Grace and the Drawl, Page 4

  Chapter Six

  Grace didn’t get it. She was trying on jewellery in her room not two seconds ago, and now she was standing in a room full of junk. It looked like the science room at school but to Grace who wasn’t a science buff it was junk. She turned slowly and looked around her. Everything seemed smaller; tables, chairs even the ceiling appeared closer. Then Grace noticed she wasn’t alone. There was a pair of very green eyes staring at her.

  ‘Don’t worry about the disorientation that will clear in a moment,’ a female voice reassured Grace.

  ‘I’m ok,’ Grace whispered her throat a little dry and her head spinning. ‘Except I think I’m seeing things again. I’d swear you were a cat, dressed in clothes talking to me...’ Grace was used to her hallucinations by this stage and felt she was taking this one rather well.

  ‘Yes that’s right.’ replied the female voice matter-of-factly. ‘We all are. Welcome to our dimension Grace.’ Before Grace had time to reply the room was filled with shouting.

  ‘It worked! It worked! I can’t believe it! This is a world’s first! I’ll get the Velcher prize for this.’ Yang danced about the room slapping himself and Yin on the back. He rushed up to Grace and thrust his paw in her face. ‘I’m Doctor Yang, and this is my assistant Yin, and of course you have already met Mr. Boot.’

  Boot stepped forward from the shadows.

  ‘Hello Grace,’ he said in a sweet yet deep voice. Grace stared with her mouth open, her eyes swivelling from one cat to the other. Yin was wearing a lab coat and glasses. Doctor Yang wore a similar lab coat and Boot was dressed in what looked like combat fatigues. Grace’s mind started to swim but the heavy current of impossible thoughts pushed her back, what on earth…Or not earth? Grace didn’t know what to think. This is the weirdest hallucination of them all. Talking cats… Maybe I am on drugs she thought. Maybe someone is spiking my hot drinks and this was some kind of crazy high? Is this what drives junkies mad?

  ‘You must have a lot of questions?’ Boot calmly spoke as he took her hand and led her to a chair in the next room.

  ‘But I was in my room, and you were on the bed, and I was…trying on some jewellery, and now…How can I be here? Am I high…or dead?’

  ‘No Grace, you are not dead nor is this a dream,’ he consoled her.

  ‘So I’m hallucinating again? But, you can talk… Arrgh! It doesn’t make any sense. I want to go home now please. Wake me up!’ Grace drew her legs up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around them. Slowly she rocked herself backwards and forwards looking very fragile. Boot pulled up a seat beside her and sat down.

  ‘I’m going to explain everything to you Grace. It’s going to sound incredible, and as no human has ever heard this before, I don’t expect you to understand it all now.’

  Boot spoke quietly with Grace for an hour. He told her about the machine that brought her here. He spoke of his role in protecting her and her family and a little bit about the Drawl. He also tried in vain to explain how the fourth dimension worked.

  ‘So what you are saying is that I am in the fourth dimension?’ Grace asked, still not convinced.

  ‘Yes, as I explained, humans live in the third dimension. No human, as far as we know, has ever been in the fourth dimension, or seen any higher dimensional being. That is until you Grace.’

  ‘So how come you’re walking around on two legs and wearing clothes?’ questioned Grace as she looked at Boot’s uniform.

  ‘We always wear these clothes. It’s just that they are made from material found only in this dimension.’

  Yang coughed and spoke:

  ‘Not strictly true Mr. Boot.’

  ‘Does it really matter?’ Boot snapped back. Yang rubbed the fur behind his head and looked as though he was about to say something when Yin threw him one of her looks. Yang closed his mouth and Boot continued.

  ‘You see some things only exist in higher dimensions. Some have a footprint in both dimensions, and some only exist in lower dimensions.

  ‘Let me give you an example,’ offered Yin, seeing the confusion on Grace’s face.

  ‘Imagine you lived in a two dimensional world instead of a three dimensional one. Everything you see is flat, like a sheet of paper. There is no thickness. Can you picture that?’ asked Yin.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’ Grace made a funny face as she tried to imagine it.

  ‘Good, now consider for a moment, what would happen if a football was kicked into this two dimensional world, and rolled towards you. What would you see?’ Grace looked blank.

