Merry Jones - Elle Harrison 02 - Elective Procedures (23 page)

Of course I couldn’t. It was a nightmare. In nightmares, you couldn’t move or make sounds. But the good news was that, if the woman was in a nightmare, she wasn’t real. I was safe, asleep. Except that I didn’t feel safe or asleep. I felt paralyzed, helpless, at the mercy of a shadowy veiled stranger. Madam Therese surfaced, “I told you: you draw the dead.” Her tone was impatient, tired of reminding me. Was the veiled woman dead? What did she want? I tried again to speak, but like the rest of me, my voice was still. Only my heart moved, thrusting itself against my ribs.

Stop it, I scolded myself. You’re just asleep. She’s a dream. Dreams can’t hurt you. In fact, if you concentrate hard enough, you can take charge and force the dream to change.

So I did. I concentrated on making the woman disappear. On changing the content of the dream altogether—making it be about something benign and pleasant—puppies, for example. I shut my
eyes and imagined a new puppy with floppy ears, a soft, downy coat, a waggy tail, and eyes filled with wonder. What would I name him? Charlie? Very good, naming a dog after Charlie. Yes. I smiled at the thought. Calmer, I opened my eyes again.

The woman was leaning over me, her eyes ablaze. Her veil tickled my cheek.

I skittered away, yelping.

“
La venganza
,” she hissed.

I had no idea what she was saying. I huddled against the headboard.

“
Conseguir la venganza
.” She raised her fist. Lord. Something glittered in her hand. A knife?

I crawled backward, away from her, bumping into the nightstand, knocking the lamp over. The woman swung her fists, repeating her syllables. I shielded my head with my arms, bracing for an onslaught of punches or the slashing of blades. But neither came. In fact, except for the flapping of the slats against the sliding door, the room was harshly silent. Cautiously, slowly, I peeked through my arms. Didn’t see her. I pushed my hair off my face, sat up, looked around.

No one was there.

I shivered. Had she really been there? Had she been a dream? I hugged a thick pillow, trying to stop trembling. It had to have been a nightmare. Not surprising, given all the dreadful things that had happened that week. I pulled up the blanket, leaned back against the headboard, slowed my breathing. Steadied my hands. I touched my face where the veil had tickled it, imagined the scent of hyacinth. It had been so vivid. The slats kept rapping against the glass, sounding ominous now. Moonlight cast shadows, the shadows took on menacing shapes.

I should get up, have a snack. Turn on the television. Reconnect with normal and tangible. I pondered it, but my body didn’t want to move. My head was thick with sleep, my legs ached. So I stayed in bed, neither awake nor asleep, my head covered and
my eyes closed. I was thinking about getting a puppy when, in Jen and Susan’s room, someone let out a bone-rattling scream.

The blanket tangled around my legs. I kicked to throw it off, but it resisted, wrapping around my bandage, clinging to it. I yanked at it, ignoring the pulse of pain as I aggravated my wound. Ripping and pulling, I finally managed to get free and hop to my feet.

Another scream. “Fuck!”

Running in the dark, I banged into Becky’s empty bed, grabbed onto the dresser, propelled myself out the bedroom door.

“Jen!” I yelled. “Susan?” I sped across the expanse of living room, seeing Claudia’s fall and Greta’s spaghetti face, and finally thrust open the door to Jen’s and Susan’s room. Dreading what I’d see, I flicked on the lights.

Susan sat calmly on the side of Jen’s bed, her hand on Jen’s forehead. “It’s nothing, Elle. Just a nightmare.”

A nightmare? Apparently, they were going around.

“It was
not
a nightmare.” Jen was trembling. The bandages around her chest hung loose and ragged, unraveled. “It was a fucking ghost.” She pointed at me. “It’s you and your damned spirit aura.”

“Don’t be an ass, Jen,” Susan removed her hand. “It’s not Elle’s fault. There’s no such thing as a ghost.”

