H2O: The Novel Part 12

I bawled. With every choke and sniffle, a water demon danced in my head. Pain drained out of me in heaving sobs as Andrea gently wiped my face; two decades of self-imposed pressure finally found release.

Draped in the black filth of copy toner, my mind nearly gone and my hands scalded, I curled up in her arms and wept.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"DO YOU LIKE coffee?" I typed late on Thursday evening, wondering at once if it sounded like a dumb question. I sat in a coffee shop-at ISIP-asking someone I'd never met about his personal preferences. He might think me a stalker.

He?

How do I even know the person I'm talking to is a guy? We've been corresponding for what? Less than a week? He-she-never said. Gender has virtually no meaning in the world of instant messaging. I like that about the net.

"I love the stuff. Why?" The reply came back immediately.

"I'm in a coffee shop."

"Where?"

"Just a coffee shop. And they have great wireless."

"If you're in Seattle, you must be at ISIP," came back the reply. It made my skin crawl. I knew more about the Internet than ninety-nine out of a hundred people, and I knew enough to be wary of meeting someone at random from the net.

"I'm not in Seattle." Lies came easier, it seemed, with my sanity on the fritz.

"OK. How did work go today?"

The confrontation with Xavier, the toner fiasco, and the horror at the sink today were all memories I'd just as soon forget.

"Let's talk about something else," I responded.

"And the visions?" came the immediate reply. "Any better?"

"I'm all washed up," I wrote, chuckling at the pun but not the pain. This person seemed to really understand me. But to go further meant I had to bare all.

They probably think I'm nuts.

"Have you seen a doctor?"

"Yes. I had a bad wreck on my motorcycle, and I've fainted a couple of times. I've been to the hospital twice."

"I meant, have you seen a psychiatrist?"

"I won't do that." I pounded out the words. Shrinks were for mental disease. I was determined that would not be me.

I stared at a blinking cursor for a long moment. "Why?" came the long-awaited reply.

"They prescribe antipsychotic chemicals," I wrote, banging the keys again. The wisdom of a hundred websites all pointed me to the same conclusion-toss in the towel and go for the drugs. "I'm not psychotic." I stared at my words for a long moment before I hit Enter, then added, "I just want to be free."

WRKRJC responded in an instant. "So, you plan to diagnose yourself?"

I pondered how honest I wanted to be with this person. Maybe this buddy was just a shrink in disguise. "There will always be time for psychologists if I can't figure this out on my own."

"I understand. But you don't have to do it alone. I'd like to help."

I understand. I'd like to help. I stared at those words, a warm glow replacing my frustration.

I dove in headfirst. No caution. I'd tell all. "I see things, vibrant colors, realistic animals, scenery, people, and action, like I'm actually living it. I become the water in nearly every scene."

" Tell me more. What causes the visions?"

I pondered that question a moment before I keyed in the response. It seemed too easy, even stupid. But I could think of nothing else to say. "Water. When I touch it, even when I cry and sometimes when I sweat, the visions come. The more the water, the more vivid the pictures. It's come to the point that I can't even wash my hands or take a shower without some kind of insane movie erupting in my head."

"Got it. Describe your last two experiences."

"You're sure about this?" I wrote. Reliving these scenes was painful.

"I know I can help. But I can't tell you why just yet. Tell me about your last vision."

So I did. I started with the copper bowls and the snakelike faucet, and the sensation that I had become some kind of stream or spring, with men wading into me and drinking. Then the part about blood, when I pulled my hands out of the scalding water. The water had run so hot that my reddened skin bordered on first-degree burns. I told my Internet buddy about the warriors and what seemed to be a one-sided battle between three hundred men and a large force of sweaty soldiers. From the spring to soldiers, from drinking to blood, I confessed it made no sense. I hit Enter, like pulling the handle on a slot machine, and waited. Perhaps I'd hit the jackpot and I'd get back a diagnosis that made some sense.

"Got it."

That's all?

"Keep walking backwards," WRKRJC wrote. "I think I have an idea what's going on. What vision came before that?"

"You're up to this?" I asked.

"I'm up to it. But I'd like to know more."

"How much more?"

" Tell me everything. I'm all ears."

"I just told you enough to prove I'm crazy." Caution pulled me back, a little voice that said to be careful with this anonymous surfer on the net.

"These visions might be more than an inconvenience, and you-we-should talk them through to see what the common thread is."

"Are you a medical professional?"

"I'm a licensed professional, but not in medicine."

"What's that mean?" I asked.

"It means I want to help. I have experience in this kind of thing. Call me a water professional, if you want."

"You might be an incantation-humming candle-burning voo-doo-wors.h.i.+pping axe murderer," I wrote, sorry the moment I hit Send.

"I'm not, but I don't blame you for wondering. I can help. I promise."

"Prove it," I responded. The challenge seemed fruitless as soon as I sent the message. I started to leave the laptop and grab another cup of Hiram's new blend when the next note appeared. My heart skipped a beat as I read it.

"In one of your early visions, you saw a rainbow."

My knees buckled and I sank back into the chair, my mind's eye replaying the brilliant colors sp.a.w.ned by the rain that fateful evening on the Ice Rocket. The night I should have been killed.

The laptop pinged again, and the next message stole my breath.

"In another vision you were drowning. Something really big came along and swallowed you."

Candice wiped at the edges of my table, careful not to touch my laptop with her damp cotton rag. She stood beside me until I looked up from the screen, my heart pounding.

Despite her simple ways, Candice understood eye contact. Gramps used to say that your soul lived in your eyes and that those people who looked away had no soul. They had nothing left in them to view, transparent creatures whose inner being was devoid of color. Lost people.

