Chapter 3 Familiar Spirits #2
Nick let himself into the kitchen, and negotiated with the dog about the amount of slobber that was appropriate for a greeting. His keys jingled on the countertop, and I heard the rattle of a treat bag, then crunching.
Nick came into the bedroom to sit on the edge of the bed. His scrubs bore mysterious stains, his dark hair was tousled, and his stubble had grown in.
I didn’t dare ask if he’d lost the boy. I waited, and silence stretched between us as the entanglement between our cases thickened like spiderwebs.
We came from opposite realms. He was a scientist, believing in the things he could see and quantify.
I was steeped in dreams, memory, and bizarre flashes of intuition held at arm’s length.
Our worlds usually remained separate. We both knew it was trouble when they intersected.
“The boy who almost drowned…he’s in a coma.
I don’t know how—if—he’ll wake up. If he survives, he’s going to have a long road to recovery.
” His voice thickened. Nick brimmed with compassion for other people.
He hurt when they did. He understood their pain.
I didn’t…not always. I thought I understood Nick’s pain most of the time.
I really tried to. But for everyone else…
I hoped I did a good job of acting like I did.
“I’m glad to hear he’s got a chance,” I said at last.
“He was really lucky that you were there, and that the volunteer fire department was only a mile down the road,” he observed quietly. He ran his fingers through his brown hair, a gesture he made when he was disturbed about something.
“Are you okay?”
“Something’s not right about what happened.” When he said this, I trusted him. Nick was an exemplary ER physician. He noticed all the small details.
“What did you see? The scratches?”
“Yeah. He had fresh scratches on his body, lower legs and ribs. And I suctioned mud out of his lungs.”
“I pulled him from a pond, tried to get the water out.”
“Right. He should’ve had water in his lungs, but not mud. For him to have mud, he would have had to be pressed into the mud and trying to breathe it.” He looked at me with clear hazel eyes. “A kid that small can’t dive that far down on his own.”
My instincts were correct. Something was wrong about the case. “So, you’re saying this was attempted murder.”
Nick nodded.
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want it to be true.
“Hey. What’s going on?”
An injured child was bad, but Nick knew me well enough to know there was something else bothering me.
I took his hand in both of mine and opened a sliver of my world to him. I told him about the weird feelings I had about the pond, about the green flash. I told him about the thing I perceived in the water, how it felt as if Mason had been held down.
“And I dreamed about my mom.” I told him about the memories of my mother and the well bubbling to the surface.
“When was the last time you dreamed about your parents?” He was wary. His pupils dilated just a bit. Could be concern. Could be fear.
“Not since last year.” I stared up at the ceiling. “I haven’t had any new memories about my father come up since then, either.”
“I thought your psychiatrist had locked those away. Then they came back all at once when someone was copying your father’s killings.”
“That’s what I thought, too. I thought that was it, and that when the case was solved, he and the Forest God just…went away. That we would live happily ever after.”
“And that’s been true,” Nick said.
I drummed my fingers in irritation. “But now it’s my mom. Just stupid, fragmentary stuff.”
“I mean…that could be normal, you know? It’s not your dad, and it’s not the Forest God.
You had a whole childhood locked away, and it’s probably not unusual that more benign stuff is coming up.
” He was trying to understand. Nick didn’t dream at all.
But he was trying to grasp the internal importance of my dreams.
“No. It’s not either one. I just…” I screwed up my face. I could never call my mother exactly benign. “It’s just…disconcerting.”
I could be honest with him. I hadn’t always been able to. Nick’s mother had been one of my father’s victims. We had more baggage than a thousand relationships. But we’d resolved to be honest with each other. I felt vulnerable. I reflexively hunched my shoulders around my ears.
“I wish I could…” He trailed off.
“What?” I prompted.
“Nothing.”
I leaned into his side.
He slipped his hand over his mouth. “I wish I could remember more about my own mom, you know?”
I slipped my hand around his and squeezed. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
I hated my father. I hated him for the pain he had caused my beloved. I wished I could erase my father from Nick’s life, and the lives of so many others. I had been able to forget him for so long, but others couldn’t.
Nick cupped my head in his hand and pressed it against his shoulder. “It’s just a dream. Let’s decide that it’s just a dream for now, until proven otherwise.”
That was a reasonable thing for a scientist to say. Stay calm and gather evidence.
There really wasn’t anything else I could do…about the dream.
But there were things I could do about the investigation into the near drowning of Mason Sumner.