The Light of the World, page 30
“Dad!” Al shouted and ran to his side.
Eva sank to her knees. Her shoulder throbbed and her head ached. This didn’t feel like winning. It felt empty and hollow.
“Are you all right?” Gentle fingers brushed against Eva’s cheek. She looked up to see Liv, her hair wild and cheeks flushed with exertion. She settled beside Eva and gingerly pulled her close.
“No,” Eva said. The world was growing cold and hazy. The pain in her body was intense. “I don’t think I am.”
Liv whispered, “I’ve got you.” It was the last thing she heard.
Chapter 27
The Wish
The last time Eva was in a hospital, her grandmother died. The time before that, she had very nearly died herself. She did not mix well with hospitals, especially when she was the patient.
She was unconscious when Liv brought her to the ER. She’d been out cold for nearly twenty-four hours, only to wake up and discover that her shoulder needed to be surgically repaired.
Her parents had apparently rushed to the hospital and had taken one look at her battered body and promptly panicked. The doctor had been convinced that surgery was the only way to correct the aching pain in Eva’s shoulder, which she’d undergone three days ago. It was supposed to be a simple procedure, but she’d run a fever just before she was set to be released and they’d kept her overnight for observation.
One night had turned into two. Eva didn’t even feel sick, but she was still “running hot” according to the doctor, so she was stuck.
What made matters even worse was that the staff subjected her to the usual battery of mental competency tests, and she answered their questions as best she could. Her rotator cuff was torn. She wasn’t in any danger of hurting herself.
“I don’t understand why you’re asking me these questions,” Eva said on the third day after her admission. She was potentially getting out today, provided her fever was gone. She was still a bit woozy from the pain killers and the antibiotics, but sharp enough to object to being treated like a ticking time bomb. “I’m not at risk or whatever.” She raised her arm in its sling. She was covered in cuts and bruises and her body ached as it healed.
“Stop that.” The nurse leveled her with a look that brooked no argument and Eva scowled and sat back on the bed. “You’ve done this before, Eva. We have to ask these questions.”
“I’m not a drug addict. I got sad and overwhelmed. I went for an easy out. Years ago. Locking me up in a padded room isn’t going to fix my shoulder.”
Neither was hyperbole but hey, it was worth a try.
“Your shoulder is recovering nicely. The stitches will come out in about a week.” The nurse shook her head. “Such a waste.” She muttered, mostly to herself, as she swept from the room.
Eva was starting to go stir crazy. She didn’t feel sick. She could recover at home. She wasn’t sure how many times she could answer medically irrelevant questions before she started screaming at people.
She had no idea how she and Liv had gotten to the hospital in the first place, or what Liv had said to the doctors or her parents when they’d come.
Eva grunted with frustration and tried to get comfortable. The hospital’s starched sheets crinkled beneath her. Her memories leading up to waking with her parents staring down at her, fraught with worry, were jumbled and hazy. She wanted to know what had happened after they pulled Theo away from the darkness and the seal closed once more, and Liv hadn’t been particularly forthcoming with the details.
Liv came on the second day they’d lowered her painkillers and Eva had been woozy and half-asleep for most of the visit, slurring her words a little and annoyed that she was stuck in this room for at least another 24 hours for “observation.” Her fever was down to 100 degrees, she thought she could go home, but the doctors and her parents disagreed. She had clung to Liv with her good arm and refused to let go until she knew what happened.
“I can’t explain it.” She didn’t meet Eva’s gaze. She was staring at the bandages on Eva’s shoulder and the sling around her neck. A red tinge appeared on her cheeks.
“Why not?” Eva was sick of not getting the full truth from Liv. Every time she took what she thought was a step forward, there was another layer, another level of deception. Liv tried so hard to be honest, but there were moments when her truth spilled over into nothing more than omissions. The sword, the room under the city, Theo and the shadows, not to mention how they managed to end up at a hospital; Eva had questions about them all.
Liv looked pained. “Because I don’t know, Eva,” she said through clenched teeth. “All I do know is that one minute Al and I were trying to figure out how best to move two very hurt people and the next minute you and I were collapsed in a heap just outside the ER entrance. I filled out the forms and called your parents. I said that we’d been mugged. I don’t know if they believed me though.”
“Well, I guess we were mugged,” Eva said. “After a fashion.” A thought struck her. “You didn’t leave Al and Theo down there did you?”
“No.” Liv shook her head. “He called me just after they took you away. He ended up back in Penn Station with Theo. They were in an ambulance and he didn’t know where I was.” She exhaled. “I don’t know why I didn’t bring everyone with me…”
“It’s probably for the best; it makes the mugging story more believable.” Eva replied.
