“Maxwell, I’m so sorry about your dad,” Vera’s voice cracked as she placed a palm on his shoulder—a classic move. It often came with thoughts and prayers. “I can’t imagine what you and your family have been through. I don’t know if you realize this”—she paused as if unsure whether to continue her train of thought—“but I met your mom once, in a way.”
Max’s eyes flung toward her.
“I started volunteering as a candy striper when I was thirteen.” She wore the oddly embarrassed look of an overachiever downplaying her accomplishments. Meanwhile, if anyone understood working at a young age, it was Max. “I was in the lobby the night your mom was brought in….”
Oh. Max grew rigid, his hands knotting in his lap. He should’ve realized.
Four years ago, on a sunny afternoon, his mother crashed her car on Main Street—it folded like an accordion against a telephone pole. Her blood-alcohol level mixed with the pills in her system was enough to render her a corpse, but somehow she survived. Her injuries were remarkably minor. But his grandparents hired lawyers. His mom left the hospital swearing she’d never touch another pill or another drop. She’d been sober for four years.
“You’re blaming her addiction? You don’t know anything about it,” Max spat through clenched teeth.
“You’re right, I don’t,” Vera reached out a hand. “I’m sorry. But substance abuse lasts a lifetime. It’s a disease, like cancer or diabetes—”
“She wasn’t drunk last night.” If he couldn’t make this girl understand, with her family history, then what hope did he have of convincing anyone else? “I remember what she looked like drunk and the things she’d say. She used to cry about my dad and feel sorry for herself. Now she’s speaking gibberish, incoherent gibberish. She’s spitting out phrases like, ‘Your mind will be resurrected’ and ‘Join me in the next life.’ ”
Vera jolted, eyes suddenly alert. “That’s what she said?”
Max nodded. He’d struck a nerve.
“Is she religious?” Vera asked.
“No.” Max shook his head. “I mean, we were all baptized, but that’s it.”
“Does she have any religious objects in your house?”
“Aside from a Christmas tree?”
Vera snorted, but still, it sounded like she was listening.
“This is gonna sound weird…” Vera twisted her hands. “But have you seen a statue of a skeleton in your house? Maybe a shrine? Something that looks like a Grim Reaper, only with wings and a torch?”
“What? No,” he spat. “Why would you ask that?”
“No reason.” She shrugged.
“It sounds like there’s a reason. That’s pretty specific.”
She bit her lip, not explaining further.
“Something’s wrong with my mom. If you know what it is, you have to tell me,” Max insisted. “I could sit here and pretend I don’t know the rumors about your family, but we both know that’s a lie. It’s why I came. So while I have no right to ask for your help, if half of what I’ve heard about your parents is true, then it’s possible…”
His voice trailed off as he watched her stare at the lawn, mowed in perfect rows, her sneaker kicking the freshly trimmed blades. The air smelled of baseball fields and summer. God, it was the start of summer. He should be with his friends. He should be at the creek.
“Even if my parents wanted to help, they’re out of the country,” Vera said, not looking him in the eyes.
Max’s shoulders fell. “Where? For how long?”
“They’re in Barcelona. On a case. I’m not sure when they’ll be back.”
“Are they helping someone who’s possessed?”
Her eyes shot his way, surprised that he’d said it. He might have danced around it before, but it was time to put it out there—she knew about his dead dad and his mother’s addiction, and he knew about her demon-hunting parents.
“I don’t know what you think my parents do, but they work for the church. They don’t just take on cases. The archdiocese fields calls, globally, from people who are troubled, possibly afflicted, and they can’t send priests to investigate each one. My parents work as consultants. They check things out and report back. To the church. So even if they were here, what you’re asking…”
“Is for help. I’m asking for your help. If your parents aren’t around, maybe you can help me? Just see for yourself.” Max was desperate. He sounded it and he felt it, but if she said no, what exactly was his next move?
