Mom opens the door on the passenger side, and my overworked heart leaps. “Didn’t want to run out in the snow to pick up your poor old mom so you just honked the horn?” she says with a smile that fades away the instant she sees the state I’m in.
“Sunshine!” she shouts, reaching across the car and putting her warm fingers on my neck. When she feels my pulse, she pulls back for a second in shock. But then she goes right into nurse-mode. She unclicks my seatbelt and pulls me across the car and onto my back on the snowy ground. She starts performing CPR and somehow manages to get the attention of the EMTs across the lot at the same time. The next thing I know, I’m on a gurney being wheeled into the hospital, my mother squeezing one of those airbags I’ve only ever seen on television, trying to breathe air back into my lungs.
If I could talk, I’d tell her it’s no use. The doctors can’t help me; they’re not qualified to treat this kind of thing. Thanks to Nolan’s research, I know that a luiseach like me can’t be killed by a dark spirit, but I find myself wondering whether an onslaught of light spirits can kill me. I’m panting so hard that my lungs ache. The doctors and nurses are shouting around me as I’m wheeled into the ER and hooked up to their tubes and machines.
“We need to stabilize her heart!”
“We need to raise her body temperature!”
“We need to figure out why the heck an otherwise healthy sixteen-year-old girl just got wheeled into the ER with hypothermia and cardiac arrhythmia.”
Okay, maybe they didn’t shout that last one. But it’s not difficult to guess it’s what they’re all thinking.
In all the chaos, as I drift in and out of consciousness, I can feel the warmth coming from my mother’s touch. Her hand on my arm is a tiny source of heat keeping me connected to the world of the living, a small flame in the darkness. Suddenly I have a better understanding of what it must be like for the spirits who find me after they pass.
And then, it all stops. Not the flurry of physicians around me but the pounding in my chest, the freezing of my extremities. The sound of the heart monitor they’d hooked me up to shifts from a screeching wail into a steady beep. The warming blankets they’d packed around me feel too hot; in a snap I go from shivering to sweating.
The weight on my shoulders lifts. The spirits have vanished. My tunnel vision fades, and everything is bright again. Mom slips out of nurse-mode and back into mom-mode. She shoves the machines aside and leans down over me, wrapping me up in a tight hug.
“Mom,” I gasp. “I just started breathing again. I don’t think smothering me is the best idea.” I expect her to laugh at my joke, but instead she goes on hugging me, her cheek pressed against mine. I can feel that her face is wet with tears.
“I’m okay,” I say, and she finally releases me. She turns to face the doctors surrounding my bed, each of them looking more baffled than the last.
“What happened to my daughter?”
“We don’t know, Kat,” someone answers. I look at his ID tag and see his name is Dr. Steele. The same last name as Lucy from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. Apparently with my vital signs back to normal—I think—I’m back to relating my life to the stories of my favorite writer. At least some things never change.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Mom stands, looking confused. “There has to be an explanation for an episode of this magnitude.”
I close my eyes. There’s an explanation all right, just not one my mother—or pretty much anyone—would believe. Like most people—like me, before the past four months—Mom believes in science and reason, not magic and mystery. I couldn’t convince her our house was haunted even after a demon had taken possession of her body. Especially after the demon possessed her.
“We’d like to admit her for observation,” Dr. Steele offers finally. “You can stay with her overnight.”
“Of course I’m going to stay with her,” Mom snaps, and I actually feel kind of sorry for Dr. Steele. It’s not his fault he doesn’t know what’s wrong with me. Not his fault he’ll never be able to answer my mother’s questions to her satisfaction. Not his fault that from now on she’s probably going to be haunted by the idea that he’s a terrible doctor.
“I’m okay, Mom,” I say again, and she turns from the doctor to face me, fresh tears brimming in her eyes.
It’s clear she doesn’t believe me. I’m not sure I do either.
CHAPTER THREE
The Truth