by Mia Sheridan
As he was turning to go back to the house, he swore he heard soft weeping. He paused, listening. Yes, underneath the loud morning bird chatter someone was crying.
He moved tentatively toward the wall, taking care not to step on anything that might make a sound and give him away.
He leaned forward, turning his good eye toward one of the larger cracks. He couldn’t make out much through the thin space, but he could see it was a woman. She was standing back from the wall enough so that he could tell she was young with dark hair. For a moment she continued to stand there weeping quietly.
He leaned away, feeling awkward about intruding on this moment, one the woman obviously believed was private. But he halted in his movement when she began to speak.
“I know I’ve already come here once and made a wish, but I didn’t think it would hurt to try again. I’m sure you get so many, and . . . if mine stood out . . .”
She hiccupped and then let out a strangled sound, half chuckle, half sob. “God, I’m desperate, aren’t I?” She paused for a moment. “It’s just, I was thinking that maybe my last wish wasn’t specific enough. You might be a spirit, Angelina, but it doesn’t mean you’re a mind reader, or, well, maybe you are but . . .”
The woman let out a shuddery breath and Jonah waited, unwilling to move and let her know he was there while she was pouring her heart out in what she thought was a confessional. I know what that feels like, he thought, closing his eyes as he ran his fingers over the coarse rock, picturing Clara on the other side, listening as he’d bared his own heart.
He felt like an ass listening to her, but the birds had quieted, her sobs had halted, and he was afraid to back away and make a noise. He was stuck.
“Anyway,” she continued, and he noted that her voice sounded more dull as if she had lost hope in her own wish, as if she’d already talked herself out of any possibility of it coming true before she’d even made it. “My son’s name is Matthew Fullerton, and he’s at Children’s Hospital. He’s very sick and he needs surgery . . . if there’s any hope for him. I can’t afford it, and I need help. Just”—she let out another small choking sound—”fifty-thousand-dollars-worth of help.”
Her words faded away and Jonah’s heart clenched as he closed his eyes. Fuck. Was this the woman whose wish he had read about her sick son? It must be.
“That’s all.” She sounded drained, her voice a mere whisper now. “I need help to save my boy.”
Jonah heard the sound of her footsteps moving away and pressed his eye to the crack again, watching as a blue car drove away, leaving only silence in its wake.
Jonah sat down on the grass, his heart heavy just like it’d been the first time he’d heard that woman’s wish for her dying child, feeling helpless all over again.
But you’re not helpless, are you?
The question wandered through his mind and for a second it felt as if someone else had asked it. Where had that come from? Did he think maybe he was some sort of masked hero now that he’d assisted one helpless woman who was being assaulted in an alley?
He ran his hand over his head, his hair now completely dry from the soft breeze blowing through Windisle. Oh Jonah, you fucking fool.
Although . . . this time, the person in need of help was requesting something that would require far less effort on his part: all she needed was money. My son needs surgery and I can’t afford it.
He blew out a breath. Was he seriously considering granting one of the wishes that had been made at the weeping wall? God, wouldn’t Justin love that?
He stood up, the idea taking hold in his mind, the ease with which he could do it forming.
He might not even have to leave his property. Although . . . no, he did not want this attached to him. He’d have to make the delivery in person. He’d have to make sure Matthew Fullerton’s mother received the money she needed. Fifty thousand dollars. It was nothing to him, but it would be everything to her.
And for the first time in many, many years, someone else’s woes outshone his own.
Maybe he could still be useful to the world after all. And he didn’t have to wait to stumble upon a drug deal gone wrong in a dark alley. Maybe he could be Angelina.
He smiled, feeling the skin stretch over the damaged side of his face, reminding him of his limitations. Still, there was a lightness to his heart, and the day grew even brighter.
**********
Translucent marigold rays streamed from behind the silver-plated clouds, bringing light and warmth to the day that had begun in shades of sallow gray. Jeannie wished it could penetrate the pewter sorrow that surrounded her heart.
She glanced up at the hospital room window where Matthew lay sleeping, her precious boy who wouldn’t be long for this world. She had no idea how she would survive without him.
She sat heavily on the wooden bench, warmed by the sunshine, and stared blankly out at the path where patients exercised, some holding the arm of a nurse, others being pushed in a wheelchair. Everyone was taking advantage of the break in gloomy weather to take a stroll outdoors.
A man approached the bench and she saw him in her peripheral vision, though she didn’t turn in his direction. She caught the image of bandages on his face and a black, athletic jacket with a collar that was turned upward, shielding his neck and chin.
He walked crouched over as though he were old, but something about the size and breadth of his body didn’t fit his movements. If she had to describe his body type, and even though she hadn’t looked at him full on, she’d go with . . . strapping. Odd, though she moved the strange feeling aside as he sat down on the edge of the bench, hunching over, his elbows on his knees, as he watched the other patients amble by on broken limbs, and sickly bodies.
She was curious but she wasn’t afraid. She was out in the open, a dozen other people strolling directly in front of her, and frankly, she didn’t have any more fear to offer the world.
