“Crosshatchings and Xs,” said Connie.
“Or crosses,” Liz said, a note of triumph in her voice. “Greek Orthodox crosses, remember, don’t have the rectangular proportions that modern crosses have. They fit inside a square.”
Connie’s eyes widened. As she looked at the symbol, it seemed to shed its dark, clinging drapery of malice. Under her steady gaze, the circles appeared to realign themselves, to shift and glisten with an entirely different intent.
“Shoot,” said Liz, breaking into Connie’s thoughts. “I’ve got to go, or I’m going to be late. You have a copy of Lionel Chandler’s The Material Culture of Superstition, don’t you?”
“I think so,” Connie said. “It was on my orals list, anyway.”
“Well, check my hypothesis in there. Because the more I think about it, the more it seems like the circle’s meant to be protective, rather than hostile. Not that it will tell you any more about who put it there, but at least you’ll have a working theory about what it means.”
Connie stared at the circle for a moment. “Liz,” she said finally, “you are a genius.”
Her friend sighed. “Tell that to my summer school students. I’m thinking of giving them a pop quiz just to watch them suffer.”
Connie replaced the receiver in the cradle, front door still standing open to the afternoon. Outside Arlo was digging under a thorny herb bush, tail trembling with effort. Connie folded her arms and looked out across the yard, enjoying the sensation of her unease falling away. She inhaled deeply, drawing air into the spaces between her ribs. The telephone rang as she stood there, and Connie picked it up on the first ring, thinking that Liz had called to add a final thought.
“Didn’t you say you were going to be late?” Connie said without preamble. The person on the other end of the line paused, not speaking, and then cleared her throat.
“Is this Connie Goodwin?” the voice, a woman’s, asked, and from its tone Connie could tell that something was wrong.
“Yes,” she said. Her thoughts raced first to Grace, but with a rush of laserlike precision she knew that at that instant Grace was in an adobe house, kneeling, lowering her hands onto the ailing knee of one of her aura work clients. Safe. “Who is this?”
The woman paused, and a dull announcement played over a public address system in the undefined space behind her. Connie could not tell what the announcement was, but the woman seemed to be listening to it before she continued.
“This is Linda Hartley, Connie,” the woman said. “I’m Sam’s mother.”
Connie heard a man walk up behind Linda and address her. She must have placed her hand over the receiver because Connie could only hear Linda’s muffled murmur He is? And then Okay. The hand was pulled away again. “He asked me to call you. He’s…” She swallowed.
“Where is he?” Connie asked, already grabbing her bag and feeling inside for her car keys.
CONNIE REMEMBERED ALMOST NOTHING OF THE DRIVE TO NORTH SHORE Veterans’ Memorial Hospital. The next moment that she was able to take stock of her surroundings found her striding through a sliding glass door, unsure even where she had parked her car. She was stuffing her keys into a jeans pocket and reading the signs for directions to the emergency room, and her feet were carrying her along the arrows weaving through the drab taupe hospital corridors. She was propelled around corners, into an elevator, where one of her hands selected a button. Then she left the elevator and traveled down yet another taupe hallway, this one lined with crumpled old women in loose paper hospital shifts, parked in wheelchairs along the corridor. None of them looked up as she hurried by. A public address system issued some kind of announcement, and a young doctor, her eyes ringed in fatigue, jogged by with a stethoscope draped over her shoulder. Connie blinked, looking around, and followed her feet around yet another corner.
Three doors down, her feet stopped her across from a row of scratched brown fiberglass chairs, where a kind-looking woman in a droopy cardigan and sensible shoes was sitting, a large handbag balanced on her lap. The woman was looking down, gazing through the linoleum squares on the floor at worlds visible only to herself. Connie waited, hovering on the outer edge of the woman’s field of vision, before the woman looked up at Connie and smiled a smile of worry and, possibly, sadness, too.
“Linda?”
“You must be Connie,” the woman said, extending her hand. Connie took it, and it sat in her palm like a limp fish. “You’re as pretty as Sam said,” the woman told her, smiling weakly.
