Waiting by Erin Dennington ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 75 Stella sat absolutely still and concentrated on slowing her breathing down. She coughed once and then fell still again. "Are you ok?" Davis asked, concern evident in his voice. "Yes," she answered, her mind vaguely comprehending the urgency and caution that one question implied. Her mind couldn't seem to focus. So, with that said, she closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind. She soon learned that no matter what she did, all she could picture were the kisses that she had shared with Bill earlier, after he had been bitten. Reliving those moments, she could once again feel the pressure of his lips upon hers and taste him. It was as if the more she consciously thought about emptying her mind, the more distracted she became, so that she could do nothing but think. Sighing in frustration, she opened her eyes and caught Davis's gaze and was momentarily disconcerted to see her own reflection looking back at her. The girl looking back at her did not appear to match any memory Stella had of herself at all. This girl that Stella was looking at was no longer a girl and had become a young woman. She appeared to resemble one of the wise women of lore; she held more knowledge in her gaze than any normal teenager should have. The longer Stella stared at her reflection, the more sure she was that she had a message for herself. She did not blink as she watched this other woman make gestures with her hands, nor did she appear to breathe as she struggled to understand what the woman was trying to tell her. Stella was not even aware that she had been looking at her reflection so closely until she felt Davis' hands behind her, cupping her shoulders, and briskly, yet with extreme gentleness, massaging them. He did not say a word, seeming to know how frustrated and tense she had become with the simple effort of trying to relax. Grateful to Davis for thinking ahead and jumping to her aid, she relaxed into the sensations and soon found herself slipping into what felt like an intensely realistic dream. She did not know where she was, but looking down, Stella saw that there were muddy children's feet peeking out of a dirty dress below her. All around her were fields; ahead of her, a low structure suggested that it was a home of some kind. She knew that someone was calling her name, but she was not ready to go find them yet. Picking up a stone by her feet, she squatted and started drawing some characters into the dirt nearby. She could smell the earth slipping between her fingers and sliding between her toes, and she knew that in a day it would all rain and the smells would change. She did not mind the rain, even though it meant she could not play outside, because she loved the smells it brought with it. Again she heard her name being called, but again she ignored it. She did not want to go inside for dinner. She did not want to go inside and do more schoolwork. She wanted to continue playing outside as she had done for so long before her parents had decided to send her to school. She had decided, only a day before, that she did not like being 5 years old. She did not like going to school and learning while she could be playing outside. So, when her mother's eyes had been looking a different way, she had snuck outside and wandered off into the fields, looking for pretty stones and insects to play with. She heard a far off rumble in the distance and assumed that meant her father was home from making his deliveries and going to the market. He was an important man and drove a big, noisy truck that she did not like. It made so much noise that her grandparents would tease him that he had scared their ancestors out of their ancestral burial grounds and over to the neighboring farm's land. She knew that her brothers would be sent to find her soon but she chose to stay where she was. She was so intent on finishing her drawing that she did not look up when a shadow fell across her lap and covered her face. Nor did she look up when she again heard that sound. But she dropped her stone and fell onto her side when the insect, disturbed by the noises, crawled out of the ground and bit her ankle. Then she started crying and could not stop until her brother came running outside to find her. He discovered her on the ground, a large red welt on the side of her leg, tears drying on her face. "Are you ok?" he asked, dropping to one knee beside her, frantically patting her body. She slowly nodded and then reached her arms up to him, wanting him to hold her and make the pain go away. Reaching underneath her armpits, he gently picked her up from the ground and swung her onto his back. Singing softly, he carried her over to their house, where he dropped her onto the ground. It was only then that she remembered the loud noises she had heard and she asked her brother about them. Averting his gaze, he told her that nothing was wrong. With her child's intuition, she knew that he was lying to her and she pouted, wanting to know what was going on. He tried to calm her down by giving her another rock to play with but she would not be silenced so easily. She knew that if she pouted long enough, her brother would give in to her desire and tell her everything that she wanted to know. "You're very persistent," he told her, sighing. He was about to speak again when he suddenly grabbed his chest and fell over. Dots of red fell upon the ground at her feet, some splashing onto her toes. She screamed as several men came running around the corner of the house, guns pointed at her. The guns looked so large and menacing that she did not know what to do, so she ran back out into the fields and crouched down. The pure instinct was probably what saved her life, for the men ran into the house and dragged her family out, shooting each of them except for her father. She had never seen guns so large or so scary looking and cried each time they made sound. After she had run into the fields, she had clamped her hands over her ears and refused to remove them, but they did not block out very much of the sound. Her father stood proud, even when they twisted an arm behind him and threatened to do horrible things to her mother, and she took comfort in that fact. The men yelled at her father, spit in his face and yanked his hair. She heard one man say something about research and using their fields, but she could not understand why they would want her fields. She had heard her father say, many times, that the fields were very shitty and good for nothing, and while she had never smelled anything bad in them, she did not particularly like them for anything besides hiding in. She did