“Heath!” I managed, and in an instant he was there. I felt his strong arms grab hold of my legs, giving me a good tug out of the clutches of the spook before he lifted me into his arms, hugging me tightly to pivot around and push me forward toward the door. Somehow I got my feet underneath me and limped quickly to the steps, but just as I’d made it up the first two stairs, I felt Heath’s presence at my back suddenly vanish.
Whirling around, I saw him being dragged away by the hag, back onto the bridge. The scene seemed impossible—the hag was barely as tall as I was, and yet she was overpowering Heath like he was a small child. He struggled mightily, but her grip on him was too firm and he couldn’t keep her from pulling him backward onto the bridge.
I made to jump back down the stairs, my arms outstretched to help, but the door slammed shut in my face. Frantically, I grabbed for the handle, yanking hard on it, but it was stuck fast. “Heath!” I screamed, pounding on the door. I could hear his strangled voice from the other side as he struggled with the ghostly hag. “Heath! Heath! Heath!” I cried, banging on the door and pulling at the handle, but it was no use. The door was locked tight and I couldn’t get through.
And then, above my cries and pounding I heard a loud splash, like someone being plunged into the water. I gasped and stopped pounding on the door to press my ear against it. Through the wood I could hear the sounds of more splashing, as if someone was flailing around in the water, and intuitively I knew that Heath had been pulled or had fallen over the side of the low stone wall. In a state of panic I flew up the stairs, nearly knocking the constable over in my haste, and I moved to the railing of the bridge, searching the black water for any sign of Heath. But there was no sign of him.
“Heath!” I shouted. I heard faint splashing sounds, which were coming from inside the outer wall of the castle. From up here I could see a low overhang where the moat flowed freely underneath the outer wall. My chest tightened. Heath was athletic and strong and a solid swimmer to boot, but that splashing was taking on a frantic rhythm and I had the most horrible feeling that he was right then in the fight of his life.
The constable suddenly appeared next to me and shone his flashlight at the dark water along the wall. “Where is he?” he demanded.
I didn’t answer. Instead I kicked off my boots, tore off my sweater, and grabbed for his light (praying that the thing was waterproof). I then pulled myself up onto the lip of the bridge wall, and dived in.
Chapter 3
The water was freezing. I came to the surface gasping for air and trying to clear my head from the shock of its icy feel. “What do you think you’re doing?” the constable shouted.
I ignored him.
With effort I raised the hand holding his torch and found that it was in fact waterproof. Gripping it tightly so as not to lose it, I pointed it straight ahead toward the wall and began to take several breaststrokes forward. “Heh. . . Heh. . . Heh. . . Heath!” I cried, my stuttering voice echoing loudly back and forth over the stones and the water.
“Em!” I heard to my left, but the call was weak and garbled, like Heath was calling to me with a mouth full of water.
I changed direction and headed straight for where I thought he was, which was somewhere under the bridge. I came to a pylon and raised the flashlight toward it. It seemed to mark a narrow arch just big enough for a small boat to get through. I swam as fast as I could through the arch and aimed the beam of my flashlight into the dark interior. “Heath!” I cried again when I saw nothing but walls and water all around me.
There was no answer. My teeth began to click together and the frigid water seemed to seep through my skin and into my bones. I was so cold I could barely take in a full breath. “Heeeeath!” I shouted desperately, spinning in a circle searching for him.
And then I felt something brush against my foot. Reflexively, I kicked out and pushed away from the spot where I was treading water, but then I aimed the flashlight down and I saw something moving through the murky water. I was so scared that I stopped paddling and began to sink, but then the murky object took on a more defined shape and I realized what was moving around in the water. It was Heath and the hag.
Taking as big a breath as I could manage, I dived under the surface and swam as fast as I could toward the object. As I drew closer, the two of them became even more defined, and my heart raced with panic as I noticed how blue Heath’s face was. His eyes were open and his hands were at his throat, pulling at the bony arm wrapped tightly about him.
