Household Gods

Nicole’s dreams were muddy, confused. Sometimes she was in Carnuntum, but no one could see or hear her; she ran here and there, trying to get Julia to listen, then Gaius Calidius Severus, then – and by this she knew it was a dream – Titus Calidius Severus. He smiled at her and said, “Welcome back among the dead, Umma.”

Then she was in West Hills, trying to get a much younger Justin to eat his prunes, but Kimberley kept tugging at her to go and feed the “other baby,” except it wasn’t a baby, it was Lucius in a blue bunny bib and a toga.

She woke with a start, suddenly and fully aware, and grimly determined not to open her eyes. There was light beyond her eyelids, she couldn’t escape that. And – she breathed deep. Nothing. No complex reek of Roman city.

Her eyes opened. She was in West Hills Medical Center, in the bed in which she’d fallen asleep. Had anyone ever been so happy to wake up in a hospital?

Reality came crashing in as soon as she sat up and set the heart monitor off again. There was breakfast, sponge-bath – though she could perfectly well have bathed herself, they weren’t letting her – and, when she was cleaner, even by this sketchy method, than she had been in a year and a half in Carnuntum, a nurse with the stack of paperwork. The deductibles were going to strain her to the limit, but just then she didn’t care. She’d manage. And Frank, she thought with a slow smile, was going to help. It was time he paid up.

After paperwork came more tests, and more frustration for Dr. Feldman. There wasn’t one anomalous thing anywhere, no matter how often she repeated her tests, or how many variations she tried. At last she flung up her hands and sent Nicole back to her room. “Ms. Gunther-Perrin,” she said as the nurse settled Nicole in the obligatory and unnecessary wheelchair, “even now we have much less knowledge of the brain and its functions than I wish we did.”

What about the functions of the brain under the influence of two Roman gods? Nicole thought. But she nodded, and held her tongue.

That afternoon, faced with a wasteland of TV soap operas, Nicole determined to give herself a gift she’d yearned for since the day she arrived in Carnuntum. After consulting with Dr. Feldman, the nurses let her get away with it.

She took a long, hot, wonderful shower. With soap. And shampoo. And towels that, while not exactly luxurious, were thick enough and soft enough to be a pleasure on her clean skin. It was an almost orgasmic delight to be so clean. Her body still felt strange, as if it didn’t quite fit. Its skin was too pale, its middle too thick and soft. And yet there wasn’t a louse or a fleabite on it. For that alone she loved it.

Then, when she’d showered, she rummaged in the bag Frank had sent and found the little blow dryer she’d bought a long time ago for traveling – and a small makeup kit that had to be Dawn’s contribution; she couldn’t imagine Frank thinking of such a thing.

It was a brand-new Nicole Gunther-Perrin who came out of the steamy bathroom and settled again in the bed. She was more than ready for her dinner. And when, after the tray had been taken away, Dr. Feldman appeared in the doorway, Nicole greeted her almost happily.

The doctor’s expression was as sour as ever. She wasn’t at all pleased to say, “I can’t see any valid medical reason for keeping you here past tomorrow morning. You are, as far as any test can determine, perfectly normal and healthy. I wish I could tell you if your syndrome will recur, but I can’t.”

Nicole bit her tongue. She could guarantee a longer stay by telling the doctor exactly what, as far as she could tell, had happened to her during those six days. For that matter, she could talk herself right into a nice long stay in a padded cell.

No, thank you. “We’ll just have to hope it was a one-time thing, won’t we?” she said.

“Hope is just about as much as we’ve got,” Dr. Feldman said. “I’d like to see you in my office next week – it’s right across the street.” She handed Nicole a business card. “Call and make an appointment, and I’ll see you then.”

“I’ll do that,” Nicole said. She meant it. If, as she was increasingly convinced, she really had traveled in time by the offices of a pair of antique gods, it wasn’t bloody likely she’d ever do it again. But if it kept the doctor happy, and if it made her look like a normal, baffled, honestly concerned victim of an unknown syndrome, then she’d do it and welcome it.

“Please do come and see me,” the doctor said. “Just because I can’t find anything now doesn’t mean nothing happened. People don’t lose consciousness for six days for no reason at all.”

“Yes,” Nicole said. “I understand. It’s like when the car is acting up, and you take it to the mechanic and it’s working just fine.”

“Just like that,” Dr. Feldman said with the flicker of a smile.