Flowers in Your Hair

[Susie Quinn]

And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up, I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.

...And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

She sat in the corner of the room with her ankles hooked around the chair legs, hands folded neatly in her lap. Her eyes were open, but glazed, staring blankly at where the walls met in front of her. The rest of the classroom was empty, desks all arranged to face the front of the room except for the one that she was sitting in.

Behind her, sun streamed in through a window, the calls and cries of children at play filtering through the late autumn air. Even three stories up one could make out the shouts from the teams playing field hockey in the soggy grass of the green. Whistles blew occasionally, and still she sat, as still as a statue clad in a lumpy grey wool sweater.

Her blue eyes blinked slowly, just often enough to keep from drying out. Footsteps went by in the hall outside, always continuing, never stopping at the door. Sit there, Susie, that's a good girl. She sat, legs and back beginning to stiffen from maintaining her post for so long.

She didn't mind, not really. This new treatment seems promising, they'd said after she'd had the shot. Are you sure? She seems comatose. I'm in here, Susie had wanted to say, but they'd told her to be quiet. She'll be fine. The effects are immediate, but will wear off in a few hours. Just leave her here with a notebook. She'll write down whatever she sees.

Can't see anything, not facing the corner of the room. Susie blinked again, her chest rising and falling with each measured and careful breath. Her eyes closed once more, and the empty classroom fell away, leaving her sitting at the desk in the middle of a vast expanse of nothingness.

The sounds of the game from outside were gone. With her eyes closed, suddenly it seemed she could see... something. Blue sky overhead. Birds singing. The air was warm, and Susie looked at the sunlight on her skin and laughed.

[Dr. Winters]

Augustus Winters, Ph.D, found himself on the third floor of Meadowbridge, the hallways quiet in the late afternoon. A teacher (what was her name? Ms. Park?) walked by, giving him a friendly nod. She was still young and new enough at the school that the shine of optimism was nearly blinding. Life would beat that out of her in time.

He adjusted his round glasses and straightened his suit jacket as he walked down the tiled hallway, halting in front of a certain door and then hesitating with his hand on the doorknob. Peering in the window set into the door showed that the classroom held a single occupant, sitting and facing the far corner of the room. Dr. Winters pursed his lips, and let his hand fall away. There was really no reason to enter the room, but he found Ms. Quinn one of the most unique students at the school. Most... fascinating.

Her brain could be full of amazing knowledge, if they could only find the correct key to use to unlock it. Precognition was no longer science fiction, and she was one of the few precogs who could reliably tell back what they saw in their visions. Unfortunately she was also limited to a range of about twenty-four hours in the future. Great for telling the weather - not good enough for what he wanted. Needed.

What his superiors demanded. Results. We need results.

Mrs. Finnegan, one of the nurses (Meadowbridge employed a large medical staff, of course), came up beside him. "She's inna sort of fugue state at the moment, sir. The effects should wear off in a few hours, until then there's nothin' to do but wait and see. She's being monitored," and she pointed through the small door window at the camera mounted in the corner of the classroom. "An' I'm just a step away, of course."

"Of course. Of course." Augustus nodded briskly. "I was just..." in the area? Bollocks. "Curious," he ended lamely. "I'll be in my office - please inform me of the results."

"Certainly Dr. Winters." Finnegan smiled, but her sharp eyes didn't share the expression with the rest of her face. She reminded him a little of a shark. Augustus took his leave, walking slowly down the stairs back down to the ground floor.

[Andrea Kaine]

Someone's in my place. My calm place.

I step lightly through the grass, partly because I'm afraid of being seen and partly because the grass prickles the dirty soles of my bare feet and itches where its little sawtooth edges scrape against my ankles. Other than that it is cool and dry. I wouldn't mind lying down in it. I often do when I want to calm my mind by staring up at the sky and watching the clouds form and spin and collide and dissipate and do all the things clouds do when all they have to do is be clouds.

I see her now. She's sitting underneath a tree with a massive, knot-covered trunk and a crown of thick, leafy branches spreading in every direction. I think I've seen a tree like this before in the botanical gardens. Quercus pedunculata is a white oak of the family Fagaceae common throughout Europe and the British Isles. It has large leaves and small acorns that grow on long stalks in clusters of two to four. In England, it is considered to be a symbol of the Royal Family. Perhaps she brought it here because it reminds her home.

She is watching the sunlight ripple across her skin as it filters through the fluttering leaves of the oak tree. Where the sunlight falls on her hair it turns to long streaks of golden white, nearly too bright to look at. She is wearing a white collared shirt and a black skirt with gray socks pulled up all the way to her knees. I am wearing a sleeveless yellow dress that is dirty and grass-stained around the bottom hem.

