Instantly, my eyes scoured the entryway, too, skimming the entire length of the hallway leading to who knew where.
“Nuh-uh…” I said, trailing off because the moment I didn’t think she was around, she popped up at the end of the hallway, her gorgeous dark brown hair falling around her shoulders. “Wait! Yes! She’s at the end of the hallway. What’s going on, Win? Is she speaking to you?”
He gripped his cane, the veins in his hands visibly strained. “She’s demanding I follow her.”
“Hold the phone. You go nowhere until we know where she wants you to go. Not all spirits are in it for the right reasons, Win. Some are malevolent, which you’ve witnessed yourself. Like I said before, these spirits are different than the ones on Plane Limbo. So get your head on straight here and let’s ask some questions.” I cracked my knuckles and instructed, “Ask her where she wants you to follow.”
Win did as I told him, but he shook his head. “She’s not giving me a clear answer, Stephania. She’s saying the same thing over and over. She wants me to follow her so I can ‘help her.’”
Ugh. I hated when a spirit got caught up in a loop like this. However, maybe this wasn’t a loop at all. Maybe this spirit had ill intent, but because I couldn’t hear her tone of voice, I couldn’t decipher between the two.
“Ask her who needs help, Win? I don’t want you going off somewhere that could lead you to getting hurt.”
“Who needs my help?” he whispered, keeping his fingers pressed to the earpiece, but he almost instantly shook his head, clearly out of frustration. “She’s not giving me anything useful, Stephania. She insists quite repetitively that I follow her, and I’m going to do just that. Now lead the way or I’ll go in blind.”
“I will not! If she leads you into some kind of trap—”
“I’ll figure it out. Now lead the way or I’ll simply wander blindly, which won’t be conducive to finding your body, now will it?”
“But we don’t even know if this has anything to do with my body, Win! This could be a wild goose chase that has to do with something else entirely. Maybe it has to do with her and we have no idea what kind of life she led when she was alive. Maybe she’s a mob boss’s wife, or…or daughter!”
“We don’t have any other leads, Stephania. So I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?”
He began walking down the long hall, his right foot scraping on the glossy white tiles. That always happened when he was tried after a long therapy session with Ludwig or Nurse Gloria. Clearly, he was exhausted, but it was also clear he wasn’t going to stop. So I could either help him or let him walk right into a potential fiasco.
“Fine, but you listen to me. If I feel even a little like something’s wrong, you’d better hightail it out. Clear? I can only do so much from up here, Win, and I’m already on the verge of having a panic attack watching you fight for every step you take.”
He sucked in his cheeks, but he gave me a curt nod of acknowledgment. “Agreed. Now where has she gone?”
Against my better judgment, I lifted my gaze to where I’d last seen her, but she was gone. Thankfully, the hallway was still deserted. If she’d gone somewhere like the rooms, which I assumed were upstairs, Win was going to have to find a way to get there unnoticed, because I was certain it was long past visiting hours.
“Call out to her again, Win. I can’t see her anymore.”
He looked up, pressed his fingers to the Bluetooth and said, “Hello? Where have you gone?”
“There she is!” I shouted. “At the end of the hallway by the elevators. Tell her to slow down and wait for you.”
Win began slogging his way toward the silver doors at the end of the hallway, which surely felt like ten miles away. “I’m coming,” he grit out, and it was clearly an effort.
The moment he made it to the elevator the doors eerily swung open, making me a nervous wreck. Who knew where she was taking him? There was no one inside the elevator, making it appear even more ominous.
Once more, against my better judgment, I told him to follow where she was going. “She’s inside. Get in the elevator, but I’m going to warn you again, the second I tell you to stop, you’d better stop. I don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into.”
Win stepped inside the elevator—and the moment he did, all the lights went out save for the panel of numbers for the floors.
Yet, he wasn’t at all fazed by the darkness. As I peered into the inky blackness, I saw the outline of his body lean back against the wall and cross his ankles.
“Now what?” he asked the interior of the elevator.
