by S. E. Burr
“Okay.”
13
I sat in the chair in the corner of my mother’s room as Anna did stuff with the heart monitor and IV. We'd tried to call Dad, and had left a bunch of messages, but his cell service was spotty in Italy, and he hadn't called back yet. Anna had called Nick a few minutes ago and told him about my mom, and he’d probably told Marcus. Audrey was presumably at school. I wished Dad would call back.
As Anna worked, she watched me from across the room. She was worried about me, and she was probably right to be. There was a glass of water in my hand, and I wasn’t sure how it’d gotten there. Anna had given it to me, I guessed. I wasn’t thirsty.
She pulled off her gloves and walked out of the room. I could hear her dispose of them in the incinerator in the hallway. She came back in and sat on the arm of my chair and rested her fisted hand on my shoulder.
“It’s not going to matter, is it?” I said.
“What?” she asked.
I took a deep breath. “If we get a hold of Dad, and he gets on the next plane and comes back, even if he gets here in time, he won’t be able to do anything. He’s never been able to do anything.”
She didn’t answer at first. Maybe she was mad at him. I’d overheard arguments over the years, and I knew that, while she supported Dad’s decision to raise me, she didn’t approve of Dad and me living in the catatonia center. She didn’t think it was professional, and she’d worried that I’d get too attached to my mom. I’d never seen a problem with it. I liked being near my mother, but maybe Anna had been right all along. She was more of a mother to me than Sara had ever been, but she wasn’t my mother. My mother was dying, and I didn’t know how to handle that.
Anna smoothed my hair with her fisted hand. She sighed. “But he should be here, anyway,” she said finally. That was true, but not comforting.
The doorbell rang, and Anna stood up and went to answer it. I could hear murmured words, and then she led Audrey into the room.
I was glad to see her. I needed a friend right then. She looked toward my mother on the bed and then turned to me.
I set the glass of water down on the floor beside the chair and then stood, moving toward her.
“I’m so sorry,” said Audrey.
I nodded. “It’s not like I knew her. I didn’t know her, not really. But I always thought…” My voice caught. I couldn’t get the words out. “I always hoped I would someday.” I started to cry then, to sob. Hands fisted, Audrey wrapped her arms around me. I cried for a while before I could get any control over my sobbing. Then I gasped and stepped back, wiping at my eyes. “I’m okay,” I said. I felt kind of awkward. I looked at Audrey and then glanced at Anna.
Anna stepped close to my side. “Why don’t you and Audrey go somewhere for a little while?” she said. “Get some air. I’ll call you if anything changes.”
“Do you want to?” Audrey asked.
I nodded.
Outside the day was bright and sunny. The colored leaves on the tree branches overhead and on the ground by our feet rustled softly in the breeze. I clutched the keys as Audrey and I walked toward the car. “Do you have your license with you?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good, I’ll drive. I have to have a licensed driver with me with my permit.” I liked to drive. I hoped it would distract me, keep my mind off things.
We just drove around. At first, I pointed out landmarks to her. She was new here after all, and I preferred small talk to, well, big talk…about my mom and everything. I showed her restaurants I liked, parks, the mall, but as we moved into an older part of the town, I stopped talking. Things started to look kind of ominous, creepy. “Emblematic of the inescapable destructive power of time,” Mrs. Nelson would say. There were decaying buildings, an old clock tower that clanged loudly as we drove past, a tattoo parlor painted with a mural of the Hindu goddess, Kali, surrounded by skulls and the bodies of the dead and dying. I’d seen it before and thought it was cool, but now it was freaking me out. I shivered, though I wasn’t cold.
We drove on in silence, the day turning to twilight. As we approached the hospital, I slowed and pointed it out to Audrey. “That’s where I was born,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “And where my mom went catatonic.”
