Moonlight Mist: A Limited Edition Collection of Fantasy & Paranormal)

by Nicole Morgan

  Sometimes both.

  While he wasn’t the biggest d-bag out there—he wasn’t into killing endangered species, for instance—neither was there much substance to him. He appeared content to spend his father’s money and show up at a board meeting now and then just to show the family flag.

  He had a corporate title with Quarles Corporation, but he didn’t seem to have a job. He looked great in a bathing suit and dashing in a tux and really—in a world where celebrity culture rules and fame can fuel fortunes—what more did he need?

  Apparently—if rumors were to be believed—what Ebenezer really needed was an empathy transplant. He was notorious for petty actions like stiffing wait staff after racking up huge bills at restaurants and bars and wrecking hotel suites on the regular. According to TMZ, he and a companion once literally broke a bed at the Hotel Napoleon in Paris.

  Afterwards, Ebenezer had been quoted as saying the sex hadn’t been that good but at least he hadn’t paid for it.

  Nice.

  But if any of his ex-girlfriends had problems with the way he treated them, those complaints never got aired.

  Were they bullied into keeping silent or simply paid off? Did they secretly want to be treated like dirt? No one knew.

  No one really cared. Because he looked great in his designer clothes and everyone wanted to know what he looked like without them. The lucky paparazzo who’d snagged a junk-baring picture of him sunbathing on the deck of a mega-yacht had made a cool million on the snap.

  There were rumors Ben had posed for the shot in return for half the money, but those rumors had never been confirmed.

  Ben was a bad boy and the tabloids love the bad boys.

  And then suddenly, he had dropped out of sight and the rumor mill really cranked up.

  He’d been injured in some sort of surfing mishap.

  Or maybe it was a riding accident.

  Possibly a plane crash.

  No one seemed completely certain why Ben Quarles had disappeared off the radar. There was plenty of schadenfreude behind the conjecture—he had overdosed; he was recovering from an attack by a jealous husband or an angry ex; he’d been whacked by the Russian mob.

  He was reported to be dying; he was said to have been disfigured; he was thought to be on a religious retreat.

  No one knew where he was and the tabloids were offering crazy money for any information on his whereabouts.

  Six months after Ben fell silent on social media, disappeared from the tabloids, and generally went dark, his mother contacted the clinic and arranged for one of the clinic’s “special sessions.”

  That’s code for what I do. And that meant that something was very wrong with Ben Quarles. The thought almost made my heart stop. Because even though I’d never met Ebenezer Quarles in the waking world, I knew him.

  “He’s in a coma,” mother told us when she broke the news that the son of one of the world’s richest men would be checking into ASC.

  “Coma? He should be at Cornell,” Kitta said.

  “He was at Cornell,” Mira said, head bent over her tablet. “They sent him to us.”

  “That can’t be good,” Kitta said.

  “What do they think we can do that they can’t do at Cornell?” I asked.

  “His parents are grasping at straws at this point,” mother said.

  “Those poor people,” Kitta said.

  Mira snorted. “Poor?”

  We deal with a lot of wealthy people here at ASC, and by and large, they’re not particularly nice people, especially the ones dealing with addictions.

  “Why’s he in a coma?” I asked.

  Mother looked pensive. “The parents are being a little…reticent…on that matter.”

  Mira and I looked at each other and said, “Drugs” at the exact same time.

  “Better you than me, babe,” Mira added.

  I made a face at her because I knew exactly what she meant.

  Mira had dreamwalked in some pretty nasty places while treating our addict patients and she didn’t have much sympathy for them.

  It wasn’t burnout so much as self-protection she told me. “Dealing with the unleashed id of an addict’s subconscious is like battling giant snakes.”

  She meant exactly that. In one particularly arduous session with a Vicodin addict she’d gone into his dreamworld like Perseus with a reflective shield to deflect the stony gaze of the snakelike creatures growing out of his head.

  “The snakes were actually kind of beautiful,” she said later when the patient had been packed up and sent back home, clean and sober, “but they smelled really bad.”

  It’s a funny thing about smells in dreams. Some researchers say that you can’t actually have olfactory dreams. Others, like Rosalia Cavalieri, believe that some people can, although it’s very rare. Because I’m not asleep when I dreamwalk, I don’t know if my experience is common or not, but I find most dreamworlds very fragrant. Both Kitta and Mira say the same thing.

  “When’s he coming?” Kitta asked.

  “Tomorrow,” Mother said. “I wish they’d given us more warning because I’ve got sessions booked back to back all day.” She looked at me with a question in her eyes.

  “Not a problem,” I said.

  “It’s not great timing,” Mira said. “Kitta and I have that seminar with the guys from the narcolepsy study.”

  Which really should have had nothing to do with anything since the Quarles family was coming to see me, not them, but it was part of the clinic’s protocol that one of the “doctors” greeted all the incoming patients.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said with some annoyance as everyone looked at me.

  Sometimes it really sucks to be the youngest sibling.

