Moonglow (28 page)

“Nice ink,” I remark.

My comment comes without warning, so Arla almost drops her wig before securing it on her head. It doesn't seem to startle Nadine though, nor does it compel her to hide the truth. Just the opposite, as she offers more information than I thought she would.

“Oh yeah, it's Orion's constellation,” she says, pausing a moment to look at the black stars on her skin before pulling up her pants. “I told you how I love astronomy.”

“Let me see,” Arla insists as she turns Nadine's body around in case she suddenly gets shy about being exposed. “When did you get it?”

“Defied my mother's orders and got it for my fifteenth birthday,” she reveals.

Honestly surprised, I reply, “I would never have pegged you for rebel tattoo girl.”

When Nadine laughs, her entire face softens; the silver mist is nowhere to be found.

“Connecticut girls aren't all about pearls and sensible shoes, you know,” she says. “Connecticut boys, however, are a bit more predictable.”

Instinctively, I know she's talking about her brother. “Napoleon?” I ask.

“A few weeks later he copied me and got the same one.”

“Why would he do that?” I ask, hoping my voice sounds more casual than I think it does.

“C'mon, Dom,” Nadine replies. “You haven't figured it out yet?”

“Figured what out?” Arla asks for me since my jaw just kind of dropped.

“That brothers are jerks,” Nadine says, slamming her locker shut.

Relief fills my body, and uncontrollably I get a fit of gigglaughs. I haven't laughed like this in a while, so even though it's really not appropriate, it makes me feel good. So does Nadine's comment.

“And, um, thanks for coming to my aid when you did,” Nadine whispers. “That was really nice of you.”

I think of the time Nadine wiped vomit spittle from my hair. “Just payback.”

This time we both laugh. Arla watches us a bit confused, but I'm sure she's as relieved as I am that our spy mission has come to an end. We may not have uncovered any earth-shattering information, but at least we can confirm the tattoo Jess described in her diary is real. Maybe this means the whole thing is filled with facts and not fantasies. Not sure about that just yet, but at least we didn't get caught.

“You dropped this, Nay,” Arla says, handing Nadine a card that must have fallen out of her backpack.

“Oh thanks.”

Before she shoves it back into her bag, I see the handwriting on the pink envelope.

“When's your mother's birthday?” I ask.

Smiling, Nadine takes a moment to make sure the card is tucked in between two textbooks, so it won't get crumpled, before answering. “This weekend.”

“Oh so close,” I reply. “My mother's birthday is today.”

 

The entire time we sang “Happy Birthday” to my mother, I couldn't get over the fact that not only do she and Nadine's mother look alike, but their birthdays are a few days apart. Something else they have in common, I guess. We're just about to eat the cupcakes we brought when one of the nurses comes in carrying a bouquet of flowers.

“These were just delivered,” she announces.

When she's confronted by three quizzical looks, she immediately replies, “Sorry, they came without a card.”

“Weird-looking flowers,” Barnaby remarks.

And he's right. A round red vase holds a spray of about six white flowers in various sizes, but each one in the same shape. They look like pinwheels or starfish with five pointy petals that are bent so it looks like they'll spin in a counterclockwise motion. Weird, but pretty.

“What kind are they?” Barnaby asks. I don't know if he's suddenly interested in horticulture or is trying to flirt with the nurse.

“Morning glories I think,” she answers.

A strange sensation comes over me; my father's bemused expression tells me he's feeling the same thing. These flowers smell very much like my mother's favorite perfume, Guerlinade; not as powdery, but the unmistakable scent of fresh lilacs has overtaken the room.

Just as the nurse is about to leave, she stops at the door to say something that extinguishes the happy scent, turning it into a scent that rivals The Dandruff King's natural aroma.

“They have another name too,” she says. “Moonflowers.”

To Barnaby this new name is a cool piece of info; to my father and me, it's a warning. We're convinced these flowers were not sent by a loved one or someone whose only motive was to share birthday wishes; whoever sent these flowers wants us to know they know our secret and they know about our curse. Or are we just being paranoid?

