Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [67]
When my turn comes, I sit very still, refusing to jump, even though the cream they smear on my scalp is cold. Finally, as Jersey promised, we are each given something to drink.
Almost immediately, I feel a drifting sensation, similar to when I am falling asleep and believe that I am awake only to discover that I have been dreaming all along. The sensation is not unpleasant, and I let myself slip into dreams, coasting away from the annex of Jersey’s office into the familiar, sleepy, swirling darkness behind my eyes.
When colors appear in the darkness, I focus on them with idle curiosity. Green-grey and grey-blue drift above a field of brown-gold. As I concentrate, they begin to resolve themselves into twisted trees against a stormy sky growing from a dry field. Nearly as quickly as I recognize Van Gogh’s Olive Orchard, I realize that the picture is hanging on a wall painted a tasteful antique ivory. Beside the picture, a faintly proprietary expression on his face, is Jersey.
But this is and is not the Jersey I know. The omnipresent stench of sour sweat is gone. He is more attractive, flab turned into muscle. His bald head glistens as if polished.
“Welcome, Sarey,” he says, “to this cooperative hallucination. You look lovely—but you wouldn’t know, would you? Look here.”
He turns and for the first time I notice that there is a full-length mirror with a silver gilt frame hanging on the wall. When I see my reflection, I gasp with surprise.
“I have my hair!” I say and then clasp my throat in wonder, for the words are shaped just as I had thought them.
Jersey laughs. “Yes. Guess you didn’t like losing it, for all so quiet you were about it.”
I continue studying my reflection. My hair is not the only thing to have reappeared. When I reach to touch the heavy cream strands and reassure myself of their reality, I feel something tickle below my ear. Pushing back my hair, I see that my ivory wolf dangles in its usual place—it had been taken from me when I first awoke after my surrender and I had believed it forever lost. My clothing is unremarkable, jeans and shirt of the style that Abalone had given me.
Yet, although fully dressed, I feel as if I am naked. Casting around to fill the loss, I see Betwixt and Between sitting on one of the comfortable-looking easy chairs. Athena perches on the back.
Seeing me, Betwixt winks. “Can’t do without us, now, can you?”
“You know it,” I say and then am instantly tongue-tied.
I cover for this by picking up the dragons and perching Athena on my shoulder. She swivels her head to look at me and then begins to preen her feathers, chortling softly.
Jersey is gaping at me. “You brought them through! This is unprecedented! I didn’t…”
He trails off and looks so uncomfortable that I reach over and pat his arm.
“I am a brother to dragons, a companion to owls,” I state simply. Then, afraid that the words will suddenly fail, “Where are we? What kind of place is this?”
Jersey regains some of his composure and saunters over to one of the chairs. Leaning back in it and picking up a daiquiri from what I had believed was an empty table, he sips and sighs happily.
“This place is in our minds, Sarey. Ours and the computer’s. Mine, mostly, since I did the set programming, but yours, too, which is why you look like you want to and, I guess, why your friends are with you.” He shakes his head. “Does that help?”
“Not much,” I admit. “How come I can…talk?”
“Because you can think in a coherent fashion and because you want to,” Jersey says simply. “It was pretty obvious that you weren’t just mimicking or reciting quotes at random, so it was a fair bet that if you were given a chance to say what you were thinking, you would be fine, and so here we are, chatting in a nice room.”
“Why?” I ask, marveling that I can shape the simple monosyllable.
Jersey puts his glass down. “Two words: Magical Thinking. Your ability is extraordinary, but you can’t talk to tell the doctors what you hear. So, I provide the bridge and