by Natasha Deen
“Honey? Dad reached for me with one hand and grabbed his beeping cell with the other. Glancing at the screen, he asked Serge, “Can you hear it?”
“You can’t?”
“All I hear is static.”
“Maggie.” The Voice sounded as though it was weeping.
“Dad—” I grabbed at my chest. “It feels like there’s something on my ribs.”
“Just take a breath.”
“I…can’t.” I bent over. “My heart hurts.”
“He’s coming. For you, Maggie. He comes for you.”
My fingers and toes turned to ice. Tremors wracked my body. “Breathe. I can’t—” The words came in panicked, guttural gasps. I dropped to my knees.
Dad followed me down. His pupils had dilated so much, only a small ring of brown bordered the black circles. “Serge! Can’t you do something?”
“I don’t—Maggie. What do I do?”
“It’s too late. He’s coming. He’s coming.”
Dad stumbled to his feet, lunged for the radio, and ripped the cord from the socket.
Blessed silence swept into the room.
The pain in my chest lessened. I took a breath that seared my lungs. “Thanks—”
The radio clicked back on. “Maggie.” The voice paused. Then, it took up its mournful keening, again. “Oh, Maggie.”
My heart constricted. The muscles twisted, contorted until it felt as if the organ was being turned inside out. Sweat pushed out from my skin, not in drops, but in sheets of salty water that poured onto the floor. The weight on my chest spread to my back and my kidneys. Invisible hands reached into my torso, grabbed and wrenched my stomach. They yanked my intestines, tried to pull them through my skin and out of my body. I vomited on the floor, crying, retching, unable to breathe, and sure I was about to die.
“Serge! Do something! Help my daughter!”
Serge fit his body over mine, pushed his mouth to my ear, and pulled the sweat-slicked hair off my forehead. “Maggie, help me. I don’t know what to do. Tell me how to help!”
“I—” There was no air, no exhalation on which to carry the words. I was trying to talk and inhale at the same time. The pain luminesced in my veins, the agonizing burn lit my brain and made my sight blur. “—I don’t know—”
“Okay, okay, I can do this. I can help.” Serge tightened his hold. “Feel me breathing. Take my breath.”
Dark spots flickered in my vision, punctuated by sharp pinpricks of colour. My heart crashed against my chest. The voice may have still been on the radio, but now it was also in my head, reverberating, softly crying, wailing my name.
“Maggie. Oh, Maggie.”
“Maggie, I can hear him—”
Oxygen deprivation made Dad’s voice sound `like it came from a tunnel.
“—I can hear Serge. Do what he says. Take his breath.”
“He wants you.”
Serge grabbed my hand, unclenched my fingers and put them against his belly. “Feel the breath. Imagine it going into you.”
I bore down and fought the convulsions wracking my body. Clutching at Serge, trying to get his blurry image to pull into focus, I pretended he was a lifeline, a tube through which oxygen flowed from his fingers and torso into my skin and diffused through my veins.
Tendrils, bubbly sensations—more pins and needles then effervescent fizz—prickled my fingers and spread their cool foam through my flesh. I gurgled, gasping for breath and choking on hysteria.
“Slow.”
I let Serge’s voice guide me.
“It’s too late. He’s coming.”
“Just take it slow. Breathe like it’s your air, not mine.”
I inhaled. The weight lifted but didn’t disappear. The tremors lessened but didn’t evaporate, and I knew—I knew—the only thing that would take the pain from me. “I won’t quit,” I gasped the words to the voice echoing in my head and vibrating the radio speakers. “I won’t quit. I’ll stay. I’ll transition Serge.”
The sudden stop of pain rushed through my body like a hurricane wind, skyrocketed my blood pressure, and pushed air into my lungs with the force of a fighter jet’s engines. I clawed at my throat and lungs, fighting the urge to rip at my skin.
Serge pushed me back against the fridge, propped me up by the door. “Don’t fight it. Just breathe.”
Dad’s face hovered behind him. His lips repeated the instructions. “Just breathe.”
I took a breath, a second, and a third. Clarity of vision returned. The thrumming roar in my ears dimmed. My veins stopped glowing.
“Maggie.”
I looked at Dad.
Tension turned the edges of his lips white. He squinted as if staring into a bright light. Gripping me by the shoulder, he said, “Just breathe, baby.” His voice cracked. “Just keep breathing. Let Serge help you.”
I nodded. Keeping one hand on Serge’s wrist and my other hand pressed against his stomach, I focused on his breath, held to the rhythm of his inhalations and exhalations because it was the only thing keeping my body from exploding.
“I’m here,” he said. “Now and forever. We’ll take care of this, right?” Serge smiled through his tears. “I promise—I swear, I’ll protect you. I won’t let that voice get you. I won’t let my dad hurt you.”
Help Serge or be killed by the poltergeist. Help Serge and possibly be killed by his psychotic father.
What a set of options.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I hate hospitals. For a chick who deals in death and blood, I shouldn’t freak at that smell—but that antiseptic-human waste-overcooked food smell always makes me gag. I stepped inside and the automatic doors swished closed. Pale-white fluorescents bathed the lobby in light that seemed starved, hungry as it sucked the colour out of the green and pink surroundings.
