by Jasmine Walt
Outside, the day was already well underway. Flowers of red and orange and blue opened up happily to the sun, greedily drinking in its energy. Even further, the orchards were in full bloom with pears and apples. But not peaches, Jeremy reminded himself. And even further out beyond those, almost invisible from the window, he could just make out the broad, rounded tops of the black walnut grove. A murder of crows flew in that direction.
The hardwood floor was cool on his bare feet and Jeremy hurried to slip on a pair of loafers. His bandages, he noticed by way of the mirror, had been changed. There was only a small, bright dot of red right over the source of the throbbing pain he felt. He was having difficulty wrestling with his father’s memories; they felt so real, as real as any memory properly his own.
“Get your breakfast while it’s hot or all of this will be for naught!” his mother called out loudly. Jeremy groaned inwardly at her rhyme as he padded his way quietly down the hallway to the kitchen.
To call the Scott country home a ranch was something of an understatement. Strong, wooden beams, as thick and rough as freshly felled trees, framed the residence over an area about the size of an acre. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the south walls, and the golden sunlight filled the main lounging room. Shelves had been built into the chairs and couch, each one filled with books of all sizes and colors. Hardwood flooring was covered here and there by soft area rugs, upon which sat the furniture.
Adjacent to the lounging area was the kitchen; all polished stone and smooth granite, the kitchen was very modern with an aesthetic feel that somehow meshed with the natural décor of the rest of the house. Inside was his mother, with an apron around her waist and her blonde hair pulled back into a bun.
“Hi, honey,” she said, smiling sweetly at him as he entered. “I’m glad you’re finally awake, it’s been so quiet all morning.”
“Morning, Ann—uh, Mom,” he replied, covering his slip-up with a yawn. “I slept like the dead.”
She looked at him worriedly for a moment.
“Breakfast,” Jeremy said quickly, gesturing. “Smells good. Pancakes?”
“Of course, my baby’s favorite.”
“Mom,” he groaned. He was hardly a baby anymore.
“Pancakes are just about finished, and I have scrambled eggs coming up in a few minutes. There’s bread waiting to be toasted, butter and jam on the table. I’m guessing you want milk?”
“Yes, please,” he said.
“Well you know where to find it,” Annabelle replied, gesturing toward the fridge. He grinned to himself. She hadn’t changed a bit in the twenty-three years he’d known her.
Jeremy frowned.
She was his mother. She was also Annabelle. His head throbbed as he struggled to make those two facts, the two sets of memories he held, compatible with one another.
His mother saw the stages of Jeremy’s confusion play across his face but said nothing.
Another thready pulse of pain, only a minor irritation, and Jeremy shelved the problem. He poured himself a glass of milk from the carafe in the fridge and sat down at the table. In addition to the food his mother had listed, there was also sliced ham on a large plate, each sliver the size of Jeremy’s hand.
“Wow, Mom, you made way too much food for just the four of us.”
“The two of us, actually.” His mother glanced at the door with a look of irritation. “Your father watched over you while you slept, but he was on his way right back to the city at the first light of day. He promised that it would only be for the morning, to finish the business meeting that was interrupted yesterday. He’ll be back by this afternoon,” she said, wearing her best smile for him.
If memory served him, he knew now that the cheer was false. Jeremy wasn’t fooled. But he could still beg ignorance, for his mother’s sake. He smiled in return as he sliced his stack of pancakes into quarters.
“You said the two of us. What about Ellie?” he asked.
His mother shook her head. “Wild child, that one. I’ve been trying to get her inside, but she’d rather get her hands and knees dirty chasing after rabbits.”
Jeremy shrugged. “Her loss, more for me,” he said, spearing a healthy portion of ham with his fork and depositing it on his plate. He ate like a ravenous wolf. He had never consumed as much in his life as he did that morning. The stack of pancakes, buttered and drowned in syrup, hardly made a dent in his appetite. The slices of ham, a half dozen total and each slice as thick as his pinky finger, brought his hunger down to a level approaching “gnawing”. He followed the first tall glass of milk with an equal amount of orange juice. His thirst slaked, he scooped up the scrambled eggs with his pieces of toast and put them down with bites of prodigious size.
