by Jonah Hewitt
The doctors had told her that her head was fine; the CAT scan was clean, she didn’t even have a concussion, but she wasn’t sure she believed them. Maybe they had missed something and she was hallucinating. At that very moment, she just wasn’t certain about anything. Some moments she was convinced the boy was real, and the next moment…well…she had hoped soooo hard that the whole last day was a dream, that she just didn’t know what to believe anymore. She desperately wished more than anything that her mother was still here to tell her what to do, but if her mother was here, she wouldn’t need to, and everything would be fine, and she would never complain about spilled paint, or old musty houses or her mom dunking her fries in her chocolate shake ever again.
Lucy leaned forward and thumped her head on the large plate glass window. The split wound under the butterfly bandage stung a little, but it felt good against the cool glass, so she just kept leaning against the glass pathetically. She rolled her eyes to the side. The orderly was still yakking it up with the pretty receptionist. She was interested but not that interested. Unfortunately, she kept giving him just enough attention, so he wouldn’t give up. “Ugh,” thought Lucy, “I’m going to be here all day.” As she stared down at the simple, institutional hospital slippers she was wearing she was grateful the doctor hadn’t gotten her a matching set of googly-eyed princess kitten slippers.
Her eyes casually flitted back between the reception desk and the orderly’s endless crusade to get a date and her reflection in the window. Then something moved beyond her reflection. It was a boy, a boy in a striped shirt and shorts with a baseball cap. It wasn’t just any boy; it was the boy, the boy with the yo-yo. She looked to the orderly. He was still not giving up. She looked back through the window. She saw him again. He was still there. The boy was hiding in the bushes across the street in the green park space that lined the riverfront. She looked to the orderly and then back again. He was still there. She had not imagined it. Here he was in broad daylight! She leaned back and placed both hands on the window and looked intently, trying to see past the reflection of her own dumbstruck face. She couldn’t see him anymore, so she leaned forward, right against the window and cupped her hands around her eyes to shut out the reflection. The boy peeked his head above the bushes. He was still there! He was looking at her! Then his head disappeared behind the bushes. Uh, oh…he had seen her looking back!
All at once, the boy got up and started walking away quickly, a few steps on and the boy broke into a run. Figments of your imagination don’t run off – they just disappear. The boy was real! The boy she had seen last night and at the accident. He was real, and he was leaving. Lucy looked back at the orderly at the reception desk. If she bolted, he would eventually notice, but for the moment, he was doggedly clinging to false hopes. She hesitated and looked around. The automatic sliding doors to the lobby were to her right. She didn’t know what to do. Her eyes went from the reception desk to the doors and then back to the window. The boy was already gone. What to do?!
Just then, someone came into the lobby. The doors slid open. Lucy stood there bouncing on her toes, anxious, eyes darting back between the orderly and the open doors. They stood open for a moment, and then, just as the doors began to close, they helped Lucy make up her mind. She darted across the lobby and had to turn sideways to barely escape having them close on her.
She was outside. On the way out, she thought she had heard a woman yell, “Hey!” It sounded like the receptionist the orderly was chatting up, but she wasn’t sure. Either way, someone was bound to be after her soon so she had to hurry. She ran to the sidewalk’s edge and paused. She looked each way only for a second and then ran. There was a sound of honking horns and screeching tires. She ran with her head down, half crouched and her arms up around her ears. She didn’t stop ‘til she crashed into the bushes on the other side. She knew that if her mother had been there she would have thrown a fit for pulling a stunt like that, but Lucy was desperate; she had to find that boy.
She turned around and gasped. The cars were already moving again – it hadn’t been as close as she thought. But then she saw the blue scrubs of the orderly emerge from the sliding doors. The receptionist was right behind him. He was looking frantically left and right calling for her but hadn’t seen her yet. She stopped herself from screaming by slapping her hands over her mouth and turned and dove into the bushes. She had no idea what to do next. Think! Think! She started to tell herself. Where had the boy gone?! Left! She had seen him go left. She got up and ran to the left.