With that, the elevator began to shake…shake so violently, I feared his bones would break. It rocked as though someone had picked it up and shook it like a martini.
Arkady’s eyes went wide. “Zero! Brace yourself. Lean back, bend knees, spread legs, cover head!”
I didn’t have time to wonder if our lady ghost was capable of this kind of disturbance before the elevator began to drop, flying downward so fast, Win was jerked violently upward toward the ceiling.
“Win! Watch your head!” I yelled as he was pushed upward by the force of the drop.
“Blarmy!” he yelped as he covered his head seconds before the top of it scraped the ceiling.
“Zero! Prepare for impact. Make body into ball!”
Then it came to a screeching halt, so jarringly and with such force, Win was slammed to the floor. I heard the hard crack of body meeting metal, winced when I watched how he crumpled, his neck twisted up at an odd angle and pressed against the right wall.
“Winterbutt!” I heard Belfry cry seconds before the lights came back on. He pushed his way out of the purse and skittered along Win’s immobile body until he was at his ear. “Buddy! Buddy, are you okay?”
Win groaned, but he managed to sit upright as the doors clanked open and the lights came back on, leaving us all looking out into the yawning space before us.
Inching his way up the wall, his face a mask of pain, his muscles strained, Win gathered his cane and took a deep breath while Bel clung to his shoulder.
“Take it easy, Win. You took a heck of a fall. Maybe you should rest for a minute, huh, old man? C’mon. Let’s find somewhere for you to sit your Winterbutt down.”
But Win shook his head as he stepped out of the elevator and into a hallway that went both right and left. “I’m fine, Belfry,” he said on a strained chuckle he clearly worked convince us wasn’t strained at all. “That’s certainly not the worst gravity incident I’ve ever endured. It will never match the terror of being thousands of feet in the air with a plane full of orphans from Indonesia as it plummeted, full throttle, toward the ground.”
“Not the time to relive old missions,” Belfry admonished. “Now let’s find you a chair. You might not need to catch your breath, but I sure as heck do.”
But Win held up a finger as he leaned against the concrete block wall painted mint green. “Wait! She’s back. I can hear her telling me to follow her again. Can you see her, Stephania?”
I scanned the landscape of where we’d landed and shivered, latching back onto Arkady’s arm. “No, but this must be the basement of the hospital. This is the part of the movie where the fool who follows the noise gets walloped. I call we go back upstairs and get the heck out of here.”
But Win scoffed, making a pfft noise with his lips. “Oh, Stephania, really? This is the least frightening place we’ve ever been. It’s well-lit and clean, or have you forgotten the time you—”
“There she is! Make a right, Win!” She popped up out of nowhere, her dark hair a shroud billowing around her face before she turned and began moving to the right of the elevator down yet another hall. Becoming a blur, her hair streaming behind her, she floated along for what felt like forever, passing only a bucket and a mop along the way.
It was deathly quiet, no pun intended, but Win was right. It was well-lit and clean and, as he followed behind our ghost friend, my stomach felt less like I might lose my breakfast. There were no swinging l
ightbulbs hanging from the ceiling, crackling with the strain to stay lit. No puddles of dirty water or musty crevices.
But when our spirit stopped at two double doors, my belly roared back to life with an ominous dread. “Stop, Win. Stop at the double doors. She went through them, but don’t go in there willy-nilly. Look inside first, so I can look inside, too. You don’t know if there’s anyone in there. We don’t even know where we are.”
“I have a feeling we’re at the,” he pushed the double doors open with only a quick glance inside, “morgue.”
Arkady and I looked at each other, and I bit the inside of my lip. Could this be where my body was? Arkady pulled me closer, resting his chin atop my head, instinctively knowing I feared we’d find my lifeless body here.
As Win pushed his way through the doors, his suspicions were confirmed. We were definitely in the morgue. The sterile setting with green ceramic subway tiles on the walls and mason jars full of specimens and the two covered bodies on two shiny silver tables cinched the deal.
