Silent Night, Haunted Night

by Terri Garey

  “Very subtle,” I teased. “I was thinking pink for you this year.”

  “Amethyst,” he returned, without missing a beat. “Or emerald. Jewel-tone colors are in.”

  “Got it,” I answered dryly, on my way out the door.

  I texted Joe as soon as I got in my car, offering to bring him a sandwich since he’d missed lunch, and had to be starving.

  WILL BRING FOOD AND HOT COFFEE 2 UR OFFICE IN 30 MINS LUV U

  That would give him time to break away and meet me, I hoped. If not, I’d wait in his office until he did show up.

  Forty-five minutes later my strategy was rewarded when Joe walked in, looking harried but pleased. He smiled as he leaned in for a kiss. “Hey, thanks,” he said. “You’re an angel.”

  My heart lifted and fluttered at the sight of him, as usual. I was happy to sense no lingering disappointment on his part about my lack of help out there on the sidewalk.

  I’d been a little worried about that. Heroes preferred to be around other heroes, didn’t they?

  Joe picked up his coffee, removed the lid, and sighed happily at the steam rising from the surface. “Still hot,” he said, taking a sip, and then took a seat behind his desk. “My girlfriend is a bona fide angel.”

  “Barbecue chicken from Nellie Belle’s,” I said, handing him his sandwich, “with a side order of baked beans.”

  He made an appreciative noise, and wolfed the sandwich while I watched, glad just to be there, with him.

  “You’re not eating?” he asked, a few bites later.

  “I had something earlier,” I lied, not the least bit hungry.

  I waited until he’d almost finished the sandwich, then jumped in with both feet. “How’s Mary?”

  “She’s stable,” Joe answered. “Her rhythms are normal, blood pressure elevated, of course, but…” He paused, barbecue-glazed eyes gone suddenly sharp. “How did you know her name was Mary?”

  I sighed, glad he’d caught it. “Because I had a very weird encounter with her last night, along with her so-called daughter, Selene, and her so-called granddaughter, Kate.”

  His eyebrows went up. “An encounter,” he repeated, obviously needing more to go on.

  “They’re not what they seem, Joe. They came to me last night, floating above the bed while we were sleeping.”

  He stared at me, blank-faced, while he processed that. I’d wanted to catch him off guard a little, just to make sure he took me seriously.

  He cleared his throat, once. “You think they’re ghosts?”

  “Not ghosts.”

  And here is where it got difficult, because I didn’t understand it myself.

  “They’re something else; I don’t know what. They were just floating there, watching us sleep, talking to each other. It’s hard to explain—it was very weird—and then I fell back asleep.”

  “You fell back asleep.” His voice went flat.

  “I wasn’t dreaming,” I protested, unfortunately making it sound like I’d been doing just that. “They were real, they were carrying on a conversation—I just couldn’t do anything about it.”

  “You could’ve woken me up,” he said mildly.

  “I was paralyzed.” I sounded defensive, and I hated that. “I couldn’t move.”

  Wiping barbecue sauce from his fingers suddenly became very important to Joe, and I realized that I’d somehow blown it.

  “You’re telling me that you dreamed about Selene and her family”—a shiver of alarm went down my spine at his casual use of Selene’s name—“and because of that, you think they’re supernatural beings?”

  “I—”

  “I can assure you that Mary Mathews is quite human,” Joe said. “I’ve been running tests on her for the last two hours. Her granddaughter Kate seems to be your typical preteen girl. A little sheltered, maybe, but otherwise normal.”

  “Selene is the one I’m worried about. She said she found you handsome.”

  He raised both eyebrows at me, and asked quite calmly, “She did, did she?”

  As if he didn’t know how any woman in her right mind would love to run a hand through his dark hair, trace that sensitive lower lip with a finger…

  I wanted to smack him.

  “And when did she say this?”

  “When she was floating over the bed.” Why is it I was feeling more like an idiot every time I said that?