Audrey looked out the window toward the building. It was large, and surrounded by cars, still clearly in use, but like everything in this part of town, it was old, kind of run down looking. She looked back at me. “How did…” she started. “Your dad doesn’t seem like…” She stopped again. “Your mom…she…”
I laughed. “Are you wondering what my dad was doing with a drug addict? Concerned about Dr. Harman’s judgment?”
“No, that’s not…”
I shook my head. “It’s okay. I’m adopted.”
She blinked. “Oh.”
“Dad knew my mom from when they were kids, but they weren’t…” I shook my head again. “I don’t know who my biological father is. I’ve honestly never wondered about it that much. I’ve got Frank.”
I turned at a light and passed another side of the hospital, glancing briefly at it as I drove by. Looking back at the road, I screamed and slammed my foot on the brake. I was too late. I hit him, a short, cat-like man standing in the road. I saw my car hit him, but I didn’t feel it. The car passed right through. I swerved off the road and onto the shoulder.
“What is it?” said Audrey.
I stopped the car and turned it off. I was shaking.
“What?” she said again. I could hear the tension in her voice.
“I hit it!”
“What? Like a dog or something?”
“Something bigger,” I gasped. I could barely breathe. “Is there something in the road back there?” I took a deep breath trying to calm down. “Did I hit something?”
She turned and looked out the back window. “There’s nothing there.” She looked at me. “You didn’t hit anything.”
“I thought I saw…” I shook my head.
“What?”
“A goblin.” I folded my hands in my lap and stared down at them. I’d been seeing glimpses of things for a while, but I’d been ignoring them, explaining them to myself, but I couldn’t ignore this. I couldn’t explain this. “I’ve been seeing things, shadows, nothing like this! Never so clear before.”
She stared at me. She thought I was crazy. I should care about that; I should be embarrassed, but I was too scared. I went on. “My mother, the night she went catatonic, she told my dad she saw goblins.”
“She was taking fruit,” Audrey said.
I turned and looked at her. I could feel tears on my face. “She was crazy! And I’m going crazy too!”
She shook her head, staring at me.
I turned away and screamed again. The goblin I had hit was standing a few feet from the car waving at me, a fang filled grin on his face. As I watched, a car passed right through him, and he continued to stand there, unfazed.
“It’s back!” I said, gesturing frantically toward the road. “Do you see it?” I asked though I knew she didn’t.
She looked. “There’s nothing there.”
I really was going crazy. It was as real as anything I’d ever seen.
More goblins appeared around the car. I recognized them from my “Goblin Market” book, but no drawing could show how horrible and strange they looked in real life. They weren’t animals or people, but some bizarre mix between the two. The cat-like one I’d seen first was the most human looking, and the only one standing like a person on two legs, like some demonic Puss-in-Boots.
Another of the creatures was like a rat, with a long, naked tail. It scuttled a few feet forward, stopped and sat on its hind legs, its nose twitching. Then it scuttled forward again. Another one was half man half snail, its human upper body disappearing into a shell. It crept along leaving a shining trail of slime behind it. The final creature, I knew from my book, was part wombat, and it was the l
east human of all. It wore no clothes but was completely covered with brown fur, except for its face, which was like a 20-year-old guy’s. For one insane second, I found myself wondering if there was a college kid somewhere with a wombat’s face in place of his own.
The creatures circled the car and moved in toward it. I completely panicked. “They’re coming!” I said, wrenched off my seat belt, and threw open the car door.
“Clara, stop!” Audrey called after me, but I couldn’t stop. I wasn’t thinking. I was so scared. I rushed from the car and was about to run out into the road, but Audrey dove across the seats and grabbed my hand, pulling me back, as a semi-truck sped by.
I’d almost been killed. The goblins vanished.
I looked around checking that they were all gone. They were. I looked at Audrey, and then, slowly, still holding her hand, we got back in the car and shut the door.
I looked down at our hands clasped together. We weren’t wearing gloves. I didn’t usually wear them when I wasn’t at school. I let go of her hand and then screamed as the goblins reappeared. I grabbed her other hand, and they vanished again.
