A Ghost for a Clue

by C L R Draeco

  That got a chuckle out of me. “I think you mean pandas. Koalas eat eucalyptus.”

  “Whatthefuckever. If a standin’ wave is their habitat, and electricity’s their food, what happens if you take all that away? They disappear. Except when that happens to pandas, you get dead pandas as evidence, but when that happens to ghosts, all you get are a bunch o’ scared people swearin’ they saw somethin’ white with black circles where their eyes oughta be.” Roy glanced inside the nook and jerked back. “Holy hypershit. The gauge just came on.”

  “Sweet.”

  “But we got a long wait. It took me nearly an hour to corral the horse’s soul.”

  “We’re not waiting. We’ll leave it and come back tomorrow.”

  “You got my vote. Let’s go get your girl.”

  We started to back up when Torula’s shout echoed around us. “No, don’t!”

  Fear sliced through me, and I half crawled, half stumbled my way out. I was in a nightmare, not moving even though I was running as fast as I could. A beam of light swung towards me from up ahead.

  “Bram?” Torula called out.

  The sight of her standing safe where I’d left her released me from the bad dream. “Are you all right?”

  “It’s Thomas. He’s taking Truth—” She swayed and staggered forward then collapsed in a heap on the ground.

  “Spore!” I rushed forward and lifted her in my arms. Goddamn it. She needs the jammer. I clambered up the stairs and carried her out, laying her gently on the grass and resting her head on my lap. “Spore, can you hear me?”

  Roy emerged from the basement, and I pulled out my car key and tossed it to him. “Her jammer’s in the car.”

  He caught it and froze, gaping at a spot behind me. I clenched my fist, just as I heard a stranger’s voice say, “What seems to be the problem here?”

  I whipped around to see two police officers walking down the pathway towards us. Human cops, not robots. Good. We had a chance to reason our way out of this.

  I glanced up at the small window where the light had turned on earlier—which now suddenly turned off. My hands tightened protectively around Torula as I forced my breathing to calm down.

  “She fainted,” I said. “We need to get her away from here.”

  “Were you out drinking, sir?” the policeman asked.

  “Heck no,” Roy said. “She might be pregnant.”

  “She’s claustrophobic,” I said. “We went into the basement, and she couldn’t handle it.”

  “That section is off limits to the public, sir.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” Roy cleared his throat. “We were just huntin’ for ghosts. That’s not illegal, is it?”

  The cops exchanged doubting glances. “Did you say ghosts, sir?”

  “Technically, just one,” Roy said. “One ghost.”

  “You grulmrulmrulmi,” Torula mumbled.

  “Ma’am, are you all right?” the female officer asked.

  “A protocol Manhattan tavern her,” Torula said, but only half her mouth moved.

  I clenched my jaw and fought to keep my composure.

  The officer moved closer and peered at her. “Could you raise both arms, ma’m?”

  Torula raised her left arm, but the right one remained limp on her side.

  “Both arms, Spore.” I stared nervously at her right arm.

  She just lifted her left arm higher.

  “She could be having a stroke,” the officer said.

  My heart thudded, and a trickle of blood oozed out of Torula’s nostril.

  “Jesus.” I reached into my pocket, and the officers reached for their weapons.

  “Keep your hands where we can—”

  “It’s just my handkerchief,” I said. Cautiously, the officers allowed me to take it out and wipe Torula’s nose. The frank red stain on white linen blasted a tunnel through my mind, bringing back the memory of a frightened toddler’s dream. I seed her blood wiped like that, then she died!

  50

  At The Emergency Room

  I lifted Torula in my arms and charged like an angry bull towards the road. The officers shouted out warnings at me until they realized where I was headed. Torula regained consciousness as we neared the police car. I set her down, and the female officer helped ease her into the backseat.

  Roy brandished my car key. “Listen, I gotta get somethin’ really important—”

  “Please, get in,” the officer said.

  Roy sighed, shoved the key into his pocket, and complied.

