Notes from the Future: The Compound II

June 24

Afternoon

Two Rachels enter, both with the same alarmed but nursey look in their eyes. When they see Nice Rachel, they visibly relax. The older one looks everyone in the eyes, silently, then turns so the camera over the door can see her face. When she turns, it's like she's a different person -- suddenly she's crazy angry and yelling at us and we all leave the room.

In the hallway, though, Nice Rachel falls into step with the Young Nurse Rachel, and we turn left instead of right toward the front door; then we turn right and we're in a large kitchen -- not as large as the kitchen in the other house -- and this one has been converted to double as surgery prep and possible operating room; it is spotlessly clean. We head through this room into a family room beyond, which feels like a lounge or waiting room that could also be a recovery room; before we go in all the way, Young Nurse Rachel stops us with a gesture, enters, and closes a series of privacy curtains to specific spots in their tracking. The result is a little labyrinth of curtains into which she leads us, single file. When we reach the center, we are among a group of small couches and comfy chairs, with a low coffee table between them. We sit, following Young Nurse Rachel's lead, in silence. 

The sound of Older Nurse Rachels footsteps has me on edge until she appears around the corner, checks the curtains visually, then exhales. As she does, all the anger melts from her face and she seems to become a nice older lady. The group relaxes. She sits in a chair left vacant, a hard, plain wooden chair, directly across from me. 

"You are Veronica," she says, and she has the kindest light in her eyes. I immediately want to trust her, which makes me not want to trust her.  I decide to answer in short sentences.

"Yes," I say.

"I thought so," she says, and her eyes twinkle. "He said you were beautiful."

"Who? Tad? -- Edward? Did he speak, was he awake?!" I am standing, ready to push through the curtains and go back to him. I feel a hand on my arm, and it's Nice Rachel, who is sitting to my right.

"He is not awake, stay calm, it is not safe to leave the labyrinth," she says. I sit back down, but I'm getting angry.

"He talks in his sleep," Older Nurse Rachel says, and her eyes seem to smile sadly at me. I immediately want to curl up in her arms and be rocked to sleep. I feel some tears on my cheek and I wipe them away, willing myself to focus on her, as she is still talking: "Though it's more like a trance than sleep. We retrieved these from your car ..." and she produces the six syringes I stuck in his ass cheek in San Ramon ... was it only yesterday night? "Do you know where they came from?"

"I got them from a friend who works in a pharmacy, and at a hospital," I say.

"And you believed they were Morphine, yes?"

"Yes. I -- wasn't thinking clearly, I just wanted him to be pain-free," my hands are shaking a little. Do they think I was trying to murder him?

"We do not think you were trying to murder him," Older Nurse Rachel says, and the room goes still. Everyone is watching me. "Yes, everyone is watching you," she says, smiling again. And now I'm in one of Tad's weird-ass stories where old lady cult members can read your mind! "I'm older than I look, but we are not -- or were not intended to be -- a cult," she says, still smiling. I blush and then feel the color drain from my face, like it's blood monsoon season.

I sit completely still, and realize after about a minute that I've stopped breathing. Max, on the other hand, has curled up at my feet and gone to sleep. Must be nice. Cozy fucker.

Older Nurse Rachel laughs out loud suddenly, and I jump.

"Oh, Veronica, dear, you have nothing to fear from us. Breathe and listen, no matter how strange and far-fetched our tale will seem to you; breathe and listen, and you will see the truth borne out in time," says Older Nurse Rachel, and I can't help it: I'm breathing and listening and someone hands me a cup of Chamomile tea with honey and I sip it and relax just a little. 'Breathe,' I remind myself, and Older Nurse Rachel nods approval.  She looks down for a few moments, going utterly still, seeming to gather strength.  Then she looks up at me and her eyes seem to blaze with blue intensity, just like Tad's Mom and sisters and his Aunt Mary.

"My name is Mother Henrietta, and I have been the Abbess of this Monastery for the past eighty years," she says. 

I feel my breath stop mid-exhale. 

She nods at me, I breathe again. 'Okay,' I think. 'She said she was older than she looks,' I sip my tea and breathe again, ready for whatever comes next. 

Mother Henrietta's smile deepens and she says, "We have been waiting for your Fiancé -- or someone very much like him -- for three hundred years.  Nice Rachel, be so kind as to catch that mug," and even as I'm hearing this I'm aware of the world tipping backwards like I finally got the swing to go all the way around the swingset and