Witch of the Midnight Blade

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  And Mrs. K told it again and again and again.

  Same story. Except the occasional addition of Maria’s ghosts—two ghosts. Two Marias, Mrs. K liked to say, which was the least mundane and most weird of all her tales.

  I slowed as I wheeled her toward Mr. Nax’s open door. “Do you need anything, Mr. Nax?”

  Mrs. K narrowed her old-lady eyes and threw him a clear “I know what you are” look.

  She knew something the staff did not. I was sure of it. But even though she told stories about Russian winters, Bolsheviks, and ghosts, she never outed residents as anything other than fellow oldsters.

  Mr. Nax grumbled a reply and waved us away. I nodded, and returned to pushing Mrs. K down the hallway.

  Maybe I could get her to talk about her ghosts. “Which Maria is here today?” Last week, one of the ghosts “left” to “get a sword.”

  Perhaps Mrs. K was embellishing. Why would a ghost need a sword? But talking about her imaginary friends made her happy, so I always asked.

  Mrs. K leaned forward and peered into the space to the side and just ahead of her wheelchair’s path.

  “Ah,” she said, and pointed. “The blue-eyed one.” Then she twisted her head to the side. “Her twin hasn’t returned.” She set her hands on her lap. “And I don’t think she ever will, my dear Del.”

  I saw nothing. I heard nothing. But I was pretty damned sure that this time, Mrs. K really was talking to someone or something.

  “The river of fate is changing,” she said. “And we cannot help but be swept along.”

  She was right about that.

  Hopefully, we wouldn’t drown before we found a shore.

  “Keep moving, Philadelphia Parrish,” a voice said just off my right shoulder.

  Chapter Three

  I yelped as Mr. Nax stepped into my field of vision.

  Out here in the unit’s main hallway, with all the staff and residents around, Mr. Nax had snuck up on me.

  “Do you mind?” I snapped.

  Mr. Nax stepped back and against the hallway wall. He narrowed his eyes and grasped his hands behind his back.

  Mrs. K twisted in her chair and wagged a finger. “How uncivil of you!”

  Mr. Nax frowned. Mrs. K pursed her lips.

  “I think you should keep your ghosts to yourself today, Irena,” he said.

  “And why is that?” she huffed.

  His frown deepened. “Go to dinner,” he said, but he returned to standing next to Mrs. K’s chair, as if guarding it.

  Mrs. K glared accusingly up at him. “Knowing you’re being enthralled is half the battle to resisting, my dear,” she muttered.

  Was she talking to me or her ghosts? “What?” I asked, and pushed her chair forward, more to get us out of Nax’s orbit than for any other reason.

  For a split second, I was sure Nax was looking down at me. Not at me from eyes the same distance from the floor as mine. Not from a bald, scowly head.

  From a body that was not small or frail. Not at all.

  I yelped again.

  The split second passed, and he was back to his oldster self.

  Mrs. K’s eyes widened.

  “You remind me of someone I knew briefly not long ago, Del Parrish,” Mr. Nax said. “She, like you, wouldn’t listen when told to leave well enough alone.”

  Mrs. K pointed a finger at his nose. “You are here, so I will hazard to guess that you were bested, were you not, my dear Nax?”

  He slammed his fist against the hallway wall. He just up and pounded on the beige wallpaper like he had strength in that arm of his.

  “I wanted nothing to do with her meddling,” he said. “I want less to do with your ghosts, Irena Karanova, but I will not repeat the mistakes of my past.”

  He pointed at me. “Beware the Fates.”

  Six months at Paradise Homes, listening to the chatter, watching the sneers, and wondering, and this was the first time a resident had gotten in my face about their sinister neighbors.

  I might have been surprised, but I wasn’t surprised it was Nax. “Why?” I asked. Maybe I’d get a straight answer. “How tall are you, Mr. Nax?” I asked. “Do you remember?”

  He huffed. His back stiffened. Mrs. K set her hands on her lap and watched him expectantly.

  Nax turned away.

