The Mind's Eye

The Mind's Eye - Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Doctor’s Orders

I needn’t have worried about where I was going to sleep; it seemed Mam had thought of everything when it came to taking on an evacuee with an illness. She had turned her husband’s sitting room at the back of the house into a bedroom for me so that I would never have the stairs to tackle. There was a fireplace, a wash basin and some basic ablutions to help me stay comfortable and plenty of space around the single bed for my chair to get around the room. I rather thought the bed had come from a hospital, but I didn’t like to ask too many questions on the first day.

Mam left me to change for bed, which I could manage alone most of the time. I hauled myself out of my chair by leaning on the bed frame, then sat on the edge of the bed and shuffled out of my day clothes and into my nightie. My stockings were the hardest thing to get off; I realised sadly that Mum had always been the one to pull them off at the toes. But I managed eventually and I was rather proud of myself when Mam returned and found me wriggling in under the warm white covers.

I knew right away though, that she could see the pain it had caused me to get about half a foot from the chair into the bed. I could feel my cheeks glowing red, my arms aching from putting all my weight on them, but I didn’t like to think about the pain, much less to talk about it. Mam helped me with the last of the covers as I put my head on the pillow. She put a small glass of water and a biscuit on the bedside table.

“My bedroom’s right above yur,” she said softly, “so if you get into trouble you give me a shout.”

“Thank you,” I answered, stifling a yawn.

“You get a good rest love,” she continued, “I had a telephone call tonight. They’re sending a car for you tomorrow to go and meet your new doctor.”

The news was not the kind that encouraged a good night’s sleep. I thanked Mam politely and she put out the light, closing my door with a gentle hand. But when she had gone I shuffled my aching legs restlessly and rubbed my upper arms where they had taken on the strain. I didn’t relish the idea of being prodded and poked by a new physician, it was bad enough being examined once a month by Doctor Baxendale in London and I’d known him since I was twelve when all the pain began. I wondered idly what the new doctor might be like, but the more I wondered, the more I worried, and I decided instead that my mind needed a different occupation tonight.

Aside from Leighton and my mother, I had never been able to use my secret gift to intentionally enter anyone else’s head. I had always supposed it was familiarity that allowed me such easy access into their minds, but I also knew that my psychic ability sometimes had a farther reach. Most especially when I was sleeping, in fact. It had started to happen when I was around eight or nine, but of course for a long time I thought they were dreams. Dreams where I was in someone else’s head, looking through their eyes, hearing them speak and feeling their innermost emotions like they were my own.

Now as I lay in my new bed of my new home, I closed my eyes, hoping that something interesting would come my way as I surrendered my mind to slumber.

***

Generally I didn’t like looking through the eyes of men, and I knew this one was a man as soon as I saw the huge black boots crossed on the desk in front of me. He was clipping the end off of a cigar with two great hairy hands that looked rather old in a pale blue room with expensive-looking paintings on every wall. He lit the cigar and I felt the wave of satisfaction he got from the first long inhale he took. I was grateful at least that my powers did not extend to having to smell the smoke from the beastly thing, and I hoped that they never would.

The smoking man wasn’t alone in his room for long. He turned my viewpoint to a set of doors painted in blue and gold as another man entered the room. My man leapt out of his seat so fast I felt sick from the transition; he was standing upright and saying something to the new chap in a language that I didn’t understand. I saw the new arrival properly then, in his grey-green suit and trousers. No, not a suit. A uniform. His collar had two red rectangles sticking out under his fat chin, each covered in golden leaf patterns. A row of coloured medals adorned the man’s chest and his hat bore the symbol of a bird of prey in flight, with a u-shaped golden laurel thing and what looked like a target in the middle. And under the bird of prey was a symbol I knew. A swastika.