Rosie hesitated. “Er... maybe. But what do you need to talk to her about?” Perhaps she'd picked up the tremor in Sadie's voice, because her own firmed up warily. “What is this about?”
“It's about the spirit—Mother Maggot,” admitted Sadie. “Now that Ophelia's in her right mind, I need to ask her more about that night—the night she went into the house.”
There was silence on the line. “I... I don't understand.” Rosie swallowed loudly, could be heard to take a few paces. “What do you need to know? It's all over now, so why talk about it?” Another pause. “It is over with, right?”
Sadie couldn't bring herself to lie, but didn't want to tell the whole truth, either. “It's complicated,” was what she settled on. “But it's important.”
“I... I don't know. She's only been back for a few hours. I... thought this was all over, Sadie. I don't want to stir things up, risk having her get worse again,” was the grave eventual response. “Maybe some other time, when she's had awhile to recover?”
“Rosie, listen,” pleaded Sadie. “This isn't over. I need to speak to her. Please, just give me ten minutes with her. You can tell the doctors I'm her sister or something—whatever it takes. But this is important. It's life or death.”
“Life or death?” Rosie chuckled, unconvinced. “For who?”
Sadie's silence was reply enough.
“It's... it's after you?”
“Yes.” Sadie squeezed the phone, wandered up and down the sidewalk.
The resulting pause was so long Sadie thought she'd been disconnected. Finally, Rosie stammered, “I-I'm sorry, Sadie. I really am, but... if it's after y-you I don't think you can come by. I don't want that thing near my daughter again, and I'm very sorry to hear about this, but... You understand, don't you? You understand why I can't allow you to come and—”
“Ten minutes!” Sadie was all but shouting. “Please! That's all I'm asking! Get me in there for ten minutes and I'll ask her a few questions. That's it. If she can tell me anything useful I may be able to get rid of this thing—for good.”
Rosie waffled. “I don't... Today? I could speak to the doctor, but... Sadie, are you serious? And, I mean... today? She's only been back for half the night! Can't this wait?”
“Please, speak to the doctor. I'm calling a cab. I'll be at the hospital in a half hour. Will you meet me outside the unit then?” She didn't wait long enough to hear the reply. Even if Rosie refused, Sadie was determined to visit anyway. She cut the line and immediately called a taxi.
Waiting on the sidewalk in front of her place, the air scented with rain, she felt more than once that there were eyes on her. Cars would pass through the lot and other tenants would go in or out of the surrounding buildings, but none of them would spare her more than a quick glance. No, the weighty gaze on her was coming from elsewhere—from her own living room window, she wagered—and she repeatedly restrained herself from looking up at it.
19
Sadie stepped out of the elevator onto the third floor and began immediately for the pair of metal doors leading to the psychiatric ward. Rosie was waiting for her in the adjacent visitor area and intercepted her before she reached them, however.
“Sadie, I spoke to the doctor,” began Rosie, joining her near the ward entrance. “I explained that you were a close family friend who'd been instrumental in the search, and considering Ophelia's recent improvement he was willing to allow you inside for a brief visit.” Here, her expression darkened. “But I need you to promise me something. Ophelia is doing better now, and I... I don't want whatever it was that preyed on her to return.” She leaned close, eyes narrow. “Can you promise me that it won't come back? If you go in there and spend time with her, can you promise me that my daughter will still be herself when you come back out?”
Sadie placed a hand against the door. “Last night, when I found her, Ophelia told me that the spirit wasn't interested in her anymore—that it was after me now. After the night I had, I'm inclined to believe her.” She pushed her way into the ward. “I won't be long. I promise.”
Leaving Rosie behind, Sadie started toward the nurse's station where a young secretary was furiously typing. She looked up at the visitor with a tired smile, gave the neckline of her teal scrubs a little tug and then peered back at her screen, asking, “How can I help you?”
