The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1765 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

My blood ran cold and for a moment I seemed unable to speak.

“Mummy, you still there?”

“Yes, darling–what’s happening?”

“We’ve lost Trish.”

“What d’you mean you’ve lost her?”

“We came back to Ciutadella and she wasn’t with us.”

“How did you come back?”

“On the ferry.”

“Was she with you when you boarded the ferry?”

“Yes, she loaned me her mobile ’cos mine had a flat battery and I wanted to send a text to one of the girls in work.”

“Where’s Henry?”

“He went to see the captain of the ferry to start a search.”

My stomach rolled over, churning like a washing machine. I was absolutely helpless. The likelihood that she’d got locked in the toilets was more likely than she’d fallen overboard or been abducted, but at that moment my panic button had been well and truly pressed and my imagination began to run riot.

“What’s the matter, babes?” Simon had picked up on my distress.

“They’ve lost Trish.”

“Don’t be daft, you couldn’t lose Trish–could they?”

I handed him the phone and I watched and worried as he spoke with Julie, and began the recriminations. “I shouldn’t have let them go–this is all my fault.”

“Just a moment,” Simon said to Julie, “Now, babes, stop this silliness. Dad will find her or have the island searched from top to bottom.”

I felt scalding tears run down my face and my nails digging into my palms I was closing my hands so tightly. The pain felt good, I deserved to suffer for letting Henry take them.

“It’s all my fault,” I lamented now in full self pity drive and cranking up the tear counter.

Simon grabbed me roughly and shook me, “How can this be your fault, you silly cow? Henry will find her, now stop crying and pour us each a brandy–there’s some in the minibar.”

I didn’t want brandy, I wanted to hear my child was safe–the last thing I needed was alcohol to dull my senses.

Simon put down my phone and grabbed me and sat me on the bed, “Look out,” he said and walked purposefully to the minibar where he poured two miniatures of brandy into glasses and walked back. “Here, drink this.”

“I don’t want it,” I protested weakly.

“Drink it,” he insisted and I lifted the glass to my lips and took a swallow. The acrid fluid ran over my mouth and down my throat burning as it went and causing me to make a grimace and to shudder. “And again,” he said firmly. I gulped down the rest of the amber coloured fluid and the same reaction occurred, this time with a burning down my gullet and into my tummy. The shock of it caused me to shake myself out of my languor.

I shuddered and gave one of those stuttering breaths that happens after tears, then I felt more in control of myself–at least the shock had happened–all we had to do now was to wait for news.

Part of me wanted to catch a plane out to Menorca but at the moment, I suspected that Henry was doing all that could be done, he was a capable man and would be stirring up a hornet’s nest amongst the crew of the ship and any officialdom he needed to mobilise. One didn’t argue with the Viscount Stanebury, except at one’s own peril.

“What are we going to do?” I asked weakly.

“Nothing–we wait to hear from Dad before we do anything. Make some coffee will you, I think it could be a long night.”

I rose from the bed and plodded across the floor like a zombie on tranquilisers, and made two cups of coffee. I took them back to Simon. He put his arm round me. “We can’t do anything for the moment except wait. I’m sure she’ll turn up–she’s probably telling the chief engineer how to tune his engines or some such thing–you know what she’s like.”

“Yeah,” I gave a smile which was based more on hope than anything else, I remembered her cheeky expressions when she was winding me up. She was so clever and had so much potential–I prayed that she’d be allowed to achieve it, though I’d settle for her safe return in exchange for almost anything I had, save other members of the family. Why did it have to be Trish? Why did it have to happen to one of my children? She took one from me already–much more of this and I’d be ready for the loony bin or do myself some serious damage.

“Do that thing you do when they’re lost,” Simon suggested.

“What thing?”

“You know, you seem to home in on them–as you’ve got such a strong link with Trish, maybe you can see where she is and we can possibly help them.”

“I don’t know, Si, I’ve never tried it away from home.”

“Look, babes, it might help, so just try it, okay?”

“Alright.” I finished my coffee and sat quietly in the chair by the side of the bed. I concentrated on Trish as I tried to go down inside myself. Emotions kept interrupting the flow–I went from angry to scared–from hopeful to desolate. I couldn’t seem to centre down enough to concentrate on Trish, my emotions just seemed to dominate.

“Well?”

“It’s no good, Si, I can’t do it.”

“Of course you can, you just need a focus.” With that he emptied his cup smashed it on the bedside table and slashed his arm which began dribbling blood. “Fix that for me.”

“What?”

“Heal it and hurry up, it bloody hurts.”

I grabbed a clean flannel and held it over the wound, it was turning from cream to claret despite my efforts. I felt so useless.

“For God’s sake, Cathy, get a move on, this really bloody hurts.”

His anguish seemed to focus something inside me and I felt a surge of energy which flowed through me and into his arm.

“Jeeezuz that bloody hurts,” he gasped and I could almost smell the stench of thermo-coagulation as his wound began to staunch and then to heal. I let go his arm and he collapsed on the bed before peering under the wash cloth, “Phew, now find her.”

I sat down and homed in on the blue energy, then after a while I felt myself flowing with it towards Trish. For a while I felt as if I was being resisted, as if something was trying to place a barrier between us, like I was trying to push myself through a wall or something even harder. I pushed with all my might but it was impenetrable, like a steel barrier.

She was on the ship, ships have thick metal hulls and bulkheads. I imagined myself surrounding the ship, not trying to bore through it but caressing it, loving it and finally boarding it, then flowing through it, descending deck by deck as I searched the ship, inch by inch.

Finally I felt something, somewhere in the darkness was a tiny pulse of blue light which was answering my larger wave. She was alive–but things weren’t good, now I had to identify where she was and what was wrong.