Was I going back there? I shut my eyes and waited for the fullness to grow. For the hum to start. I thought about Logan and that presence. But I was too sleepy. I kept drifting off.
A minute later, or maybe five or ten, I heard the slam of doors, felt the rush of air as someone crouched beside me. A hand plucked Kitty from my neck. Chilled again, I shivered.
“Hannah?” Fingers touched my cheek. “Hannah Sinclair?”
I opened my eyes, mumbled, “Yes.” A guy who looked like Jude Law smiled down at me. Damn, why couldn’t these guys be ugly?
“What’s your name?” Mr. Beautiful asked.
I answered, then shut my eyes. All this for a stupid bee sting. Couldn’t I have gotten hit by a car, helping a runaway toddler instead?
Someone slapped a blood pressure cuff on my arm. Another set of hands probed the sting on my neck. I reached up, wanting to get Logan’s medallion out of the way.
“Do you know what day it is?” the Jude Law look-alike asked.
“Yeah, it’s Sun—”
“Good Lord, look!” M.C. yelled. “Kitty’s walking. All by herself. Tell me I’m not seeing things?”
Sweat beaded my upper lip. I tried to sit up. Two sets of hands held me down. “Stay still,” someone said.
I turned my head and saw the dog out of the corner of my eye. Kitty wasn’t walking exactly, but she was standing up by herself. And wobbling forward. Twice. Which was twice more than she’d wobbled since I’d known her.
M.C. clapped her hands in delight. I paid no attention. I had something else on my mind. Logan’s St. Christopher medallion. It wasn’t around my neck.
“Where’s my medallion?” I asked Mr. Beautiful. “Did you take it?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “You weren’t wearing a medallion when we got here.”
Chapter Three
They kept me in the hospital overnight for observation. Which was not smart. Hospitals are for sick people. If you aren’t sick going in, you probably will be going out. But my opinion didn’t count. All they cared about was that my blood pressure was super low.
All I cared about was finding Logan’s St. Christopher medallion.
That and figuring out what he wanted me to do.
“Your dad and I will drive back and see if we can find it.” Mom tucked in the cover on my bed. They’d finally moved me to a room after a zillion years in emergency. “Although Mrs. O’Connell promised to take another look before she went home.”
I rolled my eyes. “Like she’s gonna crawl around the ground by the flowers.”
“I don’t know. She looked pretty spry to me.”
Maybe it was Mom’s use of the word spry (I swear to God, she’s the only parent since 1942 who has used the word), or maybe it was the image of M.C. dusting the ground with her uni-boob, but I started to giggle.
Mom smiled; the worry lines at the sides of her mouth disappeared. “You’re going to be fine.” She squeezed my arm. “They’re only keeping you in for observation. It’s routine.”
“I know. But something happened. I went somewhere.” I’d tried to tell her everything in emergency, but she’d brushed me off. I struggled again to explain the weirdness. “There was a voice. And Logan was there.”
The worry creases returned. Fear darkened her blue eyes. “You mentioned that.” She fussed with my pillow.
“He wants me to do something.”
“He wants you to start living again.” When I didn’t respond, Mom added, “Maybe it’s time you went back to see Dr. Fernandez.”
Dr. Fernandez was the shrink my parents had insisted I see for a few months after Logan died. I didn’t like her. Mostly because she started every sentence with, “What I hear you saying,” and then disagreed with everything I said. Plus she had really bad teeth, and I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t get past them.
“I’m not crazy.” I wasn’t. Was I?
“I didn’t say that.”
She didn’t have to. Mom and Dad were worried about me. I didn’t go out much. I’d lost interest in tennis. For a while, I’m sure they thought I was suicidal. But suicide wasn’t the answer. Why would I leave people grieving when I knew how much it hurt missing Logan?
“We’ll talk about it when you get home,” she said. “I’m sure Dad’s brought the car around by now.” She leaned over and kissed my forehead. I caught a whiff of Mom-smell: spearmint breath mints, Ivory soap and magnolia hand cream. My eyes teared up.
