by Eve Langlais
“Are you sure you don’t want me to help you forget?” she asked.
He shook his head. “She doesn’t deserve that despite what she did.” He glanced over at me.
“Take care of her.”
“I will.”
The darkness siphoned me down and spat me out into a room, another hospital, the body in the bed bigger, swaddled head to toe in bandages. Someone was hurt. The tubes emerging from the cocoon hooked into modern machines. Flanking the bed, looking shell-shocked were Geoff and Winnie.
Sad because their Mommy was broken in that bed. I wanted to tell them to not waste their tears, but when I opened my eyes, the pain stole my voice and I sank again. Back into a place where there was no pain. To a place where I was happy before my mother tried to kill me.
Barefoot, and wearing a loose summer dress, I stood on the sandy beach by the lake. A stick in hand, I traced symbols. The same symbols Grandma drew on me after the drowning incident. Circle to circle and around again. Making things whole, then looping them to others to form a chain. The more I traced, the more I could see the logic in how the sigil could be used to heal. A tiny chained set of them covering a whole body could possibly work a miracle.
They could do magic.
In that subconscious place, I drew over and over. Hours. Weeks. Minutes. Eternities.
I kept drawing until my sunny place shadowed. The waves from my tranquil sea turned dark and tossed themselves onto the beach, erasing all my drawings. The rolling tide parted as a figure strode from it.
“Kane?”
He appeared on my beach, tired and disheveled. Gaunt, too. He managed a wan smile. “Hello, sweetheart.”
“What’s happening?” Because I knew I didn’t belong on this beach. Just like I knew Kane wasn’t really here.
“You have to wake up, sweetheart.”
“I don’t want to. It hurts.” An understatement. There was a reason why I hid inside my own head.
“I know it hurts, and I wish I could be there to hold you.”
“You are here.” I stepped toward him, and his shape wavered the moment I reached out. “You’re a ghost!”
“In a sense. This place isn’t real.”
“Am I dead?” I asked.
He opened his mouth and shook his head. “You have to wake up.”
“Waking up hurts,” I grumbled.
“You can’t hide here forever,” he said softly. “Can’t hide from fate.”
“Will you be there?”
“No.” And something in the way he said it…
“Kane?”
He looked away from me to the lightning flashing over my lake. “I have to go.”
“Go where? Tell me what’s going on.” I reached for him, but he was gone. I stood alone on my beach, only the numbness I’d enjoyed had gone.
Time to move on and face reality.
Waking up would hurt. Maybe I could minimize it. I dragged my stick in the sand and drew the symbol to heal. Drew it large enough to hold me. I lay within its crook before I dragged a sharp stone over my skin. It hurt and it didn’t in this dream place. The blood sure looked red.
I whispered the shape of magic as I leaked into the shape and the spell took hold.
“Heal.”
I arched inside the confines of the sigil as power filled it. The power sheeted me. The pain reached a level of ecstasy where I stopped breathing, my heart stilled, and I teetered on the point of death before tumbling back into the land of the living.
23
I woke suddenly, my eyes flashing open to see a ceiling made of white tile. The pain I expected didn’t materialize. I realized a second too late that I wasn’t alone.
“Thank goodness you’re awake.”
I glanced in incomprehension at the man by my bedside. It took a moment to recognize him.
“Darryl?” He appeared different. Slicker. His hair cut differently, his style of dress more city yuppie than country boy.
“Naomi, you had us so worried.” He smiled and said the right things, even grabbed my hands, his grip icy cold against my skin.
I yanked free. “Where am I? What’s happening?”
“You were in an accident.”
As more clarity returned to me, I realized I wasn’t at home but lying in a hospital bed. How had I gotten here? Last I recalled, it was New Year’s Eve and…
As I replayed Darryl’s betrayal and the events with Kane, I muttered a soft, “Oh.”
His ah-shucks look disappeared for a more cunning one. “I see you remember.”
