Once Around the Carousel

Chapter Twenty

"What the hell are you doing?" Eliza cried the way someone might when spotting a cutter edging a blade into the flesh of their forearm.

Sitting on the floor, feet tucked under her butt with her back straight and ridged, Linda's hands rested on her bare thighs. The only visible movements came from her fingernails, which periodically dug into her legs. Outside of Linda's stillness, nothing about her indicated a girl in peaceful meditation. Instead, her eyes appeared intently focused straight ahead (although her mind barely processed the light she took in), and her pursed lips and furrowed brow produced the look of a girl harnessing every ounce of strength she could muster. Then coming closer, Eliza noticed her baby sister's abdomen flinching under her oversized T-shirt as if electric charges were pulsating through her body.

The sliver of Linda's consciousness still residing in the Stapelton's living room recognized Eliza's presence and pulled her away from the latest horrific episode she'd found in the Sea of Souls. Linda's ability to punish herself had become a compulsion. Day after day, she continued to weave herself into the souls of the tormented, reliving humanity's most bitterly painful chapters. Desperately, she searched out and relived actual suffering. Taking in every moment of the pain she could endure, she forced herself to cling to the soul strands of humanity's most anguished for as long as possible. Today's destination proved particularly effective: The hours and days following the bombing of Hiroshima, as people burned beyond recognition, encountered their loved ones in still worse condition.

"Are you okay," Eliza tried again, kneeling and putting her hand on Linda's back. Drenched in sweat, strands of Linda's wet hair clung to the sides of her face and down the back of her neck. She barely moved at her sister's touch. "What the fuck's wrong with you? You're soaking wet. What are you doing to yourself?" Eliza asked, jostling Linda's shoulder.

Sensing her sister's concern, Linda's eyes rolled upward. As they did, surges of the pain and terror she was forcing herself to bathe in arced like an electrical current into Eliza, pelting her with despair and helplessness like a sandstorm of misery. Once Linda realized what she'd done, she pulled hard on her tether and came snapping back, recoiling into the world like the plug into a vacuum cleaner. She blinked hard and shuddered. "I'm doing my meditation," she said, staring blankly at her sister.

"I thought you said it made you feel good cuz you're sweating and look all freaked out," Eliza said, shaking her head, not knowing what had sent chills racing through her. Then, taking a closer look at her sister's eyes, she asked, "You been smoking grass?"

"No! What do you think; I'm like one of the freaks you hang out with?"

"Oh no, not my baby sister," Eliza laughed. "Why would I think that? Oh, maybe it's cuz you hang out with Titus Dwight, who's like, I don't know, the weirdest man on Earth. Now get your boney little ass upstairs and take a shower. I'll make us some breakfast."

Linda shrugged. Then, in a smooth, controlled motion, she rocked back onto her feet and stood up. Bending at the waist with only the slightest flex in her knees, she easily reached the floor to roll up her mat.

Albeit with a hitch in her step, Linda walked toward the stairs with unmistakable grace. Her mobility had become a point of pride, and Linda felt in her heart that she owed much of it to Titus and more so to Robin for teaching her to practice yoga.

She and Eliza had talked about her relationship with Titus and Robin. Eliza assumed the friendship stemmed from Robin's tutoring and figured people like Robin and Titus were probably the best thing for Linda. She knew someday that her funny little sister would be someone, a scientist studying the ocean or maybe the first woman astronaut – way more than a Metuchin Townie. And she figured people like Titus and Robin came closer to who she'd end up with than anyone else they knew.