Dark Secrets (102 page)

“
No
change?”

My thoughts halted at
the sound of another voice.

“
Hello?” I
called.

“
No. Doc says her
heart’s not coping,” Mike said.

“
Time will tell.” The
other voice sounded void of all emotion.

“
Where are you
going?” Mike’s tone peaked with incredulity.

“
She needs rest, and
my being here is....” There was a long pause.
“Pointless.”

Only a sigh followed
that, leaving me by myself again, confined in a space made for
those not living. I shut my eyes tight and took slow, deep breaths
through my mouth, tasting the raw, almost freshly-cut pine against
my lips. I tried to imagine pretty things—butterflies, the sun—not
the crawly and possibly undead creatures that might be buried
beneath me. I would run out of air soon if I didn’t calm
down.

And strangely, as my
belly lifted and fell with each breath, the air trembling out of my
tight lungs, so too did the panic.

I looked around the
dark box for what felt like the first time, and instead of pitch
black staring back at me, I could make out the ridges in the panels
and the oddly-angled nail sticking out beside my
eyebrow.

They’d put me in a
box—not a coffin—just a pine box; laid me down, closed me in and
nailed it shut. But I would find a way out of here. Come Hell or
high water. This would not be my death, and if it was already my
death, I’d be damned if I’d let it be my eternity.

* *
*

“
How is she?” The
voice echoed through my endless night, resonating from somewhere
behind me.

My eyes shot open and
space, cool and airy, greeted me. I brushed my arms, feeling as
though there’d be dirt there. But I was clean. I couldn’t remember
where I’d been or why I’d be so dirty, but I
felt
dirty and starved for
air.

“
No change,” said a
woman suddenly.

“
Pardon?” I said,
looking up, searching the empty room for a crack of light to mark
my position.

“
Can she hear us?” a
man said.

“
Who?” I
asked.

“
Her monitor changes
when I speak. See?” he said, and I got the sense then that they
weren’t talking to me.

“
It’s just static.”
As soon as that man spoke, I knew it was Mike. The other one
sounded almost too smooth to be Mike; liquid, if that was the right
word.

“
It’s not static.
Look, she can hear me.”

“
You
wish.”

“
Mike,” the woman
whispered. “Be nice.”

“
Fine,” Mike said in
a tone that indicated a set of folded arms to go with it. “From
what I know, the doc says she can.”

“
Ara? My love.” Mr
Smooth sounded closer than before. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
“Please? Please come back to me?”

“
Excuse me. Are…I’m
sorry, are you talking to me?” I called.

He didn’t
answer.

I blinked a few
times, noticing only as I looked down at my feet, that my feet
weren’t actually there. I held my arm out and ran my fingers over
it, feeling the soft skin, but couldn’t see it. There was nothing
there to identify me; no nails, no skin colour, no age spots or
bracelets. Not even a bed or a surface to show what kind of room
this was; maybe it was a prison, a hospital, a bedroom—a padded
cell, perhaps even a ballroom with no people. Could even be the
White House, for all I knew. But that word,
Ara
, rang a bell somehow.

I dropped my arms to
my sides, quickly yanking my hand back when it touched something
cold. It stung, like dry ice, sticking to me even as I shook my
fingers.

“
Did you see that?”
the stranger said. “I think…I think she just squeezed my
hand!”

“
It was probably just
a flinch. She does that from time to time.” I heard the silky pages
of a magazine turn.

“
Maybe,” the smooth
voice said, dejected. “It just seemed almost like she was shaking
me off. Do you think she…?”

“
She what? Knows
you’re here? Hates you?” The pages flicked again, and it sounded as
though a metal-legged chair scraped along vinyl. “Chances are, she
was shaking you off. Maybe you should stop touching
her.”

I frowned, looking
down at where my fingers were supposed to be. And, like a puppet
master, I focused on them, closed them tightly and squeezed the
nothing, letting go when that voice laughed, cheering with praise
again.

“
She did. She
squeezed my hand. Look.”

“
What do you mean
she squeezed your
hand
?” Mike’s voice came from closer than
before and, though it was still dark, I felt space around me—felt
him near me. The echoing mist of eternity flowed out through the
cracks in my subconscious, leaving me solid, heavy. Really heavy. I
didn’t remember being this heavy. I didn’t remember having laid
down, on my back, but when I tried to get up, my chest stayed
stuck, glued to my spine against this flat
surface.

“
Ara.” The smooth
stranger interrupted my moment of confusion.

“
What is it?” I
called, irritated.

“
Ara,” he said again,
as if I hadn’t answered him.

And now I was getting
cranky. It had been God knows how long since I’d eaten, felt the
sun, slept, or even seen my own toes, and now this person was
talking at me and not answering. I just wanted to get out of
here—wherever here was. I just wanted to go home to Mike and lay in
his arms. I was tired of the dark—of the black. I couldn't even
remember where I'd been all this time or even
why
Mike was important to
me.

“
She’s not in there, man,” Mike said. “And if she was, she’s
not gonna come to the surface for
you
.”

“
Oh, I see, so you think she’ll wake suddenly to your
soft,
whispering confessions
of love, do you?” Mr Smooth said sarcastically.
“Do you have any idea what she and I—”

“
Stop it. Both of
you,” a woman said. “It’s three o’clock. Take yourselves home and
get some sleep.”

“
Fine,” Mike
said.

“
Fine,” the other man
said, and I heard his breath, felt it suddenly close to my face,
though there was no one in this room. I held my own breath,
scrunching my eyes. “Ara?”

