Hell's Hollow (16 page)

“Gran, it’s okay. We didn’t do anything,” I said.

A hot-looking guy in his mid-twenties carrying a clipboard opened the door. “I didn’t know you had guests. It’s time for therapy, Maggie.” His smile was so warm, I couldn’t imagine why Gran would be afraid of him.

But
Maggie?
I’d never heard anyone call Gran Maggie before.

“Therapy?” Gran asked. “Is that what they’re calling it? Can’t you see I’ve got my grandkids here? They were going to take us out to the garden. Spinning snakes. Chocolate cakes. Can’t it wait?” She turned to me. “Don’t look him in the eye. He’s got you under his spell already. Medusa!” she shrieked, pointing at him.

I blushed. Luke backed away from her, looking like he wasn’t handling this well at all. I tried not to feel disappointed, tried not to imagine myself as the one he backed away from.

John Rocklin checked his clipboard. “All right. I’ll move some appointments around, get Mr. Bannock in first so you can enjoy your family.” He winked.

Gran screamed, held her hands up in front of her eyes, and turned her head away.

John Rocklin stepped into the room and closed the door. His voice turned stern. “Magdalene, try to calm yourself or I’ll have to have you sedated.”

“Hey,” Luke said. “No worries. She’s fine, man. You don’t need to do that. You’re fine, right, Gran?” He approached her slowly, offered his hand.

Gran took it. “I’m fine. I’m just fine. Shoo.” She kept her eyes averted.

“Why don’t I walk you all to the garden?” John Rocklin said.

“MK, too,” I said, feeling desperately afraid he’d insist on leaving her behind.

He looked at her still asleep in the bed through all the noise. “I’ll bring a wheelchair.” And he stepped out.

“Do you see?” Gran said. “He’s a fake, that one!”

“He is,” Luke agreed. “But he won’t hurt you. I’ll make sure of that.”

Gran melted.

Meanwhile, I tried to wake MK. “Come on, Auntie, let’s get some fresh air.”

She groaned, blinked her eyes. She opened and closed her mouth a few times like she couldn’t quite get sound to come out.

“They’ve got her drugged to the gills,” Gran said. “I keep trying to tell them their stupid meds won’t touch the cursed visions.”

A look of horror passed through MK’s eyes. “Seraphina?”

I nodded, glad she was coming around.

“I’ve been asking for you. They wouldn’t let me see you. Your mom…” her voice trailed off.

Mom was probably keeping me from her, didn’t want me to get scared by her latest vision. “I’m here now, Auntie,” I said. “I’m okay. There haven’t been any explosions to worry about.”

“It’s not an explosion exactly. It’s inside turned outside. It’s….” She shook her hands in the a
ir. “Rumbling and cracking and…” She seemed to tremble. A spasm twitched her arms.

“Oh good, you’re up,” John Rocklin said, bringing the wheelchair inside. “They wanted to take you to the garden.”

MK’s arms twitched again.

“Is that normal?” I whispered.

“It’s probably the new meds,” he said. “Doc says she’s at an increased risk for seizures and heart attacks. So don’t do anything crazy out there.”

The bottom fell out of my stomach.

He laughed. “Lighten up, kid. I’m teasing you.”

I avoided eye contact with Luke while John Rocklin escorted us all to the garden, which was just
a few feet — and two locked doors — from the parking lot.

Once he’d gone to find poor Mr. Bannock, I squatted down next to MK. “We’re here to take you out. Luke and I are going to smuggle you to the car and take you home to The Hollow. Gran thinks I can heal you. I’m going to try. You won’t suffer anymore.”

“
Gran
thinks?” Gran said. “When did I say that?”

Was she ‘f’-ing kidding me? Blood drained out of my face. “Last time I was here. You said she was broken and she needed to be fixed. You said she was counting on me.”

Gran looked puzzled. Luke looked freaked. MK looked confused.

I couldn’t breathe.