Sadie looked past the station, into the depths of the unit. “I'm, uh... I'm here to visit someone. She's in the Crisis Management section—room 334.” She put on the rosiest expression she could manage and added, “The doctor gave the green light, as I understand it.”
The secretary's dull eyes brightened somewhat. “Oh...” Her finger went to work on the mouse, clicking and scrolling through a mess of open windows. “You're here to visit Ophelia?” She looked up from the screen. “I don't see any order for visitations—only blood relatives right now, it looks like. If the doctor OK'd it, he probably hasn't put the order in, and I'm afraid I can't let you back until—”
From the rear of the station, a middle-aged nurse with short hair—her name tag read Karen—approached, grasping the back rest of the secretary's chair. “You're the family friend, right?”
Sadie stood to attention. “Yes, that's right.”
The RN hiked a thumb in the direction of the Crisis Management ward and told the secretary, “She's all good. I heard the doc.” Then, turning to Sadie, she waved her through. “I'll let you back there.”
They stepped past the station and entered the narrow walkway which led to the imposing locked door of the crisis unit, and on the way they passed the glass-panelled activity area where other patients thumbed through books or watched the news on wall-mounted TVs. The atmosphere there was sedate—almost eerily calm.
“She's doing much better today,” the nurse confided as they approached the locked ward. She fussed with her keys, sliding one into the socket on the wall, and then swiped her badge in the card reader. As the door unlocked, she led Sadie into the stuffy unit and paused outside of Ophelia's room. “You've been up here before, right?”
“I have.”
“Excellent.” The nurse opened Ophelia's door just a touch and then stepped aside. “If you need anything, hit the call button on the wall. Otherwise, I'll be back in, oh, say...” She looked to the large clock on the opposite side of the hall. “Half an hour?”
“Thank you, I appreciate it.” Sadie ducked into the room quietly.
Just inside the door there sat a drowsy-looking nurse's aid—college-aged and scruffy. He'd been tasked with keeping an eye on the patient, but he'd proven more interested in snoozing. The young man in teal scrubs sat up with a start as Sadie entered.
“Oh, you here for a visit?” said the young man, blinking hard so as to appear more awake. “I'll step out for just a second, then. Give you both some privacy. I'll be in the hall if you need me.” He stood, straightened his wrinkled uniform, and made a silent exit, his eyes narrowing in a silent plea along the lines of, “Please don't tell the nurse I was nodding off...”
Sadie looked to the other end of the room, to the bed, the little nightstand, the rain-flecked window and, of course, the patient sitting up in the plasticky recliner. The last time Sadie had entered this room, she'd encountered something sinister and otherworldly; from the very first Ophelia had come across as eerie and combative.
What a difference a day made. The girl she'd found shivering and soaked in her bathroom the night prior was now paging leisurely through a nature magazine. The disheveled bandages on her wrists had been replaced and the new dressings appeared completely undisturbed. Ophelia had bathed, brushed her hair and was even wearing casual clothes of her own—a baggy T-shirt and leggings. She turned to meet her visitor with a bright smile. “Hi, Sadie.”
“Hello, Ophelia.” Sadie crossed the room and plopped down into a folding chair, crossing her legs. “You look great.” Truthfully, this was an understatement—the girl looked like a new person altogether. Except for the bandages on her arms, no trace in her e
xisted of her previous troubles. Had Sadie not known better, she might've mistaken Ophelia as a hospital visitor herself.
“Thanks,” replied the girl, setting down her magazine. “What're you doing here? I thought they weren't gonna let me have visitors for another day or so.”
“So I heard,” replied Sadie. “I bugged your mother, though, and they made an exception for me. You see,” she continued sheepishly, “I have a few questions for you.”
“Questions?” Ophelia cocked her head to the side. The smile gradually fell from her lips and her eyes widened. “Oh. You're here to talk about...” She nodded, looked away. “Of course, yeah.”
It was hardly surprising that the prospect of discussing Mother Maggot was upsetting to the girl; even so, Sadie had no choice but to press on. There were questions about the whole frightful episode that only she could answer, and Sadie was keen to gather whatever information she could on the specter. Her own hide was on the line now. “I don't want to upset you, Ophelia, but last night...”
