by A. A. Bell
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Visitors, mostly.’
Mira struggled to catch her bearings in the maze of corridors. She couldn’t hear any other traffic, but that was only helpful in suggesting that she probably wasn’t anywhere near a busy ward for children or emergencies — which made sense if they needed to put her in a high-dependency unit for observation.
Somewhere nearby — and drawing closer — she heard a piano playing a serene church hymn and voices that sounded like angels singing.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Down here,’ Zhou said as they turned another corner, ‘to clear up what I fear may be a terrible misunderstanding.’
FORTY-ONE
The music, though still faint, grew louder. Flowers spiced the air, along with the smell of leather. Oily leather.
Neville …?
The chair slowed as it neared a ghostly door. She heard a knock, but they rolled her through without pausing, into a small private ward. She could hear someone sniffling, as if they’d been crying.
‘Hello, Mira!’ said Matron Sanchez’s voice. ‘I’m so glad you’re okay!’
‘Likewise,’ said Neville. ‘Serenity isn’t the same without you homing in on my family jewels every day.’
‘It’s a good thing you’re mostly health professionals,’ said another woman whose voice Mira didn’t recognise. ‘There are too many people in here, even for a high-dep ward. Don’t crowd too close, okay?’
‘High-dependence?’ Mira asked. ‘You’re joking. I don’t need that. Just let me out in the fresh air!’
‘Not yet.’ Van Danik moved her chair around. ‘There’s someone here … How is our patient today, Mrs Chiron?’
Mira’s heart sank. ‘Oh, no! Did the colonel hurt you too?’ she asked.
‘Call me Mel,’ Ben’s mother said. ‘And yes, he hurt me in the worst way.’
‘I don’t think she understands,’ Zhou explained.
‘Understand what?’ asked Mira.
Her wheelchair bumped forward and landed her against the familiar stiffness of hospital bedsheets, but not in the place where the ghostly bed stood, and not in the same direction as Mellow’s voice either. Someone shifted Mira’s hand onto an invisible arm that lay deathly still on top of the covers; a thick, muscled arm that smelled almost familiar.
Ben?
Her hand trembled, scarcely daring to hope. She staggered out of the wheelchair, tapping and tugging at the arm as she explored upwards, not getting any response. She tried to sense the colour of energy from the rough skin, but was too shaken to judge anything except that the arm was warm.
She found a neck, and plastic hoses that led to a face; where she shaped her hands around eyes, chin and cheeks until there was no mistake.
‘Ben!’ She clung onto him, overwhelmed by guilt and sorrow for all the times she’d misjudged him, slapped his hand away or doubted his honesty; aching now to make it up to him all at once. ‘I’m so sorry!’
Zhou prised her gently away from him. ‘He’s unconscious, virtually comatose. You must be careful not to knock the tubes that are helping his body to heal.’
Mira stepped back, but kept one hand cupped against Ben’s forehead. ‘How long before he wakes?’
‘His doctors can’t say,’ Mellow sobbed. ‘It’s not so much the bullet wound. He hit his head.’
‘But he was shot in the chest! Near his heart. I felt the blood. Even if you got to him straightaway, how could he survive?’
‘Kitching’s gun must have had laser sights,’ explained Van Danik. ‘His aim was surgical — up between the shoulderblades and out beside the collarbone. Keen to get you without damaging the merchandise, I’d say, because he managed to cut Ben away from you without hitting any major organs or bones.’
‘You said he hit his head?’
Zhou patted her hand. ‘He must have hit the deck pretty hard, Mira. He only stabilised an hour before they shifted him across from intensive care. He might stay this way for a few hours, days or even weeks. Months possibly. It depends on how hard he can fight.’
‘That’s why we’re here,’ Sanchez said. ‘He needs to be stimulated by comforting sounds and people who care for him.’
Mira shook her head. ‘That’s not how you make him fight.’
‘It’s the best way,’ Zhou said, but Mira shook her head more violently.
‘That’s not how you make Ben fight! Touching, and voices — that’s how you make me fight.’