“True.”
“I’m glad he got to the hospital.”
Liv smiled a sad smile. “Me too.”
Eva reached out and touched Liv’s hand. “He’ll be okay. At least he’s probably in bad enough shape to warrant a prolonged hospital stay. They’ve got me locked up in here because I’m running a teeny, tiny fever.”
“Seriously?”
“This,” Eva held up her arm to show the Band-Aid that covered the single stitch on the wound that stood red against the white scar at her wrist, “isn’t helping my case. Mugging or no, it’s a little suspicious. My parents freaked out and now I get to answer all of the awful psych evaluation questions.”
“But it’s your shoulder that’s really messed up.”
Eva looked down at her hands. “I think it’s a burden I have to live with. I did it once and now no one trusts me not to try it again. I’m like the kid who cried wolf or something. My parents freak out when I cry sometimes. Once at suicide risk, always at suicide risk, I guess.”
“That’s awful.” Liv reached out and squeezed Eva’s good shoulder then dropped her hand away. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you any more about the cavern, I don’t really know…” Liv’s expression was distant. “I…” she started, “I think I made a wish.”
Frowning, Eva reached forward with her good arm and tried to touch Liv. Her fingers fumbled, bumping against Liv’s elbow and she moved, perhaps intentionally, just out of reach. Eva watched her jaw work as Liv wrestled with the truth of what had happened.
“A wish?” Eva echoed. “What would a wish do?”
There were so many questions that she could have asked instead of that one. They were finally starting to be honest with each other. Eva wanted to build on this openness.
Liv reached out and brushed her fingers against Eva’s, and Eva’s heart soared.
“The light has always had that power. We learn about it when we take on the guardianship and with it the memories of all the others. It’s always possible to make things happen. That’s how you close the seal. It works on a wish.” Liv sat on the edge of the bed. Her shoulders were slumped forward and her eyes were half closed. “I just… there are certain things that you know when you find the light for the first time. There’s a cycle of death and rebirth. Sometimes things line up, and sometimes they do not. We’re not supposed to ask the light to grant our wishes. It’s disrespectful to the position of guardian, as well as selfish. We’re supposed to be above it.”
“But you asked it to grant you a wish and it did?” Eva asked. Her head was fuzzy from the medication. She couldn’t think straight. She was having trouble focusing on anything other than the sad look in Liv’s eyes.
“I did. I wanted to help everyone and I didn’t want anyone to die. Theo probably would have and I couldn’t do that to Al. Or to you.” She sighed, her cheeks puffing out as she blew out a small gust of air that made her bangs flutter like straw in the wind. “We wish for the ability to protect the seal, to know that the cycle will continue. We wish that there will be another guardian… those sorts of things. We don’t wish to save people, ever. Just to continue the cycle.”
“Is that why Wren left?” Eva asked. “Because she couldn’t keep the light and my grandmother safe at the same time? Because she didn’t want the cycle to continue?”
“Probably,” Liv admitted. Her eyes raked over the bandages on Eva’s shoulder. “I’m sorry that all this happened, Eva. I had no idea that you—”
The door opened and a nurse came in with a chart. Liv clammed up and lapsed into a stony silence while the nurse put Eva though the same battery of tests as before. After a few minutes, Liv was ushered out and told she could come back later.
Eva hadn’t seen her since.
The memory of the conversation that they hadn’t quite had was enough to drive Eva to obsession. She’d spent the rest of the week thinking about it. She sat back in her bed and folded her good arm over her chest. She wasn’t going to play the incommunicado game with Liv. Her phone was on the bedside table and she leaned over to reach for it, her shoulder screaming in pain. Eva let out a low hiss of discomfort.
The nurse reappeared, looking friendlier than she had before. She must have seen Eva’s contortion from the window. “Sweetie, I know that you’re just itchin’ to get out of here, but you gotta be careful with the stitches in your shoulder, okay?” she said, clicking her tongue over the way Eva was holding her arm. She crossed the room and pulled the phone from its charger, handing it to Eva. “Now stop it before you tear something.”
“I’ll stop when you stop asking me if I feel like dying,” Eva grumbled.
“You know its protocol, Ms. Kessler.” The nurse glanced at her watch. “Besides, you need to get dressed. Your friend from before is coming to pick you up.”
“She is?” Eva frowned. “Wait, you’re letting me go today?”