“You saw her,” stated the girl matter-of-factly.
“That's right.” Sadie nibbled on her lower lip. “I saw her when I found you in the bathroom—in the mirror. And then I saw her again, next to my bed.”
The girl's body language had completely changed. Now, as if anticipating some tremendous physical blow, she cowered in the chair, arms tucked around her abdomen and head low. She didn't say anything, just sat there, eyes scanning the floor.
“I was wondering about that night you went to the house with your friends. I met Joey and Leslie. They told me about your visit to Beacon Hill, but I want to hear your side of the story—I want to hear about the moment you encountered...”
“Mother Maggot.” The girl finished the sentence—spat the name out as though it tasted too bitter.
“Yes.” Sadie crossed her legs. “You all got separated while exploring the house. And eventually, your friends heard you screaming. They found you in some little room, pulled you out through the window. But what happened between those two points? How did you meet... her?”
The color drained from Ophelia's face as she pondered the question. Her eyes went glassy as her mind retread that old ground. At first she uttered, “I don't want to talk about it...” but as the moments passed, something impelled her to speak. “I was alone. That is, I thought I was alone.
“I just wanted to find a way out of the house. But all the while, she was there. I could feel her, you know? Like she was floating in the air all around me. I could hear her footsteps, too, but I never saw her—not until...” She took a deep breath and clutched at the armrests. “I ran through the dark after my friends left me. I didn't know where I was going. There came a point, though, where I could follow the moonlight, and so I did. I...” She shook her head as if in a violent struggle with the memories coming to the surface. “There was a hallway, and a moonlit room—I went into it. The room with the window. I should have just climbed out then and there, but I stopped to look around. That was when I saw... that mirror.”
Suddenly, the girl stopped. She rose nearly to her feet, then slumped against the back of the chair, her slippered heels digging into the floor.
“A mirror?” asked Sadie. “What mirror?”
“In the room,” blurted Ophelia. “In this room, there was a mirror. I didn't see her, not with my own eyes, but she was in the reflection, right behind me. And then she looked at me... with those eyes that aren't eyes. I screamed until the others found me and pulled me out. But by then it was too late. She'd already climbed into me.”
Sadie listened intently, making a mental note of this alleged mirror. She'd encountered no such thing in her frenzied tour of the house, but having glimpsed the apparition in reflective surfaces herself, she couldn't help assigning potential significance to this detail. “So, you knew she was in you, then?”
Ophelia nodded furiously. “I had that feeling from the very beginning—that she was still there, that she had followed me out of the house. The next morning, I saw her again. And then I heard her voice in my head. She wanted me to hurt myself—told me to slash my wrists.” Tears were forming in the corners of her eyes and she wiped them away with a loud sniff. “She started following me around the house, showing me horrible things. But she promised that if I did what she asked—if I hurt myself when she told me to—that she'd leave me alone. It didn't work, though. Every time I hurt myself, she just dug in deeper.”
“Why do you think she wanted you to hurt yourself?” asked Sadie.
“I don't remember,” admitted the girl. “But it made her stronger. Every time I did it, she'd get closer to me. Her voice would get louder, and...” She held her wrists out in a brief display. “She told me there were maggots in my wounds, ordered me to dig into the bandages. I lost a lot of blood, could have died. After that, I stopped feeling like myself. I was more her than I was me. I don't remember much of what happened after that. I barely remember you coming to visit that last time. Everyone said I disappeared... but that's a total blur. The only thing I clearly recall is waking up in your bathroom last night.”
It was painful to watch the girl recount this trauma. Sadie nodded slowly, reached out to hold one of her hands. “Last night, you said that she'd let you go because... she wants me instead. Do you know why?”
