The Phantom Limb

by William Sleator

  Vera sat up a little as Grandpa uncovered the largest plate. “Macaroni and cheese,” he said. “Not much they can do to ruin that.”

  “Oh, hi, Ize,” Vera said sleepily.

  “Maybe you can help her eat,” Grandpa said. “I’ll get some sandwiches for us down in the café in the main lobby. I’ll get Vera some coffee too while we’ve got the chance. See if you can get her to eat as much as possible.” He left the room.

  Eating would make her stronger, giving her a better chance to escape.

  “If we’re going to get out, you’ve got to eat and get your strength back.” Isaac sat down in the chair beside the bed. “That stuff doesn’t look so bad. Can you eat it yourself? Or do you need help?”

  “I’ve … got to try to do it myself,” she said. She picked up a fork shakily and managed to get some macaroni and cheese into her mouth. She chewed slowly, then swallowed with difficulty. “Could be worse.”

  “You want some ice water?”

  “That would help.”

  Isaac filled a glass with ice at the nurses’ station and poured water into it from a bottle in Vera’s room. Vera made some headway on the macaroni and cheese and uncovered a dish of salad. “Iceberg lettuce, of course,” she said disdainfully, her voice sounding a little stronger.

  “After you eat, I want you to try to sit up more,” Isaac said. “Then Grandpa and I will help you to stand. It will be easier to get you into a chair and out of here.” He was hesitant to tell her about Dr. Ciano’s suspicions and scare her more.

  His mother lifted her hands, with the IV tubes still inserted. “How can I get out of here when I’m attached to these?” she asked him.

  “The pole has wheels on it, but we can easily transfer the bags to the hooks on the chair.”

  Then Isaac realized the basic flaw in his plan to help her escape. He knew that none of the nurses, not even Vicky, would remove her IVs. Could he and Grandpa do it themselves?

  “Well, if we can get those needles out of you, I have a plan,” Isaac said. “And one of those twins from school will help us.”

  “Twins?” she said, still confused.

  Isaac tried to control his impatience. “They’re candy stripers on this unit. They know their way around. People are used to seeing them here. We need all the help we can get.”

  “Why would they help us? Can you really trust them?” Vera said. “The hospital staff would notice right away.”

  “I can trust one of them. We’ve got to try something!” he said.

  Vera had managed to finish a lot of her food by the time Grandpa came back; she must have slept through lunch.

  Isaac came up with another idea. “Listen, I’ve got to go home and get some stuff,” he said. “I’ll be right back. And then I’ll take over, Grandpa, and you can go home and get some rest.”

  Grandpa nodded. He probably was tired, having been there all day, sitting in an uncomfortable chair. On his way out Isaac stopped at the twins’ table. DCynthia was still sitting alone.

  “I have to go for a while,” Isaac said.

  She winked and said, “We’ll help your mother escape. I’ll tell Destiny that if we work a double shift, we can have tomorrow off. We’ll stay here until the middle of the night.”

  Isaac left and went home. Now that he had a plan, there were still two essential things he needed to make it all work.

  The spiral aftereffect and the mirror box.

  SAAC WRAPPED THE MIRROR BOX CAREFULLY in a towel and tied it to his bike basket with heavy twine. He also secured the spiral aftereffect to the basket. Then he rode as quickly and carefully as he could back to the hospital.

  For a change, Destiny didn’t check his ID. “What’s all that stuff you got?” she wanted to know.

  “Just some things my mother wanted,” he said, looking at DCynthia.

  The mirror box was cumbersome, and he didn’t want to break it during the escape attempt. But he needed Joey’s help with something this risky. And the only way to reach him was through the mirror box. He felt safer having Joey along for the ride.

  “What’s that?” Vera asked him as he walked into her room.

  “It’s the mirror box. If I’m going to be here for a long time, I want the mirror box with me,” he said. “I also brought the spiral aftereffect. It worked at school.”

  Vera looked at Isaac as if he were crazy. “Use that illusion for what?” she asked.