Connie lowered herself onto the fiberglass seat next to Sam’s mother. “My husband is using the pay phone,” Linda said, glancing down the hall. “I know he’ll be glad you’re here.”
Connie was not sure if Linda was referring to Sam or to her husband but decided not to ask. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling beat down on Linda’s head, turning her hair a dull shade of gray. Connie’s hands clutched and un-clutched her shoulder bag; she could tell that Linda Hartley was the sort of woman whom she would like, with whom she could imagine sharing tea over a kitchen counter. As Connie watched her, noticing the pattern of smile lines in the corners of her eyes, which were identical to Sam’s, Linda continued. “Well, the good news is that it was only his leg that was hurt. That high up, he could have hit his head.” She cupped her hands over her elbows. “He could have been killed.”
“What happened, exactly?” Connie finally asked. As she spoke a small, serious man in a sweater vest approached from the opposite end of the hallway, his hands thrust into the pockets of a weathered pair of corduroys. He claimed the seat on Linda’s other side and put his hand on Linda’s knee.
“They say he’ll be out in about ten minutes,” said the man. “He’ll be groggy, but we can go in and see him.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Linda said, shoulders sagging. “Mike, this is Connie. Sam’s friend.” Linda motioned toward Connie, and the man nodded an acknowledgment. She smiled a tight smile back at him. Connie had just enough time to wonder how much Sam had told his parents about her when Linda spoke again.
“He was working on the scaffolding this morning. Painting.” Linda took a breath. “And for whatever reason, he didn’t have the safety harness on.”
“He fell,” Mike interjected. “Two stories at least. They’re in there now, pinning his leg.”
Connie felt her stomach lurch, her mind traveling back to the morning, seeing Sam, his mouth frothed with toothpaste, grinning at her over the kitchen sink. She wanted to reach forward, to grasp his arm, and a dark curtain of self-recrimination dropped over her, cursing her own inability to perceive that he would walk into danger when he left the house. Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. How could you possibly know that he would forget to put the safety harness on?
“No damn reason for him to have that job,” Sam’s father glowered, jaw muscles bunching.
“Michael,” Linda quelled him, placing her hand over his.
The three of them sat, Connie’s legs crossed at the knee and one foot hooked around her ankle, waiting in the hospital hallway. Time proceeded around them in bright, empty snapshots: two nurses, carrying lunch trays, talking; a stooped janitor in coveralls, catching a mop bucket before it tipped; a tiny, withered man with a liver-spotted scalp, in striped pajamas, his wheelchair being pushed by a bitter-looking middle-aged woman. The lack of windows and constant blare of the fluorescent lights locked the hallway in a void where time felt difficult to gauge. Connie was not completely sure how long they sat waiting, but finally an earnest young doctor approached and said, “Mr. and Mrs. Hartley? Would you come with me, please?” Sam’s parents rose, Connie trailing after them as they followed the doctor into a room a few doors away.
She waited outside while his parents entered, knitting and unknitting her fingers. Now that she had had time to think about it, Connie could be pleasantly surprised that Sam had asked his parents to call her. Usually her reserve kept people—men especially—at a distance, but Sam was different. She felt at ease with him, co
mfortable. More herself. How was it possible to be more yourself when you were with another person? Connie always assumed that she was most purely herself when she was alone. She thought of Sam, grinning at her surprise when he dropped down from the roof of the church, thrusting a box of doughnuts into her hands. Her throat tightened. The door opened a crack, and half of Linda’s face appeared.
“Connie?” she asked. “You can come in, you know.”
Connie swallowed and pushed open the door.
Inside Mike and Linda stood grouped around a hospital bed, with the young doctor standing at the foot, examining a clipboard. In the bed, propped on several pillows, Sam lay, face wan, leg hoisted up by pulleys and straps. Several bars or pins extended from his shin, which was a mottled black and purple. Connie moved to the opposite side of the bed and smiled down at him. “Hello,” she whispered.
