The Kaleidoscope Sisters

by Ronnie K. Stephens

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The nurse entered Riley’s room to find her sleeping again. She walked over to the hospital bed and put a hand over Riley’s, then gently shook her. Riley stirred, but didn’t open her eyes. The nurse shook harder, clearing her throat for emphasis. Riley groaned and opened her eyes.

  “Where’s my sister?”

  “I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

  “Oh.”

  “I just got off the phone with your mom. She said that she spoke with you earlier this evening about her having to leave the hospital for a bit, and that you were okay with her going home. Does that sound right?”

  Riley thought back to when she was admitted. “Yeah. I guess I got confused.”

  “That’s okay, sweetie. Do you want her to come in? She sounded very worried about you.”

  “Oh, no. I’m okay, now,” Riley lied.

  “Are you sure? Really, I don’t mind calling her again.”

  Riley wanted to be strong for her mother, and she knew something must be wrong with Quinn if she hadn’t even stopped by, but she was also scared. She couldn’t remember the last time she had fallen. She’d been fine just a few days ago. Now she felt as weak as she ever had, she couldn’t think straight, and she couldn’t even remember hitting her head.

  “Well, um, I would like to see her, if she’s not too busy.”

  The nurse brushed hair from Riley’s face, then offered again to call Jane for her. Riley nodded, smiling weakly. The nurse started to leave the room. Wary of being alone, Riley asked if she could make the call from the bedside phone. That way, Riley would be able to talk her mother if she was available. The nurse obliged, picking up the bedside phone and dialing a series of numbers. She then put the receiver to her ear.

  “Ms. Willow? Sorry to call again so soon. Riley was hoping to speak with you?”

  She paused.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Another pause.

  “No, we’re still waiting for the results on that.”

  Riley was having a hard time following the one-sided conversation. She knew they were talking about her, but she felt frightened not knowing what her mother was saying. She was lost in thought when the nurse handed her the phone.

  “Mama?”

  “Yes, baby. I’m here. Are you okay?”

  “I fell,” Riley said. “My head hurts.”

  “I know, baby. I’m really sorry I wasn’t there to help you to the bathroom.”

  “Where’s Quinn?”

  Jane didn’t answer. Riley could hear thunder and heavy rain drops. Was her mother outside?

  “Are you walking Butterfly?”

  “In a storm? Of course not.”

  “But you’re outside. I can hear the wind.”

  “Everything is fine, baby. Your sister is fine. Butterfly is fine.” Jane’s tone was sharp, which made Riley cry.

  “Sorry, mama,” Riley sniffed. “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

  Jane was quiet again. When she finally spoke, her voice was shaky.

  “No, you didn’t make me mad. Mama’s just worried. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’ll be there soon, okay?”

  “You don’t have to come. I’ll be okay.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m on my way. Do you need anything?”

  Riley shook her head, then handed the phone back to the nurse.

  “Ms. Willow? I think maybe Riley’s head is beginning to hurt. I’m going to give her a little something . . . Yes, ma’am. We’ll see you soon, then.”

  The nurse put the receiver back on the dock and turned to Riley. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

  Riley nodded, clamping her eyes shut to slow the tears.

  “How about some Jell-O?”

  Riley nodded again. “Do you have strawberry?”

  “I’ll go check,” the nurse said, walking toward the door.

  “Thank you,” Riley called after her.

  * * *

  The nurse returned a few minutes later with a cup of red Jell-O and a spoon.

  “Good news,” she said. “I just spoke with the doctor, and you’re cleared to sleep if you’re still tired.”

  “What about the tests?”

  “Your vitals look good, and Dr. Howe will be here in the morning. I don’t think there’s anything that can’t wait until then.”

  “Okay,” Riley said, taking another bite of Jell-O. She was tired, but she wanted to be awake when her mother got there. The nurse checked Riley’s IV and various monitors, then updated the whiteboard with her current vitals. Riley turned and watched the monitors after the nurse had left the room. She’d been around them enough to know what they measured, and she focused her attention on the one recording the oxygenation of her blood.