“Look hard,” I said. “For the medallion.”
“Of course.” And with one last kiss, she was gone.
Her runners squeaked as she went down the hall. I heard the ping of the elevator coming to collect her, the swish of the doors as she stepped inside. I was alone. With way too much time to think.
Had I left my body?
My practical self told me I was imagining things. My heart said I wasn’t. I couldn’t explain it, I didn’t understand it, but I knew it as sure as I knew my street address.
The whole thing was real.
“It’s not unusual to hallucinate at a time like that,” the emergency doctor had told Mom. I heard her. I also heard her say it was shock. The shivering. The crying. The weird idea that I’d gone somewhere. She’d given me a pile of pills to take. Stuff to calm me down.
It wasn’t working.
My senses were hyped. I swear I heard the information clerk six floors down answering the switchboard. For sure I heard the doctors at the nurses’ station, the elevator moving from floor to floor, the faint click-clack, thud-thud of a machine—or was it someone walking?—down the hall.
It was M.C. She poked her head around my door and gave me a giant smile. “It’s about time they sprung you from emergency.”
“Did you find Logan’s St. Christopher?” I tried to sit up, but my arms had gone on strike. I was so tired.
“Not yet.” She pushed her walker into the room. “But it’ll turn up.” She wore a huge multicolored poncho over her caftan and a brilliant red beret on her head. She looked like an overweight, crazed French chef.
Disappointed, I flopped back down.
“Hold on, I’ll hoist your bed.” With a speed that surprised me, M.C. wedged her walker into the small space between my bed and table, leaned over and flicked a switch. The head of the bed rose.
The movement caught the attention of Kitty dog, who appeared from under the poncho and launched herself at my face, wiggling and yipping and licking my chin like she was my new best friend. I hadn’t seen the dog move this much in...well...never. She pretty much always acted her age—ten thousand years old.
“You’re not supposed to have dogs in here.” Kitty moved to my ear, which was way better than having her anywhere near my nose.
“What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” M.C. said.
The dog was moving down my neck toward my sting. I grabbed her snout and held it between my hands, trying to stop her and keep her quiet at the same time. She snarled and showed her teeth through my fingers. “Okay, okay.” I let her go. She threw herself at my other ear.
“I can’t stay long.” M.C. began pulling things out from under her caftan—a tub, a soupspoon, a metal thermos top. “But I wanted to come and thank you.” She poured something thick and orange into the thermos lid. I smelled onions and spice. My stomach growled. “It’s not every day someone heals my Kitty dog.”
What was she talking about? I hadn’t healed the dog. The dog was probably too ashamed to walk, but the sound of the ambulance had scared her. (If you were a dog named Kitty, would you want to walk?)
Before I could point this out, M.C. thrust the mug into my hand. “Carrot-ginger soup,” she said. “After all you’ve been through, you need the grounding energy.”
So what if she didn’t make sense. I hadn’t eaten since lunch, and it had to be almost nine o’clock. One of the nurses had promised to bring me a sandwich, but that was hours ago. The soup was hot and tasty. M.C. had claimed to be a good cook over the last few months, but I figured
she was bragging.
She wasn’t.
After downing a second cup, I leaned back on my pillow and asked the question I needed answered. “What do you mean, all I’ve been through?”
“Lifting off and getting the power and coming back and healing Kitty.”
A shiver ran down my spine. “Lifting off?”
“Your body might have been lying in Bartell’s parking lot, but after telling me that you’d been stung by a bee, you left. You were gonzo.” Her pale blue eyes glittered as she stared at me. “You took yourself off to the great beyond, where you got yourself the power to heal Kitty.” She gestured to the dog. “Look at her. She’s walking.”
No, she wasn’t. My new best friend was sitting on my knee, drooling.
“I did not heal her.” If I had, I would have given her hair. And cured her bad breath.
“Yes, you did. You healed her with the laying on of your hands.”
She had to be kidding.
“It’s true,” she insisted.
M.C. had been watching Heroes too much. Either that or the gout medicine was getting to her. “That only happens on tv, M.C. This is real life.”