“Hey, Cornell,” he said, voice hoarse from fatigue. He attempted a smile, but it was unconvincing, and halfway through turned into a grimace. She reached down and took his hand between both of hers. To her surprise, she felt the disorder and confusion in his cells that is the result of extreme and sudden pain. It was as if his body were still undergoing shocks that continued to ricochet through its closed system, unable to escape or quiet. Like ocean waves in a swimming pool.
She pressed his hand, weaving her fingers together around his palm, her awareness groping forward under his skin. She was stunned to find that her hands were gathering information about Sam, information that she did not know fully how to process. Since her experiment with the plants, Connie had found that she was more attuned, as if a heavy filter between herself and the world had been suddenly lifted away. The shift was daunting, incomprehensible. But now she received the incontrovertible impression that the disorder that was gripping his body extended somewhere beyond the catastrophe of the broken bones in his leg. Connie frowned, and she glanced over at the doctor.
“Well,” the doctor began, flipping through what must be Sam’s intake forms. “The good news is that the leg should heal nicely. He’s strong, and soon enough we’ll be able to have him in a cast and back home. There is one major caveat, however.” The doctor tucked the clipboard under one arm and clasped his hands together before his mouth, looking at Sam and at his parents in turn. They waited for him to continue, Sam’s grip tightening around Connie’s hand.
“I’m afraid that we also have to consider what may have caused the fall in the first place,” the doctor said.
“Should have been wearing his goddamn safety harness, is what,” Mike Hartley growled as Linda murmured, “Michael, please.”
“That’s not it at all, Mr. Hartley,” the doctor replied, unflappable. “Sam, how much do you remember from immediately before the accident?”
Sam licked his lips, and Connie watched him frown as he tried to push through the haze of receding anesthesia that was clogging his thoughts.
Sam cleared his throat.
“Not that much, actually,” he began, looking up at his parents. “I was finishing up the last of the gilding in the church cupola.” He paused, swallowing. “I was kind of tired, ’cause I didn’t”—he glanced up at Connie—“didn’t sleep so well. So I climbed down to take a break. I had some water from the cooler that’s there, but it was…” He worked his mouth a little, his body recalling the taste. “It was…bad. Metallic. But I didn’t care. I sat in a pew for a minute, resting.”
He took a breath, lines of tension contracting around his eyes. “I climbed back up and went back to work.” He stopped, confusion sweeping across his face. “That’s all. That’s all I remember.” He looked up at Connie, perturbed.
“You don’t remember falling? Or the ambulance ride?” the doctor pressed.
“No,” Sam said, realizing the gravity of his situation. “I don’t even know who found me.” He looked back to his parents. “Who did find me?” They looked at each other but said nothing.
“Interesting,” said the doctor, making a note. He paused, looking gravely down at his patient. “Sam,” he began, “I believe that your fall was caused by a grand mal seizure.”
“What?” Sam asked as his mother said, “Oh, my God.” Mike put his hands on Linda’s shoulders, and Connie looked down at Sam. His face contorted in dismay. She swallowed and pressed his hand harder.
“In a generalized seizure of this type, occasionally a patient will experience what we call an ‘aura,’ which is often marked by drastic alterations in sensory perception or emotional state. Changes in the brain can sometimes cause the patient to experience strange tastes or smells. The metallic taste of the water and your unexplained fatigue, for example. In the second stage of a seizure like this, the limbs go stiff and the patient will fall, his limbs then launching into convulsions. The patient emerging from a seizure of this type will have no recollection of the event.”
The doctor continued to make notes, casting a critical eye on Sam. “I’m afraid that that is not all. Though we had you under sedation at the time, you underwent another seizure while we were operating on your leg, together with serious vomiting. Unfortunately you didn’t seem to respond to the anticonvulsant that was administered to you. Is there any family history of epilepsy or other seizure disorders?”
“No,” said Linda, appalled. She glanced over at her husband, who looked as though he had just caught a boulder hurled at his chest: crumpled over, out of breath, strained.
“Not that I know of,” Mike said, voice subdued. Sam, for his part, was growing more alert, edging up farther in his pillows and shifting his weight in the bed. Connie laid a hand on his arm.
“Does this mean that I could have another one?” Sam asked, looking levelly at the doctor.