  During checkups, her numbers were usually in the low nineties. Dr. Howe had once told her that her numbers would always be lower than her sister, but anything over ninety was an A-plus in his book. If her numbers were in the high eighties, Dr. Howe ran extra tests and sometimes admitted her for a day or two. Tonight, the machine bounced from eighty to eighty-two. Her eyes were growing heavy. She fought to keep them open, but she was losing. Just before she fell asleep, she thought she saw the number drop to seventy-nine. Somewhere far off, Riley heard the rhythmic metronome of a patient in distress.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The sky was beginning to shift like a new bruise to a deep blue. The butterflies were beginning to fade; their glow disappearing into the fog that surrounded Meelie and Quinn. Night was giving way to day, yet Quinn could see even less now than when she had set out from the cave. Quinn and Meelie huddled close on the back of Pidge, who had figured out how to glide, trying to stay warm as they were carried farther and farther out to sea.

  Meelie had plenty of experience flying over the water, but she wasn’t accustomed to flying blindly. Pidge was hard enough to steer on the ground. Now that she had figured her way into the air, she resisted Meelie’s direction at every turn. Meelie didn’t want to worry Quinn, so she kept her thoughts to herself. In truth, she was starting to wonder what would happen when they hit the water. She’d seen enough chickens in her day to know that they weren’t fond of being forced to swim.

  “What do you think drives the butterflies out this far night after night?” asked Quinn.

  “I don’t know. I’m sure not in a hurry to spend a night in the desert, though, after seeing how far they’ll go to avoid the open plain. Must be something mighty fearful out there.”

  The fog felt wet on Meelie’s face, and she wondered if they’d flown right into a storm without noticing. She held out her hand to test for raindrops, then realized that the water wasn’t so much as falling as collecting on all sides of her hand at once. She bent low and trained her ear on the void below. What she heard was the unmistakable song of a whale pod. In that moment, she knew two things for certain: they were much closer to the water than she had realized, and they were definitely too far from shore to swim back.

  “We’re going to hit the water before long, bunny. I want you to be ready to jump because this hen is going to cast a kitten when she realizes she’s in the middle of the ocean.”

  “What about the butterflies?”

  “Wherever they’re trying to go, we’re going to have to find on our own. You’ll need both hands to swim. These waves can get bigger than you and me in a hurry.”

  * * *

  Quinn wrapped her free arm tighter around Meelie’s waist. She was trying not to panic. She’d spent too many summers watching Shark Week to swim in the middle of an ocean. What if whitetips heard Pidge thrashing and swarmed them? Killers of the deep, television hosts would call them. But maybe there weren’t any sharks in this ocean. Aimee had lived out here for centuries without any problem.

  “You ready?” Meelie shouted.

  “No!” Quinn answered. “What if there are sharks?”

  “We stick close, and we kick anything that gets near, you hear?”

  “I’m scared!”


  “I am too, bunny. But we’ve got two choices: we can go under, or we can fight.”

  Quinn took a deep breath.

  “On my count! One, two, three, jump!”

  The two leapt from Pidge’s back. Quinn had a vice grip on the pole, but the net broke free when they hit the water. Quinn was shocked at the force of the impact. She felt a bruise forming up and down the length of her body almost instantly.

  “Quinn, call out!”

  “I’m here!” She spun around, searching for Meelie among the waves. She caught sight of her a few yards away and began to swim toward her.

  “There you are!” Meelie said when their eyes met.

  “What’s that sound?”

  “I think that might be a whale pod.”

  Wonderful, thought Quinn. If this ocean had whales, she would put money on there being sharks too.

  “Quinn, look out!”

  Quinn stopped swimming, stiffening her body. Right in front of her, she saw an enormous, gray blowhole. A burst of water shot into the air. As she watched, the whale dove back under the waves, a wide tail slapping the surface before the animal submerged again. Were there more she couldn’t see? What else was swimming in the water beneath them? She was too terrified to move.

