Stalking the Moon

by Angel Leigh McCoy

  I almost tripped on the cuckoo clock, and it made one final, misplaced tick. Then, it too died.

  They hurried around, administered CPR, and tried to resuscitate Mrs. Dufour. Someone guided me out of the room and into the hallway. People came from all directions: nurses, doctors, guards, orderlies, and patients. They moved me this way and that. I was a leaf caught in the rapids.

  All I could think was, She’s dead. It killed her.

  I had to get away. I pushed through the gawkers and made my way to the edge, by the wall. Resting my cheek against the apple-blossom wallpaper, I asked Simon, "What the Hell was that?"

  "You don’t want to know."

  At my elbow, Corona said, "It's a mara. I heard it." She bounced on her toes, trying to launch herself higher so she could see through the pressing bodies into Mrs. Dufour’s room. The sleeves on her pajamas hung down past her hands, and the pants legs pooled at her bare feet.

  "You heard it too?" I asked.

  She looked at me but didn’t say anything.

  "Back to your rooms," shouted a nurse, shooing the crowd of onlookers into a wave that quickly engulfed me and Corona. We got separated.

  "Corona!" I cried.

  The crowd swarmed me, and I had to shove through it. By the time I broke free, Corona had disappeared.

  I cut past the stragglers. "Did you see where Corona went?"

  No one had.

  The doors on the hallway were all open by then. Nurses had arrived in force and actively calmed patients agitated by the emergency.

  Nurse Bea latched onto me. "C’mon, Viviane. Let’s get you to your room."

  "I’m looking for Corona."

  Bea put her hand in the middle of my back and directed me down the hall. "All we need to worry about right now is Viviane. Come along."

  Short of punching her—and I did consider it—there was no chance to get away. I let her walk me back to my room. When Nurse Bea saw the flower-petal art I’d made, she stared, first at the mess, then at me.

  "I see you’ve been busy," she said. "Unfortunately, there’s no time to deal with this right now." Later, she’d tell everyone that I'd destroyed a "perfectly lovely" bouquet of flowers, and I was sorry—for a second—that I’d done it. Not remorseful, just sorry that I’d given her fuel for her gossip.

  She helped me off with my robe, tucked me into bed, left, and shut the door behind her.

  I threw back the covers and got out of bed again.

  The door opened, and Nurse Bea stuck her head back in. She glowered at me. "Don’t be naughty, girlie, or I’ll have a talk with your doctor. This is not the time to clog up the halls."

  She may have been insipid, but she was right. I would have added to the confusion and chaos, and in an institution for the reality challenged, chaos wasn’t a good thing. I sat down on the edge of the bed. Nurse Bea left, and I turned to crawl under the covers.

  Corona popped up on the far side of the bed.

  I screamed and nearly fell.

  Corona shushed me with her finger to her lips.

  "You scared the shit out of me. Jesus, I thought you were—"

  She shushed me again, then tipped her head to listen. I listened too, but Nurse Bea had actually gone away that time.

  Corona joined me on the bed, and we sat cross-legged facing one another. She had a handful of petals—pink, yellow, and lavender. She stirred them in her palm as she looked me over from head to toe and back, as if searching for some clue to me.

  I said, "Tell me the truth. Did you really hear the noise too?"

  Her eyes flicked to mine and locked there. She said, not without compassion, "Are you freaking out? It’s okay. I know how it is when you first fall down the rabbit hole. It can be disorienting."

  "Yeah."

  She nodded, my wise guru. "You took the red pill."

  "Corona, you’re not making any sense. Did you hear that high-pitched noise?"

  "That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’re blooming. You’re a rose, and your petals are opening. One day, you’ll look back on this, and you’ll know that everything started right here, on this spot. One day, you’ll be queen. But before that, you have to save the world."

  "What?"

  "I have faith in you."

  "Corona," I said, my frustration making my teeth clench. "Why couldn’t anyone else hear it?"

  "It’s simple. Their ears aren’t calibrated for it." She put a hand on my knee. "Their minds can’t parse encrypted data as well as yours and mine can."

