B.C. Johnson - Deadgirl

A sob escaped her lips, and she rubbed her frozen hand and looked at me with huge wet eyes.

“Oh God,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize…”

“Forget it,” Ophelia hissed, sucking in deep breaths. “I’m fine. Forget it.”

“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked. I know I was being callous, but I had to know. “What happened after? And who’s Lucy? He mentioned a baby named Lucy.”

Ophelia shook her head.

“It won’t help you in your little quest, will it?” she said. “In fact, it’ll do just the opposite. You got what you wanted, didn’t you? It’s time to go.”

“But—”

“Get out of my house, hon,” she said. “Right now.”

“I still need your help,” I said. “And I’m not leaving without you.”

“Yes, you are,” Ophelia said. She walked out of the office, leaving me alone on the floor with my thoughts of Puck, his death, and the girl he’d had to kill to save his own life.

Chapter Seventeen

Dead Girl Walking

Ophelia rooted around her house, getting ready as I explained the situation. I told her about Abraham, and about Zack and Morgan, trapped in hospital beds in one world and in a dilapidated train in another. It was nice, for once, to see a surprised look on her face.

She came out to the kitchen table with a handful of gauze and finger braces. I think I saw, for a moment, the dimmest flash of sympathy on her sour face.

I spent the next twenty minutes in what you might call extreme agony, as she twisted and braced my shattered digits into something resembling fingers. Her brusque manner and harpyesque tendencies disappeared the instant she set to work.

“Will I heal…faster?”

“Than us chickens?”

“Well, yeah.”

Ophelia shrugged, “Probably. To be honest, I don’t get how they’re still broken.”

I shook my head, “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, “if your body is just…energy, or whatever, can’t you just…not have broken fingers anymore?”

It sounded like a possibility. She stepped away from me for a moment, and I did my best Jedi/Shaolin monk concentration on my bandaged hands. But after five minutes of trying to will my fingers unbroken, I was left with only a deep blush. I shook my head, and Ophelia shrugged.

“Worth a shot,” she said, and slapped my shoulder. “Looks like you’re as good as…well…better than…well…you’re bandaged, anyway.”

I nodded and hopped off of the kitchen table.

“So are you gonna help me?” I asked her.

“Haven’t I already?”

“You know what I mean.”

Ophelia didn’t look at me as she tucked her medical supplies away into a little black bag. Her face looked as soft as concrete, and just as forgiving. She fumbled with a roll of gauze—the flesh of the hand I’d been gripping was pallid, gray, with a ring of bruised flesh encircling her wrist. It didn’t look as bad as Kent Miller’s frost-burned forearm, but then again, I hadn’t taken real memories from Ophelia. I’d lifted her impression of a journal she’d read. I wondered if she’d still remember it, or if she would have to read it again to get it back. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how it worked, which made me all the more dangerous, didn’t it?

“I can’t help you,” she whispered.

I closed my eyes. “Why? My friends are—”

I stopped. I covered my mouth and tried to remember how to breathe. It wasn’t easy.

“I can’t,” Ophelia whispered. “I’m old, and tired, and I don’t want to die. Maybe that makes me a coward, but maybe I don’t give a right goddamn about that.”

“I can’t do it alone,” I said. I still hadn’t gotten the hang of breathing without my voice hitching and crawling. “Please.”

Ophelia growled something, low in her chest, and it sounded like ripping canvas.

“I’ll tell you how to do it,” she said, finally. “How to wake them up.”

Breathe . Oxygen. My chest heaved, and I felt a light-headed wave of giddiness scrape up my spine.

“Thank you,” I said. I wanted to hug her, but I had the feeling that would be a really bad idea.

“And then I never want to see you again,” she hissed. “Ever.”

I had to ask. I had to.

“What about Puck?”

“My grandfather’s dead,” she said.

“And so am I, right?” I whispered.

“Right,” she said. Ophelia snapped the black bag closed, ran her fingers through her iron gray hair, and turned those watery, cold eyes up to mine. “Pay attention now.”

I nodded. I listened to her explain medically-induced comas like my friend’s lives depended on it.

When she was finished, she scooped a long black trench coat from a hook on the wall and handed it to me. It had gray lapels and gray cuffs, and was about fifty times more stylish than any clothing I’d expect her to own. I slipped it on. I wish I’d been surprised when it fit perfectly.

“What’s this?” I said.

“It’s cold,” Ophelia snapped. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Getting all soft on me?”

She squawked her horrible laugh, her face twisting in a sneer.

“Not quite,” she said. “But I don’t need a fifteen-year-old’s death on my conscience.”

I shook my head, squeezed the wrist of my broken hand, and sighed. I headed for the door without another look back. As I opened the front door, I noticed Ophelia’s little black revolver. Right where I left it, on the entrance way table. I ran a hand over the gun and shivered.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Someone else has my death on their conscience.”

I stopped, and looked back over my shoulder.

“Who’s Lucy?” I asked. It was a long shot.

“Grampa's first daughter,” Ophelia said, her voice drifting out of the kitchen. “Daughter of his first wife Miri. Miri died giving birth to her. Lucy died a year later. Diphtheria.”

I shook my head, unable to ignore the swell. I dragged tears out of my eyes and took long, harsh breaths. I looked down at the revolver, still lying on the entry table, and closed my eyes.

I left without another word.

I walked. I walked with purpose, and with speed, but I walked. Whatever was going to happen at that hospital, however it ended, I wasn’t ready. I needed to think, I needed to plan, and I needed to not vomit from pure, stupid fear.

With Puck’s story behind me, and my own careening toward me at unsafe velocities, I felt the tidal tug of fate sucking at my arms and legs. Did Abraham know I was coming? I think he did. Even without his handy-dandy Phantom-Detector, I think he knew. It had been his plan, of course—hold my friends until I showed up. Which I would, of course.

I guess it was a classic for a reason.

I thought about Puck’s story on the way there. It hadn’t been nearly as helpful as I would have hoped. Then again, what exactly had I been expecting?

“Hey, Lucy, when battling your Mors, remember to use the #3 wooden stake and to sing ‘Mary Mary Quite Contrary’ when you stab him. This combined with the cough drop you ate should be enough to kill him.”

No such animal. I guess Puck had only done it once, and mostly by accident.

What had been the situation? Puck, in some animal state, had attacked his wife and drained her of essence. Isabelle, his Mors, had shown up to collect him or eat him or whatever the hell it was they did to us. He’d been angry, full of rage. And full of essence, too. Was that it? Did I just need to fill up the tank and Hulk-out?

Maybe. But with the arctic chill streaking up my body, the kind that sank into my bones and my teeth, my tank was on E. And rage? Not quite. I shook with abject fear and worry, definitely, but nothing even approaching anger. Well great, Lucy Day. Zero for two in the first inning. Bases loaded. And the Man-In-White steps up to the plate…