She paused and stopped momentarily when she got to an opening. There was a jogging path and some more trees and a large stone bridge crossing over to an island in the river. A few joggers and people out in the park gave her some odd looks, but there was no boy.
“Arrgh!” She stomped the ground and almost started crying again. Where was he?! Think, Lucy! Think! She looked around frantically. The park area was pretty narrow and open between the river and the street with trees openly spaced. There was nowhere to hide. Where had he gone?! Then she looked down towards the river where the bridge met the water’s edge. The bushes were thicker there. She instantly took off for the bushes. As she pushed her way past the dense branches, she came to a small, open patch concealed from view. She heard the orderly’s voice and the receptionist’s. She instinctively hunkered down and went silent.
She tried to control her panting breaths. The joggers and park-goers had seen her. If the orderly got this far, they would tell him where she had gone. She only had a few moments to find the boy before she would be caught. If the boy was here, he was hiding too. Maybe she could hear him. She tried to be as quiet as she could. She heard a twig snap behind her. She moved slowly in that direction. Something bolted out of the bushes behind her, but it was running away. Lucy jumped up and ran at an angle to cut it off. She came crashing out of the bushes and collided with something hard and the two tumbled to within feet of the water’s edge. Lucy’s head hurt, but she sprung back up and looked down. A boy in shorts and a striped shirt lay cowering in the mud in the fetal position. His baseball cap was lying on the ground beside him, knocked off by the force of the collision. He was covering his face with his hands. Lucy couldn’t see much more than one frantic eyeball, but in one hand he held a large, red, white and blue yo-yo. He was real.
“DON’T HURT ME!!” the boy screamed.
Lucy winced. His screaming would draw attention, and she needed enough time to get answers.
“Shut up!” she hoarsely whispered.
“DON’T HURT ME! OH, PLEASE DON’T HURT ME!” the boy went on yelling.
Lucy crouched down, grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “Hey…stop…listen to me…SHUT UP!!” she eventually yelled. The boy went quiet.
“I’m not going to hurt you!” Lucy went back to the hoarse whisper.
The boy panted; he was terrified. “Y-You…promise?”
“I promise.”
“Cross your heart and hope to die, stick a needle in your eye promise?” the quavering voice asked.
“Yes! I promise! OK?!” Lucy said a little too forcefully.
The eyeball hiding behind the hands moved frantically. It didn’t appear convinced of Lucy’s sincerity.
Lucy sighed. She sank down and sat on her heels. “Alright…Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” Lucy even raised her left hand and made the crossing motion over her heart with her right hand. She felt a bit childish doing this; who even did that anymore? But she needed to try to convince him. The eye looked uncertain, but slowly his hands lowered and the boy sat up from his defensive crouch.
They revealed a sweet but dirty face with freckles and big, blue eyes. There were bright trails on his face where his tears had washed away the grime. His short hair was tousled and mousy brown. He grabbed his baseball cap, shoved it down hard over his messy hair and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. His clothes were dirty and his sneakers were ragged. His large, baggy cargo shorts were oversized – prob
ably hand-me downs. He couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old and he looked utterly pathetic. This boy had haunted her for the last several hours to the point that she had questioned her own sanity. She had been very angry. In fact, she wasn’t certain what she had intended to do to him, but it wasn’t nice. But now? Now that she saw him, touched him, knew that he was real; she was just relieved that she wasn’t crazy.
“Who are you?” she said a bit curtly.
“P-Paul…well…my name’s Abe Lyon, b-but n-n-no one calls me that. They all call me by my middle name…Paul.”
Lucy huffed through her nostrils. Now that she had finally caught the phantom boy, she wasn’t certain what to do with him. She had so many questions they all got stuck in her throat. Paul broke the silence first.
“Are-are you going to h-h-hurt me?” he stammered.
“Why would I hurt you?” Truthfully she had wanted to hurt him, to take out her anger on him, anyone, but not anymore. Now she just wanted answers.