  Isaac wanted to avoid the question. Luckily, Grandpa interrupted their conversation. “I’m really tired,” he said. “I need to go home and get some rest.”

  “I think you should do that,” Isaac said. “I can take care of things here.”

  After saying good-bye to both of them, Grandpa left.

  If the IV needles were going to come out tonight, Isaac would have to do it himself. And Joey could help him—could show him how to safely remove them. He had a lot more experience with hospitals than Isaac or Vera did. And Joey would do anything to get back at Candi.

  Vera was wide awake now. There was still no indication of Candi being anywhere nearby. But there was no telling with someone like Candi. She could come back at any time.

  Isaac put the mirror box, still wrapped in the towel, on a counter under the window. He washed his hands, then sat down in the chair next to the bed. He wanted to think of something to talk about with Vera, but at the moment he was too preoccupied. He needed to find out how to remove the IV needles. If Joey couldn’t tell him, he’d have to somehow trick the information out of Vicky. He also needed to find an escape route. But at the same time, it wasn’t safe to leave Vera alone, in case Candi came back. And now that she was alert, she was focused on him. He couldn’t do either of the things that he needed to do.

  It was barely seven P.M. and Isaac knew they would have to wait until midnight to try to make the break. Vera had been sleeping so much that maybe she’d be able to stay awake on her own, especially with more coffee—just as long as Candi didn’t knock her out again. Was it safe to leave her alone long enough to get some more coffee? Now he wished he’d asked Grandpa to stay a few minutes more.

  And then, to his immense surprise, Kravetz appeared in the doorway. “How’s everything going?” he asked.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” Isaac said. “It’s good to see you.”

  Kravetz nodded at Vera. “Hi. You must be Isaac’s mother. I’m Matt Kravetz. I’m in Isaac’s class at school. How are you doing?”

  “I’m feeling better now, thank you,” Vera said, with a genuine smile. “How thoughtful of you to take the trouble to visit.”

  Isaac knew that Vera was happy that Kravetz had come. But he also knew she was probably even happier that he had made a new friend.

  Kravetz shrugged, oddly shy in Vera’s presence. “Well, I also know the Fitzpatrick twins, who work here.”

  He and Isaac exchanged a look. They didn’t have to say anything; they both understood. Kravetz wanted to stay in the twins’ good graces so Destiny wouldn’t turn her venom against him, the way she did against Isaac.

  But even so, it would be very convenient to have Kravetz here, if only for a short time.

  “Come in. Sit down,” Isaac said. “Oh, you’re supposed to wash your hands every time you go into a patient’s room.”

  “Yeah, they told me,” Kravetz said. He walked over to the sink, turned on the tap, and pressed down on the liquid soap dispenser. “Is that nurse you were talking about around? I’m curious about her.”

  “She’s not here right now—for a change. It’s a relief.” He was about to say that was why his mother wasn’t doped up and unconscious, but he stopped himself; that might be something Vera wouldn’t want him to tell other people. He was dying to tell Kravetz about wanting to escape; Matt might even be able to help. But, again, Isaac didn’t think Vera would want him to say anything. Isaac wanted to talk to Kravetz alone. But was it safe to leave Vera?

  Then he realized the answer. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before.
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  “Mom, I’m going to get us some more coffee. We’ll need it for tonight. I’ll tell that nice nurse, Vicky, to warn you if Candi comes back, and, if she does, to call me right away. We’ll only be down in the café for a few minutes.” He left her phone next to her.

  “I will, Ize, believe me.”

  “Come on,” he said to Kravetz. “We need to be quick.”

  He stopped by the nurses’ station and asked Vicky to warn Vera if Candi came back and gave her his cell phone number. She was happy to oblige, especially now that Vera was alert again. “I just wish Dr. Ciano would get back soon,” she said.

  “You can say that again,” Isaac said.

  Kravetz flirted briefly with the twins on his way out of the intensive care unit—he had probably flirted with them on his way in too. That’s how he had gotten in there without being related to any of the patients. Destiny beamed and cooed at him.