My mouth went dry but Win went straight to work, moving from slab to slab, where the bodies were laid out with crisp white hospital sheets placed over them. Two rows of silver doors lined the back wall, where more bodies were stored, and plenty of countertop space with microscopes and all manner of morgue gadgetry were on the opposing walls and in the middle of the room.
“Are you still hearing her? Because I don’t see her anymore. Gravy, where does she keep going?”
“No. All’s quiet, Dove. So let’s take a peek, shall we? There has to be a reason why she brought us here.”
“Do you think it’s because her body’s here?” I asked, without asking the obvious question. Maybe my body was here.
“Anything’s possible, and I think you know what I mean by that, Dove.” I sure as heck did, and I didn’t like it one iota. “You two keep an eye on the door in case someone returns, I’ll do some digging.”
I winced. Win could talk his way out of a lot, but getting caught in the morgue? I had my doubts. “Okay, but make it quick. Someone’s bound to come back and then it’s curtains for us.”
Win approached one of the bodies on the table. He did it with the most hesitation I’d seen from him since this began, and I think I understood why. If this spirit was a connection to what happened to me, and she didn’t bring us to the morgue because her body was here, if I was actually under one of those sheets, he’d be faced with seeing my dead body.
I tried to peek and see if any toes were sticking out at the end of the silver table. I’d know my pedicure anywhere, but both bodies were fully covered.
“It might not even be me. I…I…maybe it’s her.” I grit my teeth. “So do it, Win. Just look,” I whispered, closing my eyes. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see my dead body. In fact, I was pretty sure I didn’t. But I suppose it was better than not knowing where the heck I’d landed.
Besides, if it was me, problem solved. I’d just hop back in. I’m not sure how to do that quite yet. I don’t even know how I got out of my body, but we always flew by the seat of our pants. This was no different.
Putting his hand at the edge of the sheet, he inhaled—I think we all inhaled—and lifted it gingerly.
He let out a long breath in a simultaneous release with Arkady and Belfry. My little familiar, who’d remained on Win’s shoulder ’til now, tucked himself into the fringe of his hair and hid his face.
I popped my eyes open and looked down at the body—a woman in her mid-thirties, and definitely not me or the female spirit.
One down, one to go.
When he moved to the second table, I really gripped Arkady, forcing myself not to sink my nails into his hard forearm. Win lifted the second sheet, and this time, I was the one who exhaled loudly when the body was revealed. Definitely not me. It was a male, likely around seventy or so, his chest freshly stitched in a square pattern.
As Win looked around, I think we all remembered the wall of silver drawers at once, which brought us each to a silent halt.
Except the ever practical Belfry, who poked his head back out from behind the curtain of Win’s hair. “All right. If no one else will, I’ll say it. You have to open all the drawers, Win. Check every one. She could be on ice, and we’ll be better for the knowing if she is. Then we can begin the repossession process.”
I watched as Win clenched his jaw, but he made his way over to the wall of drawers and as he pulled each one open, the metal slide reverberating about the room, I braced myself.
When he came to the last one, I was almost numb, but the results were the same as all the others. None of them were either of us. I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or disappointed.
With shaky legs, I sat back on the bench and looked around at Plane Limbo with unseeing eyes, trying to think. “Okay, I don’t get it. See if you can get her to come back, Win, and ask her why she dragged us down here. What was the purpose?”
“It’s not over yet, Dove. You’re forgetting, there’s a desk and a computer to explore.”
“And the chance to get caught. You don’t think whoever works down here isn’t coming back, do you? They’re probably just on a break, and who wouldn’t need a break working here? It’s pretty creepy.”
“Should that occur, I’ll handle it,” he said with conviction as he took a seat on the rolling chair at the desk and set his cane on the edge of it.
“Sure, you say that now. But if someone catches you in here, I don’t think Arkady’s far off the mark when he says they’ll take you to the psych ward, looking the way you do. Nurse Kniffen is proof you’re not infallible.”
