Faerie Tale

by Raymond Feist

  “Dr. Murphy, the boys were fine at bedtime,” said Phil.

  “I know, Mr. Hastings. My guess is we’ve got a pretty rugged virus that hits hard and fast. But until we get some lab work done in the morning, we are only guessing. All we can do now is make the boys comfortable, stay alert, treat them symptomatically, and begin work first thing tomorrow. And the rest of you should take it easy. If it is a virus, something they picked up at school, it may hit you as well in the next few days. If any of you start feeling poorly, at the first sign of a symptom I suggest you check back here at once. If it’s a virus, it’s a nasty customer.”

  Gloria seemed unable to move or speak, her eyes wide with an almost panic-stricken look. She seemed to shiver. The doctor said, “Ma’am, we’re doing everything possible.” She didn’t speak, managing only a tiny nod. The doctor said, “I’m going to write out a prescription for a tranquilizer, Mr. Hastings. I think it might be a good idea for you and your wife to each take one tonight. We won’t even begin to have a picture of what’s going on until tomorrow afternoon.”

  Gloria leaned heavily against Phil, who said, “Thank you, Doctor.”

  The doctor rose and crossed to the nurses’ station, where he scribbled on a prescription tablet. He handed it to Jack. “You can fill this at the pharmacy in the front lobby. They’re open all night.” Jack hurried off. The doctor said, “You folks really should go home. I’m afraid this may take a long time. You should count on Patrick’s being here for a few days at least.”

  Gloria leaned against Phil, her head on his shoulder. She closed her eyes a moment and again saw the image of the darkness in the corner of the boys’ room. A faint memory of a sound, like wind chimes in the distance, and a vague spicy smell of flowers were recalled, and for an instant she felt a stab of panic.

  Gloria stood disoriented, as if trying to focus her vision. Phil saw the panic in her eyes. He held tight to her hand and said, “It’ll be all right, honey. They’re doing everything possible.”

  Gloria seemed not to hear her husband. She looked wildly around the room. Suddenly she let out an anguished cry. “Patrick!” She moved forward, as if to run toward the ICU. Gabbie and Phil restrained her, and her voice held a hysterical note as it rose in pitch.

  The doctor yelled to the nurses’ station for a sedative, which a nurse quickly produced. He injected the frantic Gloria, and within a minute she lapsed into a half-dazed state. Jack returned with the prescription and took in at once what had occurred. The doctor said, “I think you should all get home and salvage whatever’s left of a night’s sleep. And before you come back, you might do well to take one of those pills I prescribed, but have someone else drive you.”

  “Thank you,” said Phil. He said to Jack, “See Gloria and Gabbie get home, will you?”

  Gabbie put her hand upon her father’s arm. “Dad?”

  “I’m staying.”

  The doctor was about to protest, but something in Phil’s eyes caused him to relent. “All right, I’ll pass word to the nurses on the Peds floor that you’re allowed to spend the night in Sean’s room. But the ICU’s off limits.” Phil looked as if he was going to object, but the doctor said, “That’s not negotiable. No visitors in the ICU longer than ten minutes and then only during visiting hours. No exceptions, Mr. Hastings.”

  Phil agreed and sent Gabbie and Jack off with his wife. He thanked the doctor and took the elevator up to Pediatrics, noticing from the directory on the elevator wall that the ICU was two floors below. He checked at the nurses’ station and was told that Sean was in room 512. He went there and found Sean asleep in a semiprivate room. The other bed stood empty.

  Phil leaned against the railing of the bed. He looked down at his little boy’s face, and in Sean’s face he saw Patrick’s. He hid his eyes and began to weep. Throughout his life Philip Hastings considered himself a rational man, one who had had to deal with the craziness of a first wife with a capricious nature and a career in a field where abrupt and unpredictable changes were the norm. He had thought himself a man able to cope with the unexpected. But this was bringing him to his knees.

  Never comfortable with displays of strong emotion, Phil struggled to pull himself together. He considered the empty bed for a moment, then decided against it. Something about using a hospital bed repulsed him. He crossed to the large chair next to Sean’s bed and settled in. Within a few minutes the late hour and emotional fatigue took its toll and he drifted off to an uneasy doze.