Her greatest terror was losing her baby boy, and the imminence of that hung heavily over her like a boulder attached by a thread. And when the crushing came, it would flatten her.
“Your son is sick?”
Jeannie turned toward the man then, surprised at his words. He was looking out at the path in front of them and she could only see his profile, heavily bandaged in white gauze.
He wore a baseball cap so she couldn’t tell anything about whether his injury extended to his head, or only involved his face. And she couldn’t see his hair that might have given a clue about his age, though his voice was young and deep and smooth.
“I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
The man paused. “I’ve heard you talk about your son. Matthew, right? He’s very sick?”
Jeannie frowned. This man must be a patient here. He must have overheard Matthew’s diagnosis, maybe seen them walking in the halls. She knew a lot about the other patients too, simply because she spent so much time at the hospital.
She’d never seen this man, though perhaps he’d recently had his surgery and when he’d been in the same room as her before, he’d looked very different.
Jeannie sighed. Everyone here had a story, obviously his held trauma too. “Cancer. He’s very sick.”
There was another pause, and then the man said, “I’m sorry. I thought I heard you say he needs surgery.”
Jeannie glanced at him. He was definitely a patient here then. Lord knew she’d been talking and crying and practically begging the doctors to help her find a way to get Matthew into the study that was performing a surgery on kids with his disease.
They’d already been having huge successes, even in advanced cases, and Matthew was a great candidate, but insurance didn’t cover the experimental treatment, and she didn’t have anywhere near the money to afford it.
The doctors were sympathetic to her case, and they cared deeply about Matthew, she knew they did, but other than listen to her cry, there wasn’t much else they could do.
Jeannie didn’t have any family who could help her, Matthew’s father
had taken off the moment he found out about his existence, and she was all her son had in the world.
And I’m failing him.
She told the man all this, a tear slipping down her cheek. She wasn’t sure why she opened up to the stranger who had obviously been wounded so badly, other than that she didn’t seem to be able to help herself—the words just tumbled out of her as though they’d been dammed up and finally allowed to flow freely.
And there was also the fact that his voice held an empathy that only those who had felt pain themselves seemed to carry. She’d never recognized it before, but she’d know it now, she’d hear it in others for the rest of her days. Anguish did that, she supposed, honed your senses to hear and see and feel the unspoken sorrow in others.
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “You probably weren’t looking for all that.”
He let out a breath and she sensed there was a smile with it, if he could manage one with whatever was happening with his face under all the gauze. “I’m sure you weren’t looking for all that either. Sometimes life just . . . bowls you over.”
She smiled and it surprised her. It felt unpracticed, as though she hadn’t smiled in a very long time. But it felt good too, as if she should try to do it more often.
She wanted to be strong for Matthew. She wanted him to see that she’d be okay when he was gone. Whether she believed it or not, she knew it would bring him peace. Her tiny caretaker, the boy who’d taken on the role of man of the house as if he was born to protect.
God, he would have grown up to be an amazing man. A leader. A force of good in the world. She felt it deep inside, not just as a proud mother, but as a woman who had made too many bad choices when it came to men and finally learned how to spot a good one because he had been placed right into her arms.
“I’m already thinking about him in past tense.” Another tear slipped down her cheek. “I need to stop that,” she whispered. “The truth is, he’s what set me on the right path. Before him, I was heading for, well, nothing good, let’s put it that way.”
Jeannie made a small, embarrassed sound, but the man remained silent. It was a comfortable silence, and she lingered in it for a moment, picturing her life before Matthew, and thanking God for him and the change in direction her unplanned pregnancy had caused her to make.
“You wished for the ability to get this surgery for him.”
She frowned. He must mean in general. There was no way he could know of her desperate attempt to take advantage of a local legend she’d heard about once as a kid. “Yes, yes, I wish for it every day. He won’t be a candidate at all if he gets any worse.”
“I’d like to grant your wish.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope and handed it to her.
She took it, staring down at it in confusion. “What is this?”
“Stay on that path you’re on,” the man said, standing. “Make sure your son stays on the right path too. Help him grow into a good man.”
Jeannie could see then that she’d been right about the size of him. He was tall and broad and yes, strapping. And yet, he’d first appeared to walk as though he was old and sick.
He turned to her for a brief moment and her eyes widened. He turned away quickly, but before he had, sunlight had flashed on his bandage wrapped face and it’d appeared that underneath the gauze, he was wearing a skeleton mask, the fakeness of it obvious in the stark black and white contrast.
Jeannie was momentarily shaken, taken off guard. She glanced at the envelope she was now clutching tightly in her grasp, tearing it open. Inside was a cashier’s check made out to her in the amount of fifty thousand dollars.
She stood, looking around frantically for the stranger who’d just granted her greatest wish, the stranger who may have very well given her son a death reprieve.
Patients strolled and hobbled all around her, but the man was nowhere. He’d disappeared.
Jeannie let out a joyful sob, and ran toward the hospital, toward her boy.
**********
“You sound happy, Jonah.”
Jonah smiled, sitting in the chair in the corner of his bedroom and toeing his shoes off. Am I?
