Object Lessons

"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree,

Where Alph, the sacred river ran,

Through caverns measureless to man,

Down to a sunless sea."

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE - Kublai Khan

OBJECT LESSONS by Alaric McDermott

Maria Grierson was well aware of the risks that she was taking in
leaving
the car, but she saw no alternative. The ordeal of staying with the
vehicle
until dawn was one that she couldn't face, particularly in light of the
fact
that, by her calculations, dawn was six hours away. Six hours in a
cold
metal coffin was not her idea of a good night out.

She had two options now. One was to walk downhill, then up, then
down,
towards the Oldham area. The other was to go up, then down,
towards
Huddersfield. She knew that Huddersfield was a long way away, because
that
was the area which she had been travelling from, and she couldn't
recall any
sign of habitation breaking the bleak line of the Pennine moorlands in
at
least twenty minutes' worth of driving.

In the other direction, she could see the red blinking lights on the
Winter
Hill television mast, but she hadn't the vaguest clue how far she was
from
it, or how far civilisation was on the other side of it.

There had been enough power in the engine of the Audi to get it onto
the
grass at the side of the road, so she didn't have any concerns about
causing
an accident. Decisively, she flicked off the lights.

The darkness terrified her. She could see absolutely nothing in
any
direction. Experimentally, she raised her hands, held them close to
her
face, to find that she couldn't see them either.

She opened the driver's door, extracting as she stepped out of the car
the
tiny pencil torch, which she always kept in the glove compartment. The
night
was moonless, and her vision was little improved by getting into the
open.
She turned the torch on, illuminating a small semi-circle of
ground,
defining the edge of the road.

Her intention was simple yet simultaneously horrifying. She would walk
along
the road, towards and if necessary past Winter Hill. Every few minutes
she
would turn off the torch, look all around for lights. It would be a
stroke
of good fortune, she knew, if she saw any. Certainly there were
isolated
farms in the area, but it wasn't likely that the occupants of any
such
building would be awake at one o'clock in the morning. Her situation
was so
desperate, though, that she wasn't prepared to overlook any possibility
of
salvation, however remote.

If she saw no lights, then she would turn the torch back on and
continue on
her way.

She didn't regard drivers as being in that category of possible
saviours.
Indeed, she'd made up her mind that she would ignore any passing
traffic,
would in fact actively attempt to hide from it, knowing that a lone
male
driver might well see opportunity in her plight. Cars would pass, and
it
would be painful to watch them pass, but her forbearance would,
she
believed, be rewarded. Eventually, if she stuck with the road, she
was
confident that she'd be safe. She'd find civilisation.

She took a deep breath and started to walk away from her vehicle,
slowly at
first, putting one foot in front of the other with exaggerated care.
Then
she realised that the pace she was setting would make her journey
abominably
long. For a moment, she hesitated again.

As before, she discarded the option of waiting, but this time she found
a
more logical reason. It occurred to her that the dangerous driver who
she
dreaded would be more likely to spot a vehicle than a walker. Staying
put
therefore held the higher personal risk. If somebody hurt her and left
her,
and was further able to repair and hide her car, then she would likely
not
be found and helped for a long time.

Nobody would quickly miss her. The half term holidays meant that she
would
not be required at work for a week. Any friends calling round or
telephoning
would simply presume that she was out for the day, and her husband
was
incommunicado, at a personnel executives' outward-bound course. Indeed,
she
was returning from dropping him off.

She started off again, this time with firmer step and firmer
mind.
Enshrouded in blackness, it seemed that the only thing in her life was
the
circle of light ahead of her, that the white pool was her only link to
the
real world.

She moved the torch to check the time on her watch, found that it was
one
fifteen. The action almost made her stumble, but this didn't much
concern
her. She didn't expect to stumble often, because the road surface
was
relatively even.

Although the night was cold, she was well wrapped up with bonnet,
scarf,
gloves, leggings and heavy coat. Her confidence rose. Yes, she
assured
herself again, she would make it. It was a question of will.

After what seemed a very long time, the road started to rise steeply,
and
she checked the watch again, to find that she had been walking only
six
minutes.

She cringed, resolving not to review her progress again. The
disheartenment
was a physical pain.