I shoved the flashlight into the neck of my undershirt and the sports bra I had on before reaching out for Heath, managing to grab on to his foot. I clawed forward with my other hand and grabbed on to his pant leg and reached one last time to grab the waist of his jeans; then I reversed direction and kicked for all I was worth.
My efforts were met with considerable resistance and I didn’t know if I had the strength or the breath to fight against it. My lungs were protesting mightily and I had to fight the urge to inhale. I kicked and kicked and kicked again, straining with all my might toward the air above, which I prayed was only a few feet away.
Heath suddenly jerked in a most unnatural way, and in the back of my mind I had a thought that his body might be seizing. I kicked again and again, fighting for every inch as stars began to pop and sparkle around the edges of my vision. My lungs begged again and again to inhale, and I clenched my stomach muscles to keep myself from sucking in a mouthful of water.
Heath’s body seized again and I almost lost my grip, but at last with one final kick my head broke the surface and I took in a huge breath of air. Panting and nearly faint with exhaustion, I treaded water while I pulled up on Heath’s body to wrap my arm across his chest and lift him onto my torso, rolling onto my back to give him air. The flashlight was partially buried by his form , but it still gave off enough glow for me to dimly see the side of Heath’s face as it too broke the surface. His eyes were open, staring sightlessly out into space, while his complexion was a frightful blue, and worst of all, he wasn’t breathing.
I was shivering now so violently that I didn’t know if I could hold on to him, and my hands had gone almost completely numb, so I wrapped my free hand across his torso too and scissor kicked my way over to the wall, searching for the archway.
At first I couldn’t find it, but then I realized I could hear shouting from somewhere above and I followed the noise along the wall to the arch.
With nearly the last of my strength I moved through to the open air and out from under the bridge just as someone yelled, “There! She’s there!”
A moment later there was a loud splash right next to me, but I was so numb with cold and fatigue that I could scarcely pay attention to it until I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned slightly and saw the strained expression of the constable attempting to wrap a rope about me. “Take. . . Heath. . . ,” I gasped, feeling myself starting to slip away. I just wanted to close my eyes and rest for a minute.
“Stay with me, miss!” the constable yelled. “Stay with me!”
I pushed my lids open but they slid closed again. My grip on Heath loosened. I felt the water come up over my chin and mouth, but I no longer cared. I was slipping into the darkness. “Miss!” the constable shouted again, but I was already gone.
I woke up in an ambulance. It was the sound of the siren that pulled me out of unconsciousness. Those European sirens will do that to you. “Make it stop,” I whispered, struggling to open my eyes.
“There, there,” said an unfamiliar voice. “Just lie still, miss, and we’ll take right good care of you.”
Feebly I managed to open one eye. A very kind-looking black man with gleaming white teeth dressed in a blue jacket with a red patch on the arm smiled down at me. “Nice to have you back in the land of the living,” he said jovially.
I nearly smiled in return, but then the
memory of what’d happened barreled into my thoughts. “Heath!”
My voice sounded muffled and it was a moment before I realized my mouth and nose were covered by an oxygen mask.
The paramedic looked quizzically at me as he laid a calming hand on my shoulder. “Lie still, please.”
I ignored him, struggling to sit up, but I was covered in several blankets and was frankly too weak to get very far. “My boyfriend!” I said to him, pleading for him to tell me that Heath was okay. But then I remembered Heath’s blue face as it emerged from the water, and the fact that he hadn’t been breathing, and then. . . that I had let go of him at the end.
“He’s in the other ambulance,” the paramedic said. “We sent him ahead of you. He should beat us to hospital by several minutes, I believe.”
I blinked back the tears that had suddenly clouded my vision. It took me a moment to take in what the paramedic said. Heath was in an ambulance. He’d gone ahead of me to the hospital. They wouldn’t have taken him there if there hadn’t been a chance that he could be revived, right?