He sat back, pushing his hair off of his forehead. He thought back to what he’d done earlier that day, the look on the woman’s face as he’d begun speaking to her.
She’d been wary of him at first, with his bandaged face, even if he was in a hospital courtyard. And she’d looked briefly terrified when he’d looked at her full on and she’d realized he was a skeleton under the bandages.
But it’d been the first time he’d been outside Windisle in the bright light of day, and the dual cover had felt necessary. Creepy stuff, he knew. But damn if it hadn’t been worth it to see the blatant hope that had filled her eyes when she’d realized what she was holding in her hand.
So . . . maybe not happy exactly. But not miserable either, and damn but it was a nice reprieve. “Happy-ish,” he answered, putting a teasing note in his voice.
He heard the smile in hers as she said, “It makes me happy to hear you happy . . . ish.”
Jonah laughed, quickly pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it in the direction of the clothes hamper.
“Jonah, do you remember the other night when I asked if you believed in prophecy?”
“Yeah.”
“Well . . . I asked because I went to this fortune teller and she said some stuff that made me wonder.”
“A fortune teller, Clara?”
“I know. I never really believed in all that stuff before either. But it was . . . I don’t know, eerie, I guess. Anyway, she told me I was seeking the answers to a mystery and told me it was very important that I keep looking.”
“You mean, the mystery of the curse put on John and Angelina?” It was the reason Clara had shown up at Windisle in the first place, he remembered that now. Help me help you, Angelina.
“Yes.”
He blew out a breath. “Who isn’t searching for the answer to a mystery though, Clara? Even if the ‘mystery’ is just an unknown . . . you know, will I find success in my career? Will I find love? Will the Mets win the World Series?”
The explanation of how the unknown fortune teller had struck on Clara’s searching for answers to a mystery felt a little weak, even to him, but fortune tellers were con artists, plain and simple. Whatever method she’d used to land on something that happened to apply to Clara, it had been an accident. Trickery.
“I guess.” She drew out the words, clearly unconvinced. “In any case, whether her statements came from the great beyond or not,” she said with an ironic lilt to her tone, “I don’t want to dismiss anything, and she renewed my desire to find out more about Angelina and that curse.”
“Okay.” Jonah unbuttoned his jeans and let them fall to the floor where he kicked them off. He sat on his bed, clad only in his boxers, leaning back on the pillows against the headboard.
He loved the decisiveness in her voice, loved that quality about her in general because he knew it was the reason she’d kept coming back for him. Clara had decided there was something worth knowing in Jonah, and because she’d decided it, she hadn’t given up even when he’d told her to. She was . . . God, she was amazing. The thought filled up his chest until he felt he might overflow with his admiration for her.
Clara was beautiful and elegant, and he couldn’t help noticing those things, but damn if he didn’t also like the hell out of her. “And how are you going to do that?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about the avenues I still have to explore. There aren’t many, but . . . I was hoping you might be able to help me. What can you tell me about Astrid Chamberlain?”
“Astrid Chamberlain? Not a lot, to be honest. Justin was a big family history buff. He would have been able to tell you anything you wanted to know.”
He was quiet for a moment as he remembered Justin prattling on about Windisle and the things he’d discovered. Justin had wanted to sell the property to the preservation socie
ty, and Jonah hadn’t been against it at the time, but he’d been busy . . . he kept putting Justin off whenever he mentioned it . . . told him they’d deal with the sale of Windisle once Jonah had more time. Of course, looking back, Jonah could admit that would have been never.
“He had some folders of information, family trees and whatnot, that I think I put in the attic. I could get them out for you.”
“Would you?” She breathed the question and Jonah smiled, thinking that her reaction had exceeded the actual worth of some dusty paperwork in the attic of Windisle.
“Of course.”
She was quiet for a beat. “The thing is, Jonah, I have this feeling that the answers are all somewhere. I just . . . they’re waiting to be put together and I don’t know, but I sense this . . . ticking. Does that sound crazy?”
It did, sort of, but the real funny thing was, at her words, he felt it too. This drumming right under his ribcage that made him feel like rushing to the attic that second and getting that paperwork for her. Or maybe it was just his intense desire to please this woman in any way he was capable. And the truth was, his capabilities were very limited.
“No, it doesn’t sound crazy. It’s an interesting story, Clara. And the people who can provide answers, or pass on stories are either dead or very old.”
“Yes,” she said, but he sensed something in her voice that told him his explanation about the rush to find answers didn’t feel quite right to her.
“What about the old priestess who spoke the riddle to breaking the curse at the party in the ’30s. Do you know her name?”
The name appeared in Jonah’s head as if it’d been scrawled across his brain. “Actually I do, strangely enough. It’s one of the things in Justin’s files—an original invitation to that party. It was one of the things he showed me, and it had the priestess’s name on it. She was the entertainment.”
He’d glanced at the invitation, other things on his mind at the time, but he remembered the priestess’s name because it had been unusual and he’d repeated the alliteration in his head. “Sibille Simoneaux.”