Bedtime Story

by Robert J. Wiersema

  The house shifted and sighed—it almost sounded like someone moving.

  “How’s David?”

  “Quiet,” I said. “He didn’t want a story again tonight.” In fact, he’d barely spoken to me all day, sequestering himself in his room, lying on his bed staring at the ceiling.

  “He’ll get over it,” she said. “It’s important—”

  “I know,” I said. “Consistency. Boundaries.”

  She didn’t speak for the longest time.

  “Listen, why don’t you head to bed?” she said, sounding genuinely concerned. “You sound exhausted.”

  “But David—”

  “He knows to use the intercom if you’re not in the house. And he doesn’t usually wake up anyway.”

  Just thinking about it, I had to restrain a yawn.

  “I’m going to be here for a while yet,” she said. “I’ve got to finish up my charting.”

  “I won’t wait up,” I said.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

  I waited for her to say something else, anything else.

  —

  Jacqui cradled the cell phone in her hand.

  She was staring out the windshield at the front windows of the house. The blinds seemed to glow with an inner warmth, an illusory comfort. She was parked just far enough down the block that Chris wouldn’t see the van if he happened to look outside.

  She waited and watched, hoping to see his shadow on the blinds, an image of his body as he stood up and disappeared from view. As he turned off the light and left the house. As he went away.

  There was no movement. Nothing.

  She sighed and turned the key in the ignition. She couldn’t do it. Not again. She’d find a coffee shop, someplace she could wait for an hour or so.

  VII

  DAVID WAITED EXTRA LONG. It was one thing to sneak down to the kitchen while his father was outside smoking, the house empty except for him. But his dad had left before bedtime, headed out with Uncle Dale, leaving him with his mother. And she wasn’t going outside.

  She wasn’t doing much of anything. She had tucked him in a while ago, not even offering to read him a story. Not that he would have let her read to him anyway.

  He waited until he could hear the faint, tinny sounds of the television through his open door. Then he waited a little longer, until it had been almost fifteen minutes since he had last heard any sound from the kitchen below.

  Then and only then did he creep out of bed, rolling softly on the balls of his feet, slowly stepping across his room and out the door, edging down the stairs. He waited on each stair, his ears tuned to the slightest sound from below, the barest disturbance of the air that might hint that his mother was in motion.

  It was quiet on the stairs within the canyon walls. Dafyd could faintly hear the roaring of the river behind him, but the only other sounds came from him: his ragged breathing, and the slapping of his feet on the stone.

  As Dafyd descended, he marvelled at the construction of the passage. It must have taken dozens of stonecutters years to carve all of this out.

  But Gafilair had written of the person who would find the Sunstone a thousand years before Dafyd’s birth. He thought of the way his hands had fit so perfectly into the stone to open the door, and he knew, then, that no workers had slaved over building this cave. Gafilair had done it all himself.

  Dafyd was descending into a world built by magic.

  David stopped at the bottom of the stairs before turning toward the kitchen. There was no sound of his mother moving, no faint footsteps, nothing, just the noise of the TV from the front room.

  He moved quickly, silently, keenly aware that this was the most dangerous time, when he faced the highest chance of getting caught. He was in and out of the kitchen, the book liberated from the top of the fridge, before she could notice.

  Dafyd lost all track of time as the stairway drew him deeper into the earth. He felt like he had been walking for days. And then, one more turn of the stairway, one more blind corner, and suddenly the stairs ended.

  Dafyd stopped. His torch was still burning, sending up plumes of black smoke, and he held it high to see where the stairway had brought him.

  The chamber was small. The smooth, wet floor, and the pointed rocks that hung from the ceiling and dripped all around him glimmered in the torchlight. The rough walls beside him curved up into the rounded ceiling, and in some places mist obscured their features.

  The wall at the far end of the cavern, however, was as flat and smooth as the doorway in the canyon had been. Dafyd’s torchlight flickered off a bright glint of red in the middle of the wall, a shimmering object the size of coin in what looked to be a silver setting the size of the mouth of a flagon.