“It’s brilliant,” Gran said. “You’re a natural born healer. Why didn’t I think of this before? Through the back door. Dancing on the wind. She rises.”

Had I imagined that she’d meant I should do it? My heartbeat felt all fluttery in my chest. Tears stung my nose. I wouldn’t let them fall. I thought I saw a flash of black fur behind one of the big potted plants, but it couldn’t have been.

“Sera,” Luke said, sounding filled with doubt.

“It doesn’t matter whether she meant it or not. I can do this.”

“Maybe we should wait,” he said.

“There’s no waiting,” Gran replied. “It’s now or never. MK needs forever. Wait a bit and she’ll tip the scales into the, into the wind is so cold down there.”

No one spoke for a few minutes. Luke broke the silence. “How do we get her out of here? I can’t exactly toss her over the wall.”

“I have a plan,” I said, trying to ignore the echo of John Rocklin’s warning that kept sounding in my head. I kind of wished I hadn’t told Luke what happened to the chipmunk.

They all looked at me, surprised.

“We go back into the lobby. Then, Luke, you’re going to have to flirt with Martha, I know, it’s gross, sorry. But it’ll work. You have to get her away from her desk. Then Gran will buzz the front door. MK and I will go out. I’ll leave my purse in the door to keep it from closing. Gran, you’ll need to hurry back to your room at that point. We’ll need you to cover for MK, say she’s visiting with one of the other patients. I’ll get MK into the jeep. MK, you’ll need to lie low so you can’t be seen through the window. Then I’ll come back in and call Luke and say we better get going. Martha will buzz us out. And we go.”

“Won’t she wonder where Gran and MK are?” Luke asked.

“Not if you do your job right,” I said. “She’ll think I walked them back to their room. For it to work, we’ll need her away from the desk and with her back to their hallway. Think your charm can handle it?”

“Hey, don’t question the charm,” he said.

“Everyone know what they have to do?” I asked, as MK’s arms did that weird twitchy thing again. I pulled her out of the wheelchair so we could leave it behind.

“We’d better hurry. Johnny Rocket is thinking I’m next for therapy,” Gran said.

Luke and I looked at each other. Was she really hearing John Rocklin’s thoughts, or was she just crazy? It didn’t matter. We needed to move. Time was ticking by much faster than I wanted.

Luke knocked on the door and Martha buzzed us in from the garden to the lobby. We lingered by the desk while Luke laid on the charm. He had her blushing and giggling in no time.

“I was wondering who the artist is of that gorgeous painting down the hall,” Luke said.

“Which one, doll?” Martha asked.

“Oh, you know, that one with the blue and green.” He pointed down the hall we hadn’t been in, one he had no way of knowing what artwork it might hold. “Haven’t you seen it? Oh, you really have to see it.”

She looked back at the desk as she took a step away.

“I’ll watch the door and phones for you,” I said.

“It’ll only take a minute,” Luke added.

“All right then,” Martha said.

They stepped down the hallway.

“Where
was
that one?” I heard Luke say.

Gran was just about to buzz us out when John Rocklin appeared. I turned MK around so it wouldn’t look like we were trying to leave.

“He wasn’t thinking any thoughts!” Gran yelled. “I heard nothing! That noggin was as empty as a pie hole!”

“It’s okay,” I whispered.

“Time to go, Maggie,” he said.

“Not now. How now.” Gran was getting flustered.

I realized we could make it work without her. We just had to get John Rocklin out of there. I hugged Gran, whispered in her ear. “It’s okay. It’ll work this way. I’ll buzz her out. Just get Johnny Rocket out of here.”

“Lead the way, man!” she shouted.

He looked at MK.

“I’ll take her back,” I said.

And then they were gone.

“I’ll buzz you out,” I said to MK. “Can you get in the back seat of that jeep right outside and lie down? I’ll be out in two minutes.”

“Your mother is not going to like this,” she mumbled.

“By the time she finds out, it’ll all be fixed,” I said.

