A Vision of Fire

Alone with the girl, Caitlin experienced another chill. The isolation and dread she had felt in the hallway seemed magnified here. There were no street sounds, no hovering air traffic anywhere near the United Nations, no sense of the time of day, no fresh air. She realized, though, that she might be responding to more than the environment and the girl’s condition. Politically, what happened here would radiate in all directions, affect countless lives. There was no room for mistakes.

Good thing you never make any, she needled herself, thinking back to her conversation with Director Qanooni.

Maanik continued to sleep, her breathing shallow, her pulse at the low end of normal but not a cause for alarm. Her skin was cool but not cold. Caitlin asked for a thermometer; her temperature was normal. She checked for bruises on her neck, felt her scalp for abrasions or any sign of concussion.

When the housekeeper returned, Caitlin removed Maanik’s bandages, then soaked several cotton pads with the oregano oil and gave them to Mrs. Pawar to hold ready. She picked up the girl’s right arm with a gentle hand, held a soaked pad over one of the wounds, then wiped down gently but firmly to the wrist.

There was no reaction from Maanik. Her forearm twitched, but the girl’s eyes did not even move behind her eyelids.

“My poor girl,” Mrs. Pawar said.

Caitlin was concerned, not by the cuts, which were fairly superficial, but by the near-complete lack of response. This was not a normal slumber or the common numbness and disconnection that arose from an unexpected emotional event. She dropped the cotton pad and, taking Maanik’s hand, applied sharp pressure to the nail bed of Maanik’s pinky, trying to gauge her level of consciousness. The girl did not react. Caitlin pulled up the girl’s left eyelid and the pupil immediately began to dilate.

That’s strange, Caitlin thought. There’s no light here—

“Help!” The girl screamed and bolted upright.

CHAPTER 3

Cries of terror seemed to explode from deep in Maanik’s chest. Caitlin jolted back, giving the girl room to move but holding firmly to her wrists. Maanik was trying to scrape at her forearms while flinging her body back and forth on the bed.

“Maanik!” Caitlin called.

“Maanik!” Mrs. Pawar repeated from a corner of the room. “Ise banda!

”

But the girl did not stop. She shook her head back and forth, not in resistance but in what seemed like rage. Caitlin wasn’t sure she was even hearing them.

Releasing Maanik’s wrists, she pressed her palms on the girl’s shoulders and shifted them, not holding her down or shaking her but simply moving one shoulder up and the other down with strong purpose. It was an adaptation of a Chinese Qigong method Caitlin had used before to calm panic attacks.

Within moments, Maanik’s screams became slightly more subdued — but only slightly.

“Mrs. Pawar, turn on the light,” Caitlin said.

The woman hurried to the switch. An overhead fixture glowed. Caitlin angled Maanik’s body slightly so she was looking up.

“Maanik, listen to me,” Caitlin said. “You are looking at a large TV screen. Whatever you are seeing is on the screen. Do you understand? Look at the screen. Everything is on the screen.”

Caitlin watched the girl’s pupils focus on a point over her shoulder. The pauses lengthened between the screams, and they sounded like urgent announcements now instead of bursts of pure terror.

“Maanik, move your right foot.”

The girl did not move.

“Maanik, keep looking at the screen and move your right foot.”

The girl slid her right foot down the bed. Her breath had turned ragged and panting but she was not summoning breath for another scream. She was starting to recover.

“Maanik, I am going to count now. When you hear me say a number, you will see that number on the screen. When you hear ‘eight,’ you will want to go to sleep. When you hear ‘five,’ you will let yourself go to sleep. Okay?”

Her breathing was growing calmer. But there was no indication that she’d heard or understood.

Caitlin glanced around the room, the movement of her head easing the tension in her shoulders. She noticed that Jack London, instead of staying near his human like most worried dogs would have, was behind the curtains. He was sniffing hard and appeared to be moving along the edges of the windows.

Caitlin took one more deep breath, then said, “Okay, I’m going to begin counting.” She maintained a light pressure on Maanik’s shoulders. “Ten. Look at the ten on your screen. Keep looking. Nine. Eight.”

Nothing changed.

“Maanik, when I say the word ‘eight’ you will feel how tired you are, how nice it would be to go to sleep. Look at the screen. Eight.”

The girl’s shoulders sagged under her hands.

Caitlin felt Jack London sitting down on her foot. Now he was watching Maanik.

“Very good. Seven. Six. You can feel your eyelids closing. Five.”

Maanik’s eyes closed as the countdown finished.