CHAPTER FOUR

DOUBLE TROUBLE

If he still had wings, he’d have shot to the ceiling. But arms and feet just froze, his eyes wide, mouth working at some word to sum up his terror.

“Ugh,” was the best he could do.

“You know,” said Sky from the bed, “I’ve encountered some serious weirdness lately. But meeting myself in a dream has to be the weirdest.”

“You—you—you think this is a dream?” stuttered Sky, staring down.

Sky lifted his head from the pillow, nodded. “Of course. When the Fetch is traveling, everything happens as if in a dream. And just like when you are in a dream, you don’t know it’s one. You think this bizarre stuff is actually happening! Until you wake up. But when Fetch and body re-unite, dream becomes reality. The experiences become mine. The memories…” He bit his lip. “Except right now I’m dreaming that my Fetch can’t get back. Dreaming everything, right up to…well, this conversation.” He smiled. “Still dreaming! But why am I telling you this? You already know.”

“Except you…um, I…” He stopped. He stopped? Was he he anymore? Did Sky on the bed take over as…Sky? And how was he going to break this news? You never wake up someone who’s sleepwalking. Just as you must never disturb the body when the Fetch is gone. What would happen to Sky, lying in the bed, when he realized that this wasn’t a dream? But what choice did he—did they?—Oh, bollocks!—have?

“Um, listen,” Sky—he’d have to keep thinking of himself as that until some better alternative came along!—said. “I think there’s something you need to know.”

“Ah, good!” said Sky, propping himself up on his elbows. “A message from a dream! When I wake up I’ll be able to analyze it for meaning.” He frowned. “It’s not going to be too symbolic, is it?”

“No,” Sky replied. “It’s fairly simple, actually.” He took a breath. “You remember that day just before you discovered the runestones, how you went to school and you—”

“Went ‘Vardogr’?” Sky nodded. “My pen was warm on my desk. People had seen me. Except it was my bodily Fetch they saw. The first time it—I!—you!!—walked. I think…I think I saw me too.” He shuddered. “Only for a moment, thank God.”

“Well,” said Sky, leaning down to the bed. “This is a bit like that.”

“How do you mean?”

“I am not in a dream. I am your Fetch.”

The patient paled. “You mean, all the stuff I think I’ve been dreaming has happened—is happening?”

“Yes.”

He looked wildly around. “This hospital is…real?”

“Yes.”

Sky looked up. “Bloody hell!”

Sky looked down. “I think that’s putting it mildly.”

They both laughed—an identical laugh, cut off at the exact same moment they realized it was identical. “What the hell are we going to do?” whispered Sky from the bed. “If you don’t—I don’t—we don’t—”

“Exactly. I’ve got to…” Sky stared down. How to re-enter? Re-unite? “I’ve never done it when I’ve been awake.”

“Well, obviously neither have I.”

Sky could feel his heart pounding. And judging from the increased beeping of the heart monitor, Sky’s was too. And that was ridiculous! He couldn’t keep thinking of himself as two people. They had to be one. No, dammit, he had to be one.

He reached for the hand again. It gripped his, and he suddenly thought it the strangest sensation he’d ever had in a life of strange sensations.

“We can do this,” gasped Sky from the bed. “The one quiet moment?”

They closed their eyes. Hands locked, they both breathed. Then both heard the footsteps in the hall.

Eyes shot open. “Hide,” yelped Sky.

“Which one of us?”

“You. The Fetch! I’m”—he raised the arm that had the drip—“hooked up.”

As the door opened, Sky dived under the bed.

Kristin rushed in. “I sneaked away. The old toilet excuse.” She came across to the bed, took Sky’s hand. “You did it! Yeah!”

“Um,” said Sky, extracting his hand. “No.”

“What do you mean, no?” mocked Kristin.

“He means this,” said Sky, sliding out from under the bed.

It took a moment, as she stared at the two of them, before she found the breath to scream.

“Shh!” they both hissed. Too late.

Just before the door burst open, Sky flicked the sheets so they hung halfway down to the floor, a little concealment for the open side, the other blocked by the drip.

“What’s going on here?” It was the voice of the nurse, the one who’d been so suspicious of Kristin. She was no less so now. “What are you doing there? Why did you scream?”

“His eyes were open when I came in. He was staring, it…it made me jump!”

The nurse came over to the bedside. “Sometimes coma patients have involuntary reflexes.” She lifted Sky’s eyelids. Somehow, he managed to keep his eyes glazed, rolled over. “Hmm! Nothing stirring.” She lowered them, then leaned down and suddenly bellowed, “Sky!”

He didn’t open his eyes, but he jumped. “Now, that’s a positive sign. I’ll go fetch the doctor.”

With a glare at Kristin, she left. Sky’s eyes opened. “‘Fetch the doctor’?” he said.