If he brought his mother to the ER, if she was hospitalized for any reason, he knew his grandparents would win custody. And it wasn’t that he didn’t love his grandparents. He did. His grandma made the most amazing Jamaican food that reminded him of his dad’s home cooking, and his grandpa played a harmonica and sang songs in Italian, but Max’s mom was the only parent he and his sister had left. He couldn’t risk them being separated from her; Chloe couldn’t deal with that. She couldn’t lose her mother too.
“I’m not my parents,” Vera insisted. “They have skills, talents, that I don’t have. Trust me. I’m useless when it comes to this stuff. The way I can help you is to tell you to bring your mom here. Let her be seen by a doctor. Let them run some tests.”
“Oh, come on!” Max pushed to his feet. “They have a test to figure out why she smells like rotting flowers? Why her laugh isn’t right? I can’t believe you won’t help me!”
“I am helping. If my parents were here, if you were speaking with them right now, they’d tell you the same thing—given your mom’s history, she’d have to be seen by a doctor before they’d even consider talking to her. They’d have to rule out drugs, brain tumors, dissociative identity disorder, schizophrenia…”
“Oh my God! Are you kidding me?” He’d swallowed his pride and told this girl things he hadn’t told anyone. Now she was blowing him off. It was her parents who fought demons. Shouldn’t she be the one who believed in this stuff?
Forget her. He turned toward the parking lot.
“Maxwell, I want to help!” she called after him.
Sure you do. He spun back her way. “If that’s true, then try listening to me. The doctors in there”—he pointed to the concrete building with gleaming blue glass—“they won’t listen to the story of what I saw in my sister’s room or on my back porch. Her raspy voice, her blank look, her strange grin, and her dark laugh—it wasn’t her. She made my skin crawl. Through all the drinking and the grief, I was never afraid of my mother. But I have been these past couple weeks. I’m afraid to touch her or wake her up. I don’t know how she’ll react, because I don’t know this person. And the worst part is, you know what I’m saying is possible. You might be the only person in this town who knows that, and you’re sending me away.”
Vera’s mouth popped open, then closed. She blinked, shifting her weight, seemingly warring with what to say.
Okay, finally, I got through to her.
“When my parents get back, I’ll tell them everything. I’ll have them meet with you,” she offered, chewing her lip.
His chest sank. Something told him he didn’t have that kind of time. “You do that.” He turned his back. “Thanks for the help.”
CHAPTER NINE
Vera
After Maxwell stormed off, Vera headed back to work, grabbing her cart and pushing it to the next patient’s room. Maxwell Oliver, who already lost his dad, was now begging for spiritual assistance for his mother.
Vera rolled her cart through the hospital halls, trays of food and silverware rattling while the back-left wheel squeaked with every rotation.
Step, step, squeal. Step, step, squeal.
Her shoulders pressed toward her ears as she turned a corner, the metallic squeak intensifying. Roaring Creek General was the perfect hospital diorama—pocked drop ceiling with too-bright greenish lights, upper walls crisp and ivory above
a khaki bottom, with a mint-green chair rail cutting through it. Rectangular ceiling lights reflected on the shiny tan floor tiles, creating a band of white light.
Step, step, squeal. Step, step, squeal.
Vera knew Maxwell’s mother had a history of substance abuse, but even if she was using, it wouldn’t explain the odd changes to her voice, laugh, and smell. Plus, she sputtered some of the exact same bizarre phrases as Mr. Gonzalez. Thankfully, she didn’t have a shrine, or at least no Grim Reapers that Maxwell knew of, but still, Vera’s gut sent up a flare.
She spun her cart around another corner. There were two vegetarian deliveries on this floor, one up ahead. Her eyes located the proper meal as she squealed past a bank of dusty gray office chairs bolted to the floor. Stagnant. Permanent.
Step, step, squeal. Step, step, squeal.
