And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

"And Miles to Go Before I Sleep",

by Paracelsus

Part I

The scene was painfully vivid...

It was as the Book of Revelations had foretold. This was the final battle between Good and Evil, between the Archangel Michael and Satan. Satan looked just as she knew he would: skeletal, with a sneering serpentine face and eyes like red coals. St. Michael... well, the Archangel had chosen to manifest as a young man, skinny, bespectacled, with a shock of unkempt black hair. Yet the glory of the Almighty shown round about him, and he stood unafraid.

If more proof were needed of the power of the Lord of Hosts, it was that Satan had brought dozens of his minions to the battle; the Archangel Michael had come alone.

She could hear nothing at first. Satan and Michael were addressing one another with undisguised contempt, but no words could be heard. The Evil One's minions kept their distance; whether they were barred from interfering, or were simply too scared to move, she couldn't say. Power sparked and crackled in the air as the two adversaries each tested the other's defenses.

Finally, whatever St. Michael said proved too much to be borne. The Evil One sprang forward, hands reaching out to strangle his foe. The Archangel locked hands with Satan's, and they stood there, straining, while unearthly energies surged about them.

And now she could hear something: music. Eerily beautiful music, as if a songbird had been given the voice of a cathedral pipe organ. The music grew louder, while the nimbus of power surrounding the grappling foes flared brighter.

The sneer was gone from Satan's face; fear had replaced it. He struggled to free himself from his enemy's hold. The Archangel held him that much tighter. Michael's face was grim, determined, implacable. And, somehow, immensely sad.

The birdsong reached its crescendo, at once triumphant and bittersweet. And as the final chords trumpeted, the two figures exploded in a searing paroxysm of light that rent the very earth. Good had defeated Evil - but with a terrible sacrifice.

Margaret Pohuhu sat bolt upright in her bed.

For a moment, she sat, confused and trembling. It had been so real! She reached over to the nightstand, managed to turn on the lamp by her bed. She glanced at her alarm clock: Two in the bloody morning. She swung her legs out of bed, stumbled to the bathroom. Hands still shaking, she poured herself a glass of water and drank it thirstily.

It had been so real! She'd never had a dream like that one. Margaret wondered, fleetingly, if even Nana had ever had a dream like that one. She started to pour another glass of water, then on impulse splashed water into her face. She stood up from the sink and regarded herself in the mirror. Her dark skin was still beaded with perspiration... her breathing was ragged, only now coming back under control... a natural response to epinephrine, her medical training quietly reminded her...

And that reminded her that she was on duty at the hospital at seven, so she'd better try to get some more sleep. Heaven knew, as an intern at Christchurch Hospital, she got little enough.

As she crawled back into bed and turned off the lamp, Margaret told herself it was only a dream. Dreams happen all the time; they didn't mean anything. Really. Even if the Apocalypse were happening in England...

(How did she know the dream was set in England? Yet she was sure it was.)

... even so, Margaret reminded herself as she drifted back to sleep, England was about as far away from her home in New Zealand as you could get.

*

By scrambling madly, and foregoing breakfast, Margaret managed to arrive at the ICU nurse's station at the stroke of seven. Dr. Wells, the staff physician, raised an eyebrow at her, but didn't reprimand her. Give thanks for small favors. She'd get the gist of the morning briefing from him later.

Beth MacCrimmon was the duty nurse this morning, thank goodness. Beth was her favorite of the ICU nurses. You had to like someone who preferred "Beth" to her actual name of "Elsbeth". "Morning, Beth. Sorry I'm late. Rough night."

"Oh, if I had a dollar for every time I've heard that this morning." Beth spoke with the slightest trace of a Scots burr; Margaret wondered if she'd been spending time with her Edinburgh-born family again. "Anyway, you're not late. Ready to do your rounds, Dr. Pohuhu?"

"What've we got?" Margaret asked back, and picked up the first chart. No real surprises: Phil Watson's staph from his heart surgery still hadn't responded to antibiotics; Mary Puketapu's broken hip still needed watching; Mrs. Goodwin still suffered the aftereffects of her recent stroke; and little Katy's leukemia treatment still hadn't shown signs of helping. She came to the last chart... "A new one?"

"A John Doe from ER. Police brought him in this morning," Beth volunteered. "Looked like he'd been mugged by sadists."

"How so?"

"They took everything on him - he had no wallet, no ID, no watch, nothing. Then they beat him, and cut him, and it looks like they set him on fire. Third-degree burns on his hands, second-degree on his arms and upper torso."

"Sweet Christ." Margaret closed her eyes. Proof, if she'd needed it, that her dream had only been a dream. Evil still lived, if muggers could do this to their victim... That reminded her of what Beth had said earlier. "So how'd you sleep? You don't look your usual fresh-as-a-daisy self."

"Not well. Come to think of it, I don't think anyone slept well."

"I certainly didn't, but I had an excuse. How about you?"

"Oh..." Beth looked embarrassed. "I dreamt of the Lord of the Rings."