“Of course, it’s real life.” She thrust the thermos lid at Kitty, who slurped so loudly I was sure the nurse would hear it and think I was having a seizure. “It’s a real miracle, is what it is. Miracles happen, ya know. And not just on the Miracle Network either.”
I snorted. “Yeah, they happen in comic books too.”
M.C. opened her mouth to speak, but the slap-slap of a nurse’s shoes out in the hall stopped her. She grabbed Kitty and stuffed her under the poncho. “Listen to me, young lady. You’re a healer now. It’s nothing to joke about. Hear me?”
“Visiting hours are over,” a smiling nurse said from the doorway.
“I was just leaving.” M.C. picked up the thermos lid and the last of the soup. She leaned close and whispered in my ear. “You’ve been given a gift, Hannah. Use it wisely.” M.C. was wrong. She was messed up. A total whack job. She’d named her dog Kitty. Anybody who did that couldn’t be trusted.
So why was there a part of me that wondered?
Chapter Four
I was back in school on Tuesday. Not that I had to go. Mom suggested I rest for another day. I think she wanted to get me in to see Dr. Fernandez.
I didn’t want to see Dr. Bad Teeth, and resting wasn’t easy. Not after M.C.’s announcement that I was a healer like Jesus Christ himself. Next she’d be telling me I could turn water into wine and asking for samples.
Foods was first block. When I got to class, Ms. Drummond was frantically throwing ingredients into all the cooking stations.
I slid onto the stool beside Marie. “What’s going on? I thought we were figuring out the menus for our theme dinners today.”
“There’s been a change in plans,” Marie said.
Drummond was always changing things. Which might work in my favor, since I was determined to get her to switch me out of Tom’s group.
Marie stopped doodling on her wrist and gave me the once-over. “You look like crap.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” I hadn’t slept well, thinking about M.C.’s comment and worrying about Logan’s missing medallion. And when I finally dozed off, a dream of Logan woke me. He wanted me to do something, and I couldn’t figure out what. I was tired. Even extra makeup couldn’t hide the bags under my eyes.
“I can’t believe you landed in the hospital because of a bee sting.” Marie stared at me. “What really happened?”
For a second, I almost told her. But after Logan died and I started questioning God, Marie decided my soul needed saving, and she kept hounding me to see her parish priest. If I told her I felt a presence and a voice and Logan, she’d have the guy calling me.
Not that I was passing judgment. But still. My dad was a lapsed Catholic who had no time for religion, and my mother believed everybody—Christians, Buddhists, even our neighbor who worshipped some star in the next galaxy and believed silver ufos would take us all there when the world ended.
No wonder I had commitment issues.
“Hannah?”
I mumbled something about allergies and overprotective parents.
Ms. Drummond clapped her hands. “Listen up!” When the talking faded, she continued. “Today you’ll break into your dinner groups and I’ll walk you through a simple recipe for a shake.”
Marie leaned close. “Kristen, Lexi and I made an amazing shake with Coffee Crisp ice cream, chocolate powder and a whole lot of vodka Saturday night. Kind of like a Frappuccino, only better. You should have been there.”
No thanks. I felt lonely with my friends, especially when everybody was having fun. They always made it a Really Big Deal when I didn’t drink. I hated being singled out. Besides, how could I party with Logan lying in the ground?
“I want to see you work together before we finalize the groups,” Drummond said. “After that, we’ll get you started developing menus.”
This sounded good. Tom and I did not work well together. Even a blind toad could see that.
“The usual rules apply,” Ms. Drummond added. “Clean hands, aprons, long hair tied back. The ingredients are in your stations. Look them over and get ready for my demonstration.”
I slid from the stool and headed for the back of the room. Marie fell into step beside me. “A bunch of us are grabbing pizza at lunch,” she said. “Why don’t you come?”
“Maybe.”
She frowned. Marie knew “maybe” meant “no.”
When I walked into the only cooking station large enough to take a wheelchair, Tom peered at me over his sunglasses. Logan would never wear sunglasses again. I bit down hard on my lip. Because Tom had goaded him into that car.