  "I don’t understand. What was making that noise?"

  She withdrew her hand and folded it with the other in her lap. "Maras are cousins of banshees, but more aggressive. They sit on your chest until you die."

  "Why are we the only ones who hear it?" I wondered if Corona was stalking the moon. It'd be so easy to dismiss what she was saying as delusion, and I came close to it, but I’d spent the majority of my life hearing things no one else could hear. Never before had I heard something that only one other person could hear. That was significant. The fact that Corona had heard it too made it real, triangulated, and three-dimensional. It hadn’t been a hallucination. It could've killed me.

  Corona's eyes were huge. She slid off the bed. "There are two kinds of people. Those who can see and hear, and those who can't." She touched her own nose with the tip of a finger, then reached over and touched mine. "We can."

  Corona went to the door, looked back, and added, "The night hag is on a mission. Watch your back. Your signature is getting stronger. You know?"

  "My what?"

  "Your signature." Corona opened the door a crack, and with her eye pressed to it, she looked out into the hall. "The more you know, the greater the friction between your thoughts and reality. When a swimmer splashes, her movement ripples through the water and attracts sharks."

  "What?"

  "The mara is a shark. It's drawn to the magick in your blood." She looked back at me one last time before slipping out the door. "That is your signature."

  My mind focused on the slow way the door swung shut in her wake. Its click, normally quiet, echoed in my head as if it were agreeing with Corona, supporting her strange revelation with its own certainty.

  My sense of security soured. I imagined the misty hag brushing my legs. I remembered the clench in my lungs and gut when I couldn’t breathe. When it had attacked me in the hospital, I’d told myself it was just a nightmare, that it hadn’t really happened at all. I'd been wrong.

  The lights flickered. Was it watching me? Waiting for me? A shiver jerked my shoulder blades. What if it was under the bed? I had to get out of there. I jumped, putting as much distance as I could between me and the bed, and reached the door in three strides.

  Out in the hall, the coast was clear. All the commotion was down by Mrs. Dufour's room. I ran the opposite direction, to my mom’s room.

  Mom sat in the armchair, looking out the window, apparently oblivious to the chaos.

  I took my usual seat in the vanity chair, and on cue, she joined me, picking up the hairbrush. She smoothed my hair, my nerves, and my mind with her even strokes.

  I hugged myself, chewing on the knowledge that the hag was real—Corona had corroborated her existence. Eventually, it hit me that Corona and I weren’t the only ones who knew about the hag. Colin had known as well. I had just dismissed his claims as delusions.

  ♦♦♦

  CHAPTER 15

  They wouldn’t let me sleep in Mom’s room, so I spent a restless night listening for sounds and making sure my feet stayed covered. As soon as I heard people moving about, I got up and wandered down to the rec room.

  The staff members clustered together in small groups, talking in whispers about Mrs. Dufour. The patients seemed calm enough, though definitely affected. Calla sat on one of the couches, cross-legged, with her arms draped over her head. She watched the room with hawkish attention. Dahlia sat at the puzzle table, chewing on a cuticle. Polly made the rounds, asking, "What about the cookies? How
are we gonna get cookies?" Iraida sang an Islamic chant in her room.

  Detective Stace Hayward was talking to Queen Jones in the nurses’ office. He looked all-business, and she looked helpful.

  I caught Corona’s eye from across the room, but when I started to go to her, Nurse Bea intercepted me. The queen’s rook put her hands on my shoulders and turned me around.

  "Good morning, Viviane. You just crawled out of bed, didn't you?"

  She was right. I had. Forgetting to groom came with the territory of my illness.

  Nurse Bea took me back to my room and insisted she would go with me to the showers. I told her a thousand times I could manage on my own, but she ignored me. Finally, I gave up, and she did the rest of the talking.

  "What a night, hm? I’m working a double shift because Francis didn’t come in this morning. I don’t mind, mind you. I can’t believe what’s happening." She linked her arm through mine as we walked to the showers, and she kept her voice low. "These things come in threes, you know? Mrs. Dufour was the third death in as many months. Can you imagine?"

