Sorry for being so quiet, everyone. Hopefully, I’ll be a lot more vocal in the coming weeks. The only thing keeping me from posting is frequent naps, big appetite, and Ron Anthony’s kicking. But I’ll take that any day.

I was conflicted about Dr. Osman sending Hannah out of my room that evening; on the one side of the coin, it was Halloween. And on the other side of the coin . . . well, it was Halloween.

She ought to be able to spend time with Sarah; but I was also scared nigh unto undeath to be alone, to be without my family.

I’m sure Hannah will tell you all about the first time she tried to leave when she thought I was asleep. My hysterics could probably be heard three floors down. Actually, I know it could be heard three floors down; my scream sent the alarms hollering, the medics running, and hell scrambling. When she came back, summoned by the intercom, I don’t think it would have taken much to convince her to suture her hip to mine, had I asked.

But she’s too nice to tell that story, so I thought I had better, just to get it out of the way.
Thankfully, I’ve gotten a lot better since then, and Hannah pretended not to hear my whimper when Dr. Osman sent her away for more tests. He gently took me by the hands and lifted me up and helped me swivel my legs to the bedside. It was hard to believe I was already at 20 weeks, my stomach big enough to get in my way and to disperse all feelings of self-confidence and beauty. Meditation and Hannah’s earlier assurances that I was still just as pretty as Sarah kept my smile strong and the glass half full, and Dr. Osman’s assessment about the baby’s growing—and healthy—size kept chugging at that glass until I struggled to keep it from going empty.

And then he told me the embarrassing leakage I had been having for the last few days had been amniotic fluid and not . . . other things.

“It’s nothing to worry about yet,” he told my distended belly, rubbing the growing convex with professional gentleness. “We’ll just replace it with some more fluid. You just take it easy while I’ll get everything ready.”

“Oh-okay,” I replied, breathing deeply and scooting gently off the bed—I was feeling sore from lying and sitting for so long. “How will you do that, doctor? What’s the process, exactly? To replace the fluid?”

There was no verbal answer, but instead a clanking, clashing noise sounded somewhere near the bathroom in the corner. It was a noise I knew well from my nights as Celeste.

Metallic blades scraping against each other.

“Doctor?” I chirruped, a sense of coppery fear crawling up my throat like bile. “Doctor Osman? What are you doing?”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Grant,” his voice sounded strange in my ears. “I’m not doing anything. Sit back down—no, instead, lay down, please.”

The feeling migrated into a sense of urgent terror, tugging my patience away and tossing it out the window. I raised my hands and retreated from the doctor, his gentle, soothing tone only enhancing the surrealism of his refusal to explain the sounds or the actions I couldn’t see; and with that lack of details, the pounding sensation at the back of my head filled in the borders with Dr. Osman holding a pair of surgical knives . . . a syringe filled with a frothy, purple slime . . . I couldn’t stand his silence. The paranoia infusing into my brain was sending my senses in all directions, many of them along ends that went dead. I might have simply folded and allowed him to do whatever he was going to do, but the prompting at the back of my mind was strong enough I knew I had to do something.

So when my groping hand inadvertently brushed the walker at my bedside, I acted with an accuracy that went beyond my blindness and pinned his arms between the bars and sewed his mouth shut with a layer of tape, muttering apologies all the way. The thought that I should leave wasn’t mine, but I trusted it to an extent; I began searching my room first. Being led around by someone who wasn’t completely with it didn’t appeal to me. The long, antenna-like cane the hospital staff kept for my walking exercises had been removed, but feeling at the bottom of the closet that held my clothing—they no longer fit—found the fold up cane I kept as backup. I extended it to the complete length and left my room, apologizing again to Dr. Osman as he gasped angrily and banged uselessly about the room.