“They don't look like the moon,” Barnaby remarks. “Look more like stars.”

The only thing my father and I get a chance to do is exchange worried, anxious looks across my mother's bed before the static from his police walkie-talkie fills the room, the sound immediately followed by Louis's voice.

“Sheriff,” Louis barks. “We found the Wizard of Oz.”

Despite Louis's cryptic remark, my father remains silent.

“Mason, you hear me?”

Turning his back on the flowers, my father can finally speak. “Yes. Where'd you find him?”

“Ex-wife's house over in Beatrice,” Louis replies. “Gonna need you to come down and talk to the locals.”

“On my way,” he says, clipping the walkie-talkie back onto his belt. “Let's go.”

“But we just got here,” Barnaby whines, inhaling the moonflower fragrance deeply.

Something in the sound of my brother's voice affects my father as if it's another warning. He's been so preoccupied with helping and protecting me that he's been ignoring his son.

“I'm sorry, Barn, but duty calls,” he says.

“Did the Wizard of Oz beat up a munchkin?” Barnaby snaps.

When my father laughs, his face lights up with joy and sadly I feel as if I haven't seen him happy in forever. Funny, how it's sometimes so much easier to embrace the dark than it is the light. He keeps smiling as he speaks; he doesn't want to lose hold of the feeling either.

“It's shorthand, Barn,” he explains. “Oz means an ounce of drugs, and the Wizard of Oz is a drug dealer.”

“Does that mean Glinda is a happy hooker?” Barnaby asks.

This time we both howl at my brother's risqué comment. Nadine is half-right; brothers can definitely be jerks, but they can also be inappropriately amusing as well.

“No, Barn,” my father says in between laughs. “We finally caught him, but since he's been found across state lines I have to go in and make sure he doesn't get away on a technicality.”

Makes total sense that we have to cut our birthday celebration short, but it still stinks. Until I figure out how to save the party.

“Dad, you go ahead, and I'll ask Caleb to pick us up.”

My father doesn't even have to ask if I'm sure that Caleb will come; he knows he can count on my boyfriend. Just like I can count on my father to do the same thing he does every time he leaves my mother's room: He holds her hand, whispers something in her ear, and kisses her softly on the lips. Neither Barnaby nor I have ever asked him what he tells her; that's a secret between them.

An hour later I can tell that Barnaby's had enough and is ready to go. I'm surprised that he's lasted this long or that he even wanted to stay in the first place, but perhaps as he's getting older he realizes that our mother's coma wasn't her fault. He can't blame her for leaving us; he can only be thankful she's still above ground. However, he still hasn't found the will or the courage to hold her hand and kiss her good-bye. In fact, when I'm finished and ready to leave, Barnaby's already gone.

“Barnaby?”

My voice echoes off the walls of The Hallway to Nowhere, but isn't greeted by my brother's reply. All endearing thoughts of my younger sibling are lost as I walk down the harshly lit corridor in search of him so we can finally leave, and I'm reminded how much of a pest he really can be. And then I'm reminded of something much more important.

“There's a full moon tomorrow night.”

The woman standing in front of me, the woman who just turned the corner at the same time I reached the end of the hallway, is old. She's over sixty at least and could be older, with long, straight black hair and pale, unnaturally smooth skin. Her thin lips are pulled back into a wicked smile, but the rest of her face is blank, especially her eyes. Staring at me are two black circles that would look like marbles if they were reflecting any light.

She's wearing a thin hospital gown that hangs on her skinny body, and her hair falls down just above her waist. There's a strong odor coming from her that I can't place; it's more familiar than offensive. When she turns to leave I can see that her black hair covers her entire back like a permanent scar. I want to make her stay, but I'm frozen; I can't move my body or find the words to keep her from leaving. Watching her walk away, I see that the bones in her legs are threatening to jut out from underneath the sheer covering of skin. I can't tell if she looks more like a zombie or a skeleton. To Barnaby she's obviously a friend.

