Dark Heart Black Heart- Dori book one

Spells

The little girl fought back the impulse to duck away. A construction worker sitting on an I-beam hanging below a massive crane came swinging by as it passed within inches of her. His yellow hard hat looked comically small on the big man’s head. Looking down to her right, a quarterback surrounded by opposing players desperately tried to pick out a receiver. As the ball left his hand, hundreds of wild stallions in full gallop raced away from a sandstorm that followed them. Closing her eyes, she prayed the horses would be safe as they silently galloped past.

Directly below, a man and woman on a tropical beach grinned deviously as they sipped their drinks. Off to the right, a towering volcano erupted, sending giant plumes of smoke and ash into the darkness. The awesome sight was overwhelming as it went on and on.

Inhaling deeply, the girl smiled as an old grandmother took peanut butter cookies out of an oven. Off to the left, an elephant using his trunk to tip a car on its side.

She could smell the ocean as a man wearing a yellow slicker pulled a huge tuna from the deep blue water. Four bored women sitting at a table in a dimly lit bowling alley. An aircraft carrier floating above. Two young girls being chased out of a convenience store by an Asian man. And as always, the Scruffy Man in the plastic hat. Images and information flowed in, and the child’s mind held on to it all. Every person had a name and a background. Cities and streets could be pointed out on a map. It was as if she absorbed the history of everything and everybody that appeared to her and cataloged it in her brain.

When it was over, she would be sitting in the exact same spot when the spell started. Her eyes would pop open and immediately, the stories began.

“Jake,″ Doris squeaked with excitement. Jake and Debbie had been waiting over an hour this time. They both jumped to their feet when Doris yelled Jakes name. Debbie quickly put a finger to her lips, making a shushing sound.

″Hi sweetie,” she said softly as she and Jake prepared to proceed with the unwrapping.

″A big elephant turned a car over and I saw a football game and a volcano and...″ Doris went on and on as Debbie and Jake began peeling off the wet towels that encased her.

Doris looked at Debbie and said, ″I saw the most beautiful clouds” as she forced her arm from under the towels and raised her hand in front of her face. Staring intently at her fist, she raised a finger for every cloud. ″Cirrocumulus, stratocumulus, altostratus...″

″How bout that,″ Debbie smiled and said as she continued to pull the towels away.

Every time Doris came back, she was a little more educated. Debbie couldn’t figure out how her baby sister could know all these things.

She doesn’t just know the words, she knows precisely what she’s talking about. Anything she claimed to know, she could back up with details about the subject. It had to have come from things she heard on TV or radio, or wherever. How does a six-year-old know about stratocumulus clouds, or that Djoser was the first Pharaoh of the third Egyptian dynasty, or the win, loss records of a West Indies Cricket Team, or European stage plays from the eighteen hundreds, or how to repair hydraulics? It would take years for someone to learn and understand what she picks up in an hour.

There were hundreds of random topics that Doris knew everything about. Debbie knew that when Doris was under her spell, she was learning. But the question was, where was it coming from. Maybe her subconscious was more open to her when she was under, allowing her to recall information she unconsciously picked up.

Jake loved hearing about all the people and places Doris saw when she was in her spell. He could do without all the technical gibberish he didn’t understand.

″Did you see the Scruffy Man,″ Jake asked with a hint of mystery in his voice.

Doris nodded her head and whispered, ″He rode by on a bike.″

Jake looked at Debbie with amazement. Debbie smiled at him as she pulled a towel from Doris’s body. Jake pulled off one of the wet towels and laid it on the bed.

″In the bucket please,″ Debbie said, pulling the last towel away from Doris. Jake tossed the towel into the bucket and climbed off the bed.

They kept the bucket in Doris’s closet just for these occasions. The bucket held five or six dry towels and an electronic forehead thermometer. They had a plastic liner on her mattress. Every time Doris felt an episode coming on, there was always plenty of time to alert her sister and brother. They would make Doris comfortable in her bed and wait for it to happen. Debbie would scan her temperature before anything occurred, to make sure it was normal. But this time, it happened while they were sleeping. Doris and Jake shared a room, so when the feeling crept up on her, she woke Jake and told him.

When the spells came on, they wrapped the towels around her and pour cold water over her. Doris’s body got so hot that sometimes the thermometer read the word ‘error’. They could do nothing but wait until the spell passed. The wet towels didn’t do much other than help keep her body as cool as possible. Doris just sat there with her spine straight and eyes closed, sitting cross-legged with both hands folded in her lap. Her breathing never changed, nor did her facial expression. Debbie and Jake gave up on trying to talk to her when she was in her spell. Doris was somewhere else, and when she came back, she would tell her stories for hours.