  As we drove away from the overpowering effects of the hyperwill, I glanced back at the church. She should get better now. But instead, Torula moaned and began to shiver. I held her close.

  I glanced at Roy. He shook his head. Without the hyperjammer, neither of us knew how to help her.

  At the emergency room, the police kept Roy and me confined in the crowded waiting lounge. The staff whisked her away, and I clenched my fists, clinging desperately to absolutely nothing.

  Why isn’t she getting better?

  A resident arrived and asked me a flurry of questions. I craned my neck each time the emergency room doors swung open. The young doctor’s words sounded muffled, as though filtered through gauze. What had the patient been eating? Had she been drinking? Taken any drugs? Any recent injuries? Other syncopal episodes?

  “Other what?” The unknown term jumped out and rose above the melee in my mind. That’s when I was told: Torula had lost consciousness again.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I fought the urge to push aside the petite intern and charge into the emergency room. She said she would return as soon as she had answers.

  I need to get the hyperjammer.

  I glanced at the exit. What if I made a run for it? A police officer loomed into view and wiped the plan off of my mind. I glanced around, like a man who’d misplaced his purpose, and my gaze landed on Roy, who’d been watching me.

  “You okay, man?” Roy asked.

  “She needs the jammer.”

  “Been tryin’ to figure out how to tell ’em that.” Roy bobbed his head towards the cops. “But there’s no twistin’ a tale that’ll make any sense.”

  I paced, aching to do something. Anything, besides wait. A phone call came in, and I answered my iHub only to find out it wasn’t the one ringing. Eyes on my wristband, it dawned on me to call up Torula’s mother to tell her where I was and why.

  The officers approached and said a caretaker from the mission had confirmed the church wasn’t going to press charges. We were to be let off with nothing but a reprimand—to grow up.

  Roy hitched a ride with the cops back to the church to get the car, and I stationed myself by the emergency room doors. I peered through the view panels and saw too many curtains, too many people. I stepped back. The sign on the wall said “one companion for each patient.” Then why am I outside?

  A nurse bustled by, and I stopped her. “A patient, Torula Jackson. Dr. Torula Jackson. She’s alone inside. I need to—”

  “Sorry. We’re filled beyond capacity. We need to restrict who can be allowed companions at the moment.”

  I took a seat, stood up and paced, sat down again, then repeated the cycle. Just when I was about to call Roy to ask what was taking so long, he came striding through the entrance.

  The crowd seemed to part as Roy approached, the hyperjammer on its chain dangling from his hand. Time slowed down as Roy lifted his hand and—

  A tall blonde woman stepped into his path, and Roy shoved the jammer into his pocket.

  I charged forward, but just as I neared him, Roy raised his voice. “Now what’s a damned reporter from Theory got to do with me?”

  I veered to the side and walked on down the corridor.

  Damn. Getting the jammer to Torula was more important than whatever I thought NASA might think.

  I turned back and locked eyes with Roy who was walking towards me, still arguing with the reporter. The chain dangled freely out of his pocket.

  I strode
past him, eyes forward.

  “Don’t believe everythin’ the cops tell you. Now, go bug somebody else.”

  I zipped past him, and my fingers hooked around the chain, yanking the hyperjammer cleanly out of his pocket and into my hand. My purpose was restored.

  I glanced back at Roy marching out of the hospital, the reporter by his side.

  Clutching the hyperjammer like a talisman, I pushed the emergency room doors open. It was like diving into a turbulent sea, but I welcomed the chaos. It kept me invisible as I searched for Torula. Above the hubbub, or perhaps beneath it, I heard her moan. She lay on her side on a gurney pushed against a wall along a walkway.

  “Hey,” I said. Her lips were pale, but her eyes were a deep shade of anxiety. “How’re you doing?”

  “Caribou sleigh?” she asked.

  “What?” I leaned closer.

  “Can you soufflé?”

