by ML Gardner
“What am I?” I asked. “Am I a ghost or an angel or what?”
“A little of both, I think,” he stated simply.
“And I guess I’m doomed to walk these halls forever.” I blew out my breath and looked around.
“Not forever, Simon.”
“How long then?”
“Only you know when it’s time to leave,” he said.
“And when I know, what do I do? Knock? Ask? Pray…what?”
“You’ll see,” he said, glancing up at the clock. Five minutes to midnight.
“Can you see through me?” I felt stupid for asking, but that had always been my notion of ghosts. Translucent.
“No,” he said. “To me, you look very much the same as you did before. Only there’s a soft glow all about the edges and on everything you touch.”
I looked down at my hand, turning it over and back. To me, it looked how my hand had always looked. I spent the next few minutes touching various objects, watching the beautiful traces of light sizzle over each object. There was a small chime as the clock struck midnight. I felt a small vibration all around me and looked at David with concern. He stood up slowly and nodded toward the blank grey wall of the hallway across from us.
“What’s going on?” I asked, glancing to the plain wall and back.
“You wanted to know how you go, when it’s time,” he said, not taking his eyes off the wall. He stood up, put his hands behind his back, and lowered his head, but continued to watch with his eyes. I watched the aged plaster wall across from us as the center of it began to soften, dissolve, and then slowly swirl counterclockwise. Starting with a light only the size of a pinpoint in the center, the grey wall gave way to a brilliant white burst of light, slowly stretching open wide enough for a grown man to easily walk through. The thick grey and white marbled ring around the opening churned and swelled, as if straining to hold the portal open.
Craning my neck with my face frozen in awe, it seemed like the white tunnel went on forever and was almost too bright to look directly into. I watched in wonder as a man walked silently down the hall toward the portal near us. He was tall and thin and wore normal clothes and no expression. Trailing his hand along the wall as he walked, gold and silver sparks bounced against the wall, over his hand and down, evaporating before they hit the ground. He stopped at the opalescent gateway and took a deep breath, as if making his final decision. Then, without a word or a look back, he stepped through. He evaporated into a sizzling shower of golden embers as he crossed from this world and then the portal collapsed.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked. David sat down slowly.
I nodded, still too stunned to speak.
“Every night at the stroke of midnight that portal opens and you have the choice to leave,” he explained. “I always stand out of respect.”
“That’s what you meant when you said they don’t leave right away,” I said quietly.
“Yes. Most folks have at least a little business to take care of before they go, and they are allowed that time.”
“Did you know him?” I asked.
“Yes. He didn’t like to talk much. He was killed near here, but it didn’t have anything to do with the hospital or the patients. He came here because, often times, they’re attracted to the lights and activities of the living. He’s wandered around here for the last couple weeks, but I’m glad he finally decided to go,” he said.
“Attracted to lights?” I asked, almost amused. “I always thought ghosts liked the dark deserted places.”
“No,” he hesitated. “Not all of them.” There was something ominous in his voice, but I had had my daily allotment of bizarre already and decided to leave it alone.
“I’m so tired,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
“After something as powerful as you just experienced, it doesn’t surprise me,” he said, shuffling his paperwork. “Mind, you’re only emotionally tired. You can’t feel physically tired, of course. But you can still sleep. And dream, so I’m told,” he said.
I wanted to sleep and even more, dream. Relive those few days with her.
“I want you to be the one to tell her,” I said softly. “Can you do that for me, David?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said with a solemn nod.
I walked to the commons area and lay down on the couch. The starving girl was gone, but I left the lights on regardless and covered my eyes with my arm. I dreamed so vividly that it was hard to identify the line between the living, the dead and the imaginary.
The next morning I stood against the wall next to David as they wheeled the stretcher past me, taking my covered body away. I rolled my head over to David.
“That’s really kind of disgusting. They left me there all night.”
He gave a tiny nod, and I realized he couldn’t answer me now that we were surrounded by staff and residents. The place was crawling with police and state investigators and the doctor rushed past us toward his office. I pushed off the wall and followed him.
He bent over, fumbling around in his file cabinet. He seemed nervous and as I took a step closer, I could see beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He stood abruptly and was nearly nose-to-nose with me. I looked into his wrinkled panicked face and realized he was only concerned for his own hide, not my death or Elizabeth’s pain. I had never hated anyone more in my life. He sat down with a thump at his desk and began scribbling. I ground my teeth, realizing I was capable of a full range of feelings, fury at the top of the list at that moment.
“Do you have any idea how much I hate the sound of that pen?” I said.
He stopped, wiped his brow and then bent his head, continuing. “Do you have any idea how much I hate you?” I said in a low hissing voice. I saw a visible shudder go through him and hoped he’d heard me, even if he dismissed it as his own paranoid thought. “I think I’m going to have fun with you,” I said sarcastically.
I leaned close to the side of his head, right next to his ear.
