by Ronald Malfi
“Oh.” A phantom smile played on Josh’s lips. “Old war wound.”
“Where you were shot,” Carlos said. He tried, but couldn’t see it anymore, couldn’t pick Josh’s thoughts and memories from the air. Nellie Worthridge was dead; her power had died with her.
“What will you do now?” Josh asked him.
Carlos shrugged. “Go home,” he said. “I feel like I can sleep a million years. Like that guy from the fairy tale.”
“No,” Josh said, “I meant now as in forever. What do we both do? Just forget this and move on?”
Carlos smiled, grabbed his medical bag from the night table beside Nellie’s bed. “You can try,” he said, “but good luck having any success.” He paused to take in one final glimpse of the old woman. He wondered how a mind as powerful as hers could be so useless in death. Yet who knew? Maybe it wasn’t. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish I could have saved her.”
“Wasn’t your choice,” Josh said. “I was there. I heard what she said to Kelly. She saved Kelly’s life. Whatever life was still inside her, she passed it along to Kelly. That’s when I knew she’d be all right.”
“That’s a fine thing,” Carlos said, making his way toward the door. He stood for a long while, looking at the old woman’s body. After a time, he said, “I should do something. I should make a phone call and not just leave her like that. I’m a doctor.”
“You’re a doctor who’s been through too goddamn much.”
“So have you.”
“Just go home. I’ll take care of it.”
“But I should make a call—”
“Doc, you were never even here.”
Carlos felt himself smile. “If you’d like, I can give you a ride to the police.”
Josh shook his head. “No. I think I’d like to sit here for a while with her. I’ll call the police in a little bit.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m good. You be careful going home.”
Carlos nodded once and stepped out into the hallway. He stepped over a busted picture frame. Josh called to him and he poked his head back into the room.
“Just curious if you felt anything more about your son tonight,” Josh said.
Carlos shook his head. “Afraid not.” Again, he turned to leave, his footfalls crunching on broken glass in the hallway. As he passed through the living room, a strong wind forced its way into the apartment through the broken windows, rattling the taped plastic bags like noisemakers at a New Year’s party. He spied the phonograph, the Ellington record, and noticed that the stink of citron had left the apartment as well.
All a part of the same divine creation, he thought. Some mysteries will never be answered.
And it occurred to him that that was the only true answer concerning God as well: that some mysteries simply remain unanswered, and sometimes that’s the best anyone can hope for.
I can accept that, he thought, and moved out of the building and into the snow.
In the moments before her husband arrived home, Marie Mendes awoke from a terrible nightmare, rolled over in bed to feel her husband’s absence, and mumbled lightly to herself in Spanish. Moving slowly, the weight of her belly a constant reminder, she rolled out of bed and tugged on her slippers. She was concerned about her husband’s poor sleeping habits. At first, she was willing to accept that it had to do with their pregnancy, and the trepidation he might feel in becoming a father for the first time. But this had gone on too long and she was beginning to worry that it might be something else, something more serious.
Downstairs, all the lights were out. Not wanting to wake up Carlos’s mother, she whispered her husband’s name throughout the rooms, flicking on lights as she walked by. Occasionally she’d caught him meditating in a darkened room. But all the rooms were empty tonight. Her husband was not here.
She stepped out to the back porch, half-expecting to find him puffing away on one of his cigarillos he didn’t know she knew about, but he wasn’t there, either. Upset, she paused against the porch door, unconsciously chewing on her fingernails. Had he gone out, this late and in such weather? Perhaps the hospital had called…
Shivering, she moved back down the hallway and began climbing the stairs to go back to bed. Halfway up the staircase, her mind on her husband, she felt the baby move inside her. She smiled. She brought one hand away from the railing and placed it on the swell of her belly. Yes, she could feel him in there…little Julian Mendes…
The baby thumped again and she laughed. In the darkness, she reached out for the railing and took another step before she gripped the banister. Her foot didn’t find the step. She jerked, her hand groping for the railing, but by that time she had started to tip backward and away from the banister. Her foot came down crookedly on the stair below the one she’d aimed for, twisting her ankle, and in one sweeping wave she felt her entire body go loose and give way. The momentum forced her backward, and she felt her heart rise in her throat, saw the stairwell, the wall, the ceiling alternate places, and felt the dagger-like sharpness of a step digging into the small of her back…her head, her shoulders. Her legs flailed and her left foot cracked against the wall. Bright, starry explosions danced in the darkness before her eyes. In her struggle, she managed to turn to one side, to twist her body and avoid further injury to her back and head. But she turned too far, and felt a pain worse than any pain she had ever known—deep and gripping, piercing a lifeline of nerves that ran straight through her body. Something thundered deep inside her.
She struck the floor with frightening numbness, the world growing bleached and gray all around her, and she was faintly aware of a sticky wetness about her body—running down her legs and soaking her thighs. She cried out but could only hear her own heartbeat in her ears. A second wave of pain struck, and she felt her entire body turn inside-out, felt that sinewy lifeline snap and recoil, curl up, shrivel.
Before passing out, she thought she heard herself scream.