  ‘I dunno what colour is it?’ said Grace thinking about how she hated phys-ed class at school, and how she always felt awkward running around after balls.

  ‘The colour is unimportant!’ interjected Yang. Yin shot him a quieting look and he went back to studying his instruments.

  ‘What you would see Grace, is a point, growing into a circle, getting larger and larger as it came towards you, then as it passed you, you would see just a line, then as it moved away from you, it would shrink back down to a point.’ Yin studied the look on Grace’s face. ‘Do you follow me?’ she asked.

  Grace was nodding her head yes, but it was incongruent with the look on her face.

  ‘So what about these things I see? What did Boot call them, the Dall?’

  ‘The Drawl,’ Boot corrected.

  ‘The Drawl are from another dimension higher up Grace, we think the eighth or perhaps the ninth. What you see is a dimensional impression of them. We are quite impressed with what you can do. There are no records of any other human ever having seen one.’

  ‘So why can’t you talk when you are at home?’ Grace asked Boot, still not grasping it all.

  ‘Because our speech is like our clothing, it’s a purely fourth dimensional thing. Our vocal cords cause resonations in matter that only occurs in this dimension. When lodims talk air particles vibrate, when we talk something different vibrates.’

  ‘lodims?’ asked Grace, her face wrinkled in confusion again.

  ‘Sorry, lower dimensional beings - low dims,’ Boot explained.

  ‘And what about me? How can I be here?’ Grace asked turning to Yin.

  ‘In your dimension, to someone who saw you now you would appear to be sleeping. Your body would be exactly as you left it. Only a special part of you has made the trip to this dimension. Since humans aren’t native to our dimension they don’t have a 4D footprint. You, however, are special, since you can see creatures in other dimensions, a small part of you must be linked to them as well. So we latched onto that, together with the anchor we gave you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ quizzed Grace thinking of a great ship’s metal anchor.

  ‘The pendant Boot gave you, the one you are now wearing around your neck,’ replied Yin. Grace was fingering it as she spoke and hadn’t realized. Now that she thought about it, the metal was different, not so runny, it was more solid.

  ‘It’s what we used so the machine could find you.’

  ‘Wait a minute, can I go back?’ interrupted Grace, her voice rising in panic.

  ‘Of course, in a manner of speaking, you haven’t left,’ Yin reassured her.

  ‘In fact I think it would be dangerous for you to stay too long, nature permits unnatural things to occur, but only in short doses.’ Yang explained, having been silent for most of the conversation. ‘Decoherence, it’s a problem we witnessed with our early experiments. Things we brought through started to breakdown.’

  ‘De-co-here-nce?’ mouthed Grace looking more than a little worried.

  ‘Don’t be concerned Grace.’ soothed Yin. We have developed a way to stabilize you.’ As she spoke the floppy eared beagle came bounding into the room.

  ‘What’s that doing here?’ Boot hissed and leapt to his feet.

  ‘Relax, we brought it through to test the machine. It’s only a puppy. It’s harmless,’ Yin reassured Boot.

  Grace had already bent over and was snapping her fingers to attract the beagle’s attention.


  ‘Isn’t he cute?’ she cooed. The puppy gave a cheerful bark and ran towards Grace, tripping over its floppy ears and somersaulting more than once before sliding to a stop on its rump at Grace’s feet. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Actually, we don’t have one yet,’ replied Yin as she scratched the beagle behind its neck.

  ‘How about Lucius?’ suggested Grace, ‘We can call him Lou for short.’

  Lou was nipping at Yin as she tried to pat him on the head. He was squirming so much Grace could barely hold him.

  ‘Lou it is,’ Yin agreed. ‘We give Lou these to eat.’ Yin held out some orange coloured tablets. ‘They prevent the decoherence.’ Grace took one, and before Yin could stop her, quickly popped it in her mouth.

  ‘They taste like dog food,’ she cried spitting it back out.

  ‘That was my idea,’ said Yang, ‘the only way we could get Lou to eat them.’

  ‘But puppies like ice cream too. Can’t you make them taste like ice cream?’ suggested Grace.

