Spirit Legacy (25 page)

I thanked him and hopped back up, peeking through the little window in the door to make sure the coast was clear.

“I’m Milo, by the way.”

“Jess.” I glanced over at him, but he was still just flipping the cards. Flip. Flip. Flip.

“And you’re sure you’re not in?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” There was a doctor talking to the nurse with the cart, still only a few feet down the hallway.

“Did they just say you were coming for a visit? An evaluation? Because that probably means you’re in,” he continued.

“No. I think I would know if I were being checked in. I’m not.”

“Fine, fine, if you say so. It just seemed likely, that’s all.” Flip. Flip. Flip.

He’d hit a nerve there, that was for damn sure. I twisted around from the door to confront him, but he still wasn’t looking at me. “Likely? Based on what? Am I so obviously a head case, just from looking at me?”

“No, no. You look normal enough. The hair’s a bit rebellious, but not a total giveaway.”

I snorted. “What’s that, an asylum fashion tip? Your haircut is looking pretty emo too, okay?”

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” he quoted.

“Methinks the lady hath read Hamlet, too, smartass,” I shot back.

“Sorry, I just call them like I see them.”

“Okay then, what are you basing your brilliant deduction on, here? A whopping two minutes of conversation?”My voice had risen, which was not the smartest choice on my part, but Milo was supremely unconcerned.

“I guess you could say that I’m basing it on our conversation, yes.”

Exasperated, I turned away from him and concentrated on making my escape. “Yeah, well, thanks for the diagnosis. I’ll try to keep my mouth shut around the staff so they don’t tackle me into a straitjacket.”

“Good idea. The ones who talk to me usually wind up heavily medicated.”

Flip. Flip. Silence.

I spun back around to face him. No Milo. No cards. Nothing. I scanned the entire room. There was no other door, no corner he could be hiding in.

Well, damn. Was I just going to see ghosts everywhere I went now? Utterly unnerved, I pushed my realization away until I had the time to deal with it, and snuck out into the now deserted hallway.

Within moments, though, I was glad I’d met Milo, because I don’t know how I would have found Hannah otherwise. As I headed straight for the staircase, I passed at least five other hallways I could have taken wrong turns down. Halfway up the stairs to the second floor, my phone began to vibrate. It was a text from Karen.

Doctor searching for paperwork. Where r u?

I texted back.
Almost to her room. How much time?

15 min. Maybe 10. Enough?

Don’t know. I’ll try.

I stowed the phone back in my bra and took the rest of the stairs two at a time. I was fairly lucky as I stepped out into the south hallway; there was only one person in sight, and she was clearly a patient. Trying to look like I both belonged there and knew where I was going, I followed the room numbers to the left, past maybe fifteen rooms, until I stood directly in front of room 218. On my tiptoes, I peeked into the little window set into the door. The room was empty.

I tried the handle and found the door unlocked, a stroke of luck I had not expected. With a final glance down the hallway, I slipped inside and pulled the door shut behind me.

“Who are you?” a voice demanded.

I stifled a scream. The room had been empty, I was sure of it, but now a girl with stringy blonde hair was crouching in the corner, cowering.

“Hannah?”

“No! I’m not Hannah! I’m Carley! Why are you here? What do you want with me?! I already told them I wasn’t going!” she screeched.

I opened my mouth and then shut it. There was something about the way the light didn’t quite hit her, something about the way she seemed untouched by the shadows.

Holy shit! Two ghosts in five minutes!

I tried to keep my voice soothing. “Okay, Carley. Don’t worry, I’m not going to take you anywhere. I’m just a patient here, like you. Can you tell me where Hannah is?”

“No! I won’t tell you anything! You go away! They can’t make me tell you anything!” she shrieked.

Without warning the light bulb in the lamp beside her flared to life and exploded in the same instant. With a miserable wail, Carley turned and crawled away straight through the wall.

