by K. J. Emrick
“It would make sense, I suppose. If it’s her box, she probably tucked the letter inside for safe keeping. If it was, then it’s been there this whole time, and no one ever knew about it. Not even Mom. Not until you found it.” Grace smiled at her. “Another Darcy Sweet moment. I take it there’s more to this than just an old letter?”
“I feel like there is, yeah. I think that’s why I was so interested in the box when I was younger, too. It’s always fascinated me. Now I guess I know why. There’s this whole mystery surrounding it. That letter must be really important.”
“And you found it.”
She held her fist out, and Darcy bumped hers against it, fanning her fingers out with the whooshing sound to mimic an explosion. She loved her sister, so much. With any luck, their own kids would see their example and know that this was what it meant to be family. Love and acceptance and someone to talk to at one in the morning.
Her cellphone buzzed, making her jump. The sudden motion scared Tiptoe, who was up on her paws immediately, tail bushed, eyes wide, claws sunk through Darcy’s pajamas. She gave the phone a nasty look as Darcy picked it up.
“Ow, Tiptoe let go. Calm down. It’s Jon,” she said, brushing down the cat’s bristled fur. “Hold on and let me look at this.”
“I’m really glad you finally got a phone,” Grace told her. “It was so annoying not to be able to get ahold of you when I needed to.”
Darcy started to tell her to hold on, too, but then she read the text. The world shrank down to those three words.
Colby’s getting worse.
Her hands were shaking. She could barely type out a reply for the haze of worry that was constricting tighter around the corners of her eyes. How is she? What’s going on?
Temp is up, he told her. She’s sweaty and cramping. Doctors are running tests but they don’t know anything. I know you want to be here. I can come home and watch Zane so you can come here.
“Darce?” Grace hadn’t missed the pained expression on her sister’s face. “What’s up? Is it Colby?”
Nodding while she tried to find her voice, Darcy typed out one reply to Jon, and then erased it for another, and then erased that one, too. Her thoughts were all jumbled. She had to be there, but she couldn’t just leave Zane, and she couldn’t expect Jon to abandon their daughter in a moment like this.
What could she do?
This was what family was all about, she reminded herself.
“Grace, I’m sorry to even ask this, but could you stay here and—?”
“Watch Zane for you?” Grace finished for her. “Of course I will.”
Darcy felt a little of the tension roll out of her shoulders. “Thank you. I want to get to the hospital and Jon offered to come here first but that would take too long or maybe… maybe I could just bring Zane with me…”
Grace reached over and cupped Darcy’s hands in her own. “Just go, sis. I’ll stay here and watch Zane. If he wakes up, I’ll tell him you’ll be back soon, and me and him can have some Aunt Grace time.”
That was exactly what Darcy had wanted to hear. “Are you sure? What about your own kids?”
“Aaron’s at home. I’ll message him and let him know. He’s got this dad thing wired, to tell you the truth. Addison and Emily will have him playing princess party all day long, trust me. Sometimes I worry our kids like him better than me.”
Darcy tried for a laugh but failed to find one. She was just grateful that Grace had decided to come over to check on her. She texted Jon back, letting him know she was on the way, and that Grace was here, and to let her know if anything changed before she got there… “I’ve got to get dressed,” she said suddenly, realizing pajamas and a robe weren’t exactly the right attire for late night trips to the hospital. It wasn’t an emergency, she told herself. Colby had a spike in temperature. That was all.
And cramping, she remembered Jon had said. The doctors were running tests and they didn’t know anything. She had to believe her daughter would be all right. It only looked bad because she was here, and Colby was there. That was all it was. After another moment of repeating that to herself, she almost believed it.
Still, she was more worried than she wanted to admit. Smudge’s voice from her dream kept coming back to her, repeating what he’d said about Colby. I’m afraid for her.
She let Grace know the little bit that Jon had told her over text while she got dressed up in her room, both of them being quiet to let Zane sleep. Cha Cha padded in at one point, droopy eyed and tired, watching the commotion for only a moment before going back to Zane’s bedroom, and his bed, and sleep.
Back down in the kitchen, she pulled her shoes on and tried to remember if she had everything. Purse. Keys. She still needed her jacket but then she was set. “There’s food in the fridge,” she told Grace. “Help yourself. The TV remote’s somewhere around the couch, I think. I shouldn’t be too long. If Zane wakes up he’s going to try telling you that I let him have peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast. I do not.”
Grace nodded like she was committing all of it to memory. “No PB and J for breakfast. Got it. Chocolate chip pancakes are okay, though, right?”
“Uh, maybe. I’ve seen you cook.”
The sisters spent a moment there in the entryway, saying nothing, and hearing everything they both felt. Maybe it was their gift speaking to each other the same way Zane could eye talk with animals. Then again, maybe this was just another part of what it meant to be family.
Grace stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Let me know what’s happening when you get there, okay?”
“I will.” She hugged Grace fiercely, anxious to get going.
When she opened the front door, it was raining.
“Huh,” Grace said. “It must have warmed up while we were inside.”
“Great,” Darcy muttered. “Just perfect.”