  Damn it, I thought. I reached for his elbow. “Mr. Nax.”

  He looked up—no, down—at me. The sense of big Nax returned, even if I couldn’t see his bulk.

  “Why do I need to beware of Fates?”

  I’d spent some time in Building One. Not a lot, just a day or two for training, and the occasional trip over to gather linens, or to cover a shift. The oldsters across the way weren’t all that different from the oldsters in Building Two.

  Except none of them took up more room than they should, and none of them talked about ghosts.

  But sometimes, they seemed to know when an aide would be coming by, or where I would be going next, or that the dining hall would be out of mashed potatoes.

  Uncannily specific predictions about who would be sitting where at meals happened several times, no matter how the staff discounted the Building One utterances.

  And here Nax was telling me to be careful with Fates.

  “Why?” I asked again.

  And again, Nax waved me off with a hand behind his back.

  “Old Fates are not a danger, my dear.” Mrs. K patted my hand. “Come. Time to eat, is it not? I wish to nibble.”

  I looked down at the crazy old lady in the wheelchair, then over my shoulder at the crazier old man as he stepped across his threshold into his own personal room-space.

  Was Nax messing with me? Were they all messing with the new aide?

  “You really do see ghosts, don’t you?” The question dropped from my lips. Why would Irena Karanova seeing ghosts matter? How would a frail old man not being so frail change the world?

  Because, honestly, it probably wouldn’t. And outside of Paradise Homes, no one would care anyway. Or these lonely old men and women would get exploited.

  I still wanted to know, because I don’t like an infestation of lies. I don’t like having to attend to where they skittered. I didn’t like having to stomp my heel into one after another after another.

  Mrs. K chuckled. “I do not believe that my Marias are ghosts, young lady.” She winked. “And neither should you.”

  Neither should you, three huge words spoken by a small Russian woman. I pushed Mrs. K through the main concourse corridor, past the beauty shop, toward dinner, trying my best not to think too much about Fates and ghosts.

  “Be careful,” Nax had said. I’d seen the magic of this place. Somewhere in my gut, something told me to believe him.

  A long, wide concourse connected Buildings One and Two. It gave staff a way to cross without going outside, and it allowed one kitchen to serve both buildings. On the Building Two side, the main entrance and lobby occupied most of the concourse. A visitor’s lounge filled the space behind the entrance. Past the entrance, behind an always-open double door, the concourse constricted into a darker, narrower area that held a few offices, craft rooms, and a beauty shop, before opening into the dining hall.

  The oldsters in Building One and Building Two could mingle, if they wanted. They tended to sit on their respective sides of the dining area like cliques in a high school.

  I wheeled in Mrs. K. The residents in the dining hall clanked their cutlery. A few chatted with their table mates. The kitchen staff carried trays in and out. Mrs. K breathed in the aroma of institutional meatloaf and salty once-green beans.

  And over in the corner, by herself, sat an old lady who was probably what the residents in Building Two called a “Fate.”

  She fit the description of a mythological Fate, the crone kind, with her hunched back and her long, drawn face. But her long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail not unlike those worn by staff, and her skin, though aged, did not have Mrs. K’s parchment-like quality.

  I reco
gnized her from taking a few hours over in Building One last week. She’d scrunch up her face in horror and disgust every time a nurse referred to her as “Mrs. Carmichael,” as if the name offended her all the way down to the marrow in her bones. She was simultaneously both young and old, but not in Mr. Nax’s glamoured, magical way. Mrs. Carmichael looked as if she’d gotten the short end of some witch’s nasty spell.

  I wheeled Mrs. K to her spot. “Meatloaf tonight,” I said.

  She tapped the table and stared at Mrs. Carmichael. “How odd,” she said.

  I glanced at the other old lady again. She ate her food, chewing more slowly than one would expect when eating tasteless mush. She also spent all of her time watching the other residents and none of it looking at her fork and knife.

  Paranoia, I thought.

