Here is a revised version of Chapter 13. I wasn't happy with the way I ended the original chapter, so I decided to make a couple of changes. I hope you all enjoy it.
Part 2: Northern Horizons
Meanwhile, as John Smith had been guiding Rose away from her hysterical mother, the man and two girls whom Jackie had met on the day of the fire were staying ten miles away at the Northern Horizons Hotel.
Once a luxurious destination for wealthy tourists from around the world in the turn of the century, financial struggles after the Second World War significantly brought down the status of Northern Horizons. It was only due to a slight boost in visitors in the early eighties (mainly middle class American tourists who wanted to be around London for the royal wedding of 1981) that it managed to become slightly successful again, and by the nineties, it was being marketed in the US and Canada as a good hotel for families who were traveling on a budget.
So that night, in one of the large rooms reserved for anyone who brought children along, eight-year-old Christine Green and six-year-old Clara Oswald sat in a large velvet-colored bed, without much to do except talk to each other.
"Do you like our trip so far, Clara?" Christine asked, wrapping herself in a Bugs Bunny blanket due to the chill in the room. She had dark, shoulder-length hair, tan skin resulting from long hours outdoors at her home in Florida, a curvy body, and wore a yellow shirt and black slacks.
"It doesn't feel like a trip to me. I've always lived around here, and we spend most of our time in the hotel anyway," Clara responded. She had long brown hair and was wearing a sweater with the design of a penguin and snowflakes. Unlike Christine, she was thin and much more fair-skinned. Sunny Florida was a place she'd only imagined being in someday.
As a matter of fact, most of their days were spend going through several pages of schoolwork, watching a bunch of boring programs on television (Christine was disappointed to see that the only channels the hotel offered showed mainly the news and cricket games), or wandering around the hotel lobby. They were supposed to be looked after by Ms. Willington, a strange woman who worked as a cashier at the café downstairs, but she would leave them alone quite often, usually to help other guests out in the hotel, but sometimes to go drink at the bar as well. Not much of a vacation for either of them.
"If you want to go on a real trip, you should come with us to Florida sometime," Christine said. "When you see Disney World and all the beaches, you'll never want to go back to London again."
"Do you really think I could?" Clara asked with a look of wonder. She always loved hearing Christine's stories about Florida, or any stories of places outside of England, for that matter. At such a young age, she already wished to see the whole world, but so far, she could never get past adventure and global books featuring pictures of top destinations and foreign animals, or movies featuring sailors and pirates on deserted islands. Some things just seemed too fun to ever happen outside of stories, was what Clara often liked saying.
"I think you will. As a matter of fact, I think you're already seeing much of the world."
"What do you mean?"
This was something Christine wasn't able to explain. During those moments when she could look through Clara's mind, she had visions of things which Clara could never recount. Among them included Clara in an old-fashioned dress, running around a shabby alley in a street which looked like what she saw in those masterpiece specials they were always showing on PBS back home. In another, she was wearing futuristic clothing and playing with toy boats and submarines in a large indoor fountain while listening to classical music.
In many others, however, she saw someone much older, always running from one dangerous mission to another. Sometimes she was running from some fat robots which looked as if they came from a science fiction movie, or guiding a group which was in need of protection from a dark force they had no idea how to get away from. In these visions, even though she would be taking charge, she always looked as if she was waiting for someone to come for her, as if she secretly felt too afraid to handle these situations on her own. Whatever the meaning behind these visions was, Christine could never tell.
"Well, I mean since you're always learning about different places and having your little adventures with someone, you're at a good start."
Clara sighed. "It's not as fun as actually traveling though."
"I know, but you just have to wait for the right moment to get going."
Soon, there was a soft knock at the door. "Girls, I'm back," a familiar voice called out.
"Coming up, Dr. Sullivan," Christine called back, and she threw her blanket on the floor and walked up to answer the door.
And in walked Dr. Harry Sullivan, now around forty-seven years old, and except for some lines around the face, he didn't look that much different from the way he was in the photo hanging in the hallway of Sarah Jane Smith's house. He smiled when he saw Christine and Clara again after spending six hours away, and the girls looked just as happy to see him.
"How was your day, girls?" he asked.
"Okay," Clara responded.
"Boring," Christine grumbled. "Ms. Willington yelled at us when we started walking around the halls, and as soon as we got back inside again, she left us alone. We had to stay here and do all the other five pages in our reading workbooks," However, she continued smiling even as she was whining.
"Well, now you don't have to worry about doing extra work tomorrow, and we can go look around some of those shops down the block," Harry replied, attempting to get her to stop pretending to sound so upset.
"And what will we do? Enjoy our last days in London looking for dolls for Clara and ugly sweaters for me? You're no fun, Doc!" Christine complained, refusing to quit.