“Yup.” Every humiliating moment. Where was a nurse when I needed one? I didn’t want to deal with Darryl. Not now. Not ever. “Why are you here?”
“To give you a chance to apologize to me.”
Maybe it was because I’d just woken up, but his words didn’t make sense. “Me apologize? You betrayed me.”
“Hardly betrayal since I never made you any promises.”
I opened my mouth only to realize that he spoke the truth. He’d never promised I was his one and only. Still… “You pretended to like me.”
“And in your desperation, you gobbled it up. Pathetic, really.”
I might have been more upset if I hadn’t realized something crucial. “You are an asshole. Thank God, I never slept with you.”
He frowned, and before he could open his mouth, I waved my hand. “Now shoo. Begone. I want nothing to do with you.” I hoped his skanky girlfriend gave him crabs. Maybe I’d go looking for a spell. Infecto El Crabbio to His Dicki-aye.
“You would have enjoyed it.” Darryl suddenly felt a need to reassert his masculinity.
I enjoyed taking it down. “Not likely.” I deliberately let my gaze go to his groin and said, “Guess it’s possible you’re a grower.” But my tone said not likely.
“Perhaps it needed more incentive.”
“Says you. Could be age related, too. There’s a pill for that.” As his annoyance grew, I found the strength to sit up, and regretted it. My eyes throbbed.
“You shouldn’t insult me given your limited options. With your lover missing, another needs to step in and take his place.”
“What?” I tried to comprehend once more what he was saying, wishing the pounding behind my eyes would abate. And why was it so hot? Every single pore of my body oozed sweat. I could feel it soaking my thin hospital nightgown, drenching my hair. A lovely time for a hot flash.
Darryl took on a sneer as he said, “Let me say this slowly so you understand. The one you know as Kane is gone.”
“Kane is gone?” It took me a second to put the pieces together. “He was in the car with me.”
“They say it’s a miracle you’re alive. Apparently, someone didn’t want you to be the one when the time came.”
“No one tried to kill me. It was an accident.” The moose came out of nowhere.
“Impressive the number of times you’ve eluded death. But in the end, you’ll still die.”
“Is that a threat?”
“A promise. Even you can no longer derail a plan put into play centuries ago.”
“I won’t let you kill me,” I stated.
“You won’t have a choice. Especially now that your cheating lover is out of the way.”
“Kane’s not dead.” After all, I’d survived. Surely, he had, too.
“Then where is he?” Darryl asked. “Because no one’s seen him since that night. Just the wreck of his car and your broken body. I tell you lots of folks were hoping you’d die and leave the legacy to one of your progeny. Problem being, there’s no time to properly wake the guardian magic in them.”
“You’re not making any sense. I want you to leave.” Hard to sound forceful when you’re dizzy in bed, soaking the sheets, and pretty sure you smell like a locker room full of hockey players just coming off the ice and a hard practice.
“I’ll go but think upon my words. When the time comes, we can do this the easy way, or the hard.” Darryl left, and I heaved out a breath.
What the hell was that about? And could it be true? Had Kane died in the crash?
I lay there, shell shocked and sweaty, which was how Winnie found me.
“Mom. You’re awake!” She threw herself at me for a hug. It took me a second to squeeze her back. “Figures you’d regain consciousness when I go for a pee.”
“I thought peeing was an old lady thing,” was my weak croak.
Winnie pulled away and offered a wan smile. “You’re not old. How do you feel?”
I felt…remarkably better than expected. “I’m okay. I think. What happened? How long was I out?” I didn’t ask the most burning question yet: Where was Kane?
“You’ve been unconscious since New Year’s Day. The accident happened after midnight sometime.”
“How long have I been unconscious?” I expected to hear hours, maybe days.
“Almost a month.”
My jaw hit the floor, crawled away, and left me unable to speak.
Winnie hastened to explain. “You were hurt really bad when the car hit that tree.”
“Because of the moose. It came out of nowhere,” I whispered. “It was huge.”