Moments later, she saw headlights in the middle distance and moved off
the
road, into the low hollow at the side, where she flicked off the torch
and
crouched low. The grass was damp and cold against her hands.

The car took a long while to reach her. When it did, and as it passed,
she
saw that it was being driven by a middle-aged man, with a woman of
similar
age in the passenger seat. Again, she felt disappointment, knowing that
she
had missed a real chance to get help.

This was the last vehicle that she saw for a considerable period. By
the
time the next set of lights appeared, a few things had happened.

The first was that she had succumbed to the temptation of watch
watching
again, and in doing so had established that she had been on the road
for
over an hour. Just as the slow passage of time had previously depressed
her,
the acceleration, when viewed in the context of her lack of success,
was
equally unbearable. It didn't help that she was getting tired, or
that,
because the journey had been almost entirely uphill, her thighs were
very
sore. It didn't help that the temperature had dropped and that a rough
wind
had started to pluck at her.

The second disaster was rain, brought on by the wind. At first, there
were
no more than a few drops in the air, but the drops soon became a
steady
patter, and the patter became a deluge. Soon, she was utterly drenched,
and
it was becoming difficult to keep the freezing water out of her
eyes.

When the lights appeared, therefore, she was desperate enough to
throw
caution aside. This time she waited for the vehicle, as close to the
edge of
the road as she dared, waving her arms above her head.

Despite her efforts, the car passed her by, spraying her with mud.
She
caught only a brief glimpse of the driver, a man with his head pushed
up to
the windscreen as he strove to see through the darkness and streaming
rain.

Mortified, she bit her lip against oncoming tears and started off
again.

A couple of minutes later, fate played its most malign card so far.
Her
torch cut out.

She was saved from despair only because she noticed immediately a
steady red
light, at eye level, about sixty feet ahead of her. After the briefest
of
pauses, she pushed on towards that fixed point, guessing that the
light
signified road works, hope springing that road works implied a hut, or
at
least some form of makeshift canvas shelter.

She dropped the torch, because it was no longer important. She had a
real
target to comfort her instead.

She had covered most of the distance when the light turned amber,
then
green, thus confirming her hypothesis. Moments later, she reached her
goal,
touched it. The cool metal, in that it was man made, was
reassuring.
Leaning, she took time to catch her breath. It didn't take her long
to
establish that the green light provided the best illumination, and she
let
the sequence run through to that colour again before moving on.

Immediately, her left hip collided with something. Investigation
revealed
the something to be a bar. She moved her hand along this, realised that
it
was the safety bar used to surround a hole in the road.

She shuffled to her right, keeping her hands on the bar until it ended.
Then
she took one step forward and put her left hand out, feeling for
the
horizontal bar, which she expected, would defend the side of the
dig.

She reached too far, and overbalanced.

There was a bar of course, but it was positioned very low. Her calf
scraped
over it, painfully, as she tumbled sideways and plunged head first into
the
hole.

She didn't know how far she fell, because her skull struck something
solid,
and she lost consciousness in mid-plunge.

*****

By the time she came round, rational thought had given way to fear and
pain.
Madness was the sum of her, and it did not recede quickly.

When, finally, she found the courage to assess her situation, she
assessed
it as dismal. She'd come to rest in a semi-sitting position in a well
of
freezing water, which was already covering her lower body. The rain
was
still cascading down, and the water was rising.

If she could have moved, then there would have been a possibility,
depending
of course on the depth of the pit, that she could have climbed out of
it.
She could not, however, move. There was something wrong with her legs.
The
something might have been as bad as breakage or as minor as sprains,
but it
was debilitating enough that she couldn't put weight on either limb,
no
matter how hard she tried. Her efforts in this direction were
excruciating
and pointless.

As well as being immobilised and liable to drown, as well as being cold
and
wet enough to catch pneumonia, she noted that her head was throbbing,
and
she faced the fact that she might have concussion.

At length, she did the only thing that she could think of to do.
Illogical
though it was, she screamed for help.

She screamed for help three or four times.

After that, she just screamed.

The effort made her feel woozy, but she didn't give up until not giving
up
made her black out again.