A few more steps take me to the edge of the tree's branches. I stop there with my arms behind my back, holding my left elbow in my right hand, and carefully prod at a fallen acorn with my toes. "Hello," I say, staring at the acorn. "I haven't seen you here before. I'm sorry if you came here to be alone."

[Susie Quinn]

Susie started at the sound of another voice, and scrambled up to her feet. She grabbed the sleeve of her grey school sweater from the grass and lumped it into a bundle in her arms. Another person? Was this someone she would meet in the future? "I... Are we near London?"

She put a hand against the bark of the white oak to steady herself. "It's so warm here. I mean, I'm Susie." She studied the other girl, who looked like a woodland waif, or perhaps an elf of some kind. Tom told her not to read too many fanciful stories, and Mrs. March always stole her books back when she found them. It was forbidden because the doctors thought that if she had too much imagination that it would taint her precognition with falsities.

Looking around herself at the perfect green grass and blue sky, Susie wondered if they were right. She'd never had a vision last so long that she could consider it while she was experiencing it, and it seemed impossible that she would find herself on a sunny hill under a tree by tomorrow. "I'm Susie," she said again, quietly.

[Dragon]

augh delete

[Andrea Kaine]

Surprise is one of the easiest emotional responses to recognize in human body language. The eyebrows lift, and the eyes widen momentarily to expose the white sclera above and below the iris. This is usually accompanied by an involuntary tensing of the joints and a sudden intake of breath so as to prepare the body for a fight-or-flight response. She is surprised to see me. I think she is surprised to see everything around her.

"Hello, Susie. I'm D3LPH1." I frown. "No, I'm sorry, that's not right. I'm Andrea. Can I come sit under your tree?"

[Susie Quinn]

"It's not my tree," she said automatically, but stepped aside a little and sat down again. The grass was dry. What sort of a name was Delphi? "Where am I?"

[Andrea Kaine]

I move under the tree, blinking as my eyes adjust to the shade. I walk slowly so I can feel every cell of every blade of grass on my feet. Then I turn and fold my grubby skirt out of the way so I can sit down beside the girl.

My eyebrows cinch together. That's another easily recognizable emotional response - it's called confusion.

"You're right there in front of me."

[Susie Quinn]

"Am I?" she said absently, distracted again by the dappled sunlight under the tree. "I don't think I am."

Susie frowned a bit in concentration, remembering the pinch as the needle had penetrated smoothly into her arm and the warm feeling as whatever had been in the syringe invaded her veins. "This isn't the future."

[Andrea Kaine]

I look at her sharply, unmoving. "No. This isn't the future. This is the place where time stands still. This is the quiet place."

The place where the voices become whispers instead of clanging bells and roaring thunder. And yet I can hear them. I always can hear them.

I don't know if I said that last bit or not. It's hard to tell here on the Astral Plane. But still Susie looks confused. I'll show her, even if it costs me my own serenity.

"This is the future," I say, and I lean over and touch her on the forehead. There is a moment of vertigo for both of us...

THE ENGINES FROM BENEATH THE POISON MOUNTAIN LAY WASTE TO THE CITY OF ANGELS THEIR GEARS GRIND THE BODIES OF GODS AND MEN INTO DUST AND THEIR CHAINS OF LEAD AND LIGHT BIND THEIR SOULS WHILE THE DRAGON WATCHES AND LIES IN WAIT FOR THE MOTHER ABOUT TO GIVE BIRTH HE WAITS WITH OPEN JAWS TO DEVOUR HER OFFSPRING WOE TO THE CITY AND ALL WHO DWELL IN IT

I let her go. The voices stop, and so do the tortured images of machines and smoke and broken buildings and cries of anguish. There is only the grass and the tree and the blue sky filled with pearl-white clouds.

[Susie Quinn]

She was crying, her eyes overflowing with tears as the awful moment passed, and Susie put her hands over her face to hide her emotion. "I... I didn't know." But she knew now. How could she forget?

"I never see that far," she said, her voice muffled by her hands. "Usually only a few moments." Susie picked up her sweater and used it to dry her cheeks, looking at Andrea sideways as she did so. Then she dropped the sweater back into her lap and leaned over and unexpectedly gave the other girl a fierce hug. To say sorry. To say... I know your pain... if only a little of it.

