The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3254 by Angharad Copyright© 2020 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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It was hard trying to concentrate on the goddess and keeping an eye on the younger children, but finally after asking that the children concentrate as best they could that I felt the room go colder and the familiar voice resounded in my head. "Why do you summon us, Catherine?"

Milady, I need your help."

"I notice you only seek our acquaintance when you need our help, why is that Catherine?"

"I try not to disturb you, milady unless things are dire."

She chuckled before responding, "Your skills in evasion and flattery increase each time we speak, so you are learning something even if it isn't the skills we would like you to acquire."

"I am sorry if I disappoint you," I said feeling my head bowing in supplication.

"It is nothing new and you are not the only one. Why do you call upon us?"

"My father in law, Henry Cameron, is dangerously ill."

"So why should we help, he became infected pursuing his usury by a virus which is only in your world because man's greed has liberated it into places it should never have occurred. He has brought this upon himself as all you humans have. You have made your bed, and in it, you will lie - a hospital bed."

"I am well aware of the causes, milady, and I agree, having spent most of my adult life trying to protect the ecosystems from which the virus escaped. In fairness to Henry, he has given generously to fund the work I try to do and enable future generations to continue."

"Your work is of no great significance in the general scheme of things, mankind will have to learn to curb their greed and their population size or the forces of nature will show them how in a manner which they will not enjoy."

I shuddered and wondered how much of the conversation the others could hear or understand. "I understand what you say, milady, but I ask you to help me spread your message, your warning to the world and, ask that you allow me to involve all my children in doing so."

"Are you pledging all your daughters to our service, Catherine?"

"I cannot do that, milady, they must choose the path they follow by themselves, however, I will promise to show them how serving you has shaped my life and make them aware of how it could do the same for them."

"So you expect us to compromise and grant you favours?"

I did but I wasn't going to admit it, now how do I get around this? "Milady, we are agreed that mankind has damaged this planet, its beauty, its wonder and, its fellow inhabitants and that we need to pull back from the brink or face awful consequences. I shall make as many aware of this as I am able and I will ask my daughters to assist me, to take the message to their peer groups, just as Greta Thunberg has done with hers."

"My presence is strong in that young lady, though she makes no demands on me she carries a stronger message than you, someone with greater education and position, do; why is that, do you think?"

Oh poo, why did I have to raise that one? "She is perhaps more committed and has fewer responsibilities than I do, though I offer them as pulls on my energy than as excuses."

"She is indeed more committed, but why should we worry about this silly little planet, mankind will solve their own problems."

"You think we are capable of doing that?" I asked wondering if she could foresee some technology or education programme that was invisible to me."

"No, but your unbridled greed will mean your own hastened extinction and thus exploitation of the Earth."

"From the Earth's perspective, I can see that as a solution, Milady, but what of all the other species that will share our fate?"

"Isn't that what that fellow, Darwin, predicted as a consequence of evolution?"

"Extinction is indeed the consequence of a failure to adapt to changing circumstances, particularly environmental ones."

"So, Catherine, use your education to see what that means given the scenario that presents itself now. Climate change and successive pandemics will change your Earth into a more hostile environment until man disappears and equilibrium will re-establish itself. It will take many years to heal this damaged planet, but it will eventually."

"Will you help me to heal Henry because he has a far greater platform to try and stop this chaos and disaster happening?"

"You think he will?" Her voice sounded unconvinced, "His past record doesn't recommend it."

"I will do my best, milady, to make him."

"Very well, make your wild goose chase but do not complain to us when it fails and he returns to his normal avaricious ways."

"Thank you, milady, I shall try to see he doesn't."

I yawned and shivered, then stretched and all the others did the same. "Was that wady weally here?" asked Meems.

"Could you see her?" I asked though as such it was mainly a rhetorical question as she'd indicated she could.

They all nodded or said they could. I then asked if they would help me save their grandfather and again they indicated in the affirmative, so after a few exercises to unstiffen our joints, we held hands again and I once more centred down focusing on Henry as he lay in a London hospital, critically ill.

Centring down, I found myself wandering the corridors of the hospital until I found his bed. His body was lying inert in the bed as a ventilator enabled him to breathe. Then I noticed a wraith of him standing beside the bed watching himself dying.

"Hello Henry," I said approaching him.

"Cathy, what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"That's me, isn't it," he indicated the body in the bed struggling to breathe.

"Looks like it."

"Am I dead?"

"Not yet."

"But it's only a matter of time, isn't it?"

"Could be."

"Oh well, I suppose I've had a good life, known some good people."

"You going to go without a fight?" I asked him.

"Fight, what with, my body hasn't even got the strength to breathe by itself let alone fight anything."

"Where your spirit leads, your body will follow."

"That's what I am now, is it? A spirit?"

"That's one way of putting it, I suppose."

"I suspect I don't have time for semantics, do I, Cathy?"

"Maybe not, so are you going to fight or just give up?"

"How do I fight?"

"You'll need my help."

"I'll take any help that's on offer."

"There are conditions."

"What d'you mean, conditions?"

"I am here to save you at the behest of the Shekinah, her conditions are that you change your ways and try to save the planet rather than exploit it for every penny you get from it."

"Have you been reading A Christmas Carol,Cathy."

"Why have you?"

"No, but the scenario has similarities."

"Except Scrooge was saved, looks like you may not." We both looked down and alarms were buzzing on a bank of machines into which Henry's body was plugged. Doctors and nurses came running but the situation looked very grave.

"Oh dear, so is this goodbye, daughter-in-law?"

"Unless you promise me to change?"

"I have a choice?"

"Between oblivion and life, yes."

"Okay, let's go for the promise then, but hurry, Cathy, I'm feeling weaker by the moment."

"Take my hand," I said offering mine to him. He clasped mine and I felt an immediate flow of energy, he gasped and I pushed him back into his body, "Remember your promise, Henry," I called as his body reabsorbed him and his heart began again.

Firing energy into him, he began to breathe by himself and a nurse noticed it and called the doctor back to see him.

"This bloody virus is weird, half a dozen were about to pop off and now they're all breathing unassisted, how's that supposed to happen?"

The nurse gave a shiver as I walked past her complete with wings and angelic smile before fading from her view. "I think a miracle has happened," she said before adding, "I need a holiday, I think I just saw something."

"An angel was it?" prompted the doctor.

"Yeah, but it's this place isn't it, and too many hours, makes you imagine all sorts of things." She yawned inside her PPE, "I'm knackered."

"I saw it too, Nes," admitted the doctor quietly.

"So it wasn't just me then," she said unsure of what she actually saw.

"There are half a dozen who should be dead but aren't, so perhaps we did see what we thought we saw."

"In which case, I hope she comes again, we need all the help we can get."

Although they couldn't see me, while Henry was still in that hospital, I would return and although primarily intending to help him, I would try to share the energy with those who needed it most. I was also aware that Henry wasn't out of the woods yet, and given his promise, he may never be out of another sort of wood, but that one would contain trees and teeming wildlife. I was going to make him keep it.