*****

When she returned to awareness for the second time, her position
had
substantially improved, because what had seemed impossible had
actually
happened. Someone had come to her aid.

The screaming, amazingly, had not been as pointless as she'd believed.
The
screaming had saved her.

She was no longer lying in the water, that much was clear. Indeed, she
had a
sense of movement. She guessed that she was being carried on a
stretcher.

The relief of rescue was indescribable. Soon she'd be in a warm bed, in
a
hospital. Whatever was wrong with her legs, which still squealed pain
at
her, would be sorted out. The damage to her head would be checked.
Her
husband would be hoisted from his course to come to her side.
Everything
would be fine.

Even the rain had stopped, she noticed, and she managed a weak
smile.

The relief also dulled her senses, and it was therefore a couple of
minutes
before she understood that the picture was not as rosy as she'd
thought,
that something was wrong, that matters were not immediately proceeding
in
the manner that she'd expected them to.

The key to this perception was the fact that no destination had
been
reached. The ambulance that she had supposed that she was being taken
to
would surely have been parked only metres from the hole. She should
have
been in it with little delay. At worst, she would be able to see its
lights.

The truth was, though, that she could see nothing. She was still
surrounded
by utter blackness.

Additionally, she steadily became aware that there was no movement in
the
air. Even if the wind had dropped, she was confident that she should be
able
to feel something.

She hazarded a preliminary guess that she was in some sort of building,
but
the thought had barely surfaced before its lack of logic struck home.
No
building was as damp as this, nor did any buildings which she had
ever
visited have so uneven a floor surface as that over which she was
apparently
being carried. This surface required her rescuers to continually
adjust
their own pace and the angle of the stretcher.

No matter how hard she strained, wriggling despite the agony caused by
her
injury, her eyes wouldn't pierce the gloom. She could not understand
where
she was being taken, could not even imagine that a place could exist
which
was so devoid of light.

Now she started to hear odd sounds. Some, mainly scrapings, seemed to
come
from a distance away, but others clearly emanated from the people who
were
carrying her. The most common of these was a low whistling, the sort
of
uncomfortable wheezing that she associated with her father, who'd
smoked all
his life. Less common, and much more unnerving, was a slushy,
gurgling
sound, from low down, which seemed to imply that her bearers were
struggling
with mud.

The reasonable course, she decided, was to simply ask what was going
on, but
the weird silence discouraged her for a time. Logic told her that she
should
not be frightened, because if these people harboured any other than
helpful
notions, then they would not be putting themselves out to ensure
her
comfort. She also felt confident that there was an aim to this long
trek,
because direction was consistent and progress was steady.

For a brief moment, she rationalised that she'd probably been found
by
people who lived some distance from the roadworks, perhaps in some
isolated
farmhouse, people who had undertaken to carry her over the moor, having
no
other method of transporting her. Again, though, the stillness and
the
dampness fitted that theory like a raincoat on a pig.

The realisation that she was underground was a long time in coming.
When it
did come, it came in a horrible rush, born from associating the
pressure in
her eardrums and the staleness of the air with the oddities that she
had
already identified.

She wasn't claustrophobic, but the thought of being beneath the
earth
nonetheless terrified her.

"Stop", she called out. "For God's sake, stop. For God's sake, take
me
back".

There was no reaction to her appeal. The procession continued,
inexorable,
determined. Again she pleaded with the group, and this time she felt
a
presence move to the side of her and a hand fasten firmly on her upper
arm.
The grip was clearly intended to calm her, to assure her that no harm
was
intended.

She might indeed have been pacified, had not the owner of the hand
then
chosen to move it up to her forehead.

Later, she understood that there had been concern about the possibility
of
fever, that the touch had originated with goodwill, but at the time it
had
despatched her into a paroxysm of horror.

The hand was clammy and cold. She felt as though someone had placed a
live
fish against her, and she squealed, strained away. Her movement was
so
violent and so sudden that the stretcher party had to fight for
balance.

Immediately, the hand was withdrawn, but the knowledge that she now
had
could not be withdrawn, unacceptable and vile though that knowledge
was. She
tried to hide from it of course, tried to deny it, but the evidence
blazed
her meagre defences away, leaving only the truth. She was the captive
of
beings who were not human, of beings that were not known to humans,
and
these beings were taking her beneath the skin of the earth, to their
lair,
where they would be free to do to her whatever they wished.