“He wasn’t breathing,” I whispered while the kindly paramedic jotted down some notes onto a clipboard he’d just picked up.
He looked at me then, and I saw sympathy in his eyes. “I think they got him back right after we pulled up,” he told me.
My lower lip quivered and for a minute I couldn’t speak. A few years earlier I’d pulled another boyfriend out of the water after he’d almost drowned too, and I didn’t know if I could be that lucky to have two lovers survive such similar near-death experiences.
The paramedic set aside his clipboard and took my hand in his, squeezing it to let me know he cared. “There, there, miss. Not to worry. We’ve got one of the best hospitals in all of Wales just a few kilometers from Kidwellah. They’ll take such good care of you, you’ll feel like you’re on holiday.”
I swallowed hard and shivered under the blankets. I wasn’t going to panic until I got some sort of official word that there was a need to worry. Heath was young, strong, and in amazingly good physical shape. He’d come back. I knew it.
As my fears subsided, I seemed to sink into the cold, however, and my thoughts became foggy. It was almost as if once the adrenaline had worn off, I stopped being able to think clearly. I shivered and shivered, and the man attending to me put on another blanket. “I know you’re probably freezing,” he said. “Just a few more minutes and we’ll be able to warm you back up.”
I nodded dully but I could feel my lids blink heavily. I wanted to drift back off to sleep.
“Stay awake, miss,” the paramedic commanded. My eyes snapped open again, but it was hard to fight the crushing fatigue. To help me stay awake the paramedic began to ask me questions. What was my name? Where was I from? How old was I? What was my birthday?
My answers were difficult to form, both in my brain and as I spoke them. Nothing wanted to cooperate, not my mind and not my body.
At last the ambulance slowed and made a tight left turn. As we straightened out, the siren cut off. A moment later we stopped and the doors were flung open.
My personal information and my vitals were rattled off and I had a thought that the paramedic had said I was from New York, which was wrong, I knew, but my brain was even more fuzzy now and I was even less able to form coherent thought.
The stretcher I was lying on was quickly wheeled through the brightly lit corridors. I watched the fluorescent lights scroll by, too weary to pick my head up and far too cold to do more than just lie there and shiver violently.
At last we came to a row of curtains and one was pulled aside while I was swiveled 180 degrees and backed against a wall. A woman in pink scrubs who’d walked alongside the stretcher as it was wheeled through the halls placed a thermometer into my ear. It beeped and she said, “Thirty-two-point-three.” I think she must have seen my fear and confusion because she added, “That’s ninety-point-three for you Americans. Far too cold for your own good, lass. But we’ll warm you up in a jiff, not to worry.”
No wonder I was freezing. My temperature was crazy low. Or was it? What was it supposed to be again? I couldn’t remember.
The three blankets covering me were lifted and several nurses and aides got to work pulling me out of my wet clothes. I clenched my teeth together to try to stop them from chattering, because even though my clothes had been wet, they were still something against my bare skin to help keep in what little heat I had left.
At last I was naked and an odd sort of thin, aluminum-looking blanket with wires attached was placed over me. The blanket was very warm and I closed my eyes with relief. I ignored all the chatter going on around me, and allowed the doctors and nurses to do what they needed to do to warm me up without protest.
An IV was placed into both of my arms and I felt the odd sensation of warm saline dripping into my veins. My body and sides were then lined with full bags of heated saline and slowly the violent shivers subsided. That foggy confused feeling I’d had in the ambulance also lessened and at last I could focus on the doctor hovering above me as he asked me my name.
“M. J.,” I told him weakly. “Holliday.”
“And what day is today?” he asked, reaching out to gently probe my head for bumps or abrasions.
I sighed. “No idea.”
He squinted down at me. “Did you knock your head when you went into the water?”
“No,” I said, working hard to form the words because physically it was difficult to talk or even move. “Travel. Lots. Tuesday?”