“B-because. I k-k-killed your mother.”
Lucy’s face went white. “It WAS you!! I knew it!”
The boy flinched at Lucy’s anger. “I-I swear, I didn’t mean to…it w-was an accident.”
Lucy was fuming. Her mouth opened and closed several times, but made no sound. All at once the questions poured out, “What are you doing here?! How did you get here?! What do you want from me?! What were you doing on the road that late at night?!”
With so many questions hurled at him at once, the boy didn’t seem to know which to answer to first, so he started with the last one.
“I-I was running.”
“Running?!” Lucy said incredulously, “From what?”
“From…” the boy’s voice fell to an almost inaudible level, “From her.”
Lucy froze. It was just a simple pronoun, but it filled her with dread, and she knew exactly who the boy was talking about. Still she had to force herself to ask. She reached forward and grabbed the boy by the shoulders but gently this time.
“Who?!” Lucy swallowed, “Who are you talking about?”
“I d-dunno…” the boy in the big, oversized shorts stammered and then he paused and looked around as if the answer were floating above him. Finally, his gaze turned to meet Lucy’s directly as if he finally found a suitable way to describe the phantom woman, “T-the woman, the w-woman with the long black hair and the grey eyes.”
Lucy let go of the boy. She slid off her heels and fell softly to the sand. Her head turned and her gaze drifted. Her unfocused eyes moved past the boy’s face and out over the water ‘til all she saw was a distant haze and the bridge disappearing into it. She felt the world spinning underneath her and had to hold onto the ground to keep herself from slipping away. The dark-haired woman with grey eyes; the one she had seen in vision at the accident, the face that had lunged at her from the water stain. Surely she had imagined it all, but then she thought the boy was a figment of her imagination too, and he was here…wasn’t he? She tried to focus her eyes, but it was the boy’s voice that brought her back.
“You’ve seen her?” the boy got up from his defensive crouch, crawled over to Lucy and said it again, but this time not as a question but as a statement, “You’ve seen her!”
Lucy’s expression must have answered his question. Lucy sat up, breathing hard. The whole thing was impossible – it just didn’t make sense. Another stream of questions poured out of her mind, “Who is she?! Why was she chasing you? What does she want with us?” But all that came out was, “ it’s…it’s just impossible!!”
“I know! I thought I was the only one! But you’ve seen her too, haven’t you?!” The boy was alert now, happy to finally have someone else to commiserate with, but Lucy was more confused than ever. It just didn’t make any sense. So many questions! Why was this woman chasing this boy and how had the boy gotten here from the accident anyway? She decided to ask that last question first.
“The accident was outside Ephrata. How did you get here anyway?”
“Oh…I…” The boy began, but he was cut off.
“Lucy!” It was the receptionist’s voice. The orderly’s voice was right behind her. They were close.
“Who’s that?!” the boy whispered. He looked terrified.
“It’s no one. It’s ok,” she tried to reassure him.
Lucy slapped her hand to her forehead. She couldn’t believe she had forgotten they were still chasing her. For a moment it looked like the boy was about to bolt again. His eyes were darting back and forth looking for a likely exit. She leaned forward and got low on her hands and knees and tenderly touched his arm to calm him.
“Look, I can’t stay and if they find you then I’ll never get any answers. Do you understand?”
The boy looked nervous but nodded.
“Good. They’re looking for me. I have to go. Can you stay hidden?”
“Y-yeah.”
“Looo-ceee!!” came the orderly’s voice nearby. Lucy winced, but turned back to the boy.
“Good. I’ll come back for you.” She was about to get up when he grabbed her arm.
“Wait!” he said frantically trying to keep his voice low, “What if they won’t let you out?! What if you can’t come this far?! What if…”
“Lucy!!” It was the receptionist again. They were getting closer. Lucy put her hand up to the boy’s mouth to silence him. They both remained silent for a while and Lucy thought. The kid was right. After this stunt, they would never let her get this far again. She instantly formed a plan.