‘We don’t mean that kind of fight,’ Sanchez replied. ‘His body is already fighting back physically, but we have to appeal to him through his subconscious; the one part of him that can still listen.’
‘Yes! That’s what I’m saying! Ask Neville if you don’t believe me! Neville, what was the fastest way to make me strike out at you?’
‘Getting anywhere near you is risky, lass, but touching you without asking first — that’s number one. I’ve even seen you flinch in your sleep, and I mean sedated.’
‘Yes! You see? It’s reflex for me. I still have to fight it, even when I’ve learned to trust all the people around me. But not Ben. If you want Ben to fight, you have to place someone else at risk.’
‘We’re not denying you’ve come a long way,’ Sanchez replied, ‘but —’
‘Not far enough,’ Mira snapped, ‘if I still can’t get you to see things that are unique in their own sense. Look what you’re doing to him — but not with your eyes open. Close them and see properly for yourself! Choir music and flowers? He must think he’s dead already and laid out for his funeral!’
Nobody answered for a long moment, their silence making the hymn and angels sound even louder.
Someone switched off the music.
‘She’s right,’ said Mellow. ‘Even in jail, he was always more worried about how I was coping than himself.’
‘So how do we make him think you’re at risk?’ asked Van Danik.
‘Smoke,’ Mira replied, stroking Ben’s forehead. ‘He told me that nothing had made him more angry than the last time he smelled it.’
‘For the record,’ Zhou said, ‘smoke is all you’d need to panic me awake too, but this is a hospital, Mira. It’s not like we can set fire to anything.’
‘Not for long anyway,’ Mellow said. ‘There are two smoke detectors in here.’
Mira heard something fold or unfold, like the page of a newspaper.
‘I’m serious!’ Zhou insisted. ‘You can’t light that in here! The heart attacks you’d cause … and not only amongst the staff!’
‘You don’t need to tell me that,’ Mellow said. ‘I’m a nurse. I don’t think we’d need flames, though; only smoke. Maybe less than that of a burning cigarette. Ben is worth a thousand times that much risk, isn’t he? Just one little match?’
Footsteps sounded from the direction of the doorway. ‘Match for what?’ asked an authoritative male voice. ‘The courtyard for smokers is at the end of the hall.’
‘Pete!’ Mellow called. ‘Perfect timing as always! This is Mira Chambers. She’s Ben’s friend from —’
‘I know. She was with him when I arrested him at the car wash. What do you need a match for in here? And why all the visitors?’
‘They’re nearly all nursing staff, honey; they don’t count. Besides, these are the two doctors I told you about. They caught the bastard who shot Ben, so there’s no need to play bodyguard anymore. But we were just wondering if a little smoke might be just the thing to scare his subconscious and bring him back to us. So can I borrow your cigarette lighter, honey? It won’t take more than two clicks.’
‘Not in here, Melly. I’m surprised you’d ask!’
‘I’ve got matches and a cigar,’ Neville offered. His hand dipped into his pocket, jingling something plastic against metal keys; within Mira’s reach, she noticed.
‘Are you crazy?’ complained the cop. ‘In here? What makes you think it’d work anyway? Half the people who die in house fires never wake up in time to save themselves!’
‘If you’re speaking statistically,’ Van Danik argued, ‘those deaths are usually smokers who are used to the smell. Or they inhale chemical fumes from burning carpet and furniture. Look, there’s a smokers’ courtyard on this floor. Perhaps we could wheel his bed down there briefly? His wound’s covered, the fluid drips are portable and it’s a covered walkway all the way.’
‘Cigarette smoke won’t do it,’ Mira said. ‘Neither will a clean flame. We’d need real smoke — something that doesn’t belong here, that his subconscious will recognise is wrong.’
‘Crazy must be catching,’ Pete said. ‘Do I need to get a doc in here for the lot of you? If his subconsciousis listening now, then it already knows your plan is a ruse.’
‘Instinct and reflex are stronger forces than knowledge,’ Mira argued. ‘I know. I have to fight them all the time.’
‘He’s got a point, though,’ Van Danik said. ‘As a nurse here, Mrs Chiron, can you authorise us to move Ben to the smokers’ lounge and make sure everything stays hooked up?’