His mother smiled and filled her plate with a quarter as much food. “Easy, Jay, don’t forget to chew.” She regarded him a moment. “Or breathe.”
Jeremy attempted to respond, stuffing food into his cheeks to make room for his mouth to work. It was completely unintelligible.
“Mum,” he finally managed. It came out British-sounding by accident, by virtue of the food still in his mouth. “How did you manage to make—well, everything—taste so good?”
“Why, thank you, sweetheart. But it helps when the person eating it has been knocked on the head first.” Her eyebrows furrowed with concern. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
“I’m feeling much better now,” he said, smiling. He looked outside for a moment; Ellie ran past the window, giggling, followed closely by a small, red-furred squirrel. Jeremy’s eyes returned to meet his mother’s. “Mom, I’m curious how you and Dad met.”
“Really?” she asked. “Surely we’ve mentioned it to you before, when you were younger. You probably just forgot.”
He frowned and reflected, searching his memories. His father’s recollections threatened to crowd out his own, though, and he struggled to find an original memory of his that told of his parents’ first meeting.
“It’s okay if you forgot,” his mother interjected, “I don’t mind talking about it.” A small smile fluttered on her lips. “Your father was a very charismatic man when he was younger. Very charming. The two of us went to university together, as you know, though he was two years ahead of me.” She pursed her lips in concentration. “It was the end of November, I remember. All of us were preparing for our end-of-term exams. And your father, well, he was in his senior year and already had a job lined up after graduation. It didn’t matter what grades he received in the end, so long as he passed and got his diploma.”
Here she paused, spreading her hands in front of her, a cautionary gesture. “You’ll have to take his word for it, because he only told me this story after we were already dating for several months, but he swears that the first time he saw me his whole life changed. Heart skipped a beat, jaw dropped to the floor, tripped up head over heels; he was such a romantic back then, your father.
“Anyway, I am sure that I looked like a train wreck. My hair was a mess, I wasn’t wearing any makeup; I had been practically living in the library for the last several days. And in walks your father, tall and handsome, with a nice smile and kind eyes, and the moment he saw me, I knew.”
She leaned in conspiratorially. “I knew he would be the death of me. He was all grace and collectedness and I was a mess, flustered over finals and papers for which I was in no way prepared. His eyes met mine and he walked directly toward me, never breaking stride from entering the room, and stopped just a half-step away from where I was seated. He said—and I’ll never forget this—he said, ‘When did angels stop living in the Jardin des Anges and start studying in the library?’”
Jeremy choked on his last piece of toast, snorting with sudden laughter. “He said that?” he asked incredulously. His mother laughed as well.
“Your father has always had a way with words. He knows exactly what to say, as well as how and when to say it. If he had been any less serious, I would have blown him off, and if he had tried an actual, suave pickup lin
e, I would have screamed at him in frustration to let me study in peace.” She chuckled to herself. “As it was, I was speechless. It was my jaw’s turn to drop, and I just stared at him with wide eyes. He had spoken loud enough for the entire room to hear, which only made it more surreal.”
“So what happened next?” Jeremy asked.
Ellie burst into the house, slamming open the screen door with youthful exuberance as she cried “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” and threw herself into her mother’s embrace. Only too late did Annabelle realize that her daughter was liberally covered in grass, leaves and mud. Lots of mud. Jeremy grinned to himself. Perhaps he had given too much credit to his sister’s maturity.
“Ellie!” she cried out. Her white apron was already soaking up the moist mud. She sighed. “Jeremy, do you mind? I’ve got to make sure this one is cleaned up, right now.” She emphasized the last words at Ellie, who squealed in delight as she was tickled under her arms. “I’ll tell you the rest of the story later?” she suggested.
Jeremy made a split-second decision and steeled himself against the nausea he knew was coming. “Sure thing, Mom,” he said, touching her lightly on her exposed arm. A rush of memories flooded over him, disorienting in speed and vividness, and he was thankful that he was already sitting down.
