“Is that something a Natural can do?” I could hear the hope in my voice.
“I don’t know.” Lena looked like she was about to cry. “I’m not sure. I feel like there’s something I’m supposed to do. But I don’t know what.”
She looked away, down to the other end of the hall. I could see a watery streak work its way down the side of her jaw.
“You’re not supposed to know, L. It’s not your fault. This whole thing is my fault. Abraham came looking for me.”
“He didn’t come for you. He came for John.” She didn’t say it, but I heard the rest. Because of me. Because of my Claiming. She changed the subject before I had a chance to say anything. “I asked Uncle Macon what happens to people when they’re in a coma.”
I held my breath, in spite of all the things I did or didn’t believe. “And?”
She shrugged. “He wasn’t sure. But Casters believe the spirit can leave the body under certain circumstances, like Traveling. Uncle M described it as a kind of freedom, like being a Sheer.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad, I guess.” I thought back to the teenage boy, mindlessly writing, and the elderly man with the yo-yo. They weren’t Traveling. They weren’t Sheers. They were stuck in the most Mortal of all conditions. Trapped in broken-down bodies.
No matter what, I couldn’t handle that. Not for Aunt Prue. Especially not for my Aunt Prue.
Without another word, I stepped past Lena and into my aunt’s room.
My Aunt Prudence was the smallest person in the world. As she liked to put it, she bent with every passing year and shrunk with every passing husband—and so she barely came up to my chest, even if she could stand up straight in her thick-soled Red Cross shoes.
But lying there, smack in the middle of that big hospital bed, with every possible kind of tube snaking in and out of her, Aunt Prue looked even smaller. She barely made a dent in the mattress. Slits of light broke through the plastic blinds on one side of her room, painting bars across her motionless face and body. The combined effect looked like a prison hospital ward. I couldn’t look at her face. Not at first.
I took a step closer to her bed. I could see the monitors, even if I didn’t know what they were for. Things were beeping, lines were moving. There was only one chair in the room, peach-upholstered and hard as a rock, with a second, empty bed next to it. After what I’d seen in the other rooms, the bed looked like a waiting trap. I wondered which variety of broken-down person would be caught in there the next time I came to see Aunt Prue.
“She’s stable. You don’t need to worry. Her body’s comfortable. She’s just not with us right now.” A nurse was pulling shut the door behind her. I couldn’t see her face, but a shock of dark hair twisted out from beneath her ponytail. “I’ll leave you for a minute, if you’d like. Prudence hasn’t had a visitor since yesterday. I’m sure it would be good for her to spend some time with you.”
The nurse’s voice was comforting, even familiar, but before I could get a good look at her, the door clicked shut. I saw a vase of fresh flowers on the table next to my aunt’s bed. Verbena. They looked like the flowers Amma had resorted to growing inside. “Summer Blaze,” that’s what she called them. “Red as fire itself.”
On a hunch, I walked over to the window and pulled up the blinds. Light came flooding in, and the prison disappeared. There was a thick line of white salt lining the edge of the glass.
“Amma. She must have come yesterday while we were with Aunt Grace and Aunt Mercy.” I smiled to myself, shaking my head. “I’m surprised she only left salt.”
“Actually—” Lena pulled a mysterious-looking burlap bundle, tied with twine, from under Aunt Prue’s pillow. She smelled it and made a face. “Well, it’s not lavender.”
“I’m sure it’s for protection.”
Lena pulled the chair closer to the bed. “I’m glad. I’d be scared, lying here all by myself. It’s too quiet.” She reached for Aunt Prue’s hand, hesitating. The IV was taped across her knuckles.
Spotted roses, I thought. Those hands should be holding a hymnal, or a hand of gin rummy. A cat’s leash or a map.
I tried to shake the slow-sinking wrongness. “It’s okay.”
“I’m not sure—”
“I think you can hold her hand, L.”
Lena took Aunt Prue’s tiny hand in both of her own. “She looks peaceful, like she’s sleeping. Look at her face.”
I couldn’t. I reached out for her, awkwardly, and let my hand grab what I guess was her toe, where the lump of her foot poked the blanket up like a pup tent.
Ethan, you don’t have to be afraid.
I’m not afraid, L.
You think I don’t know how it feels?
How what feels?
To worry if someone I love is going to die.
I looked at her hovering over my aunt like some kind of Caster nurse.
I do worry, L. All the time.
I know, Ethan.
Marian. My dad. Amma. Who’s next?
I looked at Lena.
I worry about you.
Ethan don’t—
Let me worry about you.
“Ethan, please.” There it was. The talking. The talking that came when the Kelting became too personal. It was one step back from thinking, and one step away from changing the subject entirely.
I didn’t let it drop. “I do, L. From the second I wake up until I fall asleep, and then in my dreams every second in between.”
“Ethan. Look at her.”