“Isn't she a riot?” Barnaby asks.

I turn around to find him munching on a chocolate bar that he must have just bought at one of the vending machines in the lobby.

“You know her?” I ask.

“Sure,” Barnaby replies. “That was Luba.”

Chapter 21

“No!” I scream, turning around to stare at the emptiness that once held Luba's image.

“What's the prob, Dom?” Barnaby asks. “Luba's harmless.”

I look around the corner, and no one's there. This is impossible. The woman whose husband my father killed, the woman who put a curse on my head, is the same woman my brother knows? And the same woman my brother is calling harmless?

It feels as if the walls and the ceiling and the floor are starting to inch closer to me, and with every inch they take away a little more oxygen. My senses begin to contract; my vision, hearing, sense of smell, all diminish, and it feels very similar to how the transformation begins. I feel as if I'm starting to lose control of my body.

I start to sway, and I could swear that I'm almost horizontal, but I don't fall. Only because Barnaby grabs my shoulder.

“What's wrong with you?”

The fear in my brother's voice snaps me back to reality. I can't faint, not here, not in front of him, and not when I'm so close. So close to how it all started.

“Barnaby,” I say in a firm, calm voice. “I want to meet your friend.”

Guarded, but clearly pleased to play intermediary and make an introduction, Barnaby agrees. “Follow me,” Barnaby says, shoving the last bit of chocolate into his mouth. “Luba's kind of like the grandmother we never had.”

If I wasn't concentrating so hard on staying conscious, his comment would definitely have sent me reeling to the floor. Grandmother?! Maybe to Satan, but not the Robineau kids.

Barnaby makes a right at the end of the hall. I fall in step behind him and let my fingers graze along the wall, touching the edge of the black stripe, to make sure I stay upright. If Barnaby suspects my request is anything but aboveboard you would never know it by watching him walk; he's practically bouncing down the hall. It could be the sugar from the chocolate bar he just devoured invading his bloodstream, or he's just proud because he thinks I want to meet this so-called friend of his.

We turn another corner, a left this time, and there are so many questions wreaking havoc inside my head, there's no way I can keep them to myself.

“So, Barn, how do you know this woman?” I ask.

“Class project,” he replies.

Even if I were in full control of my faculties, I still wouldn't understand what he was talking about. “What do you mean?”

“Sociology.”

As if that's supposed to clarify things. “Could you maybe try to answer in a complete sentence?”

A heavy sigh is finally followed by an explanation. “Once a month we have to come here to volunteer and help out. One student gets paired up with one patient,” he explains. “And I lucked out and got Luba.”

Okay, so that connects a few of the dots. “So she's a patient here?”

Stopping in his tracks, Barnaby turns to face me. “Duh. I just told you it's a student/patient project; if I'm the student, she must be the patient.”

I fight the urge to shove my fist into Barnaby's mouth, twist upward, and pull out every bit of information stored in his brain. What does he know about this woman? Has he ever told her anything about our family? Is she filling his imagination with stories about curses and werewolves and boys who accidentally shoot men in the woods? I force myself to smile and keep all of my questions about Luba to myself until I can ask the witch in person.

“Well, then let's go see your classmate,” I say instead.

As we continue down the hallway, it finally dawns on Barnaby that this is a very odd thing for a brother and sister to do. “Why are you so interested in Luba anyway?”

Thinking fast, I use what is quickly becoming my go-to technique for when I'm in a jam: I mix the truth with a lie.

“I'm worried about her,” I answer. “She looked kind of frail. I just want to make sure she got back to her room okay.”

Laughter fills the hall. It isn't mine so it must be Barnaby's. “Oh, sis-dude, Luba may look frail, but trust me, she's anything but.”

“What do you mean?”

Finally, Barnaby stops at Room 48. He places his hand on the doorknob, but instead of giving the door a push so we can enter, he turns to me.

