by Sarah Dalton
Chapter Twenty-Two
I thought the sense of dread would leave once I left the house. I wanted nothing more than to be away from that suffocating cellar with the stale air and the reek of death, but the trees loom down on us, and the undergrowth trips Mum as she shuffles along. We move at such a slow pace that I sense the night gathering above us. Lacey twists and turns through the trees. She encourages us on, telling me there are only a few steps left, but each time there are more and more trees to get through.
When Emmaline’s gate is visible through the dark, my heart flips in excitement. Lacey’s soothing words become more urgent, pressing us on. I waste no time. I shout to Emmaline at the top of my lungs.
The older woman hurries out of her front door, Murphy behind her, barking. She takes one look at my mother and rushes to the gate, moving surprisingly fast for a middle-aged woman.
“What happened?” she says.
“I think I got the spirit out of her but we aren’t sure. I brought her to you like you said,” I reply.
Emmaline takes Mum’s other arm and together we carry her into the house, passing a stuffed peacock and the dark, rose patterned wallpaper. She directs us through the hallway into the same dining room where I saw all those spirits push their way through the walls. I search the place with furtive eyes, checking that we’re alone.
“Is it safe here?” I ask.
“It is when Mr. Anthony is gone. They’re always pulled to him when he begins the séance,” she replies. “But they leave soon after.”
I chew on my bottom lip. What if I tempt them here? What if another spirit takes hold of Mum?
Emmaline notices my expression and nods. “All right, we’ll work fast.” She shoos Murphy into an adjoining room and shuts the door. “First, you’d better phone an ambulance. What we have to do we can perform while they’re on the way.”
I nod, pulling my phone from my pocket. My second call to the emergency services in less than twelve hours. As I’m on the phone, Emmaline gestures for me to give her the Athamé. The operator insists that I stay on the line.
“Have you checked her pulse?”
“Yes,” I say. “It’s… I think it’s a lot weaker than normal.” I press my fingers to my neck to compare.
Emmaline twists the knife in elegant arcs. “This is the symbol to remove a spirit possessing a human. Weren’t you shown by the Spirit Hunter who gave you the dagger?”
“Is your mother bleeding?”
“No,” I say to both of them. “She has some cuts, but they’re shallow.”
“What about her breathing?” the operator continues.
“Shallow,” I reply.
“You perform this symbol five times,” Emmaline says. “On the fifth time the ghost will be gone. That’s number two.”
“Is she in pain?”
“A great deal,” I reply.
“Three,” Emmaline says.
“There’s someone on their way, sweetheart,” says the operator.
“Four,” Emmaline says.
“All right, we’re waiting.”
“Five.”
The last symbol glows bright orange and suspends in the air. Mum’s eyes are glazed for a moment and then they shine bright.
“I see it,” she breathes.
Her body convulses, she opens her mouth and a final, pitiful stream of black escapes from her throat.
“There was more,” I whisper. “Quick, Emmaline, trap it!”
“Excuse me, miss,” says the operator.
“Sorry,” I say into the phone. “I was talking to someone else.” I place my hand over the receiver.
Emmaline chases the black swarm through the room, swiping the air with the Athamé. Her jaw is set, hard and determined. Lacey follows them, her hand outstretched, attempting to clutch the swarm in her open palm, but it’s no good, the swarm is too quick. Within seconds it’s dispersed and disappears through the night air.
I keep my hand over the phone receiver. “If you ever, ever return to hurt my family again, I will harm you. I can sense you now. You’re not powerful anymore. If you come back, I will stab the Athamé right through your heart.”
Sirens sound through the night. It’s almost over.
*
There was a time in my life before I believed in ghosts. It seems so long ago now. Back then, hospitals were my nemesis. I hated the reminder of mortality, that one day our short lives will end. My haunting came from the inescapable fact that we never know when we will die. We don’t know what lurks in our bodies, killing us, or what malevolence awaits us around the corner. Since then, I’ve faced imminent death several times, and each time, I wasn’t afraid. I now understand that we’re designed that way, to accept our fate when we believe there’s no way out. It’s not weak, it’s not brave, it just is.
