Terrible Praise

by Lara Hayes

I thought it was a nightmare, even as it was happening. I’d been so convinced. I joked with Stela about stealing my clothes. Then I woke up and I could still sense her presence in the room, before I ever saw my scar. In the clear light of day, the truth was as impossible to dismiss as it was to believe.

  How is Stela possible? Did she leave that man in the alley, or cover her tracks? There has to be a system for her existence to be a secret. What does she do with the bodies? I cringe at the thought, and scan the vacant faces of my fellow commuters for clues. Eyes on their phones, a few glued to their book, each person pointedly avoiding human interaction.

  We are six in my family. We are many.

  How many times has a patient of mine been a victim of hers? Only once that I know of, and I’m more than a little surprised by my certainty. She killed William Moore, room four-twelve. The night we met was the night his vitals dipped, and when the morning shift found him, his leads had been disconnected, the machines silenced.

  Is this a habit? Does she frequent hospitals? My hospital? How can no one know about this? How can they not see?

  Maybe it’s always been this way, the ill plucked right out from under our noses, and we were too self-involved to piece the puzzle together. Too preoccupied, and too righteous, thoroughly enamored of our own superiority.

  The train rattles along the rails as it barrels deeper into the city. I tremble in my seat for an entirely different reason.

  My stethoscope is the first thing I retrieve from my locker. I wait for the last of the morning shift to disembark for home, and my fellow second shift to suit up and set out. The flat face of the instrument is cold against my chest. I hold my breath and listen. Every third beat it strays, a rogue flutter in the background, knocking around aimlessly and noticeably more quiet, empty as an echo. It could be any number of things. Arrhythmia is common post-surgery, though I’m not sure my arm qualifies as surgery and anesthesia was certainly no factor. Electrolyte imbalance is highly possible.

  I hear my name and slam my locker door with a start. James stands at the edge of the lockers, blocking the aisle.

  I rip the stethoscope from my ears, and wrap it casually around my neck.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” I fling my purse over my shoulder. “Hi.” It isn’t eloquent, but I’m genuinely relieved to see him standing there. Safe, and sound, and wholly pissed off.

  “Hi? That’s all you’ve got? Hi?” He stands expectantly in front of me with his hands on his hips, boxing me in. The closer he inches, the more his proximity irritates me. But James has always been one of those people, a personal space invader. “What happened to you last night?” He reaches out to take my hand, his worry clear in his gentle touch. A dark impulse flickers behind my eyes and fades before I can name it. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  James leans in close, brushing his fingertips over my jaw. I straighten up, shoulders square. The impulse returns, stronger than before and reckless to boot. My fingers ball into a fist with his hand still wrapped around them, and this does not go unnoticed. James withdraws his touch, but he doesn’t step back, and suddenly the woodsy scent of his cologne is the only thing I notice.

  Stela…

  Her presence is so pronounced that she might as well be standing between us, effective as a brick wall and infinitely more dangerous. She’s been with me all morning, suggesting, as she called it. Pulling my strings, plucking me from my bed, soothing my worries, and most importantly stilling my tongue. I could almost consider it a kindness had the motivation behind it been my fixing mother’s breakfast. But this is something else, personal, uncalled for and unwarranted interference.

  She’s terrified of what I might do, what I could say.

  “I got sick,” I say by way of explanation. James deserves more than that, but unsurprisingly, I can’t forge more than those three simple words. I can only imagine how frightening my sudden disappearance was for him. Last night certainly scared the hell out of me. The need to comfort James is far outweighed by the urge to physically hurt him.

  James leans heavily against the neighboring locker, his arms resolutely crossed. Bloodshot eyes and fresh stubble paint a picture of his sleepless night. “You got sick,” he muses, clearly not biting. “And the first thing you did was throw your phone in the toilet?”

  My concern for him is as real as my hatred, both bubbling up inside of me independent of each other. The latter is distinctly Stela. “No. I got sick, and I remembered something.” The words come readily now, supplied by a sure and steady hand. Unstoppable.

