Chapter Twenty-Nine

Little Miss Wilma Shirley

It was a month after the battle in the Vortex. Wish and I had just settled into our new home, and we'd already acquired the beginnings of what eventually became the Sanders Zoo. The Professor had finally gotten back to the States physically, and he was visiting us for a few days. Wish was away visiting with a friend for the day, so we were pretty much alone with one another and our thoughts.

We settled on opposite sides of the patio table with drinks in hand. It was really nice to be able to kick back and rest, for once.

The Professor sipped at his Earl Grey and smiled at me soberly. "I can feel the questions in you, son. Don't be afraid to ask them."

I took a pull at my Coke and chuckled, "Showoff. Let's make it interesting; suppose you tell me what my questions are?"

He leaned back in his chair and laughed. It had a sound of delight to it. "Lazybones! Very well, I will: You would like to know more about Wish's origins; specifically, who her true parents were, and how I came to adopt her."

I licked the tip of a forefinger and drew a pair of imaginary lines in the air between us. "Well, two out of three's not bad. She's always been a little closed-mouth about certain things. Trying to get anything about her early childhood out of her is like pulling teeth. I'd love to know more about that time in her life, and I'd like to know how she came to know of Shaun's existence."

He chuckled. "Well, not even the best of us is perfect, after all. Still, I like the fact that you're inquisitive, and not afraid to show it. It's one of the best ways in the world to learn. Very well, I'll begin with Wish's childhood."

He took another sip of his tea, and his expression grew distant as he thought back to earlier times. "There's not a great deal to be told of Wish's natural parents, I'm sad to say. Their names were Dr. Lucien DeCharante and Julianna LeFavre-DeCharante. Lucien was a parapsychologist---and by all reports a very well-developed psychic as well. Julianna was a talented artist, and a synesthete. Both were reputedly brilliant people, as well as handsome and beautiful, respectively. It appears that Wish came by her looks, her intellect, and her Gifts genetically. Both her parents had I.Q.s that registered in excess of 150 on the Stanford-Binet scale, and both were Adepts in their own rights. Apparently the genes responsible for these things proved to be dominant in Wish. Of course, as you've been told, Wish was born Wilma Shirley, and her nickname came to be in the fifth year of her life. Her parents were, I'm told, brilliant individuals in many respects?but I know very little about them, all told. They were very private people, and I was able to learn little of them for Wish's benefit."

I raised a finger to stop him. "'Synesthete'? That sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't place it at the moment."

"Hmm. Well, answering that in detail would take a rather long time. If you'd finished reading those books Tommy gave you, you'd know this by now, but your life's been rather full, as of late, and I imagine you haven't had much time for reading."

I snorted and waved a hand at our surroundings. "No kidding. We've had to combine our honeymoon with finding a permanent home and getting it set up decently. I haven't even had time to check out my junk mail."

He smiled knowingly. "I remember all too well what the confusion and stress of setting up a new home is like. Very well, the short form is this: Think of the major sensory centers of the human brain as being part of a computer's motherboard. However, some flaw in the manufacturing process has resulted in some of the integrated-circuit chips that comprise the sensory centers being slightly misconnected. Sensory input from the ears is sometimes partially processed through the visual cortex; some of the input from the eyes is accidentally routed through the olfactory centers, or some unexpected combination of these occurs. In essence, people smell colors, or see sounds, or hear temperatures, or taste textures. Some even see magnetic fields---or at least perceive them in a manner analogous to sight. They perceive the magnetohydrodynamic fields generated by the physical bodies of living creatures as zones of colored light, or something very similar."

I nodded understanding. "Auras. I don't actually see them as light, but that's how I interpret what I'm perceiving."

He nodded back. "Precisely. Some people actually do see them as light and color. Others just interpret them in those terms because they're most accustomed to interpreting electromagnetic-spectrum phenomena as light and vision. Some even perceive the low-frequency electromagnetic waves generated by the rocks in the ground grinding together before an earthquake as sound---a hum, a shrill, grinding noise---the descriptions vary."

He spread his hands in a kind of "that's-all" gesture.

"As far as anyone can determine, the condition of synesthesia appears to be directly connected to psychic phenomena. The research on the subject indicates that all Adepts are synesthetes to one extent or another, and anyone subject to synesthesia is at least a latent Psi, even if they've never displayed and overt Gifts. It was once thought to be a rare condition, but the more we learn about it, the more commonplace it seems to be."

I took another pull on my Coke. "Sounds to me like I really need to get back to those books. I still have a lot to learn."

He sighed. "Don't we all? I'm considered to be an expert in my field, but most of the time I feel like a student stumbling about in the dark with nothing but a lit candle to see by."

I sighed and moved my drink to one side so that I could lean my elbows on the table between us. "You were saying that Wish's father was a parapsychologist?"