Led in equal parts by the terror pounding in the back of my neck and the prompting in the back of my mind, I ignored all the orderlies on my floor. The terror continued beating against the back of my neck like a second, sundered heart. It was as much a tangible weight as the cane in my hands, and it kept me moving away from the hospital. I tried to tell myself the rattling, hissing noises were just equipment and beds being moved, but the fact that my skin had gone as clammy as moist oysters didn’t dispel those thoughts. Neither did my opinion of the origin of the sounds being from a dungeon help my mood.

The weight of the urgency bowed my head over like a weight; it would have toppled me over completely had the large orderly not caught me. He insisted I needed bed rest, but the patient’s rights overrode the hospital’s responsibility, and I compelled him to take me to the front desk for my discharge. The elevator ride downward took on the aesthetics of Dante’s Inferno to me. Just breathe, girl, I told myself. Breathe . . . Wait . . . no, those weren’t my thoughts . . . but they were so familiar . . .

DING! . . . “Ground Floor.”

“Just wait right here, ma’am. I’ll get a wheelchair for you.”

“Yes; thank you.”

Yeah, right. And I still had eyes.

Still led by the prompting, the terror now pooling like dripping blood around the crevices in my mind, I sidled away from the front entrance to the hospital, folding my cane and letting the wall be my guide. It led me out of sight. Out of sight and out of mind.

Because she was willing it.

“Are you ready to go, Eilonwy?” she said in that voice that defied her deficiencies . . .

Deficiencies? What deficiencies? Who was I to talk? I placed my right palm against my heart, certain she could hear it, certain she could feel it.

“Yes, Gabrielle. I am. Let’s go find them.”

My escape from Dr. Osman’s presence was discovered seconds after my departure from the hospital front. Shouts and frantic orders filled all the white space that wasn’t taken in by the heavy traffic. I gratefully let Gabrielle lead me, focusing most of my attention on clutching her hand only and not hugging her around the waist like I wanted to.

I was feeling unwell.

“I don’t know how you found me Gabrielle, but thank you so much,” I squeezed her hand warmly. “How are you? Is everything all right? Can you lead me back home to Ron’s?”

She didn’t answer me directly or immediately, continuing instead to lead me along paths I could not detect. When she did speak, I became confused; a frozen paw tamped against my heart.

“Awmost thewe. Go up this way.” That wouldn’t have sounded bad, only she started leading me down some steps. After helping me through an area that further didn’t match her directions, she just stood there, waiting. My throat felt just like the time I had accidentally swallowed a piece of coal during a Christmas reunion: hard, burning, and acidic. Unfortunately, if my situation now was the same as back then, there would be trouble; I was trying to flee the hospital, not return to it. And whether the coal in my throat now was real or imagined, it still made my belly ache, still sent cramps all along my lower spine. It was all I could do to wrest my arm from my belly to feel around. Hard, rough brick walls to my right and left capped and open trashcans at my waist . . . were we in an alley? Was she waiting on something . . . on me?

“Did she come this way?” a voice echoed all around—a man’s voice. “How can a blind, pregnant chick in a hospital gown get so far without being noticed?”

“Keep it down,” a rougher, equally malicious voice snarled. “They say she has . . . powers. They say she can sense things.”

“And you believe that crap?”

A hard knocking on the floor; it sounded like heavy boots on stone. They were coming closer, they were searching. For me? Has there been another “blind, pregnant chick in a hospital gown” that I’m unaware of?

In some ways, my pregnancy has been very difficult; in other ways, it has been a boon. I think the baby has somehow . . . amplified my powers. Sometimes I found it difficult to ignore thoughts, even when Ron and Hannah kept to themselves. And with that greater awareness, I could feel the malice behind their voices.

“Gabrielle,” I murmured, my fingers brushing her cheek. “We need to move. Please.”

“Okay,” she nodded, dragging my arm. The voices continued, unaware of us . . . yet.

“Who knows,” rough voice replied. “All I know is, we get a hefty bribe if she has an ‘accident.’ Doesn’t even have to be at the hospital. Way I see it, it doesn’t matter if a coupla muggers gets her, you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear ya.”

