twenty-three

laura

Laura had the notebook in her hand as she came in that Tuesday. After our last session, I’d felt too full of what I’d seen in my journey—the burning pier, the section of Laura’s soul trapped in a net, the name of her guardian—to want to talk about it until I’d processed it. I’d sent her home with a full account and asked her to work with the images herself. Even before she pulled off her jacket and helmet, she cried out, “You found my soul-part, Sabbie!”

As soon as she was seated, she opened the book and read through my last journey notes, as if to recheck. “What you wrote about the cave was amazing. Remember how you told me to find my power animal? Go to a nice place, you said. Well, I chose a holiday we went on as a family. Mum and Dad liked something a bit different than Weston Super Mare. Cornwall. Kynance Cove. There’s a lot of caves in the cliffs, sort of interconnected? So while you were in a cave, I might have been in one in my imagination too.”

“And that’s where you saw the chick.”

“Yes. Quite a surprise. I thought beside the sea, it might turn out to be, I dunno, a seal or something. It was suddenly there in front of me.”

“Have you seen it since?”

“Everywhere!” she laughed. “On the telly, in a kid’s picture book, you name it. And then there’s the part where you watched Weston pier burn down. Well, that’s perfectly true. Someone had left a deep fat fryer alight. You could see the smoke from miles off. Loads of people went down to the front, half our street set out. It was like some massive fireworks display. Come to think of it, fireworks did go off; they’d been left in storage, I think.”

“It must have been a disaster.”

“Apart from the odd lungful of smoke, you could watch safely from the promenade. No one got hurt, not even the firemen, thank God. The owners had insurance of course, so the revamp was even better than the original.”

“Win-win?”

“Ghoulish, I know.” There was such energy about her; she was rubbing her palms in anticipation. “What are we doing today?”

“I’d like to do another joint journey, Laura, as the last one was quite productive.”

Laura knew the drill. She lay, business-like, on two floor cushions. I lay close to her, with my silken cord wound round our wrists. I set the drumming CD for fifteen minutes in real time—I find most clients can’t take any longer—and made straight for Laura’s cave in the hope of a dialogue with her guardian. I moved through the darkness of the cave, feeling with my hands, until I reached the turn of rock which led to the far exit and the beach. Something blocked my way. I waited, listening. Trendle’s rough coat rubbed at my bare ankle. A shadow flickered on the wall of the cave. Some logical part of my mind told me there could not be a shadow in such total darkness, and yet this was what was happening. An impression flickered there.

“Raichu?”

The shadow moved. “You have come to reclaim Laura’s soul-part.” The reply was as ghostly as the image, as if it came from the sky outside the cave, which was hidden from me. “I’m sorry, Sabbie. I cannot let you have it. Not yet. Only when you know the answer will Laura accept it from you.”

“I don’t know the answer!”

“I have spoken of this before. And your own guardian has offered advice. You must allow our reflections to manifest in the apparent world. When all is clear, Sabbie, you may offer the soul-part.”

“Why not now?”

“Laura would reject it. That is my fear.”

“I see.”

And I did see, but that didn’t help one bit.

Deflated, I followed Trendle back towards my portal. I passed the fingerpost that directed me to Laura’s cave, and recalled a memory of the previous day; the way Esme had pointed at Stefan. Men are savages at heart … I have no wish to live with a brute.

I came out of the journey with my heart thudding in time to the call-back drum. I pushed aside my fleece and looked at Laura, who already had her eyes open.

I was going to have to ask her about previous boyfriends, even her relationship with her father. Had she escaped on her bike, the morning I’d met her, because she was scared of her dad?

We stayed on the floor cushions, writing our accounts. “You go first,” she said, not looking up from her notebook.

“Okay, well I went to find Raichu to ask when you should have your soul-part back.”

“Oh yeah. You’re supposed to give it to me, aren’t you.”

“I’m afraid he feels you’re not ready for your soul-part just yet.”

“Why the hell not?”

“We have to get closer to the underlying problem, I think.”

“The problem is my shitty life! The problem is I don’t have all my bloody soul!”

Laura’s breathing quickened. It struck me forcibly that telling Laura the problems I’d encountered with her guardian had only made matters worse.

“I’m not really sure what a guardian is,” she said, steadying her breathing.

“As a shaman, I think they are rarified beings on the spirit plane, usually from an Upper Realm.”

“What does mine look like?”

“I mostly see his shadow. I saw his face, briefly. He’s very grand.”

“I know why my guardian is called Raichu.” She hugged her knees. “Or rather, why I love my Raichu so much. I think he showed himself to me.”

“The … guardian?”

