Something Wicked (25 page)

“Who does?”

Rand straightened up. “My great-uncle, I guess. He's the shaman.”

“Shaman?” she repeated dubiously.

“Well, not officially.” He shrugged. “You know.”

“No. I don't know,” Ravinia snapped back.

“Your family's got the same thing. The ones that are more spiritual and guide the tribe.”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” Ravinia muttered.

“You asked,” he pointed out with a shrug.

“I'm going to go find my aunt,” she said and then left him there. “More spiritual,” she repeated with disdain. Maybe his family was. Hers was just messed up.

 

 

Savannah felt jazzed inside. Like she'd been hit with an electric current. Anxiety. Nerves. Underlaid with pain and exhaustion and wonder. It was like living inside someone else's body.

A baby. Her baby.

“My sister's in surgery here,” she told the EMT who'd wheeled her into the curtained room. “Kristina St. Cloud.” She glanced past him to where Hale was giving an account of the birth to a resident as a nurse strode toward them determinedly.

“The baby?” she said to Savannah. Her smile must have been meant to be reassuring, but there was tension, too.

Loath to hand him over, Savannah nevertheless did so without a complaint. “You're going to make sure he's all right?” she said, hearing her own tension.

“I sure am.”

“He's Baby St. Cloud,” Savannah told her. “I think they're going to call him Declan.”

“They?”

“The parents. I'm the surrogate.”

The nurse nodded. “I'll make sure he's tagged,” she said.

As soon as Declan was out of her arms, he started crying, and Savvy started shaking uncontrollably. They swaddled him up quickly and whisked him into an examining room, and then another nurse—her name tag read Baransky—wrapped Savvy in new blankets and said something about taking her to a room . . . as soon as one was free. There were numerous victims of the storm at the hospital, and there was a shortage of space. Savvy looked around, but Hale was nowhere to be seen.

“Excuse me,” she said through chattering lips. “My sister had surgery. Kristina St. Cloud? Can someone get me some information?”

“I'll check it out as soon as we get you to your room,” Baransky said.

“Where's Declan?” Savvy asked.

“The doctor's checking him out. He looks fine. Come on. I've got a place for you. . . .”

She was taken to a room with a shower that had a stool inside. Savvy didn't wait for an invitation. She dropped the jackets and stripped off her blouse and bra with numb fingers, turned on the shower spray, then collapsed onto the stool and let the hot water pour down on her. She hadn't even taken off her socks and was trying to do just that when a different nurse appeared and helped her finish the task. She thought about the blood, the fluids, and the placenta that had ended up in Hale's car and felt herself shudder a little in shock and embarrassment.

But they'd made it. They'd made it.

And Declan was doing fine.

It felt like forever before she stopped shaking, but as soon as she did, she wanted out of the shower and in more than just a damn hospital gown and a diaper of sorts. Savannah had no idea what had happened to her underwear and pants. Probably also still in Hale's TrailBlazer. The nurse insisted she get in bed.

“I'll bring your husband,” she said once Savvy was under the covers.

She opened her mouth to deny Hale was her husband but decided that wasn't the hot issue. A deep languor was overcoming her. Pure exhaustion. Maybe she would lie here just a moment or two before she found out about the baby, Hale, and most of all, Kristina.

Her eyes popped open. Had she fallen asleep? She had a sense of very little time passing. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she was about to go find somebody to help when Hale appeared in the doorway.

“I had to move my car,” he explained.

“Any news on Kristina?”

“She's out of surgery and in recovery. Don't know anything yet.”

“The nurse said the baby's okay.”

“Yep, he's great.” He almost smiled. “I just saw him.”

Savannah felt her bones melt in relief. “And how about you?” she asked, looking into his tired gray eyes.

“How about you?” he countered. “That was . . . something.”

“Yeah.” Savannah laughed faintly. “I told them his name was Declan.”

“Good.”

“I think I'll just lie down a minute,” she said after they fell into silence.

“I'll get you some clothes.”

She would have said, “Don't bother,” because she was pretty sure there wasn't anything in his car she would ever put on again, but he was already gone.

 

 

Ravinia stood beside Catherine's bed, staring down at her. The EMTs and the nurse who'd brought her in had expected the room to be empty and had given Ravinia questioning looks, to which Ravinia had said, “I'm her niece,” half expecting them to make something of that, but they hadn't. They'd left, dimming the lights to a soft glow. As soon as they were gone, Ravinia had swept to Catherine's side.

“Aunt Catherine,” she said quietly. “Aunt Catherine?” Never in her life had she seen her aunt asleep. Catherine had the ears of a hunted animal and was ever on alert. This was a first, and it made her feel both powerful and slightly scared at the same time.

“I've got the journal,” she told her. “I stole it from your room.”

Catherine didn't move. Her breathing was steady and deep.

“It's Mary's journal.” Ravinia had determined that when she'd taken it, recognizing that the handwriting wasn't Catherine's distinctive and precise penmanship. This journal had been hastily printed or scrawled, and everything looked haphazard and thrown down quickly.

And then she'd randomly turned to a page and read:

That clearly wasn't written by Catherine. Even if it hadn't been addressed to C., Ravinia would have guessed that was her mother's journal entry. Yep. Dear old Mom was crazy as a loon.

She wondered, with a sudden bad feeling, if the man that her mother took from this Janet was even her own father. . . . It was all a matter of dates, but the journal was noticeably lacking that information.

When there was no response, Ravinia pulled the book from her back waistband and held it out flat, watching the pages riffle until they broke to a favorite page. “Want me to read it to you?” Ravinia suggested.

Still no change.

Ravinia regarded her helplessly. She wanted to shock her awake. Yes, her aunt drove her out of her mind, but she needed her to come to.
They
needed her to come to.