  ‘I’m sure you can, can’t you Dr. Yang?’ said Yin smiling at her mentor.

  As Grace looked around the room something caught her attention that she hadn’t noticed before. Boot was wearing a sword, two in fact. This proved to be vital because in the next few seconds Boot would draw them both.

  As Grace was about to ask her next question, the lab doors burst open and five figures dressed in black entered the room and spread out. Two had swords and the others had katas, weapons with a sharp blade at right angles to the handle. They were extremely effective against the sword. The figures spread out across the room and advanced upon the small group.

  ‘We want the girl, nobody needs to get hurt,’ rasped the middle figure, his voice disguised.

  Boot hissed and moved forward, one sword raised above his head the other stretched out in front. Then it started. All five figures rushed at Boot. He fended the first strike from the middle assailant, and cut a nasty slice into the arm of the next. The kidnappers slowly worked their way around Boot, attempting to surround him. He stepped forward, watching his enemy. An excellent soldier, Boot was a superb swordfighter. He instructed at the academy, and few could match him. The odds, however, were stacked in the enemy’s favour as he was outnumbered five to one.

  Boot lunged at the closest cat, but suddenly spun around and struck back, his sword slicing into the belly of the cat behind who had foolishly rushed forwards to attack Boot from the rear. Boot flicked his sword back to the ready position. Although he had managed to inflict serious wounds upon two of his assailants, they had managed to separate him from their prey. One of the masked cats now menaced Grace and the two scientists. He lunged for Grace and Yin struck at him with a large glass test tube. It smashed harmlessly over his armour. Turning he struck Yin in the face with the butt of his weapon. Yang rushed forward to protect Yin but was he was thrown to the ground by the masked intruder. Then he grabbed a screaming Grace, bundled her onto his back and turned to run.

  Boot was making good progress with the remaining fighters. He had inflicted multiple cuts to their bodies, and one had fallen back, too wounded to continue. As he heard Grace scream, Boot fought with savage ferocity trying to get to her. He cursed loudly as the assailant tightly gripping Grace slipped out of the building. The remaining figures followed, with Boot pursuing them frantically.

  Boot caught up with one wounded laggard and pinned him to the wall. At least if we have one of them we can find out where they are from he thought holding the tip of his sword to the cat’s throat. But without warning the wounded cat sprang forward onto Boot’s weapon. As he stepped back, the dead cat slipped to the floor. Resheathing his weapons, Boot removed the mask from the dead cat’s face. It wasn’t anyone he recognized. Boot continued after the rest of the kidnappers but they had vanished into the city. He went back to check on the scientists.

  ***

  Joyce pulled her car into the garage. Traffic had been light because she had left work two hours earlier than usual. Immediately after Mrs. Ledbetter, the school nurse, had called to tell her that she had sent Grace home early. It was standard practice. She hadn’t given too many details out over the phone. She had simply reassured Joyce that Grace would be fine, and since Grace was able to walk home Joyce wasn’t too worried.

  She dropped her car keys into the tray just inside the front door, and called out to her daughter.

  ‘Grace? Grace honey are you all right?’ She walked through the kitchen, down the hallway, and up towards her daughter’s bedroom.

  ‘Oh!’ she cried as she saw her daughter lying on the floor.

  ‘Grace! Grace!’ she called as she bent down to check her daughter. Grace’s body was limp. Joyce fumbled for a small compact mirror on her daughter’s bedside table and held it below Grace’s nose. A tiny fog appeared on the glass.

  ‘Thank goodness you’re breathing,’ Joyce cried. She rolled Grace over onto her back and slapped her face lightly, trying to revive her. Grace didn’t stir. She lifted Grace up onto the bed and tucked her under the covers. A very heavy sleeper, was it possible Grace had fallen asleep on the floor? Joyce’s motherly instincts were playing off against each other. One not wanting to believe that any harm had come to her daughter, the other wanting to seek medical attention just in case. She sat with her daughter for ten minutes, watching her chest rise and fall rhythmically with her breathing, brushing some hair away from Grace’s face with her hand.