It was tricky switching seats while still holding on to each other, but we did, and Audrey drove us back toward the catatonia center. She may not have remembered the way. It seemed like it took us forever to get there, but I wasn’t in any state to give her directions. I had my eyes clamped shut the whole way, terrified that if I opened them, the goblins would come back. She found the center eventually and stopped the car in front of it.
I opened my eyes and looked at her, and then looked out the windows, checking. Nothing. I didn’t want to let go of her hand, but I had to. If Anna saw us holding hands like that, it would be really, really bad. I let go of her and then whipped my head around, checking again for goblins. “Nothing,” I said.
14
As Frank spoke to Anna, he could hear the familiar sound of feet stomping in unison, and he knew the patients must be in the room with her walking in place. This was not the normal time for their daily exercise but with everything that had happened with Sara, no one had gotten them going that morning, so they were doing it now.
“Good. Clarity’s back,” Anna said, and then Frank heard her talking to his daughter. “I got a hold of your dad in Italy. He wants to talk to you but be quick. His cell service keeps cutting out.”
Clarity took the phone. “Hi, Daddy,” his little girl said.
Frank was on a moving walkway in the airport in Italy. The airport was crowded with people of all ages, nearly all wearing gloves, and many with unfriendly, vaguely suspicious expressions. “Hi, honey. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” she answered, but her voice sounded uncertain.
“I’m so sorry this is happening, and now of all times,” said Frank as the walkway took him past a couple in hazmat suits. “I’m coming back as soon as I can. I’m going to see about getting a ticket right now.”
“Okay.”
“But I don’t know,” said Frank, passing by a woman with a baby in a stroller. “They’ve had some cancellations for weather. It might be hard to get out.” The baby pulled a small rubber mitten off his hand and gurgled, waving it in the air. The woman grabbed the glove and put it back on, scolding the child.
“Oh,” said Clarity.
Passing by a uniformed police officer with a machine gun, Frank said, “but I’m going to try,” and stepped off at the end of the walkway.
“Okay, just get here as soon as you can.”
“I love you,” said Frank.
“I love—“ she answered, and there was a double beep as the service cut out again.
15
“—you too.” I looked at the phone and then seeing that the call was really lost, handed it back to Anna. Then I walked to the doorway of my mother’s room and looked in. “How is she?”
“No change,” Anna answered.
I turned back. Audrey was still standing by the front door. She hadn’t moved since we’d come in. I felt awkward. “You want to see my room?” I asked.
She hesitated for a moment before answering, “Sure.”
I led her up the stairs and past Dad’s office, down the hall toward my room. I stepped through the doorway, and looked around, wondering what she would think. It was somewhat small and bright with a large window. It wasn’t exactly messy, but it wasn’t super neat either. The furniture was comfortable and mismatched. We’d bought it at yard sales, not in a fancy furniture store. There was my bed, a computer desk, my dresser. On a side table, there was a lamp with a pastel elephant base, which I’d had since I was a baby. The elephant’s toenails were messily painted with bright pink nail polish. The walls were covered with band posters.
I sat on the edge of the bed, and Audrey sat in the computer chair, backward, her arms resting on the chair back.
“So this is my room,” I said.
She looked around. “It’s cool,” she said. “We like a lot of the same bands.” She paused for a second when she noticed the small, CD case sized picture of her own band, Benjamy, that I’d tacked up. She quickly looked away.
We sat for a while, and Audrey tapped her fingers on the back of the chair. “So, you see goblins…”
I flinched and pressed my lips together, then nodded. “But when you grabbed my hand they disappeared.” I looked away, grabbing my “Goblin Market” book off the side table and flipping through it.
“Look at this,” I said, showing it to Audrey. “My mom made this for me when she was pregnant.”
She looked at it. “Your mom did all the illustrations?”
“Yeah.”
