M. Sellars - In the bleak midwinter

And that was the one thing that had changed. In fact, she seemed to be graying more with each passing minute.

Her eyes were unblinking as she gazed straight ahead from behind matted clumps of chestnut hair that had fallen across her sallow face. The glassy stare was the same one she’d worn inside the house. What Merrie saw with those eyes was something that only she knew, but Constance doubted it was anything good. She was also convinced that whatever it was, it lay somewhere beyond the confines of this world. She found herself wishing Rowan were here. This sort of thing was his forte. The seemingly fantastic and the paranormal were where his expertise dwelled. Even if it didn’t make sense to everyone else, he always seemed to accept it for what it was and find a way to deal with it.

She desperately needed a way to deal with this.

Mandalay felt the vehicle starting to slow and then yaw a bit as it started into a turn. She braced herself and tossed a quick glance at Sheriff Carmichael, then twisted back around in her own seat and looked out through the windshield once again. For a brief instant, the sign for the Holly-Oak Assisted Living facility was framed in the headlights, then it quickly slipped sideways into the darkness as they turned into the entrance.

“Shouldn’t we be taking her to a hospital?” she asked.

“No,” Skip replied.

“But…”

“Trust me. I’ve been down this road before.”

Skip drove around to the back of the building, made a tight circle through the empty lot in order to turn around, and then pulled up close to the back door. As the vehicle rolled to a stop, flood lamps above the rear entrance sprang to life, spilling their brilliance outward and casting the passenger side of the cruiser in a stark light. After cranking the shift lever into park, Carmichael switched off the engine and dragged himself out from behind the wheel.

Before swinging the driver’s side door shut, he peered back in through the opening at Constance and said, “Get Merrie’s door for me, will you…”

Constance glanced quickly back over her shoulder at Merrie, then shouldered her own door open and climbed out into the cold wind. By the time she had levered it back closed, Skip had come around to her side, so she pulled the cruiser’s rear door open for him.

“We’re home,” he said to the girl as he pushed his frame in through the opening.

After unbuckling the seatbelt, he wrapped the loose folds of the blanket tighter, taking care to make sure Merrie was protected from the cold. Slipping his arms around her, he lifted up and carefully maneuvered her small form out of the seat.

Constance heard a sudden creak of hinges behind them and turned to see Martha pushing open the back door of the building. The woman shot her a curious look and then raised an eyebrow as if seeing her was a surprise, but other than that she seemed as if she had been waiting for them. A second later she turned and directed herself to the sheriff.

Pushing her voice up a notch to be heard above the sigh of the rising wind, Martha asked, “Is everything okay, Skip?”

“Okay as it ever is,” he called out as he turned. Hugging the bundled child close, he looked at Constance and dipped his head toward the open doorway. “Follow me.”

“Good God, Skip!” Martha exclaimed when the light fell across his swollen lip and blood-smeared chin. “What happened to you?”

As he hastened past her into the building he replied, “Nothing to worry about. Just got my ass handed to me is all.”

“You’re getting too old for this, Addison Carmichael,” she chastised.

“We all are, Martha,” he called back over his shoulder. “We all are.”

Constance followed him through the opening, with Martha bringing up the rear for the moment. Once she had latched the back door, she quickly skirted around them, running ahead and opening the other doors in their path, leading them along short, dimly lit hallways until they finally arrived at “Merrie’s Room.”

“I was starting to worry,” Martha expressed in a hushed voice, carefully opening the door a crack. “You’re running late.”

“I know,” Skip replied, whispering. “Couldn’t be helped. But there should still be time.”

Martha pushed the door inward to reveal the same room they had visited three days ago. It was dark now, except for a dim puddle being cast outward by a small lamp resting atop the nightstand. The adult Merrie Callahan was tucked into the bed, her slackened face bathed in the soft glow.

“You two must be frozen solid,” Martha whispered. “I’ll go start some coffee…” Then she turned and disappeared up the corridor.

Skip looked at Constance and said, “Wait right here.” Then he shifted the blanket-wrapped girl farther up onto his shoulder to adjust his grip on her as he walked through the opening and into the room.

Just over twenty minutes had elapsed since they had picked up the little girl from the middle of the road, and still nothing made sense. Constance watched on in a shocked stupor from the doorway as the sheriff stooped over and carefully laid the ten-year-old Merrie Frances Callahan on the bed next to her catatonic adult self. He gently unwrapped the cocoon, revealing the girl. Her skin was now the ghostly gray-white of a corpse. Working with both tenderness and haste, Carmichael lifted the child’s hand and placed it against the woman’s. Slowly, both of their hands moved, intertwining with one another, though there was no other sign of consciousness from either of them.

Skip stood beside the pair for a moment, watching quietly. Finally, he kissed his fingertips and gently touched them to the little girl’s forehead, then to the older Merrie’s cheek.

When he walked out, he ushered Constance ahead then pulled the door shut behind him.

With a sigh he said, “All right, Special Agent Mandalay. Much as it pains me, I believe we still have a crime scene to process.”

“What…” she started, stammered, and then started again. “What just happened here, Sheriff Carmichael?”

He reached up and brushed his thumb and forefinger through his mustache while gazing in the general direction of the floor. His shoulders drooped as he allowed a long, low breath to escape. He swallowed hard, then looked up at Constance and shook his head.

“I don’t honestly know,” he said. “I don’t have any answers and that’s the truth. All I can tell you is that as of tonight it’s been happening for eight years now.”

“That little girl is actually Merrie Callahan?” she pressed.

He nodded. “Yes…or maybe her soul… I just know she’s part of Merrie.”

Constance rubbed her eyes and then pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger as she leaned back against the wall. “This is surreal…” she breathed.

“Yeah…it’s a bit much to take in.”

“Uh-huh…even for me and I’ve seen some things.”

“Anything like this?”

“Not exactly, but pretty close on the bizarre meter.”

“I have to admit, you’re the first Fed to tell me that one.”

“Why all the deception?” she asked. “Why didn’t you just tell me about all of this right from the outset?”

Skip raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t have believed me if I had.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Maybe not, but I’d say it’s a pretty good guess,” he replied. “Hell, sometimes I’m not sure I believe it myself.”

“So…” she said. “It’s some kind of test?”

“I guess that really depends on how you look at it. Believe me, I tried the truth with the first Fed. It ended up being more trouble than it was worth.”

“How so?”

“Well, on the first murder in oh-three I didn’t even call. We hadn’t put the pieces together yet, and besides, when I found Merrie standing in the street just like she had been in seventy-five, I wasn’t all that sure that I hadn’t lost my damn mind.”