Connie Willis - Passage

“Two shootings and a stabbing,” Joanna said. “And an attack with an IV pole,” Tish added, attaching electrode cords to the monitor.

“ ‘—of drug-related events in the ER,’ ” Richard continued, “ ‘all personnel are advised to take the following precautions: One. Be alert to your surroundings.’ ”

“Oh, that’ll help a lot when a hopped-up gangbanger is brandishing a semiautomatic,” Tish said.

“ ‘Two. Do not make sudden movements. Three. Note all available exits.’ ”

“Four. Do not work in the ER,” Joanna said. “No kidding,” Tish said, setting out the IV equipment. “The board decided to hire one more security guard. I think they should have hired about ten. I’m ready for you, Joanna.” Joanna got on the table and lay down. Tish began placing the pads under her lower back and legs. “ ‘Four,’ ” Richard said, still reading. “ ‘Do not attempt to engage or disarm the patient. Five,’ ” he wadded the memo into a ball and lobbed it into the trash.

“Jenni Lyons told me she’s put in a transfer to Aurora Memorial,” Tish said, knotting the rubber tubing around “Joanna’s arm. “She says at least they’ve got a metal detector.” She poked the inside of Joanna’s elbow with her finger, trying to find a vein.

I have to get Vielle out of there, Joanna thought while Tish attached the electrodes, put on the headphones.

I have to convince her to transfer before something happens, she thought, and was in the tunnel, but much farther away from the door than she had been before, and this time the door was open. It spilled golden light half the length of the passage.

She couldn’t see shadows or movements in it, as she had before, or hear any voices. She stood still, listening for their murmur, and then thought, You did it again. You forgot to listen for the sound.

But it wasn’t a sound, or, rather, a cessation of sound. It was a feeling of having heard a sound brought on by the temporal lobe. There was no actual sound.

But standing there in the tunnel, she was sure there had been. A sound like—what? A roar. Or something falling. She felt a strong impulse to turn around and look back down the dark passage as if that would help her identify it, to go back down the passage toward it.

No, she thought, holding carefully still, not even turning her head, it’ll send you back to the lab. Don’t do that. Not until you’ve seen what lies beyond the door, and began walking toward it.

The light seemed to grow brighter as she approached it, illuminating the walls and the wooden floor, which still gave a look of impossible length to the corridor. The walls were white, and so were the doors, and as she neared the end of the corridor, she could see they had numbers on them.

What if one of them’s fifty-eight? she thought, clenched her fists at her sides, and went on. “C8,” the doors read, the letters and numbers in gold, “C10, C12.” The light continued to grow brighter.

She had expected it to become unbearably bright as she got closer, but it didn’t, and as she came nearer the open door, she could make out shapes in it. Figures in white robes, radiating golden light.

Angels.

Joanna’s first thought was: Angels! Mr. Mandrake will be furious.

Her second thought was, No, not angels. People. The light came from behind them, around them, outlining them in golden light so that it seemed to radiate from them, from their white robes. And they weren’t robes. They were white dresses with skirts that trailed the floor. Old-fashioned dresses.

The dead relatives, Joanna thought, but they weren’t gathered around the door, waiting to welcome her to the Other Side. They milled about, or stood in little groups of two or three, murmuring quietly to each other. Joanna moved closer to the door, trying to make out what they were saying.

“What’s happened?” a young woman in a long, high-necked dress asked. Her hair hung down her back nearly to her waist.

A long-dead relative, Joanna thought, trying to see past her to the man she was speaking to. He spoke, and his voice was too low for Joanna to hear. She squinted at the light surrounding him, as if it would make his voice clearer, and saw that he was wearing a white jacket and had a pleasant face. An unfamiliar face. And so was the woman’s. Joanna had never seen either of them before.

The young woman said something else to the man, who bowed from the waist, and walked over to two people standing together, a man and a woman. The other woman was in white, too, but her hair was piled on top of her head. Her hands were white, too, and when she placed her hand on the gentleman’s arm, it flashed, sparkling. The man had a trimmed white beard that looked like something from an old photo album, and so did the woman’s hair, but their faces were unfamiliar. If they’re dead relatives, Joanna thought, they must be someone else’s.

The woman with her hair down her back spoke to the bearded man. Joanna took another step forward, nearly up to the door, trying to hear. The bearded man said, “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Joanna shot an anxious glance back down the passageway. That was what he’d said the last time, and then the woman had said, “It’s so cold,” and the NDE had ended. If she was going to test her theory that the passageway was the way back, that going back down the tunnel would end the NDE, she needed to do it now, before the NDE ended on its own, but she wanted to stay and hear what they were talking about.

It’s a clue to where this is, she thought, hesitating, poised on one foot, ready to run, trying to decide. Like Cinderella at the ball, with the clock striking midnight, she thought, and then, looking at the women again in their long white dresses, that’s what this must be, a ball. That’s why the woman’s hand on the bearded man’s arm was white, because she was wearing white gloves, and the sparkling flash when she moved her hand was jewels in a bracelet. And the young man was dressed in a white dinner jacket. She shaded her eyes against the light, trying to see what the man with the white beard was wearing.

“It’s so cold,” the young woman said, and Joanna gave her one last, frustrated glance, then turned and ran down the passageway.

And into the lab. “I want to hear about your return,” Richard said as soon as Tish had finished monitoring her and removed the electrodes and the IV.

“Was it—?” he said and then clamped his lips shut. “Tell me about your return.”

She told him what she’d done. “Why? Did it look different on the scans?”

“Radically,” he said, pleased, and started over to the console, as if he were finished.

“Wait, you have to hear about the rest of the NDE,” Joanna said. “I saw another one of the core elements this time. Angels.”

“Angels?” Tish said. “Really?”

“No,” Joanna said, “but figures dressed all in white, or ‘snowy raiment,’ as Mr. Mandrake would say.”

“Did they have wings?” Tish asked.

“No,” Joanna said. “They weren’t angels. They were people. They were dressed in long white robes, and there was light all around them,” Joanna said. “I’d always assumed that people saw what they thought were angels and then gave them the traditional white robes and haloes because that was what they’d learned angels looked like in Sunday school. But now I wonder if it isn’t the other way around, that they see the white robes and the light surrounding them, and that’s what makes them think they’re angels.”

“Did they speak to you?” Tish asked.

“No, they didn’t seem to know I was there,” Joanna said. She told Richard what the woman had said.