Beyond the Grave (13 page)

“I thought you might meet Rose,” Mrs. Hollings said, pouring coffee.

“Yes.” Dad buttered a croissant. “The stories are nearly exact. Almost
too
exact.”

Mrs. Hollings set down her porcelain cup. “I'm not sure I understand.”

“We expected some activity,” Dad said. “None of us were prepared for every reported occurrence to happen all at once, within the same hour.”

“Well, it appears you were here on a good night.” Mrs.
Hollings smiled, but it looked tense, as if she was forcing herself to do so. “Rose must like you.”

Dad continued to eat his breakfast. Shane was attacking half the coffee cake, and Annalise looked like she was still half-asleep. Only Mom and Dad were fully awake and alert.

“It is interesting,” Mom mused. “Usually there is some variation when people describe their paranormal experiences. But Patrick's right. What we heard last night fit in perfectly with other accounts.”

Dad pretended to be absorbed with breakfast, but I knew he was paying close attention to everything that was being said. He didn't believe the Pink Rose was haunted, I realized. He had already decided that it was a hoax. But he needed Mom to figure it out for herself, so he was planting the first seeds of doubt and gauging Mrs. Hollings's reaction.

“I'm pleased that Rose made herself known to you,” Mrs. Hollings said. “She does have certain habits, which may explain why so many of our guests report similar incidents.”

“Yes, that may explain it.” Mom had a faraway look in her eyes. It was a look I knew well. She was in a thoughtful mode, her debunker skills on high alert. “We'd like to look around today, take some pictures. Would that be all right with you?”

Our schedule for the day had been planned a week ahead of time, but asking for permission from Mrs. Hollings was an important formality. Always show respect, my parents taught me. You are in someone else's space, and your job is to make them comfortable with your presence. Something about the way Mrs. Hollings was eyeing us told me that we were on the verge of losing that respect. Dad had challenged her. It wasn't a confrontation, but now Mrs. Hollings wasn't happy. Her smile vanished, and she took her coffee to the guesthouse.

“If you found something that suggests a hoax, I'd love to be filled in,” Mom said to Dad.

“I haven't found anything yet,” he replied. “It's just a feeling.”

Mom laughed. “Well, if it's a feeling, then case closed. We can go home now.”

Annalise, who hadn't been paying attention, looked up. “We're leaving? Thank God.”

“Your mother was being sarcastic.” Dad finished his croissant. “But I do think we'll be leaving sooner than expected.”

It was another challenge, but this time, it was directed at Mom. Instead of being angry, though, she lit up, eager for the chance to prove something. We spent the rest of the morning inspecting the wiring and lights, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

“It all comes back to the sound,” Mom said. We were sitting on the bottom step together. Annalise had returned to bed and Shane was running tests in the basement with Dad.

“And the sounds always come from this area,” I added. “The staircase and the hallway.”

Mom nodded. Then she walked up the staircase slowly, pausing between each step. When she reached the top, she bounced on her heels a little, testing the floor.

“Do me a favor,” she called down. “Walk up here, but run your hands along the wallpaper as you go.”

I was used to odd requests, and I didn't question this one. I put both hands on the wall and let my hands run over the antique-looking wallpaper as I climbed the stairs. I knew I looked silly, like I was trying to massage the house, but about halfway up, my fingers ran into a something, a place where the wall abruptly gave way. I stopped and looked over at Mom, who was carefully inspecting the banister.

“I think there's a little hole here.”

Mom came over and ran her hands over the space. “You're right. Someone covered up a hole with this wallpaper.” She
looked down the stairs. “Stand in front of me,” she whispered. I pretended to admire the chandelier above us while Mom pulled back the wallpaper. There was a soft tearing sound, then Mom gasped. I worried that she had torn the paper too much.

“What is it?”

When I turned around, Mom was pressing the paper back into place. She sighed. “It's time to leave.”

At first, Mrs. Hollings denied everything.

“There's been a mistake,” she insisted. “I have nothing to do with any of this.”

But the evidence was overwhelming. The hole in the wall was filled with a tiny recorder set on a loop. Every twenty-four hours, it played a little girl's voice, followed by the sound of footsteps. As the recorder required batteries, someone would have to peel back the carefully placed wallpaper to replace them every week or so. It was so simple.