  “Okay,” Joe said calmly, “and yet she was standing next to you today, right there on the sidewalk, as human as you or I.”

  “She came in the store earlier today, too.” Might as well tell him everything. “She walked right up and introduced herself, said I looked familiar.” I was now even more convinced that had been Selene’s opening shot across the bow.

  “You talked to her before her mother collapsed?” Finally he looked surprised.

  Her mother.

  “Oh yes,” I said sourly. “She was very talkative. She told Evan and me both that she was looking for a new boyfriend.”

  Joe burst out laughing. “Is that what all this is about?”

  I didn’t find any humor in the situation, so I just gave him a look.

  “You think she’s going to set her sights on me.” He was still smiling as he said it, which made it hard to get mad at him—he obviously liked the idea I might be jealous, the big goof. “You think she’s so attractive that I—being the weak-minded male I am—will fall instantly under the influence of her big blue eyes, and dump you like yesterday’s news.”

  He’d noticed the color of her eyes.

  “No! Well—” What’s the use of denying it? “Yes, I am. She’s hot, she’s on the lookout for a new boyfriend, and she’s already set her sights on you.” I looked at the wall, beginning to lose my temper.

  He leaned back in his chair, chuckling. “Nicki…”

  “Don’t Nicki me,” I returned shortly. “I’m telling you, that woman is up to no good, and she’s not human. I don’t care what you say.”

  I couldn’t believe he was taking what I said so lightly—I’d told him some pretty wild truths in the past, and he’d believed me every time. Why didn’t he believe me this time?

  He was quiet for a moment, then he stood up, coming around the desk. When he offered a hand to pull me up from my chair, I took it reluctantly, fuming a little. I wasn’t sure how to make my point without sounding like a jealous shrew.

  Joe, however, had a solution, leaning in until his forehead was against mine. “How about this,” he murmured, cuddling me closer than a doctor probably should. “If you say you dreamed about them, I believe you dreamed about them. You probably have some of the same traits as your Grandma Bijou.” My grandmother was a sensitive who lived in Savannah, who often knew things before they happened.

  Almost against my will, a teeny bit of tension eased from my body. “You think so?” It was a hope I couldn’t help but cling to, dammit. It would all be so much easier if I’d just had a weird dream about some people I hadn’t met yet—with my family history, it even made a strange kind of sense.

  “I think it’s entirely possible,” he murmured. “Just because you dreamed about them doesn’t mean your dream will come true.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “It sounds like quite a nightmare.”

  “It was,” I admitted.

  “So you’re afraid of them because you saw them in the context of a nightmare,” he said, with a logic that was hard to deny, “but they haven’t actually done anything to you, have they?”

  I hesitated, feeling his heart beat steadily beneath my palm. “No.”

  “You’ve been living like this for over a year now, Nicki”—by “like this” I took it he meant “seeing spirits”—“and we both know some sort of psychic gift runs in your family.”

  “The ‘knack,’” I admitted resentfully, nose against his chest. “That’s what Grandma Bijou calls it.” I still hadn’t quite come to terms that my biological mother had made her living as a psychic, or that my grandmother could often re
ad a person’s mind, even when you didn’t want her to.

  “I think it’s entirely possible that it has something to do with that,” he said, slipping a hand under my chin and raising my face to his.

  I smoothed the shoulders of his white lab coat with my palms, feeling better already. Looping my arms around his neck, I looked full into his eyes. Green, warm, smiling.

  “So you promise that if Selene Mathews makes a move on you, you’ll tell me about it?” I was comforted, but my instincts still told me the brunette was trouble.

  “I will, I promise,” he said, bending his head to brush my lips with his. He tasted of barbecue sauce and pure, unadulterated male. I savored both.

  There was a knock at Joe’s office door, and a nurse stuck her head in. She checked briefly at the sight of Joe and me in each other’s arms, but otherwise didn’t miss a beat. “Dr. Bascombe? There’s a problem in the lab, and Dr. Jenkins is waiting to consult with you over the hematoma patient.”

  “Be right there.” Joe eased back, and I could tell his brain had already shifted into doctor mode. The nurse gave me a quick glance, then took off.

  “Duty calls,” he said to me.

  “Will I see you later?”

  “I’m planning on it. How about I pick up Chinese takeout and bring it to your place around eight-thirty?”

  “Sounds great.”

  A quick kiss, and he was out the door.

  I trailed him out into the hallway, watching his broad back as he strode away, lab coat flapping. He turned a corner and the hospital swallowed him up like a big, busy labyrinth.

  I turned in the opposite direction, heading for the door that led to the parking lot. Was it possible I was making too big a deal out of some weird dream? I made myself a mental note to Google the meaning of dreams when I got home. If I’d inherited Grandma Bijou’s gift along with the knack, it might help to know what I was dealing with.

  “I hope I don’t start reading people’s minds,” I muttered to myself. “Seeing dead people is enough to deal with.”

  A couple of minutes later I realized that somewhere along the line I’d taken a wrong turn, because I found myself facing a set of double doors I’d never seen before. Knowing I couldn’t be that far off my bearings, I went through them anyway, and found myself in a waiting room, empty but for a little blond-haired girl watching television, and a black nurse who sat talking on a phone behind a sliding glass window. She glanced up at me briefly, then went back to her conversation.

  “Hi,” the girl said to me, cheerfully. She was young, no more than six, with a sprinkle of freckles across her nose.

  “Hi,” I said with a smile, and turned to go, realizing I’d have to backtrack to find the door to the parking lot. Hospitals could become such a maze.

  “Are you here to see someone?” The child was obviously precocious, and no doubt bored. Something made me glance at her again, and the way she brightened when I did made me pause, hand on the door.

  “No,” I said. “I’m just lost.”

  She shook her head, grinning. “No, you’re not.”

  It occurred to me to wonder why an adorable kid like this would be sitting here all alone, so eager to talk to strangers. I looked toward the nurse, who was still on the phone, and for the first time noticed the sign next to the window.

  PEDIATRIC ICU

  ALL VISITORS MUST SIGN IN

  Then I looked at the little girl again, and was shocked to see that she was wearing a blue and white hospital gown, when I could’ve sworn she’d just been wearing jeans and a Hello Kitty T-shirt.

  My heart sank. This was no ordinary little girl. This was a dead little girl.

  “Don’t be scared,” the girl said quickly. She shot the nurse a look. “That’s the worst part, when people are scared.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m not here to scare people,” she went on. “I’m only here to help.”

  Blue eyes, blond hair, and freckles. A wiry-looking girl child who’d no doubt been a tomboy—her skin was tanned beneath the freckles and she looked healthy, vibrant, full of life.

  Except she wasn’t.

  “Who—” I licked my lips, speaking softly. “Who are you trying to help?”

  “The babies,” she said earnestly. “They need someone to help them cross over. They’re too little to do it by themselves.”

  My knees became wobbly. I groped for the arm of the nearest chair and sat down, never taking my eyes from the sweet little angel in the blue and white hospital gown.

  “That’s very nice of you,” I said, wanting to cry.

  “You could do it, too,” she said, nodding with certainty. “You couldn’t see me otherwise. The only ones who ever see me are the babies.” She smiled, as if the thought gave her great pleasure. “They see me all the time.”

  “What’s your name?” I wasn’t sure what I needed to do here, but names seemed a logical place to start.

  “Dani,” she said, confirming my tomboy suspicions.

  “Dani what?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter.”

  “What about your parents?”

  Still smiling, she shook her head again. “I don’t know.” She seemed completely unconcerned.

  “Don’t you want them to know you’re okay, so you can”—I made an ushering motion with my hands—“cross over yourself?”

  She giggled, a tinkly sound that it seemed for a moment even the nurse behind the glass heard, because she looked up from her phone long enough to give me a glance. “They know I’m okay,” she answered, as if to think otherwise was ridiculous.

  I was struck by how mature she seemed, even if she was swinging her legs like any normal child of six. “They said it was okay to go, and that I’ll see them again when it’s time.”

  A lump rose in my throat. I could picture the scene all too clearly. A sudden illness, perhaps? An accident? Either way, a nightmare no parent should ever have to go through.

  “Anyway, it isn’t time yet,” Dani said cheerfully, “so I get to stay with the babies until it is.”

  Then I understood.

  Dani’s life might have been short, but for now, she was in baby-doll heaven, and even I could see the benefit of that situation all the way around. I was no deep thinker, but I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s how angels were made—a new purpose for a soul too bright to be extinguished.

  “I have to go now,” she said, and jumped up from her chair, blond hair bouncing. She tossed me a quick wave. “Bye.”

  I blinked, and she was gone. I looked toward the nurse, who’d finally hung up her phone and was rising, her attention on something going on in the area behind the glass.

  Instinctively I knew what was happening, and pushed through the double doors into the outer corridor with a heavy heart.

  Which immediately lightened when I thought of Dani, who’d be there to hold out a hand to any innocent soul who needed her.

  Who was I to question the ways of the universe?

  Taking a deep breath, I started walking, resuming my search for the door that led to the parking lot, relieved I hadn’t been asked to do the universe any favors today.

  A couple of minutes later, I finally found my way back to the original main corridor, and breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I’d soon be away from all this echoing linoleum and in the front seat of my own car.

  I briefly considered going back to the store and helping Evan close up, but I really just wanted to go home and let my nerves settle.

  It had already been quite a day—ending it with an angel didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  A woman’s heartbroken wail interrupted my thoughts. “I didn’t mean it,” she shrieked, somewhere down a hallway. “It was a mistake!”

  My heart sank at the pain in her voice. Someone was going through a bad time, that was for sure.

  “No!” she cried, louder now. “No! I didn’t mean it!”

  Uncomfortable eavesdropping o
n someone else’s drama, I walked faster.

  “Please—” The wailing got louder, and a woman stumbled into the corridor. She looked around wildly, and seeing me, rushed in my direction. “Help me! Please!”

  I flinched as she reached out to grab my arm, but there was no need. Her hands went through me like a breath of wind, leaving goose bumps in their wake. “No!” she screamed again, horrified. She stared at her hands as though they belonged to someone else. “Why can’t anyone see me? Why can’t anyone hear me? Please, help!”

  Oh, shit.

  It was happening again.

  Up close, I could see she was young, mid-thirties maybe. Slightly chubby, light brown hair that could use a shampoo. She was wearing a pink bathrobe and looked disheveled, distraught, and obviously—at least to me—very much dead.

  I hesitated, tempted, for the first time since I’d started seeing spirits, to pretend I didn’t see her. I didn’t have to answer her, didn’t even have to look at her if I didn’t want to. She’d give up and go away eventually. I could act the way normal people did, and just keep walking, ignoring her cries for help, her obvious panic.

  Except…

  I couldn’t do it, particularly after my visit to the pediatric ward. If a child of six could do the right thing, so could I. “Try and calm down,” I murmured, looking straight at her. I hoped no one would hear me and think I was talking to myself. “I see you.”

  The woman stared at me blankly, like someone in the grip of a horrible nightmare, intent, yet unseeing…and then her mind skipped somewhere else.

  “Josh.” Her face screwed itself into knot of pain. “What will happen to my son?” she wailed.

  And that’s when my heart truly sank, a familiar flutter caused by more than just a wimpy mitral valve.

  “Josh, oh God, Joshua…he’s only fourteen.” Sobbing now, shaking fingers pressed to her mouth.

  Poor woman.

  “I’m so sorry,” I murmured, meaning it from the bottom of my heart.

  “What have I done?” she choked, burying her face in her hands. I was silent, not knowing the answer to her question, giving her a little time to absorb the situation. I was worried someone was going to walk down the corridor any moment and find me talking to myself, but no one came.