  “Remembered what?”

  Shoulders back, feet apart, James doesn’t move as I step over the bench in the middle of the aisle, tugged away from him by invisible hands. I’m not a puppet, I’m a human being, and last night happened to me. It’s mine to tell if I’m so inclined. My indignation is something Stela can use, channel, and so she does. “I remembered that I’m not as much fun as you think I am.”

  James takes a step back. The words hit him like a smack in the mouth, and his lips part but nothing comes out. My eyes burn, cheeks flushed, and I must look as cruel as I feel. But the apology on the tip of my tongue never finds its way out of my mouth as I turn on my heel and saunter out the door.

  Christ. I don’t know how I missed it. Even my walk isn’t mine.

  At the nurses station, James slides up next to me for his assignment, eyeing me like a wounded and wary animal. He takes his leave as quickly as he can, and we don’t resume our conversation. He doesn’t have the nerve, and I don’t blame him.

  She’s isolating me.

  She can’t do this. I hold the words close to my heart, where I’m sure she can hear them. Despite the mounting disdain spreading through me like poison, I maintain a pleasant neutral expression. New patients arrive before the old patient’s beds have cooled, rounds are made, bed pans are cleared, meals are served, families are consoled, people mourn and rejoice and pray and pound their fists against the vending machine. All familiar, but I am a stranger here, and yet no one seems to notice.

  The more my fury grows, the less I can find the will to speak. Is it safer that way? Stela, are you worried I’ll give something away? It scares you, doesn’t it? Not being in control, and the vulnerability that goes along with it. I hope so. I hope you’re terrified of me.

  Beneath the sleeve of my scrubs, two gentle fingers brush up my right arm and draw delicate circles around the puckering edges of my new scar. My internal tirade grinds to a halt, but when I look down I see only my own hand tracing absent patterns on my skin. “Cute.” I yank the sleeve of my shirt back down into place and pick up the chart I had placed at Mr. Dormer’s motionless feet.

  “What’s cute?” Andrea, a new intern, has stopped changing the drip and stares at me incredulously.

  I lift the chart to my face and attempt to appear entranced by it. I look to the heavily sedated body. “We’re both allergic to hydrocodone.”

  Andrea nods slowly, her eyebrows knit as she hooks the new drip into place.

  The moonlight wanes in the windows along the hall and shrinks to small silver pools that gleam up and down the white linoleum. I’ve become so alert to Stela’s presence, she might as well be whispering in my ear. I leave ten minutes before the end of my shift and I don’t stop moving until I’ve reached the elevator bank. I haven’t even shed my scrubs.

  The thought of taking the train is truly terrifying. Will she be standing on the platform waiting for me?

  Stela isn’t there. Only the whistling wind, and a turbulent sky. The night is charged with the electricity of an approaching storm, still miles away but sure to arrive by morning. I’m certain that Stela is bringing me to her. Now, in the dreary sinister light of the platform, seeing her would be a comfort.

  My body recoils like a released spring. Stela has vanished, and only in her absence can I understand how firmly she had been holding me. My vision brightens as though floodlit. Those around me sharpen to such an astounding degree
that I can see the pores on their tired faces. I can hear everything, the whispers, the weary breathing, the crinkle of crumbled bills and papers stuffed in pockets, and fingertips working phones as loud as the surf. Stela is still close at hand, but her attention is elsewhere.

  Every stray, floating fleck of dust and debris shines like glitter in the air, and I reach out to touch a lingering cloud of dirt to see if the haze is as soft as it looks. The clarity is astounding, undeniably beautiful, like finding out I’ve been far-sighted all my life and handed my first pair of glasses.

  My budding smile melts from my lips as an all-too-familiar odor seizes my senses and fills me from toe to top. Metallic and hot, thick bodied and slow moving. With the first involuntary swallow my body temperature soars, and my skin tingles with disgust so violent I barely shoulder my way to a nearby trash can before vomiting. Clammy with sweat, I lean my back against the wall and I focus on my breathing. I open my eyes, straining to adjust to the dark again. My whole body shudders while several onlookers shift their feet, faces twisted in my direction, silently daring me to step onto their car.