  I forced out a comforting smile. “You’re going to be fine.” Gently, I lifted her head and slipped the chain around her neck. I twisted the jammer, checked for the ring of light that confirmed it was on, then tucked it beneath her shirt.

  “There,” I said, my tension easing. “You’ll be all right now.”

  She nodded, and I sighed with relief. Then her shoulders began to shake, and her eyes rolled up into their sockets, her body wracked by a convulsion.

  “She’s seizing.” Someone pushed me aside before I could say or do anything. A nurse ushered me outside—back to the waiting area where everyone was reduced to useless.

  I stared, mouth agape, at the emergency room doors as they swung shut, as though telling me, “You should have stayed out.”

  My heart pounded, barely able to keep up with my thoughts that ran wild.

  Did our experiments lead to this? Manipulating EM waves. Capturing her resonance. Testing her fears.

  My head began to throb. I found a seat and surrendered to the wait, all the while wrestling with myself whether I should take the hyperjammer back or leave it be.

  After a long while, a familiar voice cut into the gnarled thread of my thoughts.

  “Bram, how is she?”

  I glanced up, surprised to find Triana there. Then I remembered I had called her. As I shared the little that I knew, the intern returned, and Triana introduced herself as the patient’s mother.

  “Her condition has stabilized. But we found a small lump in her neck during the routine examination. Did you know about that?”

  “No,” Triana said. “Have you taken a biopsy?”

  “Yes. We’re just waiting for the results.”

  Triana was then subjected to the same questions I had been asked. For the first time, I found things out about Torula’s father she herself probably never knew. He was French-Japanese. A microbiologist who died in a sporting accident when Torula was five years old. As far as Triana knew, he had no family in America. They were all either in Europe or in Japan.

  “I need to be with her,” Triana said.

  “I’m sorry,” the fledgling doctor said and gave some reason we had no choice but to accept.

  Triana glanced at me. “I’ll be back,” she said then stalked off.

  I sank into my seat and did my best to ignore the caustic thought that this had all begun with my return. I tried to crack my knuckles, but I’d exhausted every pop and snap I could get out of them.

  When Triana returned, her mouth was set in a grim, straight line. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

  “Leaving?”

  “We’re moving her to Tromino’s hospital.”

  51

  As Though Nothing Was Wrong

  Torula’s hospital room bore the soothing colors of autumn, with drapes and furniture dipped in shades of gold and brown. A homey atmosphere, no doubt meant to be calming. Still, the ground beneath my feet trembled as I walked, and I put on a relaxed smile as though nothing was wrong.

  “Nice place you got here,” I said, taking a seat on the daybed, which looked much like a regular couch.

  “Glad you like it,” Torula said from her hospital bed, still wan but doing her best to be her usual self too. We had an unspoken agreement to treat her condition as if it weren’t there. After all, we still didn’t know what it was. The only thing we knew for certain was that she wasn’t pregnant. It was a relief to us both, though a part of me was somewhat disappointed.

  “Mustard curtains. Mayonnaise walls. Furniture the colors of coffee and burgers.” I breathed deep—half-expecting the smell of a deli but inhaled citrus-scented disinfectant instead. “You’ll gain weight in a place like this.” Since laughter was the best medicine, I doled it out as much as I could.

  She smiled, and blood slowly oozed out of her nostril.

  “Jesus.” I rushed to her side and handed her a tissue box from the bedside table.

  She closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and stanched the trickle.

  “Should I call a nurse?” I couldn’t keep the act of nonchalance any longer.

  “No. They’re coming to get me for some tests anyway.”

  I slipped my hand into my pants pocket to clutch the hyperjammer. I had removed it from Torula and turned it off before the ambulance ride. Her condition had started when she wasn’t wearing it and worsened when I had turned it on. It was probably doing more harm than good or, more likely, serving no purpose at all.

  Torula sniffled and looked at me. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “I doubt it.” I’d lost all comprehension of my own thoughts hours ago.

  “You’re worried Truth’s dream might be coming true.”

