“How can I help you two?” The receptionist behind the counter smiled brightly at us. I stared at the bright pattern on her uniform; it was like one of those hidden picture images where, eventually, if I stared long enough, I ought to see a sphinx or a farmhouse.
James kicked me. “What’s your Granna’s real name?”
“Uh. We’re here to see Jane Reilly.”
The receptionist tapped efficiently on the keyboard and puckered her lips as she read the information on the monitor. “She’s not allowed to see any visitors but family.”
“I’m her granddaughter.”
The receptionist eyed James.
“I’m her pool boy,” James said. He crossed his fingers and showed them to her. “We’re like this. Very close. Like family.”
The receptionist laughed and told us the room number. We headed down the hall, sneakers still squeaking, vents still whistling, looking for Room 313. We followed the door numbers past motivational photographs plastered along the walls, and then Mom’s hissed voice announced Granna’s room. I froze in the hall, and James hesitated behind me.
“This is not normal.” I had to strain to hear her voice, but Delia’s voice was clearly audible.
“She fell. What’s not normal about that?”
“No. This is all wrong. This is like—like—”
Delia’s voice was taunting. “Like what, Terry? Like the dreams you used to have? Back when you wet the bed?”
“I didn’t wet the bed,” Mom hissed furiously. “That was where their feet were. They always had wet feet.”
“Right. I thought you said back then they were dreams.”
“You said they were dreams. Mom said they were dreams. I never said that.”
Delia laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “I didn’t tell you they were dreams, Terry. I was dying, remember?”
Mom hesitated. “I remember—damn you! Stop smiling! You’re part of this, aren’t you?”
“Don’t be stupid.” Louder, Delia said, “You can come in, Deirdre.”
James and I exchanged looks, and I followed him in. Mom and Delia stood on opposite sides of the single hospital bed, all color absent from their faces in the green-white lights of the room.
Mom looked hunted. Her eyes darted to me.“Deirdre. I didn’t know you were coming over right now.”
“James brought me,” I said unnecessarily, pointing to him.
“I’m going to go get something to eat,” Delia said musically. She flashed a rack of teeth at Mom. “Unless you need me for anything.”
Mom glared at her with an expression that clearly said drop dead in three different languages, and Delia vanished. After she’d gone, I peered around Mom to see Granna, and saw only a mass of tubes and machines. My voice came out more accusing than I meant it to. “I thought you said she fell.” I pushed my way further into the room, joining Mom by the side of the bed; she slipped away from me like a bubble of oil touching water.
Granna lay perfectly still, blankets pulled up tidily, hands laid stiffly on either side. There were no visible injuries, nothing to say what the faeries might have done to her or what “elf shot” might be. But she wasn’t awake, either, and a heavy sensation of slumber or unconsciousness seemed to ooze from the hospital bed.
I spun to face Mom. Behind her, James hung his head, seeming to analyze Granna’s condition faster than I could. “What’s wrong with her?”
Mom’s voice was efficient, her emotions still carefully locked away. “She’s in a coma. Nobody knows why. She didn’t fall. She wasn’t sick. She’s just in a coma, and they don’t know when she’s going to come out. They’ve done a bunch of tests like MRIs and stuff and so far everything’s coming back normal. But we’re still waiting on some of them. They say she could just sit up at any minute.”
Or lie like this for another hundred years. I looked down at Granna, quiet as the dead. I couldn’t seem to feel upset; it was as if I were watching a TV show starring myself and my family, and the real me sat safely outside the television set. I wondered if it would be like the day the cat attacked: emotion would catch me later, when my guard was down.
The room faded; twilight. I was outside, staring at muddy clothing in a ditch, all crumpled up in angles that made my gut squeeze, the water of the ditch half-covering them. It took me a moment in the faded light to realize that it was a pile of bodies, limbs twined in a macabre puzzle. A tight white hand pulled on my arm, grasping it firmly below the newly glinting torc. Its owner, a tall young man whose brown hair bore a shocking streak of gold, said, “Come on, Luke. Come on. They’re dead.”
I just stared at the bodies, feeling cold and mercifully empty. In a way, I was relieved that I had no tears for my brothers; if I cried, I’d be blind. I’d have to spend hours making the drops so I could see Them again. Hours wondering what They did while I was oblivious to Their presence.
“Luke. There’s nothing you can do.”
“If I’d been here—” Here, instead of doing Her bidding—
“Then you’d be dead, too.” The brown-and-gold-haired man pulled harder on my arm. “Come away. We’ll make you forget.”
“I’ll never forget.” Luke closed his eyes, and the broken bodies still burned a painful image behind his eyelids.
“Deirdre, James is talking to you.”
It took me a moment to separate reality from Luke’s memory; to trade the smell of mud and death for the antiseptic smell of the hospital. Embarrassed, I blinked myself free and turned to face James by the door. “What?”
“I said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t stay,’” James repeated. “I have a gig this evening with the pipe band. I can’t get out of it.”
Mom’s face suddenly clouded. “Deirdre. Gig. The Warshaws’ party. That’s tonight.”
“I thought it was Sunday.”
“Today is Sunday. I can’t believe I forgot about it.” She paced, looking apprehensive for the first time. James raised an eyebrow at me behind her back, bewildered, but I understood Mom’s consternation. She always had every aspect of everyone’s life planned out and categorized in some invisible mental ledger; for her to forget a detail meant that she really was shaken by Granna’s condition—and to admit she was shaken wasn’t acceptable.