  Mrs. Carmichael popped another piece of meatloaf into her mouth. She chewed once, twice, then her jaw stopped. She hadn’t swallowed—her cheeks were still full. She stared off into space as if something had distracted her from the food in her mouth.

  Then she frowned at me.

  Directly at me, as if out of every staff member in the dining hall, I was the one who upset her sensibilities the most.

  Mrs. K did not notice, nor did any of the other residents at her table, though a few of them winced at the same time Mrs. Carmichael spaced out. Mrs. K’s table chatted pleasantries at each other, asking if any grandkids had come by today, or if they had watched last night’s episode of Law and Order.

  No talk of ghosts, being wary of Fates, or whatever it was that Nax did. No looking at the Fate in the corner, either. In fact, they seemed to be making a point of not looking at her as if whatever she was doing to make herself space out and the other residents cringe was bad enough for a shunning.

  I glanced around again. Every resident in the dining hall had shifted slightly in their seats as if they were all trying to turn their backs to Mrs. Carmichael.

  She tapped her knife against her plate and a loud tink tink echoed through the hall. Her eyes spaced again. A few of the residents at the next table winced. Two adjusted their chairs to turn their backs more to Mrs. Carmichael.

  No one looked at her. No one.

  She set down her fork and tinked again.

  And again, no one looked at her.

  She rubbed her nose as if proud of herself. Then she pushed back her chair and slowly, carefully, reached for her cane. And just as slowly and carefully, she shuffled toward the door exiting onto the dining hall’s patio, which sat adjacent to the entrance area at the front of the concourse.

  Most of the residents weren’t supposed to go outside without supervision, and the snow and winter temperatures made that supervision imperative.

  A cold front sat over Aurora and the surrounding communities, and had cleared the clouds from the sky. The outdoor lights ringing the patio hadn’t come on yet, because the early-evening sun shimmered along the snow.

  But it was slick outside, and tonight’s drive home was likely to be horrible. Dark and ice made all roads treacherous.

  Mrs. Carmichael pulled her granny square shawl tighter around her shoulders as she slid her feet toward the door. Everyone at the Building Two end of the dining hall continued to ignore her.

  She looked as if she might be wearing an extra pair of sweats. A sweater’s hem showed under the shawl. And she was wearing cold-weather boots.

  And for some reason, treacherous returned to my mind. That there was treachery afoot, the real kind with the lies and the double-crossings, but this time also with slippery roads that would send us all over a cliff.

  She glanced over her shoulder and I swear her spacing out looked as if she was staring at something on the inside of her corneas.

  Fate, I thought and some part of me finally understood every single sinister connotation the label carried.

  But how could ignored old ladies and weird talk of ghosts lead to backstabbing? How was it that no one other than me attended to Mrs. Carmichael’s movements?

  And treacherous changed to infestation, and what, over these past six months as an aide here at Paradise Homes Building Two, had been a curiosity, a question—a wondering about the reality of this place—suddenly cleared. No one attended to the rivalry between the buildings because paying attention could lead to something worse than weird.

  Maybe the magic here wasn’t as small and frail as I thought it to be.

  Thing was, though, Mrs. Carmichael was old.

  She opened the door leading out into the snow and I did the one thing my gut was telling me not to do—I did my job.

  I followed.

  Chapter Four

  Mrs. Carmichael should not have gone out into the snow drifts filling the tree-lined patio. She should have stayed inside, and out of the frigid January air swirling like a slow tornado in the circle between the buildings. She should have kept to her meal and not wandered into the early evening gloom.

  And I should not have followed. Not without a coat or boots, or sense in my head. But what else was I to do? Creepy or not, freaky or not, if she stumbled off the patio, she could break a hip.

  I yelled at one of the kitchen staff to get help, then I pushed through the door and into the evening air. I blinked and I sucked in a frigid inhale, making my insides as cold as my outside.

  “Mrs. Carmichael!” Where did she go? She hadn’t been fast enough to get out of sight, and the bright greens and pinks stitched into her granny square shawl should stand out like a beacon.

