I couldn’t answer her. I guess she was asking for my name and stuff like that. She shone a little flashlight in my eyes – that made me blink. She ran her hands around the back of my neck and through my hair – I think she was looking for blood but there wasn’t any. She opened up the blanket and then my robe and looked at me in my pyjamas. I think she was looking for blood but she didn’t see any. A stray little thought floated around in my head about how that was surprising because I was sure there had been blood on me earlier.

When she opened my robe, she must have heard some rustling or something because she looked in the pocket of my robe and pulled out a piece of paper. There was writing on it and she held it up for the old couple to see. It was the address and phone number for Pearl. I know that because it said “Pearl” at the top.

“Blah, blah, blah, Pearl,” she said. I realize now that she was asking if that was my name.

My face must have reacted a bit when I recognized Pearl’s name because after that she kept calling me Pearl.

She kept pressing and touching me in different places on my body and asking me a question each time. I realize now that she was asking me if it hurt when she pressed there – but it didn’t make sense at the time so all I could do was watch her. I watched as she pressed and then I watched as her mouth moved and then listened as the sounds came out of her mouth but I had no response to make. She was watching my face as she pressed, so I guess she would have seen me flinch if something hurt. Normally I wouldn’t have liked someone touching me like that but I didn’t feel any concern when she did it. Maybe because I knew she was a nurse or something – I don’t know. I wasn’t in a condition to object, even if I wanted to.

At some stage a little boy appeared. He looked like about the same age as Angie or maybe a tiny bit older. I know he was a little boy because he was wearing dark blue pyjamas with little trains all over them. Angie would throw a fit if we tried to get her wearing such boy-like pyjamas. He looked half-asleep. I guess he must have gotten woken up by all the noise. He sucked his thumb and sidled in behind the man I guessed was his grandfather. He clung onto his grandfather’s robe and half-hid behind it. Then he stood there and sucked his thumb while he stared at me with big brown eyes.

When the nurse was checking my arms, she pushed the sleeves up and looked at the insides of my elbows. I looked too but there was nothing interesting to see. I guess she was looking to see if I used drugs. Using drugs is supposed to leave track marks on your arm. I don’t understand why using drugs makes your arm look like a train could go along it but apparently it does. I must ask Dan about that.

When the nurse got down to my feet, she pointed at my wet and filthy socks and said “soom, soom, soom,” to the old couple. She wrapped the robe and blanket back around me and said some more stuff to me – something to do with staying warm. At the time, the only thing I really understood was that she was calling me Pearl. Then she kneeled down and looked at my feet. She carefully peeled the socks off and dried my feet with a towel. The bottom of my feet were a bit sore and I must have flinched a bit. She was really gentle after that – she inspected them closely but didn’t seem to see anything that worried her. She patted my feet dry and then tucked the blanket around them to get them warm.

In the meantime, the older woman had heated a pan of milk on the stove and poured some chocolate powder into a mug. The spoon said, “tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,” as it mixed the chocolate powder into the milk. She held out the mug of chocolate milk for me and I took it from her. I wrapped my hands around the mug and felt the warmth seeping into my hands. She smiled and nodded and said, “blah, blah,” so I sipped at it. It was very nice.

The little boy was still watching me from his position behind his grandfather. His big brown eyes never seemed to blink. He didn’t say a word. I think he and I understood each other very well.

In the meantime, the nurse had gone to the phone with my piece of paper. She had dialed the number and listened. Then she frowned and hung up and dialed again. She frowned and hung up again. “Soom, soom, soom,” she said and waved the paper around.

“Soom, soom, soom,” said the older woman.

“Soom, soom, soom,” said the man.

The man and the nurse turned and left the room. The older woman gestured at me to drink my milk so I did. She smiled a happy smile when I did that. It felt nice to make her smile like that so I drank some more milk just so that I could see her smile some more.

The man and the nurse came back as I was finishing my milk. They were both dressed. She was wearing blue jeans and a white hoody. He was wearing proper trousers and a shirt and jacket. The nurse had car keys dangling from one hand and my piece of paper in the other.

“Pearl, blah, blah, blah,” she said to me. She gestured at the door and I started to stand up.

“Soom, soom, soom,” rumbled the man. I decided that he had a nice voice. He stooped and picked me up in his big strong arms. I felt a little smile appear on my face and I lay my head on his shoulder. I felt very comfortable. The nurse led the way and the man followed with me in his arms.

“Blah, Pearl,” said the older woman and waved goodbye. She stopped in the light of the porch and watched. The little boy stood next to her and sucked his thumb. She waved again and then hustled the boy inside out of the cold. The man carefully put me into the back seat of the small car. The nurse got into the driver’s seat and the man squeezed himself into the front passenger seat.

The nurse’s car had one of those things in the front with a talking voice that tells you how far to drive and when to turn and stuff.

“Glock, glock, glock,” said the electronic voice.

I sat in the back and looked at the back of the seat in front of me. Each time we went past a street light, a band of light would appear. It would slide smoothly up the back of the seat and then disappear, leaving the seat dark. Then the next street light would flash past and the band of light would appear again.

The man was singing quietly to himself. I decided that his voice sounded nice. I didn’t understand what he was singing but he had a nice voice.

“Glock, glock, glock,” said the electronic voice.

A little bit of my brain asked me if I was dreaming or if this was real. I tried to think about that but nothing happened. The thinking part of my brain still wasn’t plugged in. I didn’t even get that little hourglass shape that you see on the computer when it’s thinking about something. I got nothing. I’m surprised I didn’t see a message saying, “An error has occurred. Please go back to sleep and try waking up again.” That didn’t happen though.

“Glock, glock, glock,” said the electronic voice.

The car stopped in front of a darkened house.

“Pearl, blah, blah, blah,” said the nurse and pointed at the house.

I looked at the house and then back at her. I pulled the blanket more tightly around me and looked down at the back of the seat. The bar of light had stopped. It sat there and didn’t move at all. I kept watching it, waiting for – I don’t know what. Maybe I was waiting for it to turn into that message about the error.

The man got out of the car and opened the door for me. I turned and started to climb out of the car but he stopped me and said, “Soom, soom, Pearl, soom.” Then he scooped me up in his arms and kicked the car door shut with his foot. The nurse stood beside him and adjusted the blanket around me so that I would stay warm.

“Pearl, soom, soom, soom,” he said to me in a soft voice. I decided that his voice sounded nice.

The man was big and solid. I felt safe cradled in his arms. I put my head on his shoulder while he carried me up to the door. A security light clicked on as he walked along the path. I half-squinted against the light and looked at the face of the man holding me.

He was talking to his daughter and it was interesting to watch the skin sliding up and down over his jaw. There was a faint darkness along the line of his jaw. I freed a hand from the blanket and ran a finger gently along the line of his jaw. The bristles felt interesting under my finger.

That stopped him talking. He looked at me with a suprised expression on his face. Then he smiled. He had a nice smile. Then he stopped walking. We were at the door.

“Dong, ding, dung da-ling,” said the door.

“Soom, soom, soom,” said the man to me in a soft voice.

“Blah, blah, blah,” said the nurse.

She looked at the closed door for a moment. Then she rapped on it with her knuckles.

“Rat, tat, tat,” said the door.

“Soom, soom, soom,” said the nurse.

“Dong, ding, dung da-ling,” said the door.

The door opened and an ancient Chinese woman stood in the doorway. She was wrapped in a floor length black silk robe and had wool socks and sandal things on her feet.

My Lithuanian man looked at her and then at me. He didn’t say anything but his face was asking the question. She was obviously Chinese and I was obviously not. He’d thought he was bringing me home. Now he was starting to have doubts.