Just then, Gabrielle shoved something aside, wood clapping against cement with enough force to cause the baby to lurch and kick inside me. I bent over.

The clicking sound of a gun being cocked lodged in my throat far more harshly than the lump of emotional coal had. “I think we found our lady.”

“Gabrielle,” I whispered, searching for her hand. “We have to get out of here, fast. And quietly.”

“Okay,” she said again. Thankfully, she took my hand and began to walk with less noise. “Come,” as she tugged me along, her hand moving to my wrist, the cane clamped tightly inside my hand struck something and knocked it over. I held back my cry and dragged my free hand against the wall, a jagged hewn, brick obstacle, searching. The two men growled something and began moving quicker; the echoes were too prevalent to pinpoint their position, but my instincts told me they were closing in. And Gabrielle had gone silent and still again.

“Gabrielle,” I pleaded a whispering hiss, searching the borders of her mind but not entering. I needed her. “Please. I need your help. Please . . . wake up.” How was I supposed to . . . reach her, exactly? I didn’t know how or why she spoke to me like she did, or why she chose to . . . not speak like that to me when I needed her so desperately.

The men were getting closer. My enlarged sensitivity feathered against their cold, cruel intentions.

“No pwetty pweety, he’s ovah this way,” she announced loudly, patting my hand expectantly in a strange pattern and leading me along. After scraping my knuckles against something hard and wooden—I think—I drew in on myself and continued following. Her trailblazing was unwieldy and erratic, often leading me into a pile of debris. One hand held by my guide, my other arm was cradling the precious cargo inside me.

“Where the ---- is she?” one man swore, so close I imagined he could answer himself if he turned around. I held in my squeak and had a coronary at the same time when Gabrielle spoke next.

“Thwough hewe.”

As the men clattered brusquely forward, Gabrielle ushered me through a space so tiny I thought surely was too small for my distended belly. But her clumsy ministrations got me through; she was tilting my head, pushing, prodding, patting, and cradling, while I cajoled myself to do this. But her dementia was frightening me. Why was she so . . . bizarre to me when I needed her the most? “Gabrielle,” I hissed through the hot liquid seeping out my sockets, trying to unwind the gauze around my face, the unbidden, scorching tears sending unwanted spots of heat across my eyelids. “Please talk to me. Please.”

“And then tuwn that way. Yes. To youw wight now. Go thwough the doow. It’s open. Yes, go down the staiws. No, siwwy; that dawk won’t huwt you.”

“Gabrielle?” Her refusal to speak to me as she normally did was sending the hot emotion down my cheeks. She unsuccessfully unwound my dressing, leaving a long, scarflike appendage down my shoulder before releasing me and stepping away. Suddenly, I felt very, very alone. Feeling around, I was alarmed to find she had, for all intents, vanished.

And her directions led me into a brick wall.

“Hello there, Ms. Grant. You look . . . lost. Would you like some . . . help . . . with that?”

And the men had just found me.

Yikes woman you have been through hell and back.

It'll make her stronger.

A noble cause Ms.Solstice. I wish you well in it.

So that was Gabrielle's voice. When I went around the corner and didn't see anyone, I thought I might have just imagined it.

Eilonwy Solstice wrote:You don’t know how close to the truth you are about that, Lord Shakar. Well, considering who I’m talking to . . . you probably do.

And at the risk of sounding like Ron, I’m not interested in becoming stronger, Councilor. I’m interested in seeing my baby safe. But thank you for your concern.

Hell and a number of other dimensions like it are not fun places to visit.

My condolences Ron and Wie on the loss of the child. And it is good that you didn't do anything that would have landed you in Jail over this coming holiday. Though he does deserve it.

It's actually not all that uncommon.

Maybe for you Councilor, Its not all that common. Though among those that are without normal sight it does tend to be higher especially when they are gifted.