  Phil felt himself adrift in a grey landscape, a place of half-light dotted by lightning-shattered black trees, a murky and lifeless forest where shadowy figures moved just outside the range of his vision. Odd-sounding whispers, almost understandable, tantalized with their near familiarity, but comprehension eluded him. Then a distant voice called to him. It was Patrick! He could hear him calling, “Daddy!”

  Phil sat bolt upright, heart racing, as the calm voice on the hospital’s public address system repeated its message. He blinked, found himself bathed in a cold sweat, and shook his head to clear his foggy brain. The voice again repeated its message. “Code Blue, ICU. Dr. Murphy to ICU, stat.”

  Phil was moving past the nurses’ station before the duty nurse could speak to him. He passed the elevator and took the stairway down, two steps at a time. Two floors below Sean’s room he pushed on the crash bar of the large door and entered a lobby. Double doors proclaimed he stood before the ICU and that admittance was restricted. He pushed through and found himself next to a nurses’ station composed of six sets of monitors, opposite a glass wall through which he could see six beds. Over one a group of doctors worked furiously, while a nurse charged out to intercept Phil.

  Without apology, she roughly grabbed him. “Sir, you cannot stay here.”

  Phil, half-numb, allowed himself to be pushed back through the doors by the small woman. Outside he said, “What …?”

  “The doctor will speak to you as soon as he’s able.” She hurried back through the doors and left Phil alone in the waiting area.

  An hour later Dr. Murphy came out and sat down before Phil. “Mr. Hastings.…” He paused. “Look, I’ve never been good with bedside manners, so I’ll just come out and say it. Patrick’s had what we call a cardiac episode.”

  “A heart attack?” said Phil in disbelief.

  The doctor looked fatigued. “Not quite. A mild fibrillation. It’s under control, and we’re watching him closely. The boy’s body has undergone a lot of punishment in the last six hours … and sometimes things like this happen. A lot of the body’s regulatory functions get fouled up.”

  “But he’s okay?”

  “As far as the cardiac part is concerned, I think so. There are some tests down the road we can do to determine if there’s been any permanent damage to the heart muscles. But.…”

  “What?” said Phil, feeling a dread certainty something terrible had taken place.

  The doctor rose. “Come with me, Mr. Hastings.”

  Phil followed the young doctor back into the ICU and saw another doctor and several nurses standing in the hall between the nurses’ station and the beds, watching the displays above Patrick’s head with rapt expressions on their faces.

  With a note of fatigue in his voice, Dr. Murphy said, “Mr. Hastings, Patrick’s fever was terribly high and lasted … who knows how long? I’m afraid we may find some pretty serious neurological damage.”

  “Neurological?” Phil whispered, as if the word was alien, the meaning unknown.

  “Brain damage, Mr. Hastings,” said the doctor, obviously finding the words distasteful.

  Phil’s eyes closed as he winced at the words. “How badly damaged?” he asked quietly.

  The doctor shook his head. “Normally, I wouldn’t think he’d make it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘normally’?”

  Dr. Murphy pointed to the array of machines attached to Patrick. The screens were alive with dancing lines, flipping around at a frantic rate. “See those monitors, Mr. Hastings?” Phil no
dded. “They tell us what’s going on with Patrick, moment to moment.”

  He crossed to one screen next to the bed. “This is an electroencephalograph, an EEG.” His finger pointed to three jagged lines on the screen, moving furiously. “If Patrick were brain-dead, these would be flat.”

  “Then he’s all right?” said Phil.

  Murphy said, “Mr. Hastings, I’m only a second-year resident. Right now I don’t know my own name. I’ve never seen anything remotely like it—and I doubt our resident neurosurgeon has either. This is as far removed from a normal brain wave pattern as anything I’ve seen in any text on the subject. Right now I can’t even begin to tell you what’s happening with your son.”

  “Is Patrick all right?”

  Murphy crossed back to Phil’s side, took him by the arm, and steered him back toward the door to the waiting area. “Mr. Hastings, I don’t have the faintest idea.” He took Phil outside.

