Where Foundlings Hide

Chapter 15

The water is freezing cold, a million tiny shards of ice piercing me all over my body.

It feels like it's inside of my head, coursing through my veins, pounding in my ears, pulling me down.

A pressure starts to build behind my eyes and quickly develops into a blinding pain. The water starts to churn, tossing us around inside the fountain, turning faster and faster, and a bolt of lightning ripples through the darkness around me. My lungs burn as I exhale a stream of bubbles that dance in the sudden shock of light.

It's like we're in the centre of a typhoon and Caleb holds on to me as we turn, the force drawing us down into nothingness. It pitches us around and I start to feel disorientated.

When I'm no longer sure which way is up or down, the spinning stops, and we drift lazily around the chasm.

Something grabs me around the middle and pulls me away from Caleb towards a shaft of light. My feet find the bottom of the fountain and I step sluggishly against the weight of the water, my whole body shaking. The floor slopes upwards and when my head breaks the surface, I gasp greedily for air. A bright light forces me to squint as I find the ledge and heave myself over it, falling to the ground on the other side with a slap. I lift my face to the heat emanating from the light above. Where am I?

"Is she OK?"

I squint towards the sound of the unfamiliar voice, but my vision is blurred, everything in front of me pitching from the motion of the water. I can just make out a figure standing in the middle of a bright, spacious room.

"She's alive, if that's what you mean," Caleb crouches in front of me and takes my face in his hands. "I can't tell what impact the portal had yet. She should've had a compression suit; we both should have."

"There wasn't time. She's wearing the necklace, it protected her." The voice is female, gravelly and slightly accented.

For a moment, no one speaks, and I hear the tinkle of the fountain behind us.

"The team is on its way."

"Parker?" Caleb says.

"She's briefing the team. I thought a familiar face might help until my sister gets here."

Parker?

"I thought we had longer. I thought we would've had time to explain things before we extracted her," Caleb says. "It wasn't easy."

"I thought we had time too, but the Dryad's saw them coming and we had to get her out. She's the only one who can help us."

Hurried footsteps approach. "Is she OK?" I try to focus on the owner of the familiar voice, on the group of figures wearing white and blue swarming towards me, but my vision is still blurred. Her face swims before me, dark hair piled up on her head. "D-" I feel a sharp pinch in my arm, then everything goes black.

Light filters in through an open window, a delicate breeze tickling my face. The pillow beneath my head is soft and the crisp sheet draped across my body smells of lavender. When I move I feel a tug on the back of my hand. I remember Caleb and the fountain, the force of the water pulling me down. A groan escapes my lips.

"It's OK, Casey."

My eyelids flutter open at the sound of her voice and I scan the face leaning over me. Big brown eyes, a pen slipped in the knot on top of her head. "Dr Parker?" I try to push myself up from the bed, but something tugs at my temples. "Where am I?" My head is fuzzy, but my vision is now much sharper.

She smiles. "Here, it's just Parker."

"You're not a doctor?"

She gently pulls a sticky pad from each of my temples; they look like small, medical electrodes. "I am a doctor," she laughs. "But Parker is my first name, not my surname."