“Well, you know what they say, sis. It never rains but it pours.”
Darcy knew the truth of that. Thanking her sister again she started down the steps to her car, making sure there was enough space to back out past Grace’s. Should be fine.
Then she stopped. The warmer temperatures hadn’t only brought rain. In the front yard the snow was melting, evaporating, steaming.
A misty layer of fog crept her way, crawling out of the shadows.
Chapter 8
The hospital in Meadowood was a place that Darcy knew all too well. She’d spent time here as a patient. She’d been attacked here by some very bad people, more than once. It was not one of her favorite places in the world.
It was also where Colby and Zane had been born. So, there were good memories here too, few and far between though they might be.
Now she was here for a totally different reason. Her heart was in her throat as she pushed quickly through the front doors and straight over to the information desk. Even at this hour it was staffed by a woman wearing a headset and tapping away at a computer keyboard. Colby was on the second floor, the clerk told her. The expression she gave Darcy made her wonder what other information was there on the computer’s screen. Nothing good, was her guess.
The image of the mists crawling around her house came back to mind, just like they had several times on the drive here. Her town had gotten its name from the ever-present fog that would cling to the ground like a smothering blanket. There were plenty of explanations for the recurrence of this meteorological phenomenon. Low pressure areas. High moisture content. Elevation, or lack thereof. Darcy had heard it all over the years while living in Misty Hollow.
She knew better. The mists came out when bad things were coming. The town could sense trouble. The very soul of the town had been rotten for over a century, and that was why bad things were attracted to the picturesque little community. Murder. Husbands being unfaithful. Wives in fear of their own sons. Ghosts, thirsting for revenge. Odd as it sounded Darcy had seen each of those things and more. Moving to Misty Hollow had pretty much saved her life, but at the same time it had put her in the way of dange
r time and time again.
Darcy had exorcized the worst of the taint—a malevolent spirit known as the Pilgrim Ghost—and after that it had seemed the mists were gone. For a short time, anyway. A few of her friends had even joked that the town would need a new name.
Then they came back one day when something evil had wormed its way into town. Now when they appeared, Darcy knew that bad things were happening again.
She whispered a prayer that the bad thing the mists were here for, whatever that was, didn’t involve Colby.
The hallway went past several doors, to offices or closets or whatever. Around a corner she found the stairs on one side and the elevator on the other. She took the stairs because in her current state of mind no manmade lift would ever move her as fast as her own two feet. The door to the second floor opened out into the middle of another hallway with a nurse’s station to her right. The corridor continued past that, and then branched in both directions to the patient rooms.
There she saw Jon pacing back and forth, his concentration on his phone as he punched at the screen with his thumbs.
In her back pocket, Darcy’s phone buzzed.
She stood there watching this man she loved so much as she took it out and checked. Yup. It was Jon messaging her.
Colby’s better. Are you close?
Relief washed over her. Colby was doing better. Her baby girl was going to be okay, and Jon wanted to know if she was close by.
Closer than you think.
He read the text, and looked up, and then his eyes found her. For as long as she lived, she would never forget the way he looked at her. It was like he’d been lost a moment ago but now he remembered which direction he was supposed to go. Towards her. Always towards his family.
They met each other half way, his arms encircling her with a comfortable strength. After a moment, he took a shaky breath. “I may have gotten you down here on a false alarm. Her fever broke like ten minutes ago and now she’s sleeping comfortably—the doctor’s words, not mine—and as far as they can tell the worst is past. They gave her a shot of something to help her rest. I can’t remember the name of the stuff but it’s a common medication, no side effects, and she’ll wake up in the morning feeling rested and restored. Again, the doctor’s words, not mine.”
She looked up into his deep blue eyes and saw the things he wasn’t saying. “In other words, they still have no idea what’s wrong.”
“True,” he said, “but at least it’s not as wrong now as it was an hour ago.”
“I want to see her,” Darcy insisted. She looked around, as if she would be able to find her daughter through walls and doors and…
She stopped, her body at an angle to the arrow-straight hallways, and her eyes narrowed on something she couldn’t see, but she could feel.
Colby was there.
Jon didn’t even blink when he saw her looking that way. He just took her by the hand and brought her around the corner.
Room number 203 seemed just like any other hospital room, with an uncomfortable looking bed with the head raised up and heavy plastic siderails locked in the upright position. A television hung in the corner, dark and silent. A white board on the wall listed the doctor and nurse in attendance, and someone with the title of hospitalist. Whatever that was. There was a plastic bag hung upside down on a metal pole, the clear fluid inside of it dripping into a tube that snaked its way down to the inside elbow of Colby’s right arm. It was taped in place. In her white hospital gown, with her eyes closed, she looked so peaceful.
Darcy knew better. She could almost see the unrest, just below the surface of her daughter’s skin. There was definitely something going on with her. Maybe it wasn’t serious. Maybe the doctors were right not to worry, and this would turn out to be just an infection or a virus or a bad tuna fish sandwich.
She was keeping her fingers crossed, but Colby didn’t like tuna.
“I can get the doctor,” Jon offered. “If you want to talk to him.”
