ILLUSIONS AND LIES: Chapter 4

My eyes scanned the room, seeking some form of familiarity. I was in the hospital, that was familiar. Richard was by my bedside, that was familiar. Otherwise, I was lost. The last thing I remembered was being in the ICU, holding Sarah’s hand and wishing I could somehow magically heal my children.

“Where am I? How did I get here?”

“You’re in the hospital.”

“I realise that,” I snapped. “Why am I here, though? Last I remember, I was with the kids.”

“You passed out.” Richard placed a hand lightly on my forearm. “There’s something Abigail and I need to speak to you about, and it won’t be easy to hear.” He glanced toward the door. “She will be back in just a moment.”

Immediately my thoughts went to the two of them having some kind of love affair. There was the fact that they seemed to know each other well enough to have silent conversations. They must have known one another before this, before meeting here, at this hospital, two days ago.

“Whatever it is just tell me. I can take it.” My heart was pounding and my stomach was somersaulting with anxiety.

“I really can’t. Abigail needs to be here. Promise me one thing?”

Where did he get off, asking me to make a promise to him when he was about to break my heart. Right after he professes his love for me, to boot. No, I wasn’t going to make him a promise, but I still wanted to know what the promise was that he had been so bold to request.

“What? Promise you what?”

“Promise me you’ll be open minded.”

That was rich. Open minded? He wanted me to be open minded about him sleeping with my doctor? My mouth was gaping, and I was stilled. I didn’t answer by the time Abigail returned.

She looked from me to Richard and back again. Reading the abhorrence in my expression, Abigail addressed Richard.

“Did you tell her already? We agreed to do this together.”

“He didn’t tell me much at all. But I can guess. Just say it.” I shot a piercing glare at Richard. “You two are sleeping together. Just say it.”

At once they both burst into fits of laughter. I suddenly felt like a school kid, and my friends were playing a terrible joke on me.

“Stop laughing. Stop laughing at me.”

They stopped.

“Oh, Honey,” said Richard. “We’re not laughing at you. We’re laughing at the idea of us sleeping together. Abigail is like family.” Richard spoke in his most reassuring tone. It may have even been a little patronizing.

Now I was confused. I hadn’t know they knew one another at all –then I didn’t know much at all about Richard, outside of work– but it made sense.

“If you’re not sleeping together, what is so vital that you need to tell me together?”

Abigail spoke. “You and your children are in danger.”

“I thought we were planning on being a little more subtle about this, Abbie,” Richard said.

“We no longer have the luxury of subtlety. They know where she is. They’ll have someone here by morning.”

“Who knows where I am? Why are we in danger?”

“Charlie, there is a lot about your past you don’t know.” Abigail’s tone was filled with empathy that bordered on pity. “You were orphaned at a young age, were you not?”

“Yes. Is this about my parents?”

“Indirectly, yes. But the details of that can wait. Right now we need to get you and your children to a safe place.”

“And a hospital isn’t safe?”

“No. The people who are looking for you are very dangerous, and have connections. They could have you and your children transferred out of this hospital in a heartbeat, and no one would ever see you again.”

“You still haven’t told me who they are.”

“They are an organisation that your parents got involved with before you were born known as the NDU. It stands for New-life Development Unit. They are a branch of a large corporation. They specialise in designer babies.” Abigail’s eyes were darting around nervously as she spoke. My mouth was gaping again. I didn’t know what to say, or what any of it meant. “You are a designer baby, Charlie.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you are special, Charlie. More special than the NDU intended you to be. You have the ability to manipulate energy with your mind. And you also have the ability to influence the minds of others. But I will explain it all once we are safely away from here. If they find you, they’ll kill you, Charlie. And your children.”

“But why? Why?” It was all ridiculous, and so farfetched, and out of nowhere.

“We’ll have time to talk more once we’re on the road.” Richard was holding my hand, his eyes pleading. “Charlie, you need to trust us. Trust me.”

I trusted him. And by extension I trusted Abigail.

“Bailey and Sarah can’t be moved though. They are still in intensive care.” I was beginning to feel the urgency that surrounded me.

“We can fix that,” Abigail smiled. “I told you that you’re special. Come on, we don’t have much time.”

Richard and Abigail helped me out of bed, and I felt surprisingly well. I didn’t need the wheelchair. Once I was on my feet I noticed I could move. My cuts and broken bones were a memory, leaving behind only the aching of the healing wounds.

“We can fix it? How can we fix Bailey and Sarah?”

“You remember how you were wishing you could take away their pain and injuries, up in the ICU? And the next thing you knew you were waking up in your room?” Richard asked.