He nodded absently. "Yes; something of a groundbreaker in the field, I might add. I've based a considerable amount of what I know---and some of my subsequent discoveries---on his researches. Unfortunately, his potential was never fully realized. He and Julianna died in an automobile accident when Wish was but a year old. A drunken driver struck their car head-on."

My stomach lurched and rolled over. "Oh, God. No wonder she won't talk about it."

He nodded broodingly. "Yes?it's partly because she remembers almost nothing of the time, due to her tender age, and partly because it hurts, even now, that she never really had a chance to know her parents."

His expression grew darker. "The only justice to the situation lay in that the drunken fool who killed her parents also died in the accident. He was given no opportunity to be allowed off by the laxities of the American legal system."

The fact that my darling Wish had lost her parents because of a drunk driver had me mad enough to want to bite something in the neck?but there was nothing I could do about it at this late date.

The Professor waited until I'd calmed down a little before he continued. "At the time, Wish's grandmother, Mrs. Louise DeCharante, was babysitting the child. Wish was nowhere near the accident when it happened. When her son and daughter-in-law died, she assumed legal guardianship of her granddaughter. She was a widow, but she was well-to-do, and capable. Lucien had been her only child, and that made her granddaughter all the family she had left to her name. Since Julianna had no other family that anyone could locate, little Wilma Shirley's grandmother became her only family as well as her legal guardian."

I tried another swig of my Coke. Somehow, it didn't taste quite as sweet, now. "And where do you and Tommy come into the picture?"

He smiled faintly. "I'm just coming to that. At the time, I had just relocated to Savannah, Georgia, from London, and I was getting settled into a large, old wood frame house located in the one hundred block of Kingston Way. Little Miss Wilma Shirley lived with her grandmother two doors down."

He sipped at his tea absently. "I first came to know Little Miss Wilma Shirley through Halloween. That was what her grandmother always called her; when she grew old enough to talk for herself, she called herself that as well---and she always said it with the quiet dignity of someone thirty times her age. Halloween fell shortly after I moved in, and on that night I found a seemingly endless parade of ghosties, gremlins, goblins, ghoulies, cowboys, Indians, firemen, axe murderers, ballerinas, Darth Vaders, Wookiees, E.T.s, monster-movie creatures and almost everything else one could imagine streaming across my front porch. My fancy was captured by a woman some ten years my senior, carrying a tiny little Princess Leia with the sweetest little face and disposition you can imagine. It grew from there to frequent visits, and occasional invitations to dinner from her grandmother."

I spun my Coke bottle around in place, restlessly. "And Tommy?"

He smiled distantly, fondly. "Tommy Green was my newspaper delivery boy. He was thirteen years of age, at the time. He lived down in the next block."

I ventured a smile. "Ah-ha! A connection at last!"

He laughed. "Indeed! Young Tommy had quite some arm on him; he would have done any cricket or baseball team proud as a bowler or pitcher---if he had developed some proper control to his pitches. Unfortunately, a distressing number of my newspapers found their way onto my roof. Fortunately, he was always gracious about retrieving them for me. It would have been nice if he had practiced his throws on someone else, but at least he always displayed a sense of humor about the matter, and we eventually became fast friends."

He sipped at his tea; his mood darkened again. "He was the youngest of seven sons, and he had no sisters. Sad to say, his father was a widower; his wife died giving birth to Tommy. His father always resented him; I suspect he blamed Tommy for his wife's death, and he took it out on the lad almost from birth. The man simply wasn't emotionally equipped to handle seven rambunctious children on his own. The stresses inherent in making a living and coping with a household and too-numerous children went wrong in him, and he became quite abusive. Tommy suffered the worst of his temperament, and as a result he eventually came to do everything he could to avoid his father. Because of that, he spent a great deal of time around me---ostensibly to deal with chores and odd jobs around my home, but more, I think, to be near a father figure that his own father couldn't be. By the time I met him, most of his brothers were grown, had moved away and - for obvious reasons - avoided their father and their old home place just as much as possible."

He shook his head sadly. "In time, Tommy was the only child left there, and his father's foul moods concentrated on him all the more; the fouler his moods became, the more time Tommy spent with me. I seemed to be his only refuge. As a result, we became very close; sad to say, I became more a father to him than his own ever was. And since my wife had died before we were able to have children, I found myself welcoming his presence in my home."

His expression saddened. "And then, four years after I'd moved to Savannah, I came home from my post at the University one hot July afternoon and found someone sitting on the swing on my front porch. As it chanced, Tommy came up on his bicycle at that moment, and we both went up to see who had come to visit. It was little Miss Wilma Shirley. She was sitting there, very still, very pale---and crying."

My stomach lurched; I could feel it coming.

"We asked her what was wrong; she began to sob. Between sobs, she told us that she wanted to stay in the 'purple house'---which was what she always called my house, since it was painted white with a trim of violet. Tommy had become very fond of her as well, over the years, and he was very gentle about things---more so than most teen-agers would have been, I suspect. Very gently, he asked if she wanted to go home; she shook her head and sobbed that she was afraid to, because of the monster."