“Luba always says, ‘Only a fool judges a person's spirit by its surface.' ”

I smile even though my mind is consumed with ugly thoughts. Of course Luba would say that; it's because she's living proof that evil can exist in the unlikeliest of places. First my father, then me; I can't believe that she's now gotten to Barnaby too. Well, her influence ends right now. I don't know how, but I've got to put an end to this relationship before she poisons his mind any further.

“It's an old Native American Indian proverb,” Barnaby explains.

His words bombard my ears; I hear them, but I can't comprehend what they mean. All I can focus on is the door. It's slightly ajar, and the open sliver of space is illuminated by the same fluorescent lighting that brightens the entire facility. Just on the other side of this door is the woman who ruined my father's life, the woman who put a curse on my soul, and the woman responsible for my best friend's death. Why isn't Barnaby going inside? Why is he looking at me and still talking?

“She's got this other saying too. It's hilarious; it's about . . .”

“Why don't we go inside and let Luba tell us herself,” I say, interrupting him. “Give her a chance to spread some of that ancient wisdom.”

Yes, I must learn to trust my gut instincts more often; this is precisely what Barnaby needed to hear to motivate him into action.

“Hey, Luba,” Barnaby chirps, pushing the door open. “I brought company.”

But two people standing in an empty room can hardly be called company.

“Are you sure this is her room?” I ask. I'm back in control of my body, and I'm trying to manipulate my new heightened senses to see if I can pick up a clue as to Luba's whereabouts. Honestly, I have no idea what I'm doing, but it feels better than just standing still.

“Of course I'm sure it's her room,” Barnaby snaps, sounding like his old self. “What do you think I am, a 'tard?”

If I want my brother to think that everything is status quo and I'm not freaking out because Luba is still free, I have to sound like my old self too. “Maybe Luba got tired of being your patient and she's in hiding.”

“Fat chance,” Barnaby replies. “She's the one who chose me in the first place. She told the orderlies that she overheard me talking and liked my sense of humor.”

Thankfully, Barnaby walks back out into the hallway, so he doesn't see the look of dread grip my face. It wasn't coincidence that Luba connected with another part of my family; it was intentional. But was it another plot to try and destroy us or was she just trying to prove to us that she's the one in control? There's no way that I can find anything else out tonight without giving my own intentions away to Barnaby. Or is there?

As expected the Sequinox is waiting for us outside with Caleb smiling behind the wheel. Just as we're approaching I toss my bag behind a bush. “Oh I forgot my bag in my mom's room,” I pout.

A quick glance at Barnaby then back at Caleb, and my boyfriend figures out I'm lying.

“Want me to drive Barney home and come back for you?” Caleb asks.

“Would you mind?” I say as if that was the sweetest and most unexpected thing I ever heard.

“Not at all,” Caleb replies, perfectly on cue. “Okay with you, Barney?”

“It is if you stop calling me Barney.”

“Sure thing,” Caleb says as he pulls away. “Barney.”

Running back, I retrieve my bag and have to consciously slow down so I can appear natural when I reach Essie's desk. Not that she'd even notice; her face is once again buried in some dumb celebrity magazine that doesn't use sentences longer than five words.

“Hi, Essie, I forgot to give you back our passes,” I say, pulling out the gray index cards from my bag and handing them to her.

Without looking up at me she takes the cards, looks at their numbers, and places them in the appropriate section of the metal card-holder box on her desk. Then it's back to reading an article about some rich person's divorce or a reality TV star's most recent botched plastic surgery. I know Essie isn't going to be happy, but I have to interrupt her anyway.

“So my brother tells me he's friends with some woman named Luba.”

No response.

“Turns out I think she's got a little crush on him, because she's always giving him gifts.”

No response.

“I don't think my father will consider it appropriate for one of your patients to be giving an underage visitor some of her medication in return for keeping her company.”

Finally, Essie places her magazine on the desk and looks up at me. She's trying to act disinterested, but it's as if one of her tawdry articles just came true in front of her eyes. She's rabidly engrossed.