“Yes. I was sitting on my bed, just before I left home for the Navy, and I was holding Raichu. A sort of … brilliance came into my mind. It made me feel light, like a winter leaf … floaty.” She grinned. “Weird.”

“A nice feeling?”

“More than nice. Whole.”

“You don’t always feel whole?”

“No, but right then, I did. Just for a moment.”

“Your guardian communicated through the toy.”

“It’s the real reason I took him with me. I hoped the feeling would come again.”

“Raichu’s been looking out for you from your birth.”

“He’s kinda been on vacation, then, hasn’t he? And now he seems to be hanging on to a bit of my soul.”

“Tell me about your journey.”

“Oh, it was lovely. I love this journeying lark. I went back to the beach and the chick was there. And he told me to call him Laurie. You know, my invisible friend from when I was tiny. Is that okay?”

“Absolutely. The chick’s in charge! Did Laurie say anything else?”

“Yes! It said it was maturing, as I was, and that soon it would have all its feathers. It already had a few, on the wings.”

“Oh, good sign.”

“And then it said”—she bent over the notebook, where she had written—“‘Not until I am fully formed will you become you own self, true to what you must be.’ Does it mean when it becomes a proper hen, I’ll be cured of my attacks?”

I gave a brief smile. I sincerely hoped that.

“I wondered about going back to the night of the fire, but the drumming changed and called me back.”

“Did you want to relive the event?”

“No. I hoped it would be the scene you saw. With my soul-part under the pier. I was never under the pier on the night of the fire. No one was, not even idiots.”

I remembered the signpost, and took my queue. “I’d guess you hung out under the pier as kids.”

“Yeah, good place for playing chase games.”

“And later for first kisses.”

“I guess.”

“It might be a place where you’d come across someone up to no good.”

“I’m not saying stuff didn’t happen. Stories would go round the playground. Nothing scary ever happened to me.” She stopped, barked a laugh. “Worst I ever saw there was the little boy.”

“What little boy?”

“Nah. I’m kidding you. This boy—he must have been about eleven, twelve, I guess; older than me at that time. I was on the beach with my mum and sister and I went under the pier and there he was, peeing.”

“Peeing.”

“Yeah, against one of the uprights. One of those silly things you remember from your childhood.”

“I wonder why you remember it.”

“Well, we weren’t really a very open family, not in that way, and I don’t have any brothers, so I’d never realized until that moment that boys pee standing up.”

“That sort of image does get stuck in your mind.”

“You’re curious at seven or eight, aren’t you?”

“About men’s bodies? I still am, frankly.” We both laughed. I let a beat pass by then said, “Boyfriends certainly can be a mystery, can’t they.”

“I guess.”

“What I’m wondering is … were all your relationships good ones, Laura?”

She shrugged. “To be honest, I was a bit of late starter—in the Royal Navy at just sixteen, concentrating on all the new stuff to learn …”

“Did you leave someone behind when you joined the service?”

“No.” Her answer was so brief, I was alerted.

“You maybe had a fling … one that left bad memories.”

“No.” She looked directly at me, as people do when they are sure of a thing. “I didn’t leave someone special behind. And all my memories are good.”

“What is your relationship with your father like, Laura?”

“He’s cool. A bit under Mum’s thumb, you know? Like, it was her idea I should be admitted to the psychiatric ward and he went along with it. Turns out, even Daniel hadn’t actually suggested it. Since then, Dad’s apologized to me, and that was really good.”

She hadn’t understood the implications of my question, and now I was glad she had not. I thought about the netting I’d sensed around Laura. “Do you ever feel trapped?”

“In my life?” she asked, her eyes closed.

“In any way.”

“Since the attacks started, yes, they trap me. Stop me from doing what I want.”

I could have kicked myself. Of course Laura felt trapped. “You’ve now got quite a few shamanic symbols,” I said. “I think we should draw a web.”

I scrabbled under the desk for the roll of wallpaper I use for this process. Laura helped me weigh down a length on the laminate floor and we got going with felt tip pens, drawing our way through the things we’d seen on our journeys.

When it was complete, we connected the symbols to create a web.

“Cave,” said Laura, counting up. “Pier, fingerpost, beach, waterfall. Little Raichu and guardian Raichu. And my chick … Laurie.”

“Shadows,” I added. “Glimpses. A net. Flames. The song, ‘Shape Shifter.’”

We rolled up the paper and Laura put it under her arm.

“Pin it above your bed and see what your dreams bring this week,” I advised, as she left.

She frowned and shook her head.

“You’re not sleeping well, are you?”

“No. I keep imagining they’re coming to get me. Take me away.”

“That won’t happen, Laura. You’re not a threat to anyone.”

“Even so …” She was halfway through the door as she spoke, and her words were half lost. “It would be nice to have one full night of untroubled sleep.”