“Hey, Hannah Banana,” Tom said.
Beside him, Alan Kim laughed and fiddled with one of the chef’s knives.
“Don’t call me that.” Never mind that Tom had coined the phrase first. It belonged to Logan.
“Lighten up,” Marie murmured.
Ignoring them both, I checked the counter to see what we had. There was vanilla yogurt, milk, juice and a selection of fruits: bananas, blackberries, pears. “Looks like your basic fruit shake,” I said.
Tom grinned. “I’ve got a way to make that special.” He flipped open his jean jacket. I saw a small bottle of Malibu rum. Marie snickered.
Alan whistled. “Nice work, Shields.” He picked up a second knife, juggled the two of them clumsily.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said.
“You never used to be such a priss,” Tom challenged. “Not way back when.”
I felt the flush creep into my cheeks. A long time ago (before I developed a brain), I’d dated Tom Shields (gag me). In fact, he’d introduced me to Logan. He hadn’t been so bad back then. A little bit out there, but mostly okay. We’d gotten along.
Not now. Every time I looked at Tom, the pain of Logan’s death hit me again. Tom had gotten off with a sore leg. Muscle damage, he said. I wasn’t so sure. Half the time he was in his wheelchair, half the time he was on crutches. I figured he used both for effect.
“Still playing with balls?” he teased.
Alan almost dropped a knife. I didn’t bother replying. Tennis was my thing; I’d come close to making the USTA junior team last summer.
“I hear doubles is the way to go.” Tom’s eyebrows danced up and down his forehead.
Alan hooted. The knives clattered to the floor. “Shit, Shields, now look.” One of the knives had hit his thumb on the way down. “Shit, shit, double shit.”
Drummond was talking to a group at the back. But she was going to notice any minute. Especially with the blood dripping onto Alan’s jeans.
Alan grabbed a towel, wrapped it around his thumb. Within minutes, the blood seeped through.
“You might need stitches,” I said. “We have to tell Drummond.”
“No.” He was whiter than the milk on the counter. I wondered if he’d sever
ed an artery. Did thumbs have arteries? “You know what a tight-ass Drummond is about knives. I’ll be kicked out of class and my dad will string me up.” Alan jerked his head to the towel. Blood was dripping to the floor. “Do something!”
I grabbed a clean towel from the counter and removed the soiled one. My breakfast waffle flipped in my stomach. Talk about ugly. The tip of Alan’s thumb was hanging by a string of skin.
I slapped the clean towel on before anyone could see. “Get Drummond!” I squeezed Alan’s thumb, applied as much pressure as I dared. “He needs a doctor.”
Then I felt it. The same buildup I’d felt after the bee sting. Only this time it happened quickly, like a movie on fast forward. And this time I didn’t pass out.
The voices of my classmates faded; the color of the fruits on the counter blurred. Suddenly the presence was there. Making me bigger, fuller, softer.
And warm. Especially on the palms of my hands.
The moment became an hour, and the hour turned into a day. Time hummed, stretching up and out, wrapping itself around me, around Alan’s thumb. I felt grand yet small. Love-filled. Perfect. I knew Alan was perfect too.
I heard Drummond’s voice off in the distance. “What’s going on?”
Tom said something about the knife slipping. Marie added that the gash was ugly and deep. As soon as they spoke, the hum started to fade. The whoosh tugged at me.
“Let’s see.” Drummond reached for the towel.
The instant she touched us, it all stopped. Time snapped into its small self, like an elastic returning to size. The presence left. So did the hum.
As Drummond unwrapped the cloth, I knew exactly what she would find. A cut, for sure, but no stringy bits, no hanging thumb. I started to shiver.
“You must have thick blood,” Ms. Drummond said, staring at the gash. “The bleeding’s already stopped. But we still need to get it looked at.”
After Drummond took him away, Marie and I wiped the counters. Or Marie did. Suddenly I was so tired I could hardly stand. “That was major,” she said.
Hannah's Touch Page 2