  Dafyd took two steps forward, holding his torch far ahead of him.

  The Sunstone. It had to be.

  He could hardly believe his eyes. Having come all this way, done everything that he had done, the Sunstone was now close enough to touch. Almost his.

  As he stepped forward, mesmerized by the stone, he didn’t notice the wisps of mist drift away from the wall, though there was no breeze.

  David kicked off the blankets without even realizing it. He suddenly felt too warm, as his eyes flashed across the page. Despite the sheen of sweat gathering on his skin, a chill ran over him as he read of Dafyd in the cave, and the mist coalescing and moving behind him.

  The closer Dafyd got to the red stone, the more certain he was. It pulsed with its own power and light. The silver in which it was set looked like an amulet, carved with drawings and symbols.

  Behind him, the patches of mist grew more distinct and solidified as they drew closer. Shapes like arms extended, and hands, fingers flexed as they reached out for the boy.

  Dafyd was about to touch the stone in the wall when he felt the cold, damp hands upon him. He screamed as they clutched at his shoulders, grabbed him by the arms. He squirmed and turned, trying to get free, trying to see who was dragging him away from the Sunstone.

  David could almost feel the cold grip of the creatures in the mist.

  He tensed in his bed, his legs twitching, as his eyes raced across each line. His breathing was ragged. A slow ache pounded in his temples.

  The Sunstone was almost his.

  Dafyd’s torch fell to the floor as faces formed in the misty figures now surrounding him. Distended mouths shaped words.

  “Stop,” they said faintly. “You can’t.”

  The mist wrapped around his chest, threatened to pull him backwards off his feet. He struggled, but he could not break the grip.

  “Stop …” The faint voices echoed in the cave.

  Their arms tightened around him. If he didn’t do something soon, Dafyd feared they would drag him to the ground, swallow him.

  Summoning all his strength, he pushed himself forward, shaking from side to side to break loose. The apparitions held for a moment longer, then shredded apart, leaving Dafyd free and stumbling forward, falling at the foot of the wall he had been trying to reach. Turning, he saw the mist re-gathering itself into vaguely human shapes, arms reaching out for him once more, mouths crying out, “Stop, stop.”

  In seconds they would be on him again. He didn’t know if the Stone’s powers would protect him, but what other hope did he have?

  Pulling himself to his knees, Dafyd reached out for the Sunstone.

  As his fingers brushed the cold surface, a bolt of red light jumped from the stone to Dafyd’s hand. His body buckled and snapped as the charge went through him. As he slumped to the floor he could smell something burning.

  Himself.

  It was the last thing he smelled.

  In the cave of the Sunstone, deep within the earth, Dafyd, son of Mareigh, closed his eyes and died.

  David’s body snapped and writhed as if an electrical current were running through him. He fell off his bed, dragging the covers with him, as he twitched and flailed. His lamp fell to the floor and smashed, and there was the smell of
burning in the air, a metallic taste in his mouth as he bit through his tongue. He tried to scream, tried to cry out, but no sound came.

  “Sorry,” I said, standing up. “I should …”

  Dale waved it away. “More wings for me,” he said brightly.

  I answered my cell as I was walking through the restaurant toward the front door. “Jacqui?”

  “Chris, where are you?”

  It was hard to hear her, to get any sense of emotion from her voice. “Downtown,” I said, stepping onto the sidewalk. “Why? What’s going on?”

  “It’s David. He’s in the hospital.”

  My stomach heaved. “What happened? What’s … he’s okay?”

  “He collapsed,” she said, her voice tight. “I’m not sure. They’re checking.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you. I’ll be right there.”

  Every aisle inside the restaurant was thick and clogged. I dodged and shouldered my way back to the table. I wanted to scream.

  “I’m sorry,” I said when I finally reached the table. I pulled out my wallet. “I have to go.”