She had read of alien abductions in the press, and whilst she had
dismissed
the tales of these self-proclaimed abductees as hokum, she remembered
some
of their stories, relating abominable violations, experimental
amputations,
impregnation's and dreadful abuse. Such abductions, she knew, had
usually
been linked with the occupants of unidentified flying objects, but in
her
paranoid state she was able to reconcile that variation. UFOs, she
decided,
did not necessarily imply extraterrestrial origin. Indeed, she recalled
the
claim as having been made that flying saucers originated from some
great
hole in the earth, somewhere in Antarctica.

She realised that she was whining with fear and, realising, did not
stop.
This time, cautious now, her captors did not try to comfort her.

*****

The journey seemed endless, and sometimes oxygen was at a premium.
However,
just when Maria was beginning to believe that she would spend the rest
of
her life in mid-air, a waypoint was reached, and she was lowered to
the
ground. Immediately dampness seeped through the material of her
stretcher
and into her clothing. The creatures, meanwhile, squelched around
her.

After a moment she heard a splashing noise, then a scraping, and
shortly
thereafter she was lifted again. This time she was carried only a
short
distance before being put back down, on a more solid surface. Her
hands
investigated that surface, and read it as wood.

The wood rocked. The creatures were, she guessed, close beside her.
She
could sense their nearness by their breathing, but additionally she
could
almost make herself believe that she could see them as dark shapes,
that her
eyes had adjusted sufficiently to enable her to distinguish the
movement of
black against black.

The wood rocked again, now more violently, and the splashing
recommenced,
this time in a rhythm, sounding like oars penetrating water.

A few moments of concentration convinced her that the simile was the
fact.
She had indeed been transferred to some kind of boat. The noise that
she
heard did indeed imply the disturbance of liquid as the boat was
propelled.

It was difficult for her to properly assess time, but certainly at
least an
hour passed before the craft nudged against solid ground again. During
her
voyage across what could only be some vast underground lake, she
maintained
her silence, and the creatures kept theirs. At rest, their ragged
breathing
could no longer be heard, and only the scything of wood through water
linked
her to the reality of her predicament.

Her legs were still painful, but not as painful as they had been, and
there
was a reason for that easing. She had become aware that at some
point,
probably before she was lifted onto the stretcher, elementary
medical
precautions had been taken, involving the immobilisation of her
injured
limbs. These seemed to be encased, perhaps in quick drying mud. The
effect
was pleasant, although she was certain that the work had not been done
for
her benefit.

On landfall she was hoisted from the boat, and the journey continued
as
before, on foot. It then became apparent that her bearers' destination
was
near, because she sensed that more of the creatures were in the
vicinity.
There was much shuffling, which she guessed to signify that she was
being
looked at. Her captors, she had already decided, had excellent vision
in
darkness. Additionally, progress was now slow, as though the party
was
making its way through interested observers.

Finally, she was set down again. The new surface beneath her back
was
comfortable, almost as comfortable as a bed, but on this occasion
investigation by her hands through the material of the stretcher did
not
help with better identification. She at first thought it odd that she
had
not been removed from the stretcher, then guessed that any intention to
lift
her clear would have been reconsidered following her reaction to the
touch
on her forehead.

Squeaks and squeals surrounded her, clearly conversational because
they
comprised variety of tone. The sounds were very low, however,
inaudible
without concentration.

For some minutes she was left untouched in her reclined position.
The
horrors which she anticipated grew massive in their sudden proximity,
and
she tried again to move her legs, to bring them closer together, thus
making
an effort to resist at least one of those horrors. As she'd expected,
she
was unsuccessful.

There came a moment when she convinced herself that her dread of
impending
interference had been justified, because she suddenly understood that
one of
the alien beings was touching her thighs. The understanding
encapsulated a
certainty that this assault had been going on for some time. She had
become
aware of it only because the protective layer placed around her
injuries had
been removed so that the slimy hand was in direct contact with her
skin.

She reacted as she had reacted before. She screamed.