“Luba's done what?” she asks, pulling her glasses down to the tip of her nose so she can see me clearly.

“Obviously the old lady's confused, and she thinks Lexapro and Prozac are proper thank-you gifts for a minor.”

Essie pushes her glasses back into their proper position and then turns her head from side to side to make sure no one is in the vicinity to overhear. “Between you, me, and the lamppost outside, that woman has been trouble since the first day she got here,” she spills. “I told Mr. Lundgarden. He's the director here, very nice, but preoccupied with troubles at home. His daughters . . . Well, don't get me started on those two hussies; they are a father's nightmare
if you know what I mean.
And his wife! She spends more money on clothes and Botox than all the women in my magazines combined. I told him that he should get rid of her—Luba, not his wife; it's not my place to interfere in anyone's personal business, but work, that's a different story. Luba's no good; that's what I told him. But what does he do instead? He lets her come and go as she pleases.”

It's as if Essie has been saving up her words all these years; she's said more to me just now than she has in the decade I've been coming here. Maybe all it took for her to respond with more than a grunt was for me to engage her in a conversation that made her feel like a person instead of an employee. Whatever the reason, for once Essie's unprofessionalism proves to be beneficial. She's giving me more information on Luba than if I tried to steal the woman's personal records.

“What do you mean ‘come and go as she pleases'?” I ask. “Barnaby said she's a patient.”

“Honey, she's a patient like I'm a registered Republican,” Essie says, laughing at her own remark. “And if you spread a word of that, I'll swear on a stack of Bibles that you're a lying Democrat.”

Typically political humor escapes me, just not something I care about, but I'm guessing that Essie is trying to tell me that she's a closet-Democrat and that Luba isn't a real patient.

“So what do you mean? She just shows up and plants herself in an empty room when she feels like it?”

“Not just any room,” Essie says. “Always the same, Room 48.”

So they keep one room vacant just for the psycho? “But isn't that illegal?” I ask. “I know the red tape we had to go through in order to get my mother moved into a better room. How can a room be kept vacant for someone who may or may not show up?”

“That, my girl, is the $64,000 question.”

No, the real question is how much power does Luba really have? “Is Luba holding something over on Lundgarden?”

“You didn't hear that from me,” Essie replies. “But it sounds to me like somebody just won a game of Bingo.”

It's getting increasingly difficult to follow Essie's turns of phrase, but I think this time she means that I'm right. But how is that possible? This is a state-run facility; don't they have checks and balances in place to avoid corruption and scams like this? Could Lundgarden be a pawn in Luba's game? Or does he just not care that an extra crazy woman is wandering the halls? Well, if Luba doesn't live here full-time, she's got to have a place where she goes home to. And if that's true, there's also the chance that she might have some family.

“Do you have a home address for her?”

“Now, Dominy Robineau, you know that information is classified,” Essie says, acting as if she's insulted and sounding, for some reason, as if she's Southern.

“Now, Essie . . . whatever your last name is,” I reply. “I thought we were friends. Are you seriously going to act all professional and by-the-book after we've known each other all these years?”

Then I do something I am not at all proud of. I pull out the almost-dead mother card.

“Weren't you on duty the very first day my mother was brought here?”

I can see that specific memory flash right before Essie's eyes.

“Yes,” she says slowly.

“And what did you say to me on that day when I was only six years old?”

Mortified, she replies, “That if you ever needed anything, you just ask your Aunt Essie.”

I completely disregard the fact that since that time Aunt Essie has morphed into an apathetic stepmother, but it seems that Essie is feeling a bit sentimental. She looks like she's about to cry, and I almost feel bad, but not bad enough to back down.

“Well, the time has come, Aunt Essie, and I'm asking,” I say. “How can I find out where Luba lives?”

Leaning forward, Essie gets so close to me I can see the vertical lines all across her lips. They seem to bend and elongate like a picket fence in a windstorm when she speaks. “I don't have an address, but her next of kin is listed as her son,” she says. “Thorne St. Croix.”