A janitorial cart rested ahead—Candace’s. Vera could tell by the way she organized her bottles. A smile spread on Vera’s lips as she prepared to say hello, then she spotted a canary book peeking from the cart’s side pocket. The cover featured a sun engulfed by an eclipse. Huh, that group really is popular. How had Vera not noticed it before? A fog of Lysol enveloped her, chemicals slathering her tongue, and before Vera could glance in the room to find Candace, an alarm rang out.
A patient was coding.
Vera threw herself against the drywall, tugging her food cart closer to make room for a stampede of white-sneakered feet.
“She pulled out her IV and the oxygen tube,” hollered a nurse as she raced by.
“Isn’t she restrained, after last time?” asked the resident.
“Yes. And sedated.”
“It must be delirium from the hypothermia.”
“Maybe.” Only, the nurse didn’t sound convinced.
The staff charged into the room across the hall, its alarms blaring as they shouted commands.
Vera was supposed to keep moving. Privacy was paramount. Regardless, she stood still.
Feet pounded. Instruments clattered. A woman, maybe in her late twenties or early thirties, writhed on the bed. Her greasy hamburger-colored hair dripped into her mouth as her torso thrust up and down. The top of her checkered gown untied, tumbling to her waist, circular stickers adhered to her chest with no wires attached.
Vera couldn’t look away.
“Hold her down!” the resident shouted.
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder!”
The girl thrashed in the bed, her lower jaw jutting out in a fierce underbite, teeth gnashing together as sounds ripped from her chest. She snatched a bedpan and pitched it against the wall.
“The pain! You’ve brought it back!” Her voice was too deep for her frame.
Vera stopped breathing.
Flip-flops thwacked down the hall. “Camille! Camille!”
A middle-aged woman, maybe her mother, threw herself through the doorway only to be blocked by a nurse in lavender scrubs. “Mrs. Sheehan, we’re doing everything we can. You can’t be in here.”
“Camille! Honey, I’m here!” The mom fought with the same determination as her daughter, struggling to get inside. “What is happening?” The woman shoved, nearly knocking the nurse to the floor. “She’s been so much better lately, best she’s been in years. She said the pain was lessening.”
The mom’s back formed a comma as sobs tore out so forcefully, tears sprang to Vera’s eyes. She was intruding; this raw, visceral, chest-cracking-open pain was not meant for her to witness, but still Vera stayed locked, bound by the undiluted agony that connected everyone.
There but for the grace of God go I….
The mom hiccupped, wailing, “She was injured…in…the gas explosion.”
Of course. Vera’s jaw tightened. It always came back to that.
“You don’t know what it’s like, the constant aching, for years, never a moment of relief. Then she found this group. A mind-over-matter thing? I don’t know…it’s been helping.” The heavyset mother clawed at the nurse, fingers pulling at her purple scrubs as if to force her words inside her. “Now this. Why was she in that water?”
“I don’t know,” the nurse replied, not releasing her grip. “The fisherman who found her is talking to the police. I can take you to them.”
Then the daughter’s shrieks quieted. Vera’s eyes shot to the room in time with the mother, and they spied a syringe being pried from the patient’s arm.
“I’ve found the solution,” the daughter mumbled. “The pain doesn’t matter. I can be reborn. Just let me go….” Then she collapsed on the hospital bed, her eyelids shut.
The nurses got to work, placing an oxygen mask over her face as the machines beeped at a slower rhythm.
“What are you doing?” snapped a voice. It was aimed at Vera.
Her head wrenched toward the sound and spied the nurse in lavender scrubs snarling.
“This isn’t a show! Move!” The nurse ordered, pointing. “You know better than this.”
Vera’s cheeks flamed as she awkwardly tucked her hair behind an ear. Then she swiftly spun her cart and marched away, not making eye contact with the mother.
The patient had been injured in the gas explosion, another life revolving around that single day. That and the hurricane. Tragedy after tragedy. Death after death. Pain upon pain.
Vera pushed her cart down the hall, machines still beeping, doctors still running.
Step, step, squeal.