I heaved a sigh of relief that she was gone and took stock of the rest of my surroundings. The room was small and devoid of personality, like a hotel room. Two twin beds and two small desks with matching chairs suggested that the room was meant for two occupants, though only one side appeared to be lived in. I chose the bed further from the window, the one stripped of bedding, and perched on the end. I’d made it here, and now there was nothing to do but wait.

I looked for a clue that might tell me something, anything, about my sister. Her side of the room reminded me of Tia in its cleanliness. The bed was made with obsessive precision, the pillows lined up perfectly with the turned-down comforter. A number of books were arranged on a shelf behind the headboard. A quick glance confirmed that they were alphabetized, their bindings perfectly aligned.

The desk was covered in piles of matching books, the kind of black and white composition books I used to get in grade school. I walked over and picked one up. On the front cover, in tiny, precise handwriting was the name “Hannah Ballard.” As I flipped through the pages, it appeared to be some kind of log.

April 18
th

7:30 AM—Girl with blonde hair and freckles, art room. Gunshot wound to side of head. Self-inflicted? Standing by window with paintbrush. Tried to speak to me twice. Eye contact avoided—Jameson present. First sighting, 12 minutes.

8:47 AM—Assigned meds—two Valium and two Seroquel. Tongued and flushed.

12:30 PM—Old woman on back lawn during rec. time. Same one as April 6
th
, same location (See log entry for April 6
th
at 11AM) Not screaming this time. Sighting 45 minutes.

Tears welling in my eyes, I picked up another and flipped through it. Then another. And another. They were all the same. Encounter after encounter, ghost after ghost, for years on end. This had been my sister’s existence.

“What are you doing in my room?”

I whirled around, dropping the book I’d been holding. There was a girl standing in the doorway, her hand resting on the handle. There was nothing ghostly about her. I would have known her anywhere.

Hannah was absolutely tiny. Her face was long and pale as porcelain, and the round, dark eyes that blinked confusedly out from its planes seemed much too large, and old, to belong there. The resemblance to our mother in her fine, pointed features was so pronounced as to be startling. Her hair was chestnut brown and seemed unruly like mine; it sprung defiantly from the elastic that struggled to hold it in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her entire frame seemed brittle and, despite how small it was, it seemed to take considerable effort to hold it up.

It would be impossible to understand the emotions that ran through me at the sight of my sister. It began with a warmth that spread through me that concentrated behind my eyes, where it burned with repressed tears. The warmth drained almost as quickly as it had appeared as an icy fear chased it away. She looked so fragile, so breakable. The fear morphed into a fierce feeling, half-love, half-anger, and I knew at that very moment that I would destroy anyone who ever tried to hurt her again.

While this new world expanded and collapsed inside me, Hannah was staring at me, as though trying to decide something. Her expression seemed impassive, but her hands shook.

“You shouldn’t be here. I took my meds. I haven’t missed any in over a month. Why are you here?” Her voice fluttered when she spoke.

“I … came to see you,” I replied, finally finding my voice.

“But you shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be able to see you.” She squeezed her eyes shut and screwed up her face in concentration. After a few seconds she opened them again and refocused on me. Her expression morphed from surprise to frustration, and then fear.

“No! You aren’t supposed to be here! They promised!” Hannah started to back away, her hand reaching for an intercom unit on the wall.

“Wait! Stop! Please don’t press that button! Just hear me out! Hannah, I’m real, okay? I’m a real person.”

Her hand hovered over the intercom switch but she did not press it. “What do you mean, real?”

“I mean I’m not a ghost. I’m not like the others you’ve been seeing.”

Hannah shook her head ferociously from side to side, her voice rising shrilly. “Not ghosts. Hallucinations. Dr. Ferber promised that—”

“—Fine! I’m not a hallucination either.”

“Are you my new roommate? They didn’t tell me I was getting a roommate.” Her voice hitched strangely.

“No, I’m not your roommate. I’m not a patient here.”

“What are you doing in my room? Why are you touching my things?”

