Page 30 of Spooked
As an answer, I take out my phone, click on photos, and summon up the recent images.Thank fuck.The pictures appear that I’d taken of the Sullivan House. I’ve proof that I’ve been there, and that at least some of the last couple of days weren’t all imaginings conjured up in my head.
Approaching her, I offer my phone. “I went to the house…”a day ago? A week?I decide to leave the timescale out of it. “This is what it looks like now. Is this what you saw?”
She takes the phone from me. I position myself beside her head so I can watch her reaction to the photos. The first few she skims through after giving me a curious look, and I wryly indicate the crutches I’m using. She views the ones approaching the house more slowly, sucking in a breath, halting on the image of the front porch. For a second, I see her eyes close and she breathes in deeply.
“I never thought I’d come back,” she murmurs. “I knew my mom was dying when she took me to meet Emerald. At first, I was scared by the reception we received, but it soon emerged that lies had been told, and that Siobhan was behind it. It was in that house that Mom took her last breath. Gramma had arranged for hospice care there. My grandmother regretted the years she’d lost having banished my mother, and tried to make up for it by caring for me. She was this amazing, larger-than-life person. I doubt there was anyone else in the world who could have comforted me and seen me through my grief at losing my only parent. This,” she taps the front porch showing in the photo, “represents some of the worst, and some of the best times of my life.”
She waits for no comment, not indicating that she needs one. She moves on to the next picture, and then the ones that follow. Some make her mouth quirk in a private smile as if remembering words spoken or deeds done in that location.
As she nears the one where, in my dream version of the visit to Bullet’s office, she had identified her grandmother in the frame, I hold my breath, hoping she’ll see nothing and move on. But she gasps. With a shaking hand, she reaches out a trembling finger. “That’s her. That’s my grandmother. She’s still in the house.”
“It’s a figment of the light,” I repeat Bullet’s words to her. “There’s no one there.”
She turns, looks at me, and then places her hand on my arm, grasping it far stronger than a woman just woken from a coma should be able to do. “Can you swear to me you were alone in that house?”
I try to wrench my hand away, but she holds onto it firmly. I tug once more, only serving to make her dig her fingernails into my skin. Before she can draw blood, something breaks inside me, and I vomit out what I believe is the truth.
“Fuck it, Maeve. I’ve got to tell you upfront, I had an accident about the same time as you. Like you, I ended up in a coma, but came out of it sooner. I’m suffering from a traumatic brain injury. I see things, suffer hallucinations.” I take a breath but carry on before she can comment. “These visions are so fuckin’ real.” I pause to huff a strangled laugh. “In my head, I’m convinced I showed all these pictures to Bullet, who’s, well, for this purpose, my boss. While I was in his office, Maeve, you came to meet with him, looked through the photos, and stopped on the very same one.” Maeve’s sharp inhale doesn’t stop me from continuing to spew out all the rubbish in my head as I tell her how “dream Maeve” insisted she be given access to the house. Despite my reservations, I had agreed and taken her back. “I can clearly remember us exploring the house together. And yeah, if you want to know the worst of my fucked-up brain, I believed I saw Emerald as she was when she was younger, along with Bertie, her husband.” I stop talking, not wanting to mention the kiss or the further intimacies either they, or we got up to.
Maeve holds my gaze for a moment, then her head falls back on the pillow, her eyes rolling back until nothing is showing but white. The machines start beeping, and a nurse rushes in, her face contorted in concern.
“Get out of here,” the nurse states, lowering the head of the bed and pushing a big red button on the wall.
Mouse starts toward the door, but I can’t move. I’m frozen to the spot. But as more medical staff rush in, I’m manoeuvred out into the hallway, and the door closes, locking us out.
“What the fuck have I done?” I roar.
Mouse moves fast, his hand gripping my shoulder. “She’s had a bad accident,” he says fast. “I doubt if anything you said caused her to relapse. She’s probably got a ticking time bomb in her head.”
“Like me,” I say self-deprecatingly.
“For fuck’s sake, Hound. You’re still on the mend.”
I look at him incredulously. “You hearing yourself, Brother? You heard the shit I spouted in there. What sane person could listen to that?”
“Me,” he says fiercely. “I’ve seen things, heard things, experienced shit that you’d mock at.”
I grab hold of his arms. “But I’m not you,” I cry out. “I can’t believe anything I’m seeing is real. I’m going out of my fuckin’ mind. Am I even here?” I jerk my head toward the closed door beside us. “And if I am, I might have killed her.”
As I speak, said door opens, and the medical staff start coming out. A nurse pauses beside us. “Family?” she asks.
“Yes,” Mouse says.
“No,” I respond at the same time.
She shakes her head and defers to my companion. “It was a blip. She’ll be fine.”
“Let’s get out of here.” I accompany my words with action, hurrying down the corridor to get out of this place.
“Wait up,” Mouse entreats. “Maeve might want to talk to you again.”
I spin around. “The shit in my fucked-up brain almost killed her! I’m not going near her again.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MAEVE
The house is brightly lit, the light from the hall chandelier reflecting off the walls. Candles are alight in their holders, sending warmth flickering through the main room which sports the tallest Christmas tree I’ve ever seen, adorned with coloured lights, baubles and tinsel, and with an angel placed on top. Even as a teenager, my attention was caught, captivated by the magic of the season.
