Sweet Magic

by Connie Shelton

  By the light from the refrigerated cases that held mostly beer and sodas, Marcus did a quick shopping trip. He filled two of the store’s plastic bags—bandages, adhesive tape, antibiotic ointment, aspirin, batteries for the flashlight, tuna in pull-top cans, crackers, fried pies (he’d always been a sucker for those), a fistful of breakfast burritos, and a TV dinner type box of chicken (fully cooked, just heat and eat!). He didn’t care; he could eat it cold at this point. From a rack of touristy T-shirts, he grabbed several.

  Debating the wisdom of it, he made two limping trips out to the car, stashing a case of bottled water and two six-packs of beer in the trunk. Luckily, the only vehicle that passed down the road didn’t even pause.

  He stood beside the car, listening to the eerily quiet night. He honestly couldn’t recall ever having been anyplace where the only sound was the occasional swish of bird wings and the faraway call of a coyote. When he was absolutely certain there was no moving vehicle within miles, he started his car and headed back toward the campgrounds down the road.

  His earlier adrenaline rush gone, he found his eyes drooping. The pain in his side throbbed and he felt feverish. He’d been awake more than twenty-four hours, he realized, as he pulled his car into the woods. Less than twelve hours ago, he’d killed a sheriff. He’d really believed he’d never sleep again, but now he felt it was inevitable. He tried to focus on his plan: get to San Francisco, buy a ticket. He’d long dreamed of Bali—perhaps too obvious a choice. Singapore—no tolerance for criminals. Indonesia—there were thousands of tiny islands there, perfect little hiding places.

  He held to those thoughts while he dragged his aching body toward the RV park. He barely made it inside before he drifted off.

  Chapter 50

  Sam had thought she would never sleep until Beau opened his eyes, until she knew he was safe, but it all caught up with her in a crushing blow about midnight.

  Fifteen minutes, she promised herself. I’ll take a fifteen-minute nap and then go back to his side. She weaved her way to the quasi bed the nurses had rigged up, something that looked like it had come out of coach class on an airplane but could be stashed upright against the wall on a moment’s notice in case—she didn’t even want to think about that worst-case scenario. They had left her a small pillow and a thin blanket, and in her present condition these small comforts were welcome. She kicked off her shoes and lay on her side with the blanket pulled up to her neck.

  She clasped Manichee against her, hoping prolonged contact would help. After Kelly handed the box to her earlier in the evening, Sam had tried her usual approach—laying her hands gently on top of it—but this box failed to react in the same manner Virtu did. No golden tint to the wood, and of course this one didn’t have stones on it, another indicator Sam often used in order to know when the box’s power was at its greatest.

  And yet she knew this one had power, too. She had witnessed firsthand when Kelly touched it. She had become impatient, disgruntled with the few attempts she’d made—limited to sporadic times when medical personnel weren’t interrupting. Cuddled against the box now, she closed her eyes and imagined it warming, sending waves of healing power into her although it didn’t change its appearance at all. Just fifteen minutes …

  She awoke with a start. It was 4:13 a.m. when she peeked at her phone. Four hours!

  She threw back the blanket and padded to Beau’s side. He lay so very still. Tears stung her eyes again. The numbers on the monitors said he was breathing and his heart was beating. They were her only assurance. The bandages and tubes were sterile reminders of the hideous injuries beneath, of the horrible things that madman had done to the love of her life.

  Her hands felt warm—from holding the box so long?—and she placed them on Beau. First, his head, cupping the sides of his face, sending waves of love to him. She moved to his shoulders, avoiding the bandages while trying to make contact with as much of his exposed skin as possible. Down the arms to his hands—the left one was taped up with a plastic contraption that allowed fluids from the bags hanging on a rack to drain into him—but she ran her fingertips gently over his skin where she could. She squeezed his right hand.

  No response.

  She watched his face. No response at all.

