Gaia Dreams (Gaiaverse Book 1) (17 page)

She sighed. "Okay, so maybe I'm a little slow
today but I'm under a bit of stress. You just want me to pull over, right?"

Merlin nodded his head twice.

"'Cause we gotta look at the map, right?"

Merlin nodded.

Lisanne took a deep breath and let it out
slowly. "You know," she said resignedly, "this animal to human communication
thing needs definite work, pal."

Merlin nodded vigorously.

Lisanne laughed and reached out to scratch her
friend behind his ears. "There's a rest stop coming up ahead. We'll pull over
there, okay?"

Merlin purred loudly.

Cape Fair, The Rock

Leaves rustled in the afternoon breeze as
Jessica walked pensively among her favorite stand of trees at the edge of the
forest behind the house. She had always loved the sound the leaves made. Now
she glanced fearfully at them above her head, wondering if the sound was more
than an event caused by the breeze. If she were to believe Mrs. Philpott and
that damned cat of hers, the planet was alive--no, more than that--it was
conscious
.

Perhaps those rustling leaves were the whisperings of the giant oaks,
communicating with each other in the twilight, planning something diabolical
for the humans on this earth. No! She refused to believe it. All her life she
had been drawn to the trees, felt a kinship with them, loving the rootedness
and stability of an old tree--admiring the slender trunks of new trees,
resiliently bending and swaying in the wind, leaves all bright, new, green,
promising life...was she wrong? The rustling intensified above her head and
around her on all sides. Jessica pulled her old gray cardigan sweater tighter
against her body.

She was standing in a clearing surrounded by
several oaks, a few tall pines, and a young maple. The ground was covered in
old leaves and pine needles, and a large round slab of stone with a flat top
which sat almost centered in the circle of trees. She had come to sit on that
stone and pray when Samantha had been so ill. Once she had been caught unawares
by a summer rain shower and had reveled in feeling the warm drops cascading off
the bending branches above her head.

A slight smile crossed her face as she
remembered how shocked John had looked when she finally returned to the house,
all dreamy smiles and utterly soaking wet. She hadn't even tried to explain why
she had stayed out there that day, hugging the secret feeling of the place to
herself as the shivering set in once her body was blasted by the cold of an
air-conditioned house. Maybe her affinity for the trees had come about as a
result of her work on computers. Writing code for hours on end, losing track of
time and space, she had begun taking walks among any trees she could find when
she really became immersed in programming. The trees grounded her, brought her
back from that virtual space of the machines. She never told anyone, but everywhere
she lived after the "tree walks" started, she had chosen one or two favorite
trees. They felt like they were her trees once the designation of favorite had
been made. When she began exploring the property here, she had found one--a
silver-barked maple with the most incredible gold leaves in autumn that she'd
ever seen. Each leaf was always impeccably colored with gold. It reminded her
of the
mallorn
trees in Tolkien's trilogy
Lord of the Rings
, and
she had been astonished to find that a tree could fit so well a description
from a land of fantasy.

And now this--this horror fantasy of Mrs.
Philpott's and John's and even little Samantha's. That the planet was speaking
to them, to people everywhere, saying enough is enough...saying that humans
would not be allowed to destroy the planet anymore. And not just saying it, no,
actually doing something about it--people were beginning to die! Natural
disasters were starting to happen in a very
un
natural way. The planet
was attacking humans. At least, that's what it felt like to Jessica. Tens of
thousands were now dead because of the L.A. earthquake. The cat said another
quake was going to occur in San Francisco. Jessica had tried calling her mother
there but hadn't been able to reach her yet. She had come out here because she
didn't know what to do. If she told her mother that an earthquake was coming,
that the world was changing drastically in the next few months, then it meant
that she herself believed it would happen. And if she didn't tell her mother
and the cat was actually right and her mother was killed...Jessica couldn't
live with that either. So she had come out here, to this favorite place, to
think--and now she wondered if the trees were talking to each other. It was
crazy. Maybe Mrs. Philpott--and her cat--were just plain nuts! The murmuring
overhead grew louder, and as Jessica focused on the sound, she realized that it
was
murmuring! Abruptly she dropped onto the large stone and stared up
at the moving leaves, the twisting branches, and fainted.