Epilogue
Her jacket pulled tight against her frame, Kelly stood outside the Krohn Building in downtown Manhattan, a portfolio under one arm, a look of insufficiency on her face. For what seemed like an eternity, she watched the traffic skirt along the street, watched the bustle of pedestrians weave in and out of each other, until she made up her mind to either enter the damn building or leave. It wouldn’t be difficult to turn around and go home. She could get something to eat and not think about the Krohn Building or the project or the damn portfolio under her arm ever again.
Taking a deep breath, she crossed the street and entered the building.
Back at the apartment, Josh greeted her with a cold beer and an eager disposition.
“Well?” he said.
“Don’t pump me.”
“Hey, this is my thing too, remember? Anyway, I’m just excited.”
“Where’s Becky?”
“Here,” Becky called from the kitchen. Kelly entered, set her portfolio on the counter, and tugged her sister’s ponytail. The girl flashed a beaming smile and for the first time Kelly actually saw how beautiful she was. And everything that had happened—all of it—was gone for her, absent from her mind. The nights she and Josh had stayed up going over and over those strange and frightening events had been their therapy, their way of solidifying the events in their mind. As was the slow-healing wound at her shoulder. And as was the power she still carried in her body and mind. But Becky had none of that. Becky remembered nothing. Several times, Kelly had tried to reach the girl with her mind and stir her memory, to make some sort of contact with her via their shared abilities. But Becky had closed herself off.
“Cooking, huh?” Kelly said.
“Josh made me make dinner. Do you have any idea how lazy he is?”
“Not true,” he said. “Dinner just tastes better when someone else makes it.”
“Such a creep,” Kelly sneered.
“So come on,” he pushed. “You gonna make me do handstands or what? How’d it go? What’d they say?”
“Well,” she said, “they turned down the series.”
“Shit,” said Becky.
Josh threw his hands up in the air. “Man, I really had a good feeling about those creeps too. Hell, what do they know, right? Their loss.”
Kelly sat down on the sofa and peeled her shoes off. “There is a bright side.”
Josh cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“They were real impressed with Nellie’s segment. They want to release it as a stand-alone documentary.”
Josh broke up. “Are you serious? That’s fantastic!”
“It’s gonna be on TV, Kell?” Becky said, beaming.
“Cable,” she said.
Josh laughed and said, “Rich man’s television. Me like, me like. Really, Kell, that’s great news.”
“Great news for both of us,” she said, sharing a look with Josh. Neither of them had ever commented on the absurdity of Nellie Worthridge’s video footage reappearing soon after Kelly had returned to the city with her sister. There were too many strange things that had happened to linger on any one in particular.
Too many strange things.
On some random Tuesday, Kelly felt the presence of eyes at her back. Several times while on the street she turned, thinking she’d catch someone following her, but there was never anyone there. Shivering, she chalked it up to stress and didn’t think about it again until she was approached by her admirer an hour later while sitting by herself at a coffee shop. The stranger stepped up beside her table, his long shadow looming across her face, and she looked up, startled.
It wasn’t a stranger at all. It was Jeffrey Kildare.
“You,” she breathed, shocked.
“Miss Kellow.” He tightened his lips. “May I sit?”
She didn’t know what to say. “Sure.”
Kildare unbuttoned his black wool coat, tugged at the knees of his dove-gray slacks, and folded himself neatly in the chair opposite Kelly. “No doubt you’re surprised to see me. I’m quite busy, as I assume you are, so I’ll make this quick.” He produced a thick envelope from inside his coat and pressed it against the table. “Your parents left no money and no will,” he said.
“No money? How can that be?”
Kildare frowned and sighed, his eyes dark and unmoving. He seemed annoyed. “Listen,” he said, “I’m not going to sugarcoat things for you, and I don’t suspect you’re the type of person to swallow such things anyway. Your parents were strange people, Miss Kellow. And I use ‘strange’ in the vaguest sense, as I’m sure you can understand. Whatever was the cause of their condition, I do not know. I was merely hired to perform a service and that was all. I asked no questions beyond that, and such a relationship was fine by both parties. I can assure you it was fine by me, in any case.
“Your parents didn’t have any money because everything they ever owned was inside that house. Everything—money included. No bank. According to any number of savings banks upstate, no one’s ever heard of your parents. Gordon and Marlene Kellow did not exist to them.”
“So what you’re saying is that there would be money—”
“If the house hadn’t burned, yes. But money burns just like everything else, I’m afraid. Shame. I imagine it was quite a lot.”
She tapped the envelope. “Then what’s this?”
“The last wishes of Gordon Kellow.”
“You said there was no will.”
“Correct,” said Kildare, “no will. This is simply a deed to the house your father had me reinstate just recently.”
“The house is gone.”
“The property is still there. All of it. For a pair of reclusive eccentrics, your parents understood the value of real estate. Or maybe it was just stupid luck. I don’t know. What I do know is that your father owned a lot of property, not just the house. He owned the entire hillside, the forest valley surrounding it, and all of Spires itself.”
“The town?” The notion seemed absurd. “He owned the entire town?”