Mira didn’t hear an answer, so she couldn’t tell if Mellow had shaken her head, nodded or not replied at all.
‘Mitch!’ Zhou complained. ‘Not you too?’
‘Hey, I might not be a doctor of medicine, but isn’t it obvious that the oxygen is confined mainly to those lines? Obviously, the air around him might be a little richer too, but surely not enough that a little cigar smoke would spark an explosion, and certainly not if we move him somewhere that already caters for smoke?’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this!’ Zhou said. ‘There’s absolutely no way I could stand by as a doctor while you or anyone else strike a flame near a patient under intensive care — not even if you lit the damn thing in the toilet! This whole place is fitted with smoke detectors.’
‘Agreed,’ Sanchez said. ‘What chance has it of working anyway? Much better to be patient and try some more music and smelling salts.’
Mira clenched her fists into Ben’s shirt, wishing she could simply shake him awake. ‘How patient will you be?’ she asked. ‘Ten years — like for me? You can’t leave him like this. He’s better off dead!’
‘Careful, Mira!’ Sanchez scolded. ‘This is the last time you’ll be able to see Ben. Don’t make me take you back early!’
‘What? You mean I can’t visit him? I’ll earn my day passes, I promise!’
‘After the record you two have together? Every day has ended in disaster.’
‘No! But I …!’ She tapped her forehead with her fist, knowing all too well where that argument would lead. ‘Sorry, I … I guess my head isn’t in the right place.’
Closing her eyes, she could feel the last seconds of freedom ticking inside her ears in time with her pulse; with Ben’s pulse too, as if the two had become one. The thought of separating from him again threatened to pull her apart from the inside out.
‘I think I feel sick again,’ she said.
‘The ensuite’s behind you,’ Pete suggested. ‘You could splash water over your face.’
Zhou rolled the wheelchair closer, but she blocked it as politely as she could manage: ‘I’m not crippled.’
She stepped around the chair, closing her eyes to avoid the fear of stepping into empty air. On the way, she deliberately stumbled into Neville and grabbed at him, her hand sliding swiftly in and out of his cardigan pocket; not so difficult to pick as he’d imagined.
‘Sorry,’ she said, and it was true: she was disappointed by them all.
She headed for the ensuite with her eyes closed and pulled the door closed behind her. Once inside the snug room, she fumbled around to find the invisible toilet, sink and paper towel dispenser — everything she needed to trade her last moments of freedom to wake Ben. She couldn’t leave him condemned to darkness, as she had once been.
She unravelled the roll of toilet paper into the basin, then fumbled with Neville’s matches, burning her fingers twice until she managed to set a flame to the paper. Smoke billowed thick enough to make her cough, but she listened until she heard a healthy flame crackle, then added a dampened layer of paper towelsto douse the flames. The smoke alarm howled above her and she burst into Ben’s room, sweeping the smoke along with her, triggering a second alarm that caused panic and an uproar.
Someone grabbed her arm and shouted for help. More invisibles thundered in from the hall; two, four or ten, she didn’t bother counting. Through it all, she kept her eyes closed, turning all of her other senses towards Ben.
‘This is for you,’ she whispered, knowing that on some level, some time in the future, he might remember. ‘You taught me to live, but of the two of us, it’s you who deserves it.’
Bodies jostled her away from him; an invisible sea of arms. She imagined them floating his bed to safety like a life-raft, away from the fire. Away from her.
‘Goodbye, Ben.’
Swept away on a different current, she struggled to keep her head above the crowd. Unforgiving arms pulled her down, pinned her arms, and she went limp, expecting the cold jab of a needle, no longer caring. But then, somewhere beyond the din of the fire-evacuation process, beyond time, fear and longing, she heard him cough.
‘Ben?’
She heard him cough again, then shouts from his mother and other nursing staff about seeing his arm move.
‘Let me go!’ she cried.
Life exploded back into her limbs and she kicked herself free of the faceless invisibles who had grabbed her. She scrambled against the tide of surrounding bodies — patients shouting for directions, staff trying to soothe them. Hands clawed at her clothes, but the hall was now too swollen with the crush and rush of invisible bodies.