Maybe that was why the scheme had worked: a few clear sounds, nothing too dramatic or obvious, and people fell for it. The sounds were especially powerful if you were on or near the staircase. And Mrs. Hollings could have easily left a single rose inside her guests' rooms in the middle of the night. The Pink Rose was not haunted. It was simply maintained by a woman desperate to keep up business.

“You don't understand!” she wailed when we began packing up our things. “I've put every cent into this place. I can't lose it! I have nowhere to go!”

Mom busied herself with coiling the different wires we used, her jaw clenched. I didn't know if she was more angry with Mrs. Hollings for the lies or with herself for wanting to believe them.

“Ever since the ghost stories began, I've been able to pay
my bills,” Mrs. Hollings continued. “I was facing foreclosure! This was the only way.”

Surprisingly, Dad was sympathetic. I thought he would gloat or get mad, but instead, he listened to her.

“I understand why you did it,” Dad said. His voice was soft, a noticeable contrast to Mrs. Hollings's loud protests. “But it wasn't right. You could have told us before we came here, and saved everyone a lot of trouble.”

“Rose is real! I've seen her!” Mrs. Hollings clutched at the lace collar of her dress. “But she doesn't always show up, and I needed something every night. You have to believe me!”

Dad said nothing. He finished his work and left the Pink Rose. Shane followed, shaking his head. Annalise was already in the van, probably napping in the backseat.

“Please don't ruin me,” Mrs. Hollings begged. Mom and I stood in the foyer, ready to leave. “If people don't think that this place is haunted, I'll have to close in a few months.” Her eyes were shiny with tears. “Please. You don't know what this means to me.”

Mom frowned. “Yes, I think I do.” She looked out the front door, where Dad was sitting behind the steering wheel of the car. She took my hand. “Goodbye, Mrs. Hollings. I wish you the best of luck.”

In the end, we didn't do anything with the footage. We could have created an episode about the hoax, but no one had the heart to hurt an old woman trying to make a living. Mom said that if people wanted to believe it, that was their problem. She asked Mrs. Hollings not to advertise that the place was haunted in her brochures, and that was the end of it. I thought.

Mom remained quiet and sullen for weeks. At our investigation in Colorado, she was detached, leaving interviews and even the DVD commentary to Dad. On our last night
in Colorado, I found her sitting in the library of our hotel, a closed book in her lap.

“Mom?” I tiptoed into the room. “Are you awake?”

“Yes. Just thinking.”

I sat on the floor in front of her chair and pulled my robe around me. “Thinking about what?”

She set her book on a small table. “Thinking about why people lie.”

“Because they think they need to,” I said. “They think a lie will protect them.”

Mom smiled. “That's very well put, Charlotte. Very well put.”

I beamed at her praise, but knew the answer wasn't enough to pull Mom out of her mood. I was confused, too. We had been tricked in the past, usually by people eager to prove that we weren't the scientific debunkers we claimed to be. Mom always discovered the truth, and instead of feeling betrayed, she accepted the findings as a victory. So why was this time different?

“You were hoping that this time, it would be real. Is that why you've been so upset?”

Mom looked at me with a strange mixture of surprise and sadness. “We've spent so long searching. I suppose I thought that for once, it would be nice to find something exactly the way people described it.” She patted her chair and I went over to her. She hugged me. “Trust is a choice we make. And you can't trust everyone,” she said. “But you can always trust your family.”

I believed her.

Protectors were not punctual. Maybe this did not apply to all Protectors, but the only one I knew was Michael, and he was late—again. I checked my phone for the tenth time, then crossed my arms and settled back into the scratchy waiting room chair. I was the only one around in the too-cheerful lobby of the long-term care facility. Mom's room was a quick elevator ride up two flights, but I wasn't going to see her until Michael arrived.

My call to Annalise the day before had not provided me with the reassurance I had been hoping for. She only vaguely remembered the Pink Rose, and her memories did not involve any of Mom's quiet fury. Basically, she had slept through most of it.

“Why are you bringing this up?” she'd asked. “Are you going back there?”

I wasn't ready to explain Noah's deception. I wasn't even ready to talk to Noah, who had canceled our plans at the last minute in a rushed voice mail. “Schoolwork,” he'd said. “I promise I'll make it up to you.”

How could he make it up to me? He had lied. I trusted him
more than anyone else, as if he was family, and he had lied to me for months. My heart was not broken—it was slashed into ribbons.

