Clawful Reflections

by Harper Lin

  “Maybe she’s going through a phase,” Aunt Astrid said calmly. “She’s been a widow for ten years. Sometimes our own mortality can hit us in a way we don’t expect.”

  I noticed Treacle emerging from beneath one of the tables by the window. He hopped up on the ledge and watched as Mrs. Kitt sashayed past.

  “What do you make of it?” I asked my cat.

  “There was something following her.”

  “Something we need to worry about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hey, Bea. Did you pick up on anything from Mrs. Kitt?”

  “Besides a severe case of bad manners?” Bea snapped. “Yeah, I noticed a slight shadow, but I don’t think it was anything more than her newly developed confidence.” She made air quotes with her fingers.

  “Don’t let her get to you, Bea.” I took a deep breath. “She told me the same thing when she stopped by my house.”

  “You didn’t say anything about that,” Aunt Astrid said.

  “I don’t think I told you guys she came back, asking for some glass cleaner. This was after the day she’d asked for the cat food,” I said.

  “Glass cleaner?” Bea asked.

  “Don’t ask me.” I shrugged. “Who knows what she finds relaxing? Maybe cleaning the windows of the babe couple’s house is fun for her.”

  “Girls.” Aunt Astrid shook her head. “She’s alone. She has no children. We don’t know what kind of life she’s lived. Cath, you just got through saying that in all the years you’ve lived next door to her, you’ve barely talked to her.”

  “Yes, but I’m not a good example. I never talk to anyone but you guys. It’s my nature. I’m an introvert.” I put my hands on my hips and looked seriously at my aunt. “Besides, she obviously had lengthy conversations with the babe couple because they asked her to watch their cats while they are on vacation. So see? She’s talking to one neighbor, but she’s ignoring me. Until she needs something. Then I’m her best friend. That’s called manipulation.”

  “Do you sit up at night, rationalizing your weird quirks so you can rattle them off like this when the opportunity presents itself?” Bea asked.

  “When I have neighbors who don’t visit me, what else is there to do?” I asked.

  “There’s something wrong with her,” Treacle insisted.

  “You think so?” I asked him and watched as he stared down the street, his eyes not blinking and his ears flat against his head.

  “Yes.”

  I agreed with Treacle but chalked it up to some kind of female midlife crisis. Even if she was a little bit past midlife. She wasn’t hurting anyone either.

  That night I realized I had thought about Mrs. Kitt more than I had Tom.

  “I’m breaking my own heart, Treacle,” I said as I made myself some macaroni and cheese at the stove. “I feel like I’ve been trying to gently dump myself and I’m not getting the hint.”

  “Do you think talking to Tom might make things better?” he asked, slinking up to me.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s conscious. If he isn’t, it would probably be the best time to spill my guts.” I shrugged.

  “You’d never do that.” Treacle wound his body around mine and purred as he looked right in my face. “You still care about him.”

  “I do. I really do.” I ran my hand over Treacle’s fur. “I just don’t feel that way about him.”

  “The way you feel about Blake?”

  “What?”

  “Come on, Cath. You know he’s the guy that always caught your attention. He’s the complete opposite of you. He is by the book. You make it up as you go along. He’s just the facts. You are all about the what-ifs. You’re perfect for each other.”

  “And you’ve been wise to this for how long?” I stopped petting him and folded my arms over my chest.

  “Are you joking?” He nudged me with his head, hoping for more scratches behind the ears. I wasn’t budging. “Marshmallow, Peanut Butter, and I have had lengthy discussions about it.”

  “Oh really?”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about my aunt Astrid’s familiar, Marshmallow, and Bea’s familiar, Peanut Butter, talking about me with my familiar. It was rather troubling. Sort of like having family members trying to fix me up on a date with a cousin of a friend just because he’s single. Not because he’d be a good match.

  “We think that it would heighten your gifts if you had the challenge of a man who had such a firm grasp in this world and not the paranormal. You see how it works for Bea.”

  Treacle sat up straight, looking like the statues of cats in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Then he yawned.

  “Bea and Jake are the exception. Those two get all lovey-dovey over a sneeze. I’m not like that, and neither is Blake.”

  “And that’s what makes it so perfect.”

  I rubbed my forehead because I felt a headache coming on. I ate my macaroni and cheese, washed my face, and put the television on. For the second night, I really didn’t watch the movie. Due to that darn cat, I couldn’t get Blake out of my mind. I was a mess.

  Throughout the night, I kept waking up. It was a sign that something was going on that was disrupting the normal flow of energy. At least, that was what Bea told me. So, at one o’clock in the morning, I got dressed and decided to go to the hospital and see if I couldn’t sweet-talk my way onto the floor Tom was on.

  When I went outside, there was movement out of the corner of my eye that made me freeze and listen.

  Someone or something was moving about. I was in the glow of my porch light. The thought of a bull’s-eye hanging around my neck crossed my mind. But it turned out the sound was coming from the direction of Mrs. Kitt’s house. Footsteps. They were walking away in the direction of the babe couple’s house.

  “She probably forgot to feed the cats in her haste to rip the tags off her new outfit from Hoochie Mamas,” I muttered before getting into my car.