A nurse in blue scrubs with multi-coloured fish stood at the counter, behind a wall of Plexiglas. She looked up as we came in.
“I’m looking for Amber Sinclair,” I said. “I’m a friend.”
“She’s not allowed to see visitors.”
“She’s in ICU?” asked Dad. “I’m sorry. Of course, we’ll go. We thought we’d support Amber’s Mom—” He glanced at me. “As a parent…”
The mask of professionalism loosened, slipped from the nurse’s face. Her brown eyes softened, so did her mouth. “No, it’s not that—” She tilted her head and gave me a gentle smile. “When kids try to harm themselves, we put them in the psychiatric ward. We need to make sure they don’t hurt themselves again. I wish I could help, but we have to protect the patient’s privacy. And the family’s. Unless they give permission to have visitors, there’s nothing we can do.”
I nodded. “Oh, of course.”
“Can we see her mom?” Dad asked.
“I promise, I won’t try to sneak in or anything,” I said.
The nurse smiled. “Those doors are kept locked. You can’t sneak in.”
“Right.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. That area is restricted.” She took a clipboard off the counter. “I wish I could help.”
“Are you going to see her?” I asked. “Maybe if Amber’s mom gives you permission…?”
She hesitated. “I have to do rounds. I can’t guarantee—”
“It’s okay.” I rushed the words. “I’ll wait.” Glancing at the entrances that banked the left and right sides of the check-in kiosk, I asked, “Which door will you come from?”
“The left.”
Dad caught my gaze, and I knew he guessed what I was trying to do.
“I—the ward isn’t on the main floor, is it?” He faked the perfect combination of curiosity and concern. “Those poor patients, having everyone walk by their doors—”
“It’s on the seventh floor,” she said. “Privacy is everything.”
&nb
sp; Dad smiled. “Isn’t it, though?”
We moved away from the pink counters with their white tops.
“Did Serge come?” Dad glanced over his shoulder and watched the nurse.
“Would you?”
“Point taken.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a loonie. “There’s a vending machine by the doors. I suddenly feel thirsty.” He moved as the nurse left the kiosk. He smiled, softly chatting, holding his loonie like a pass card.
When she got to the door, the nurse scanned her card into the reader. Dad—such a gentleman—held the door open for her. She smiled and left. He let it close, waving for me with the other hand, and kept his gaze on the nurse through the door’s narrow window.
“I need to let it close in a little more,” he whispered. “Can you grab it at the bottom?”
Bending, I did as instructed.
He left, moved to the vending machine. The coin rattled down the tube and a pop followed with a dull schunk. Popping the tab, he took a sip and gazed through the window. “Okay, she’s gone. Go and be careful. We’ve never been in a psych ward.”
“Not for a lack of my trying to get you committed.”
“So funny.”
“I try.”
“Try harder and be sensitive to the environment, this time.”
“Will do.”
He looked down at me. “Are you going to be okay? Some of these people will be legitimately mentally ill, but some…”
“I know. I’ll be fine. The dead hardly linger in hospitals. They’re sick and tired and death is a comfort, a release. I don’t think anyone will be there.”
“Maybe,” he muttered. He pressed his finger to the middle of his forehead, to the spot between his eyes. “Maggie. You glow when you touch Serge, people are trying to kill themselves, and other ghosts don’t want to be around you. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
He rolled his eyes. “Go. And be careful. If they catch you, I’ll deny all knowledge of you and your operation.”
“That’s what I love best about you. The way you always have my back.”
“Go before I change my mind.”
I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and left. The white hallway was quiet and empty. At the end of the corridor I saw a set of cream-coloured elevator doors. I took a second to pull my hand over my sleeve and pushed the ‘up” button. When the cab arrived, it opened to reveal ’70s fake wood paneling and large, white posters, admonishing visitors to wash their hands. The ride on the elevator didn’t take long but with each passing floor, my anxiety rose. I could talk big and tough, but when it came down to it, I was praying Nancy didn’t freak. The bell chimed and the doors slid open.
There was nothing in the barren hallway, no posters or signs, hand sanitizers or people. Instead, a lone desk stood by a set of double doors that had windows on their upper half. The kidney-shaped desk was pink on the bottom, with a white surface.
“No sharp edges,” I muttered. “Just in case.”
“What are you doing here?”
I yelped as I stumbled back.
Nancy stood by the open door.
I saw a bubble-gum pink hallway beyond, empty, sterile. “Hey.” I lifted my hand in a wave and tried to look casual, which made me look like a dork.
“And I ask again—” She stepped forward. The door slipped from her fingers and slid closed on its hydraulic hinges. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to Amber’s mom, and you,” I said. “Especially you.”
She pressed her lips together. The lines of her body went frozen, stiff.
“Uh—maybe I should talk to Amber’s mom, first.”
“What do you want with May?”
I shrugged. “Her daughter tried to kill herself. I thought she might want some comfort.”
Nancy’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Shouldn’t you want to talk to Amber?”
“I thought they’d have her sedated.”
She grunted.
“So…?”
