Spells & Stitches (29 page)
Authors: Barbara Bretton
As far as houseguests went, Bunny MacKenzie was a whole lot more fun than Elspeth.
Ten minutes later I heard Bunny and a grumbling, half-asleep Jack head out on their early morning constitutional. Laria was lying peacefully in her bassinet, not asleep but content to watch the world go by. Luke had planned to go in to work for a few hours and catch up on things. He was in the bathroom showering. I stretched out on the bed, telling myself I wasn’t going to fall asleep.
So much for good intentions. It seemed like a second later that Luke was shaking me awake.
“Wh-what?” I mumbled, trying to pretend I had been awake all along. “I was just resting my eyes.”
“Something’s wrong with the baby.”
27
Instantly I was stone-cold awake and on my feet. Laria was lying in her bassinet, her tiny arms and legs outstretched like planks of wood. Even her spine looked rigid.
My own knees went weak and I grabbed on to Luke for support. “I think she’s having some kind of seizure.”
I’d never known fear like that in my life. It shot through me like lightning headed straight for the core of my being.
“Where’s my mother?” Luke asked. “She might know what this is.”
“She and your dad went for a walk into town.”
Laria’s mouth twisted into an expression of pain mixed with bewilderment that I hope I never see again.
I cupped my hands and brought up blueflame. “I’m calling Janice,” I said to Luke. “We need help.”
“This better be good,” she said from within her hologram a second later. “I’m trying to get the kids ready for school.”
I quickly laid out the problem.
“I’m on my way,” she said and the hologram dissolved.
Luke and I didn’t even have time to panic. She was there with us in a heartbeat, not even breathing hard from the rocky transition. She scooped the baby up in her arms, but instead of melting into Janice, Laria grew stiffer and more rigid than before.
“What is it?” Luke demanded. “Say something, Jan!”
“Quiet,” I warned him. “She’s concentrating.”
Janice laid the baby down on the bed and massaged her tiny limbs. Laria began to cry, huge, gulping howls that tore at my heart.
“We need Lilith,” Janice said.
Luke reached for my hand and we both held tight.
“It’s that bad?” I asked, my voice trembling.
The last thing you want to see on your best friend’s face at a time like this was compassion. “I don’t know,” she said. “That’s why we need Lilith.”
Lilith came to our side in an instant. She and Janice directed all of their energies, all of their combined skills in the healing arts, toward Laria while Luke and I could do nothing but watch and wait and pray for answers as our baby’s tiny body went into what seemed like spasms at irregular intervals.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Lilith said finally during one of Laria’s quieter moments.
“Neither have I,” Janice concurred. “It’s some kind of seizure, we’re in agreement on that, but that’s all we know.”
“I think you need to take her to a human hospital,” Lilith said, her lovely face awash in worry.
“No!” The word burst from my mouth. “That’s the last thing I want to do.”
“Honey, you know we wouldn’t recommend it if we didn’t think it was important.” Janice put an arm around my shoulder and gave me a quick hug. “Laria is more human than magick. She needs the kind of help only a human doctor can give.”
“At least for the diagnosis,” Lilith said, trying to ease our fears. “Once we know what we’re dealing with, we can come up with a plan to fight it.”
“But until then we’re stymied,” Janice said.
“But you were able to help me,” Luke reminded Janice, “and I’m full-blooded human.”
“Please,” Janice said, taking his other hand in hers. “Listen to me. I wish I could do something right now, but I can’t. I think you two should get in your Jeep and take Laria to the ER now.”
I gasped as Laria’s body went rigid once again and her eyes seemed to roll back in her head.
“I’ll warm up the Jeep,” Luke said and took off at a run.
I was shaking so badly I couldn’t dress the baby. Lilith and Janice had to help me snap and button her into her clothes then wrap her in the yellow and white log cabin blanket I had knitted for her over the summer.
“Take her to Good Samaritan,” Lilith advised.
I must have looked as blank as I felt. “Good Samaritan?”
“The human hospital. It’s not too far from Sugar Maple.”
She grabbed paper and pen from my nightstand and wrote down the information.
“Take this,” she said. “And if you can, ask for Dr. Albright. She’s studied herbal healing with me so she’s sympathetic to our ways.”
I nodded, but my mind was empty of everything but terror.
“Bunny and Jack are out walking,” I said as I hurried toward the front door. “Tell them where we are and give them directions, okay?”
“Your phone!” Janice grabbed my cell from the hall table.
Baby. Phone. Diaper bag. I was running on automatic pilot as Laria and I flew across the snowy yard toward the Jeep.
Luke wasn’t doing so well himself. It took two of us to get the baby properly strapped into her car seat. But when he got back behind the wheel he managed to pull it together. Which was a good thing since I was a total wreck.
I gave him directions to the hospital, but other than sharing the information about Dr. Albright, we didn’t say a word to each other. What was there to say? Something was wrong with our baby girl. The waves of mommy guilt grew stronger with every second that passed. Should I have seen a human doctor during my pregnancy? Had my stubbornness somehow hurt Laria? Would a medical doctor have noticed a problem early on and handled it in utero? Was I to blame for whatever was happening to her now?
“Don’t cry,” Luke said. “She’s going to be fine.”
I cried harder.
“Kids are always coming down with weird things,” he said, the slight hitch in his voice giving him away completely. “My parents spent half their adult lives in the ER waiting for one of us to be examined.”