The whispering, rustling, murmuring trunks,
branches and leaves in the grove swayed in unison as they communed.

"It was easier to reach her once she let go of
her waking mind," said one to another. "She just needed to hear it from us. To
be reminded of how many trees had been mutilated, poisoned, shredded, and
devoured in one way or another by the humans. She is beginning to understand,
now, why the balance must be restored. She has loved us for many years and she
doesn't want to see us killed. She just never thought of communicating with us
in a more direct way. Like all humans, she has never thought on a very big
scale. Their lives are so short it is hard to get them to think in terms of
centuries and millennia rather than months and years."

"But the rock helped there," said another. "His
sense of time is more vast than ours. Even though she could only tolerate a
moment of experiencing time on rock level, she was changed by it...I wonder if
it will be enough, if she will be ready now to do what she must."

The first one responded, "We'll keep helping
her, talking to her, but we all know that ultimately it will not matter whether
she is changed enough."

Leaves grown dark in the blackness whispered in
the night, "No, it will not matter to us, but it will matter profoundly to her."

Gas Station, Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Andy pulled the car into the service station
outside Hattiesburg, bewildered by the rain gushing from the skies. Something
was wrong. He had checked the radar at noon and there should not have been rain
in this region. And the wind was picking up. As he headed toward the
convenience store attached to the station, he searched the area for a phone.
His eyes rested briefly on an old Mustang--they just don't make cars like that
anymore, he thought. Then he noticed the young woman sitting inside the car,
talking to herself. No, wait, he peered through the rain and realized she held
a black cat in her arms and appeared to be conversing with the animal. The
world is full of crazy people. Waldo barked at him from the Range Rover. He let
the dog out of the car and walked over to a pay phone only to discover that no
calls were going through to Biloxi. What the hell was going on, he wondered.

Lisanne carried Merlin in her arms and walked
toward the convenience store, trying to think of foods to buy for her road
trip. Merlin wasn't being too forthcoming with information about how long they
would be traveling or where they were headed. After much argument, she had
given in to his request that they drive west for a while and end up in
Hattiesburg. As she reached the door, she saw a man lean down to say to a large
black dog, "Listen, pal, we've got to head back to Biloxi so I can find out
what's going on."

Lisanne stopped and turned to the man. Dark
blond hair, button down collar on a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, he appeared
to be in his late twenties. Not bad looking, she decided, if you go for that
all-American guy kind of thing. Which she never did. She smiled tentatively at
him and said, "Excuse me, but did I hear you say you are heading for Biloxi?
Because if you are, you are in deep shit trouble."

Andy looked up, startled to see the woman from
the Mustang, his gaze held by lavender eyes. "Excuse me?" he said, puzzled.

"I said you're headed for trouble if you go
south to Biloxi. There's a mother of a hurricane down there right now," Lisanne
said.

Andy smiled tolerantly and then said "Well,
Miss, I don't know where you're getting your information, but I'm a
meteorologist from Biloxi and I know for a fact that there were no storms
brewing in the Gulf this morning. So a hurricane is impossible."

Lisanne frowned, irritated by his condescending
tone. "No storms, huh?" she said, pointing her hand to the sky and then
sweeping her arm out. "Just what the hell do you call
this
, Mr.
Weatherman? Sunshine?" As Andy opened his mouth to speak, Lisanne continued, "Look,
I got out of Fort Walton Beach this morning, a little before noon. It was just
beginning then. There's probably something on TV about it by now." She gripped
Merlin tighter as a gust of wind blew across the storefront.

Andy stared at her for a moment. She was pretty
in a punk rocker kind of way--not his type at all. Short, messy black hair,
heavy eye make-up, tight black jeans that showed off all her curves. Maybe her
eyes were lavender because they were picking up the purple of her shirt. Nobody
could naturally have eyes that color, he thought distractedly.