  Every hair on my body stood up. Above, golds and pinks streaked through the mountains to the west. To the east, night had just begun to darken the blue edges of the world.

  The sky looked normal, even if it felt ominous. But every one of the residents looked normal, too, even though I was beginning to think sinister wasn’t so far off.

  “Mrs. Carmichael!” I ran toward the walk and Paradise Homes’ front door.

  The wind slapped me full in the face. Airborne ice ground against my exposed skin like grit on sandpaper. I tried to catch my breath, but cold solidified the taste version of the wind’s howl onto my tongue.

  Why did I come out here without a coat? I wiped at my eyes and peered into the shadows infesting the drive circle between Buildings One and Two.

  The driveway tended toward gloom even at noon. The placement of the buildings shaded the walk up to the main entrance, and the trees cut off a lot of visibility to the road. It was nice in the summer, but in the winter, it could make parking and the entrance… treacherous.

  And it was back, the feeling that all the magic secrets of Paradise Homes added up to something worse than oldsters who once had superpowers, or old Russian ladies who talked to ghosts.

  Another blast of wind hit me. I shivered and yelped, and turned my face away. Why was I out here? Why did I think chasing something I did not understand into the cold was a good idea?

  “Mrs. Carmichael!” I yelled. I couldn’t stay out here much—

  My ice-pelted eyes picked out five, maybe six residents on the other side of the circle, near the entrance to the road. Six old people, two with walkers, all looking up at the ominous sky.

  I recognized none of them. They had to be from Building One.

  “Hey!” I yelled.

  Not one looked at me. They all continued to stare at the sky.

  I glanced around. “Did any of you see Mrs. Carmichael?”

  Paradise Homes’ front door whooshed open and a cone of light swept over the walk. The entrance, like every institutional entrance everywhere, had framing architecture around its wide, sliding doors. We didn’t have steps, but a long, low-pitched ramp, and the frame was a pair of low walls on either side of the ramp that ended in tall planters on both ends.

  “Del!” Marko yelled. “What the hell is going on out here?”

  Marko, the check-in desk security guard, ran toward the circle with his bright flashlight and an extra coat in his arms. He was a compact guy, not all that tall, with a bald head and an ageless
face. Sometimes, in a certain light, I swore Marko carried faded Celtic tattoos on his cheeks and arms. He was also the only guard on duty who carried a service weapon.

  “Marko.” I pointed at the six residents under the tree but ran toward him to get the coat. “I need your help.”

  Near the door, the planters held small evergreens currently wrapped in holiday lights. At the drive end, the planters were more small mounds of landscaping than anything else. Both held tall grasses and, in the summer, overflowed with flowers.

  But it was winter, and the grass stalks held against the wind. They also screened the areas behind the planters and against the low walls.

  Mrs. Carmichael stepped out from behind the grass. She moved more like Marko than the other residents—surefooted and stable. Fast and mobile.

  Mrs. Carmichael caught Marko by the arm, and faster than anyone living at Paradise Homes should move, she twisted.

  The coat flew out of his hands. She stripped his flashlight and knocked him on the head.

  “Marko!” I yelled.

  He stumbled against the retaining wall, his hand on the back of his scalp, but didn’t fall.

  “Hey!” I yelled. How was she moving so well?

  Mrs. Carmichael ignored me and rolled the flashlight around her wrist. She snatched the coat off the ground. “I figured you’d call out and get others to follow you.” She tossed it at me.

  “What are—”

  Her hand shot out and the next thing I knew, I had icy old-lady fingers around my neck. “Put on the jacket, child.”

  “Who are you?” I squeaked.

  She tapped the tip of my nose. “We both know that is not the question you wish to ask.”

  No, it wasn’t. The thoughts of treachery returned, as did infestation. I spent my days inside the magic cocoon called Paradise Homes but it wasn’t a sparkly magic, nor was it friendly.

  And I doubted I would ever truly understand the truth of the world.

  “Mrs. Carmichael…” I said.

  “Carmichael. That’s the name they put on the forms when they locked me in this prison.” She looked toward the sky.