Her scream was useless. The assault did not cease. Indeed it
intensified,
because more creatures joined in, holding her at her shoulders and
hips,
preventing movement.

Long after they had left her alone, she allowed the thought that the
being
at her legs had been checking her injuries, had harboured no
salacious
intent whatsoever, and that its companions had been holding her to
ensure
that she did not injure herself further. Allowing the thought in no
way
alleviated her fear at what her captors' ultimate motives might be, but
she
was nonetheless slightly calmed.

At the time, though, she had been insane with panic, helpless in
darkness
against a foe she could neither recognise nor reconcile. At the time,
she
had prayed to her God to strike her dead.

*****

For a long period after the assault, she was again left on her own.
She
believed that she slept. At length, she heard one of the creatures
shuffling
towards her, and something was pressed into her hand.

She recognised the something as a cup of sorts, and she drank from
it,
mainly because she was thirsty, but also because she didn't care
what
noxious or debilitating or even poisonous substance it might contain.
She
had utterly lost hope.

The drink was in fact very pleasant, thick and hot, with a strong taste
of
meat, perhaps beef. It succoured her, strengthened her a little. Later,
she
was given fruit, and she consumed this too, even though she could
not
identify shape, texture or flavour.

The drinks came at regular intervals. The fruit came at regular
intervals.
Unfortunately, the investigations of her legs came at regular intervals
too.
She knew now that the injury to her left leg was minor, because she
could
bend that limb and stretch it, but she was far from sure about the
damage to
her right leg.

Her incapacity did not, in any event, influence her general mobility.
Even
if her legs had been working, she would not have been able to see what
was
beyond the bed upon which she lay and could not therefore have risked
any
kind of experiment. The thought occurred that if she was to get up and
walk
away, if she was to become lost deep within the bowels of the earth,
then
even the drink and the food would be denied her, and she would die
a
horrible death. Her instinct for self-preservation, however illogical
it
might be, remained strong.

She could therefore come to no other conclusion than that she would
remain
where she was until she was moved by a power other than her own.

The darkness acted like an isolation tent, and within it she relived
her
life over and over again. She remembered things, which she had not
thought
of for many years. Scenes from her childhood took on an awesome
clarity. She
even recalled a moment as a baby, tucked in her pram, as her mother
sang a
song whose melody now moved cleanly and precisely through her head,
even
though she was convinced that she had never heard it since that
moment.

"Someone's rocking my dreamboat", it went, "disturbing my beautiful
dream.
It's a mystery to me."

At most times she wasn't certain whether her eyes were closed or not.
Images
of people she knew floated before her, sharp images. There, she saw
her
husband, usually a cold and emotionless man, but now smiling at her.
There,
she saw her father, who seemed to be angry, no doubt as a result of
what he
would regard as her easy submission.

Now and then, she fouled herself or wet herself. On the first occasion
that
she had felt the need to pee, she had held back for as long as she
could,
but finally, in unbearable discomfort, had released the fluid, feeling
an
immediate and abysmal shame.

It hadn't mattered that her clothing already stank and was slightly
damp.
She had still regarded the act as unforgivable.

*****

Later, the creatures had eased her misery, lifting her, wiping her,
changing
her bed and her clothing. Now, for the most part, she wore dry
cotton
garments of indeterminate shape and style. The creatures had apparently
also
recognised her dislike of their touch, and with an odd kindness had
taken to
wearing hand coverings when they lifted her.

She had thus learned to serve her body's needs when there was no
alternative, and then to call out. When she called, the alien beings
came
immediately, cleaned her up again. It was the only time that she ever
called
them, so they were, she supposed, becoming trained.

Indicating as it did that the greater intellect was hers, she relished
this
notion, but she found the validity of it hard to cling to.

Drinks continued to be supplied. Food continued to be supplied.
Investigations continued to be made to her legs.

At first she had tried to measure the time which elapsed between meals
by
assessing her hunger, but she had soon given that up as a whimsical
frame of
reference. Later, she had tried to count the drinks as a means of
pacing the
ordeal, but lost count after thirty.

Time, inexorably, became a vulnerable thing, lost the dependability she
had
always associated with it, and eventually it became an irrelevance.
She
ceased to think about time at all. Her day was her week, her week her
year.
Her life was linear, moving at whatever rate it chose towards her
eventual
extinction.

