Chapter Four
I was pretty sure that Toby’s wide-eyed shock mirrored my own. He blinked a few times but he didn’t say anything. Finally uncomfortable enough, I hurried over to the only window on the fourth floor.
It was a small square that obviously hadn’t been cleaned in a while with three thick bars running along its height. Not much light made its way through the glass but it was still my favorite place at Nine Crosses.
I sank heavily into the faded pink glider that was situated sort of in front of the window. Toby was nowhere to be seen. Out of the corner of my eye I watched the two ghosts that had appeared in the darkest corner of the room. So far, they were only interested in talking to each other. Maybe they hadn’t noticed me yet.
I never should have said anything to Toby. He was already shaken up after Tristan’s visit and then he knew something had happened to me. Why did I have to scare him off?
Toby may have been mean to me every chance he got, but he kept the ghost people at a safe distance. They didn’t like him and he was always near me so they didn’t come very close. That was the only good thing I could say about Toby.
A shockingly cold gust of air hit me with the force of a brick wall, stealing my breath and leaving me gasping. More ghost people had entered the room. At least half a dozen or more. The two in the corner stopped talking and they all turned to me.
Rising slowly from the chair, I glanced around the room for Toby. No sign of him. I considered calling for him but rejected the idea. Nothing good would come out of giving the nurses a reason to medicate me.
Suddenly, in a movement I hadn’t seen, a woman with long pale hair and a white dress was just inches from my face. “Come with us,” she hissed, sending a shiver down my spine when her cold breath washed over my skin. “Come,” she cooed.
Forgetting about the chair directly behind me, I backed up and sent myself sprawling on the floor by her feet. Thick white fog hung heavily in the place where her feet may or may not have been. I scrambled to my hands and knees but there was nowhere to go, the other ghost people had come to surround me where I had fallen.
“There’s no reason for you to still be alive,” one of the voices whispered.
“No one cares if you live or die.”
“Your own mother tried to kill you.”
“Your father abandoned you.”
“If your own parents can’t love you, who can?”
“Everyone hates you.”
“Just die.”
“Why won’t you just die?”
I fell to my side, clutching my hands to my ears and squeezing my eyes shut. “Nooo,” I moaned pathetically. What were they doing? They’d never tried to hurt me before. Was this because of Nona?
“Ren?”
I felt hands on my arms, solid human hands. I looked up into the terrified eyes of Nurse Grey. She looked almost as scared as I felt. “Are you alright, Ren?”
“They’re going to kill me,” I sobbed, my voice broken and raspy. It was just how I imagined it would sound after so many years of silence. Of course, it came out clear when I told Toby that I need to talk to him.
Nurse Grey’s eyes widened even further. “Who’s going to kill you?” I clamped my lips shut. I couldn’t tell her about the ghost people. I couldn’t tell anyone. “No one is here. You tripped and hit your head on the chair, that’s all.”
Only when she moved her hand did I notice the bloodied towel she held. I rubbed frantically at my forehead and along my hairline, searching for the injury hidden there. I never thought the ghosts could hurt me; my lips went numb now that I realized they could. My fingers made contact with the sticky mess just above my right eyebrow. “We’ll get you cleaned up.” The fear was gone from Nurse Grey, replaced by the ground in fake patience. The ghosts were still there but a newcomer with honey colored curls seemed to scare them back into the shadows. Tristan. His eyes narrowed when he caught my stare.
“They aren’t going to kill you,” he promised with an authority that none of them argued with.
I pushed myself off the floor, refusing the help of Nurse Grey until the first rush of nausea hit. Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought. “I’ll let Doctor Moore know what’s happened,” Nurse Grey continued talking all the way back to the small nurses station in the middle of ward D. “He won’t expect you to come see him, but I’m sure he’ll be in to see you later.”
I didn’t flinch as my head was cleaned and a large white bandage was slapped over almost the entire area above my eyebrows. It felt stiff, but luckily no stitches were needed. Tristan remained close the whole time.
“Where’s Toby,” he fired as soon as the door clicked behind Nurse Grey.
“Some rest is just what you need,” she had declared with an absent minded pat on my head.
Tristan didn’t look like he was about to kill me. In fact, he looked pretty pissed that the ghosts had tried to. He paced the length of the small room, his steps more pronounced with each round.
“He should be here,” he said again. “I told him you weren’t ready.”
I sucked in a breath, prepared to ask what I wasn’t ready for, but no words came out. Nona had said not to trust him. Should I trust her though? Could I trust anyone?
“What are you doing here?” a familiar snarl made both our heads snap around.
“Well Toby, how nice of you to show up.” Tristan’s eyes widened slightly before they narrowed.
“What are you doing here?” he repeated, slower.
“Doing your job.” The two men stood facing each other, their chests still but their faces livid.
“I’ll take it from here,” Toby said through clenched teeth.
“You better.” Without a single glance spared for me, Tristan was gone again. Had he really just come in to rescue me until Toby got back?
“What happened to your face, Crazy?” He wasn’t even looking at me, how had he noticed my face?
“The ghost people tried to kill me,” I replied in a low voice. No doubt, the nurses were right outside my door. Hearing me talk to myself wouldn’t help things.
Toby’s mouth fell open, then closed again. “You know,” he began, turning his face to look at me fully, “It’s a bit creepy that you quit talking for thirteen years and then one day decide that you have something to say.”
Thirteen years? “So I’m…nineteen?”
“Next month.”
“I thought I’ve only been here for three years.”
“Four.” He shrugged. “Close enough.”
“I…I guess I lost count.” Had I really been that out of it? It didn’t seem like it.
“So,” he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall behind him, “What made you want to suddenly start gabbing again?”
“Nona…told me to talk to you.”
Toby went completely still, his smug smile disappearing. “Nona?”
I nodded, no smile forming on my lips. “I saw her in my dream last night.”
“How do you know it was her?”
“She told me.”
I saw his teeth chewing away at the tender skin on his bottom lip. Was that a nervous thing? I had seen Toby everyday for all of my life and yet I knew nothing about him. The realization hit me as I watched him following Tristan’s path on the floor. How do you see someone everyday and not know them? Well, almost everyday.
“Did you hear me, Crazy?” he asked loudly.
“What?”
“I said,” he was still overly loud on purpose, “tell me what she looked like.”
“Nona?”
“No, I mean the hot little aide that came in this morning” He rushed forward to kick the edge of the bed. “Of course I mean Nona.”
“Umm…” I had been more focused on what she was saying rather than what she looked like. “She had short black hair.”
“Anyone can have short black hair. What was she wearing?”
The details of the dream were becoming hazy; like a childhood memory that was ju
st almost there. “It might have been a white dress.”
“Might?” His jaw tightened.
“She was sitting on the road so it was hard to tell.”
“The road.”
“Yeah. We were sitting on a road. There were no houses and no cars. It was just us.” And the ghost woman, but she didn’t come until later, when the dream was ending.
“Damn it,” he whispered harshly, sinking heavily onto the bed. “That was Nona. Tell me everything she said.”