Before she had even stood from the table, Jeremy knew everything.
11
Detective Brennan woke in a hospital.
He was sitting in an uncomfortable leather chair with metal armrests, and his neck twinged from sleeping at an awkward angle. There was very little to be heard going on in the hallway, and a glance at the clock confirmed that it was very early in the morning, hours before dawn. A steady series of beeps toned from a machine. The room was otherwise quiet.
He turned and looked at the pale woman lying prostrate in bed. She had a slender face, gentle lips and early laugh lines around the eyes. Had she been awake, Brennan knew, blue eyes like sapphires would have glimmered back at him. When the two of them had met, she had been a rare kind of beauty. Beyond her pleasant looks, she had borne a steady strength within her. She had a compassionate heart and loved those around her more than seemed possible, and wherever she would go, smiles would appear.
His wife, Mara. She had been the greatest gift to this world, the single saving grace of Arthur’s life. That had been before she Fractured.
Now, the skin clung tightly to her bones, making her fine cheeks stark, almost mountainous protrusions on a light, deeply sloping landscape. Her eyes sunk deep in their sockets, dark as bruises against her ghostly complexion. Her hair grew out long and thin, untended to, sickly. Her gentle lips, so pink and luscious before, were now an ugly purple.
A knock on the door, and a man in a long, white coat entered quietly.
“Mr. Brennan,” he said, “can I speak with you for a moment? Out here, in the hallway, please.”
Arthur rose heavily from the chair and followed the doctor out of the room. He had not recognized the chill before, but he realized that the hallway was considerably warmer than Mara’s room. The nurses’ station was empty except for one, and she was dozing at her desk. The hallway was otherwise deserted.
“Mr. Brennan,” the doctor began solemnly, “I cannot tell you how sorry I am. You have my condolences.”
Brennan leveled a look at the shorter man. “My Mara isn’t dead.”
The doctor nodded sympathetically. “I understand that this is a difficult time for you, but there is nothing more we can do for your wife. She can be kept on life support for a time, but I would not be optimistic for a change in her condition. We can move her to Ridgewood, a long-term care facility, but—”
Brennan shook his head. “She would want me to keep fighting for her. Her body is still here, and I know her mind is in there, somewhere.” Now the doctor shook his head slowly, unconsciously. They were effectively alone, but his voice dropped to a whisper. “A Sleeper could go in, find her, and bring her back—”
“Sleepers are myths, Mr. Brennan,” the doctor said. His eyes screamed concern for Brennan’s mental well-being. “And even if they weren’t, it’s a fool’s errand to go tampering with a Fractured brain. The best thing to do is to let her go peacefully.”
Brennan held back his emotions. They raged against his heart and soul like rapids against a dam; one slip of his control would open the floodgates. He willed away the tears for his lost wife. She wasn’t lost, he reminded himself. He would not allow it.
“Then I will go myself,” he said softly.
“Then you’re a…” The doctor gazed wide-eyed, mouth agape. “That…would be madness.” He shook his head, and his voice regained some vestige of strength. “Even if you could, I would not allow it. It would be suicide.”
Brennan felt numb inside. He knew that what the doctor said was the truth. But while his mind could understand, his heart still rebelled. His thoughts had turned sluggish even as his heart raced. How dare this man presume to know what was best for his wife, what was best for him. But that was it, wasn’t it? He was no longer thinking of Mara, but rather only of himself. He was the one who wasn’t ready for her to go.
Something in the air changed. Maybe it was a pressure shift from an opened door, or perhaps his ears heard something his brain didn’t register, but Brennan was abruptly aware of another presence.
There, over the doctor’s shoulder, he saw a man who had not been there the previous moment. He was slender of build and wore a nurse’s outfit, scrubs of light blue. There was an intensity in his stare that was unnerving.
