Like the cornered rats that filled me with terror. I bared my teeth. I raised my back and I looked for an opportunity to strike out.
Despite what I was sure Dr. Foreman saw in me, she continued to be pleasant, to offer me new privileges, to drive a wedge between me and the others. I knew I couldn't refuse anything, but I believed in my heart that she knew she hadn't defeated me. yet. Of course, that frightened me more than anything. She was not going to give up. She had so many other techniques and plans yet to employ. Something new could come from any direction at any time. The expression you're walking are thin ice never had more meaning for me than it did here. I knew I would in time fall through and she would have me wrapped in something so terrible I would lose my name. I would be erased and re-created in her image. It gave new meaning to the word clones that Gia had used when she used to talk more angrily about our buddies.
As Dr. Foreman had warned us that first day in the orientation roam, she did have godlike powers in her world and we were surely in her world. Her voice cracked like a whip above our heads. even. I noticed, when she spoke to the buddies. They were her girls, but they were almost as afraid of her as we were when they were in her presence.
Only Natani seemed to have a sense of wellbeing and peacefulness here. He moved through all this as if he were truly in his own world, isolated from the loud shouting, the biting sarcasm, the punishments inflicted on us, and the clouds of depression that hovered above our heads. How could he do that?
I wondered. It was like a man walking through a raging fire, never singed, not even sweating.
I studied him with more interest, especially now that I had read the letter written by the imaginary Posy. Was that all part of Gia's madness or was there really such a thing as escaping into yourself? Was there a way to fortify yourself, to do something that would protect you from Dr. Foreman's bullets and arrows? And if there was, would Natani, who supposedly owed her so much, be willing to show it to me? Was that what he was trying to do when he had told me to keep my hogan closed inside me?
I was still the one he favored to work with the horses. Gia had said that Posy had loved working with the horses. and Gia said Natani had taken a special liking to her. Of course. now I knew that she meant herself. She just couldn't believe anyone would or could like her, and if they did, they had to be liking her imaginary second self.
A little over a week after my experience in the basement. I was brushing Wind Song when Natani came into the barn and began to repair a stall door.
I took a deep breath and turned to him. "Natani, can you show me how to escape from unhappiness, to travel to another world, a world inside you?"
He paused and looked at me without saying no or saying yes.
"I'm afraid that if they put me back in that place. the Ice Room, or do something equally terrible. I'll crack up completely. I need someplace else to go."
He nodded and sat back on the barn floor,
"There is a story." he began. "about a desert rat pacing back and forth in front of a tortoise and pausing once in a while to look at the tortoise, who had a smile of contentment on
his face.
"What do you have to be contented about?' the rat asked him. 'It's one hundred and twenty degrees. Ravens and buzzards are circling around us all day. Who knows when it rained last?'
"I am contented,' the tortoise replied. 'because when something unpleasant happens. I just return to my shell. In here I can cross over to a world where it is cool, where there are no ravens and buzzards, and where there is always a cool and refreshing stream.'
"'How can you have all that in there?' the rat asked. amazed. 'Your shell is far too small,'
"'No,' the tortoise said. 'this world in which you pace and worry is too small. In here, there are no horizons, no bottoms to streams, and no roof to the sky, because in here, I make my dreams.'
"'How do you make dreams?' the rat asked.
The tortoise said. 'if you knew that, you would be a tortoise. too.'
"And with that, he pulled into his shell and the rat went on pacing and worrying until he wore himself out and a buzzard had him for breakfast."
Natani turned to go back to fixing the stall door.
"I don't understand your story. Natani." I said "What does that have to do with me and my
problem?"
He paused again. "First, you must become the tortoise, daughter of the sun. First, you must make yourself a shell."
"But how?"
"You must find a place where you can make your dreams safely. But, there is another story I must tell you. It is the story of a tortoise who grew so contented and so satisfied with his dreams, he never came out of his shell. He starved to death."
"Yeah. well. I might be better off," I muttered.
He thought for a moment and then nodded. "Tonight, when the clouds are asleep, too, you come to my hogan and I will help you find your shell."
A part of me was afraid, not of what Natani might do and say, but afraid that he might be doing something Dr. Foreman wanted him to do. She had told me she tolerated him and that he served a purpose. She seemed so powerful. It was hard to imagine any place or anyone on this ranch of hers that wasn't in some way under her control.