But what I cannot accept, ever, is the idea that someone I love will die a painful death. I watched Lacey die. In that moment I died with her. And as the doctors crowd around my mother, weak and internally damaged from the Dark One, my soul starts to perish again.
There’s a crowd of spirits around me, Lacey the closest. They all share my pain, share the weight of my load.
“Stay hopeful,” they whisper.
“She can’t die,” I say, waiting by the door of the examination room.
“Miss, you should wait in the visitors’ area,” a nurse says, sternly walking me away from the room. “The doctors need space to work on her.”
“Will she be all right?” A little girl voice squeaks its way out of me. This moment, watching the strong one, the responsible one, the one who looks after me, watching her so frail and helpless, this is the worst moment of my life.
“Wait here. We’ll get you as much information as we can.”
We? Who is we? Why is “we” the one to save my mum?
On the way to the hospital the paramedics quizzed me about Mum’s injuries. She fell down the cellar stairs, I told them, and then said she could walk so I took her to Emmaline’s to phone for an ambulance. They stared at me with the dull shade of doubt in their eyes.
I hope social services don’t get involved. I hope I’m not considered a menace and locked up in a psychiatric ward again. What if Mum wakes up and remembers nothing, assumes I’ve hurt her and sends me away? My head is clogged with thoughts, emotions, worries. The spirits continue to rally around me, sending me good vibes. It helps in some ways. In other ways it reminds me that people die here. Lacey rubs my shoulders, transmitting electric static through my arms. Her hands don’t actually touch me, but I feel the comfort all the same.
When a doctor with a deep voice tells me that my mother is bleeding internally and will be prepped for surgery, I’m numb all over. He tells me to call my father, which I do, fumbling over the keypad. There’s no answer. I’ll try again in ten minutes, I tell myself.
One of the ghosts says I should pray. She’s a sweet old lady with a golden cross around her neck. A bitterness creeps up inside of me as I consider pointing out that it clearly didn’t help her predicament, but I can’t say it. I let her pray for me as I hope, hope, hope, trust in doctors, trust in the fact Mum is relatively young and very healthy. She hates junk food. She doesn’t drink coffee. She doesn’t smoke. She power walks up and down our hill every morning. I used to cringe as my Lycra-clad parent passed the school.
She used to have a cross trainer in the cellar of our old house, where she would work out and listen to The Cure.
“You know,” I say in a shaking voice, “I can help you move on if you want me to. I don’t have my Athamé right now”—I left it at Emmaline’s—“but I can come back and help you.”
“That’s all right, dear,” the old lady says. “I like it here. I like to watch over the doctors.”
I nod. These spirits seem to mean well. They aren’t bitter or vengeful. Maybe it’s not so bad being dead after all. If only I could swap places with Mum right now. Did I do everything I could for her? Did I fight hard enough against the spirit? If onl
y I’d seen the signs earlier. I should have realised. I should have been stronger.
Still no answer from Dad. He could be asleep. Is it the last day of his trip today? I can’t remember. I don’t even know what day it is. If it is the last day, there’s some sort of disco scheduled. Loud music and noisy teens. He probably can’t even hear his phone.
Nurses offer me a cup of tea from the machine, over and over again. Each time, I shake my head.
“Any news?” I say.
Each time, they purse their lips guiltily. “Not yet, honey.”
I rock back and forth on the uncomfortable chair. I stand, sit, walk, sit, pace, sit, lie, kneel, sit, stand. I rub my eyes, pull my hair, scratch my arms, shiver, cry. Still no news. Still no Dad.
“It could be a while, sweetheart,” says one of the nurses. “Did you bring any money to get home? Why don’t you jump in a taxi and get your mum some comfy jim-jams for when she wakes up, hey?”