  I had to admit, I was intrigued by the thought of working with Ebenezer Quarles. Because thought I’d never met him in the waking world, the only time I’d ever remembered a sleeping dream was the morning after the night I’d dreamt of him.

  After lunch I walked into town. As usual, I ran into a number of our patients who were visiting family members staying there. Except for when the patients are children, family members are not allowed on clinic grounds, although patients are free to visit with them in town.

  Kitta had a theory, backed up by her dreamwalking, that a lot of the stress that keeps people up at night is caused by family strife. Getting patients away from their significant and insignificant others was an easy way to see if family dysfunction is part of the problem.

  In truth, while we try to provide distractions for the patients and have huge libraries of downloadable books and films on offer and a world-class gym, there’s not a lot going on at the clinic itself, so patients can get bored if they’re used to a lot going on. Sometimes patients are so exhausted that all they do is collapse for the first few days, but others find it difficult to deal with inactivity and the sudden lack of stress and will go out of their way to manufacture drama.

  When the clinic was first built, it had been out in the middle of nowhere with the nearest town mostly known for a diner used as a stopover for New Yorkers fleeing the city in the summer. Now ASC supported a whole village of people, much as a medieval castle provided employment for all the villagers that lived inside its walls.

  There were designer boutiques and five-star restaurants and lots of little bed and breakfast places to accommodate the families.

  There were spas and salons and brew pubs and coffee houses.

  In the summer there was a thriving farmer’s market and in the fall there were craft fairs and holiday markets and in the winter there were ski trips to Hunter Mountain and Woods Valley.

  There was plenty for families to do while their loved ones were being treated, and the symbiotic relationship between the clinic and the town was appreciated by all.

  Especially by us.

  And it helped us keep the buffer between family and patient in place. The rule of “no family allowed” had been put in place after a patient’s mother had become so distressed while wa
tching a treatment that she’d wrecked a half-million dollar piece of machinery and nearly consigned her son to a persistent vegetative state.

  Dreams aren’t always pleasant and dreaming isn’t meant to be a spectator sport.

  According to Kitta, Alexander and Julia Quarles had not been happy to hear that they would be banned from their son’s bedside for the duration of his stay. Even though that’s one of the items in the FAQ posted on our website.

  Once Ben was checked in, they would be escorted out for the duration.

  They’d complained but Mother simply told them they were welcome to take their son somewhere else but if they wanted him treated at ASC, then they were going to have to abide by her rules.

  A lot of people think they can push my mother around because she’s laid back and soft-spoken but the people who have tried to push her around very quickly learn she’s not someone they want to mess with.

  But then, Alexander Quarles wasn’t most people.

  Chapter Three

  “Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” –Edgar Allan Poe

  Because I’m the least important person in the clinic with the last name of Alviva, unless things are really hectic, my mother or one of my sisters greets the patients when they check in. If they get me, most people deal with it. They’re more worried about the patient than they are about any perceived slight.

  Not Alexander Quarles. “Who are you?” he demanded as soon as I entered the reception lounge. “Where’s Dr. Alviva?”

  I so wanted to say, “Which one?” because Kitta’s an MD and Mira has her doctorate, but there’s a time and place for being snarky and this was neither.

  “She had a patient emergency,” I told him, which alarmed his wife who was over-bleached and ultra-thin and looked tense.

  “What about one of the daughters then,” he said. “Is either Kitta or Myra—”

  “Mira,” I interrupted, because I didn’t like his attitude. “Like Mira Sorvino.”

  “Where’s Mira then?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, which was true. Mira didn’t check in with me unless she needed someone to monitor her in the dreamworld. “Would you like to check in now?”

  Julia Quarles looked like she wanted to say something but one look at her husband’s face shut her up.

  I didn’t like that and I started to get a tingle on the back of my neck.

  We make the check-in process pretty much painless and mostly paperless, but there are still a couple of questions we need to ask, especially if patients are admitted in a coma, and can’t speak for themselves.

  I hadn’t seen him yet but he’d already been met by our coma team and head nurse Rachid Harrak was already doing the pre-consultation workup on him while I handled the formalities with his parents.

  Most people Ebenezer’s age would have been accompanied by a significant other. I thought it was sad that there wasn’t anyone around who fit that description.

  Although the same could be said for you, I thought, and then pushed the thought away.

  We hadn’t received the transfer paperwork from Cornell for some reason, and I found that odd. It was our policy to double-check information anyway but it tended to annoy people when they had to answer the same questions over and over.

  It was annoying Alexander now.

  “Cause of the coma?” I asked, careful not to sound in the least judgmental.

  Julia looked at Alexander.

  She’s going to lie, I thought.

  “We don’t know,” she said. “His housekeeper found him in his bedroom, unresponsive.”

  As lies went, that was pretty plausible. A little pathetic, but plausible. But still, I could tell she was lying and that bothered me.

  I made a note on my tablet.

  “Any allergies that you know of?” I asked. Drug sensitivities?” Again, I kept my tone neutral but she still took offense.

  “Are you suggesting my son is an addict?” she asked, as if no one could ever possibly think that even though Ben was known to appreciate fine designer pharmaceuticals.