  The world seems lonelier. Everything is returned to its unremarkable state. Wherever Stela is she is otherwise occupied.

  The train arrives on time and I wrap my hands tightly around a standing rail toward the back of the car.

  I can’t live like this.

  * * *

  Our brownstone is hung with heavy shadows, and my mother’s door is closed. I stand with my ear pressed against it. I never crawled in bed beside my mother, not even as a small child. It’s surprising how strong the urge to seek that comfort is now.

  Everything is still. I take a step back and stand in the long hall, staring out into the empty living room like the only living, breathing thing in the world. The house is different, strange somehow, although everything seems as it should be.

  I bolt up to the second floor and rush into the safety of my bedroom, flipping on the light and closing the door. Folded neatly on my pillow is the shirt Stela commandeered the night before. Cautiously, I make my way to the bed. Every corner of the room hums with her presence. I pick the garment up carefully and bring it to my nose. Lilac and incense, the scent fills me with warmth that I immediately resent, and I throw the shirt against my closet door. Stela is cheating me out of the confrontation she is wise enough to avoid.

  I backtrack to the kitchen for a glass of water and a carving knife, carrying them both quietly upstairs. The full weight of my anxiety doesn’t descend until I’m showered and ready for sleep. I lie awake, clutching the splintered handled of the carving knife beneath my pillow with both eyes trained on the closed door.

  As terrified and angry as I am, there is no one else I can talk to about what is happening between us. Was she even aware of what she was doing? How could today have been anything but intentional? If her presence is frightening, her absence is twice as unsettling. There is no one to keep watch over my door. No one but Stela to keep the rest of her kind outside where they belong.

  I must have dozed off, because awareness arrives quite suddenly. The hairs on the tops of my arms stand on end, and my brain fires a tingle of adrenaline. My muscles are sluggish with fatigue, but my fingers tighten around the handle of the carving knife. I shoot up in the bed, a faint sheen of sweat breaking out across my brow as the bedcovers pool around my waist in the faint glow from the window.

  “A weapon is a rude greeting.” Her outline is barely discernible between the parted curtains. My ragged breath fills the room and I lower the knife, unwilling to relinquish it completely. I can sense her movements like a change in air current though her steps are soundless. Her silhouette has vanished into the shadows.

  “Where are you?” No sooner than I ask, the bedside light flicks on and I stifle a scream. Stela has not moved away from the curtains, leaning casually like she belongs here. I’m as angry in an instant as I have been all day. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  She laughs, a whimsical sound too light and girlish for her. Her hair, resting just past her shoulders, is in straight blond plaits that curl faintly at the ends. She looks much the way she did when we first met. Immaculately dressed in an invitingly soft navy sweater and pressed herringbone slacks. The ensemble is a far cry from the T-shirt she stole, which seemed so garishly out of place.

  “I know the hour, and you should be asleep.”

  “And you should be in a boardroom, negotiating the terms of a hostile takeover.”

  Stela turns from the window, her arms crossed lightly over her chest. Her legs slowly make their way toward me. The movement is precise, fluid as a dance, almost feline. “How do you mean?” she asks.

  I gesture absently with the knife, still clutched in my right hand. “Aren’t you a bit overdressed for an evening of skulking in the shadows?”

  Stela doesn’t falter, or smile. She tilts her chin, one sculpted eyebrow arched to the middle of her forehead. “I do not like to repeat myself, Elizabeth. The weapon. Put it down.” Marble-faced, with an emotionless expression as hard as the rest of her, her black eyes fill every empty space inside me. I toss the knife carelessly on the nightstand as a breeze passes over my bare chest. My blush can’t be controlled any more than the awkward fumbling for blankets can be avoided, or made graceful. Stela smirks and looks away.

  “You used me.”

  “Pardon?”