  “Meelie, what are we going to do?”

  “We stick together.” Meelie was still making her way toward Quinn. When she was close enough to touch her, she pulled a length of rope from the water and tied herself to Quinn.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “Tucked a piece into my belt before we left the cave. You never know when you’ll need a little rope.”

  “Okay. What now?”

  Meelie shielded her eyes and scanned the horizon for any sign of land. Before she could make a complete circle, she caught sight of Pidge, who was frantically slapping her wings against the waves.

  “Crazy old bird. I don’t know why chickens hate being in the water even though they don’t sink or anything. Look at her, bobbing up and down like a buoy.”

  This gave Quinn an idea. They couldn’t get too close to Pidge without risking a smack to the head, but perhaps they could somehow attach themselves to her and prod her along with the pole.

  “You got anymore rope hiding in your pockets?”

  “What have you got in mind?”

  Quinn explained the plan while Meelie fished another length of rope from some hidden pocket beneath the water. They were testing various knots when Quinn saw the first fin. The color and shape were different than anything she’d seen on television, but she was certain that a shark was now circling them. She tugged the rope around her waist, pulling Meelie closer to her.

  “What do you see, bunny?”

  Quinn pointed at the fin.

  “Okay, let’s put our backs together. We need as wide a range of vision as possible.”

  She turned and pushed against the water, until she felt Quinn’s shoulder blades digging into her back.

  “What do you see?”

  “There’s at least three of them.”

  “I see two on this side. That makes five.”

  “Any idea what they are?”

  “No. The sharks back home have sharper dorsal fins, and they’re usually some shade of gray. These are almost green.”

  Quinn dipped beneath the surface to try and get a look at them. They were long and lean like she expected, but their noses were broad like a bull shark. That was odd. Broad noses usually meant powerful, aggressive breeds, but those breeds rarely scavenged in the open ocean. Their bodies were strange too, covered in dark patches that would have made them almost invisible in shallow water.

  “Meelie, I don’t think we’re that far from shore.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Quinn explained what she’d seen and what she knew about the sharks on television. She was no expert, but what she said made sense. Besides, large whales were known to migrate just a few hundred yards from shore.

  “Well if we’re going to make a move, now’s the time.”

  Meelie pointed at one of the sharks.

  “That one is closing in, and the others aren’t far behind.”

  “Won’t be long before they get brave enough for a test bite,” Quinn agreed.

  They bobbed closer to Pidge, tossing the looped end of the rope toward her neck like a lasso. Meelie timed the toss perfectly, and the loop slipped onto Pidge in a single motion.

  “Nice shot!”

  “Okay, bunny. Let’s see if this plan of yours is going to work.”

  Quinn pushed the pole into Pidge’s left side. She squawked, but didn’t budge. Quinn poked her again, a little harder than before.

  “Maybe she doesn’t know to kick her legs?”

  Quinn thought for a moment, then went under water and aimed the pole at one of Pidge’s legs, then the other. She poked the hen’s feet one after the other. Pidge was clearly annoyed and kicked back at the pole. Before long, she realized she was moving through the water and began to kick on her own. Quinn broke the surface to see Meelie, white-faced, kicking against the water. Quinn could see a dorsal fin just a few feet away. The sharks were getting bold. If Pidge didn’t pick up the pace, they’d never make land in time. Quinn positioned herself directly in front of Meelie, gripped the pole tight in her hands, and thrust with all the strength she could muster. If these sharks wanted a fight, she was ready to give them one they’d remember.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jane pulled into a parking spot at the hospital and turned off the engine. She still hadn’t heard from Quinn, and no one she had talked to had seen Quinn that night. The rain had passed, but the sky was still an eerie blue-green and littered with sheet lightning. Thunder growled menacingly, tree branches littered the roads and sidewalks, and the leaves still clinging to life swished like an angry shoreline. Jane closed her eyes, breathing deeply for several minutes, trying to collect herself before she went in.