“If you’re one for anecdotes, I can tell you that your father expressed to me one evening that after the house was built, he would take pleasure in sitting in the windows of the spires atop the roof and looking down upon the town. After he purchased it, he had the name changed to something more fitting. At least, to him. So he called the town Spires.” Kildare appeared to grimace. “Of course, I’m not one for anecdotes myself.”
“I never knew…”
“I was hired to rework the details of the property ownership. He never expressed why he wanted these things changed and I never bothered to ask. He was a peculiar man, as I’ve said, and sometimes it appeared as if he didn’t consider too much beyond what shoes to put on at the start of the day. But occasionally he’d dip down to reality and pay us all a visit. That’s when we discussed business.
“He left the property to you, Miss Kellow.”
She blinked. “Me? Why the hell me? I could have been dead for all he knew or cared.”
“Apparently he did care,” said Kildare, “not that that’s any concern of mine. He had me rework all the documents claiming you as the sole beneficiary of both the Kellow Compound and the entire town of Spires, New York. As a man of duty, I am now here to fulfill the last leg of my business and inform you about this, and to pass along the requisite paperwork.” He tapped the envelope. “This,” he said.
She opened the envelope and flipped through the paperwork, stunned into silence.
“You’ll just have to sign the bottom form for me,” Kildare said, dipping a hand into his coat pocket. “I thought I had a pen with me…” He held his hand up to attract a waitress. “I’m sorry.”
Feeling a pen suddenly in one fisted hand, she said, “I have one,” and scrawled her signature at the bottom of the last page.
Kildare watched her, almost wanting to smile. For a moment, his eyes lingered on the pen in her right hand. There was something behind his eyes, Kelly saw…and she suddenly wondered just how much her father had told this stranger.
“Very good,” Kildare said, sliding the signed copy in front of him.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “What the hell do I do with all that land?”
“That isn’t my problem.” Kildare rose, buttoned his coat, and adjusted the collar of his shirt. “That envelope contains all the information and documentation you will need. I don’t foresee any reason for you to contact me in the future.”
Still in shock, she shook her head, dazed. “No.”
“Very well.”
He turned and strode through the crowded coffee shop. A small overhead bell chimed as he hit the door, signaling his permanent departure from Kelly’s life. She watched him cross the street and disappear into the crowd, her right hand fisted around the pen. And before she could think about it again, she felt the pen vanish within her closed fingers.
She sat at the table for a long time, staring at the envelope.
Cracking the door open the slightest bit, Kelly poked her head into Becky’s room. The girl was sound asleep. That bothered Kelly. It was the forgetting—she didn’t like the idea of Becky’s brain erasing the entire incident as she herself had done. No nightmares. And now that the bruises and scrapes had almost completely healed, what was left to remind her? There were no simple solutions to life. To cheat the evil only meant it would eventually return to cheat you back. The past doesn’t forget, she thought. Sometimes it is more dangerous to forget.
Back in the living room, Josh was seated on the sofa watching the videotape of Nellie Worthridge with the sound off.
Kelly crept up behind him. “Couldn’t find the volume switch?”
Josh rolled his shoulders. “Don’t need it. I can still hear her voice in my head. I think I’ll hear it forever. Loud as thunder.”
She slipped around the side of the couch and sat beside him. Close. Suddenly very tired, she watched Nellie’s image flicker on the screen.
“You remember it all?” she asked him.
<
br /> “Yes. Do you?”
“I do. Now.”
“And Becky?”
She shook her head. “I’m worried about her.”
“She’s all right.”
“You don’t know.”
“I know you worry.”
“Sometimes there are certain things to worry about,” she told him. “Your doctor friend…?”
“Carlos?” Josh sighed. “He’s all right. His wife’s doing better. She was depressed for a while.”
“I can imagine. It would’ve been their first child?”
“Yes,” he said. “Carlos said his mother recently passed away too.”
“Jesus. One thing after another.”
“He’s okay about it. Said she was in a lot of pain anyway. He’s a smart man. You should meet him someday.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. It pained her own wounded shoulder to do it, but she didn’t care. She could live with the pain. “What do you say to someone who helped save your life?” she said, and slipped her hand into one of Josh’s. His palms were rough with scar-tissue where he’d been burned.
“You seem to do all right around me.” He eased his head back against the sofa. Kelly stiffened against him and he looked up, nervous. “What?”
“It’s Becky.” She stood and went around the side of the couch, moved urgently down the hall. She pushed open Becky’s bedroom door and flicked on the light. The girl was still asleep, her eyes fluttering beneath her lids, her breathing soft and deep.
Kelly crouched beside the bed, pushed her face close to the girl’s. Watched her sleep. And after a few moments, Becky’s eyes opened.
“Hey,” Kelly said.
“What are you doing here?”
“Watching you. You were having a bad dream. Can you remember it?”
“Some of it.”
“They say you remember your dreams better if you’re woken up while you’re having them.”
“You wanted me to wake up and remember it?”
Kelly smiled, smoothed back the girl’s hair. “I just want you to talk about it.”