But we weren’t your average all-American family and Laria wasn’t your average infant. Magick flowed through her veins and we had no way of knowing how or if that magick would somehow make itself visible to a human doctor. But even discovery would be a small price to pay for our daughter’s life.
I’m a worrier. The worst-case scenario is always my go-to position. And that was where I went as we raced toward Good Samaritan. By the time Luke wheeled into the parking lot and raced toward the ER entrance Laria was in the throes of what looked frighteningly like a seizure.
Luke slammed on the brakes and I jumped out of the Jeep. I fumbled with the straps on the car seat and finally managed to extricate a struggling, thrashing Laria.
A hospital guard motioned for Luke to move the truck away from the ambulance loading zone.
“Go,” he said to me. “I’ll catch up.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I’m not sure I was even close to coherent as I tried to tell the admitting nurse what was wrong, but the sight of my baby daughter convulsing in my arms spoke volumes. We were quickly whisked through the swinging doors into the heart of the ER.
The first thing I noticed was that it was much calmer and quieter than the emergency rooms I had seen on television. The second thing I noticed was the smell. Fear? Sickness? Death? I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I wouldn’t forget it anytime soon. An elderly woman waited attention on a gurney in the corner. I tried not to look at her and wondered why nobody thought to pull a sheet over her exposed limbs. All of these things imprinted themselves on my mind in a nanosecond as nurses and interns swirled around my Laria.
“We need you to stay outside,” a red-haired nurse said, drawing the curtain around the space. “One of the doctors will speak with you shortly.”
I wanted to rip down that curtain, grab my baby, and transport us back to Sugar Maple where the real world couldn’t touch us, but that wasn’t an option. I stood there, breathing in the strange smells, when I heard Luke’s voice coming from the waiting room.
I dodged an attendant wheeling a cart, then burst through the swinging doors in time to see him hand over an insurance card to the receptionist at the computer monitor.
“They’re looking at her,” I said as he filled out some forms with a ballpoint pen. “They kicked me out.”
I saw him print the name LARIA HOBBS MACKENZIE in block letters followed by his social security number and name.
My stomach twisted as the real world tightened its grip on us. What would I have done without Luke? Despite my half-human heritage, it had never occurred to me that there might come a day when I needed real-world medical insurance. Or that our child might. I thanked the gods that he had provided for Laria.
The admitting nurse got up to adjust something at the printer. Luke bent down and pulled out a familiar bag he’d kept balanced between his feet.
“I thought you might want this.” He handed me the knitting bag I kept stashed in the Jeep.
Knitting socks as therapy? Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it. At that moment those socks-in-progress were all that stood between me and utter panic.
Finally the paperwork was completed and we marched back into the treatment area. The cubicle where they had been working on Laria was empty and I knew a rush of fear unlike anything I had ever experienced.
“Where’s our daughter?” Luke demanded of a male nurse passing by.
Clearly the poor guy needed more information.
“Laria MacKenzie,” I offered. “Infant, convulsions—?”
He looked blank but raised his forefinger. “Gimme three,” he said, “and I’ll find out.”
Three turned into five, which turned into twelve. Luke was ready to storm the hospital in search of our baby, when a middle-aged gray-haired woman in a lab coat approached.
“I’m Dr. Albright,” she said, extending her right hand. “Lilith called and told me your daughter was coming in.”
I could have cried with relief.
“We don’t know anything yet,” Dr. Albright said, “but that’s actually good news.” She named two specific areas that had been mercifully ruled out already through the preliminary examination. She asked permission to run two more tests, neither of which would be invasive, and we agreed.
“It will take a while,” she said with a warm smile, “so you might want to set up shop in the lounge on the second floor. Lilith said you’re a knitter so I know you’ll make use of the great light we have up there. I’ll make sure you’re kept informed.”
And then she was gone.
“I want to run after her,” I said as the big doors marked NO ENTRANCE swung shut behind her.
“So do I,” Luke said.
“Do you think the baby’s scared?”
“She’s too young to understand what’s happening,” he said, squeezing my hand. “That’s the only good part about this whole fucking thing.”
I bit back hot tears, but this time they weren’t for Laria. Luke had lost his first child in an auto accident. His daughter had been riding her bike at the foot of the driveway when a car sideswiped her. He had waited for good news that never came. He had heard the words no parent should ever hear. He had buried his daughter. For the first time I truly understood the depth of his loss and how strong the human spirit really was.
“You’d better call your parents and let them know what’s happening,” I said. “I’ll call Janice.”
“You can’t use cells inside a hospital. Go to the lounge and I’ll meet you there.”
“Don’t be long,” I said. “Laria and I need you.”
Even more than I had realized.
28
I heard them before I saw them. My dad’s rumbling voice, my mother’s authoritative soprano, and two other voices I didn’t expect.
They were all over me the moment I pushed through the door into the waiting room.
“What’s going on?” my father demanded. “Where’s Chloe? What the hell are you doing here?”
“How is Laria?” my mother asked, struggling to maintain her professional composure. “What are the doctors telling you?”
Meghan stood near the door looking weepy while a tall, muscular dude took it all in. If I hadn’t had more important things on my mind, I would’ve clocked him just for the hell of it.
Did you ever take an instant dislike to someone? The kind of dislike that makes you want to wipe the smug smile off his face and knock him on his ass? That was the way this guy made me feel the second I saw him. I had to hand it to my sister: when it came to losers, the girl had radar.
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