  As I sat in the driver’s seat, I looked around before turning on the engine. No shadow people or mud monsters or anything else that nightmares were made of lurking about. It was a cool night and nothing more.

  The drive to the hospital was pleasant. There were no cars on the road at this hour. It was nice to be out when the world was asleep. I felt like I was doing something I shouldn’t, something that would be my secret alone. Well, Treacle knew where I was headed, but I knew my secrets were safe with him.

  St. Joseph Hospital was a big place, and the emergency entrance was bustling. I drove around the building and found a quiet parking spot in the regular visitors’ area.

  Visiting hours were from eight in the morning until five o’clock in the evening. There was going to be a problem convincing anyone at the information desk to let me in to see Tom.

  There had to be a way to distract the front desk for a few seconds while I slipped into the elevator banks. They wouldn’t see me there.

  Before I went into the slowly revolving door that was big enough to accommodate a wheelchair, two walkers, and myself, I looked around outside. There were cameras all over the place, so throwing something through a window wasn’t my best idea.

  Aunt Astrid could shift the air around her and camouflage herself. She could walk right up to the desk, do a dance, and they’d never see her.

  “There is no use complaining who has a better gift when it comes to sneaking into places, Cath. Just figure it out.”

  So, I put a call out. Any animals within the area might be able to help me out. As it was, a squirrel and a blue jay came to my aid. I spoke slowly and carefully with them, explaining I’d need them to cause a real distraction.

  The blue jay was happy to help, as he used a colorful array of words I didn’t think birds even knew. Like I said, they communicated like drunken sailors.

  The squirrel was a bit more refined.

  His reply was simply, “All right.”

  I suggested they slowly and quietly slip into the revolving door and, when it opened into the lobby, just fly
around and scurry over a few feet. I would enter through the handicap door, and it would stay open for a minute or two. Once they’d gotten everyone’s attention, they could scoot back out and be home before dawn.

  The squirrel agreed. I wouldn’t repeat what the blue jay said, but he too essentially agreed.

  I watched them slink into the revolving door and slowly inch their way along the treaded mat until the door opened into the lobby. It was like a gun went off.

  Just as I hit the button, making the handicap door slowly yawn open, the blue jay began to caw and shriek as he dove at the man sitting at the information desk. The squirrel did one better, scurrying halfway up the pant leg of the security guard who was also standing at the information desk. There were several folks sleeping in the lobby and a few more milling around who also began to shout and squeal as nature infiltrated their space.

  The blue jay and the squirrel made good on their agreement and pulled everyone’s attention away from the elevator banks and me. They swooped and scampered and made all kinds of racket as the people watched and climbed on chairs while ducking and covering their heads. I should have known it would happen, but before I slipped into the hallway with the elevator banks, I saw that blue jay poop on the information desk.

  “Get out before the door closes!” I shouted telepathically.

  Both the bird and the squirrel froze and looked in the same direction. Within seconds, they were bolting to the door that was slowly closing on its own. As quickly as they’d gotten inside the lobby, they slipped out.

  I let out a deep sigh and stepped into the first elevator, pressing the button for the third floor and the intensive care unit. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say when I got there. I just thought I’d act like I belonged and see how far I could get. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I wasn’t going to get far at all. Not because any of the staff thought I looked out of place but because Patience was there.

  6

  Man Without a Face

  I stepped off the elevator and quietly walked around, attempting to casually look into the rooms for a glimpse of Tom. I didn’t know what his room number was. I couldn’t ask. So I winged it. When I rounded the nurses’ station that was abandoned at the moment, that was when I saw her.

  Patience Warner was standing at the window that looked into Tom’s room, with a man dressed in black standing next to her. He looked even more out of place than I did. If I hadn’t known any better, his black suit and tie and black fedora would have made me think he was an undertaker. But as I looked closer, I saw that he literally had no face.

  I pulled myself back and stood against the wall, wondering if it was just fatigue. Maybe I was more tired than I thought, and this was just a hallucination. There was part of me that wanted to look again, but an overwhelming sense of dread swept over me, and I couldn’t move.

  Where were the nurses? Where were the doctors on the night shift? Hospitals were quieter at night, I knew that, but this was deserted. Now I really regretted making the decision to come here.

  It’s just the hospital. All the energy and worry and sickness are overloading your senses. If you look again, you’ll see the man is just weird looking but not faceless, I tried to encourage myself.

  I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath. I let it out slowly, took two more deep inhales to calm myself, and peeked around the corner.

  I wished I would have just gone back home. No. I wished I never would have come out tonight at all.

  Patience was standing in the middle of the hallway, facing me. The man in black wasn’t there anymore. If he went into Tom’s room or another patient’s room, I didn’t know. But she was standing there, staring at me.

  She didn’t move. She didn’t say anything. But as I looked at her, I was able to discern that she hadn’t changed her clothes since the day when I saw her. Her hands were clenching and unclenching at her sides. And perhaps the worst part was her lips were moving, saying something that made her snarl and grimace as she said it. Her voice wasn’t louder than a whisper. I went to speak, hoping to break her trance, when one of the nurses came bustling back to the station and took a seat, her back to me.

