Part 8: Working Things Out

Savannah is perking up by the time the French toast is ready. She's still lazing in the bed, still a little peaky, but she's awake, and she's batting around her monkey and watching him with a smile.

"You and Aunt Sarah worked things out," she says.

"I guess we did. You feel like eating again?"

"Maybe. Is Aunt Sarah making pancakes? She always makes me pancakes when I feel like this."

"She does, does she?" This resilience amazes him. She has already assimilated them into her life and worked them into the fabric of her history. Perhaps he is worrying too much about the effects these events are having on her innocence.

"Would you like to play a game, Savannah?"

"Okay. What kind of game?"

"Pretend I am a stranger, and I'm trying to get to know you better."

"I'm not supposed to tell things about myself to strangers."

"It's a game, Savannah."

"And you're not a stranger anyway. You're Uncle James!"

"Okay. Not a stranger. Maybe...maybe you're in school, and it's your first day."

"Okay."

"So I'm there, and I see you, and I come over. Oh, you're new!"

"Yes," Savannah says. "It's my first day. Pleased to meet you."

"I don't think I've seen you here before. Did you just move here?"

"Yes!"

"Where from?"

"Los Angeles."

"That's a great place to live. Why did you move here?"

"My dad died and then my mom had an accident and went away. I live with Aunt Sarah and Uncle James now."

As close to the truth as we can, he remembers Sarah saying. She's right again. And there is God one more time, telling him that this innocence he has been entrusted with is not in as much danger of being destroyed as he has feared.

--

When the day catches up to him, he sleeps, and for once, he dreams.

He is in a wasteland. There must have been fire, although it's burnt out by now, because the air around him is dry and laced with a whiff of charcoal. There are body parts everywhere, but he sees at a glance that they aren't human ones. Some are bare exoskeleton, a mere cartoon of a hand, a foot, a head. Some have human-like camouflage, but bits of metal joint and sparking wire poke out. There is blood, too, but he can't tell where it came from or who might have left it there.

He starts walking, and soon, he finds himself at the ruins of what looks to be a castle. There is a drawbridge nearly finished swinging down. Catherine Weaver strides atop it, and she is working mightily to force it into place. She has sprouted extra hands for leverage, and is grunting impressively.

Beneath the drawbridge, two men hold back the door through sheer force of will, the edges of the frame beating down on bare, chain-whipped backs. One of the men is Derek Reese. The other he does not recognize, although he senses a family resemblance among the two.

Catherine sees him, stops pushing for a moment. "Evening, James!"

"Ms. Weaver."

"Oh, come on. We're in this together now, aren't we? You're as stuck in this as those Reese boys are. The least you can do is call me Catherine."

"That's not really who you are."

"Very well. Call me John Henry, if you like. The label doesn't much matter at this point, does it?"

He pokes his head under the drawbridge, addresses the men. "You two need a hand down there?"

"We got it," Derek says.

"Little late anyway," says the other. "We're all set up already."

"Managed to keep them back so far," Derek adds. "Which is more than we can say for you."

"Run along now," says the other one. "If you break our focus, she'll break through, and then who knows what will happen?"

"They'll come through," Derek says. "Obviously. They'll come through. "And we all know what that means."

"You know," the other one says. "Some people say they'll come through anyway. Can't keep them back forever...but we've managed so far."

"We've managed because we have a system," Derek says. "We stay just like this. We do just these things. We fight just this fight. And we keep the door from opening. Minute by minute, we keep it exactly this way."

"But what if you could take the door out of the equation?" he wonders.

Derek falters for the tiniest second, and Catherine, on top of him, grows an extra hand and pushes down with a mighty growl. Derek winces, cries out, and kicks out a foot to steady himself. The two of them re-stabilize after a moment, but the door is slightly further lower than it was before.

"Now, look what you've done," Derek complains.

"But what did you mean?" the other one says. "What did you mean, take out the door from things?"

"Well, a door can open. But a wall is solid. A wall would keep them out. You build a wall around the door, and it doesn't matter if they open it or keep it shut. They still can't get you."

"Interesting," the man says. "That's interesting. But we haven't got anyone to build a wall, have we? We've used up everyone we've got on holding back the door..."

"But a wall would be so much more efficient," he says. "You wouldn't have to watch the door so hard anymore."

Catherine and her many hands press down again, and both men scream in agony.

"Buddy, when will you learn?" grits Derek. "You always have to watch the door."

They vanish, in a flurry of struggling noises that will haunt him into awakeness. To his surprise, Catherine immediately stops pushing, melts the extra hands back into herself, and hops down.

"Well," she says, surveying the ruins with displeasure. "Who is going to push me now?"

--

There are tiny fingers shaking him awake. "Uncle James! Uncle James!"

He blinks, shakes off the nightmare. "Savannah?"

"I feel much better now," she says, smiling. "I want breakfast."

"Breakfast? Is it morning already?"

"Yes. And Aunt Sarah ate the leftover French toast before she went out. Can you make me some?"

"Wait a second," he says. "Aunt Sarah went out? When? Why?"

"She was putting her boots on just when Mr. Fur was waking me." Savannah smiles again. "I'm glad she's better now too."

He has his doubts about this, but he lets that ride. "Did she say where she was going?"

But he hears her, even as he is saying it. There is a tree just outside the kitchen window, and she's slung some sort of boxing bag from it and is pummeling it within an inch of his life. He moves Savannah away so she doesn't see it.

"I'll be back in a minute," he says.

"But Uncle James, I'm hungry!"

She looks at him, and she's so small and sweet and innocent, and she's been sick. How can he say no? But out there, that---how can he say not to that either?

--

He makes her the breakfast. But he leaves her inside while she eats, and settles himself on the hardscrabble porch step, halfway between the two of them. For a moment, he wants to rush in, be the saviour, stop this all before somebody gets hurt. But he gets caught up in Sarah's workout after awhile. He had chalked up her little flu bug as much to stress response as anything, and he knows she is grieving John's absence. But there isn't just sadness here. He sees power in her form when she's throwing punches. He sees strength in the way she braces her core before she kicks. And underneath the sadness, he senses unbearable anger too, and it's why it took the fugue state of the fever to wedge the rest of it up to the surface.

He can reach her, on this level. Fighting, he can do. Of course, he has had training in this sort of thing. But he is not sure this is the way to move forward---to kick, to strike, to fight. To only react. He is not sure anger is fuel enough for what they need to do, and he can't get John's message out of his head. God is not as far away as you think he is. This, he is sure, is the key. This is the reality that those cyborgs of hers can never reach them on. He is sure that if he can bring this to their lives somehow, it will give them strength. It will give them peace. And yes, in the end, it will give them a weapon.