A Vision of Fire

“You’ve been told a lie,” Caitlin said. “Bayarmii, you will ascend through your own private prayer. This ritual — what you’re doing now, the cazh—it’s something else. Please, let go.”

The girl looked around. “I can’t!” Her face was twisted, tortured, terrified.

Then there was silence. Maanik’s bedroom began to waver back into Caitlin’s vision.

“Bayarmii?” There was no response. Then, hopefully, Caitlin looked at the girl standing before her and said, “Maanik?”

“Yes,” Maanik said, trembling.

Caitlin knew that something was still terribly wrong — the bedroom would not steady around them. The other place was still flashing in and through it.

“Maanik, do you understand what Bayarmii said?”

“Yes.” Maanik was shaking hard. Caitlin took her hands again. “She’s not letting go of me, though,” Maanik said. “She’s so scared. She wants to come with me.”

“You must tell her no.”

“But… she says she’ll die if she remains. She says she has to come with me!”

She is already dead, Caitlin wanted to tell her. “Maanik, Bayarmii is very frightened and very confused but that’s not your responsibility. It’s not your job.” Caitlin held her hands tightly as words spilled out of her. “Just like it wasn’t your job to save your father. That was up to the bodyguard and he did it, he protected your papa.” Maanik was weeping again. “You did what you were supposed to do. You kept yourself safe and that’s exactly what you have to do here. You have to tell her no. Helping her is my job, and I will do it. But you have to come back to me first.”

Maanik shuddered, sobbing.

“Listen to me. Your parents love you. Stay here for them and stay here for you.”

“I can’t,” she choked out, trying to pull her hands away.

Caitlin held fast. “You can. Listen to my voice. Follow it.”

“I’m lost—”

“You’re here, with me, with your family, your mother and your father who love you dearly.”

“Papa…”

“That’s it,” Caitlin encouraged her.

“Papa… papa… papa!”

CHAPTER 32

Maanik’s final cry seemed to empty her. She collapsed and then they were both on the floor. The bedroom stabilized around them and the other place disappeared. Caitlin put her arms around Maanik and held on to her tightly as the girl wept into her neck. Caitlin could see the Pawars standing behind Ben, tears coursing down their faces. Caitlin beckoned them with a nod and then moved aside so the family could fall into each other’s arms.

“Is she…?” the ambassador asked.

“For the moment,” Caitlin told him. “But we’re not done. You must keep her here.”

“Of course.”

“No, I mean here in this time and place,” Caitlin said. “I’m sorry, I don’t have time to explain more fully.”

She instructed the ambassador to help his daughter to stand, then led the family back to the living room and had Maanik lie down on the couch again. She placed the ambassador’s right hand on his daughter’s left. “Don’t let go of this hand. Talk to her — about anything, it doesn’t matter. Send good energy through your right hand and she’ll absorb it through her left. Hopefully she’ll keep shifting any bad energy out through her right.”

The ambassador was confused but he didn’t move his hand, and Caitlin quickly walked over to Ben. “I have to find a way to make this permanent.”

“How?”

But Caitlin was already hurrying away. “Mrs. Pawar, please get Jack London and keep him with Maanik, close. I believe that will help. And would you mind if I borrowed something from your kitchen?”

Mrs. Pawar nodded and Caitlin searched through the kitchen cabinets until she found what she was looking for: jasmine tea.

“Ben, can you come with me?” Caitlin asked. “I need your help.”

“Of course,” he said, moving to her side.

As they returned to the living room Ambassador Pawar asked, “Where are you going, Dr. O’Hara?”

“Not too far,” Caitlin said evasively. “Does Maanik’s bedroom door lock?”

“Not from the outside.”

“All right, can you please figure out how to obstruct the door, maybe with furniture or duct tape, or both? But make sure someone is always holding Maanik’s left hand.”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “And if the flames start again?”

“If it comes to that, do what your wife did last time and put her in the shower. But Maanik should sleep now and hopefully I’ll be back soon.”

The ambassador nodded wearily but with a grateful look in his eyes.

As Caitlin and Ben walked briskly to the door, Caitlin asked, “Do you feel it, smell it?”

“Faintly,” he replied. “I mean, there was a fire—”

“No,” Caitlin shook her head. “Death.”

“Jesus — no, Cai.”

Caitlin did not bother to elaborate. She and the other place were still joined, somehow; the dead and dying were not far away.

Waiting for the elevator, Caitlin pushed the tin of tea into Ben’s hands. “If I start to disappear or burn or god knows what, and you want to bring me back, open this and hold it under my nose.”

“Mystic smelling salts?” he asked, sincerely confused.

“It’s a little more aggressive than that,” she said. “This is my ‘blackberries,’ a connection to a place that made a strong impression in the present.”