"Well?" Lisanne demanded. "Are you going to
listen to me, or are you going to be a fool and drive right into a hurricane?"

Andy shook his head, a bit bemused, and said, "Listen--I
don't even know you. I do know the weather and the radar and I know that a
storm is impossible. Now if you'll excuse me...."

"Idiot!" Lisanne said huffily and then marched
into the store, muttering to Merlin.

Andy laughed and looked down at his dog, saying "What
a strange one she is, Waldo!" As he held open the door to follow Lisanne into
the store, he told Waldo to stay--then stopped dead as he heard a news report
coming from a small TV behind the counter.

"...unclear if this is a satellite glitch or if
there is a hurricane in the Gulf. Several meteorologists have confirmed that a
storm of this magnitude is impossible, but the various satellite images are all
the same. In addition, all communication has ceased from the affected areas. We
will keep you updated with further details as we receive them. Now back to your
scheduled programming."

Andy realized the young woman was staring at
him. "Go north, young man!" she said a bit wildly, then glanced sharply out the
door at his dog. After staring into the dog's eyes, she said, "And listen to
the dog. He has much more sense than you do!" With that, she turned down an
aisle, randomly picking up items.

Cape Fair, the Samuels' House

"No, Mom, Samantha is getting better and
the doctors say she will be fine. It's just that John and I feel she needs to
see her grandparents. This whole thing really scared her, and it really scared
me too. I need to spend some time with you and Dad. Look, we already checked
with the airlines and you guys could get a flight out here by tomorrow...."
Jessica paused, listening through the phone to her parents converse quietly in
the background. And just what would they think if I told them the real reason,
she thought. Oh, well, it was not really a lie. Now that she had them on the
phone, Jessica realized how much she wanted and needed to see her parents. And
just maybe it would save their lives.

"Hey, Mom," she said, "you guys still there?
Listen, why don't you bring the old picture albums with you. Sam would get a
kick out of seeing the old pictures of everyone."

John walked into the kitchen where Jessica was
sitting on the bar stool gripping the wall phone tightly. Then she turned and
gave him a thumbs-up sign with a big smile. Thank goodness, John thought, that
must mean she convinced them to come. Already her face and posture looked more
relaxed.

Poking his head into the fridge and searching
for the bowl that contained the leftover pasta salad, he thought about the
change in Jessica. Ever since she had come back from her walk, she had seemed
convinced that the San Francisco earthquake was going to happen. John hadn't
questioned the change in attitude, and Jessica had not explained. He decided
each of them had to face this in their own way, and if Jessica had found a way
to come to terms with it, then he could only be grateful.

Munching on bits of carrot, broccoli, and pasta,
John thought about his mother's and sister's reaction to his phone call.
Gracie, his mother, had been thrilled with the idea of a visit "out west" as
she put it. She never traveled outside New York City until John and Jessica had
moved to Missouri. Her only condition to the trip was that she had to travel by
train--Gracie was terrified of flying, and no amount of argument from her son
would ever change her mind. He figured she should be okay traveling on the
train, but to be sure he had checked with the cat. Perceval stated there might
be some problems but that she could make it to Missouri by train if she left
within the next few days. The cat wasn't interested in revealing anything more
than that, but John was satisfied his mother would arrive safely by the end of
this week.

Suddenly, he threw back his head and laughed out
loud at what he had just thought. What a world we are living in now, he
thought, that I would take the word--the
word
--of a cat as gospel
truth when it comes to the safety of my mother! Still, it made sense. The cat
seemed to be most informed of all of them so far. Although, he wondered if he
had thought to ask Samantha, if she wouldn't have been able to reassure him as
well. It was still hard to think of Sam as knowing about some of the terrible
upcoming events. She seemed too young to have this kind of awareness. He and
Jessica had always worked hard to protect their little girl, making sure she
didn't watch violence on television, even to the point of prohibiting her
watching the news. And now she had dreams, visions, an awareness--who really
knew what it was--of terrifically violent and destructive events. I wonder how
all this will affect her, he thought pensively.