Candice certainly was not lost; her blue eyes were ablaze with care. What birthed that spark in her that caused so many to brighten? Simplicity defined her. Life had to be more complex than she made it seem.

Or was it?

Captured by her childlike purity, I ignored the laptop, my eyes locked on hers. Candice c.o.c.ked her head like a cat contemplating a mouse that won't run. Somehow, by not looking away, I'd broken her routine.

She rested her wadded cloth on the edge of my table and reached out with her other hand, touching my forearm. A huge grin spread across her unpretentious face, and her eyes misted. She spoke a message I'd heard dozens of times at ISIP, but this time her words were special, a p.r.o.nouncement meant just for me. Her fingers, though damp, were warm where they rested on my skin.

"Jesus can make you clean, Miss Kate." She paused, her eyes full of love. "I promise."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

"PULL THE blade along this line. And go slowly," I cautioned. Liam's mother watched over his shoulder the next afternoon on the deck of the St. Jude as her son worked the short blade of his new pocketknife along a length of balsa wood. Mother might be scared for her son, but I could tell this boy had used a knife before, just as I had the first time Gramps put one in my hands. Liam smiled and whittled in silence. He lived in boy heaven at this moment, and it made me feel warm inside just to watch him.

"How deep do I cut?" he asked, pulling slowly along the line that defined one edge of a series of wooden links.

"About half an inch, Liam. We make two slices on each of the four sides. Then we'll mark off the links and carve out the centers. It goes fast."

I think Mrs. O'Malley-Gloria-was as fascinated with the carving as she was with her son. We made this a threesome. Warmed under a hot sun and clear skies, we laid out the project and whittled our way into a couple of sticks of balsa. By the end of the hour, Liam had a crude five-link chain joining two square blocks.

"This is a good place to take a break," I said. "We'll dive into the ball and cage next."

"Coffee?" Gloria offered. Much as I loved Hiram's imports, I hated to turn her down.

"Sure."

Liam marveled at the chain. "Your grandfather liked to fish?" he asked.

"He was the best. He worked the Grand Banks, then moved to New York. I grew up on the docks." Life repeated itself. I had been Liam once, many years ago.

"Did he ever get caught in a big storm?" the boy asked as he pared off some rough edges with the blade.

"Lots of'em. Including some hurricanes that worked all the way up the east coast."

"Was he a line fisherman?" Liam talked as he worked, like Gramps used to do. I loved to watch him, his hands at one with the blade. The boy carved like a natural.

"Yes. Like your dad. He spent lots of time in the sun."

"And the rain!" Liam exclaimed. "I have my own slicker. It's yellow."

"I like the rain, too-at least, I used to."

Liam paused his whittling and looked up. "Not anymore?"

I shook my head, unable to speak. For a blessed hour, I'd not thought about the visions. I'd been a little girl again, in my grandfather's tugboat wheelhouse, curled up on the bench with a knife in hand and shavings all over the floor. Gramps sat there in his wheelhouse chair, a stained coffee mug in his hand and an old cap pulled back on his head, watching me. He could watch me for hours and be happy, sipping his coffee on a bobbing boat.

"It rains a lot here, doesn't it, Miss Pepper?" Liam's reminder doused my memory of Gramps. I became "Crazy Kate" again.

Wacko when wet.

Liam's first carved ball and chain looked far better than my first one did twenty years ago. His initial attempt at the captured ball in a cage looked more like a jagged boulder pinned between four skinny trees, but it made for a good start. He twirled the loose chain and its captured ball as he ran the length of the boat to meet his dad at the gangway. It felt good to watch the boy, to be released from my mental baggage through him.

"Tom's back. We'll have dinner tonight about seven, if you want to stick around," Gloria said. "I know Liam would like it. And so would I." She pressed a hand against mine where we sat on two folding chairs on the boat's fantail.

Late afternoon sun lit the base of thick clouds to the west. Like a spotlight on an approaching bulldozer at night, it made it possible to see just what was headed our way. The sunny Friday Andrea had forecast had turned out to be just that. But rain would be here over the weekend. Maybe this evening. It sent chills down my spine.

"I'd love to, Gloria. Really would. But there's rain coming, and I need to get home."

She laughed. "You're not walking back, are you?"

"No." I hesitated. "I took a cab."

"Then stay. You won't melt if it rains a little. We'd love to have you join us for dinner tonight. To celebrate."

I couldn't take my eyes off the wall of wet anguish marching toward me from the west. The sun-drenched orange and red flames on the bases of the clouds dipped into the horizon somewhere beyond Seattle. In minutes, that sun would set, and darkness would obscure the approaching crazy water.

"Celebrate?" I asked, trying to fixate on Gloria, not my problem.

"Celebrate you! A new friend. Please stay, Kate."

Perhaps I could. Her touch, her warmth, and the joy Liam had brought me today all made this feel like home. No, not home. More like being with Gramps on the tugboat. "Home" meant lectures about proper dress and hours of Father's television, big loud gatherings of extended family, and an endless stream of acid chatty gossip. This day had been private, nonjudgmental, and the best part-we'd spent our time on a boat.

Before I could say no, Gloria pulled me up from the chair and took me to meet her husband. Half an hour later we toured the bowels of the St. Jude, where I learned the business end of albacore fis.h.i.+ng from the captain as I stood in a s.h.i.+ny silver freezer with Liam at my side. Embraced by this family, I felt every one of my concerns vanished. I was safe in the belly of St. Jude.