  The box sat benignly on her makeshift bed, sending no signal or assurance her way. Maybe if the box touched Beau directly. She looked out the wide window toward the nurses’ station. Doubtful they would think it a good idea to put their patient in contact with anything so potentially germ-laden. But Sam knew better. At least she thought she did. She’d seen amazing things from these old artifacts.

  She picked up Manichee and carried it to the bed, slipping it under the sheet to rest against Beau’s bare hip. The skin prickled, as if chilled. But the faint shimmer of goosebumps went away immediately, and Beau’s expression didn’t change at all.

  A nurse slipped into the room, so quietly on her rubber-soled shoes that she startled Sam.

  “Just need to take a peek here,” she whispered. For some reason it seemed normal to speak aloud in daylight but nighttime required whispers.

  Sam pressed against the bedside where the box lay hidden, holding her breath slightly, but the nurse only looked at the clear plastic bags on the rack and checked something about the connection where the fluids entered the tube on Beau’s hand. Then she left.

  The bedside chair where she’d sat half the night was still in place. Sam sat again, took Beau’s hand, and laid her head on the bed beside him.

  “Oh, Beau. Talk to me, squeeze my hand, blink … something. I need you to give me some little sign you’ll be okay. Please be okay …”

  Nothing moved or twitched.

  She stroked his hand, ran her fingertips up the arm to his shoulder. Her other hand encountered the wooden box, still hidden beneath the sheeting. She should put it in her pack, out of sight in case the nurses came back to check his wounds or change the dressings.

  As she set the box down and zipped her pack, something Kelly had told her came back. Bobul’s prediction that Sam might find herself alone. She swallowed hard and choked back the tears that rose when she gripped his hand again.

  “I can’t do this without you, honey. I can’t. You’re my rock. You are the one who gets me through. I’ve taken on too much—I know it. I’m going to figure out a better way. Just let me know you’ll be here for me to come home to. That you’ll always be there.”

  Did she imagine that the beeping heart monitor quickened? She stared at it. But the numbers were all the same. Not the faintest movement crossed his handsome face.

  * * *

  Kelly came in the morning, about the time the head nurse informed Sam that it was time for them to change Beau’s dressings and she would need to leave the room.

  “Come on, Mom. You have to get some breakfast,” Kelly said.

  “I can’t leave the hospital,” Sam insisted. “He could need me.”

  “Fine. The cafeteria is only down one floor.” Kelly sent the nurse a look to explain Sam’s near frantic demeanor.

  The attempt to get Sam to sit down to a meal barely happened. From the cafeteria’s buffet line, she took a small scoop of scrambled egg, one strip of bacon, and a single slice of dry toast. The only thing she treated herself to was an extra-large coffee. The food was gone in a half-dozen bites and she was insistent on getting back up to the ICU.

  “I called Grandma and Grampa,” Kelly said. “She wanted to hop in the car and drive right out here.”

  Sam’s eyes widened. “Oh god, I hope—”

  “I talked them out of it. Told them no one’s allowed in except you, and there wouldn’t be anything they could do.”

  “Thanks.” Sam pictured her mother’s take-charge personality. Her own stress level rose at the thought.

  “You should call them,” Kelly said as they left the cafeteria. “I don’t know how long my influence will hold them back.” She gave a lopsided grin.

  Sam squeezed her hand and said she would che
ck in with her parents in a day or so. In the elevator she told Kelly what she had tried during the night with the carved box. “Yours didn’t work for me, Kel. I need you to try it this morning. Maybe each of us has come to possess the box we have for a reason. If you hold Manichee, I feel sure it’s your healing touch that will work on Beau.”

  “Tell me what to do and I will,” Kelly said.

  Back in Beau’s room, the fresh bandages gave a sense of new hope, but fundamentally nothing had changed. When Kelly picked up the box and laid her palms against it, the wood began to lighten and warm.

  “Look! It’s working,” she exclaimed.

  Sam was standing guard at the door. “When it feels really warm, almost hot, you can set it down. Then go over and touch Beau. Try touching his hands and arms, then his face.”