[Andrea Kaine]

I don't know what to do with my arms. It occurs to me that I can't do anything with them, really - my arms are still attached to my body, which is lying in a bed in Ward 32 of the Jozua Clinic, occasionally in restraints, and even when they aren't, they're never in my control. But, more to the point, I don't know what to do when a girl my age hugs me, even by psychic proxy. I'm still trying to make sense of the gesture when she lets go.

It was kind of nice, actually. It made me feel almost human.

"Thank you," I say - was that the right thing to say? "I don't know how far in the future that is. I never know. I'm not sure it matters. I don't keep track of time very well anymore."

I sit back and lean against the trunk of the tree. Its solidness is comforting enough that I don't care whether it's real or not. Perception is the only reality I know.

"You've never been here before, have you? You've seen the future, but not the Astral Plane?"

[Susie Quinn]

"No. I haven't heard of the ...Astral Plane?" The way the words were pronounced seemed to indicate they were capitalized, like Australia, or Newfoundland. The Astral Plane was a Place.

But... not a Place like a country. Time stands still, Andrea had said. Perhaps it was a Place like Narnia was a Place. Except... real.

Or Wonderland. Was she through the Looking Glass? Susie peeked over her shoulder past the tree and half expected to see a rabbit with a pocket watch run by. A few dragonflies zipped over the lush grass, but other than that the two girls were very much alone. Besides, you didn't get to Wonderland with an injection, you had to pass through a mirror or fall into a hole, and Susie was quite sure she'd done neither.

Then again, perhaps to get to the Real Wonderland you did use a shot of some kind. Maybe that's why people did drugs all the time.

"Can you tell me about this place?" She looked questioningly at her new friend.

[Andrea Kaine]

It takes several seconds of not-time to figure out how to respond. The Astral Plane has been my reality for so long it's difficult to remember when I discovered it for the first time. It's more real to me now than the physical world, which I only ever seen when I'm dreaming.

"If the physical world is the realm of the body, the Astral Plane is the realm of the mind," I say. "Does that make sense to you?"

[Susie Quinn]

Susie frowned lightly, and slowly nodded. "Yes. For psychics?"

[Andrea Kaine]

"For psychics it's a lot more. Actually, what I told you isn't very close to the truth at all, but it's a good place to start."

The breeze picks up, tossing the branches of the tree and scattering a few stray leaves. It probably has something to do with the turn my thoughts are taking.

"What matter is in the physical world, consciousness is here. If I look at you, I don't see your body, but I see how you see yourself. This grass, that tree, and even those dragonflies? They're all subconscious constructs. They're mostly mine, though the tree might be yours. If I concentrate, I can even change them."

I stare hard at the horizon, and the wind gusts again. Overhead, the clouds begin to pick up speed, rolling and billowing like smoke from fireworks. The shadow of the tree curves around and then stretches away from us, and the sun plummets toward the edge of the grass to my left, coloring the sky orange and outlining every cloud in gold and purple. As I breathe out, the sun slows down and begins gently sinking into the horizon.

[Susie Quinn]

Susie gasped, staring wide-eyed at the scenery around her as the sunset exploded all about them. It was more beautiful than anything she could ever remember seeing. "Can I... can I do that too?"

Without waiting for an answer she held out her hand, concentrating very hard on something she'd seen in a movie once. What was here was just inside her head, after all. Or perhaps the inside of her head was here. Regardless...

A little bluebird swooped out of the tree and landed on her finger, cocking it's head and looking at her curiously.

[Andrea Kaine]

I flinch when the bird flits down from the tree. I've seen other people's subconscious constructs before, and they're not always friendly. But there is nothing on Susie's face but discovery and delight.

I mimic the little bluebird and tilt my head to the same angle. "That's very good. Have you had lucid dreams before?"

[Susie Quinn]

"Not nice ones," she said absently, carefully extending the index finger of her left hand and ruffling the feathers on the chest of the little bird. She could even feel it's little heart beating fast against her finger, just as she thought it would be.

But was it what a real bird would feel like, or just as she imagined a bird would be? The blue plumage was downy soft against her fingertip, and it's feet gripped her other hand just so, little claws pricking against her skin. The more she wondered, the more she worried that a stray thought might turn the bird inside out, or worse - no don't think it! - so she lifted her hand a little and the bird flew off, behind the tree and out of sight.

[Andrea Kaine]

I watch the bird dart away. It was a nice thought, but nice thoughts don't last forever. I think Susie understands that as well as I do.

"It's sort of like that," I say. "The Astral Plane is shaped by the minds that live in it. This place was empty when I found it. So I filled it with all the calm memories I could think of. It's a safe place. A place to hide."