Page 322 of Under Her Skin
“Oh! Me too!” Kate says as her cheeks grow pink withexcitement.
“You should all calm down,” I tell them, as I know things never go the way people think they might when dealing with this type of thing. “I’ve seen the mother of a child ask her young son about her father who had passed. The boy kept saying he smelled cigar smoke that no one elsedid.”
“Phantom smells, huh?” Kent asks as sits back, taking a sip of his fruity-looking drink. He pulls a piece of pineapple out and eats it as he looks at me with an expression that lets me know he thinks I’m about to tell a spookystory.
The story I’m telling is not spooky.It’sdisappointing!
“I suppose you could call the smell a phantom one, if you wanted to be dramatic,” I say with a laugh. “But really, it was the oxygen that was being forced into the kid through his nose to help him stay alive. His mother, though, led him as she told him her dead father used to smoke cigars. With her interest, I think the child began to focus on something that was not reallythere.”
“Okay, Delaney,” Blaine says as he looks at me with a no-nonsense look on his handsome face. “But Meagan knows nothing about me or my mother. So why would she make thisup?”
With a shrug, I say, “Why does anyone come up withanything?”
“You seem cynical,” Kate says. “I guess you’ve seen so much, it’s made you thatway.”
“I’m not cynical. I believe in God with all my heart. I just know that it’s not likely this little girl will say anything to make someone who’s not been a real believer to make such a huge change in their mind.” I look back at Blaine. “Tell me, if you actually saw an apparition of you mother, would it make you believe in God andheaven?”
Blaine stares blankly at me, then he looks at his sister then his brother. “I don’t know if that would make me believe anything other than this world is really crappy. To think of mom trapped here is even more awful than thinking of her as just no longer existing. Maybe Delaney is right. Maybe I shouldn’t go see thegirl.”
Kate shakes her head. “I don’t think you’re going to be shown a ghost,Blaine.”
“She said she had something to tell me,” Blaine says, then looks at me. “I do think if some words were told to me that only mom would know to say, then I might gain somefaith.”
Kent nods in agreement. “Yes, if she said something only he would know about, that should make him feel like there’s another side. That she’s not trapped here or non-existent anylonger.”
“And how about you two?” I ask. “What kind of beliefs do youhave?”
“Pops took us to church every Sunday, up until Kent was about fifteen. I suppose he felt like he’d done his duty and introduced us to the Lord,” Katesays.
Blaine looks away. “I went with them until I was twelve, then I refused to go anymore. Pops was disappointed in me, but he told me he wouldn’t shove something I didn’t want down mythroat.”
I feel compelled to let his brother and sister know the risks of Blaine going to see the girl. “The thing you don’t know is that the little girl’s father has banned Blaine from his daughter’s room. He’s having a meeting tonight to try to get him banned from the entirehospital.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen, though,” Blaine says. “I have a few supportersthere.”
“Most likely it won’t happen. But even if he doesn’t get banned from the hospital, he and I are both banned from Meagan’s room. If we go into it without permission, then we could be arrested,” I tell them and watch their facesfall.
“Crap!” Kate says, then sips herdrink.
“That does put a damper on things, doesn’t it?” Kentasks.
“A very big damper on it,” Isay.
“But I have a plan,” Blaine lets them know. “And you both can help. I need four Santa and elf teams to be in the hospital at the same time Delaney and I are in the same costumes. Then the camera won’t catch us going into the girl’s room. It will catch one of the five sets of people who are moving around the hospital that day, but no one would be able to point out exactly who weare.”
“I like it!” Kent says, making my heartplummet.
I had really hoped they’d see the risk and decide it wasn’t worth doing.Am I the only one who’s worried about this turning out verybadly?
Chapter5
BLAINE
I can see by the look on Delaney’s face that she expected my siblings to be on board with her, and they’re anything but that.We are cut from the samecloth!
“The salads are ready to be served,” Maggie says as she enters theroom.
We all get up, and I catch Delaney taking the bottle of wine with her. She seems a bit down with the news that my plan will go off, despite her objections to it. “You know, even if we do get arrested, I have the money to get us bailed out quickly and will hire the best lawyer to defend us both,” I let her know, then pull her close to me and kiss the top of her head. “You’d only see the inside of a jail cell for a short amount of time. Most likely, not evenovernight.”
