The examination was brief, confirming Dr.
Toure’s prognosis. The burns were healing. Her right arm was still fairly
painful, but the redness was gradually fading. “So that’s it, then?” she asked.
“That’s almost it,” he smiled. “I’d like to
give you one more treatment of the burn cream for your arm before you go. A
little time should take care of the rest, provided that you rest.”
She sighed audibly. She’d been forced into an
awful lot of resting lately. She was getting tired of it. The sounds of a group
of people passing outside the door reached her. They were talking; one of the
voices sounded subtly familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
“How long do I have to …” she trailed off, her
head filling with a familiar buzzing, prickly dizzy sensation. She lost her
balance and slumped where she sat on the edge of her bed, catching herself with
her arm. Dr. Toure reacted with admirable speed, catching her by the shoulder
to steady her, face a study in alarm.
“Ms. Rush. Jo! What is it? What’s wrong?”
She felt both drained and suffused with
energy, the room around her transforming. She was in her room in whatever
facility it was she’d been sent to, but she also seemed to be deep in a forest
she didn’t recognize. It was very old growth, if the size of the trees was any
indication. She could see them super-imposed over the room, over the doctor,
over everything. She clutched at Dr. Toure’s hands; they were reassuringly
solid. “Do you see it?” she half-whispered, gaze wandering up the trunk of a
massive tree that must have been four feet around; nothing like it grew
anywhere near the city.
“See? See what, Ms. Rush?” He tried to get her
to lay back down again. She didn’t resist at first, thinking it a fine idea,
until she saw him.
It wasn’t Archerd, of that she was certain.
Nor was it the young man she’d seen under the ironworks. He was dressed wrong;
he looked like he was from the present, her own time. He wore dark clothes, a
t-shirt, black jeans and boots. His hair was dark brown and somewhat ragged and
spiked. Her gaze was drawn to him like a magnet. He stood out clearly to her
against the backdrop of the forest. His back was to her, but he looked
familiar. A name danced on the tip of her tongue, frustratingly close but out
of reach.
She sat up, pushing Dr. Toure’s arms aside as
though he wasn’t there. He was shouting something behind her, but her attention
was all on the young man ahead of her. He was looking around, apparently trying
to get his bearings.
She tried to walk toward him, but slammed into
the wall of the lab room and grunted in pain. Okay, that’s still solid, no
matter what it looks like, she thought in a corner of her mind. She started
making her way around the wall toward the door. On the way, she slammed into
one of the trees of the forest; they were quite solid too. Dr. Toure tried to
restrain her, but she slipped his grasp and darted out through the door and
into the hallway.
The hall beyond was surprisingly long. She
started running but was forced to slow to a walk when she found the forest
floor uneven enough to protrude above floor level in places. She nearly tripped
several times on tree roots and branches and simple unleveled ground. The young
man was several dozen meters ahead of her, but not moving terribly fast; it
still took her more time than she’d have guessed to catch up to him. “Hey,” she
called out.
He turned, startled, and faced her. As he did,
his head brushed a leafy tree branch; he knocked it aside. His eyes widened in
shock. Hers must have done much the same. He was like a younger version of
Gran, his face several years younger than hers but already weathered with scars
and signs of hard living. “Philip?” she gasped.
At the sound of his name, he
turned and bolted. She stood and stared after him, emotional confusion
overwhelming the light-headed feel of her altered state. The forest faded
around her; she settled back to the hallway floor off the root she’d been
standing on. What was Philip doing here? He’d been moving like she had,
seeing both the hall and the forest at once. He’d touched that tree branch.
“What IS this place? What’s going on?”