Doris sat soaking wet in the middle of her big bed wearing a tee shirt and pajama bottoms.

“Okay Jake, take the towels down and toss them in the hamper,” Debbie said as she held her hand out to Doris. “Close the door and please hurry. We have to get down for breakfast.” Jake grabbed the bucket and headed to the laundry room.

“Common sweet pea,” Debbie said as she pulled Doris from the bed. She was still going on about what she saw as Debbie knelt behind her and helped her out of her wet clothing. She picked up a dry towel and wrapped it around Doris’s shoulders.

As Debbie ran the towel over Doris’s arms and back, she asked, “You saw the Scruffy Man again.”

Doris took the towel from Debbie and rubbed her hair with it.

“Yep, he was riding a bike and...” She stopped as she spun around to Debbie. “Bathroom,” Doris said with sudden urgency as she dropped the towel in Debbie’s lap and scampered away. The two bedrooms the three of them occupied had an adjoining bathroom. She was glad of this. If Doris went running down the hall naked leaving even the slightest wet footprints on the wood floor, their mother would have a fit.

While waiting for Doris to come out of the bathroom, Debbie sat back on her feet as she picked up the thermometer and stared at it. She closed her eyes as the image of Doris sitting in her crib popped into her head. Debbie remembered it was just before her eighth birthday, and Doris was one year and a couple months old when she first spoke. Not the ‘goo goo gaa gaa,’ or ‘Dada, Mama,’ things that newborns say, but a complete sentence. Even now, she gets the chills thinking about it.

Debbie remembered peeking in on Doris when she was taking a nap. She was surprised seeing Doris sitting upright with her back to her. She recalled how warm the room felt as if someone had turned the heat on. She stepped towards the crib and was about to ask Doris if she was okay when Doris spoke. Sudden shock made Debbie squint towards the small TV that was in the darker part of the room. She began to feel light headed as she wondered who would have left it on, but it wasn’t on. She grabbed the rail of the crib. Debbie had to squeeze her legs together to keep from wetting herself, thinking she heard a ghost. She looked around at the shadows, hoping to see Jake jump out and yell, Gotcha!

Sudden fear began seeping in. She glared at a stuffed monkey that sat in the dark corner of the room. Her mind raced as she tried to remember if the toy had a pull string that would make it talk. That had to be it, but she knew better. Tears began streaming down her face as she stared at Doris’s back. She was shaking so bad, her hand that gripped the crib rail caused it to rattle. It wasn’t so much that Doris spoke, but more what she asked. Her voice was a gentle baby’s voice; a slight coo. But the way she pronounced the words made her sound like a young adult.

Debbie remembered falling to her knees, never taking her eyes off Doris. With both hands, she gripped the crib rails. Doris turned, causing Debbie’s whole body to shudder. She saw that Debbie was crying and, with sad eyes, put her little hand out to Debbie’s cheek. Wiping her eyes with her forearm, Debbie forced herself to get the words out.

″Did you just... say something?″ she asked in an almost incoherent whisper. She prayed that Doris would respond with baby talk, or even better, silence.

Doris casually sighed as she again asked, ″Can you make me a Mobius strip?″

Debbie sat frozen in place. Her frightened gaze fixed on Doris as Debbie clinched her fists in her lap. She thought back, recalling how hard she prayed it was a dream. How she begged God to make it the TV she heard.

″It was just the TV, it was just the TV,″ she whispered over and over. A scream tried to escape as she glared at the stuffed monkey. The shadows in the room started spinning as she tried to remember if the monkey was smiling before. ‘It’s laughing at me,’ she thought. ″Stop it,″ she hissed as the tears welled up again.

No words would come as she turned and watched Doris reach up, grasping for the plastic mobile that hung over her crib.

She giggled and said, ″Principals of equilibrium,″ as she looked at Debbie and pointed up to the hanging toy.

Debbie slapped one open hand over her mouth and grabbed her stomach with the other as she jumped up and ran to the bathroom. She remembered staring at the water in the toilet, but she didn’t get sick. Instead, she turned on the sink and splashed cold water on her face. Pulling the towel from the rack, she pressed it to her eyes. She turned away and leaned back on the sink, avoiding any eye contact with the mirror. She knew if she looked at the mirror, the monkey would be smiling right behind her.

Thinking back to how scared she was to go back in Doris’s room, now made her feel silly. Eventually, she learned to deal with the fact that Doris was no ordinary baby, to say the least. Debbie made Doris promise that she would never talk like that in front of their Mother and Father. At a year and two months, it was apparent that Doris was already aware of how their Mother felt about her and her siblings, so she agreed. Eventually, Jake was let in on her abilities, and he too swore never to speak of it and to protect her at any cost.