“Do you know the lobby on the east side…just across the street?” She indicated the way by tossing her head in that direction.
“Yeah?”
“There’s a waiting room with a kid’s play area. Meet me there at…” she tried to think of a good time; it didn’t look like the kid had a watch, “Meet me there at sunset.” She was about to get up again when he grabbed her arm.
“Wait! What if they get suspicious?”
“Don’t worry, you’re a kid. They’ll just think you’re a kid playing…waiting for your parents or something.” She could tell he wasn’t certain, so she tried to reassure him. “Trust me. It will be ok.” She reached up and rubbed his cheek the way her mother sometimes did to her. She had always hated that, but somehow it felt like the right way to reassure him. He let go of her arm and nodded meekly. The receptionist and orderly were calling again.
“Ok, I need to go now, but I’ll see you then.” She stood up, turned to the bushes and took a breath. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say to them, or how she was going to explain herself, but she would think of something. She was ready to run out of the bushes when the boy called out one last time.
“Wait!”
“What?” She turned to face him. He was looking very fragile and was clutching his yo-yo as if it were the only friend he had in the world.
“What’s y-your name?” He stammered.
She smiled at him. “Lucy, and I’m sorry, I forgot yours already.”
“Oh…it’s P-p-p…” He was having a hard time getting it out.
“That’s ok,” she said, “I’ll just call you Yo-yo, is that ok?” Lucy’s mom had a penchant for nicknames, and it seemed she had picked it up too.
He smiled a little, which made Lucy feel a little better. “Stay low, Yo-yo, and wait ‘til I’m gone before you leave, ok?” Yo-yo nodded. Lucy turned to face the bushes, took one last breath and charged through. The sound of her thrashing obviously drew the attention of the receptionist and orderly because when she broke through, they were standing right there. She ran right into the orderly’s chest.
“Gotcha!” The orderly grabbed her by the back of the bathrobe, pulling it back to reveal all the goggling little princess kitties. The receptionist came right over to her.
“Lucy! Why did you run away like that?!” It annoyed her that everyone in the hospital seemed to know her name and talked to her like they were her mother, and she didn’t know any of them. Still,
the woman’s tone was more concerned than scolding.
“I-I thought…I thought…” Lucy struggled for an explanation then she had a flash of twisted inspiration. She whipped up some quick ecstatic sobbing and bawled out, “I thought I saw MY MOTHER!!”
“Oh, honey!” The receptionist fell to her knees and pulled Lucy into a hug. Lucy just fell into her arms and shamelessly kept up the sobbing. She felt a little guilty. Her mother was not one day dead and she was already playing the sympathy card pretty heavily. She glanced back over her shoulder. The orderly had let go of her robe collar and just stood there with his arms folded. She wasn’t certain he was buying the performance, but after the receptionist wiped away Lucy’s fake tears, he patted her consolingly on her shoulder. He was probably still mad that Lucy’s escapade had interrupted his original game plan with the receptionist but had decided that showing sympathy to a little girl would get him a few more points anyway, so he went along.
The two walked Lucy slowly back through the park on the riverfront towards the hospital – the arm of the receptionist firmly around her shoulders. As they got to the street and paused to cross, Lucy took a look back towards the bushes. She could see the little boy’s oversized shorts, striped shirt and baseball cap through the leaves and branches. He looked like something from another, simpler time, like a kid from a TV show decades ago. He wasn’t hiding very well, but fortunately, no one was looking for him. She had been very angry at him just moments ago, but now she was just happy she was a few hours away from some answers. She tried to smile a little at him to let him know it would be all right, but he must have not seen her because he didn’t smile back. Instead, he stood there impassively, blank-eyed. He was eerily calm and just slowly tossing the yo-yo, up and down, up and down in perfect rhythm.
By the time they had crossed the street and entered the lobby, she shot another quick look over her shoulder to see if he was still there, but he was already gone
