In This Skin (40 page)

    ”Surely, you're not telling us the route to heaven is through a dance floor?”

    ”No… I'm not, definitely not. And I'm not saying that we, the people who inhabit the gray forest, are sinners. That we've been condemned to rot there. No.

    Individuals there are emotionally damaged. They have suffered so much in their lives, for whatever reason- financial crisis, upbringing, bereavement, illness-that their instincts are faulty. Imagine a migratory bird that's suffered a brain injury as a chick; then we can conceive that instead of flying south as winter approaches, it might leave the flock and fly north or west or east. Or it might not feel that built-in urge to migrate at all. These people-my compatriots-are the same. We understand we should move on to the place we know of as home, but we can't. We're stuck. We're bogged down emotionally. We don't know how to continue the journey.”

    ”Wait a minute here. Wait just one minute.”Noel's slow-burn anger had started to flame. ”You're telling us that through the doorway is a kind of afterlife. But everyone we know who's gone through into that forest have been alive. What's more, Ellery Benedict and Robyn- and you, Nathaniel-have returned. You're not ghosts, so don't give me that heaven and hell stuff.”

    ”No. It's more complex than that.”Nathaniel still maintained the calm voice, concerned that they understand him.

    ”I figured it would be.”Noel scowled.

    ”I used those references to other planes of existence because they were terms of reference we are familiar with. For years now, physicists have been talking about other dimensions beyond our three dimensions. Before the universe was formed, science tells us that there were many more dimensions. Astronomers talk about black holes, where time and space are distorted by huge gravitational tides. If anything, science is only now beginning to explain, in technical terms, what men and women for twenty thousand years have known intuitively ”That there are invisible worlds running parallel to this one.”Benedict nodded. ”You'd be hard-pushed to find an ancient culture that didn't have myths and legends relating to some otherworldly paradise or dark nether region where the damned suffered for all eternity.”

    ”And, furthermore,”Nathaniel added, ”these alternative realms were often home to gods, angels or a whole zoo of supernatural creatures-dragons, ghosts, goblins, demons, genii, giants, chimera-”

    ”Okay. Okay.”Noel rubbed his jaw. ”Supposing there are these other worlds-”

    ”There are an infinite number,”Nathaniel held up a finger. ”The dance floor is a route to just one.”

    ”Okay, the gray forest is part of another world. The Luxor dance floor holds some here-today-gone-tomorrow doorway. I'll go along with that.”Noel clenched his fist on the table. ”But why are some people lured here thinking this is the way home? And why do perfectly regular people, who find themselves stranded there, become… well, changed? Reconfigured?”

    Nathaniel rested his fingertips together. ”I could sit here for the next six months and explain. But still I wouldn't have explained it all. It is complex. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors mated with visitors from these alternate worlds who either by accident or design entered the world we know as earth. You might have inherited their genetic material.

    This has been passed down from parent to child for hundreds of generations. And this genetic material does not degrade or corrupt. You, Noel, have dark hair with a kink at the crown. I daresay your father has the same kink and so does your grandfather. The genes you carry have programmed that kink in your hair. If you could travel back ten thousand years you'd probably find your ancestor had that same identical kink.

    Robyn, here, has almond-shaped eyes that hint at Asian ancestry.

    However, she might trace her family history back to Ireland, say, or Italy for hundreds of years, but what she doesn't know is that her ancient ancestors might have migrated from the Indian subcontinent to Europe five thousand years ago. And yet the almond-shape trait remains.”

    ”And how does this tie in with my Cro-Magnon great, great, zillion great-grandmammy making whoopee with one of these world-next-door guys?”

    ”Because it means you would still contain a certain amount of genetic material in your body from your otherworld ancestor. And just as that genetic material dictates hair color, or the shape of your nose, or even if you're predisposed to premature deafness, male pattern baldness, or some other condition that develops later in life, then it also implants into you certain instinctive behavior.”

    Robyn began to understand. ”So if you carry this otherworld gene, it might give you this overriding impulse to return to the world you were born in?”