  “Are you sure it will be okay?” Kelly’s hands were becoming very warm now. When she could barely touch the box’s surface anymore, she put it aside. “Whoa—that’s amazing.”

  She did as instructed, warming Beau’s cool fingertips and forearms.

  “Try laying your hands flat against the bandages. Right on the wounds,” Sam suggested.

  Beau’s eyes moved behind his eyelids, and the heartbeat on the monitor went up a few beats.

  “Maybe I’d better quit,” Kelly whispered. “What if it’s too much for him?”

  “But he’s reacting.”

  Kelly raised her hands and backed away from the bed. “Let’s see what happens before I do any more. Don’t forget, the doctor said they’ve induced this coma state. Maybe they don’t want him to wake up just yet.”

  Sam’s face slumped. “I know. You’re probably right.” She paced to the window and back to the bed. “I just want him to wake up.” Her voice went shaky and fragile at that last part.

  A shadow crossed the doorway. Doctor Albertson, the surgeon. How much had he heard?

  “We know you’re eager, Mrs. Cardwell,” he said. He held a chart in his hands.

  Kelly had quickly carried the box to Sam’s cot and was zipping it inside her pack.

  “Is he improving, doctor?” Sam asked.

  The doctor looked different today, without his surgical scrubs and the cloth cap covering his hair. Today, in dark pleated slacks, a blue button-down shirt and a white coat he looked like he’d walked off the set of some medical TV show. He took time to lift the metal cover on the clipboard chart.

  “The wounds seem to be healing well, considering we operated less than twenty-four hours ago. The biggest danger is infection, and we have him on some fairly heavy-duty antibiotics to keep that at bay. We’ll begin withdrawing some of the sleep medication by the end of today and hope to see a positive response.” He held the chart to his chest. “There’s been a lot of trauma to his body. To be truthful, he’s not out of danger yet, and it may be a long haul.”

  He looked as if he’d be willing to answer questions, but Sam couldn’t think of what to ask. Her brain seemed to stick on the phrase ‘he’s not out of danger.’ Dr. Albertson gave an awkward pat to her shoulder before he left. Clearly, he was better with the patients than the families.

  A young nurse with long, dark hair bustled in and proceeded to take a vial of blood by connecting a tube to the device on Beau’s forearm. She gave a ready smile and asked if there was anything she could do for Sam. “An orange juice might do you good,” she suggested.

  Kelly, meanwhile, had slung her purse over her shoulder. “Scott and I are going to drive home, and we’ll bring your truck and some fresh clothes for you. I know you’re sick of these,” she said, reminding Sam she’d been wearing the bakery clothes she’d dressed in two days ago. “And I’ll bring that book I wanted you to read. We’ll be back by five or so, and I think it would be a good idea for you to come to the hotel for a shower and let us take you out for some dinner.”

  The nurse had finished with the blood draw and some little process where she flushed out the line. “For sure, Sam. Everyone needs a change of scenery after they’ve been here a day or so.”

  Sam wanted to snap at both of them, to say they should quit telling her what to do, quit planning her life, but she couldn’t. Kelly’s offer came purely from love, and all the nurses had been so kind. She nodded silently, then turned back to keep watch over Beau.

  Chapter 51

  True to her word, Kelly phoned a little before five o’clock. “We’re down in the parking garage, Mom. Found a primo parking spot for your truck. Do you want to meet us and head out for a quick clean-up and dinner?”

  Sam hesitated. Beau hadn’t moved a muscle or flickered an eyelid all day. “I really shouldn’t leave him.”

  “We thought you might say that. Scott’s on his way up. He’ll stay with Beau the whole time, and he promises to call you if there’s any change at all.”

  Before Sam could formulate an argument, her son-in-law showed up at the ICU door.

  “Kelly’s worried about you, Sam. If nothing else, do this to humor her.” He repeated what Kelly had told her, that the hotel was only ten minutes away and he would call if there was the slightest change to report.

  She picked up her bag and stuffed her phone inside. With a lingering look toward Beau, she left his side for the first time in nearly seventy-two hours.