She glanced down at the page in front of her.

Ravinia glanced up from the book. A cold, eely shiver slid down her spine as she saw Catherine's blue eyes staring fixedly at her. “Aunt Catherine?” she asked, her voice wavering a bit.

Catherine's lips moved. “Mary . . . the body . . . Mary . . . the body . . . Mary . . .”

Ravinia stayed still. She kept her gaze on her aunt, wondering if there was sight behind those glassy orbs, or if she was in some other world. After a long minute, she asked, “What body?”

“From the bones . . .”

One hand reached up, clawlike, and grabbed Ravinia's arm. It was all Ravinia could do to keep from screaming. Creeped out, she gently pulled Catherine's hand from hers and asked, “Who?”

“Mary . . . the body . . . on Echo . . .”

Ravinia glanced toward the windows, which faced west, but there was only darkness beyond. “There's a body on Echo Island?” she asked carefully.

“Mary . . .”

“Who's Janet? Is she the J. Mary refers to?” Ravinia broke eye contact to look at the passage she'd read from the book, her mind racing. She thought about looking into Catherine's heart. She'd tried and failed before, but her aunt had never been in such a vulnerable position before, either. Concentrating, she tried to see what kind of person Catherine was, but even now the way was blocked.

Maybe it just meant she was neither bad nor good, Ravinia thought suddenly. That was Catherine in a nutshell.

Reading the two passages over again, Ravinia asked her, “Who's D.? Was he your lover?”

To her shock, Catherine sat straight up, and Ravinia fell back, nearly tripping over her own feet and dropping the journal. As she juggled the book and pulled it close, Catherine slowly lay back down.

Ravinia took a step forward. She half expected Catherine's head to spin around or something. Spooky.

“Miss?”

Ravinia let out a short shriek of fear and whipped around. It was a nurse, silhouetted in the doorway. “What?” Ravinia demanded, collecting herself.

“I was checking to see if she'd woken.” She moved into the room, an older woman with a stern look on her face.

Ravinia glanced back at Catherine, who'd closed her eyes, as if she was faking it.

“No, she hasn't.”

“Have you noticed any change?” the nurse examined the IV they'd put in Catherine's arm.

“Well, she did sit up, but she wasn't really awake.”

“She sat up?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, good. It sounds like she's coming around. I'm sure the doctor will want to keep her overnight. You're welcome to stay.”

After the nurse bustled away, Ravinia looked back down at Catherine. “What are you doing?” she asked her. “Is this for real?” She watched her breathe for several moments. “Was D. your lover? Was he Janet's husband?” she asked again, pressing.

Catherine's lips moved, but no sound issued forth.

“What?” Ravinia gingerly leaned forward, trying to hear. She waited, her heart trip-hammering.

Finally, she heard Catherine say on a soft breath, “Dead gun.”

“Dead gun?” Gooseflesh rose on her arms as she waited for Catherine to respond, but the only sound was her aunt's heavy breathing.

Ravinia stood in silence for long moments. She could see her aunt relax into the pillows, and she felt the release of some tension in the room she hadn't known existed. Gazing thoughtfully at the book, she riffled through the pages. Well, there were a lot more entries and a few hours left till daylight. She could get a lot of reading done.

Settling herself into a chair, she read a few more passages, and then she asked suddenly, “Or is D. Janet's father?”

Catherine just slept on.

 

 

Sunday dawned gray and cold, and Savvy turned toward the window, waking up disoriented at first, and then
bang.
She remembered everything in a rush.

She sat straight up in bed, felt muscles shriek in protest, and froze where she was in bed. A white world was unveiling itself in the patchy sunlight that filtered in after the storm. At least the snow had stopped, but the sky was still filled with scattered clouds, which looked like they might turn ominous.

There was a small overnight bag on the only chair in the room. She hazily recalled Hale coming back in and dropping it there. Gingerly, she stepped out of bed, walked to the chair, unzipped the bag, and reached inside, pulling out a neatly folded, clean, dark pink sailcloth blouse. Kristina's. Savvy hesitated a moment, remembering the bag sitting in the backseat footwell in Hale's car. Well, she really couldn't put on her own soiled clothes, but the idea of putting on her injured sister's garments felt wrong somehow.

Nevertheless, she slipped her arms down the blouse's sleeves; there was no way she would even try on her bigger-chested sister's bra, although if it was ever going to fit her, she supposed it would be now. She felt a poignant rush of love for her troubled sister, and she stood there a moment before pulling on the fresh underwear and dark brown slacks. There was no way she was going to be able to get that zipper over her distended abdomen.

She made a trip to the bathroom, then carefully arranged the hem of Kristina's blouse over her gaping zipper. Catching her reflection in the mirror, she made a face at the horror show that looked back. Her hair looked like it had been through a blender, reddish-brown tufts sticking out like they were trying to escape her head, and the dark circles under her eyes were testament to the previous wild night.

Everything from the waist down was sore. No big surprise there. Though they wore the same shoe size, her sister's slip-on leather mules were a little tight. Savvy's feet had grown during pregnancy, and she wasn't sure they were going to go back to their previous size.

Anxious to find out about Declan and her sister, she headed for the door but was met by Nurse Baransky, who clucked at her and said she would get Savvy a wheelchair.

“Don't you ever go home?” Savvy asked.

“It's been one emergency after another,” she said. “I'm leaving soon.”

“I don't want a wheelchair,” Savvy said and walked out of the room before Baransky could stop her, albeit hunched over protectively a little bit as there was definite pain involved. But she didn't care. The same kind of adrenaline rush that had overtaken her when she was ready to deliver was moving through her bloodstream again. She needed to know about the baby and her sister.