“Boo!” I said and his hand jumped, causing the end of his signature to extend further than normal. I hopped up on the file cabinet with an amused smile and sat crossed legged, looking down on him. “Well, now I know how I’m going to pass the time while Elizabeth is sleeping, don’t I?”
The state investigators were growing impatient and took the doctor’s written statement from his trembling hand with a jerk. They took a small file, which the doctor identified as mine, throwing an ominous, “We’ll be in touch,” as they left. He sat down with his head in his hands and took several deep breaths before a nurse poked her head in the door.
“Doctor, Mr. Sinclair is here to see you,” she said quietly.
The doctor raised his head and inhaled deeply. He moved things around on his desk anxiously. “Send him in, please,” he said.
“Oh, yeah. You have to explain to my father why I’m dead.” I laughed without humor. “Boy, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes right now. That’s the downside of absolute power, Doc. Having to take responsibility for abusing it.”
My sarcastic harassment ended abruptly when my father walked in the door, kneading his hat between his hands. His eyes were bloodshot, and I smelled the faint scent of whiskey from across the room.
Suddenly, the doctor wasn’t the only one I was infuriated with.
“What happened to my boy?” he asked with a warbling voice. I flew off the file cabinet and was by his head in an instant.
“You killed me just as much as he did, Dad,” I seethed. “You didn’t believe me about Mom, and you let her go riding. I saw that horse throw her and watched her die, but you didn’t listen to me. You wrote me off as crazy. Now she’s dead and so am I and you’re all alone, you superstitious old bastard.” He lowered his head and his clenched jaw trembled.
“Please, sit, Mr. Sinclair,” the doctor invited.
“I don’t even want to hear what pathetic excuse you’re going to give him,” I said as I walked to the door. I paused and turned back with an angry sm
ile. “I’ll be in touch.”
I stood in Elizabeth’s doorway, watching her. She was still asleep. A nurse came in behind me, lifted her wrist, took her pulse, and then left. I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting by her bed, touching her face, outlining it in a shower of white gold. I talked to her the whole time and hoped my words would somehow materialize in her dreams.
She stirred, approaching consciousness sometime near evening. It took a long time to rise above the medicine’s powerful effect. She turned her head with fluttering eyes, moaned, and then slipped back under several times. Part of me wanted her to stay there in her dream world, safe from the pain. But a selfish part of me wanted to see her eyes and hear her voice. I leaned over her, staring straight down into her face.
“Elizabeth,” I whispered. Her eyes fluttered and then slowly cracked open. She stared right through me at the ceiling as reality came back to her, and she closed her eyes again, sighing deeply. Thick tears seeped from the corners of each eye, down the side of her face and onto the pillow. I tried to wipe them away, but couldn’t make the connection; my fingertips sunk into her shimmering cheek.
There was a stirring at the door and I turned to see Loretta, David and the doctor. Another nurse loomed behind them, presumably prepared with a needle in hand. Loretta’s face was pained as she untied Elizabeth’s wrists and helped her up to a sitting position. She sat silently by her side, rubbing a hand over her back.
“Elizabeth, there’s something we need to tell you,” she said. After rubbing her eyes and pushing the hair out of her face, Elizabeth looked at Loretta blankly. David sat on the end of her bed and put a hand on her shin. The doctor stood in the doorway, staring at the floor like the coward he was.
“I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, Elizabeth,” she started and glanced at David hesitantly. I felt a choking sensation in my throat, and my eyes burned dry. “Something’s happened, honey. Simon was taken in for a treatment, and it didn’t go well,” she said, misty-eyed herself.
Elizabeth waited with her hands lying limp in her lap.
“Simon is dead, Elizabeth. I’m so sorry,” she whispered and a tear slipped down her cheek despite her efforts to hide them. David’s hand lifted toward his wife, but remembering himself, folded his arms, unable to comfort her in public.
After they left her, Elizabeth held a catatonic stare for almost an hour. Her eyes were empty and dull, her mouth closed in a flat line. She stayed so still that it was hard to see if she was even breathing. I sat in front of her and tried to put my forehead to hers. I held my cupped hands between us to catch the steady shower of golden light.
Nurses went in and out, checking on her, waiting for the break. I had stepped out of the room awhile later to try to talk to David when I heard the blood-curdling scream from her room. A half-dozen nurses and orderlies went running, me in front of them. My heart ached at the sight of her, holding her head over her knees, loud sobs broken up by unintelligible screeching. David held his arm out keeping everyone away, only permitting Loretta to pass. She gathered her up and hugged her tightly, trying to quiet the screams. I slid down the wall and watched, helplessly.
Little by little, her wails subsided as Loretta rocked her, whispering what comforts she could. She rested her head on Loretta’s shoulder with her hair covering her face.
Suddenly, she was silent and very still. She pulled herself away from Loretta and sat on the side of the bed with her head hanging forward. She took several deep shuddering breaths and then was still again.
When she lifted her head, it wasn’t my Elizabeth’s face I was looking at. The spectators in the room took a step back with an audible collective gasp. The doctor whispered feverishly to the nurse next to him.