  The late afternoon sun blasted her eyes as Kelly pulled out into traffic. Light, noise, motion—Sam hadn’t realized how insulated she’d felt in the separate little universe of the hospital. Once there, small bits of the outside world had existed only through tinted windows. She lifted the neck edge of her shirt and sniffed.

  “Ugh, you’re so right. I really do need a shower.”

  Kelly laughed. “I didn’t actually mean anything by it when I suggested this.” She pulled into the lot at the hotel, parked, and retrieved a suitcase she’d quickly packed.

  Sam followed along. “This all feels so otherworldly.”

  “I know, Mom. We’ll just take a step at a time.” She set the suitcase on one of the queen-sized beds. “Here’s your stuff, there’s the bathroom. I shall go back out and procure us some dinner. What sounds good?”

  Sam couldn’t remember when she had last eaten, but she didn’t feel the least bit hungry. “Nothing.”

  “Mom … you won’t be helping yourself or Beau if you become rundown. Give me a hint or you’ll get whatever I happen to find. Burgers? Pizza? Salad?”

  Sam shrugged. “Something with protein?”

  “Good idea. You need your strength.” Kelly left the room and Sam unzipped the suitcase.

  The otherworldly feeling persisted, but she knew she was doing the right things. Cleanliness and food would help immensely. By the time Kelly returned, carrying two large chef salads, Sam was feeling somewhat better already.

  “I would have insisted on taking you to the restaurant to get you out into some fresh air,” Kelly said, “but while we’re alone and without Scott wondering what we’re up to, I wanted to tell you about the book.”

  They set out their meal on the small table in the room and concentrated on the food at first. Sam didn’t want to admit it, but she did feel better with each bite. Everything Kelly had said about keeping up her own strength was so true—she would need the energy to go into the next phase, once Beau came home.

  Tell Miss Sam she might end up alone …

  Sam shut out Bobul’s words. It was foolish to put too much stock in something he’d said weeks ago and in another country. Beau will be home. I will be strong and energetic for him. She speared a slice of turkey and one of cheese from the salad and munched them down.

  “Remember, I told you I was able to read the book after handling the box?” Kelly set her fork down and opened the leather-bound book to a random page. “Well, the ability only lasts a short while. Right now, it looks like gibberish to me again.”

  Sam had a sinking feeling. “What was I thinking? I should have given you the combination to our safe and had you bring the other box. I could be using it to help Beau now.”

  Ke
lly’s eyes widened. “No! We have to be really careful when we bring them together. That’s what I wanted to tell you. What I read in the book talks about the power of the three boxes. If all three boxes come together at once, there’s a strong chance that their power will go to the evil side. Yours, Virtu, causes good things to happen. Mine, Manichee, is neutral—it picks up the intention of the user. The third one, Facinor, which we believe Marcus Fitch has right now, is evil. Bobul told me that, and the book confirms it. If Facinor and Manichee come together, they’ll both go to the evil side and their power will overcome that of Virtu.”

  Sam felt the dizziness return. “Are you sure about all this? I’ve never experienced—”

  “It’s what the book says. I don’t think we can dare take the chance, especially not with Beau in critical condition.”

  “I need to get back to the hospital,” Sam said, placing the lid on her salad container and standing.

  “In a few minutes. There’s something I want to try first.” Kelly finished her salad and wiped her hands. “You have the box with you, Mom? Get it from your bag.”

  Sam did so.

  “Okay, run your hands over it and give it a chance.”

  “But, it didn’t—”

  After a couple of minutes Kelly reached for the box and held it. In her hands the wood began to warm and glow.

  “Okay, Mom, open the book and see if you can read it.”

  Sam felt skeptical but she complied. She stared at the page—words appeared in English. “My god.”

  “Tell me what it says.”

  Sam sent her daughter a puzzled look, but she read the first few lines.

  “Good.” Kelly seemed relieved. “There was a passage I read earlier that made me wonder if we would see the same things. We do.”