Michael turned back to take one last look at Kristin, as still and silent as a statue, then brushed past the burly shoulder of her dad, who refused to budge even an inch to get out of his way. For a split second, he thought he detected a sympathetic glance from the cowed Mrs. Nelson.
He was halfway down the hall when he heard quick footsteps approaching from behind. It was Karen—why did she have to remind him so much of her sister?—and she clutched his sleeve as she spoke. “I know Kristin’s not there, you know Kristin’s not there, but my parents still think…”
“I know they do.”
“But if you did want to see those books…”
“Thanks, I’ll think about it,” he said, knowing he wouldn’t. And knowing that it wasn’t the books she was talking about, anyway.
The orderly rumbled by with the trash barrel.
“But just in case there is, I don’t know, some part of Krissy that’s still hanging around,” Karen said, “I know she’d be glad you came.”
There were tears, he could see, starting to well up in her eyes.
“I know you really loved her, and I really loved her, too,” she said, fumbling for the rest, “except maybe once, that time she stole my skates and broke the blade”—she laughed and let go of his coat—“and all I know is she’d want me to tell you to be careful on your trip.”
Michael smiled. “I will.”
“No, really,” she said, with greater urgency. “I mean it. Be careful there.”
Michael put an arm around her shoulders to comfort her. “I solemnly swear to keep my mittens on and my ears warm at all times.”
She gently pushed him away. “If you don’t, Krissy will be really mad at you…and so will I.”
Michael said, “I wouldn’t want that.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Karen!” Mr. Nelson shouted, his face poking out of the door of the room. “Your mother wants to talk to you.”
Karen bit her lip.
“Now, Karen!”
Michael rubbed her shoulder, turned, and headed back past the nurses’ station. This time, nobody said a word to him as he went by.
CHAPTER THREE
1889
GREEN…DEEP, gleaming emerald green.
That was what she dreamt of.
The green of the grass in the Yorkshire pastures.
The green of the leaves on a sunny day in Regent’s Park.
The green baize of the billiards table at the club in Pall Mall. (Women were prohibited from going upstairs, but Sinclair had found a way to sneak her past the porter and up the back service stairs.)
The green waters of the Bosporus…
So long as she could immerse herself in the green, she was content. She could remember the scent of the fields where she grew up…the damp grass, as it lay flat in the summer breeze, the cows standing white and black against it…the rolling green hills at dusk, the sun gleaming like her father’s gold pocket watch…
She could feel the texture of the leaves, smooth and even and waxy, as she passed through the city park on her midday break from the hospital. It was only for half an hour, but in that time—and if the wind was blowing back toward the Thames—she could take a breath of fresh air, air that had no trace of blood or morphine or ether in it. Sometimes she would tuck leaves and sweet-smelling flowers in the pockets of her uniform before going back into the wards…
The green of the sea…she had never been at sea until leaving for Turkey. She had always imagined it to be blue, or perhaps gray—it had appeared so in every picture she had ever seen—but staring down from the deck, into the churning wake, she had been surprised by its greenish cast, like the dull patina on the statues at the Royal Museum (Sinclair had taken her there, shortly before his regiment departed)…
But there the reverie ended…as they all did, eventually…and a cold hand settled upon her heart. She had to struggle, once again, to fold herself into the green, to wrap herself in a bower of her own imagining…to warm the icy hand that had stolen beneath her clothes and frozen the very marrow in her bones. A thousand times she had come this way, and a thousand times more, she feared, she would have to come again, before she could awaken…before she could be released from whatever strange dream this was that still ensnared her…
CHAPTER FOUR
November 24, 10:25 a.m.