  Grace looked peaceful and calm just as she always did, with a relaxed look on her face. Not like her mother who scowled and slept very lightly, the slightest sound enough to awaken her in a foul mood. Grace had inherited her father’s sleeping habits, full, deep and peaceful. Joyce decided to wait and watch. Her daughter had been under a bit of stress lately, with exams and dating and her weird hallucinations. Maybe a good solid rest would do her the world of good. She eventually slipped out of the room and left Grace to sleep.

  ***

  Grace was bundled along on her captor’s back for about ten minutes, after which she was dumped on the floor in a room with no light. She heard the door creak closed and the sound of a key grinding inside an old lock. Grace’s mind was spinning. What on earth had just happened? One moment I’m home from school, and then I’m dragged into the fourth dimension by our pet cat, and then kidnapped by a bunch of ninjas. What the heck is going on?

  Grace strained to listen as she heard footsteps, then a key grinding a lock open and gradually the groaning of latches badly in need of oil. Light shot into the room and silhouetted the figure in the doorway.

  ‘Grace?’ the voice was firm, but kind.

  Grace stood and moved towards the door. The figure stepped forward and supported her, shaken as she was, from her ordeal.

  ‘Grace I’m Thaal, chief religious advisor to the Emperor, and a senior member of the cat Pope’s staff. I’m terribly sorry about the roughness of your rescue, but time was of the essence and we couldn’t take any chances of losing you. Are you ok? Did they hurt you?’ Thaal questioned as he looked Grace up and down.

  ‘I’m fine, just a little shaken. Who were those people? Grace asked.

  ‘They certainly weren’t people Grace. They were cats.’ Grace winced, a slip of the tongue, but Thaal hadn’t finished. ‘They work for the order performing holy work as and where it’s required. They would happily lay down their lives to serve the faith.’

  The way Boot was fighting I’m sure a few of them did thought Grace to herself.

  ‘So why did I need rescuing?’ she asked as curiosity started to replace fear and confusion in her mind.

  ‘My dear Grace, you are so important to us, to all of us,’ Thaal advised in a sickly sweet voice as he led Grace through the dark catacombs beneath the city above.

  ‘It is our duty to see that no harm comes to you. We believe that you are special, and that you have a vital role to play in the affairs of both man and cat.’ He paused and took hold of Grace’s hand. ‘Dear child, they planned such ho
rrible things for you. They wanted to experiment on you, cut you open to see what makes you special. Find out how you can see the Drawl, by any means necessary.’

  ‘But, they seemed so nice,’ stammered Grace unwilling to believe that Boot and Yin were a menace.

  ‘Did you see the remains of previous experiments around the room?’ questioned Thaal.

  ‘There was gloop all over the walls…,’ replied Grace unsure of what Thaal was implying.

  ‘The remains of the last person they tried to bring through.’ Thaal watched as Grace’s pupils widened at the thought of being pulped by Yang’s machine.

  ‘Now do you believe me? They are scientists, it is what they do. They experiment on things. They don’t care about life and morality. They simply want answers. And…if they have to cut you in half to get them they will,’ breathed Thaal. His eyes fixed firmly on Grace’s, bored down inside her.

  Grace was silent. The events of the last two hours were too much and she just didn’t know what to think anymore. They continued to trudge along under the catacombs when Grace decided to ask:

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘There is someone who wants to meet you, someone very special.’ answered Thaal picking up the pace a little.

  ‘Who?’ continued Grace more than a little curious and now very surprised about just how fast this cat could walk.

  ‘His Holiness the Pope,’ replied Thaal in a most reverent tone as he hurried along the path.

  ***

  Imperial guards and other military personnel arrived at the lab within minutes of the alarm being raised. The body of the dead cat was examined, but no leads were forthcoming. Boot was deep in conversation with General Talus, and Yang was speaking with his assistant.

  ‘The real problem is that if Grace doesn’t take this pill, she will lose coherency and start to fade away. If that happens she may never regain consciousness in her own dimension. She could be lost in the void forever,’ warned Yang with a very miserable look on his face. He was tugging his bottom lip which generally meant he was deep in thought.

  ‘There were only a few cats who knew about this. We don’t have to search far. The two scientists were here when it happened. Do you suspect them?’ the General asked Boot. Boot shook his head: