The Phantom Limb

by William Sleator

  Isaac realized that she must have been listening in on his conversation with the old man. She was clearly rushed, and she seemed so terrified of being seen that he didn’t know how to explain everything. He figured he might as well get right to the point. “Was Joey ever in City Hospital? Did he have a doctor named Ciano?”

  “Joey was in County Hospital, not City. And I forget the doctor’s name.”

  “Oh,” Isaac said, surprised and disappointed. Then he quickly continued. “I’ve been using the mirror box, just fooling around. And then I began to see that the hand in the mirror was different from my hand, doing different things.”

  The old woman’s mouth dropped open. She put her hand to her chest and looked at him sharply. “Is this some kind of cruel joke?” she said, her voice rising.

  “No, it’s not a joke,” Isaac said. “I know it sounds absurd, but it’s true. I think he’s been … well, trying to communicate with me.”

  “That’s—that’s not possible. How could he do that?”

  “What if … what if he’s trying to tell me something? Something about my mother? Listen,” Isaac said, knowing how crazy he sounded. “Something weird is going on at that hospital. My mother keeps getting worse, not better. What if Joey somehow knows something about that?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Joey had a wonderful experience at his hospital. That’s where he was given the mirror box. It was the only thing that could stop his pain after he had to have his arm amputated. We were so grateful.”

  “Why was his arm amputated?” Isaac asked.

  “They said it was bone cancer,” Mrs. Haynes replied, but Isaac could hear doubt and uncertainty in her voice. “They ran a lot of tests … But it just seemed so strange. How could a young boy like him get bone cancer?”

  “Did you get a second opinion?” Isaac asked.

  “No. The hospital staff all said they were positive it was bone cancer, and that they needed to act quickly. We had no choice but to let them operate. The doctor told us it was the only hope for him. But that doesn’t take away from how tragic it all was. You see, Joey was a pianist—a wonderful one—but you can’t really play with only one hand, now can you? One of the staff members managed to find a piece of music for him, though—Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. Joey worked so hard at that difficult music, and we just loved to listen to him play. Then his wound got infected, and it spread …” Tears were welling up in the woman’s eyes. “I have to go now. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help to you.”

  “But … can I talk to you again sometime? Please? I need to find out as much as I can.”

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea. I have to leave.”

  And with that she turned and walked away.

  Isaac practically shook with frustration on the long ride home. There was something that just didn’t sound right to him. It was odd—more than odd—how controlling the hospital had been. Why did they have to operate so quickly after the diagnosis? And why hadn’t the Hayneses made a point of getting a second or third opinion about such drastic major surgery? A pit formed in his stomach.

  When he got home, Isaac took Vera’s red-wine stew and the basil pistou out of the freezer. But as he prepared dinner, he couldn’t get the day’s events out of his mind. He found himself thinking about everything, including the mirror box. He went upstairs and took it out of his closet. Without hesitation, he put his hands in it.

  There it was—Joey’s hand. It waved at him, then gave a thumbs-up gesture.

  But instead of feeling jolted by its presence, Isaac suddenly felt very sleepy, and his eyes drifted shut. His hands were still inside the box. He began to dream. He was standing in a very strange place.

  He was surrounded by a hazy mist that made it hard for him to see. The only thing he could make out was a woman standing directly in front of him. She was wearing a bathrobe and staring directly at him as she harshly applied cream to her face, then wiped it off.

  Her face was too blurry for him to make out who it was. Her reflection was foggy, like a car window in winter. Isaac wondered if there was a flaw in the mirror. Why was the mirror box showing this to him?

  Isaac felt disoriented.

  It took him a while to realize where he was.

  He was staring at the woman from inside the mirror of her bathroom medicine cabinet.

  He had, in a sense, become her reflection.

  LEARLY, THE WOMAN COULD NOT SEE HIM. She finished wiping the cream off her face and then studied her reflection. She jiggled the fleshy skin under her chin and pulled on her sagging cheeks. She looked disgusted with herself.

  Isaac thought, She hates the way she looks.

  She also obviously hated the loud rock drumbeats that were pounding through the closed window, making the pane shake. She turned and scowled out the frosted window.

  He almost pitied her.

  She reached forward and pulled open the door of her medicine cabinet. As she did so, she disappeared from Isaac’s view, so that now he was looking at the window. Nothing happened for about a minute, and then the woman swung back into view as she closed the door of the medicine cabinet. Isaac saw her open a container and dump out eight large red capsules. She pulled each of the capsules apart and carefully poured the contents—a white powder—into a small glass bottle.

  A name was written on the bottle. Isaac strained his eyes to try to read it, but he couldn’t be sure what it said.

  Then the woman ran tap water into the bottle and stirred it with her finger until the powder had completely dissolved.

  Isaac felt suspended, floating, as though he were looking out from inside an aquarium. He knew that he was inside this woman’s bathroom mirror. Was it for real? How could this be happening?

  It was Joey Haynes who was showing him this somehow—through the mirror box.

  Suddenly, the woman vanished. Isaac was awake and back in his room. He looked at the mirror box.

  The phantom limb made a fist—a fist of determination: STOP HER!

  AS THE DREAM A SIGN FROM JOEY THAT something at the hospital was very wrong, that someone was tampering with medicine? Isaac didn’t understand what was going on, but he didn’t like it, especially because he knew Vera could well be in the line of danger. Unless the mirror box had tricked him. Could he trust Joey? He didn’t know what to think anymore.

  Dinner that night was delicious, what little Isaac actually ate. Grandpa, however, ate more than usual. And he asked a question: “What about that box?”

  Isaac was shocked that Grandpa remembered the box. Perhaps the old Grandpa was returning. He certainly hoped so. He desperately needed to share this nightmare with someone. Could he tell Grandpa about Dr. Ciano, about the box, and about Joey Haynes?

  Isaac decided that he would—that he had to—and so he blurted out everything. As he spoke, Grandpa looked at him oddly, apparently confused about what he was hearing. But when Isaac was done, Grandpa followed him upstairs anyway.

  In Isaac’s room, Grandpa put both of his hands into the mirror box and flexed his right hand.

  But all they saw was the reflection of Grandpa’s hand. Joey’s hand did not appear.

  Why wasn’t the phantom limb appearing for Grandpa? Isaac was frustrated. Grandpa smiled. “Thanks for showing me your box, Ize,” he said.

  As soon as Grandpa left the room, the phantom limb appeared in the mirror. It shook a finger at Isaac, as if warning him to keep the box to himself. Then the limb signaled to him: it flashed three fingers twice, then four, and finally five.

  Isaac took that to mean that he had better get to the hospital early the next morning, even though he hated being there. But the ominous dream, and now Joey’s warning—both of these after having seen Vera’s bruise—gave Isaac a sense of foreboding.

  The next morning Isaac woke up early. He ignored breakfast, prepared for school, and hopped on his bike.

  As usual, the hospital was bustling. Illness doesn’t sleep or take holidays.
Isaac quickly locked up his bike, entered the hospital, and ran up the stairs.

  Outside the intensive care unit, he caught his breath. He was nervous about entering, but there wasn’t much time. He checked out the nurses’ station from down the hall. He couldn’t see anyone, so he proceeded.

  He tried to appear relaxed as he approached the nurses’ station.

  “Did Dr. Ciano leave yet?” he asked a nurse standing by the medication cart.

  The nurse—whose pin said VICKY—checked her watch. “I haven’t heard.”

  “Thanks. I’m just going to go pop in on my mother, in six thirty-eight,” Isaac said. “If that’s OK.”

  Vicky smiled. “Sure, go ahead. I was on the night shift. Your mother seemed better, more alert. I talked to her a little bit last night because she had some trouble sleeping.”

  “Considering her case, that might be good news,” Isaac said, feeling relieved. Maybe he didn’t have anything to worry about after all.

  He pushed open the door to 638. Everything was quiet. The room, dark. Esther, gone. Vera looked up at Isaac as he entered and watched him with a doleful expression. Isaac hated seeing her like this, pale and weak. She looked worse than ever.

  Just as he was walking over to her bed, he heard a knock on the door. It was Candi coming in to dress Vera’s wound.

  Isaac was appalled. “Mom, how are you?” he asked. Then he turned to Candi and said, “What’s that bruise on my mother’s arm? I noticed it yesterday. It wasn’t there when she first checked in. And it’s getting huge.”

  “No. It’s very mysterious,” Candi said, looking worried. “I’ll tell Dr. Ciano again if I see her. I did mark it on her chart.”

  Vera shrugged hopelessly.

  Her personality had again changed, and for the worse. Isaac was afraid she might be giving up hope of recovery.

  Candi smiled. “How come you’re here so early?”

  “Just stopping by before school,” Isaac replied. “Hey, where’s Esther?”

  “She was dismissed—but that’s all I can say,” Candi said. When she saw that Isaac was confused, she added, “Sorry, but it’s confidential information.”

  As Candi changed the dressing, Isaac could see that the bruise on his mother’s arm was bigger and darker than it was yesterday. Things like this were supposed to get better in the hospital, he thought, not worse.

  “Does the doctor know about this bruise?” Isaac asked his mother. “Did she say anything about it?”

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t remember the last time I saw the doctor,” Vera said.

  “It’s like the nurses do everything and the doctors just make guest appearances,” Candi said, and she and Vera chuckled. She finished with Vera’s dressing. “Perfect,” she said. “I’ll be back in the afternoon. Enjoy your visit, Isaac.”

  After Candi left, Isaac asked Vera, “Do you know what happened to your roommate?”

  Vera shook her head and looked sad. “All I know is that they moved her out last night. I don’t know why.”

  Isaac was worried, but he had to leave and go to school. And he trusted the nurses.

  As he walked past the nurses’ station, he saw Candi, who was alone and sitting at the computer. Without looking up, she smiled and said, “Don’t worry, Isaac. We know what we’re doing here. I’ll take good care of her.”

  SAAC DIDN’T FEEL THE USUAL DREAD AS HE rode toward school. DCynthia had actually helped him the previous day, so maybe the day wouldn’t be so bad.

  Plus, he had to admit, it was nice to get away from the hospital. He was concerned about Vera, but he felt so uneasy there. School could distract him for a bit.

  Isaac saw DCynthia and Destiny approaching. They strolled past him as he was locking up his bike.

  “How old is that rattletrap you ride?” Destiny said. “Look at all the other bikes. They’re lightweight, and they have twice as many gears as yours.”

  While Destiny made fun of him, DCynthia fidgeted. She looked away, then shook it off and turned back to him.

  “Yeah,” she said, joining in. “Our father drives us to school in his awesome new Mercedes. He buys a new one every year.”

  For the first time, Isaac couldn’t care less what the twins were saying. He shrugged. “Of course he can afford a car like that,” he said. “I bet he makes his money scamming people. I’d be ashamed to ride in his car.”

  They stopped dead in their tracks and stared at each other. For a moment they actually looked shocked.

  “What did you just say?” Destiny asked. “You better be on the lookout for Matt Kravetz, twig. He’ll take care of a loser like you. No one insults us and gets away with it.”

  Isaac rolled his eyes. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “You know, I hate to end this lovely conversation, but it’s time for me to get to class. I want to learn something important, not spend my time making people miserable. Maybe you should look into it.”

  “Mommy’s little crybaby!” Destiny chanted.

  Isaac fixed his stare on DCynthia until her eyes dropped down. She didn’t look back up. He turned and slowly strolled away. He felt a sense of pride in standing up to them. He had found a little bit more of his own voice.

  At lunch, as Isaac sat alone, he was suddenly interrupted by Matt Kravetz. He was holding a tray, so it didn’t look as if he wanted to fight. Besides, nobody actually started fights in the cafeteria. Fights took place only if people were so out of control that they didn’t care about the consequences. And Kravetz didn’t look particularly angry. Still, he dropped his tray onto the table and stood there, hovering over Isaac.