"All right," Harry said, pretending to sound serious. "I guess it looks like another day of cold chips for all three meals and a long maths review. To top it all off, we can invite in Ms. Willington for another lecture on proper conduct." If that didn't get Christine to drop her spoiled little child act, nothing would.
"Okay, okay! You win again, Dr. Sullivan. Perhaps shopping will be nice after all; at least we'll know Clara will be having fun during her last days with us." And with that, Christine turned to the girl and asked, "Is that okay with you, Clara?"
"Sure. Mum and Dad almost never buy me any presents back home," Clara answered, settling the question for the moment. Then she said, "So, what will we be having for tea tonight?"
Harry laughed. "Of course. I almost forgot. Here it is," and he set a white paper bag with the Northern Horizons logo on the small table next to the window. There were two hamburgers, a large package of warm chips, a chocolate cake, and two red cups with tea.
The three of them sat at the table for this late dinner. Before, the girls would often eat in the bed or the floor. However, two nights before, Clara had woken up screaming because there been a spider crawling up her chest, and upon turning on the lights to check what happened, Harry had found all sorts of bugs on the carpet, all them gathered around around the crumbs they'd left behind. Housekeeping wasn't the best at Northern Horizons, so much so that there were signs posted everywhere reminding visitors to clean up after themselves, and it wasn't until then that they'd understood the reason for this.
But as the girls ate, Harry just sat there and looked quietly through the window, refusing to have anything except for the tea.
"Why aren't you eating anything, Dr. Sullivan?" Clara finally asked.
"I ate something before coming back, so I'm not hungry now," was all he said.
Christine sighed anxiously. There were times when they ate at fast food restaurants or had big meals at home in which Harry would start looking sick after eating for only a couple minutes. He would then excuse himself and spend a long time in the bathroom, always saying he'd gotten an upset stomach. Other times, he would spend hours without eating at all and yet still looked okay, sometimes better than when he'd just eaten something. Despite his insistence that he understood his condition and could control it, it still worried her.
And as with Clara, she sometimes saw vivid images from his mind as well. In them, he was also on a lot of dangerous missions, facing similar foes as Clara did (including many of the weird robots). But unlike Clara's visions, Harry wasn't usually the one taking charge during these situations. Instead, this was the job of a funny-looking man with an old brown coat and a long scarf. He was the one who usually came up with plans for getting out of danger, often by tricking his enemies, the use of devices, and even giving powerful speeches. Harry acted more as an assistant, helping him carry out his plans, offering him advise (especially when he thought the man was being too reckless), and making sure things didn't get too much out of control.
Along with Harry, there was this young woman who also acted mainly as a helping hand, but who seemed as if she understood what went on a lot more than either of the others. It appeared that she seemed to sense danger before anything started happening at all, and she was always trying to advise the strange man and Harry on what was the best course of action. Half of the time, it was because of her advice that they were able to save themselves, as well as the lives of many other people and creatures...
Harry then looked at her and said, "Christine, I'm fine. You don't have to get so worried about me all the time. Try focusing on your own thoughts for once."
Yes, he knew about the mind reading. It was the reason why she'd started seeing him in the first place. Her mother, a single parent who worked long hours as a secretary, had been so worried about her after an incident that occurred earlier that year in school, in which a boy had fallen into a coma after Christine had started detecting his thoughts. Her concern made her willing to turn to anyone for help. One of the first people she came across was Harry Sullivan, whom she discovered to be a British doctor who once worked for the government and now specialized in "unusual cases", sometimes free of charge, as he was now paid for by several universities for performing research on extra sensory perception. He had no other patients that she was aware of, and he spend the majority of his working time writing long reports on a computer. Also, when asked how he first got started on this kind of work, he refused to say a word.
Under normal circumstances, Patti Green would have been suspicious about this, but for now, she hadn't cared. What mattered to her was that Christine was now much better, taking medication which helped control those strange powers of hers. She was also being homeschooled now, since Dr. Sullivan had agreed to provide her with teach her at home after seeing what a hard time she was having in school after the incident (especially after several older students had attempted to push her down the stairs, luckily resulting in only a sprained ankle). The fact that Christine was no longer spending much time with other children her own age was the only thing that really bothered Patti about this arrangement. However, because Christine was fine with it, looking a lot happier and learning much more with this strange doctor than she had in all her previous years of regular schooling, she tried not to worry about it too much.
When Christine looked up, she noticed Clara was no longer by her side.
"Doc, where's Clara?" she asked anxiously.
Upon saying that, Harry finally broke free from his own thoughts and looked around the room. "I don't see her anywhere, Christine."
"Do you think it's happening again?"
"Perhaps," he responded, trying to sound calm, but in reality, he was feeling just as worried as Christine was. "At least we know where she'll be if..."