  Dale rose halfway to his feet, throwing his napkin onto the table. “What’s going on?”

  I shook my head, distracted, counting out enough cash to pay for the meal twice over, dropping the bills on the table.

  “It’s David. He’s in the hospital.”

  I was already moving before he could react, dialling a cab with my cell phone as I stumbled back out of the restaurant.

  Outside, without thinking, I lit a cigarette, drawing on it heavily, frantically, as I waited for the cab.

  PART TWO

  I

  JACQUI PROBABLY WOULD HAVE called it a typical Saturday night crowd: drunks hunched over cardboard basins; small children whiny and flushed with fever; a young man cradling a broken arm, too long and bending at the wrong angle. In one corner a young man rocked in a chair, muttering an unceasing stream of obscenities, his eyes fluttering back in his head: strangely, no one seemed to notice him, all too wrapped up in their own crises to register the presence of another crazy person in their midst.

  No sign of David.

  I stepped up to a nurse taking the temperature of a boy about David’s age. The boy noticed me waiting. He had sick eyes, burning with colour, half hidden under drooping lids. He didn’t acknowledge me when I smiled at him.

  As the nurse packed up her cart and turned away from the boy, I stepped forward. “Excuse me,” I said.

  She didn’t look up. “Sir, someone will see to you shortly. If you’d take a seat and wait for your name to be called.”

  “I’m looking—”

  “If you have any questions”—she set her stethoscope in her basket decisively—“the reception desk is over—”

  “I’m just looking for my son,” I said sharply. “My wife told me that he was here.”

  She seemed to see me for the first time. “Are you Jacqui’s husband?”

  I nodded.

  “David’s back here,” she said, taking the handle of her cart and leading me through a swinging door and down a narrow corridor.

  I followed her into a warren of curtained beds and beeping machinery to a large nursing station. Nurses bustled back and forth, pastel blurs, the officious squeak of soft-soled shoes.

  Jacqui was standing at the counter, talking to one of the nurses. I was shocked when she threw her arms around my waist, pulling herself tight against me.

  “Oh God, Chris.”

  “What happened?” I asked. I hugged her reflexively. “Where’s David?”

  She pulled away. Her face was pale, and her eyes were wide, darting. She looked like she wanted to bolt.

  She hesitated a moment, then gestured with her hand. “In 17.”

  I started forward, but she put her hand on my arm.

  “The doctor’s with him.” Her voice came out small and fragile.

  Following the numbers above the curtains, I spotted 17. Two pairs of feet, and tan pants and blue-green scrubs, moved in the space between the curtains and the floor. “Shouldn’t you be …”

  She was bouncing one foot slightly as she leaned against the counter, her lips tight and pale. “They asked me to wait out here. They’re doing a lumbar puncture. They think it might be meningitis.”

  The word chilled me. “What happened?”

  She shook her head. “I heard a noise. Upstairs. I came into his room—”

  The curtains around the bed slid back with a metallic rattle and the doctor and a nurse I vaguely recognized stepped out. The doctor was writing on a clipboard as we moved toward him.

  “How are you holding up, Jacqui?” he asked.

  “Hanging in,” she said quietly.

  “I’m Stephen McKinley,” he said. “You must be Christopher.”

  “Chris,” I said, craning my neck around him to see the metal bed.

  David.

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  The doctor took a half-step back and I edged around him.

  “We’ve done a preliminary examination,” he began as I reached David’s bedside. “And a lumbar puncture. David is stable. I do have a few questions, though. Is there any family history of epilepsy?”

  Epilepsy? What the hell was going on?

  “Not that I know of,” Jacqui answered.

  “Diabetes?”

  I let Jacqui answer the doctor’s questions. David’s face was white, almost translucent, his lips grey and dull, and crusted with dried blood. His body was entirely still, save for the slow expansion and contraction of his chest. His hands, though, were moving, ever so slightly. Twitching.