“Unfortunately there is a strong possibility of that, yes.” As the doctor said this, Linda gasped, putting her hand to her mouth. “It’s a bit unusual,” the doctor commented. “We still have to determine if there’s a genetic component to it, or if there are any external factors in play. The vomiting, obviously, raises some serious questions, so I’d like to run some more tests. But it goes without saying that Samuel will have to stay here until we have been able to stabilize his condition. He is at risk of severely jostling the broken leg when his body is convulsing, to say nothing of the neurological implications. And there’s a risk of dehydration if the vomiting should return with the same degree of severity. I can’t let you leave until we’ve brought the situation under control.”
Sam’s parents looked from the doctor, to Sam, to each other. Connie gripped his hand tightly, one tear escaping out of the corner of her eye. She rubbed it away with her shoulder, unwilling to let Sam see that she was afraid.
“It is unusual for epilepsy to appear for the first time in adulthood,” the doctor continued. “Usually this syndrome first manifests itself late in childhood or during adolescence. Further, I do not yet have an explanation for the vomiting, which seems to occur independently of the neurological events. However”—here the doctor smiled, but Connie could read the anxiety that underpinned the doctor’s sheen of confidence—“my sincere hope is that we will have a more concrete treatment plan in place by this time tomorrow.”
The doctor shook hands with everyone in the room, brisk and businesslike. As Connie watched the doctor’s white coat disappear out the door of the room, the fear in her belly calcified into a cold, hard lump.
For she perceived, as clearly as if she were looking at a bright color photograph, that the doctor had no idea what to do.
Interlude
Salem Town, Massachusetts
Late February
1692
The belly of the egg split open with one swift crack, spilling its slippery contents into a waiting hand. The hand’s fingers parted just a bit, allowing the viscous white to drip into a thick glass of water below, but retaining the round orb of the yolk. Mercy Dane sniffed at the yolk cupped in her hand, rolling it under her thumb. Its membranes gave a bit but held together, smooth and warm, and its color was a deep h
ealthy orange. It smelled clean and earthy, nourished by wheat chaff and dried maize kernels. She slipped the yolk from her hand into a little earthenware bowl, where four or five others already sat, glistening in the dim light of the hall. Mercy’s mouth watered a little as she contemplated the custard that she would make later with the surplus yolks. A little milk, rye meal, some currants—she had squirreled some away a week previous—and molasses. She ran her tongue over her front teeth, behind her lips, imagining the smell of cooking pudding that was to come as she wiped the egg residue from her hands.
Meanwhile, the egg white had collected in a hazy cloud in the water glass, and her mother’s tired hand reached forward to grasp the glass, holding it aloft and turning it this way and that. She heard her mother murmur a phrase under her breath and replace the glass on the scarred board on trestles that served as the hall table.
“Well?” asked an anxious young woman’s voice. Mercy busied herself at the hearth, using a long iron hook to swivel a small, simmering cauldron a smidgen off of the hottest part of the fire. She was permitted to assist with her mother’s work, provided she keep her opinions to herself and not interrupt. The iron hook clattered against the hearth bricks as Mercy stoked the fire, sending a smattering of impatient sparks up and around the base of the cauldron. Though her back was turned to the two women seated at the table, Mercy felt her mother glower in her direction. A glance over her shoulder confirmed this guess, as her eyes met Deliverance’s silent glare. Mercy returned the look with a sulk and turned back to the greens boiling over the fire. She could not fathom that Mary Sibley. Why would Mother attend to her? She’s just a meddling gossip, is all, Mercy brooded. When she took up the craft herself, why, she’d sure forbear to meet with that Mary. Too right she should.
Deliverance Dane sighed, saying, “I cannot say, Mary. ’Tis a poor scrying glass withal.”
The young goodwife seated at the hall table twisted her handkerchief between grasping hands. “But, Livvy! You must see! ’Tis on three weeks now the girls are afflicted. Let us break another.” The matron reached for another egg from within the basket at her elbow, proffering a smooth, speckled orb. Deliverance raised one hand, fending off the egg that Mary Sibley thrust at her.
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane Page 25