Audrey flipped through the pages, and I pointed to one in the middle. “See,” I said, “after Laura eats the fruit, she craves it, and when she can’t get anymore she gets sick and almost dies.”
Audrey nodded turning the page.
I went on. “Lizzie goes to get fruit for her, but the goblins attack her with it, getting juice and pulp all over her. She takes it back to Laura, and it makes her better.” I reached out and turned the page for her. “Look, here, on the last page—When Laura tells her kids about it years later it says she ‘would tell them how her sister stood in deadly peril to do her good, and win the fiery antidote. Then joining hands to little hands would bid them cling together.’”
“Cling together…” said Audrey. “You think this is about you seeing goblins and us holding hands?”
I sat back. I didn’t know what I thought. I was forming these ideas as I was speaking them. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe my mom made this for me because she was trying to tell me something about goblins, and fruit…” Or maybe I was just making it all up, I thought, looking for any explanation for what had happened that wasn’t my insanity. “I don’t know,” I finished.
“Maybe…” Audrey shook her head sadly. “Or maybe you just saw goblins because you’ve seen them in this book a lot, and you’re stressed about your mom, and…”
“And I’m losing my mind,” I said.
She didn’t answer. She looked away, glancing back at the book.
“Rossetti’s father was Italian, and the drug first appeared in Italy,” I said, “and they’ve found a plant there that contains the chemical. Maybe it was there all along.”
“Maybe,” said Audrey.
I could tell she didn’t think it was very likely, but I could also see that she felt sorry for me. This was all I had to hold on to, and in a way, it was Audrey’s only hope too. Inevitably, if something weren't done, something dramatic, in time her brother would be in the same place my mother was now. He’d be dying, and people would be standing around shaking their heads, knowing that there was nothing anyone could do.
Maybe she was almost as willing to accept crazy ideas, to try crazy things, as I was. I looked up. “Maybe Rossetti’s dad told her about it, and she wrote the poem!”
“Maybe. It’s possible.” She gave a small smile but then frowned a second later. “I don’t know how it could have to do with you seeing g
oblins, though, unless you’ve taken fruit…”
I felt like she’d slapped me.
“I’m not accusing,” she said.
“I haven’t taken it,” I said. “Of course, I haven’t.” I looked her in the eye. “I don’t know how it could be connected either, but holding your hand made them go away, and my mother saw goblins, and she gave me the book.” I took it back from her and held it against my chest. “If this book means something, it seems to be saying that goblin fruit is the cure for goblin fruit…as weird as that sounds. Maybe we could save my mother. Maybe we could save all the patients, everyone.”
She just stared at me, and for a second I panicked, thinking that she didn’t believe me, that she might go and tell Anna I was losing my mind, but then she said, “Hasn’t anyone ever tried it?”
“I don’t think so,” I answered. “The cure for a poison isn’t usually more poison.”
She stood up and started pacing, thinking it over. “If your mom weren't dying, I’d say wait, talk to Doctor Harman about it, but there may not be time for that.” She stopped by the window and looked out, past the yard to the darkened school playground visible beyond.
“But where will we get the fruit?” I asked. “I think Nick and Marcos scared that dealer away.”
“Todd’s having a party tonight,” she answered. “He told me not to go. He said there wouldn’t be fruit there, but his friend Pete will be there, and he might know where we can buy some.”
I bit my nails. I’d been avoiding just this kind of situation for months now. I’d essentially broken up with my friends over not wanting to be around drugs, but this was an emergency, and I was incredibly desperate. “Let’s try it,” I said.
#
As we walked slowly down the stairs, we could see Anna bustling around the patients in the living room, adjusting their positions, checking their vitals. She stopped by Heather, who was standing frozen near the side of the room. “Such small hands,” she said, as she pulled a dangling glove from the woman’s fingers and replaced it with a new one, dropping the old one into a biohazard bag. She turned and walked down the hall toward the incinerator.