    Nathaniel's eyes lit up with delight at getting his point through.

    ”Exactly. Just like salmon are genetically programmed to return to mate in the river where they were spawned. And just like how Canadian geese have the instructions to migrate etched in their very cells, so certain men and women who carry the otherworld gene find their desire to return to the world of their ancestors is triggered at times of stress or during serious illness. It's an instinct for self-preservation. If you're threatened in some way, the imperative surfaces to return home.

    You follow?”

    They nodded. Even Noel added, ”And this is a mysterious process? Like salmon know how to navigate across thousands of miles of ocean to reach one particular river, so these people who get the buzz to return home know, somehow, to come to the Luxor.”

    ”Absolutely. Zoologists believe salmon can navigate using the earth's magnetic field. Something similar must happen to the individuals whose instinct guides them here.”

    ”But you still haven't pulled all the strands together'' Robyn said.

    ”Okay we now know some carry The Place gene, for want of a better description… that they come here, go through the portal on the dance floor, and home in on that city on the hill. And we know that certain individuals are emotionally damaged, their inner guidance system fails, so they are stranded in the forest…”

    ”Where they become monsterized, if you will excuse the ugly phrase,”Benedict interjected.

    Robyn continued, barely missing a beat. ”And they are reshaped by powerful forces. But why-oh-why, Nathaniel, am I here? Tell me, how do I fit into this?”

    ”A number of people are natural-born healers.”Nathaniel found it hard to make eye contact with her again. ”Just like the people who instinctively need to lead others, or aspire to become artists, there are others who are drawn to heal the sick or care for the disadvantaged.”He took a deep breath. ”In the forest there is a powerful energy that flows through the fabric of the world there. It nourishes all forms of life. People like me don't need to eat. Only there's a malignant quality to the energy. It scrambles the genes that govern anatomical growth. While it means that injuries heal fast there, miraculously fast, it also reconfigures the men and women who are stranded in the forest. They won't go hungry, they won't get sick, they won't die of old age. But they exchange human frailty for a monstrous robustness.”

    ”That's evil,”Noel breathed. ”The poor devils.”

    ”Almost like purgatory.”Benedict gave a grim smile. ”And those monsterized men and women are like souls in purgatory being spiritually cleansed through suffering.”

    Nathaniel allowed the comparison with a nod. ”There is suffering and torment beyond comprehension. Those individuals you called the Skinners, Benedict, have been driven insane by decades of pain resulting from a mutant redevelopment that dissolves bone mass before forming new skeletal structure and abnormal tissue growth.”He shrugged. ”It hurts.

    And the Skinners have reached the schizoid conclusion that if they wear the skin of someone from this world, it will heal them.”

    Benedict said, ”So if an individual who is a genetic healer enters the gray forest, then there's a chance they can actually remedy the physical damage.”

    ”A healer is far more powerful than that. He or she can heal the emotional wounds that stranded those men and women in the first place.

    The instinctual guidance system will be repaired and they can continue on to the land of their genetic ancestors.”

    Robyn saw the four people at the table turn to look at her.

    ”So.”She forced a weak smile. ”This is the reason why I'm here. I possess the healing gene.”

    ”You do carry the gene.”Nathaniel's voice softened. ”But no, you're not the healer, Robyn. The child you now carry is the healer.”

    ”I'm sorry,”she said. ”Then you have a long wait.”

    He gave a small shake of his head. ”That is why I had to cross over to your world. I'm here to tell you, Robyn, that your child will be born tonight.”

    

    

    Robyn Vincent recoiled from the words as if they'd been stones hurled into her face. I'm here to tell you, Robyn, that your child will be born tonight. Standing, she backed away from the creature that owned a blue-white skin and hands for feet. With a savagery that blazed through every nerve, the words reverberated in her head. I'm here to tell you, Robyn, that your child will be born tonight.