And now I was sitting impatiently in a taupe waiting room, hoping my tardy Protector would show up soon so I wouldn't have to go upstairs alone.

My cell phone buzzed, startling me. It was Michael.

“I'm running late,” he said, sounding breathless. “Something came up. I'll be there in about two hours.”

“What? That's crazy. I'm not waiting here for two hours.”

“You're right. You're going to see your mom.”

I sighed. “How do you know I'm not with her right now?”

“Because cell phones don't work in her room. Now go upstairs and wait for me.”

His calm bossiness annoyed me and I wanted to tell him that he had no right to order me around, but he hung up before I could snap at him. Again, I thought this must be what it was like to have an older brother.

If Michael thought I was going to leap out of my chair and rush upstairs to do as I was told, he was wrong. I stayed where I was for a few minutes longer. Spending two whole hours in Mom's room was not what I had planned for the afternoon. Finally, I went to the elevator and pressed the button. I would go, I would stay as long as I could, and then I would get some lunch. I didn't have to spend the entire time waiting for Michael in that depressing room.

As I signed in at the nurse's station, I happened to see a desk calendar. September 28. A little more than three months separated Mom from a doctor-approved “option.” The reminder terrified me, but it also forced me to walk down the wide hallway and push open the door to her room.

Once inside, I avoided looking directly at her bed. I went to the window first and gazed at the parking lot to look for
Michael's black sedan. Maybe this was a test, and he was sitting outside, waiting behind the wheel. But the parking lot was half-empty, and most of the cars were silver or blue or white.

To my right, monitors beeped and the ventilator whooshed, steady as waves. I turned away from the window, grabbed a nearby chair, and pulled it over to the bed, my eyes locked on the floor. “Hey, Mom.”

This was so stupid. I had no idea what to say, and even if I had, it wasn't as if she could hear me. My words were wasted, they didn't matter. But if they didn't matter, I could say anything. I could read the newspaper aloud or tell jokes or recite nursery rhymes. Michael seemed to think that simply the sound of my voice could be helpful. And since I wasn't making wildly successful strides toward contacting help from the other side, maybe I needed to settle for this. For now.

Because I wasn't done with my late-night experiment.

“So I know it's been a while,” I said, letting my finger trail across her nightstand. “I started school and things have been busy.”

My excuse sounded phony, even to me. “I haven't wanted to come. Everyone said I should, but…” I raised my head so that I was finally looking at my mother.

And then I gasped.

Shoving back my chair, I got up and stumbled backward until I was pressing against the wall. I mashed my hand repeatedly on the call button.

“You only have to hit the button once,” a tired voice said from the wall.

“Please, I need help! Now!”

Footsteps rushed down the hallway. The two nurses who burst through the door found me standing by the window,
shaking. I pointed a finger at my mom. “Her eyes! Her eyes are open!”

One nurse came over to me while the other took Mom's vitals. “I looked over and she was staring at me,” I said. “She was just
staring.
”

“It's okay, hon. Everything's fine.” The nurse straightened the toppled chair and led me to it. “Have a seat. You've never seen this before?”

Satisfied with the vitals, the other nurse left the room. Mom's eyes were closed now.

“She was staring at me,” I mumbled. The nurse handed me a cup of water. I held it but didn't drink.

“This happens sometimes,” she explained. “It's a reflexive movement, and it's perfectly normal.”

But Mom's eyes hadn't looked normal. She had the gaze of a corpse, hard and unseeing.

“I'm going to send in a doctor to talk to you, okay? He can explain it.” She patted my shoulder. “Don't be scared. She's still your mom.”

The nurse left, her shoes barely making a sound against the floor. I could hear her talking to the other nurse outside the door, but their conversation was muffled, their tone one of concern.

I was afraid to look at Mom again. I wrapped my arms around myself and concentrated on the beeping monitor. I tried to match my breathing to it, which actually helped calm me down a little. I tried to be logical. Reflexive movement meant progress. It meant that she was starting the long journey out of her coma. I felt a flicker of optimism. Maybe she would be coming home soon, after all.

The doctor arrived a few minutes later. I met him with a cautious smile and told him how Mom had opened her eyes. “So that's good, right?” I prodded. “She's getting better?”

He pried open Mom's eyes and pointed a small flashlight in them. Then he glanced at his chart, jotted something down, and turned to me. “You're Charlotte?”