  The nurse had told her that Riley had fallen and hit her head. Jane felt terrible for leaving Riley by herself. She’d convinced herself that Riley would sleep through the night, yet she knew that Riley woke up often when she stayed for overnight observations. Truthfully, Quinn was so diligent about calming Riley down and helping her back to sleep that Jane was rarely even aware that the girls had woken up.

  She wiped her eyes and ran a hand through her hair, still damp from the rain. Hopefully, she thought, Riley would be asleep again, and Jane could slip in without calling attention to her rain-soaked clothes. She really should have stopped to change; Riley sounded so despondent, though, and Jane wanted to get back to her as quickly as possible.

  * * *

  Inside the hospital, Jane first wanted to find the nurse assigned to Riley and get caught up on Riley’s condition. As she entered the children’s wing, she heard the telltale beeping of a patient in trouble. Someone in scrubs pushed past her and headed straight for Riley’s room. Jane quickened her pace, trying to swallow the lump that was already forming in her throat. She reached the room to see several nurses and a doctor checking various machines, rattling off instructions and confirming dosages. At the center of everything was Riley, fast asleep. Was she asleep? Of course she was. She had to be. Jane scanned the machines, trying to locate the source of the incessant alarm. Heart rate was low, but not enough to trigger this response. Blood pressure was also lower than normal. Then she saw the blue number: Riley’s oxygenation was in the seventies. She was dangerously hypoxic.

  Jane could see, even from a distance, that Riley’s skin was pale. Her lips and fingertips had a distinct blue tint. And her head, oh, her poor head. Jane saw a large bandage with a small spot of blood soaking through. How could she have left Riley alone? This was all her fault. If she’d been there, she could have helped Riley to the bathroom. She would have noticed Riley’s oxygenation levels dropping. Yes, this was her fault. And Quinn’s. How could she just disappear? Quinn knew how much the two of them needed her.

  One of the
nurses was running an oxygen line for Riley. Jane stared at the machine, which was still wailing. The number began to slowly climb back into the eighties. After a few minutes, the machine went silent. Some of the nurses began to trickle out. Riley’s heart rate and blood pressure were still low though, and her oxygenation seemed to be plateauing around eighty-five. That wasn’t odd for Riley, but the combination made Jane feel uneasy.

  “Is Dr. Howe back, yet?” she asked.

  “Oh, you must be Ms. Willow. I’m Wendy. Dr. Howe is still trying to get back. The storm slowed him down a bit.”

  “What’s wrong with Riley? Why are her numbers so low?”

  “Well, the oxygenation is a byproduct of her stenosis, of course. Her heart is having a harder and harder time cycling oxygen-rich blood to the rest of her body. The others are a result of her fall.”

  “How can you be sure? Couldn’t they have caused the fall in the first place?”

  “That’s certainly possible, but her readouts don’t show a clear dip until after I cleaned her up. I wouldn’t worry too much about that. She should be stable now, and Dr. Howe will be here soon enough to talk about long-term options.”

  Wendy updated the whiteboard, then exited the room.

  Jane carried a chair over to Riley’s bed. She couldn’t believe that Riley had slept through the machine’s alarm, much less the people surrounding her. Poor kid must be absolutely exhausted, Jane thought. She tried not to dwell, but she knew that Riley’s energy levels were directly tied to her heart. She and Quinn had gauged Riley’s health on the length and frequency of her naps for as long as Jane could remember.

  She took Riley’s hand in hers. The fingers were frigid, so she rubbed them between her palms. Then she took Riley’s other hand and did the same. She noticed that gooseflesh had formed over most of Riley’s exposed skin, so she went to the closet and searched for more blankets. The only option was a thin, scratchy throw blanket that had clearly seen too many beds over the years. Still, a thin blanket was better than nothing. Jane unfolded the throw and stretched the blanket over Riley’s body, tucking in the edges to hold in the heat.