    ”No. I don't believe you.”She looked from Nathaniel to Ellery, Benedict, Noel. ”It's not true, is it?”she appealed. ”That's not possible.”

    The expressions of the three men were as compassionate, yet as helpless, as a family gathering around the bed of a terminally ill relative.

    ”Benedict, you know it's impossible for a woman to go full-term in days.”She pressed her hands against her stomach. ”This baby won't be born until the end of the year. It takes nine months,”she insisted.

    ”Nine months. The baby was conceived just a few days ago. Isn't that right, Noel?”

    He looked up, feeling for her, but helpless.

    Ellery said, ”Please sit down, Robyn. If Nathaniel says it will happen…”

    She stared at Ellery in horror. ”You believe him?”She turned to the man she loved. ”Noel?”

    Noel doubted everything that Nathaniel had told them. He wouldn't swallow that, surely. Not the ridiculous notion that a woman could fall pregnant one week, then give birth the next. Noel would never ever accept that in a hundred years… only she saw the expression on his face: horror struck through with fascination. ”Noel, you believe it, too, don't you?”She pressed her hands harder to her stomach, her fingers splayed, as if they'd become the bars of a cage, keeping in what desired with all its otherworldly heart to break out.

    Benedict said, ”We'll look after you, don't worry”

    ”Don't worry? Don't worry!”She looked from face to face. They blurred as her eyes skated from one anxious expression to another. ”Don't worry. Of course I'm damn well worried. I'm terrified. I'm so scared I could kill myself!”She looked down at her stomach as a surge of fluttery movements erupted. ”Oh my God. What have I got inside of myself? Nathaniel. It's not human, is it?”

    Nathaniel looked at her with those wise eyes that could have been a thousand years old. He'd seen so much. He knew too much. At least more than he found easy to live with. Then he told her something that rocked her backward.

    She knew she'd remember the words for as long as she was given life on this earth.

    Gently, he said: ”The child you carry was not conceived in the normal way. Your body responded to the needs of all those damaged people in my world. Something inside of you willed the fertilization of the egg.”

    Robyn fumbled back to the chair, sat down with her arms on the table taking her weight before she fell down. Heart beating, short of breath, mouth dry; the room tilted as vertigo threatened to overwhelm her.

    ”You carry that otherworld gene,” Nathaniel told her. ”Those that do can sense it in others. If you meet someone with the same gene, you feel a kinship with them even though they might be strangers. You wonder if you've known them before in the past.”

    Robyn managed to raise her head to meet Ellery's eye. Yes, that's why she'd felt that lightning flash of recognition when she first met Ellery. From his expression he knew it, too.

    Nathaniel continued, ”That otherworld gene also permits your body the ability to function in a different way from those who don't carry it.”

    ”Such as spontaneous conception?” she said, her voice strained.

    Nathaniel nodded. ”But believe this, Robyn. We will take care of you. Just as Mariah was sent here to guard you.”

    Benedict frowned. ”I could swear that Mariah was attacking Robyn the first time I saw her.”

    ”Mariah was saving her from being attacked by those unfortunates in the wood. Most have been driven to insanity, they're so desperate to be rid of their pain. They will have sensed that Robyn here was carrying a child who will heal them. In their desperation…” He shrugged, grimacing.

    ”You mean they would have torn her apart to get at the unborn child?” A look of absolute horror took possession of Noel's face.

    Nathaniel gave a regretful shrug. ”As I say, their desperation for a savior has shattered their logic. They have the capacity to do terrible things. But it isn't their fault.”

    Noel stood. ”We've got to get out of here.”

    ”That's not possible.”

    ”For one, we need to take Robyn to a hospital.”

    ”I repeat: not possible”Nathaniel told him. ”She must have the baby here.”

    ”No, way, buddy. Robyn and I are leaving.”

    Nathaniel didn't move. His solid presence even more statue-like. ”Noel. Robyn will die if you try to remove her from the building.”

    ”That's true”she said as certainty gripped her. ”The same force that drove me here won't let me leave. Not until it's over.”