“Yes, I'm her daughter.”

He nodded. “Has your father explained your mother's condition to you?”

“She's in a coma.”

“Yes, but it's more than that. She has progressed to a vegetative state.”

I perked up at hearing the word
progressed.
“So she's getting better?”

“Not exactly.”

The doctor barely looked at me as he recited information as if he was reading from a medical textbook. Normally, he said, a person in a coma will come out of it after two to four weeks. After that point, the patient was considered to be in a persistent vegetative state. Sleep cycles, eye movement and even sneezing were not uncommon, but it didn't mean that Mom was improving.

“I wish I had better news for you,” the doctor said. “The truth is, it's very rare for someone to recover completely after a head trauma like this. That doesn't mean you can't stay optimistic, but you need to know that even if she regains brain function, her recovery would be very slow.” He closed his chart. “I'm sorry.”

When Michael arrived more than an hour later, I was still sitting in the chair, staring at Mom's pale face.

“You all right?”

I wasn't. The doctor's monotone declaration of Mom's prognosis had shoved me deeper into a confused abyss. Mom was basically dead, Noah was lying to me, and the Watcher had not been permanently extracted from my life. My prob
lems were mountains. Huge, Everest-sized mountains. And I doubted that Michael could truly help, even if he was equipped with super-Protector powers. Healing skills and the ability to defuse anger could only do so much. I needed a bad ass guy covered with armor and wielding a sharp ax. Lean Michael, with his corduroy pants and concerned expression, was not going to give me the backup I required.

“She's in a vegetative state,” I told Michael. He crouched down next to my chair, but I didn't look at him. “She's never getting better. She's already dead.”

“That's not true.” He took my hand and squeezed it. “Head injuries can be unpredictable. The doctors don't know everything.”

“And
you
don't know everything!” I yanked my hand from his grasp. “Seriously. What have you done to help her? Your job is to protect me and my mom, but you're always late and you haven't done a damn thing for either of us! So maybe we need a new Protector.” I shook my head. “No offense, because I think you're a nice guy, but this whole thing was a colossal mistake.”

I buried my head in my hands. I knew my words had stung, but I didn't care. My Protector was an utter failure. All he'd done since his mysterious arrival was confuse me. He had failed at the one job he had supposedly been sent to do, which was to keep both me and my mom safe.

“Are you done wallowing?”

The harshness of Michael's words made me look up. “Excuse me?”

“I kept hearing from Beth about how strong you were, how resilient.” He stood next to Mom's bed. “You subdued the Watcher. You returned to your house after everything that happened. You kept going.” He gave a short, bitter laugh. “And now look at you, curled up in a chair and whining.”

“I'm not—”

“Yes, you are.” He cut me off. “This is a fight we can win. This is a fight that matters, and you're accepting defeat. After everything you've been through, how could you possibly give up so completely? How could you be so weak?”

If he wanted to piss me off, he had succeeded. I stood up. “Weak? How dare you?” I felt my anger burn inside my chest. I wanted to shove him, show him the strength of my rage. “You think you know me? You have no idea how hard I've tried to help her.” Tears stung my eyes. “No. Idea.”

“Then show me, Charlotte. Show me this determination I've heard about. Show me what you can do.”

It was a strange command, but it was also a challenge to prove myself. And while part of me bristled at the idea that I had to prove myself to anyone I didn't love, another part wanted to shut him up. Maybe I'd slipped into whiner territory, but that was normal behavior after everything I'd been through. Wasn't I allowed to have a few measly moments of weakness? Why did everyone think that I had to demonstrate superhuman strength and maturity? It wasn't fair.

“Well?” Michael's eyes bored into mine. “You ready to fight for your mom? Or do you want to go back to sitting in your chair and feeling sorry for yourself?”

I stared at Mom. Her eyes were closed, her hands folded neatly on her chest. A white blanket had been tucked around her. It was as if she was lying on a morgue table.

But she was alive.

She was alive, and if she was alive, there was hope. Not much, according to the doctor, but at the moment, a shred of hope weighed more than a lifetime of certainty.

I kept staring at her, but I addressed Michael. “I'm not giving up,” I said, and for the first time in a long while, I heard
something in my voice, something I thought I'd lost. I held Mom's wrist.

“I'm here.” I kissed her limp hand. “And I will not fail you.”