Ophelia gave a weak shrug. She raked at her hair, tangling her freshly-brushed locks. “I don't know. It's all hard to remember. It's like a bad dream... Sometimes you can remember it when you first wake up, but then it starts to fade away. She was done with me, I suppose—she'd only been interested in hurting me. But you...” She cast a teary glance at Sadie. “She was very interested in you, Sadie.”
Sadie glanced down at herself, peered at her hands. “What does that mean, exactly? Why me?”
“I don't remember,” was all Ophelia managed to say before the nurse knocked on the door and stepped inside.
“All righty,” said Karen from the doorway, waving Sadie over. “All set, I hope? Your half-hour's up.” Her smile dropped promptly off her face when she noticed the tears running from Ophelia's eyes, and her next look at Sadie was a vicious one. “Please, this way.”
Sadie offered the girl a polite smile, thanked her, then made her way to the door. She joined Karen in the hall and was escorted in pointed silence to the exit. Upon leaving the psych unit, Sadie made a beeline for the elevators, doing her best to bypass Rosie, who was still lingering in the visitor's area.
“Sadie, how did it go?” she called, rushing over.
Without bothering to look if it was going up or down, Sadie hopped into an open elevator and began mashing the button for the first floor. “Uh... fine,” she lied, praying the door would close.
Rosie arrived within the elevator bank. “Is everything OK? Did she answer your questions? What'll happen now that—”
“I'll call you later, Rosie.” The door began to slide closed, cutting their line of sight. Sadie backed into the far end of the elevator and waited for the cabin to rise or fall. With a ding, it began a slow descent to the first floor.
Leaving the elevators behind and wandering aimlessly through a crowded lobby, she made her way past a gift shop before turning into the hospital cafeteria. The place was crawling with visitors and staff carrying trays of questionable-looking food. Rushing through this crowd with her head low, she staked out a little table for two in a remote corner of the dining area and dug her phone out of her purse. She tapped out a quick text to August and then chewed her nails down to stubs while waiting for a reply.
He called not five minutes later. “I was just about to call you anyway,” he began. “What're you up to?”
“I'm at the hospital.”
August paused. “Er... is everything OK?”
“I was visiting Ophelia again,” she explained. “Things are... strange. We need to talk.”
“Right. Like I said, I was about to call you soon anyhow. I've been doing some digging and, uh...” He exhaled loudly. The sound of several thic
k hardbacks being shuffled around filled his end of the line for a beat. “This Beacon-Hill-slash-Mother-Maggot thing is looking downright bizarre. Like... it's a hell of a rabbit hole. I'm still reading, but we're going to have a lot to discuss. What're you doing tonight? Want to meet up when I'm done with work?”
“Sure. Meet me here, at the hospital,” she replied.
“At the hospital?” He chuckled. “I mean, if you want. But why not go home, relax for a little while? I'll bet you could use some sleep.”
“No, thanks. It's bright in here. There are lots of people around. I'd rather... not be alone.” She turned to the large picture window across the dining room and admired the bright sunlight that drifted through it. By the time August was done at work, that light wouldn't be around to protect her any longer.
“OK. I'll talk to you later, then. Text me if anything changes.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “Mirrors. Look into mirrors.”
“Huh?”
“Ophelia told me that she first saw Mother Maggot in a mirror,” she explained. “It struck me as odd—maybe it's an important detail. You're reading about ghosts, too, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, see if there's anything you can dig up about ghosts and mirrors, then.”
“You're a real slave-driver, you know that? And to think I'm doing all of this next-level research gratis!” He clicked his tongue and jotted down a note. “All right. Ghosts and mirrors. I'll add that to the pile. Talk to you later.”
Sitting in the dining room, the tables around her full of doctors and nurses engaged in boisterous conversation, she almost felt secure. The light coming through the windows made her feel safe as well. But eventually the light would fade and the crowd would thin and she'd be vulnerable again. And when that happened, she wasn't sure what she'd do. Mother Maggot is after you, she thought with a visceral scowl. What the hell does that mean? What could she want with you?
The Haunting of Beacon Hill Page 16