Only once did something happen which was unusual enough to sharpen her
fear.

*****

She was being changed after yet another accident, but on this occasion,
when
the changing was concluded, she was not, in accordance with usual
practice,
returned to the bed. Instead, she was carried away from it.

She did not struggle, for she had learned that struggling was
meaningless.
The journey was in any event a short one, and soon she was set down
again,
on what was clearly a bed of identical construction to the one from
which
she had been removed.

The only difference between this place and her previous location was
that a
larger number of the creatures were present, and these particular
creatures
seemed very taken by her. They gathered around her, hissed and whooshed
and
whirred excitedly. They studied her for a considerable time, then they
all
left at once.

She was kept in this new place for a time that was naturally
without
meaning, during which there was always noise around her. Oddly, it
was
pleasant to feel so many presences, particularly as her relationship
with
them was passive. Throughout the meaningless time, little groups would
visit
irregularly, would stand and look at her but would never touch
her.

In the end, she was taken back. The drinks resumed. The fruit resumed.
The
investigations resumed.

The silence resumed.

*****

The next development was disturbing and unwelcome. Suddenly, her
memories
and visions deserted her, leaving without a promise that they'd
return.

She was finally able to accept that she had nothing but her physical
self to
keep her company, and she saw that she would as a result become, to
herself
as well as to the beings who ministered to her, an object rather than
a
person. Then, in that moment, her will to survive, like time, became
an
irrelevance, and she decided to die.

Her plan for the achievement of death was put into practice coldly
and
quickly. She refused the drinks, and she refused the food.

On the second occasion that she denied herself sustenance, one of
the
creatures held her mouth open, tried to force at least the liquid down
her
throat.

Contemptuously, she spat the brew out, and such violence was never
employed
again.

*****

She became thirsty, and later she was hungry, but she resisted
remedial
measures easily, even though they were often offered.

Another unidentifiable time passed. She started to slip in and out
of
consciousness.

Finally, she was moved again.

She was lifted back onto the stretcher and another march began. This
journey
was a particularly long one, but she didn't hope that the length
implied an
intention to return her to her own people. She had lost both the
ability to
hope and any real recollection of her own people.

She noted unemotionally that the party did not cross water, and
presumed
that she was in fact being taken even further away from the place in
which
she had once lived a life.

When the walk ended, she was set down again, still on the stretcher.
The
surface beneath her was solid and rough, almost certainly bare
rock.

Silence, well known and bereft of either promise or threat,
descended.

Her senses told her that the alien beings had gone. She guessed that
they
had abandoned her to die, somewhere away from them, somewhere where
they did
not have to watch her death happen. She felt easy about this. They owed
her
nothing, after all.

The thought occurred to her that, when she died, she would be well and
truly
buried. She found this reassuring. She had never wanted to be
cremated.

*****

Suddenly, there was light. The light attacked her eyes, speared her
brain.
Closing her eyelids was no defence. She started to moan, a high,
keening
sound which fed her fear, but which she couldn't prevent.

She continued to moan through the long, meaningless time that she was
able
to. During that time she heard human voices, and felt human hands.
During
that time she was carried again, seemingly upwards, and the light
strengthened, and her moaning strengthened. After that time she felt a
sharp
prick in her arm, and blessed unconsciousness delivered her.

*****

She awoke in a place that she at first thought was familiar, because
she was
on a bed, and she could see and hear nothing. Soon, though, someone
came to
talk with her, but she heard only the human voice and not the words
that it
used. Food was brought, and her curiosity at her new environment led
her to
eat it. It had a taste familiar from some previous life. Drinks
were
brought, and they varied in flavour. Her legs were investigated,
without
hand coverings, but the touch of the investigator was dry and warm
and
acceptable.

Time passed. Enough time passed that she started to become aware of
time.
The tastes of meals evoked memories of mornings, of afternoons, of
evenings,
of the split of the day. Someone placed a radio at her bedside, and
this
helped her to recall hours and minutes.

One morning, she recognised her husband's voice, and realised that he
had
been with her every day, that his had been the first, kind voice that
she
had registered.