"Here she is again, Doc," Christine called out quietly, kneeling at the bottom of the bed. "She's doing something in there, but she doesn't seem to notice that I'm right next to her."
With that, Harry got down on the blue carpet and gestured to Christine, demanding, "Step aside, Christine. We have to let her have as much space for herself as possible."
Christine nodded and did as she was told.
And even though they tried staying as far away from her as possible, the two of them could still see the state Clara was in. Her eyes were wide open, but within just a few seconds, they turned bright red, making her look as she was possessed. There was a piece of paper and box of crayons next to her, and despite the darkness, she was drawing a perfectly clear picture.
In it, there was the same blonde girl in pink as before, but she was now leaning in front of a door, as if she was trying to prevent someone from coming out of it. On top of her head, there was what at first sight appeared to be a scribbled red fire, but upon taking a closer look it, you could make out the shape of a dog, or as Clara called it when she spoke during these episodes, the Bad Wolf.
And pretty soon, she was saying it again, using an awfully raspy voice which sounded as if she had a sore throat: "Bad wolf, Bad Wolf..."
"Are you sure we can't do anything, Doc?" Christine asked, starting to feel a little faint.
"Bad wolf," Clara went on, and the red crayon now made a sound like nails on a chalkboard as she continued scribbling.
Harry, who had his hand wrapped around Christine's shoulder to keep her from getting too scared, said very gently, "We don't understand why Clara gets like this, and you saw how she nearly hit us when I tried touching her. The best thing we can do is just leave her alone until it's over, okay? Are you going to trust me on this?"
"I think so," was all Christine could say.
At least they now knew a little about the source of the Bad Wolf. Christine had seen a clear vision of the blonde girl from Clara's drawings when she searched through the mind of that woman who was almost run over, and the image had remained there for a long time. The woman worried an awful lot about her daughter and wanted answers. These worries had reminded Christine a lot about how her own mother used to think before she started seeing Dr. Sullivan, as well as what she'd detected during the one time she saw Clara's parents (they'd desperately agreed to an extended checkup, which was why Clara had joined them throughout most of their trip to London). Could it be that the Bad Wolf girl was supposed to be just like her? Harry seemed to agree with this, but because Clara had no memory of these episodes once she regained consciousness, there was no way they could know for sure.
And then, Clara dropped the red crayon, which rolled until it reached the spot where Harry and Christine were kneeling. Her eyes lost that horrific look from before, and she was looking at the two of them in confusion.
"What just happened? How did I get here?" she asked anxiously. Her forehead was soaked with sweat, and she was trembling with fear.
"You dozed off for a moment and started sleepwalking," Harry said, giving Christine that look he always gave her when he wanted her to keep quiet about something. She only nodded in response. She would have preferred for him to tell her the truth, but as he'd already told her several times, because they didn't understand what was happening to her (the possibility of Clara having ESP was dismissed after she failed to pass the exams required to determine if someone was psychic), it was best to give her explanations which didn't cause too much confusion or distress. In some cases, especially with very young children, giving ambiguous explanations worsened their conditions instead of making them better. "How are you feeling right now, Clara?" he asked her after a while.
"I feel a little dizzy, but I think I'll be okay, " she responded in a weak voice. The trembling stopped, and a lot less scared. Harry started helping her get out of the bed, and within a minute, she was seated beside them once again, all of them feeling much better than they had been a while ago.
"Do you want to go to bed right now, or would you like to do something with Christine and me?" Harry asked her.
"I think I'd like to go to sleep," Clara answered, letting out a small yawn.
"Okay. That settles it." And then, Harry picked her up and carried her to her bed. He tucked her in with the large velvet sheets, not even asking her to change into her pajamas. After this, he stroked her hair and said, "Good night, Clara. Sleep tight, and don't let the bedbugs come back."
"Good night, Clara. Get ready for ugly sweaters and a 1999 plane ticket to Florida tomorrow," Christine called out jokingly.
Clara gave a small chuckle, and within a couple of seconds, she was fast asleep.
Harry then turned to Christine. "So, what would like to do now? Would you like to read something, or play a game downstairs? We've got two hours before we both have to get bed."
"Well, Doc, I think I'd like to..."
All of a sudden, the phone started ringing.
"Answer it, Christine. It's probably your mum."
Since seeing the future wasn't among Christine's powers, she was not prepared to hear the anxious voice of that same woman she had been thinking about a while ago upon answering.
"Are you Christine, the girl I met the other day?" was the first thing she asked upon hearing her voice, and Christine was surprised that she remembered her.
"Would you like to speak to Dr. Sullivan?" she asked in response.
There was a pause, and then the woman said, "Yes. Tell him that there's something strange going on with my daughter Rose, and that if he really works with unusual cases, then I think he might be able to help her."