  “You know, Isaac, your mom is kind of a babe,” Kravetz said when they got to the elevators.

  “Gross!” Isaac said. “That’s my mom. But I still can’t believe you came to see her.”

  “It’s because of what you said about that nurse,” Kravetz said in a low voice. “It sounded like you could use some help.” He lowered his voice even more. “Destiny told me you even asked them to help you.”

  “Destiny told you that? Well, she doesn’t know it, but DCynthia is going to help me. It has to be a total surprise. If Destiny tells anyone, it will ruin the whole plan.”

  “They’re famous for their big mouths,” Kravetz warned.

  “No, we can trust DCynthia. She isn’t vicious like Destiny. Destiny’s been forcing her to play along.”

  “I hope you’re right about that.” Kravetz looked around. “You need all the help you can get. DCynthia seems to like the idea. She thinks it’s exciting, but she doesn’t want Destiny to know how she really feels—I could tell. They whispered when they told me about it; they didn’t bleat like they usually do.”

  Isaac couldn’t help smiling at the word bleat. That was exactly how the twins usually talked, loudly moaning and whining. For a football player, Kravetz had a good vocabulary. But then, Isaac had never known any football players before. Maybe he had the wrong idea about them.

  Isaac hesitated when the doors opened and Kravetz entered the elevator. Too embarrassed to let Kravetz know how frightened he was of elevators, he reluctantly stepped in. Somehow, with Kravetz there, the elevator wasn’t as bad as it had been that first night when he had taken it without thinking.

  The elevator was less crowded at this hour than it was during the day, but Isaac still closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He didn’t talk all the way down because it felt as if the other people were too close. He couldn’t risk saying anything about their escape plan.

  The café was noisier. Isaac checked his watch. They would stay for only five minutes. “That nurse really is a pathological killer,” Isaac told Kravetz. “She killed the boy who had the mirror box, and other patients too.” He told him about the endoscopy and the MRI he was sure she had ordered for him. “She did it to scare me away. But it didn’t work.”

  “Do you think the twins might be in danger too?” Kravetz asked.

  “I think they’re safe from her. She only seems to target piano players—like the boy who had the mirror box, and my mother.”

  “How do you know all this stuff about that nurse, anyway?”

  Isaac felt he could trust Kratevz, so he told him about the phantom limb and what it showed him. He explained the Macdonald Triad. “You can try out the mirror box—it’s up in my mother’s room. But the phantom limb probably won’t appear for you. It’s shy. It wouldn’t show itself to my grandfather.”

  Kravetz shook his head. “I’d think you were crazy, except … for some reason I don’t.”

  Isaac told him exactly what Candi was doing to Vera—the diagnosis of bone cancer he had seen on the hospital computer, and the fact that her doctor hadn’t been the one to make that diagnosis. He told him that he faced two challenges: finding a route out of the hospital without being noticed and getting the IVs out of Vera’s hands without hurting her.

  “But what makes it so hard is that I can’t leave my mother alone. My grandfather’s already been with her all day, and he’s old. I have to guard her.”

  “I know all about giving shots and removing needles,” Kravetz said. “I learned it in this advanced first aid course my parents made me take at the junior college when I went out for football.”

  “You’re kidding!” Isaac said.

  “I’m not kidding. And I have time to look around the hospital, see if there’s a map or something. You go back up to the room and watch your mother. I’ll be back as soon as I find a route.”

  Isaac couldn’t believe how eager Kravetz was to help. If this was Matt’s way of saying he was his friend, then Isaac was more than happy to accept.

  Back in the intensive care unit, Vicky told him Candi still hadn’t come back. “She already worked the morning shift. No normal person would be back until tomorrow morning. But with her, you never know.”

  Vera was still alert and reading to pass the time. She put her book down when Isaac came in with her coffee.

  “Oh,” he said. “Did Grandpa tell you that Dr. Ciano was here?”

  She sighed. “Yes. He said she was suspicious of Candi, but then had to leave because of emergency surgery. If only she’d come back.”