  I smirked to hide my fears. “No, I was actually thinking . . .” I looked at the blood-stained tissue in her hands. “. . . ketchup.”

  She almost chuckled but winced instead and laid her fingers against her temple. “Don’t . . . make me . . . laugh.”

  “Sorry.” I didn’t know what else to do.

  The door swung open, and a nurse with a wheelchair walked in.

  “I’ll come with you,” I said.

  “No,” Torula said. “Stay here and rest. You look—”

  “Awful, I know.”

  She smiled, but the pinched corners of her eyes told me she was covering up her pain. “You need some sleep. Stay here and wait for Mom. She just drove Truth over to my aunt’s. She’ll be back soon.”

  The nurse wheeled her away, and in the sudden emptiness, I realized it wasn’t the ground that was trembling. It was me from exhaustion. I sat back down on the daybed, closed my eyes, and let waves of slumber lap over me.

  Just as the heaviness lifted off my shoulders, the swoosh of someone entering the room snapped me back to wakefulness.

  Tromino, in his white doctor’s coat, grunted a greeting as he snatched the cliPad from its holster. I watched in uncomfortable silence as he tapped through Torula’s medical records.

  He scowled. “I need you to confirm this. It says she may have had a TIA, but she never saw a doctor about it?”

  “What’s a TIA?” I fought to keep my eyes open as I looked up at him.

  “Transient ischemic attack. A mini stroke. It says here she experienced temporary blindness, aphasia, paresthesia—”

  “I . . . I don’t know those terms.”

  “Difficulty speaking, numbing or tingling of the limbs. You were there when these happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t do anything?”

  “She recovered.”

  “For God’s sake, her words were slurred, and she had transient vision loss. That didn’t alarm you?”

  I scrambled through the cobwebs that clouded my memory, uncertain why everyone else had just let it go. “We thought it was just because . . . she was about to pass out.”

  “Just because?” Tromino glared at me like a flabbergasted principal about to expel the school dunce. “Why would you think it’s normal for anyone to pass out? What was she doing? Sitting in a centrifuge at NASA?”

  Jesus. Where was my mind?
/>   “What was she doing?” he asked again.

  “She was . . . at the greenhouse.” I kneaded my forehead trying to recall when Torula had lost her vision. “It was an experiment involving EM waves and holograms.”

  “How many others in the staff exhibited the same symptoms?”

  I swallowed. “None.” I felt the dunce cap fall over my face and smother me.

  The door swung open, and Triana walked in. Tromino gruffly slipped the cliPad back into its base.

  She glanced at the empty bed. “Where’s Tor?”

  “Getting more tests,” I said.

  She turned towards her son. “And what do we know so far?”

  He walked towards the door. “I’ll call her attending and have her explain—”

  “No,” Triana said. “Tell me.”

  Tromino let out a heavy sigh. “Better have a seat then.”

  She sank down next to me on the couch, and Tromino took the chair beside her.

  “What Torula had this morning was another TIA,” he said. “Not a full-blown stroke, but it’s a symptom of something else. Tor has a rare disease of the distal internal carotid arteries called Moyamoya.”

  The faintest frown flickered on Triana’s brow.

  “What does that do?” I asked. “What does it mean?”

  “It’s a progressive cerebrovascular disorder caused by blocked arteries at the base of the brain. The only treatment is surgery for revascularization, a bypass to improve blood flow to the brain.” Tromino’s face remained stolid, marking him as a veteran at separating his profession from his emotions.

  “How does one get . . . Moyamoya?” I asked.

  “The etiology is unknown, although there’s some indication it could be hereditary.”

  “Not from me,” Triana said, vehemently.

  Tromino nodded. “It’s more common in Asian populations. Particularly the Japanese. But one more problem is—her condition’s concurrent with a thyroid tumor.”

  “Papillary carcinoma?” Triana asked.

  Tromino nodded. “A common form of thyroid cancer. It should be easily treatable.”