  Isaac was nervous, but he figured that he had already stood up to the twins. What could he lose by standing up to Kravetz too? So he looked him squarely in the eyes. “What do you want?” he said.

  “Destiny told me what you said to her and DCynthia outside this morning,” Kravetz said, leaning forward threateningly.

  Isaac shrugged, trying to keep his cool, even though he was clearly nervous. “They’re never nice to me,” he said. “I was just giving them a taste of their own medicine.”

  Kravetz seemed taken aback that Isaac was not more intimidated by him.

  Isaac went back to eating his tuna sandwich.

  Kravetz watched Isaac for a moment, his lips parted, unsure about his next move. He had obviously not been expecting this reaction from him. “Well … you just watch it, man,” he said, almost as an afterthought.

  From the sound of Kravetz’s voice, Isaac sensed he had won this encounter.

  Kravetz turned and walked away.

  After school, Isaac hopped on his bike and started home. As he headed toward the corner, he put on his brakes to slow down, but nothing happened. He tried again. The bike wasn’t stopping, and he was zooming straight into the traffic! He started to panic. There was nothing he could do—he was going to collide with a car.

  His heart pounding, Isaac knew he had to come up with a plan, and fast. He looked down and realized the only thing he could do was use his feet. He took them off the pedals and dragged them along the ground. It hurt, and he was scared, but he was able to come to a stop just in time.

  Sweating and terrified, he got off his bike and walked unsteadily over to the curb to examine the brakes. He saw that a thick, sturdy twig had been jammed into the place where the brake cable was attached to the wheel. He pulled it out and tested the brakes again. Now they worked.

  Isaac was angry. Upset. Furious. And he knew just who to blame. The only ones who could have done this were the twins. They could have killed him! Obviously, DCynthia helping him at the hospital had been some sort of weird fluke. He almost felt like crying.

  When he got home, Grandpa was napping on the living room couch. Isaac was still shaken up by his near accident. To calm down, he took a stick of licorice from a jar in the kitchen and went up to the storage room to mess around with his optical illusions. He touched one or two of them, but even as he did that, he was acutely aware of the mirror box. Its
allure was irresistible.

  He went back to his room, took a bite of the licorice stick, grabbed the mirror box, and put it on his desk. He put the licorice stick down next to the mirror box. Without hesitating, he stuck both forearms into it and looked into the right-hand mirror.

  The phantom limb appeared. It made a beckoning gesture. Instantly, the stick of licorice was sucked into the mirror box. Isaac almost jumped out of his chair. How could the mirror box do that?

  Then he remembered that the mirror box had already shown him that it had supernatural powers. After all, it was allowing him to communicate with a dead person.

  The phantom limb dropped the licorice stick and began pounding on it, hard. Isaac was surprised the mirror box wasn’t shaking by the force of it.

  He had no idea what the phantom limb was trying to tell him. It was frighteningly clear that Joey was warning him about something—but what?

  The next day after school, Isaac went to visit Vera again. Reluctantly, he pushed open the door to the intensive care unit. He was getting tired of spending so much time at the hospital. It seemed to him that things were never going to be normal again—whatever that meant.

  He saw Candi sitting at her computer and said hello. Smiling at him, she stood up and followed him into his mother’s room.

  Vera was asleep. Dr. Ciano was in the room, her expression somber. “I just got her to rest,” she said. “She had trouble sleeping last night.”

  “Do you know what that bruise on her arm is from?” Isaac asked.

  “No, we don’t,” she said, sighing. “We’ll have to do a biopsy.” She paused and then turned to Isaac. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “School’s over,” Isaac said. It sure seemed that Dr. Ciano didn’t want him to be there, that she saw him as a nuisance and not as the son of a very sick patient.

  Suddenly, the door opened and a strange but oddly familiar-looking pudgy woman entered the room. For a moment she focused her attention on Vera, then on Isaac. “Oh, excuse me,” she said. “I must have the wrong room.”