By the time she reached the thickest part of the crowd, she could hear Ben’s mother shouting for other nurses to be more careful with his tubes and pillows.
‘Extubate now!’ Mellow ordered, and Mira was jostled backwards a little, with the other onlookers.
‘No!’ she complained. ‘Let me see him!’
Ben coughed again and Mira shoved with all her might towards him, but was snared by four strong male arms that had finally caught up to her.
‘Mira?’ Ben coughed. ‘Mira …’
‘Here, Ben! I’m here!’ She stamped her feet, still struggling to get free.
‘He’s groggy,’ Mellow argued. ‘He can’t be fit for talking yet. Get her out of here, and get those other patients back into their rooms.’
Mira felt herself being dragged backwards through floppy plastic doors; she grabbed one for leverage and, with a savage twist of her hips, escaped. She scrambled across the floorless sky, fearlessly as never before, to clutch at Ben’s hand. She could smell him, hear him, feel his pulse again, and that was all she cared for or needed.
He wheezed as he clasped her hand weakly, ‘You promised … you’d never do that.’
‘Do what?’ chimed Mellow and Mira together.
‘Scare me … again.’
Mira smiled and clenched her eyes shut against a flood of tears. She rubbed his hand against her cheek and hoped he could feel inside of her the same kind of warm glow that she’d grown to long for in him. ‘So sue me,’ she whispered. ‘I lied.’
Freddie lounged in his dungeon in blissful silence. Sixteen hours; all too brief, like the upswing of a pendulum that hangs too long between tock and tick.
Was that Fredarick’s thought, or his own? He wasn’t sure anymore, but he did know that every sweet second of silence needed to be savoured. He could feel the end coming — as inevitable as the pounce of a predator. His prey was drawing near again, only this time, he was empty; purged of all but the final echoes in this quiet place. Now he was hungry, almost starving to put an end to it.
Sanchez crept up on him, as if her dainty feet were considerate of making no echoes, while her miming shoes had been delayed by her detour to the mainland — and by her need to skim back through his testimonies before she could discover how to find him in the most quiet place on the island; entombed between sec
ret walls in the beach-rock dungeon.
He had listened to the echoes of those near-silent footsteps for so long, he knew exactly when to rise in time for her flashlight to find him. Guarding his eyes in time too, he was pleased to see that she’d brought Fredarick’s Braille testimonies. Yet she looked at him so sadly for a long moment, as if by writing it, he was also guilty of plotting it, when the best he’d ever been able to manage was a few nudges to the outcome — and never without repercussions.
He reached into his back pocket to reassure himself he still had the box of matches that he’d lifted from Neville’s cardigan on the day of that incident with Mira, when Neville had tried to peel Fredarick away from her just as he’d finished the last stitches. Neville had blamed Mira for picking his pocket, yet all the while it had been him — shape-shifting his leopard’s spots so swiftly that no one had noticed. He’d needed them to light the flames for the Sage and his blasphemous Braille manuscript, but having stolen the Epilogue, he could be sure that the coming moments would mark the end of it all.
His spike-haired angel studied him a little longer before her lips began to quiver. However, she was considerate in speaking only with her hands in his sacred place: So this is how you get into my office?
He nodded, but as he shielded himself from the stark halo of her searching light, he knew that she wouldn’t be able to recognise him yet as the most zealous facet of himself. Nor did he want her to, so he kept his mouth shut, and turned to hug the wall. His fingers found the secret cellar door and he knocked upon it, knowing that as he stepped back into the shadows of his mind, the sage would be the one who opened up the cellar and bid her welcome.
Motion detectors in the cellar switched on a long row of fluorescent lights as they entered. Upstairs in her office, a small red light would be blinking. Above them, a surveillance camera also followed their progress — all for safety, Sanchez had decided. As an unsupervised area of Serenity, if Fredarick needed urgent medical attention down here, there’d be no other way of knowing.
She caught his arm as they approached the first row of shelves, now empty after her staff had cleaned up for him, and turned him enough to ensure she had his attention.