“I know!” laughed Kristin. Then Sky slid out from under the bed, and she leapt back. “Oh my God, that’s too weird. Don’t do that!” She’d glanced down and now looked rapidly away. “And do you think you could…uh”—she gestured, eyes averted—“cover yourself up?”

Sky scrambled up. There was a towel hanging beneath the sink. He grabbed it, wrapped it round his waist. The panic he’d tried to force down was bubbling up again. “What are we going to do?”

On the bed, Sky’s face was a mirror of fear. “They’ll be back here soon, sticking pins in my feet again, shouting.” He swallowed. “I won’t be able to pretend I’m in a coma for long.”

“But if you ‘wake up,’ we’ll never get rid of Mum and Dad. There’ll be questions….”

On the bed, Sky swallowed. “I don’t think we have a choice.”

Sky leaned over him. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Probably.”

They said it together.

“Run!”

Sky went to the door as Sky unhooked himself from the drip. “Oh, great!” said Kristin when he stood up. She waved at him, and he tried to pull the hospital gown around to cover himself. But of course that only exposed his front.

“Oh, never mind!” she said. “I’ll just have to put up with a naked cousin…two naked cousins!”

From the door, Sky called, “Corridor’s empty. We better move.”

Kristin was looking at them both again. “We’ll not get far with you two…undressed like that.” She pointed at the bed. “That’s on wheels. You”—she snapped her fingers at Sky by the bed—“take the brake off and get in. You”—she gestured at the other Sky—“prop the door open, then get in too.”

“But—”

“Now!” she yelled. “Unless you fancy explaining how you’ve…cloned yourself to your parents!”

At the bed, Sky unhooked the brake, then climbed in. At the door, Sky propped it open, then went back and climbed into the bed as well.

“One of you get under the sheets, will you?”

One of them did. Kristin got behind the bed, strained. “One of you needs to diet,” she grunted, bending lower to heave.

The bed lurched forward. She banged into both door frames before she got it out. Turning left, they trundled down the corridor. Behind them they could all hear the beeping sound of a door code being punched in. They were just swinging around the corner when the door opened and they heard Sky’s mother saying, “But it could be a good sign, doctor, couldn’t it?”

At the end of the corridor was an elevator. The door was just sliding shut. “Hold that, please,” said Kristin crisply. A West Indian man in an orderly’s coat held the door, which slid back. “Thank you.”

The door was just closing again when the screaming began. “Man! What is that?” the man said, reaching for the buttons.

Kristin’s hand intercepted his, slapping it lightly. “Sorry,” she said. “But this is an emergency.”

The door shut, cutting off the tumult. The first-floor button was lit. Kristin reached forward and pressed “B.”

“An emergency…in the basement?” the man queried.

“Didn’t you hear?” said Kristin with a slight smile. “The new isolation unit’s down there. Only for incredibly contagious patients.”

The floor bell dinged, and the man left fast without another word. “Sorry,” said Kristin, spreading herself to stop someone boarding. “Occupied.”

The door closed. The elevator plunged on. “She’s very forceful, isn’t she?” Sky whispered from beneath the sheet.

“You should see her as a lynx,” came the reply from above.

“Shh!” Kristin hissed, just as the elevator stopped. The door opened, and she nudged the trolley into the basement. “No one,” she said, peering. She steered out into the corridor, managed a corner with difficulty.

“Where now?” Sky asked. But his words were lost in the sudden blaring of the alarm bell.

“I wonder what that’s for?” shouted Kristin. “As if I didn’t know.”

They all heard footsteps running nearby. A man called, “I’ll get onto the front desk.”

Kristin took a turn down another corridor, this one worse lit, with older wooden shelves piled with dusty equipment, followed by several rooms whose walls were made of meshed metal. “Aha!” she said, jerking the trolley to a stop. “Sky!”

“Yes?” they both replied.

“Hop off and open that door!”

They both began to slide off. Each stopped when he saw the other move. “Which one?” they said together.

“You, Sky…no, you, Sky! Ach!” she grunted. “This is so confusing.”

One Sky raised his hand. “Why don’t I be ‘Body-Sky’? Since I was the one in the hospital? So you’ll be—”

“Fetch-Sky!”

“Agreed. Now, one of you…move!”

Fetch-Sky raised a hand, slid off the bed. But as soon as he stood, his knees gave out from under him, and he had to catch himself on the rail of the bed. “I’m not doing so good,” he muttered.

“Nor me,” said Body-Sky. He stood slowly, also holding tight, facing his Fetch. “Maybe if we both…”

Two of Sky’s hands reached forward, one from each body. Together, they grasped the handle, pushed it down. The door swung in, and they stumbled into the room. Kristin pushed the trolley between them, knocking over some cans that rolled away along the floor. Then, as she flicked a light switch, they let the door slam shut.