  I sit taller with the sheet bunched under my arms. “Don’t,” I warn, and Stela tilts her head. “I know it was you. You pulled me out of bed this morning, pushed me around. You made me say things…”

  The muscles in her jaw clench and ripple with unshed tension. An instant later I’m curling my legs underneath me to make room for her before she sits on them. The bed barely dips beneath her added weight. She keeps her eyes on the window. What I can see of Stela’s features are pained. She seems imbued with a bone-weariness. She drags a hand through her hair, immovable as stone beside me, radiating hostility.

  “Would you rather I left you to spend the day in bed, wallowing in foreboding?”

  “So, you were what? Doing me a favor?”

  “It would not be the first time, Elizabeth.” She insists upon my name. I can’t tell if it’s a joke the way she uses it, or something she enjoys saying. Stela turns and glances at my scarred arm. Her eyes find their way back to mine, and I can’t tell who’s pushing or pulling anymore. The sensation of meeting her stare is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, a bit like drowning. Not in a romantic way, but smothering and all-consuming—black and breathless and disconcertingly addictive. I struggle to organize my thoughts and force myself to look down at my hands, rubbing them nervously in my lap.

  “I don’t need or want your assistance getting out of bed in the morning. You overstepped and you know it. You were cold to my mother, and you were worse to James.”

  Stela almost smiles at his name, and runs her tongue along her teeth. Which are normal, totally normal human teeth…

  “James.” His name sounds like a sigh and she faces me head on. There is in fact a bulge to her upper lip, a gentle protrusion. Undetectable to anyone who wasn’t actively searching for concealed fangs. “Is he the reason for your vexation?”

  “No, I—He deserved…”

  “The truth?” Her eyes are comically wide, mocking, lips spreading into a genuinely amused smile, and it is the most condescending expression I’ve ever seen on anyone who is not my mother.

  “I wasn’t going to tell him the truth,” I defend.

  “No. You were not,” she agrees. “So why should it matter what was said?”

  I quell my fury, before I say something that might get me killed. “Stela. I’m a person. Not a toy.”

  “Yes. You are a human being.” She nods long and slow, speaking much more softly than she has so far. “A human being who sustained a serious injury, and confronted a very unsettling truth that few have ever had the burden, or the opportunity to carry.” Her hand finds my shin, gripping it gently. “
You reacted far better than I would have guessed. And in the morning when the nightmare was still so raw, you were frightened. Which is understandable. But you had a job to do, and a mother to cook for, and a witness to appease, and I willed you onward. My aim was to aid you in those tasks, not to violate you.”

  Locked in Stela’s patient focus, I struggle to maintain my indignation. When I try to gain a reprieve by breaking her gaze, I find that I can’t. I’m not sure I want to. But the draw isn’t something she forces, nor is it contrived the way the rest of my day has been. “You don’t get to decide what I need. Please, don’t do that again.”

  “Do not even flirt with the idea of telling another soul what you know,” she warns, and I wonder how much of a liability I am to her.

  “Deal.” I nod my head, and Stela shifts her eyes warily over the glinting blade on my nightstand. My mind reels the second she releases me from her stare, like a held breath finally released.

  “Are you still afraid that I mean to cause you harm?”

  “You’re an anomaly, an unknown. That scares me. But the knowledge that you’re not alone is what terrifies me.”

  She purses her lips and falls into a thoughtful silence. “There are no others here. Your heart is racing.”

  “I know. It’s been erratic all day.”

  Stela closes her eyes and tilts her head toward me. She leans forward, a pleased smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Not erratic,” she says after a quiet eternity. “Merely an echo.” Her eyes aren’t as vacant when they open. There’s a light in her face I haven’t seen before that makes her appear younger, maybe even younger than me.

  “An echo of what?”

  “Of mine.”

  As though a dial has been turned up, the echo thunders in my chest, pounding in my ears every third heartbeat. The rush of my blood becomes audible, like a whirlpool locked inside. Stela’s blood, surging in my veins. At the sound of her voice and as it had the night before, my body sings out to be closer to her. “The echo, it’s because of the blood you gave me?”