Never Say Spy by Diane Henders Page A

ocean smell surrounded me.
    Completely disoriented, I froze for a moment before giving in to panic.  I bolted along the deserted shoreline, kicking up sand and pebbles.  An enormous tumble of boulders loomed up in front of me as if from thin air, and I flung myself into their shelter, scrambling over their shifting bulk.  My overused muscles burned with the effort while I burrowed deeper into the rubble.  At last, I found a dark cave and curled into it, my breath sobbing in my chest.
    As my breathing steadied, I took stock.  Kane was nowhere to be seen.  This probably counted as resisting arrest.  Not good.  Staying around to be arrested... also not good.  Talk about a rock and a hard place.  I shifted uncomfortably.  Too bad rocks weren’t soft and warm.
    Obligingly, the rock around me warmed to a cozy temperature, and I relaxed into cushy comfort.
    Wait a minute.
    I gathered my scattered wits and thought over my experiences thus far.  As far as I knew, insanity didn’t conform to logical parameters.  But as I reviewed each episode in which I’d departed the reality of the boardroom, some rules seemed to apply.
    In the bathroom, events had proceeded logically and sequentially.  With the exception of the costume changes for the men, everything had occurred just as I’d expected.  Want a piece of wood; there it was, just the right size.  Need a piece of strapping; pull it out of thin air.
    And the painting episode.  I’d been thinking about painting, and then suddenly, there I was, painting.  Hmmm, come to think of it, I’d been thinking of working in the bathroom earlier, too, right before it appeared.  I’d thought about calming ocean waves, and here I was, listening to ocean waves.  Go figure.
    So far, if I’d concentrated on something specific, it happened.  I wonder...?
    I concentrated on a pink hippopotamus in a tutu.  Sure enough, one popped up on the rocks in front of me, pirouetting gracefully.
    Okay, the pink hippo was a little disturbing.  I banished it with a wave of my hand.
    What if I wanted to be hiding in a forest instead of a rock pile?
    From my seat on a fallen log, I breathed in the moist, spicy forest air, cedars swaying above me.  The vividly green ferns nodded in the breeze.  I straightened, smiling.  Being crazy wasn’t so bad after all.
    With a dramatic sweep of my arm, I painted the forest floor with daffodils and snowdrops.  Another wave of my hand, and a waterfall appeared, its cascading stream just below my feet.
    I could create anything.  I laughed in sheer delight.  I made it rain, then made the sun come out, lighting up the forest.   With a grand gesture, I dried my wet shoes and removed the bloodstain.  As an afterthought, I dried my clothes, too.
    Something crackled in the undergrowth behind me and I turned, expecting, creating a deer.  Sure enough, there it was.  It bounded away in alarm.
    No wonder.
    My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
    “Nice forest,” Kane said.
    A cage blinked into existence around me, shrinking rapidly.  My first whimpers started as the cage contracted, its bars thickening.  I flung myself against my shrinking prison, battering my hips and shoulders.  Mindless wails escaped me.
    I tried to close my ears to the hoarse cries of agony from my familiar nightmares, but the apparition loomed closer, horribly visible through the remaining gaps between the bars.  Screams ripped my throat while the broken body writhed, impaled on the post.  The cage crushed inward, constricting my lungs.  My screams stifled, I wheezed fast shallow breaths in my terrified fight for air.
    “Aydan!” Kane’s voice cut through the horror.  “ Go somewhere else! ”
    I burst free to collapse onto a park bench, frantically gulping the crisp spruce-scented air.  Echoing silence surrounded me while I stared across the long valley, concentrating on the distant peaks beyond.  I wrapped my arms around myself, gasping and shuddering and willing the