As time passed, Debbie and Jake adjusted to Doris’s situation. Everyone knew that, with the spells, Doris had special needs. But as far as Debbie and Jake were concerned, nobody would ever know about anything else. After some research online, Doris’s mobile was replaced with a Mobius strip Debbie made from construction paper.

Debbie sighed as she tossed the thermometer on the bed. This was the first time she could remember a spell coming on while Doris was asleep. Debbie looked at a small bookshelf where she kept notebooks dating back to when Doris was an infant. She logged in every piece of information she could think of concerning the spells. Dates and times, names and places, temperature readings. She wrote down and checked off every city or person she could find information on. This confirmed that Doris wasn’t making things up. Cities like Trieste in Italy, or Xi’an in Asia. Places none of them ever heard of before. The people, other than famous, were harder to validate. Debbie had to concede that these were actual people.

Debbie sat there debating on whether or not to make note of the sleeping spell. She looked at the child-sized desk that sat next to the bookshelf. Crayons and markers cluttered the desktop. She could have picked up a marker and put the incident on record, but there was no reason. Nobody, not even her, has looked at the records she kept. At first, it seemed like a good idea, then it became so ritualistic, it was like writing the same thing over and over.

Jake and Doris shared a bedroom. The bathroom was situated between their room and Debbie’s, a door on either side gave access to everyone. They all had their own queen-sized beds. Two little peas in their big bowls of mashed potatoes, Debbie called them when they were under their white sheets. Debbie loved playing like she couldn’t find them in their huge beds.

By the time Jake woke Debbie up, Doris had already gone under, and he took her temperature. Again, it shot up so high that the thermometer couldn’t register it. Like always, they wrapped her in towels, soaked her down and waited. Debbie knew a temperature that high, at the least, could cause brain damage. But it didn’t. Wet towels or not, Doris came back every time with no ill effects at all. Debbie got so tired of asking herself how this could be, knowing there was no answer.

Doris was as normal as she was abnormal. She’s cute and funny and wonderful, just like every other six-year-old. Debbie looked to the ceiling and almost laughed when she thought about it. Yeah, she thought as she shook her head, any other six-year-old who occasionally goes into trances and learns things she couldn’t know.

Debbie resorted to doing her usual when she tried to figure out the whole ‘Doris’ thing. She closed her eyes and thanked God that there were no bad side effects.

Doris came running out of the bathroom when Debbie pointed down, spun her finger and said, “Back. Wash your hands.”

Doris smiled, did a quick U-turn and returned to the bathroom to wash up. Debbie smiled as Doris scampered back to her and threw her naked little body into Debbie’s arms.

“Thank you,” Doris whispered as she threw her arms around Debbie’s neck.

“Let’s get you dressed,” she said as she kissed Doris on the forehead, then pivoted her towards the bathroom. She held out a pair of Doris’s pajama bottoms. As Doris stepped into them, there was a soft knock.

“Hold on a second,” Debbie said as she finished helping Doris dress. “Okay, come on in,” she said as Jake peeked in before entering.

He came around the bed setting the bucket on the floor. Plopping his butt on Doris’s bed, he immediately jumped off with a look of surprise.

Debbie and Doris grinned at him when they saw the look on his face.

″Uh… It’s still wet,″ Debbie said. Jake rubbed his behind as he went to the far side of the bed. Debbie stood up and helped him pull the sheet from the mattress. She wadded it up and tossed it into the bucket.

″I’ll toss this in the hamper when we go downstairs,″ Debbie said, using the towel she dried Doris with to wipe up the remaining water on the plastic bed liner. Doris pulled a fresh sheet from her closet and offered it to Debbie. She took the folded sheet as she tossed the towel into the bucket.

″Thank you sweets,″ Debbie said.

Jake grunted, not getting any attention. Debbie and Doris both looked at him. In frustration, he jabbed his finger at the bucket.

″Oh yea,″ Debbie said, ″Doris, did you thank Jake for taking the towels to the laundry room?″ Doris looked up at Debbie and smiled. She turned to Jake and ran into his arms. She caught Jake by surprise as he looked at Debbie’s smiling face. He still had his arms out, when Doris leaned away from him.

″You are such a great big brother to me.″ Then she fell back into him. Jake smiled and wrapped his arms around her. He picked her up and growled as Doris giggled.

“Okay,” Debbie said, picking up the bucket, “That’s enough love for this morning; now who’s hungry?” Jake’s hand snapped up followed by Doris’s. Debbie looked at them and smiled.

“Me too,” she said, circling the bed. “You two keep the noise to a minimum, and we’ll go get breakfast.” They all headed quietly down the hall hoping their mother was still asleep. As they approached the stairs, their hopes crumbled when they heard their mother yell from downstairs.