God, I was not ready for this! I didn’t know which of her questions I should answer, if I would set her off into a panic, or if she would even believe me. I decided to answer as little as I could get away with. “My name is Jessica. I came to get you out of here. Don’t you want to get out of here?”

“I don’t want to
stay
here,” Hannah said, “but I have nowhere else to go.”

“What if there was somewhere else you could go? What if there was a home waiting for you, a real one, not another place like this? Would you want to leave then?”

Hannah sank slowly onto the end of the bed and began obsessively straightening the bedspread that had wrinkled around her. I noticed a number of thin scars that covered her wrists. “Yes, I would want to leave. But they would never let me. And even if they did, why would I go with you? Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m someone who understands what’s been happening to you. Those people you’ve seen since you were little? I can see them too.”

Hannah’s eyebrows drew together and made her look surprisingly fierce. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true.” I took a step toward her, and sat across from her on the other bed. I moved cautiously, behaving as I would around a skittish animal. It was imperative that she believe me, that I say what I needed to get her to trust me. “I know everyone told you that they were hallucinations, but they aren’t. They’re ghosts, people whose spirits are trapped here. I can see them too, I promise you.”

“No, ghosts aren’t real. In therapy, they told me that my illness—”

“—You aren’t sick, Hannah. They just don’t understand what you can do. Listen, I can prove it. I just met your old roommate, Carley.

“You couldn’t have. She’s—”

“—Dead. I know. But I just saw her.”

“I don’t believe you,” Hannah repeated.

“What about Milo?”

Hannah’s frantic hands froze. She looked like cornered prey. “I … I don’t know anyone named Milo.”

“Yes, you do! He told me you were friends.”

Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “What does he look like?”

“Really thin with shaggy dark hair and blue eyes, likes to play solitaire in that common room downstairs.”

“What did he say to you? Did he tell you anything?”

“He seemed pretty interested in sharing his personal information, actually. He told me he was committed here for depression, anxiety, something about sexual identity, attempted suicide, and an addiction to prescription pain killers. He’s the one who told me how to find your room.”

“Sexual identity disorder,” Hannah whispered, her eyes widening.

I smiled a little. “Yeah, that’s it. He also told me I needed a new hairstyle and that he could tell I was crazy just by talking to me.”

The corner of Hannah’s mouth twitched up ever so slightly. “That sounds like something he would say.” Her eyes bore into me. “You really did see him, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I’m telling you the truth, I promise.”

“That doesn’t explain how you knew I was here or why I should go anywhere with you,” she said, returning to her compulsive straightening of the bed.

I took a deep breath. I could only hope she was stronger than she looked. “About ten months ago I started having these visitations—the same kind that you’ve been having for your entire life. Ever since it started, I’ve been in search of the reason why. And just last night, I got the answers I was looking for.”

Hannah’s eyes filled with tears. “Why? Why can we see them when no one else can?”

“It has to do with our heritage, our bloodline. You and I were both born into a line of women who have this … ability. We’re related, Hannah.”

“Related?” she whispered.

“Yes. We’re sisters.”

Hannah stared at me as though I had spoken a word in a foreign language. “But I don’t have anyone. I’ve never had anyone,” she said blankly.

“I know. I didn’t know about you, Hannah. I didn’t know you were here, or I would have been here sooner. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t have anyone,” she repeated. “Only the dead people. I only have the dead people.”

“But you do now, Hannah, that’s what I’m trying to tell—” My phone buzzed to life again.

“Jess, have you found her yet?” Karen sounded out of breath.

“Yes, I’m with her now.”

“The doctor started calling for your medical records, so I had to get out of there. They’ll know by now that we made it all up. I pulled the car onto Preston Street, around the back side of the property. I’ll wait here for you.”

“Okay, we’ll find a way out.”

“Hurry, Jess, and whatever you do, don’t get caught!”

I hung up. “Hannah, I’m really sorry, but we don’t have a lot of time for explanations right now. I promise you that I will answer every question that you have, every one that I have an answer to. But right now we need to get out of here. Will you come with me?”