  Phil sat down and looked at the doctor. “What do we do?”

  “First thing tomorrow, I’m going to call in Dr. Wingate, he’s head of service in neurosurgery. He may be able to figure out what’s going on, but beyond that I don’t have a clue.”

  Phil sat back. After a minute he closed his eyes. The doctor sat there a long minute at his side. Then a call sounded over the public address, announcing another emergency in E.R. Dr. Murphy stood up. There was nothing more he could do here.

  While Phil sat numbly outside, one of the ICU nurses glanced through the glass at Patrick’s bed. For a brief instant she could have sworn she had seen a flicker around the boy, as if some sort of energy had glowed forth, then faded. She chalked it up to the frantic Code Blue and fatigue, and all the weird displays. She glanced over at Patrick’s monitor screens, duplicates of the ones in his room, and shook her head. If anything went wrong, how would she know? The screens were unreadable. She looked at her watch and saw she would be off in two more hours; then it would be someone else’s headache. She returned to filling out her half-hourly reports.

  In the bed behind the glass, beneath the white sheet, Patrick’s feet moved, an imperceptible flexing of muscles as if, in a dream, he was dancing in glee, and a tiny smile creased the corners of his mouth for an instant. Then the movement stopped.

  14

  Gabbie stood in the doorway, looking down at her father as he sat staring at Sean. Jack had dropped her off at the entrance while he went to hunt up a parking place. She had arrived a moment before. She looked over her father’s shoulder at the sleeping boy, who moved restlessly. Finally she said, “Dad?”

  Phil looked up and Gabbie felt as if her heart were about to break, seeing the pain in his eyes. She hurried to his side and knelt. Gripping his hand, she said, “Dad?”

  With a voice made hoarse by emotion he said, “Hi, honey.”

  Gabbie’s eyes brimmed with tears, for without his saying anything else, she knew something terrible was happening with Patrick. Gabbie fought grief for a long, silent time, until Jack quietly entered the room.

  As if by signal a nurse arrived to inform them there were too many people in the room. Something in her manner triggered Gabbie. Like fury embodied, the girl stood to confront the nurse and snapped, “Where’s the doctor?” She kept her voice low, but her tone was sharp.

  The nurse, a veteran of many a tragic scene, was nevertheless caught off balance by the girl’s sudden, angry tone. She backed off a step. “I’ll have Dr. Murphy paged … miss.”

  Jack came up behind Gabbie and said, “Patrick?”

  Gabbie only nodded her head slightly, and she felt Jack tense as a sad and resigned sigh escaped from his lips. Shortly after, Dr. Murphy appeared. Gabbie spoke softly, but there was no hesitation as she asked, “Doctor, is my brother dead?”

  Dr. Murphy glanced past her at Phil, who nodded. The doctor motioned for Gabbie and Jack to join him in the hall. Outside of the room, he said, “No, Miss Hastings, your brother isn’t dead. He suffered a terribly high fever last night, which seems to have done something odd to his higher brain functions. Right now we’ve got him hooked to a battery of monitoring devices, but to be honest, we don’t have a clue to what’s going on with your brother.”

  “Is he going to be all right?” Gabbie demanded. The doctor seemed uncertain for a moment. “Miss, we just don’t know yet.”

  Gabbie stood as if struck. Then at last she softly said, “When will you know?”

  “We’re having Dr. Wingate, our very best neurosurgeon, look at him right now. He’s very sharp. He’ll … level with you and your dad. I noticed that Patrick had been admitted for some cuts a while back and you indicated John Latham was your doctor. He’ll be here shortly and I’ll speak to him first thing. They’ll come talk to your dad.”

  Gabbie nodded as she glanced through the door at Phil. He sat staring at Sean’s face, seemingly oblivious to Gabbie’s conversation.

  With a sick feeling inside, Gabbie said, “Thank you, Doctor.” She went to her father’s side, leaning over to hug him.

  Dr. Murphy watched her and for a moment considered what a stunning young woman she was. Then, putting aside a momentary flash of interest, he considered the presence of the attentive young man. To him he said, “She’s something.”