"My, my," said Margaret dryly. "How original." Ever since Peter Jackson had started filming the Tolkien trilogy, Beth had been obsessed with Middle-Earth. She'd even spent part of her vacation last summer touring "Hobbiton", on the North Island. "Wait, let me guess: You were with Aragorn again? Or was it Legolas this time?"

Beth stuck out her tongue. "Neither. It was Sauron and Frodo. I wasn't even in it."

"Um, I didn't think they met in the movie. Or the books."

"Well, no," Beth frowned. "But they met in my dream. Sauron and Frodo were fighting. It was like this epic Final Battle scene. You could tell it was Sauron, he had the eyes of fire... and Frodo was dark-haired, like in the movie, and slender, and young. But somehow, he had Gandalf's magic. And he defeated the Dark Lord..." she paused, remembering, "... but was destroyed in doing it."

No, Margaret told herself. That has to be a coincidence. "Frodo had Gandalf's magic?"

"Uh huh. Look, I know it sounds weird, but that was my dream. You did ask." Beth yawned. "Really strong dream, too; it woke me up..."

Weird? You don't know the half of it. "I had a dream, too."

"About Sauron and Frodo? You're kidding!"

"No, not about Sauron and Frodo. But thanks for sharing your fantasies with me." Margaret managed to make it sound like a joke. "Maybe I could get Nana to look at them for you? We're having dinner tonight. It's Thursday."

"Already? So it is. Say hi to Nana for me, and tell her she doesn't come to visit us often enough. And no, she doesn't need to look at my dreams, thanks." Beth shook her head to clear it, then went down the hall.

Charts in hand, Dr. Pohuhu started her rounds, going to each of her patients in the ICU. She asked all the medically pertinent questions; but she made a point of asking how they'd slept.

And in every case, they'd had a dream last night. Some didn't remember the details, they only knew they'd dreamed. But those who remembered, without exception, described it as a battle between something very evil (Hitler, the Emperor, a scaly monster) and someone very good (a French resistance fighter, Skywalker, a knight in shining armor). And the Someone Very Good was always skinny and dark-haired.

She came to the last bed, the John Doe. She read over his chart: spotted by police early in the morning - they thought at first he was drunk, before they'd seen his injuries - and brought to the ER. She winced at the clinical descriptions of the burns on his hands; he'd be lucky to keep the use of them. They'd done preliminary debriding of tissue, applied sterile salve... saline IV for fluids and 'lytes, antibiotics for the inevitable infection in the burned tissue... patient unconscious on arrival, unresponsive to stimuli, morphine drip recommended upon awakening... looked like the ER staff had done everything appropriate...

And then Margaret Pohuhu looked up from the chart, and actually saw the John Doe. A young man, perhaps twenty by his looks. Pakeha - not Maori. Thin to the point of emaciation. Unruly black hair. Bandages on his shoulders and biceps... and a dramatic scar, on his forehead.

This. Is. A. Coincidence. Margaret found she was gulping air, and forced her breathing to calm. There are lots of young, skinny men in New Zealand, she told herself firmly. The fact that some people - well, everyone - had had a dream about one, and one showed up here the very next day, well, that proves...

Suddenly, irrationally, she wished Nana were here.

*

Dr. Pohuhu accompanied Dr. Wells on his afternoon rounds, and tried her very best to pay attention to the medical exposition he was giving for her benefit. The man was a good doctor, and a fair teacher, but she couldn't seem to focus on what he was saying; her thoughts kept straying back to the ICU. Finally, their rounds done, he surprised her by directing her to return there: "I have a seminar at the College, Dr. Pohuhu, starting tomorrow morning. I'd like you to take charge of the ward until Monday. Keep an eye on our long-termers. Katy Chao, in particular; I worry that the marrow transplant just isn't taking hold."

Bless the man. I take back everything I was thinking about him, thought Margaret. She returned to the ward, looking for Nurse MacCrimmon and not finding her immediately. She looked in on all her own patients, spared some minutes for Dr. Wells's patients as well, and finally arrived at the new John Doe's bed - where she discovered, to her surprise, that he was no longer unconscious. His eyes were open but unfocused, staring into space.

"Good afternoon. How are you feeling?" He turned his gaze to her, and as if she needed another weirdness today, she saw that his eyes were far from usual. Brilliant green, they were, and at the moment, dazed and confused.

"Sir?" she pressed. "Do you know where you are?" He didn't respond, just stared confusedly at her. Classic trauma, she noted clinically. Disorientation, loss of verbal skills... but if the standard pattern continued, he should begin to adjust to his surrounding in a few days. She hoped so.

"Ah, there you are, doctor," came Beth's voice as she and an orderly rolled up a gurney. "Dr. Wells ordered some X-rays to check for internal damage. Weell, jimmie," she addressed the patient in an atrocious brogue, "are ye ready tae have yuir picture ta'en? 'Twill na hurt a bit."

The John Doe smiled when Beth called him a "jimmie", and Margaret wondered if it might be his real name. The smile was certainly the first response anyone had gotten from him. And it was, well, it was a very sweet smile...