He began sifting through papers, ignoring my words of warning. “Please just watch the door, Stephania. I’ve done this a million…”
He trailed off when he came to a piece of pink paper with something scribbled on it I couldn’t read. Then he hissed.
Fear slithered along my spine. “What?”
Win took out my phone and snapped a picture of the paper. “This appears to be a shared desk by two hospital employees, both of whom work here in the morgue.”
“And you know that how?”
“Look at the framed pictures, Dove. They’re of two entirely different families. I imagine one works the day shift, and the other at night. Though I’m not sure if the employees in question are male or female.”
I breathed a small sigh of relief and let go of Arkady’s arm. “Okay, and?”
Leaning back in the chair as if we weren’t someplace we shouldn’t be and wouldn’t go to the pokey if we got caught, Win crossed his ankle over his knee and rubbed it. “This presents a problem.”
“Oh, c’mon. Now you’re just playing cat and mouse. Why does it present a problem?”
“Because I can’t tell which of them wrote this note.”
I rolled my eyes. Win loved a good guessing game, but I was in no mood to play around. “And that’s important because…?”
He flicked the paper with his fingers. “Because one of them knows something about you.”
“Quit messing around, Crispin Alistair Winterbottom, and tell me what you know!”
He held up the paper. “This reads: Stephania Cartwright. Female, appears healthy, organ donor.”
My breathing hitched. “So I was here? Then where the heck is my body?”
“But there’s more. The rest of this says ‘car is at Gordo’s.’”
Of course, as I was busy trying to fathom the fact that my body had been here but was now missing, the doors to the morgue creaked open.
Listen, in my defense, I’m not normally the lookout, okay? That’s typically Win and Arkady’s job. So if I was a little crappy at it, some slack must be given. I’m usually the one who plays the part of punching bag—this whole looking down on everything from Plane Limbo is foreign territory.
“Hey!” a loud voice bellowed, followed by rushed footsteps as they slapped against the tiled floor.
My eyes swung around to find a very large, very irate man running into the roo
m and headed straight for Win.
Chapter 11
“Heeey!” he yelled again as he skidded to a halt in front of Win. His round, full face covered in freckles and red as a tomato. “Who are you? You can’t be in here!”
Win instantly palmed Bel, who’d hidden in the shaggy length of his hair, and dropped him in his purse then felt around blindly for his cane. Which I didn’t understand at first. It was right in front of him, hooked to the side of the desk.
Taking a deep inhale of breath, he looked over the man’s shoulder as he rose from the chair. “Oh, thank goodness someone’s here! I say, can you tell me where I am, chap?” he asked calmly, as though he were thoroughly confused.
“Who in blazes are you and what are you doing down here?” the man in scrubs asked as he stared at Win, throwing a foil-wrapped sandwich down on his desk with an angry toss.
Hoo, boy. This guy’s eyes—eyes in a face that looked like it belonged to Howdy Doody—were on fire.
“Win! Now is the time to make a break for it. Get out!” I cried.
Instead, Win ignored me and stared blankly in the direction of the man, though not directly at him. Arkady snickered, but I didn’t get what game he was playing.
“My name is Jake Swinson, and I hate to trouble you, but I do believe I’m lost.” Reaching out in front of him, Win swiped at the air with his free hand, letting the paper with my name on it drop to the floor.
The man in scrubs frowned and made a windshield wiper motion in front of Win’s face. When he got no response, when Win didn’t even blink, he asked, “Are you…?”
My mouth fell open as Arkady laughed. He was not going to pretend he was…
“Blind. Indeed. That is my cross to bear, I’m afraid.”
I gasped. He most assuredly was. Oh, this man. This. Man! I had to cover my mouth as my laughter became a wheezing snort.
Win gripped his cane and used it to swipe at the floor. “I fear I’ve made quite a mess of…your desk, is it?”
The man rocked back on his orthopedic shoes and shook his head. “Aw, no worries. It’s not my stuff. That’s Egan Joseph’s stuff. He’s the day shift coroner, and he’s kind of a slob. We’re always messing with him about it.”
Witches Get Stitches Page 11