But before I had a
chance to answer him again, the surface quaked suddenly under me,
my legs tilting through the earth, angling my entire body away from
existence. I reached out, panicked, grabbing at imaginary branches
as my head followed my feet, sliding downward. There was no wind
and no trees for which to show my descent, but I felt it—felt the
earth rising up under me.

I tensed all over,
ready to hit the surface, but nothing ever came—only the emptiness
of my eternal, hollow Hell.

I didn’t bother to cry
this time as the darkness swallowed me, and hope had been lost so
long that I’d never truly allowed it back in. I simply existed. In
the dark. Alone. My body alive out there somewhere, an empty vessel
in their living world, while my soul was slowly dying beneath
it.

* *
*

“
I don’t know. She’s
struggling to breathe.”

I frowned, clearly
having woken to the middle of a conversation.

“
I know,” Mike said.
“They’re gonna put her on a breathing thing.”

The smooth voice
sighed. “I don’t want that for her—she’s been through
enough.”

“
I
know, mate, but it’s for the best.” Mike’s warm energy emanated
from his voice somewhere near. I wished I could feel him,
like,
actually
touch him. “I can’t lose her. I’d rather see her with a tube
down her throat than in a coffin.”

“
Don’t you think
that’s a little selfish—prolonging her life merely to save your own
grief?”

“
Only as selfish as
to wish she’d die so you don’t have to wonder where she is, what
she’s doing, for the rest of your life,” Mike spat.

“
You know nothing
about what I wish for this girl,” his smooth voice cracked like a
volcano erupting. I could hear the rumble of anger raging too close
to the threshold of release. “If I could heal her, I would, but you
don’t know what she may be suffering in this sleep, Mike. For all
we know she’s—”

“
She’s unconscious.
She suffers nothing.”

All was silent until
the smooth voice said flatly, “You don’t know that.”

“
Look—” Mike said; I
could imagine him rubbing his face roughly in the pause that
followed. “We’re getting off track. Right now, what’s best for her
is—”

“
For us to let her
go. Stop sticking needles and tubes in her, trying to make her body
live a little longer. She’s gone.” I felt something touch my head.
“Her body is the only thing left of her.”

“
She might still
recover,” Mike offered.

“
Recover?” his voice pitched high. “Look at her—does
she
look
like
she’s going to recover?”

“
Stop yelling.”
Mike’s tone of reason made my heart soar with desire to be on the
receiving end of one of his lectures. “If they hear you, they’ll
make you leave. One at a time in here, remember?”

There was a short
pause. “It’s five in the morning. Technically, it’s my
shift.”

“
Don’t start this
again, Da—”

“
Look, I’m not saying
you have to go, just—” Suddenly, my hand returned—just my hand,
with a sharp, cold sensation travelling right through each bone in
my fingers. I tensed. It hurt, like holding onto ice or snow a
little too long. “Just don’t talk hope, okay? I can’t bear to even
hope.”

The silence lingered a
while, and all I could focus on was the deep burn of cold in my
bones. I wanted to push it away—to make it stop. It branched out
from my wrist, slowly trembling up my arm and along my collarbones.
I tried to hold my breath, but my lungs weren’t there, a hollow
void occupying my chest instead.

“
Maybe you should
take a walk. You look…stressed,” Mike said.

“
You’re right. I’ve
been here too long. I’m losing my mind, I—” The cold in my hand
suddenly came away, replaced by a warm touch that melted the chill
left behind. I knew it was Mike. I remembered touching him once,
but not the reason why. I wondered if we were friends or if he
loved me maybe. Whatever the reason we’d touched, I liked it. I
wanted him to know I could feel him; wanted him to know that,
despite the fact that I couldn’t talk to him, I was still here.
Somehow, I was still here.

“
Is she…smiling?”
Mike’s voice peaked on the edge of excited curiosity.

“
It means nothing,”
said the smooth voice. “It’s just a muscle reflex.”

“
No,” Mike said. “No,
she is smiling.”

The smooth voice
sighed.

“
I’m here, baby girl.
I’m here,” Mike whispered in my ear, the warmth of his breath
brushing against my hair. It was pleasant—not at all like the cold
that had brought me back into reality.

But though the cold
was gone, I stayed, in my mind—aware, in
this
consciousness—surrounded by the
black pit of nothing. I could even smell him now—Mike; he smelled
like…a feeling. Like…home.

I wanted to go home.
Wanted to be like Dorothy and find my magic slippers—wish my way
back. I shut my eyes tight and imagined them. Red ones, like the
movie, not silver, like the book, and clicked my heels together,
repeating the words Dorothy used as a spell to get home.

“
What’s she saying?”
asked the smooth stranger.

“
Something about...?” Mike paused, then repeated my
words.
My
words.
They could hear me.

“
Do you think she’s
dreaming?” Mike asked.

“
Perhaps. Or trying
to find her way home,” Mr Smooth suggested.

I tried harder,
cupping imaginary hands tightly together, praying he’d hear me
again.

“
Look at her skin.” A
hand fell on my brow, a warm one. “She’s pale. Do you think she’s
turni—?”

Silence.

An empty chill stole
the hum of the world and a flat, dense darkness consumed my hope,
like a vacuum sucking a hole in my belly.

I was alive, but I was
never getting out of here.

* * *

An alarm clock
somewhere out there woke me. I wanted to reach over and hit snooze,
shut it up, but I was so tired my body wouldn’t wake enough to
move. I imagined doing it so many times that when the beep lifted
me to the surface of my dreams again, I actually thought I’d
already turned it off. It was annoying, but, somewhere in the back
of my mind, as I tried to drift back to sleep, my brain interpreted
it as rhythm—reminding me of something I’d forgotten.