“WTF, Susan. I know what I saw.”

“You had a nightmare. You’re taking weird medicines. And you still have a fever.”

“No, seriously. Maybe Elle attracts bad juju, like that gypsy said.”

“She wasn’t a gypsy,” I said, even though I had no idea. Madam Therese might indeed have been a gypsy. She’d sounded like she’d come from South Philly. Or maybe the Bronx. And she’d never said anything about juju. All she said was that I had a stained aura and attracted the dead.

Jen was still ranting. “—ever since we got here. Women dying next door. Elle nearly drowning. And now a fucking ghost attacking me.”

“Nobody attacked you,” Susan said. “Nobody was here. I would have seen them.”

“What did she look like?”

Susan glared at me. “Elle, I just said nobody was here.”

“She was a ghost,” Jen ignored her. “So that’s what she looked like. Like fucking Casper, only black.”

I pictured the dark veil draped over me, felt its tickle.

“That proves it was a dream,” Susan smirked. “No self-respecting ghost would dress that way.”

“You think it’s funny? It’s not effing funny, Susan.” Jen huffed.

I sat on the foot of the bed, across from Susan. Put a hand on Jen’s arm. Even with her face hidden by the splint on her nose, Jen’s fear showed. Her eyes bulged. Blue veins pulsed in her forehead.

“I’m calling the clinic,” Susan eyed the mess of gauze on Jen’s chest as she picked up her cell. “Someone needs to come wrap you up again.”

Jen picked up a length of gauze, looked at me. “Elle, if that ghost wasn’t real, then I must have done this myself. How could I do this? In my sleep? I’d have had to pick up my nightgown and pull off my own fricking bandages. That makes sense to you?”

It didn’t, no. But I was pretty sure that the ghost hadn’t been a ghost, that she had been very real. “Jen, listen. I believe you.”

“Maybe I’m a sleepwalker.” She stared at the strips of gauze on the bed. Bruised purplish flesh bulged over the top of the layers still wrapped around her. “I’ve heard that sleepwalkers do crazy stuff in their sleep. Some of them get up and eat their entire refrigerator full of food. Or they drive cars. I read about a guy who murdered his mother-in-law and they let him off because he did it in his sleep.”

“You’re not a sleepwalker, Jen. Listen to me, will you? What you saw was real.” But she wasn’t listening, didn’t even hear me. She was yammering, hysterical.

“Maybe it’s not you. Maybe it’s being here in this strange place so far from Norm. The climate. Those damned pelicans. Maybe they carry germs that make people hallucinate. Or it’s this damned fever. Maybe my medicine is causing a reaction. Or my infection—maybe it’s causing delusions. Shit. What if I’m worse off than Dr. Du Bois is letting on? Oh damn, Elle.” She looked at me, as if remembering that I was there. “Do you think I’m seriously fucking sick? Am I going to frickin’ die here?”

“No, Jen. You’re not going to die.” I squeezed her arm, hoping none of us would.

“How the hell can you say that? You don’t know. Oh, fuck, what ever made me decide to get this fucking work done?” She clutched her stomach, groaned. “What was I thinking? For the sake of a double-D cup and a tight tummy, I risked my whole goddamn life? If I die, Elle, tell Norm—” Her eyebrows puckered. “What should you tell him?”

“Nothing. Tell him yourself. You’re going to be fine.”

Susan was in the living room, talking to the on-call doctor, explaining that Jen had had a nightmare and demolished her bandages.

Jen’s eyes drifted, stared at air. “The thing is, she seemed so fucking real.” She turned to me. “Maybe I was ripping at myself. But I’d swear to God, I was being attacked by an intruder.”

I nodded. “And she looked like a ghost.”

“Yes. I swear. She was slashing at my chest. I didn’t rip off my bandages. I was fighting her off.”

“I believe you. I saw her, too.”