It was rare-to-never to actually witness someone’s fragile mind as it cracked, giving birth to a new personality. I shuddered with fear, anger and protective, unconditional love.
There were three of her now.
She came off the bed like a feral animal, shrieking and flailing her fists at everyone. David watched me with pity as I turned and walked out of the room when they held her down and a brave nurse pushed her way to the front of the crowd. And then she was quiet again.
I wandered the halls aimlessly for several days with a heavy feeling of heartache and helplessness. I found myself sitting in the doctor’s leather office chair, feet up on the desk and staring out the window. It was the only one in the place without bars. I looked over his bookshelf of psychology texts and a wall full of fancy degrees. My eyes fell on his ink pen, neatly arranged on the right side of the desk. I grinned to myself when I got the idea and went to look for David for help. I found him in the supply room. “Hey, Simon,” he said with his back turned before I said anything.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
“What can I do for you?” he asked. He turned to me, smiling.
“You said I would learn to touch her. What about other things. Can I move things?” I asked.
“You can, once you learn how.”
“Is it hard?”
“Not usually, but some of them never get the hang of it,” he said. “We can practice that later tonight.”
“Working a double shift again?” I said, sitting on top of the dirty linen hamper. He nodded and yawned on cue.
“I don’t know if you noticed that several of the staff have walked out, after what happened to you and then after word got around about Elizabeth. And, of course, there’s the investigation that no one wants any part of.” He looked at me as if he wanted to say more, but was anxious about it.
“What, David?”
“Well, I don’t know if you want to know.” He puffed out his cheeks and blew air out slowly.
“Does it have to do with me or Elizabeth?” I asked, and he nodded quickly and looked back at the supply shelf. “Then of course I want to know.”
He looked uncomfortable when he faced me. “Your father is burying you this afternoon,” he said.
I stiffened and the light smirk fell from my face. “Where?”
“Town cemetery. That’s what I heard, anyway.”
I slid off the hamper and turned. “Thanks,” I said as I left.
I stood several feet away from my father, who cried silently as the priest performed the ritual of words, some clear, some mumbled, sprinkling water around the opening in the ground. Two strangers helped lower the box, but I didn’t watch them. I stared at my father instead. His face was so anguished it was hard to hold onto my anger at him.
I said a silent goodbye, leaving him to what peace he could find, trailing my hand over the rounded top of my mother’s gravestone as I went.
Late that night I sat next to David at the desk. Another orderly who kept walking by, trying to make conversation with David, interrupted our lesson several times. He was a new hire named Greg, scrawny with stringy blonde hair and bad teeth. I sat back and regretted not being able to cry, because I was bored to tears, listening to the rambling fool try to impress David for nearly an hour with details of his sordid past.
David finally sent him away, claiming to have an overwhelming amount of paperwork. Once safely alone, he put a pencil in front of me.
“Try to push that away from you,” he said. I put out a finger and tried, but every attempt ended with my finger going through it. “Concentrate on moving it, but not with the muscles in your hand. Use the muscles in your mind,” he said, tapping his temple. I was still confused when I tried and failed again. David sat back deep in thought. “When you first came out of the treatment room, you tried to open your door,” he said.
“And it felt the same as it always did,” I said, still pushing through the pencil with a frown.
“How did you feel?” he asked, swiveling in his chair slightly.
“Tired. Sad. But mostly I think, I just didn’t know I was dead.”
“Play around with different emotions until you find one that works,” he suggested.
After an hour of aggravating failure, I was exasp
erated.
“I can’t do this, David,” I said with a huff and threw myself back into the chair. It rolled a few inches and I looked down, surprised.
“You just did,” he said, grinning. I leaned over the desk and tried repeatedly, until I found the one feeling that moved the pencil an inch away from me. Determination.
After awhile, I had moved it small distances several times and felt very tired from concentrating.
“You’ve got time to practice,” David said. I stood and stretched.
“I’m going to Elizabeth’s room,” I said. He put up a hand as I walked away. Rounding the corner I saw someone standing outside her door, peering in the small window. It was Greg, who looked over both shoulders and then opened the door quietly. I broke into a run and saw him approaching her sleeping form slowly. I jumped through him, whirled around and stood between them.
“Stay away from her, you sleazy bastard,” I seethed. His gaze went through me, staring intently at Elizabeth’s face. I growled and balled my fist up, sending it through his head with an explosion of sparks. I tried repeatedly, grunting with every swing but couldn’t make contact. He took a step closer, moving through me and I ran into the hallway.
“David!” I screamed. I looked back to see Greg inching closer to Elizabeth and screamed down the hall again with all of my mind’s strength. I bounded down the hall to find him and ran straight through him as he came running around the corner.
“Elizabeth!” I panted, pointing to her room. “Help her!” He ran and stomped into the room. Greg froze with one edge of her blanket in his hand and looked up at David, startled.
“What are you doing in here?” David asked.
“I heard something.” He dropped the corner of the blanket and squirmed. “I was just checking on her.”
“That’s what our female nurses are for, Greg. You should have called one of them.”