Step, step, squeal.
CHAPTER TEN
The Swim
In a dusty one-room apartment, a clock strikes midnight. She rummages through a drawer, seeking—what’s the word again?—yes, a swimsuit. She tugs it on, wincing as she lifts each leg. Then she limps to her car. She drives, the steering wheel guiding itself, her soul knowing where she needs to be.
She is returning to nature, arriving at the coast to complete darkness. There isn’t even a moon.
Her bare feet sink into the cool sand, black waves roaring before her. She dips a toe, icy water slipping over her feet. It’s June, a reminder of the days when the town still had tourists. That stopped the day her pain began.
Selling lemonade at the game, that was what she was supposed to be doing, if she hadn’t been running late. She wished she’d run even later. If she had not sped through that yellow light, she still would have been behind the wheel rather than on the gymnasium’s front steps at the fateful moment.
Blast-force trauma. That was what the doctors called it as they diagnosed her brain injury, back pain, hearing loss, PTSD, and constant, oh-that-constant, aching.
But not tonight.
She steps farther into an ocean not yet warmed by the sun’s summer rays. It’s too cold to be enjoyable, at least without a— What is it that surfers wear? A seal suit? No, a bodysuit. No, wait, a wet suit. Yes. She only wears a one-piece, solid crimson, legs cut high like a lifeguard’s. She can barely swim.
Seven years of breathing techniques, meditation, compression, ice packs, supplements, and physical therapy, but nothing worked. Then she met him. Last year, on the anniversary of the explosion, his words echoed through the town square, rattling deep in her soul. Finally, someone saw her invisible pain, and rather than promise to take it away, he promised to make it not matter. Her agony was pointless. Her thinking shortsighted. She was experiencing a blip in a larger existence. There is more out there.
She wades deeper into the black water, a seagull cawing overhead as a white froth breaks on her knees. Freezing ocean water can wash away pain, he said. She must return to the elements, the greater universe. She must surrender.
“You have been trained by society to limit your thinking. There is so much more than this life. Open your mind, release your fear, and you’ll see the vast sea of possibilities.” Even now, in this moment, she feels his words. She swallows them whole, absorbs them
into her very essence, and lets them take up all the space inside her.
He has the answers.
A wave crashes against her chest, the saltwater frigid, stealing the air from her lungs. The wave’s force lifts her toes from the murkiness below. Her muscles tighten. Her teeth chatter. Seaweed wraps around her calves, holding on; she shakes it loose and, with it, the pain. It releases. She releases. The current shoves her faster than she’s moved in years. Her eyes lose focus as she lies back, submitting, ice hugging her shoulders, pulling her deeper, past the breakers, toward that eternal horizon.
He has delivered the answer. Her pain is gone. It no longer matters.
Nothing matters.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Vera
Vera’s car wouldn’t start. It wasn’t the first time. Her senior citizen sedan suffered from a not-too-accurate gas gauge. She never knew when the tank was empty, so as a precaution, she put in twenty dollars’ worth of gas every Friday. That typically got her through the week, but she drove her aunt to a church function on Tuesday. It was two towns over; maybe that pushed her to E?
Vera hoped so. Because broken parts meant money, and every dollar she earned went to her college fund. She slammed shut the dented white door of the car, which sighed heavier than she did, and tossed her leather bag over her shoulder. A two-mile stroll on a warm summer night wasn’t so bad.
Her Converse scraped toward Main Street to the symphony of cicadas playing their violin wings. The fog was so dense individual droplets hovered in the strobes of antique-replica streetlamps. Salt air slid down her throat. Roaring Creek’s proximity to the beach attracted the tourists, and its central location between Manhattan and Boston kept the locals. Either metropolis was a reasonable two-hour drive, even shorter if you took an express train. This meant townies got loads of educational and employment benefits while living in the backdrop of a Lifetime movie where a woman abandons the big city for the joy of running a fledgling ice cream shop.
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