Because she could die without me here, I think. I don’t say that. I only smile and politely decline.
Everything clean and ordered. The lights put you in a dreamlike state where the world doesn’t seem real anymore. Distanced from reality. Can anyone even comprehend grief when they’re in this place? Does it hit you right away or does it hit you when you walk outside into the fresh air? How will I react if they tell me Mum has died? Perhaps I’ll be the kind of person to break down into sobs. Or will I be quiet, so quiet that they think I don’t care? Will my cheeks burn with the emotions I’m trying to control?
No answer in Germany. The frustration is so bad it almost burns; my eyes, my chest, my throat. Time stretches out, high as a mountain, long as a motorway.
“It’s going to be all right,” Lacey says. “They know what they’re doing here.”
I smile thinly. Both of us are thinking about her death. We both comprehend the notion that this is where most people come to die. She’s only saying otherwise to make me feel better.
I call Dad again.
He answers this time, and I break down in tears, barely able to get my words out. He makes me repeat them three times. He leaves a loud room; I hear his footsteps hurrying to an outside area. He makes me repeat what I said again. His voice is raw. He asks if I’m sure, over and over. “What did the doctors say? How long has she been in surgery? I’m going to the airport now.”
“What about the kids?”
“Oh, shit… the kids… they’ll have to go back with Mike.” Dad’s colleague, a notoriously useless physics teacher. “I don’t care, I’m coming back tonight. I’m getting on the first flight home. All right, Mares. Stay tough, okay? Stay strong for your mother. She’s going to need you on good form.”
“All right,” I say, relief pulsing out of me. “I will.”
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too.”
So much fear in those three words.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I won’t let them send me home. After hours of agonised waiting, I finally take up the offer of a hot cup of tea. The ward Sister makes it for me especially, with what she calls the “good stuff” from their private supply. And with it she gives me three chocolate biscuits. After the tea, I curl up on one of the uncomfortable chairs and drift into sleep.
In my dreams I’m in the cellar again. No windows, no fresh air, just one candle placed in the centre of the room so that light flows around it in a perfect circle. I’m alone. There’s no Dark One, no Mum, no Lacey. I’m alone. When the candle runs out, I wake up.
“Miss Hades?” A female doctor has her hand on my shoulder, rocking me. “I thought you might like to know that your mother is out of surgery.”
I’m sitting up straight before she finishes the sentence. How long have I been asleep? “Is she all right?”
“She’s out of danger,” the doctor says. She’s brown-skinned, smiley, short-haired, middle-aged. She has a good face for a doctor, a face that puts you at ease. “It was a long and complicated procedure, but she’s stable now.”
“Can I see her?”
“You can, but she’s still unconscious. She might not respond for some time, and when she does wake up, she may be too heavily sedated to make much sense.”
“That’s okay. I just want to see her.”
The doctor smiles. “Very well, follow me. I’ll tell you about the surgery and what we’ve done on the way. My name is Dr. Patel. I’m a surgeon.”
Dr. Patel’s words mix into a jumble of medical terms like lesions, haemorrhage, internal damage. They churn my stomach. I’ve always been squeamish about blood and illness. Ghouls and zombies I can deal with; the thought of a blood clot, I can’t. My mind is too fuzzy to take it in anyway. I don’t walk through the hospital corridors, I float.
We step into a private room filled with machines. A nurse is checking things, checking pip-pip noises and drips, and other things I prefer not to look at, like a cannula.
“Take a seat, Mary. You can hold your mum’s hand if you like,” Dr. Patel says.
I sit by the head of the bed, my hand hovering over Mum’s. When was the last time we held hands? Before the age of thirteen, I’m sure of it. That’s when I turned, when the hormones hit. The adolescent monster took over.
“You can talk to her if you like,” Dr. Patel encourages. “It’ll be good for her to wake up with family here. Nurse Granger and I will be right outside if you need us.” The doctor waves at the nurse and the two of them leave.