not understand most of what they were saying to her father, but one man, a tall white man with brown hair, stood to the side and directed the other men to tie her father up. The men complied and her father was taken away. The white man stood for a moment and then, seeming to stare straight at her, walked away without a word. Again she heard a loud rumbling sound. This time, however, she saw her house go up in flames, the wood catching fire so quickly and intensely that she could not see anything for several long moments after she closed her eyes. Long after her house had burned to the ground she sat in the fields and watched the smoke curl up into the sky. She stayed in the fields until the skies grew dark and the stars peered out over the clouds. Only then did she come out of her hiding place and run to her grandparents' house, which was several fields over. They welcomed her with open arms, afraid of the sounds they heard in the streets, and they never asked her what had happened to her family. Her grandmother put some herbal medicine on her leg and within a few hours the swelling and pain had disappeared. Her grandmother told her that the insect bite had marked her as special. She was told that the insect bite would become very important to her later in her life. "Nobody's lived who's been bitten by this bug before," her grandmother said, "you are a very special girl." When she awoke in the morning, they told her that she had a new name and a new family. They were sending her to America to live with some friends of her father's who would love her and make sure that she was safe. "You will take revenge for your family," they told her, even though she did not understand what that meant. A few years later, after she had made a lot of friends and discovered that she loved dancing, she had forgotten all about her former life and who she was. As the years slipped by and she grew older, Stella accepted her life and who she was as best as she could. But there would always be a place inside of her that would yearn for her homeland and the happy childhood that she had had there. In the few seconds that flashed through her mind since she had first closed her eyes, Stella had seen the face of the man behind everything that was going on today. She struggled to contain the knowledge, so that she could concentrate on finding Matthew, but it was getting increasingly more difficult for her to remain in the state that she was in. The pain that ripped through her was not so much a sense of losing her family would be to most people. After all, she had only been 5 years old when it happened. But she felt a sense of loss that everything she had been taught to believe about herself had been wrong. And she mourned the loss of her father, who, in her adult hindsight, she knew was working against the very man they were pursuing today. With a blurring around the edges of her mind, her mind drifted free and she was able to look around the restroom while she lolled about on the chair, head leaning back against the headrest. She saw that Davis had returned to his seat and was sitting with his head tilted to one side, clearly listening to the sounds in the hallway. Obviously hearing nothing, he kept his eyes on her at the same time, and did not move so much as a muscle when she drifted by him. On impulse, she waved to him but was not surprised to see that he did not react. He could not see her. Once she had popped through the restroom door, she took a quick journey down the corridor to the exit to make sure that Bill was ok. Stella was becoming quite used to these little forays into the paranormal world. Seeing no one, she assumed that meant that he was, indeed, fine, and that she could proceed with her part of the mission. Drifting a little further, she re-entered the lobby of Kramer Institutes and, on impulse, decided to take a quick "peek" into the computer that rested on the receptionist's desk, knowing it was most likely a futile effort. It was a much different sensation than it was when she went through walls and ceilings. She could feel a slight electrical sensation as the streams of information flowed over her. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, she quickly exited the computer and marveled at how quick that search had been. Stella detoured behind the desk into a little alcove that held a telephone and television set, as well as a microwave and coffee maker. Next to the phone was a door that she assumed led into the laboratory area and, hesitating only slightly out of fear, she drifted through the door. She saw Marty standing next to a desk, talking to a man who appeared to be intently bent over an experiment he was working on. Adjusting the microscope, the man ignored Marty's presence until he had the lens focused just the way he desired. Then, looking up, he stared straight at Stella. She flinched before realizing that there was no possible way he could see her in her present form. Yet she found herself diving behind a small potted tree that flanked the entrance to the laboratory when she realized that she had seen this man before many times in her life. It was not Matthew, as she had expected, but her father. Now the pain she had felt earlier was much more real a loss to her senses. "May I help you?" he asked Marty, pointedly indicating that his mere presence was bothering him. "I'm with Channel 5 and I am looking for Matthew Richardson," Marty said. "Oh, one of those journalist folks, eh?" her father asked. "My daughter got invited to some silly interview today." He snorted as if it was one of the stupidest things he had ever heard. "I guess you could say that," Marty said, refusing to be baited. "So, is he around? I'd like to interview him for some background information on a piece that we are currently doing." Stella wished she could stay and listen awhile longer, but she knew that time was wasting. She slipped out from her hiding place and floated over the rest of the laboratory's desks and sinks, using her special senses to sort out what she was "seeing" and "feeling." She had the feeling that she was being watched but knew that could not possibly be true, so she shrugged it off and kept searching. She tried to keep her mind focused solely on the present and what she needed to do. If she allowed her mind to think and feel, she knew that she would not be able to help the others expose what was going on. Just as she sensed a hot area, which her special intuition was alerting her to, she caught a glimpse of Christina. And then she lost control and was flung back into her body. 22:22 - 11.25.02 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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