Jen still didn’t seem to hear. She kept talking, recalling the attack. “Oh, and she talked to me. In Spanish. That’s fucking weird. How could I have a nightmare in Spanish? I barely even speak it.”

“It’s your subconscious.” Susan was off the phone. “Your mind knows more than you think it does.”

“What did she say?” I bit my lip, waiting.

“What difference does it make?” Susan frowned. “It was a nightmare.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I told you I saw her, too.”

“You did?” Jen finally heard me, but instead of feeling validated, she turned to Susan, pointing at me. “See? It’s Elle’s bad juju, like I said.”

“Stop it, both of you. There are no ghosts, and that stuff about juju is nonsense. No one was here. The door was locked. Nothing in the suite is disturbed except Jen’s bandages. And I was right here in the room. I didn’t hear anything except Jen screaming.”

“No fucking surprise,” Jen said. “You were snoring so loud I’m surprised you even heard that.”

“Susan, someone was here. In my room, too.”

Susan bristled. “There is absolutely no evidence to back that up, Elle. You both had bad dreams. I’d have known if someone came into my bedroom. I’m a mother. I sleep with one eye and both ears open. No one was here.”

Why was she refusing to believe us? “Susan,” I began, but she put a hand up, shaking her head.

“Don’t push it, Elle. Jen’s scared enough. Don’t make it worse. Anyway, someone’s coming to repair the bandage damage. Meantime, I think we all could use a drink.” She went to the kitchenette.

I turned to Jen. She was fingering her frayed bandages. “What did the woman say?” I kept my voice low so Susan wouldn’t hear.

She tilted her head. “You really saw her?”

I nodded. “I did. Tell me.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “I’m not sure. Something about revenge.”

“Revenge?”

Jen nodded. “
La venganza
.”

Oh. So that’s what it had meant. My skin erupted in gooseflesh.

Susan came back with three glasses and lime sections. “I wish we had scotch,” she sighed. “Tequila will have to do.”

Jen reached for a glass. She looked battered, and her hand was shaking even more than mine.

The doctor who stitched my leg was the one who came to rewrap Jen. He was impressed.

“You did this yourself, señora?” he asked. “In your sleep?”

Jen looked at me. “I guess I had a nightmare. I thought I was fighting someone.”

He regarded the torn gauze strips. “Well, señora, you would make a formidable opponent. Remind me never to get into combat with you.”

Susan and I stepped out to give Jen privacy. I took the tequila along, refilled our glasses, took another shot. And looked at Susan.

“What.” Susan took a seat at the table, drank. “Go on. Say it.”

I sat opposite her, deciding how to phrase it.

Susan poured more tequila.

“I started to before, but you didn’t want to hear it.”

She sighed, pushed hair out of her eyes. “Okay, Elle. You think someone was here. That someone came into the suite, tiptoed around your room, came into ours, stole nothing. Hurt nobody. Just unwrapped Jen’s bandages? Really?”

I leaned forward, met her eyes. “Yes. Exactly.”

Susan sat back, shook her head. “That’s nuts.”

“Susan. Jen and I both saw the woman. She was in my room first—”

“Someone was in your room and you just lay there? You didn’t scream? Or chase her? You didn’t call out to us? You simply
chilled and waited until she attacked Jen?” She crossed her arms, not believing me.

“I was asleep. At first, I thought I was dreaming. Or that my mind was playing tricks on me, like after Charlie died. I was trying to figure out what was happening when Jen screamed.”

“You know what, Elle? Maybe nothing happened except you both had nightmares. It’s no surprise, what with everything that’s been—”

“You really believe that both of us had nightmares at the same time.”

“It’s possible.”

“About the same person?”

“A similar person.”

“Saying the same words?”

She stopped nodding. “What words?”

“
La venganza
.”

Susan blinked at me. Took her third shot.

“I don’t know how she got in or who she was or what she wanted,” I said, “but someone was here.”