  “When I first got here, before Grandpa did, I caught Candi putting something caustic on your bruise, right before the doctor came. She stopped when she saw me, but she dropped it on her leg and it burned her through her pants.”

  “But …” Vera seemed close to tears. “Why is she hurting me so much, on purpose?” Vera protected her bruised arm by putting it under the sheet. “How could such a maniac be working as a nurse?”

  “It’s complicated, Mom,” Isaac said. “If Dr. Ciano comes back, that would solve everything. But if she doesn’t come back in time, Matt’s going to help us with your escape. Tonight.”

  “But what about this thing I’m attached to?”

  “Matt knows all about how to administer needles. He took an advanced first aid course at the junior college. And he’s off looking for an escape route now.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re kidding. You really think you can get me out of here?”

  “We have to. When Matt comes back, he can work on the needles.”

  “He seems like a really nice guy. I didn’t know you had made such a nice friend. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It just happened. And you were asleep all the time. Plus I didn’t think he was really my friend until he showed up here just now.”

  Yes, the whole idea of escaping was scary. But it was exciting too. It would be wonderful to beat Candi.

  While Matt was gone, Isaac figured he had enough time to find out if the phantom limb had anything new to tell him. Vera was still sipping her coffee. The counter under the small window was just big enough for the mirror box.

  “Do you mind if I take a minute to look at this?” Isaac said. “I might learn something that could help us.” He carefully began unwrapping the mirror box.

  Vera rolled her eyes. “Go ahead. But I don’t see how that thing can help you.”

  “That’s just it—it may be the only thing that can help us. It shows me things, like Candi as a teenager preparing to set fire to the cabin at camp.”

  Vera raised her eyebrows skeptically but remained silent. She watched him attentively.

  Isaac unwrapped the mirror box carefully and set it on the towel on the counter. He knelt on the floor in front of it and stuck in his hands. Right away his eyes began to droop.

  He was again inside Candi’s current bathroom mirror. She was wearing her turquoise rubber gloves and pawing through an oversized turquoise bag. “Darn!” she said. (It was interesting that she didn’t say damn. Maybe she thought cursing was immoral.) “Why is there so much stuff in here?
Where did I drop that IV bag, anyway?”

  She sighed and chewed on her lip, staring straight into the mirror, thinking out loud. “It wasn’t in the elevator, it wasn’t in the basement. Could I have dropped it when I came out onto that ramp at the loading dock?”

  Loading dock? Ramp? That was accessible via the basement? That would be a great way to get out of the hospital. Unlike the big front door in the lobby, there might not be anybody at the loading ramp in the middle of the night—no staff, no security. That must have been why Candi chose that exit on her way out after stealing the IV bag to put some of her own drugs in it. He had the strong feeling that this scene was taking place right now, at this very minute.

  “They’re ruining everything for me,” Candi said through gritted teeth. “Otherwise, I could have put this special medication in the IV bag right at the hospital. But I won’t let them stop me!”

  Isaac’s strategy had worked! Having someone constantly in the room had interrupted Candi’s plan—for now, at least.

  Candi wasn’t wearing her nurse’s scrubs, though. She was wearing a turquoise dress, her favorite color.

  SAAC! WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU? ARE you in a trance or what? Your friend’s here.”

  “Huh?” Isaac blinked, then pulled his hands out of the box. But he had just enough time to notice the phantom limb running along on two fingers. It was telling Isaac they had to escape now!

  He turned around to see Vera staring at him. Kravetz was standing in the doorway.

  “Candi’s not here,” Isaac said. “She’s at home. And there’s a loading dock, with at least one ramp, at the back of the hospital. That’s the best place to get out. There probably won’t be anybody there in the middle of the night; staff and security will be at the main entrance and in the ER.”

  Kravetz was holding several papers in his hand. “How do you know about all of that? And how did you know about the loading dock? You didn’t say anything about it in the café,” he said, baffled.

  “The mirror box just showed me.”