After that, things got better quickly. She started to understand where
she
was, although little else. The bandages were removed in stages from
her
eyes, and the day finally came when she was permitted to see
again.

By then, she knew that she had been in the hospital for five
weeks.

Before she had been found, she had been missing for over a month.

*****

The only thing that her husband could tell her was that a tourist party
and
their guide had discovered her naked on the lower levels of the Blue
John
mines in Derbyshire. She had been placed in the centre of a
well-used
walkway.

The party had been the first of the day, and had been illuminating
the
caverns as they went.

She had been hysterical, and it had been some time before they had been
able
to establish that the cause of her hysteria was light. A doctor had
been
called, and she had been put under.

Her optical nerves had been badly damaged, and her eyes had therefore
been
protected to allow the healing process. Also, her right leg had
been
fractured at some point, but a lot of remedial work had already been
done.
The bones had started to knit long before she'd been brought into
the
hospital. As for her left leg, this had merely been badly sprained.
In
principle, she was assured, it would not be very long before she could
walk
normally.

Her husband wanted to know what had happened. Her car had been found on
the
Yorkshire moors, whereas she'd reappeared about fifty miles from there.
She'
d wished that she could answer him, but for a long time she
couldn't
remember, and for a longer time after that she didn't want to remember.
The
police remained interested for about a year, but eventually, frustrated
and
busy, they closed the books.

*****

Maria visited several psychiatrists, and even tried regression therapy,
all
without success. The memory finally came back to her about a year
later, one
dark night when her husband was late home from work and her house
suffered
an unexpected power cut. He found her in the kitchen, shaking with
fear,
wrapped into a taut little ball. She had been trying to open the
outside
door but had been unable to locate the handle.

Even then she didn't tell him the truth, because she knew that he was
a
straightforward man, and that he would have real difficulty in
believing
her. In fact she told no one the truth, because she was far from
certain
that what she remembered was the truth.

By this time, she had returned to teaching, and the rigours of the
job
helped her, during the difficult few months that followed, to cling on
to
her sanity. In quieter moments, of course, she became obsessed with
the
puzzle of her abduction.

In one way, it seemed that the creatures, whatever they might have
been, had
gone out of their way to aid her. They had carried her a
considerable
distance, allowed her to live free of harm amongst them, given her
medical
aid. Then, eventually, they had brought her back to her own kind.

She could not, however, shake off the conviction that the beings had
ignored
reference to other alternatives. They could, for example, have taken
her to
the mines, where they clearly knew that she would be discovered,
immediately, or certainly, allowing them the opportunity of rest
and
discussion, within a day or two. For some reason, therefore, they had
kept
her, yet they had done nothing to her. They had left her utterly
alone.

One day, she remembered the exception to that loneliness, recalled
being
taken to that other bed, where many creatures had gathered around her,
had
observed her, had returned time and time again.

This odd memory was still at the forefront of her mind when she started
her
first class of the day.

****

Her pupils were seven and eight year olds, and the first lesson was
a
biology session. As requested, some of the children had brought in
their
domestic pets. The room was full of hamsters, and rabbits, and
budgerigars,
and it consequently stank.

One child had brought in a blackbird and Maria, perturbed, demanded
an
explanation.

"It's a wild creature", she told the child. "Not a pet. You can't keep
it
locked in a cage".

The child had rushed to explain. The family's cat, she said, had
savaged the
bird, and one wing had been torn. The bird, it seemed, was unable to
fly.
His mother, taking pity, had placed it in the cage for its own safety
and
was tending the wing, hoping that one day the creature would fly free
again.
In the meantime, she had seen no reason why the child should not
be
permitted to exhibit it before his teacher and his class.

Maria had nodded, the conundrum of her experience suddenly and fully
solved
by this chance conversation with a child. At last, she was able
to
understand that her ordeal had served a purpose, and as a bonus was
able to
confirm her belief that during the ordeal she had never been in any
danger.

The bird was a boon to the lesson. Maria would be able to teach the
children
much about the diversity and power of nature.

She pushed her arms out, stretching them as far as they would go. Some
of
the children imitated her. She laughed, encouraging the
imitation.

I'm a bird, she thought. I'm a bird, and I can fly again.