“I’m going to go too, Mares.”
Lacey shifts away from me. I hadn’t even noticed she was there.
“Sorry, Lace, I didn’t see you—”
“It’s all right. You need privacy.”
She slips out of the room and I turn to Mum. I’m all cried out, but her skin is so waxy and pale that it tugs on my heart. She’s lost weight and muscle tone over the last few days. Her lips are cracked, blistered and red-raw. The skin on her eyelids is flaky. Her hair is in clumps, and even her eyebrows are thinner.
I don’t know how long I sit there, not saying a word, just watching. It’s as though time is suspended, as though I’m under water and everything is rushing around me but I’m still.
Eventually, I say, “I’m sorry I let this happen to you.” The words come out on their own. “I’m sorry that I have this… this power, because now I see how much it hurts everyone around me. First Lacey, then Igor, now you. Worst of all you. I’m sorry, Mum. I never asked for this, but I can’t ignore it either. Maybe I should move away from you and Dad, go rent a little flat somewhere and let you live a normal life. Wherever I go, death comes with me, and I can’t stand by and watch you get tangled up with death. I can’t.” I wipe away a tear.
Mum’s hand moves towards mine and grasps hold of me. Her fingers are so strong, so tenacious that I’m taken aback.
“Mum?”
“I’m here,” she croaks. Her eyes flutter open, and she winces at the light.
I let out a sigh of relief. For a moment there, I thought the Dark One was back.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” I say, squeezing her hand.
“We have a lot to talk about,” she says, her voice little more than a wheeze.
“We can talk when you’re better.”
Her head moves slowly from side to side. “No. I won’t put it off any longer. You need to understand.”
“Whatever it is, it can wait. The things… the things that happened at Ravenswood. I don’t know what you remember, but I’m okay with all of it. I am. I don’t care what happened in your past, or why I went to Magdelena. I just want you to get better.”
“It’s happened before,” she says. “I tried to block it out, but it never went away. I was so ashamed of everything that happened that I didn’t want to believe it. Your grandma pretended it never happened. She pretended I’d never been possessed at all. I didn’t want to believe it either, but I remembered every single thing that happened when I was under… his influence. I remember it all. And I remember him, hi
s thoughts, the malice dripping from him. I remember this one, too, so strong and me so weak. You so frightened, yet so brave. My brave, brave girl. And Lacey, I saw her.”
“You did?”
She nods. She continues in the same hoarse whisper. “I saw it all. I realise now. I should never have sent you to the ward. I should’ve believed you.” Her voice wobbles with emotion. “My problem is that I want to control everything. I want everyone I love to be safe, and the only way I can think to do it is to control everything. You’re so precious to me, Mary. I wanted you so badly before I got pregnant. I’ve always wanted a daughter, and it was so hard for your dad and me. It took a long time. At least it felt like a long time. I love you so much, and I want you stay safe.
“But now I know how strong you are. You fought that thing inside me. It was devouring me, killing me from the inside out, and I couldn’t fight back. You could, and you did, and you won—”
“It was the Athamé,” I say.
“No, it was you,” she says. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. You have to understand that I didn’t want to believe you, not because I don’t trust you, but because of what happened in my own past. When you bury things as deep as I did, you try your very best to stop it from resurfacing. It’s a survival instinct. I didn’t even know I was doing it.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I don’t blame you.”
“Well, you should,” she says. “I would. I do blame myself, for everything. My family has been touched with darkness for generations. I knew that deep down and I let you go it alone. I’ll never forgive myself.” She shakes her head. “But I’m here now, and I’m ready to trust you. You don’t have to be alone anymore. I’m here to help you. I realise it’s real, all of it, and I trust you.”
The door bursts open and Dad strides into the room. He takes one look at me, one look at Mum, and a relieved smile breaks open his face. “I don’t even want to know what happened. I just want to look at the two of you, and love you, and bask in the fact that you’re all right. I still have a family.”