  "Three?"

  "Yes. Three. I imagine you know about the others too. For instance, old Mr. Jackson. He was the first to go. Died in his sleep, he did, but no one found that surprising. He was ninety-four. Then, there was Danny McIntyre. Poor kid was only twenty-two. They think he had an allergic reaction or something. No one’s really sure why he died, but there you have it. And now, sweet Melanie Dufour. I’ll miss her. See, that’s why the police are here." Bea’s eyes were gleaming. She loved gossip, both the receiving and the giving of it. She’d been reprimanded for it on several occasions, but she was an addict. "Can you imagine?"

  I mumbled, "I have a very active imagination."

  "Three deaths. Four, if you count that laundry worker, too." She clucked her tongue. "What are the—"

  "Laundry worker?"

  She paused a moment, then said, "No one told you? That young Hispanic man who had the seizure in the stairwell. He passed on."

  "When?"

  "Several weeks ago now, love. I’m sorry. I assumed you knew. He was a coworker of yours, am I right?"

  I stopped listening to her, my thoughts on Julio and his family, until we arrived at the shower room. By then, Bea was saying, "…asking about you too, since you were the one who found Mrs. Dufour. They wanted to question you, but Dr. Reuter told them no. Detective Hayward is leading the investigation." She squeezed my arm and gave me an excited look as if we were about to get on a roller coaster or drive off a cliff together. "His given name is Stace. Oh, he’s a marvel, that one. Damned good-looking. I quite fancy him. And to think, if I hadn’t been working an extra shift today, I’d have missed all the excitement."

  ♦

  When I got back from my shower, Lettie was waiting for me in my room.

  "Hey!" she said as I entered. Her skirt and blouse displayed crisp wrinkles from spending the night in her locker, and her hair had the mussed look it got when she had worked in the steamy laundry room all night. Her shift had just ended.

  "Why didn’t you tell me Julio died?" I asked.

  "Richard asked me not to. He said you needed more time."

  "I figured that was what it was," I said. "It’s okay. Did they have a funeral?"

  "Yeah. I went. We all did. There were a lot of people there. I think his whole church was there. His mother. His sister." She sighed. "It was kind of awful. You’re lucky you missed it. Are you angry I didn't tell you?"

  I shook my head. I couldn’t find it in me to be angry. I set down my shower basket and went to her. I took her in my arms, and we hugged for a long while. She smelled like the laundry, of sweat and bleach.

  I said, "I’m glad you came."

  She held me at arm’s length and looked me over from head to toe. "You look tired."

  "I didn’t sleep very well last night. One of the other patients—"

  "I heard."

  We sat facing one another on the bed.

  Lettie said, "Remember that white chick he was dating?"

  "Yeah. Was she there?"

  "Uh huh. Crying and dropping petals in the coffin with him and shit. I saw his mom pick them out after she left."

  "Mrs. Dufour makes five, you know?"

  "Five what?"

  "Five deaths in three months."

  Lettie sat up. "I don’t understand. Five?"

  I looked down at my hand as if I had notes marked there. "Julio. They said it was a seizure, but he had no history of seizures. Then, there were the two guys from the men’s wing who died, supposedly of natural causes. There’s Colin, and last night, Mrs. Dufour. That’s five."

  "Honey, the Center is a place for unhealthy people. It’s normal for people to die here. It’s just a coincidence that it all happened at the same time."

  "No. Two deaths is a coincidence. Five is a pattern, Lettie."

  "A…pattern? That’s…a stretch." She cocked her head, expression thoughtful.

  "Maybe."

  "You think there's something sinister going on?"

  "I do." I leaned forward and met her gaze directly.

  Lettie chewed her bottom lip, then said, "You almost died in that wreck too, you know."

  "But, I didn’t. Someone took the trouble to pull me out of the water, but then they just left me there. Isn't that strange?"

  Lettie said, "What if it was the guy who jumped in front of your car, and he didn't want to get in trouble for causing the accident?"

  We stared at each other in silence for a long minute, then Lettie asked, "When can you get the fuck out of here? This place is making you paranoid."