“So was the tree.” Winnie’s laughter was shrill. “It didn’t help that, for some reason, the air bags didn’t deploy and your seatbelt snapped. You shot out the windshield and hit the ground over twenty feet away.”
I had a vague recollection of Kane yelling and flinging out his hand. Saving me?
“How badly was I hurt?”
Winnie glanced away. “Bad. The doctors didn’t think you’d survive.”
I clutched at the sheet and shifted. Where was the pain? Shouldn’t there be pain? “What kind of injuries did I have?” Obviously not that severe given I’d healed in a month.
“So this is the weird thing. You had just about every bone broken. You were in a cast, Mom. Neck to toe. They said you’d never walk again your spine was so messed up.”
“Impossible.” I glanced down at my body hidden by the bedding. I wiggled my feet and legs. Saw them moving. “I feel fine.” A bit sluggish and lightheaded, but otherwise fine.
“No kidding, impossible. The doctors are calling you a medical miracle.”
It was then I understood what had happened. “You used a magical sigil to heal me.”
“Not me. And not for lack of trying. You’d think Grandma’s book of spells would have something about healing. Even my online sources didn’t have anything that could do more than ease a fever or help hair grow.”
“The healing sigil is easy. It looks like this.” I went to trace it on the sheet covering my lap, only to pause. My finger hovered as the shaped dangled out of my reach. “I can’t remember,” I muttered.
“Are you saying you healed yourself?” Winnie squeaked. “Since when can you do magic? I thought you didn’t believe.”
“Hard to ignore it when it tries to kill you.”
Rather than look shocked, Winnie nodded. “I heard about some of the attempts, but Jace says most of them stopped once you fully activated the house defenses.”
“Exactly how much does Jace know?” And why hadn’t he told me? He’d certainly done his damnedest to convince me to leave. Why not give me the real reason why?
“He knows more than he’s telling, that’s for sure.” Winnie grimaced. “And trust me, I’ve been trying to loosen his tongue.” I really didn’t want to know how she attempted that.
“You’re still together?” I asked.
“And going strong. What can I say? I like my men mature.”
“Be careful.” I couldn’t help the mommy moment.
“I will, Mom. I’m not expecting marriage and kids, if that’s what you’re worrying about. It’s more that he’s hot, excellent in bed, plus he knows stuff about this lake.”
“Good luck getting him to talk. Kane never would.” I said his name and waited. Waited for her to tell me he was in a bed down the hall.
Winnie’s gaze dropped, and she clasped and unclasped her hands. “About Kane.”
My stomach turned into a marble-sized ball. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“That’s the belief.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Didn’t they find his body?”
“The car burned.”
“And? Remains don’t evaporate. There would have been bones.”
She shook her head.
“Then he must have been ejected from the car like me.”
“They searched the forest and the road.”
“He can’t be gone.” I’d yet to explore my feelings for him. To truly ponder if he was real and honest when he said he saw my flaws as marks of pride. I hadn’t decided if I would forgive him for using me. I definitely wanted more sex with him. More of the passion that brought me to life.
“I’m sorry,” Winnie said. “I didn’t even know you were friends with him.”
Now wasn’t the time to explain how we’d become more in that last moment. It surprised me she didn’t ask about Darryl. A man I’d misjudged. A guy who had used me. I just couldn’t see to what purpose. “Darryl was here.”
“What the hell did that twat waffle want?”
“He came to tell me Kane was dead.” I didn’t repeat the other crazy stuff.
“What a douchebag.”
It seemed as good a time as ever to say, “I dumped Darryl at that party.”
“I know. I called him to let him know you were in the hospital, and he had the nerve to ask me out!”
“Turns out he wasn’t who I thought.”
My daughter grabbed my hand. “Happens to the best of us.”
Winnie didn’t get to stay long because once the nurses realized I was awake, they came flying in on rubber-soled shoes and smock tops to flock me.