  “We’re going to get him in for a CT scan as soon as we get a slot. We’ve sent the blood work out. We’ll take a look at everything,” Dr. McKinley was saying.

  “So what is it?” I asked, turning back to face him.

  “We’re not sure,” he said, in a warm tone at odds with the terse matter-of-factness with which he and Jacqui had been communicating moments before. It was a tone intended to placate, to soothe: it set my teeth on edge.

  “It’s possible it’s something as simple as food poisoning,” he continued leadingly.

  “We both had the same thing for dinner,” Jacqui said, ruling that out.

  “Or it could be something viral. Seizures are often seen in children fighting a fever.”

  “What was his temperature?” Jacqui asked.

  The doctor hesitated a bare moment, a stutter in the conversation that most people probably wouldn’t even have noticed. Jacqui looked down at the floor.

  “It’s normal,” he said. “We’re running tests. We want to exclude meningitis, cancer, metabolic disorders. You should know, most cases of epilepsy are idiopathic: there’s nothing ominous or obvious that triggers them. And the majority are well controlled. We’ll know more in the next few hours.”

  I glanced pointedly at the bed. “He seems calm now.”

  The doctor turned toward David. “We’ve got him sedated. The convulsions had slowed by the time the ambulance picked him up—”

  Ambulance?

  “—but we needed to draw blood and confirm his vitals. We had to sedate him.”

  The thought of David in the back of an ambulance … I couldn’t say anything, watching the tiny spasms in his fingers.

  “You can sit with him, if you’d like,” the doctor said. “I’ll be back as soon as the test results come in. And I’ll see about the CT.” He touched Jacqui quickly on the upper arm before turning away.

  Standing at David’s bedside was a slow agony. I wanted desperately to take Jacqui’s hand, to rely on her strength. I was stunned when I felt her fingers touch mine, felt our hands interlace easily, naturally.

  David’s body was covered almost entirely with a nubbly flannel sheet, antiqued with constant use.

  “What—?” Staring at the blood on David’s lips, I gestured toward my own mouth.

  “He bit into his lips. And tongue. When—”

  “What happened?” I
interrupted. “I don’t know. You haven’t said.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She took a deep breath. “David went to bed at about eight-thirty, no argument, no bargaining. I was watching TV a while later and I heard something upstairs. I thought it was David going to the bathroom, but then there was a crash.” She shook her head. “When I got upstairs, he was on the floor beside his bed. Convulsing.”

  She looked down at the bed, her gaze lingering on David’s pale face. She crossed her arms and held herself like she had a sudden chill.

  In our silence, the tiny space seemed to swell, the narrow opening at the edge of the bed, too tight for the two of us to stand in comfortably, seemed to grow, a gulf opening. I had never felt so small, so helpless, so inconsequential.

  I leaned forward against the steel rail of the bed. “How you doin’ there, sport?” I asked in a whisper. I reached out and gently cupped my hand over his, which throbbed and jerked. It felt like Nolan, David’s hamster: it pushed and seemed to struggle against my hand, trying to get free.

  “It’s gonna be all right,” I said, wincing at the platitude.

  His face was a pale cold mask, utterly devoid of expression. His puffy lips were parted slightly. He didn’t look like he was sleeping, he looked—I couldn’t bring myself to think the word.

  Except his eyes were moving. I could see them behind his closed lids, shifting and distending the thin skin like an undersea creature about to break the surface. The motion was unnerving, like watching him drown.

  But it wasn’t irregular, like the twitching in his hands: his eyes were bouncing regularly from side to side, in unison.

  The night seemed to pass like moments in a dream. Sitting in our quiet corner, we could watch the unceasing traffic into the Emergency Room—the slow, shambling, uncertain steps of people looking for signs, unsure of where to go or what to do with themselves; the decisive slamming of gurneys through doors and raised voices of the paramedics, joking with the nurses, holding court in the lobby as they waited for their patients to be handed over, for their stretchers to be returned.