  Jack said, “Well I know, Doctor,” as he left to follow her.

  In Sean’s room, Gabbie sat oblivious to the discomfort of the chair arm she perched upon as she hugged her father tightly. Jack came up beside her and put his hand upon her shoulder. No words were spoken. All they could do was wait.

  Two floors below, a nurse glanced through the glass partition at Patrick. As she looked away, she caught a glimpse of movement and quickly looked back. The boy lay exactly as he had since she had come on duty, but somehow she had thought, for a moment, that he had moved. Imperceptibly, perhaps, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he had moved. She glanced at the readouts from Patrick’s monitors, but the chaotic displays were still unreadable. Shrugging off the feeling, she muttered to herself, “Too many years to be getting jumpy. I think I need a vacation.”

  In an alien land, Patrick struggled to hear a distant voice. His mother’s? Then the voice faded and his attention returned to his surroundings. So strange, he thought. The black trees and the distant stars, the fragrances on the warm wind. Thoughts came like light fighting through a dim and heavy fog; Patrick knew something was wrong, but he didn’t know what, and in an odd detached way, he really didn’t care. He let his mind wander, and soon the voice was forgotten.

  15

  Dr. Theodore Wingate examined the printout from the computer with the data from the monitoring station at the ICU. Dr. Latham stood behind the neurosurgeon while he examined the fanfold paper. Dr. Murphy was with Patrick.

  Phil sat with the doctors in Wingate’s office. Gabbie and Jack were due to arrive soon to pick up Sean, who was going to be released today. Gloria was home, under sedation, being looked after by Aggie.

  Wingate had a rough manner, all grumbles and complaints, but Phil had quickly seen through him: Teddy Wingate was a considerate, kind man, a competent neurosurgeon who put on a constant show of being beset and put upon by everyone he met. But behind the bluster was a warm person who had everyone on a first-name basis within a minute of introduction. He put down the readouts and pushed up the small Ben Franklin glasses that had migrated to the tip of his nose. He had a roundish face and his hair was prematurely white, which set off his ruddy complexion. He seemed to be constantly struggling inside his rumpled suit to find a comfortable position. In a soft voice he said, “Phil, I don’t know what this all means.”

  Phil sighed. He found this uncertainty oppressive, and with each passing hour he found himself becoming increasingly impatient. “What do we do?”

  “We wait,” said Wingate softly. “Phil, Patrick under went a severe fever, which damaged his brain in some way.” He glanced at the readouts. “Apparently, higher functions are scrambled. His brain activity is … unique. I can’t even tell you what’s making
his heart pump and his lungs breathe. He’s over that cardiac crisis, but why he’s even alive.… Phil, I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. It may be there was some sort of brain … short circuit that will sort itself out. It may be he’s … gone for good. But I just don’t know. I can’t begin to guess what we’re looking at with these readouts. I’m sorry.”

  “What am I to do?” Phil asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “What the rest of us are doing: wait,” said John Latham. “You’d better go home, Phil. You need the rest.”

  Phil nodded mutely. He knew he’d have to face Gloria. But what could he tell her? Phil had not known her father, who had died two years before Phil met Gloria, but conversations with Gloria and her mother had painted a pretty detailed picture of him, both before and after the cancer had been diagnosed. A powerful, larger-than-life man, one who took pleasure in vigorous pastimes—camping, riding, hunting, sailing, a man who had taken up long-distance running at the age of fifty—that man had been reduced to depending upon strangers to hold his bedpan while he cried in pain, and shame. It was more than Gloria could manage to talk about her father’s death. And Phil knew the thought of Patrick’s being helpless was a terror that far overshadowed death in her view of things. Steeling himself for the painful ordeal, Phil started to rise. “You’re probably right.…” He was going to say good-bye, but suddenly the enormity of this not knowing struck him. He collapsed back into the seat with a wounded cry of pain, an agonized sob from the depth of his broken soul. “Oh my God! He’s just a baby!” Dr. Latham reached out and held Phil’s shoulder, trying vainly to add whatever comfort he could. Suddenly Phil’s crying turned into a tormented question. “What am I going to say to Gloria?”