Wuthering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 723 by Angharad

Before I left the hospital, I carried Mima with me to see the person in ICU. I wasn’t sure if this was a good or a bad thing, but curiosity got the better of me. Meems, as ever, was long suffering and although I knew she wanted to go home, I had to see this ‘woman’ again.

I spoke with the nurse who remembered me, and she led me to see Brittany – who much to my amazement was reclining on the bed and awake. The bruising on her face was now multicoloured, but the swelling had stayed down and she looked up at me carrying my Meems.

“Hello, come to gawp?”

“Why should I do that?”

“Don’t you be howwible to my mummy,” scolded Meems.

“Don’t I know you?” asked Brittany, in a voice which was needing some speech therapy, it was still quite deep.

“We’ve met once before,” I replied.

“Where? Sorry my memory isn’t too good since my attack.”

“I’m not surprised, and it isn’t important.”

“But I know you, don’t I? I just can’t think from where?”

“Like I said, it isn’t important.”

“Mummy, why is there a bwue wight going fwom you to that wady?”

“Is there? I hadn’t noticed.”

“My God, there is too!” exclaimed Brittany. “The blue light, that guided me from my darkness–that’s you, isn’t it? Now I recognise the voice, you led me back to life – it is you, isn’t it?”

“Not really, I just talked to you; you did all the work.” I felt myself blushing and I also wondered how I could turn this ruddy light off.

“I was sinking into a sort of nothingness,” Brittany explained, “it felt like I was in a blackness just floating around, not knowing which way was up or down. I could have been floating or sinking–I really didn’t know. I felt helpless and scared and lost. I thought it felt like death or purgatory, or how I imagined those things. Do you know?”

“I think I understand,” I said, although my experience had been different.

“Then I heard this voice, at first it sounded as if it was a long way away or if it was coming through water. But I listened to it very hard. She – it was definitely a woman – promised she would send a blue or white light to guide me back. I homed in on her voice – your voice – and a little later I saw a blue light in the distance and I pulled myself towards it. It was you, wasn’t it?”

“Maybe. I spoke to you last night, but who knows what or who it was?” I wished now that I hadn’t come in, this was embarrassing.

“I thought it was an angel sent to rescue me. She said her name–um, my memory–oh yes, it was Cathy, she called herself Cathy.”

“That’s my Mummy’s name,” shrieked Meems.

“It was you, you are an angel, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m definitely a human, with feet of clay. I just like to help people now and again. Mr Chesters asked me to come and talk with you, which is all I did. I’m glad it worked, I must get Madam here, home, she had an accident and has just been discharged.”

“What you came to help me, when your own child was sick?”

“I knew she was on the mend by then, and sleeping.”

“Mummy got me fwom some vewy nasty dweams. She told me not to be afwaid and to fowwow, the wight. I’m betta now.”

“Your mummy is a very special lady. She saved my life.”

“Yeah,” sighed Mima, “she does is aww the time. She is a wady, too, Wady Cathewine, my daddy is a waud. He calls me his pwincess.”

“I’m honoured milady. How can I thank you?” Brittany blushed. I held out my hand to say goodbye and she clasped it in both of hers, threatening to pull out her drip. “Wow, the energy coming off your hand, it’s like an electric shock.” She released my hand.

“See, it’s I who’ve shocked you, not the other way round.” I smiled at her and said goodbye, Meems waved and we left to go home.

Sam interrupted his ward round to come to see us off, he spotted us when I went back for my bag – I’d left it on the ward. He walked us down to the car, carrying Meems as I humped the bag along behind him.

“Thanks, Cathy, I’ll never be able to thank you enough for all the good you’ve done here.”

“What, helping my own daughter, and that person last night. Remember there were two I couldn’t or didn’t help. I’m not special.”

“Yes you are.”

“Oh yes you called me a zenith or something.”

“A Tzidkanit–a special person, with special powers which originate from their innate goodness. A saint or even a human sort of angel.”

“That wady said Mummy was a angew.”

“Who was that?” he asked.

“The wady in the bed.”

“Oh, the one in ICU?”

“Yes, Brittany,” I said and winced. Sam winced too.

“Why do people pick names like that?” he asked

“It’s a free country, Sam, we can call ourselves what we like–even Catherine.”

“Okay, you convinced me.”

“That’s it now, Sam, I can’t do any more blue light stuff. I’m exhausted and I don’t feel able to do it again. I know I said it before, but this time, I mean it. No more.”

“Okay, Cathy, I accept what you say. But thanks for those you did help, especially one little character.” He looked at Mima, who opened her arms and hugged him. “Off you go, take this little mite home.”

“Goodbye, Sam,” I said hugging him.

“Shalom, my Tzidkanit.”