He smiled. “You’re either a very good guesser, Miss Holliday, or you’ve managed to work it out. Today is in fact Tuesday.”
I nodded but the truth was that I didn’t give a damn what day of the week it was. “My boyfriend. Here?”
“And where were you born?” the doctor said next, ignoring me.
I wormed one arm out from under the blankets and warm saline to take hold of his wrist so that he could focus fully on what I was going to say, and the effort gave my mouth a little extra to form the words. “Will answer questions, but first. . . need to know. . . my boyfriend?”
The good doctor’s gaze settled on the hand latched to his wrist. “That’s a strong grip you’ve got there, Miss Holliday.”
I didn’t let go. “His name. . . is Heath. Whitefeather. Please?”
The doctor leaned away from me to glance around the curtain before focusing on me again. “He’s being attended to by my colleague, Dr. Patel. But I believe Mr. Whitefeather is stable.”
I let go of his wrist and closed my eyes. It was a moment before I could speak. “Valdosta, Georgia,” I said when I’d gotten hold of my emotions again.
“I’m sorry?”
“Where I was born. Sweet, beautiful Valdosta, Georgia. U.S.A.”
An hour later the curtain to my little area was pulled back and in came my producer carrying a large paper sack. He took one stunned look at me and said, “Shit, M. J.! What the hell happened?”
“Well, good morning, Gopher. Nice to see you too, but please, don’t worry yourself. I’m fine. Just a touch of hypothermia. Nothing too serious other than nearly dying and ending up here.”
Gopher’s expression turned to one I’d never seen him wear before—contrite. “Sorry,” he apologized, setting down the sack on the end of my bed before stepping all the way forward to me. He then did something else that was most unusual; he took my hand and squeezed it. “Hospitals make me nervous.”
“What’s in the sack?”
“Your sweater and your boots,” he said. “Thought you might need them when they let you out of here.”
I thanked him and then asked, “Have you seen Heath yet?” Even though my doctor had assured me that Heath’s condition was stable, I wasn’t going to believe it until I actually laid eyes on him.
&
nbsp; “Not yet. They wouldn’t let me into his room.”
I bit my lip. “We can’t see him?”
Gopher shook his head. “No, I can’t see him. You’re his emergency contact, so whenever they let you up out of bed, you can go see him.”
That took me by surprise. Heath and I were getting pretty serious, but I hadn’t thought that he’d made me his emergency contact. The revelation caused me to smile. “How’d you get in to see me?” I asked, wondering at it because Gilley was my emergency contact.
“I lied,” he said. “I told them I was Gilley Gillespie. Your cousin.”
That made me chuckle. “Where is Gil, anyway?”
“Still asleep, I think.” Gopher let go of my hand to pull up a chair. “I knocked on his door a couple of times and called him on his phone, but you know how hard he sleeps.”
That I did know. Gilley was nearly impossible to wake up once he’d gone into a deep slumber. His mother used to keep a set of cymbals handy for those occasions when he wouldn’t wake up for school. To this day Gil can’t listen to the sound of a marching band without flinching. “Did they give you any information on Heath’s condition?”
“They only say that he’s stable.”
I frowned. That’s all they’d tell me too. “Maybe I should call the nurse and have her take these IVs out.” I was still pretty cold, but I figured I could warm up on my own.
But Gopher was shaking his head. “Your temp is still too low, M. J. I already asked the nurse about you and she said you had at least another hour or two to go before they’d check your temp again. You have to be above thirty-five degrees Celsius, or ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit, before they’ll unhook you.”
“What’s my temp right now?” I asked.
Gopher squinted at one of the machines above my right shoulder and took out his phone to tap at the screen. “You’re at thirty-four degrees Celsius, so that’s. . . about ninety-three degrees Fahrenheit.”
I glared at Gopher. I knew it wasn’t his fault, but the situation was still frustrating. He smiled as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. “Tell me what happened.”