My stomach stopped lurching and just sank.

"Tommy and I looked at one another uncertainly; I feared the worst, of course---I was very much the Adept, even then---but I had to ask anyway. Upon being asked what monster she was referring to, she explained that it was the monster that had 'put her grandma to sleep'."

My stomach rolled over and tried to die on me. "Oh, no?"

He nodded sadly. "Her grandmother had been ill for some time---progressive congestive heart failure. I had visited her only two days before, and found her in bed; she had insisted that she was but resting, and intending to rise soon. She had said that she was merely fatigued, and that I was not to be concerned for her. I asked her to telephone me if she needed anything---anything at all."

He sighed heavily. "Perhaps she did call, while I was at work that day. Telephone answering machines were crude and unreliable affairs in those days; mine was always failing me, for one reason or another."

I didn't really need to ask the question, but I couldn't help myself: "Her grandmother was dead?"

He sighed. "Yes. Of heart failure. Wish still has very clear memories of that day: She tells me her grandmother retired for a nap at three o'clock that afternoon. At four o'clock, Wish went up to her bedroom to ask for her usual afternoon snack, but she couldn't wake her. She crept back downstairs and helped herself to some cookies from the cookie jar and milk from the refrigerator, then took a little nap herself. At six o'clock she went back to her grandmother's bedroom to ask for dinner, but she couldn't wake her."

I felt sick. "Oh, God! She was already dead---and she left behind a five-year-old girl, all alone? Jeez Louise!"

He nodded soberly. "The poor child was very confused and afraid, but she remembers eating lots of cookies and milk for dinner, and falling asleep on the living room sofa. The next morning, she wandered around the neighborhood for a long while, and eventually settled on my porch sometime during the early afternoon."

I felt more than just a little aghast. "She wandered all over the neighborhood for most of a day and nobody saw her? I can't believe that! Where was everybody?"

He shrugged absently. "Most of the adults were at work; those who weren't were probably housewives, and dealing with housework indoors, where they would be unlikely to notice a small child wandering about outdoors. That particular summer, most of the children in the neighborhood were away at summer camps, and those who weren't off at some camp tended to congregate at the community swimming pool to take refuge from the heat and boredom. In that summer heat, any adult who chanced to notice her most likely dismissed her from their minds immediately as just a little girl wandering around looking for an ices cart."

The term caught me unawares. "Huh? An 'Isis cart'?"

He chuckled self-depreciatingly. "My apologies. What you Yanks call 'ice cream', we Brits call 'ices'; what you call an 'ice cream truck' we call an 'ices cart'."

I probably looked as blank as I felt. "Oh. I see. I think. So, you and Tommy found Wish's grandmother's body?"

He shook his head. "No; I asked Tommy to stay with little Miss Wilma Shirley, and I went to her grandmother's house alone. I telephoned the police from Mrs. DeCharante's bedroom."

He drained his cup and put it down with a heavy sigh.

"Because of the good standing I had attained in the community over the four years I'd been there, I was allowed to take little Miss Wilma Shirley into my home. It was her wish, and there was no one else to take her except the county orphanage, so everyone was happy with the arrangement. I was well-off enough, financially speaking, to support her properly, and I had a housekeeper to help in her care, so eventually I was legally allowed to adopt her. My housekeeper, Mrs. Pilgrim, was a dear lady - albeit somewhat insufferable at times, the way she prattled on - and she helped me raise little Miss Wilma Shirley."

I was finally beginning to understand that part of things. "Um. And did you adopt Tommy, too?"

He shook his head. "No. By the time his father passed away, Tommy was past legal age; there was simply no point in it. But I helped him whenever I could, and when he reached the age of majority he officially moved in with us---and he helped us to raise little Miss Wilma Shirley. Eventually, the lot of us relocated to London. It was there that Tommy met Razor, and became friends with him---to everyone's everlasting regret."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "That would explain that atrocious Cockney accent of Razor's. And that thing Tommy told me about how Wish got her nickname---truth, or him just being a butthead and yanking my chain?"

The Professor chuckled sadly. "I'm not sure what Tommy told you, but the tale, as I understand it, is this: Little Miss Wilma Shirley missed her grandmother terribly, and she wished aloud, many, many times, that she was back with her again. She voiced the wish so often that Tommy, like all older brothers, couldn't resist the urge to tease his little sister, and nicknamed her 'Wish'. In self-defense, little Miss Wilma Shirley adopted the nickname---but from a different direction, and for her own reasons; 'Miss Wilma Shirley' was slowly becoming too cumbersome for her to want to deal with, so she devised a contraction of her first and middle names and adopted it as her nickname; the fact that it was identical to the name Tommy had placed on her seemed not to bother her in the slightest?and at the same time the fact that the nickname failed to irritate her irritated Tommy all the more. I've never been certain, but I suspect that this was Wish's intention all along. Brothers and sisters have delighted in tormenting one another since the dawning of time, I think."