  "I wouldn’t mind getting out," I said.

  Lettie tapped the hot pink nail of her index finger against her front teeth, thinking hard. After a moment, she asked, "What would it take to get you released?"

  "Richard’s signature, I suppose. But he won’t do that. Not until he's convinced I'm better."

  I hadn’t told Lettie anything about the hag yet. I normally didn’t keep things from her, not even my hallucinations, but this felt real and scary. The words came out of my mouth on their own, "What if there's a monster at the Center?"

  "A monster?" Lettie said, laughing. "Honey, hallucinations don’t kill people. People kill people. Old age and disease kill people."

  "People can be monsters," I replied. "Monsters can be people."

  ♦

  After Lettie left, I returned to my mom’s room. She sat at her desk, writing.

  From the window, I looked out at the orchard. The trees stood in neat rows, their branches spreading with individualized style. A squirrel ran from tree to tree, a scampering blur with a rippling tail. A blue jay, its raucous call distant, had the crown, the attitude, and the meanness of a thief. It flew back and forth between the highest branches, snatching and grabbing.

  The hair on my arms stood up.

  Mom was writing, unaware of anything around her.

  When I turned my gaze back to the window, it went straight to the source of my discomfort. Nathan stood on the path at the edge of the orchard. A breeze picked up his hair and made it dance around his head. His long, black overcoat covered his white, collarless shirt and black pants. He clasped his hands behind his back, feet slightly apart, and looked straight at me.

  A sense of dread washed over me, not dissimilar to the one I’d felt in the stairwell when Colin had frightened me. I yanked the curtains shut.

  When I peeked out again a few seconds later, cracking the curtains just enough to put my eye to them, his face was right there at the window.

  Right there. At the second-floor window.

  I shrieked and fell back, landing on my ass on the floor. I crab-crawled backward. The curtain fell into place, closed.

  Scrambling to my feet, I stumbled to the door. I pulled it open, stuck my head out, and shouted, "Corona!" I didn’t know who else to call. I acted on instinct. "Corona!"

  After what seemed an eternity, several faces peeked out of several rooms. Luc
kily, none of them belonged to a nurse. One was Corona’s. She came running.

  "What’s the matter?"

  "There’s a man at the window!"

  "What?" She entered the room. "We’re on the second floor."

  "Exactly."

  She parted the drapes and peeked out. She stuck her head between the curtains and looked this way and that. When she emerged, she said, "I don’t see anyone. Are you sure?"

  I was as sure as a schizophrenic could be, which wasn’t sure at all. I shrugged.

  "Well there’s no one there now. Do you know who it was?"

  "I met him at the hospital, after the accident. He said he was Colin's brother." My hand shook when I ran it through my hair. "I must've imagined it."

  She didn’t seem convinced.

  I kept the curtains closed for the rest of the day.

  ♦♦♦

  CHAPTER 16

  I was seated cross-legged in Mom’s armchair, reading a book, when the door opened, and Detective Hayward backed inside, watching the hall. He shut the door.

  "Can I come in?" He turned to face me.

  "You’re already in."

  "Your friend Corona told me where you were. I’ve only got a few minutes, Miss Rose, but I wanted to ask you some—"

  "I don’t think my doctor wants me to talk to you."

  "True. But I thought you might feel differently, considering how I’m trying to figure out what happened to your fiancé and Melanie Dufour." Hayward pulled a digital tape recorder from his pocket and held it up for me to see. He kept it in his hand and thumbed it on. "Do you mind?"

  I dog-eared my place, closed the book, and set it aside. "I don’t mind, but I don’t know how I can help."

  "You’d be surprised," said Hayward, "how often I hear that from people who end up giving me exactly what I need to solve the case."

  "I hope you’re right."

  Hayward studied her for a long minute. "Your hair’s grown," he observed. "You look different. Less manic."

  "Better drugs."

  I heard Nurse Bea in the hall. Her accent—as sweet as the richest chocolate, but just as likely, in large quantities, to trigger a migraine—was unmistakable. "Did you see where Stace—I mean Detective Hayward—went?"