She inched toward the door, as if her limbs were weighed down. I could hear Luke and Martha walking back down the hall.

“I could’ve sworn it was on that hallway,” Luke was saying. “I get so turned around in this place.”

Hurry, MK!

I rushed up the hall to meet them, hoping to give her a couple of extra minutes. “I think that painting was in the hall to Gran’s room, wasn’t it, Luke?”

He questioned me with his eyes. I tried to reply that we needed more time. But it was hard to say all that with my eyes.

“You’re supposed to be watching the desk for me,” Martha said.

“Oh, right, um, there was a phone call,” I lied. “I tried to put them on hold, but I think I might have hung up on them.”

“Oh dear.” She hurried back to the desk, but as I’d hoped, she focused all her attention on the phone.

MK seemed to be having trouble opening the door. Had door handles changed that much in twenty years? She looked back through Meadowland’s glass front door at me and shrugged. While Luke continued to distract Martha, I motioned to MK how to pull the door handle toward her to get it to open. In what seemed to me to be slow motion, she turned back to the door and opened it. Then she faced me and smiled.
Get in!
I made a sign to go. And finally she got in the car and disappeared.

“I guess we’d better head out,” I said.

“Oh, wait just a minute more,” Martha said. “I’m so curious now about that picture Luke was going to show me.”

“I really have to run,” Luke said. “I’ll find it next time.”

“Oh, well, if you have to…” And she buzzed us out.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, I said, “You must have some strong magic in that charm. I’ve never seen her so interested in anything.”

Luke smiled, then turned around to check on MK, who was grinning like a madman.

By the time we got home it was almost five. We were cutting it close, but we still had a chance to finish before Mom got home. We just had to get MK down there quickly.

“Now what, boss?” Luke asked, looking a little mad himself.

I kept thinking I heard a car coming up the road. “Now we get MK down to The Hollow.” It wouldn’t be easy. She was heavily drugged and terribly out of shape.

MK hadn’t said a word the whole ride. Now she put a hand on my arm. Her tug made me woozy this close to The Hollow. Thick and black with a sense of rot inside, it gnawed at me.  For a minute my vision must have gone blurry, because it looked as though her skin were melting off her face. I strengthened my shield.

“Are you sure?” was all she said.

Our eyes held each other. I couldn’t bear to tell her about the chipmunk, about the fact that what I was about to do might harm her. But I knew she couldn’t go on like this. As for me, I knew there was a chance I’d pass out again before I was done, the way I had with Zach. But I was pretty sure if I did a better job of keeping up my shield I’d be okay. And as far as taking her place, it didn’t worry me. I was sure Mom had been lying about that. This was my chance to give MK back her life. I nodded.

“Do you even know what to do?” Luke asked, as we took MK’s arms and guided her down the path.

“When I was five, I healed my friend’s finger at school,” I said, realizing how dumb it sounded as soon as it was out of my mouth.

Luke stopped. “You used to fix our skinned knees, too. But this is a bit bigger than that.”

“I know.” I pulled MK along. “I’ve been practicing.” I still couldn’t tell him about Zach, but thinking of Zach made me wonder again how he was doing, if I’d helped him at all, if he was okay. I was getting worried. And also, I missed him.

“And…?” Luke asked, nudging me back to the situation at hand.

“And, I’m not sure, but I think I know what to do. Look, we’ve gone this far, we might as well go all the way.”

And then no one spoke as we trudged down the hillside, around the boulders, through the woods, and into the The Hollow, stopping every so often for MK to catch her breath. We sat her down beside the giant sequoia tree. I tried to ignore the little rock-covered grave.

“What should I do?” Luke asked.

“Stand guard,” I said. “Watch for Mom coming down the hill. And keep an eye on us. Stop me only if you think she’s in trouble.”

“
In trouble?
What do you mean by ‘in trouble’?”

I took a deep breath. “Like if she stops breathing or gets super hyper or … anything.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Luke said. But he took a few steps away from us, so he could see anyone coming from the direction of the house.