Thereafter, all the nurses called the new patient "Jimmy", and were rewarded with his smile. Dr. Pohuhu, trying to maintain that sense of decorum appropriate to a physician, called him "Jim".

*

On Thursday evenings, Margaret made a point of visiting her grandmother, who lived on the outskirts of town, and fixing dinner for her. Nana Pohuhu could certainly afford a better flat, but Margaret suspected she didn't care for cities. Moreover, as a Maori, she continued to practice what she called "the way", for which it was helpful to be near open land - and near the (mostly) elderly people who looked to her for comfort and guidance. She was never overt about it; she didn't challenge Margaret's Catholic faith; but it sometimes made for interesting dinner conversation on Thursdays.

This Thursday, the moment she entered Nana's flat, Margaret knew that this evening's dinner would be far more interesting than usual.

It looked like every candle Nana owned was lit; they provided the only light in the room. The flat was littered with godsticks, each representing one of the Atui. Her grandmother was nowhere to be seen.

"Nana?" Margaret called tentatively.

"Good, you are here." Margaret followed the voice. Nana was seated on the floor, a carved wooden drum and other artifacts lying about her. "I thought you might come earlier."

"I was at hospital today, Nana, you know that..." She broke off as Nana fixed her with a hard glare. The tattoos on her wizened face only accentuated its fierceness.

"You dreamt last night," said Nana. It was not a question. "You could have come then."

"I wouldn't wake you for a little dream..." Again the glare. She must practice in a mirror, Margaret thought irreverently.

"Little dream? I dreamt it too. All your friends dreamt it. Everyone who slept last night dreamt it. A great evil has been destroyed. Papa is glad, but she is also unsettled. There is much to do."

(And how did she know that everyone'd had that dream?) "Nana, there's not much we could do. I mean, all right, lots of people had a dream. Probably something on the box, some subliminal message or somesuch."

"Would such a thing affect me?" Which was a rhetorical question, as Margaret knew Nana didn't own a television set. "A rock is torn from the sea - the sea rushes in to fill the void. A great evil is gone. Lesser evils will now seek to become great."

Okay, Margaret told herself, this is Nana in evangelical mode. Try to reason with her. She shrugged off her winter coat, and with practiced grace sat on the floor facing Nana. "I repeat, even if this were so, there's not much we could do. I mean, it happened on the other side of the world."

"Ah, your 'little dream' was good enough to tell you that. Yes, the pakeha have delivered us from evil." Margaret couldn't tell if her grandmother were deliberately provoking her with her choice of words. Nana continued, "After that first dream, I dreamt a second dream last night. It reminded me of a letter I received. When I was a little girl. It took me most of the morning to find where I'd stored it." From a pile of papers next to her on the floor, she took a sheet and handed it to Margaret. "Read."

The paper - no, it was genuine parchment - was yellowed with age. The ink had faded somewhat, but Margaret could read the Spenserian handwriting:

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Professor Armando Dippet, Headmaster

Dear Miss Wanui: We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

Had she received a similar letter today, Margaret would have suspected an elaborate practical joke. But sixty years ago, a joke like that - sent to a Maori girl of eleven - would have been unthinkable. But the alternative, a school for magic and sorcery, was equally unthinkable. Yet Nana seemed to be taking it seriously. "A school for real witchcraft? Where? In the UK?"

"It seemed so. They didn't say." Nana took the letter back and replaced it on the stack. "I thought long before I declined their offer. The Japanese fleet were spreading through the Pacific, it was not a good time to travel. And I felt I was more useful here. Not just against the Japanese, but to support our own people. Pakeha magic may be potent, but it is not ours."

Nana fell silent, her eyes hooded, lost in the past. Finally, Margaret ventured, "So. You, um, dreamt about this school?"

"What happened last night was connected with this school. Oh, yes. And it will connect with you, child, before this is over." Nana sighed, and reaching out, stroked Margaret's arm. "I ought to have done more for you. You are my son's daughter, and I love you as though you were my own. Yet when your mother took you to raise, I stood aside. I ought to have insisted. Do forgive me."

Raised Catholic, Margaret translated. She sighed, and took Nana's hand firmly. "Nana, I love you. But there's nothing to forgive. Mum raised me fine, I think; do you think I turned out so badly? Come on." She tried to catch her grandmother's eye. "You have your way, and I have mine. Mine seems right to me, and not just because Mum brought me up that way. I chose it. We've talked about this before."

"Yes. But you will soon have to see things that you may not wish to see, and I will have done nothing to prepare you. Papa give you strength then." Nana seemed interested in Margaret's hand, where it still grasped her own. She looked up and suddenly smiled. "Perhaps she has. But you are right, what comes will come. For now, I think you had best start dinner."

Margaret nodded, glad the topic was closed. She rose to her feet, and pulled Nana up from the floor. Nana gave her hands an extra squeeze before releasing them. She waved at the godsticks around the flat. "You won't mind the extra guests?"

Margaret smiled back. "As long as they don't ask for seconds."