“No, that’s all right.” Darcy stepped over to the side of the bed, looking down at her sleeping daughter. “You’ve told me everything they said. Let’s just let her rest. Why are they giving her intravenous fluids?”
“She had a fever, like I said.” Jon came over to the other side of the bed. “It’s just saline to help with the dehydration. They said now that her temperature is down, as long as nothing else happens she could probably go home in the morning.”
Darcy was glad to know that. More than glad, she was about as relieved as a mother could be. She reached out and put the back of her hand against Colby’s forehead, to feel for a temperature, and to just touch her daughter. She maybe felt a little warm, but not so much that Darcy would have worried about…
A snap like a mild electric zap bit at her skin, and she yanked her hand away.
Jon watched her flexing her fingers. “What just happened?”
“Um. I’m not sure?” she told him. “Just a static shock, I think.”
But something made her wonder if that was really all it was. She put her hand out again, tentatively this time, and placed it gently across her daughter’s forehead once more.
Nothing. Whatever she had just felt didn’t happen again.
It was nothing, her mind whispered. Things like that happened, especially in the winter time. Like rubbing her sock feet on a carpet and then touching the back of Jon’s neck for fun. Colby’s probably been moving around in the bed and built up a static charge off the sheets. Don’t make something out of nothing. The doctors aren’t worried, so why should she be?
Because her baby girl was hurting, and she couldn’t fix it. That was why.
“Come on,” Jon told her after another moment. “Let’s go down the hall where we can talk.”
He didn’t come right out and say that he didn’t want to talk in front Colby, but Darcy didn’t need him to. She felt the same way. Even asleep, people could sometimes still hear what people said around them. They didn’t want to accidentally say something that might stress their poor baby out.
They were on their way past the nurses’ station when the elevator doors opened and a short man with glasses perched on his wide nose stepped out. Doctor Nicholas Malik stumbled to a halt when he saw them. He was in his usual khakis and button-up shirt under his winter coat, but the shirt was untucked like he’d dressed quickly, and maybe in the dark, to get here.
“Oh, Darcy. Jon. So glad I found you. I came just as soon as the hospital messaged to say Colby was being admitted.” He shook both of their hands. “I spoke with her doctor on the way up here. She’s doing fine for now but they’re still waiting for the results of her blood draws. They want to run some tests in the morning and tonight they think rest is the best thing for her. Now, they’ve given her a very low dose of a benzodiazepine. It’s a medication called Ativan. She’ll sleep straight through the night and hopefully that’s exactly what her body needs. Really, there’s nothing more that can be done for now. You should go home and get some rest.”
“I don’t need a whole lot of sleep,” Jon told him, which Darcy knew was completely untrue. Jon could be a bear when he was exhausted. Darcy had learned to live with less sleep now that she had two energetic children, but she was no angel on less than four hours of rest either.
Still, she took Jon’s hand and gave Doctor Malik a determined mother’s stare. “We’re going to stay in town tonight. We’ll be here when Colby wakes up. She needs her family.”
That actually seemed to be exactly what the doctor was hoping to hear. “You know, I’ve been in medicine for a lot of years. I’ve found that the most advanced treatments out there are no match for the healing power of love. Family. Friendship. All of that. I’ve seen it work miracles.”
Darcy knew how true that was. Medicine had its place, but it didn’t have the answer to everything. “Doctor Malik,” she said, making herself ask this question, “what’s wrong with my daughter?”
He put his hand on her arm and gave her a gentle squeeze. “
I don’t know, but I won’t stop until I find out. I’m here now. I’m going to speak with Colby’s attending doctor again and we’ll look over the blood tests and we’ll come up with some sort of treatment plan. I promise.”
“Don’t promise unless you mean it,” Jon warned him with a fatherly growl in his voice.
“I never make promises lightly,” he assured them. “I’ll do everything I can. But, let’s keep a good thought. Now that she’s turned a corner the worst of it might be over. She might be fine now. Well. We’ll see, I promise you. Will you be here in the hospital later if I come to find you?”
“Yes,” Jon started to say.
Darcy spoke over him. “No, we’ll be here in town. You have Jon’s cell number. Call us if anything changes and we’ll be right back. Otherwise, we’ll come back here around… six or so, I’d say. If not a little sooner.”
“Okay, then. As soon as I know something, I’ll call.” He shook their hands again. “We’ll figure this out.”
Jon waited until Doctor Malik was out of sight around a corner before he turned a critical look on Darcy. “We’re not staying here? You mind telling me why not?”
She shifted on her feet, crossing her arms at her chest. Her gaze fell to the floor. “I can’t just stand there and watch her sleep. I just can’t. It’s going to drive me insane with worry if I sit there and just… sit there. I have to do something.”
His expression softened with understanding. “I feel the same way, Darcy, but you heard what Malik said. There’s nothing we can do but wait. In the morning we’ll know more.”
“Well, that’s only half true.” She turned to look unerringly toward where she could still sense her daughter’s presence as an invisible tug on her heartstrings. “We can’t do anything for Colby right now. But there’s things we can do to keep our minds from obsessing over how much we can or can’t do for her ourselves.”
“Other things? Like what?” he asked.