“You gonna tell me what’s going on between you, your dad, and this case?”
“I will if you let me see Mrs. Sinclair.”
“How about if I arrest you for coming to this floor?”
“Dad wants to tell you what’s going on”—the words came out in a torrent—“only, he’s afraid of what it’ll mean for me and you, and the relationship between all of us. I want to tell you but he’s freaked.” I took a shallow breath. “He loves you, Nancy, you know that.”
“I love boa constrictors,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I trust them.”
“Please. Let me see Amber and Mrs. Sinclair, and then I’ll do my best to make Dad talk to you.”
She sighed. “It’s not my place to give that kind of permission. They need privacy—”
“It’s all over the social networks,” I said. “And what people don’t know, they’re making up. Someone has to quell the rumours at school.”
She cursed. “Professionally, I can’t care about that. As a person—” She stopped as May came through the doors.
May turned hollow eyes to me, then looked back, down the hallway to where her daughter lay.
“They gave her something to sleep,” she said. “She was…upset.”
“I’m sorry this happened.” I stepped closer, but gave the older woman space.
“I’ve just been standing here—” Her fingers knotted and bunched at her chest. “What was going on that I didn’t see this? She was a trial but the past few years…”
I didn’t say anything.
“They made me hold onto her jewellery.” She opened her palm to show me the gold necklace, earrings, and her bracelet. Mrs. Sinclair turned to face to me. “What do I do with them?” she said, the dullness of her tone edged by barely contained hysteria. “I don’t want to lose them. Sometimes they make me leave the room. What if someone takes them when I’m gone.” She took a sharp shallow breath. “I can’t keep carrying them around—”
“What about your purse? Can we keep them in there?”
“What if they fall out? What if something happens? If I can’t see them, I can’t protect her!”
“Ma’am, are we talking about the jewellery or your daughter?” Gently, I put my hands around hers. The icy cold of her skin ripped the heat from my body. Frozen tingles spread up my arms to my elbows. “Why don’t we find you a chair?”
Her body bowed in half.
Awkwardly, I put my arm around her.
She fell against my chest, and for all her voluptuous curves, she felt fragile, a crystal figurine too easily broken.
“How could she do this?” It was a half-sob-half-moan. “How could she do this!” Mrs. Sinclair reeled back, clapped her hand to her mouth. “Oh! Not that I’m angry—” Tears rushed down her cheeks.
“I know, ma’am.”
She sniffled, her mouth trembled. Her auburn curls caught in the flow of her tears and stuck to her face. Still bowed like a hunchback, she looked at her daughter. “Whatever it was, we could have gotten over it. I would have done anything.”
“She’ll wake soon,” I said, grateful that I could utter the truth of that statement. “You can talk then.” A pleather and pressed wood chair stood by the door. “Until then, why don’t you sit?”
She nodded and stumbled for the seat. Grabbing my hand, she said, “Thank you.” Her fingers slid from my grip, leaving the jewellery in my hands. Her wounded gaze returned to the hallway. “Thank God the reverend will be here soon.”
The hair on my arms and the back of my neck rose as though exposed to electricity. “Sorry?”
“Reverend Popov.” She sniffed, took a breath, and seemed to calm down. “He’ll make it better.”
I froze. Nancy’s expression went so stony, she could have
been made of granite.
“I phoned him as soon as I got the news, but he’s in Tender Flats. He left immediately, but it’s a three-hour drive and the roads are…” She seemed to realize she was on the verge of babbling.
She looked up at me. “I know you and his son had problems.”
“Had.”
“He’s a good man. Caring and attentive—he’s been so good to me and my daughter.”
I nodded. What else could I do? But the blood rushed in my veins and made my heart slam against my chest. What was this woman going to do when she found out that Amber’s current condition probably had a lot to do with the pregnancy the pastor was responsible for?
“Especially Amber. He’s been so sweet to her.”
She didn’t know the half of it.
Mrs. Sinclair clutched her stomach. “He’ll make it right. He always does.”
Yeah, right. I felt heat on the back of my neck and turned. Serge.
Sadness darkened his eyes. “I couldn’t stay away. We didn’t get along, but this…” He shook his head. “This is no good.” His gaze lingered on May. He took a step toward her.
I thought back to what Bruce had said about Serge and an older woman. Serge?
He looked my way.
You and May—
A frown wrinkled his forehead.
Bruce said he thought you were sleeping with—
“That’s disgusting. You think I did Amber’s mom?” He made a face. “No, I guess I deserved that.” He sighed. “I never—I saw her a couple of times. I wanted to tell her about Amber and who she was really sleeping with but in the end…” He took a breath. “It was enough that he was breaking my mom’s heart. I didn’t need to destroy someone else’s mom just to get revenge.” His gaze flicked to the door. “Maybe I should’ve. Maybe then—”
I can’t believe she did it.
He sighed. “Believe me, it was always in her…when she and my dad got together, she stopped talking about it.” Serge’s expression went bleak. “Of course, she stopped talking to me, period. But still…” He frowned at my hands. “Why do you have my mother’s jewellery?”
This is Amber’s.
He shook his head. “No. That bracelet.”
