The Waking Moon

Chapter Eight

When I woke up, there was an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth, and an IV in my arm. A heart monitor droned on from somewhere behind me. The splitting pain in my head and chest made me cry out the second I opened my eyes. But the pain was eclipsed by panic. A hospital. It was the one place I couldn’t handle since that terrible night when we stood around the bed watching what was left of my sister take her last ragged breath. Without thinking I pulled the oxygen mask from my face and struggled to climb out of the bed. A nurse in pink scrubs came in carrying a new IV bag.

“Hey,” she said, rushing over and gently pushing me down again. “What’s the hurry, honey?” She was short and chubby with a perky black ponytail. And she was strong. She pulled the mask over my nose and mouth again, and firmly held my wrist.

“I want to go,” I said, though the words kind of strangled in my throat. “Please let me go.”

“Shhhhh…” the nurse said soothingly, though her grip was so tight my fingers were going numb. I whimpered and went limp, and the nurse let me go. Then she injected something into the IV tube and flicked it with her fingers. “It’s okay, honey,” she said. “This will help with the pain. And your father will be back soon.”

“Where’s my mom?” I asked.

The nurse looked at me and frowned. Then she smoothed the bed sheet around me and patted my hand. “It’s going to be okay.”

That’s when I remembered: My mother was in jail. The rest felt too unreal to be true. Had I really gone to The Ruins alone at night? Was I really attacked by an ugly redhead who…who did what exactly? Soon my thoughts grew muddy and surreal, and I gladly let them slip away. I didn’t know if I was dreaming or awake, but I floated through the hours in a peaceful haze.

At one point, my father’s face hovered near, with the beginnings of a gray-speckled beard, his eyes shockingly red. Nurses came and went. Another time, I opened my eyes to see the most beautiful face staring tenderly down at me, the dark eyes soft and worried. It was a familiar face, but I was too foggy to know where I’d seen it before. A large, warm hand stroked the hair back from my forehead while a husky voice whispered over and over, “I’m so sorry, Paulie. I’m so sorry.”

It was late when the drug started to wear off, and I was alone. The door to the florescent-lit hallway was closed, and the room was dark. My head felt heavy and my lids still sagged, but the things around me looked real again.

Suddenly, I had the feeling I was being watched. I tried to sit up, but my arms were like rubber. I struggled to keep my eyes open.

“Dad?” I whispered. “Daddy?” 

My eyes shifted to the window where a pale shaft of moonlight glowed in the corner of the room. After a moment, I realized that the heavy green drapes were pulled closed to keep out the city lights. There was no moonlight at all. It was a man. He was very tall and very thin, and dressed all in white. His impeccable hair was also white. His skin was freakishly pale and his eyes were so light they seemed to glow in the darkness. He stood utterly still in the corner of the room watching me. I opened my mouth to scream, but my lungs were too exhausted. My body felt heavy and useless. And so I closed my eyes and let go again.

This time when I woke up, the drapes were open and morning light flooded the room. A nurse was humming cheerfully and changing my IV bag again. I was groggy and my throat was very dry, but I was feeling better.

“Hey,” I croaked, barely audible.

The nurse came over with a kind smile. “Are you thirsty, hon?”

I nodded and waited until she brought me a squatty plastic bottle of orange juice. 

“There was a man in my room last night,” I said after a long drink. “He was standing right there.” I pointed at the corner by the window, but the nurse just bustled around the room, fussing with tubes and straightening my blanket.

“Morphine is good stuff,” she said, grinning.

I sighed and let my head sink into the pillow. Maybe it was just a hallucination, I thought. The Ruins, too. Maybe this is what a nervous breakdown feels like.

“What happened to me?” I asked. The nurse picked up a clipboard and scrawled a few things on it.

“We were kind of hoping you could tell us that,” she said. “You’ve had some trauma to your lungs. Cerebral hypoxia. Broken capillaries everywhere. Frankly, it’s very bizarre.”

I shuddered. It was real then. But who was that horrible boy? Had he really pulled the breath from my body?

“I’ll tell you one thing, though,” the nurse pulled the blankets up around me with a smile. “You have a very handsome and heroic boyfriend.” 

I stared at her. “Excuse me?”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I won’t tell your dad. Waking up in the hospital will teach you better than getting grounded.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

The nurse just shrugged.

“What did this guy look like?” I asked. “He didn’t have…red hair?”

The nurse half-sat on the edge of my bed. “No, he had dark hair. He was tall and really nicely built and…” she fanned herself, as if she were overheating, and laughed. “He said you were supposed to meet up, but then he found you lying there unconscious. I thought he was going to cry, he was so sick with worry.”

I tried to focus on what she was saying, but it was all so ridiculous. “How did I get here?” I asked.

“Apparently, he carried you.” She gave me a look that said lucky you. “Very romantic.” She patted my leg and made her way for the door.  But then she stopped short and turned back to me. “Oh, he dropped something when he was here last night. You might want to give it back to him.”

She whisked out of the room. I stared at the bright sun twinkling on the snowy streets outside, baffled. I wondered if it had been Rhodes, but that didn’t add up. His hair wasn’t dark and, while he was cute in a quirky sort of way, he wouldn’t exactly blow the nurses away. It was obviously a misunderstanding. Some gorgeous guy had found me lying there and was nice enough to bring me in. Prince Charming and his damsel in distress. Very romantic, if you happened to be living in the 19th century. 

The nurse returned holding something in her hand. She placed it on the bed beside me before rushing out of the room again. “Be sure he gets it back,” she said on her way out the door. “There’s plenty of winter left to come.”

I stared at it for a long time before I was able to pick it up and turn it over in my hands. It was a thick black glove. The texture of the wool was familiar. When I brought the glove slowly to my nose, I realized that my hands were shaking. I breathed in deep and long, and then exhaled with a shudder. There was no doubt in my mind. It was his cologne. The glove belonged to the dead boy.

Just then, my dad came in carrying a cup of coffee and a bag of trail mix from a vending machine. He looked stunned to see me awake. “Paulie!”

He awkwardly knelt down and leaned against the side of the mattress, one hand squeezing my arm. His usually handsome face looked old. There were new lines everywhere and his skin was pale, which made the streaks of gray seem more prominent in his hair. Gray whiskers were poking through as well, and he smelled like he hadn’t showered in days. For a long moment, he just looked in my eyes, his brow pinched with emotion. Then, for the first time since Judy died, I saw him crumble. He pressed his face to the mattress and sobbed.

My lids grew heavy, my body trying to shut down from the overload. But I didn’t want to go to sleep until he knew I was okay, and so I fought it back. I fought back the overwhelming guilt for having put my dad through something like this when he was barely hanging on. I fought back the sadness I felt for both him and my mom. I fought back the sadness I felt for myself. But most of all, I fought back the impossible thought that the beautiful boy had come back from the dead.