  The familiar sound of her rolling chair, her fingers tapping on the keyboard of her computer, and a few pings and dings from patients’ rooms and the elevator brought normalcy back.

  When I looked back at Patience, she was just five feet away and staring at me with icy eyes. I didn’t want to talk. She could take it up with security and the police that I had made it onto the floor.

  Quickly, I went back the way I came. It wouldn’t have surprised me one bit if Patience was following after me, mumbling her crazy, and ready to corner me in an empty elevator car where she could step in and slash me to pieces with a scalpel she stole from some surgery room.

  Thankfully, that was just my imagination. I got into the elevator alone, and the doors closed immediately. My stomach flipped as the elevator descended to the lobby, and I walked out as if nothing was the matter. But I ran to my car, and once I was inside, I locked the doors.

  Thankfully, no one was on the road. I pushed the boundary of breaking the speed limit and was home within minutes.

  I shut off my lights before pulling into the driveway. For some reason, I thought that was rather stealthy. As soon as I turned the car off, I had my house key in my hand and dashed through the front door as quickly as possible and slammed the door shut behind me. I slipped the dead bolt into place, followed by the chain lock.

  “What happened?” Treacle asked as he stretched his paws in front of him and his backside up in the air.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “All I know is that I shouldn’t have gone over there.”

  I went to my room and snapped on the television. The sound of Jimmy Stewart’s voice as he spoke in one of those westerns he was in was like an old friend even though I didn’t like westerns. It brought calm to my house instead of the freakiness I’d just escaped.

  I slipped into bed after checking all the windows to make sure the house was locked up tight. Crazy as it seemed, I wasn’t so much afraid of the man in black showing up as I was Patience.

  Sleep came quickly, and when I woke up, my house looked pretty in the bright light of day. I’d overslept. Within seconds of realizing it, there was pounding on the door.

  “Let me guess!” I shouted as Treacle lay still on the bed. “You need to borrow a bottle of shampoo.” I snorted as I yanked open the door, expecting to see Mrs. Kitt standing there.

  “What? I have plenty of shampoo,” Bea said. “My gosh, what happened to you? You run a marathon this morning?”

  “Yeah. I’m secretly training. I eat cheeseburgers and onion rings to keep you off my scent until I’m ready to announce my Olympic run.” I walked away from the door, leaving it open for Bea to come in.

  “You okay to come to work?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Smell me.” I leaned toward my cousin. She took a whiff and shrugged.

  “You smell okay to me.”

  “Then, yes, I’m coming to work. Give me a second to throw on some clothes and brush my teeth.”

  “Hey, did you go out last night?” Bea asked as she leaned against the closed bathroom door.

  “I did. You won’t believe what I tried to do.” I told her about my help from the little woodland creatures and my encounter in the IC unit.

  “No face?” Bea bit her thumbnail. “Those kinds of guys are often seen at hospitals.”

  “Yeah, but that can’t be good. A guy with no face dressed like he works for the IRS isn’t what most people say angels look like. In fact, they’d probably say that’s more like their hooved, fork-tongued, pointy-tailed, horned opposites. If you catch my meaning.”

  I turned on the faucet to wash my face and brush my teeth.

  “As for how she reacted to you, well, that’s creepy.” Bea folded her arms. “She’s not a nice lady. I wouldn’t be surprised if she were just so mad you were there that she couldn’t
speak.”

  “No. There was more to it than that.” I pulled the door open, wearing my robe, and grabbed a new pair of jeans and a fresh T-shirt.

  “You are so lucky,” Bea said out of the blue.

  “I’m lucky? About what?”

  “You can just get dressed, throw on jeans and a T-shirt, pull your hair back, and look like a million bucks.” She shook her head. “Not everyone can do that. I won’t even get the mail without at least a little lip gloss on.”

  “You are smoking crack again, aren’t you?” I smirked as I shimmied into my pants and grabbed my Converse All-Star gym shoes.

  “No. I mean it. If you saw what I see and what Tom sees, maybe you’d be a little more…I don’t know.”

  “Normal?”

  “No. You’ll never be that.”

  “Happy?”

  “I wouldn’t recognize you happy. No, you’d be more awesome than you already are.” Bea smiled since she made me laugh.

  I shook my head and grabbed my keys as we headed out the door with Treacle scooting out just as it closed. He walked with us along the sidewalk. His head swung low as he scanned the neighborhood, and his tail waved languidly back and forth.

  “Hey, when you were out last night, did you see Mrs. Kitt?” Bea asked as we started walking toward the café.

  “I heard her walking around about one in the morning. At least I think it was her. The sound was going that way. I figured she was going to the babe couple’s house.”

  “Can you quit calling them that? They have names. It’s Turk and—”

  “Yes, Turk and Renee Lourdes. That’s even more embarrassing than the babe couple.” I shivered. “Who names their kid Turk?”

  “I don’t know, but they are a sweet couple who are very affectionate.” Bea harrumphed. “I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

  “Well, of course you don’t.” I laughed. “You and Jake are a close second in the PDA awards.”

  “We like our public displays of affection.”