Lena moved next to me and put her hand on mine, until both of us were touching the tiny bandaged hand that belonged to Aunt Prue. “Look at her eyes.”
I did.
She looked different. Not happy, not sad. Her eyes were milky, unfocused. She looked gone, like the nurse said.
“Aunt Prue isn’t like the others. I bet she’s far away exploring, like she always wanted to. Maybe she’s finishing her map of the Tunnels right now.” Lena kissed me on the cheek and stood up. “I’m going to see if there’s somewhere to get a drink. Do you want something? Maybe they have chocolate milk.”
I knew what she was really doing. Giving me time alone with my aunt. But I didn’t tell her that, or that I couldn’t stand the taste of chocolate milk anymore. “I’m okay.”
“Let me know if you need me.” She pulled the door closed behind her.
Once Lena left, I didn’t know what to do. I stared at Aunt Prue lying in the hospital bed with tubes threaded in and out of her skin. I lifted her hand gently in mine, careful not to disturb her IV. I didn’t want to hurt her. I was pretty sure she could still feel pain. I mean, she wasn’t dead—that’s what I kept reminding myself.
I remembered hearing somewhere that you’re supposed to talk to people in comas because they can hear you. I tried to think of something to tell her. But the same words kept playing over and over in my mind.
I’m sorry. It’s my fault.
Because it was true. And the weight of it—the guilt—was so heavy I could feel it bearing down on me all the time.
I hoped Lena was right. I hoped Aunt Prue was somewhere making maps or stirring up trouble. I wondered if she was with my mom. Could they find each other, wherever they were?
I was still thinking about it when I closed my eyes for a second….
I could feel Aunt Prue’s bandaged hand in mine. Only when I looked down at the bed, Aunt Prue was gone. I blinked, and the bed was gone, then the room. And I was nowhere, looking at nothing, hearing nothing.
Footsteps.
“Ethan Wate, that you?”
“Aunt Prue?”
She came shuffling out of the absolute nothingness. She was there and not there, flickering in and out of sight in her best housedress, the one with the loud flowers and the pearly-looking snaps. Her slippers were crocheted in the same rainbow of browns as Aunt Grace’s favorite afghan.
“Back so soon?” She waved the handkerchief in her curled hand. “Told you last night, I got things ta do while I’m out an’ about like this. Can’t keep runnin’ ta me every time you need the answer ta some durned question I don’t know.”
“What? I didn’t visit you last night, Aunt Prue.”
She frowned. “You tryin’ ta play tricks on a old woman?”
“What did you tell me?” I asked.
“What did you ask?” She scratched her head, and I realized with a rising panic that she was beginning to fade away.
“Are you coming back, Aunt Prue?”
“Can’t say just yet.”
“Can you come with me now?”
She shook her head. “Don’t you know? That’s up ta the Wheel a Fate.”
“What?”
“Sooner or later, it crushes us all. That’s what I told you, remember? When you asked ’bout comin’ over here. Why’re you askin’ so many questions today? I’m bone tired, an’ I need ta get me some rest.”
She was almost gone now.
“Leave me be, Ethan. Don’t ya be lookin’ ta come downside. The Wheel ain’t done with you.”
I watched as her brown crocheted slippers disappeared.
“Ethan?” I could hear Lena’s voice and feel her hand on my shoulder, shaking me awake.
My head felt heavy, and I opened my eyes slowly. Bright light poured in from the unblinded window. I had fallen asleep in the chair next to Aunt Prue, the way I used to fall asleep on my mom’s chair, waiting for her to finish up in the archive. I looked down, and Aunt Prue was lying on her bed, milky eyes open as if nothing had happened. I dropped her hand.
I must have looked spooked, because Lena looked worried. “Ethan, what is it?”
“I—I saw Aunt Prue. I talked to her.”
“While you were asleep?”
I nodded. “Yeah. But it didn’t feel like a dream. And she wasn’t surprised to see me. I had already been there.”
“What are you talking about?” Lena was watching me carefully now.
“Last night. She said I came to see her. Only I don’t remember.” It was becoming more common, and more frustrating. I was forgetting things all the time now.
Before Lena could say anything, the nurse rapped on the door, opening it just a crack.
“I’m sorry, but visiting hours are over. You’ll have to let your aunt have some rest now, Ethan.”
She sounded friendly, but the message was clear. We were out the door and into the empty hall before my heart had time to stop pounding.
On the way out, Lena realized she had left her bag in Aunt Prue’s room. While I waited for her to get it, I walked through the hallway slowly, stopping at a doorway. I couldn’t help it. The boy in the room was about my age, and for a minute I found myself wondering what it would be like to be in his place. He was still sitting up at the table, and his hand was still writing. I looked up and down the hall, then slipped into his room.
“Hey, man. Just passing through.”
I sat down on the edge of the chair in front of him. His eyes didn’t even flicker in my direction, and his hand didn’t stop moving. Over and over, he had written a hole into his paper, even into the sheet underneath.