“Yes. How did you know what I was thinking?” I directed my question to Abigail. “Can you read thoughts or something?”

“Not exactly. We can read people, you and I. Richard too. Have you ever found it too easy to know when someone is lying to you, or when someone is hiding something, and been able to guess exactly what it is that you’re missing?”

“I guess so. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“It’s one of the many advantages of being a designer baby.”

“So I am a designer baby?”

“Yes, you and about another twenty-five people around our age. I thought I said that already?”

By this time we had exited the lift and were walking the corridor toward the ICU.

“The pressing issue right now is this,” Abigail continued. “In creating us, the NDU messed up. Bad for them, good for us. You can heal your children using a gift mistakenly bestowed upon you by the NDU. I can too.”

I pulled my head back, eyebrows raised. Was she talking about super-powers? That is strictly comic book shit. Not real.

“It’s real, Charlie,” Richard reassured me that Abigail hadn’t gone completely bat-shit crazy. “I can’t do it, but I have some other special gifts.”

“This is insane.”

“On the contrary, it’s quite sane, I assure you,” Abigail said. “There is a trick to it though, and you have about fifteen seconds to learn it.”

“Okay. Teach me.”

“There is one key –visualisation. You need to see where the energy is being drawn from in order to keep yourself safe. It’s all about energy. You need to see the energy being drawn from outside of yourself, you being no more than the catalyst for its transfer.” Abigail turned and stopped me just as we reached the ICU door. “If you draw the energy from yourself you will do yourself damage, even kill yourself. That’s why you ended up in theatre, and why you passed out on your last visit here. You were unknowingly giving the energy of yourself to help your children. A selfless act that any parent would do, given the choice, but you have another choice. Do you understand?”

“I think so. I just close my eyes, see energy passing through me to them, and my kids will get better?”

“Yes.” Abigail put a hand on each of my shoulders. “I can’t stress this enough, Charlie. You must see it, really see it. I find it easy to picture it as a flow of colour moving through me.”

“I got it.”

Abigail swiped her card to open the ICU door. “I will heal Bailey, his injuries are more extensive. You go to Sarah.”

I nodded and entered the long room.

Sarah was sitting up, the tube still across her face, but clearly better than she had been only hours ago. She saw me approach and a smiled spread across her face, lighting it up like Christmas morning.

“Mummy,” she called out. “I miss you. I have a boken arm. The nurse drawed a picture on the tast. See.” She held her arm out for me to see the unicorn that filled the better part of her forearm.

“That’s beautiful, Sweetie. Can Mummy draw a picture for you, too?”

“Here,” she handed me a colouring pen from the table in front of her.

I glanced over to Bailey before I started drawing. He was still lying on his back, but the thick tube had been removed from his throat, replaced by a thin one running across his face, like Sarah’s. There were less machines hooked up to him and the bandages around his head seemed fewer, or there was less swelling beneath them. Abigail sat beside him and, trusting her in that moment, my attention returned to Sarah.

Taking the pen to her cast, I drew a moon and a few stars, and wrote, ‘I love you more than the moon and the stars. Mummy’. My head snapped around when I heard Bailey moan in pain. Abigail saw me.

“He’s fine. Sometimes healing is a little painful. Less painful than the injuries, though.” She smiled blanching smile.

It was clear that I was procrastinating. I didn’t have time for such luxuries, so I handed back the colouring pen and closed my eyes, focusing only on Sarah. A saw a flow of light, a pinkie-orange light, cascading from all around me. I drew in a deep breath, and with it drew the coloured light. It entered my mouth and filled me up. I watched as it seeped from my fingertips and spread over Sarah. First the pinkie-orange light covered her skin, from head to toe. Then it slowly sunk in, deeper and deeper, until all that was left outside of her was a dull glow.

She gasped, and dropped the colouring pen. My eyes flew open. The glow was there, her skin subtly illuminated. Sarah’s face was contorted in pain. I reached for her. Richard’s hand clutched mine.

“No,” he said. “You must be cautious. Look.” He inclined his face toward Sarah. “She’s fine.”

And she was. The pain had left her face, replaced by serenity, and the glow faded. I cast an eye to Bailey. He, too, seemed suddenly well. He was sitting up, taking in his surroundings. Abigail had removed the tube from his face and was unwrapping the bandages from his head.

All that remained under the bandages was a fading purple line where the surgeons had cut.

I exhaled, long and slow. Physically I felt tremendous, like I could run a marathon. Some of the energy had clung within me on its passing. Emotionally though, I felt drained. This made it real. If this was real, everything else Abigail and Richard had said was also real. And that meant we were in danger from something I was yet to understand.