I was their miracle patient, and it wasn’t long before I wanted to escape their clutches. They, however, insisted on running a battery of tests. I let them take some blood and my blood pressure, even my temperature, but I drew the line at anything else until I had a shower.
Once I was naked I got the most shocking surprise of all. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Then I rubbed myself like I was an oil lamp with a genie inside.
Not only did I not have a single broken bone or bruise, my healing had gone deeper.
I’d given myself a makeover. A magical tummy tuck and boob job along with a replenishing boost to my skin that had dealt with the dry skin.
I groped myself. Squeezed my boobs. They were mine. I palmed my flat tummy.
Flat.
Fuck.
Seriously. Fuck.
The cellulite on my thighs? Gone.
Surreal. I kept patting my body in the hospital bathroom, feeling the flesh and coming to grips with the fact it was mine, if slightly modified. I think I would have been freaked out more if I’d not noticed the imperfections left behind. The spell had not turned back the arms of time. The silvery lines, marking my pregnancies, remained as grooves in my skin. The crow’s feet by my eyes—with the thicker lashes—gave me character. I looked like a woman in her forties who’d taken care of herself.
With the most awesome flat belly. I couldn’t stop staring down, noticing the bush. Lush and thick. Wait a second. I could see it. No sagging flesh in the way.
Could a spell have done all this? Or could it be that autophagy, a process where body would process excess skin and fat to survive, was the root cause? After all, I’d been asleep for a month.
It made me wonder, was I on a machine that whole time? How did they feed me? So many questions about what happened while I slept.
But the biggest one of all?
Had I healed myself inside my mind? It seemed farfetched, but then again, what I knew of magic wouldn’t even fill a tiny cup.
The only person who might know was gone.
What had happened to me? Why couldn’t I remember the symbol? If I could heal…I could…
I frowned. Healing the world would kill me. So how would I pick and choose? What if I saved a bad person? What if I didn’t
save the good?
How could I decide?
Despite the doctors wanting to run even more tests on me to see if they could decipher my miracle of healing, I fled. For one, the food totally sucked. A person could only eat so much sugar free Jell-O. Two, I’d already had six people sneak in to ask me to heal a friend or relative. And three, I was pretty sure one of my nurses was possessed. By a good-looking ghost, but still, possessed. I saw it shimmering inside her, not always fitting within her body.
Want to bet if I mentioned it, the doctors would keep me and analyze me a little further?
No thanks. I checked myself out under the supervision of my kids, who tucked me into the front seat of Winnie’s car. Geoff rode in the back, his hand on my shoulder for support.
The reminder I wasn’t alone helped quite a bit. Lying in that hospital bed, I’d felt confined. Strangers all around me, too cheerful, too talkative.
I just wanted to go home and be surrounded by my things. I wanted to see my cat. My bed. Pajamas where my ass didn’t hang out.
As we pulled into the drive, the house welcomed me. Not in words or acts, just a general sense of wellbeing. Relief.
It felt good to be home.
Geoff bounced ahead to open the door.
Excited, I called out to my pet. “Grisou. I’m home. Where are you baby?” I hoped he wasn’t disappointed I didn’t arrive with any treats. Usually when I called him, I had something from the butcher that I knew he’d like.
I saw the shadow of a massive cat come bounding before the beast itself popped into view. Bigger than a lion with my Grisou’s face.
What the hell?
And that wasn’t the weirdest part. His meow—which boomed enough to make me blink—was followed by an indignant, “Where have you been? You know I hate sleeping by myself.”
24
Geoff hauled my ass up off the floor. “Mom, are you okay?”
No, I was not okay. My cat was the size of a pony. And he spoke. Maybe I should have stayed in the hospital.
“Grisou startled me,” I admitted, looking down and getting a confusing dual view. In one, my normal-sized cat twined between my legs purring. In the imprint over it, ginormous kitty was practically knocking me over. Also purring. Not as soft and cute when multiplied in size.