For a moment, the entire scene held in perfect stillness. The doctor’s mouth hung in mid-air, an unspoken word frozen on his lips. The beep beep beep from Mara’s room had gone silent. The newcomer nurse, however, moved with a gentle grace that Brennan was familiar with, once upon a time. Moving with caution, as if any abrupt movements would shatter their reality, the male nurse reached for the back waistband of his scrubs and retrieved a small pistol.
Brennan struggled with his body. Instead of being frozen in place like the doctor, he moved with the alacrity of one wading through chest-deep pudding. A single step took an eternity. A heavy pressure fell upon his chest, stealing the wind from his lungs. He gasped for breath as he tightly closed his fist. Sharp pain shot through his palm, jerking his arm with unexpected speed. The slowing, painful pressure around him vanished.
Brennan leapt to the side as a bullet sped from the gun. He crashed through the door to Mara’s room, the impact accompanied by the sound of breaking glass, not the thud of solid wood he’d expected. He glimpsed her prone form one last time before the entire world shattered around them.
He woke from the nightmare to find himself in his apartment. At some point in the afternoon, he had succumbed carelessly to sleep while reclining in the leather chair. From the chair, he had leapt upon the low, glass table in the center of the room and shattered it. Slivers of glass sliced scores of small cuts on his face and arms and made a mess of his shirt, but it was better than staying in the nightmare with the Sleeper for one moment longer.
He stood and brushed some of the glass from his body, taking care not to push any shards in deeper than they already were. Still cradled in one hand was a small, sharp thumbtack, and a slim trail of blood trickled from where it had punctured his palm. It would join the several other dozen such scars.
He stumbled to the kitchen and grabbed his phone from the counter before going into the bathroom. He dialed Sam’s number and told him to meet him at the apartment in fifteen minutes. He caught his reflection in the mirror.
“Better make that twenty minutes.”
“Can do, partner.”
He placed the phone on the sink countertop and shed his clothes. He let the shower run for a few minutes, then winced as he stepped into the steaming-hot water. Red rivulets ran from a dozen minor cuts. He groaned as the warmth spread through his body, relieving tension he hadn’t realized he’d had. The cuts stung, but the pain was manageable.
When he
felt ready, he used tweezers to remove any slender pieces of glass that remained in his skin. It was ugly and painful, and at one point he accidentally stepped on one of the fallen shards and had to remove it once more from his foot, but he managed it. Brennan closed his eyes as he let the water flow over his face. After what had seemed to be only seconds, a polite knock came from the front door. It devolved into heavy poundings with a fist by the time Arthur had dried and dressed himself.
“Come on, some people are trying to sleep,” he grumbled, opening the door for Sam.
“No, they aren’t, it’s three in the—Jesus, you look like hell.”
“Is that an improvement from looking like death?”
“Certainly not.” Sam eyed the living room as he entered. “Your furniture giving you trouble?”
“Yeah, table got out of line, acting like it owned the place. I showed it who pays the rent around here.”
Sam nodded. “So, what’s up?”
Brennan grabbed two Cokes from the fridge and passed one to Sam. “Bring me up to speed on the case. What did you and Bishop discuss over brunch?”
He huffed and sat on one of the bar stools. “Never got brunch. Her idea of a date was us going back to where Zachariah Nettle worked and getting a full look at their logbook. Everything in and out of the pharmacy over the past three months.”
“It wasn’t a date,” Brennan corrected.
“Yeah, well, clearly. I guess she’s having trouble admitting her feelings for me.”
“You slept with another woman while you two were dating.”
Sam shrugged. “Women. So territorial. It’s not as if we had agreed to be exclusive—” He caught Brennan’s look. “Right. Getting off topic. Noel flashed her badge and we got everything we asked for. Looked over the logs for about an hour—you wouldn’t believe how much traffic a pharmacy gets, these were no quick reads—and we saw some interesting figures.”
“What did you find?”
“Everything in the books was solid except for one product. NicoClean, some kind of prescription nicotine patch for chronic smokers who want to quit. These patches came in huge amounts each month, I’m talking boxes of the stuff, and sold out every two weeks like clockwork. Patches come in, patches go out.”