  “I’m suggesting that if your son has ever had a bad drug interaction you should tell me so that we don’t accidentally cause another and kill him.”

  She stared at me. I stared back. She decided to play the class card.

  “I really don’t appreciate your attitude,” she said. “This may just be a minimum wage job to you but this is our son.”

  Alexander put his hand on her arm, not to comfort her but to quiet her. I might have felt sorry for her but for some reason, her words rang hollow to me. It’s like she was trying to convince me that she really cared about her son. And the problem was, I didn’t believe it.

  I began to get a bad feeling.

  “Ebenezer is sensitive to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs,” he said evenly.

  “Okay,” I said. “No ibuprofen or naproxen.” I made a note on my tablet.

  Half an hour later, I had the information I needed and Alexander and Julia left. I checked in with Rachid, who told me that our house physician was almost done with his initial assessment of Ben and that I could see him in an hour.

  “What’s your take on his condition?” I asked.

  Rachid looked thoughtful. “No outward sign of trauma,” he said. “Did the parents tell you anything that might shed some light?”

  “No,” I said. “They claim his housekeeper found him that way.

  “What was your take on them?” I asked.

  “The parents, you mean?”

  I nodded. Rachid would have met them at the concealed back entrance we use for all our celebrity patients.

  “She’s a trophy wife rapidly approaching her expiration date but there’s a prenup and if he leaves her she’ll end up with a ton of money.”

  “That’s remarkably cynical,” I said.

  “Leila reads all the blogs,” he said with a shrug. “She thinks Ebenezer is dreamy.”

  Rachid’s daughter is twelve.

  “Of course she does,” I said, thinking, she isn’t wrong.

  “She consumes too much problematic pop culture,” he said.

  “You kids get off my internet,” I teased. He scowled, so I changed the subject.

  “What about dad?”

  “Alexander Quarles will chew you up and spit out bits of bone.”

  His phone rang then, so I left him and headed to the staff cafeteria.

  I caught up with Kitta going through the line with a tray filled with gluten-free and vegan options.

  “Where’s Mira?” I asked.

  “She took the narcolepsy guys to the Barking Rhino,” she said.

  “I wish I were at the Barking Rhino,” I said, thinking about the brew pub’s bison sliders and bleu cheese slaw.

  Kitta looked at my plate of chicken fingers and mac and cheese but didn’t say anything.

  “I’m craving carbs,” I said, trying not to sound defensive.

  “It’s your cholesterol,” she said mildly but I could tell she was upset about something and didn’t really have the heart to bust me about the questionable nutrition of my lunch.

  For one thing, she looked frazzled, which wasn’t like her. Usually her blonde hair is so sleek and shiny it looks like a wig but right now it looked frizzy and dull. And slightly damp.

  “Is it raining outside?” I asked, because I hadn’t been away from my office in hours.

  “Inside,” she said, by which she meant that it had been raining in whatever dreamland she’d been in this morning.

  “I thought you guys had that seminar.”

  “Emergency,” she said, but did not elaborate.

  Normally, we aren’t affected by the dream environments of our patients. We don’t feel cold or heat or drafts, so it was worrisome that Kitta had emerged from a session with wet hair.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. She waved away the question so I asked another one.

  “Have you seen the new
patient, yet?” I asked.

  “Ebenezer Quarles?”

  I nodded.

  “No, just read his chart.”

  “Have you talked to his parents?”

  She put down her fork. “Are you getting a ‘feeling’ again?”

  Kitta wasn’t being snarky. She took my “feelings” seriously.

  “I could be wrong,” I said, “but I think his parents had something to do with him being in a coma.”

  We’d both seen cases of Munchausen’s by Proxy here.

  “Don’t you think it’s weird that the paperwork hasn’t been sent over from the hospital yet?”

  “Unusual,” she said, “not necessarily weird.” She fell silent. “When are you scheduled for your first session?”

  “Later today.”

  “Let me know if you need anything.”

  I was surprised to find Julia Quarles standing outside her son’s room, sucking desperately on a cigarette. I felt like a monster telling her she couldn’t smoke in the building. She didn’t argue with me, just dropped her smoke on the floor and crushed it out with the tip of her size five designer shoe. I winced, but let it go. The little robot cleaning machines that patrolled the hallways would be along soon enough to clean it up.

  “Can you help my son?” she asked.

  I hesitated before I answered. The clinic has an absurdly high cure rate with sleep disorders but not so much with comas. I didn’t want to promise anything we couldn’t deliver.

  “If we can, we will,” I said and winced again, knowing I did not sound particularly comforting.

  To cover my unease, I glanced at the door to the treatment room. She caught my gaze.

  “Are you sure I can’t stay?” she said. “I won’t get in your way.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. And to my surprise I really meant it. This seemed to be a different woman from the brittle blonde I’d met earlier. “it can be distressing to see the way the machines interact with your loved ones.”

  That was putting it mildly. In preparation for my dreamwalk, Ebenezer would have had wires threated into his eyeballs and various tubes inserted into various orifices. It bothered me and I was used to it.