“Yes, didn’t anyone tell you? That’s why we had to ask you all those questions about you feelin’ depressed.” The nurse rolled her eyes. “Your fever is low enough that you can recover at home. You’ll just need to monitor your temperature carefully to make sure that it breaks completely. Doctors, I swear. They probably told your parents and didn’t think to tell you.”
Eva nodded her agreement. This whole day could become a textbook on poor communication.
It took the better part of five minutes of careful maneuvering to help Eva into her cardigan and put her sling back in place. The nurse draped Eva’s jacket around her shoulders like a cape and let her get her pants herself. “I think she’s supposed to be comin’ with your dad.”
A part of Eva wasn’t sure that she would ever see Liv again after their conversation. Wren had done the same thing, cut and run after telling her grandmother the truth. How would Liv be any different?
“Oh,” she said. “I had no idea.” She was surprised her parents weren’t pushing for her to stay longer.
The nurse gave her a long, searching look before sweeping out of the room as Eva tugged on her boots that her mother had bought her when her parents had come to visit. It had snowed here too, and the entire city was still a slushy mess. She couldn’t believe no one had told her she was getting out today. She couldn’t believe that Liv had met her parents. The thought made her stomach do an uncomfortable flip-flop. Would they like her? Would they think she was too odd for Eva? Would they approve of her interest in finding happiness after so many years of strife?
Was this even happiness?
There was a cough from the doorway. Eva looked up. Her hair fell into her eyes, but she could see her father through her bangs. He leaned against the door. “Why aren’t you ready?” he asked, his tone was joking. “We’re here to spring you from your sterile cage!”
“No one told me I was getting out today,” Eva replied. She glared at him, but it felt weak. She couldn’t ever stay mad at her father.
“Well, you are. I’ve got your friend Olivia with me, too.” Her father bent before Eva and helped her to tie her bootlaces. “She was the one who called me after you got mugged. Do you remember any of that? Your mother’s sorry that she couldn’t come today. She’s beside herself with worry and wanted me to tell you that.” He touched the Band-Aid on her wrist.
Eva rolled her eyes. “Of course she is. I don’t really even remember the mugging. Or this.” Eva pulled her hand away from her father. “It must have been when I fell. I certainly didn’t try anything like that on purpose…”
“It’s a fair thing to worry about, Eva. And then with the fever.” He paused, rubbing his chin. “I’m sorry that we had to keep you cooped up in here.”
“I know, Dad,” Eva answered. Liv’s lie was not going to stand up much longer, but Eva wasn’t sure she knew how to tell her father the truth. She got unsteadily to her feet and wrapped her father in a one-armed hug. “It was just a freak thing, though. I’ll be right as rain in a few weeks.”
He smiled down at her. He looked drawn and weary, and as exhausted as he had looked the day of her grandmother’s funeral. Or at least she thought he did. “I’m glad you’re all right, E,” he said.
“Me too.”
Eva caught sight of Liv leaning against the doorway and smiled fondly at her. She’d washed her army jacket, but some of the mud stains from their misadventure were still visible on the olive-green fabric.
“Ah, yes, Olivia.” Her father caught sight of Liv and made a welcoming gesture. “From what she tells me, Eva, you’ve had quite the time discovering all my mom’s secrets.”
“Well, I told you most of the stuff already.” Eva stopped speaking when she noticed the reusable grocery bag that Liv had slung over her shoulder. Inside, Eva could see a collection of little notebooks.
A smile spread across Eva’s face. “But the story’s so great that Liv’s thinking about writing about it.”
“You are?” Eva’s father turned to Liv. “Really?”
“With your permission, of course. She was your mother.” Liv nodded at Eva. “They were a wonderful read and I’m grateful for the opportunity to borrow them.”
“Well, anytime,” Eva’s father answered.
Eva’s eyes narrowed. She stepped away from her father and caught Liv’s eye. She inclined her head toward the bag, but Liv just shook her head, mouthing, “Later.” Eva decided that was good enough for her. “Hey,” she said quietly.
“Hi,” Liv replied, her cheeks flushing slightly.
She looked almost embarrassed to be there, and Eva couldn’t help but smile. Maybe they were all right after all. It still felt new, awkward. Like it had been when they’d first met.
“Eva, did you want to just go back to your place for the time being?” Her father asked. He had his arm still protectively around Eva. “I have to go see the lawyers again later, but I can at least get you settled. Your mom would want me to do that.”
“Okay.” Eva stepped away from her father and closer to Liv. She held out her hand and Eva took it with her good hand.
“Well, then,” Eva’s father announced, “we should get going.”
The apartment felt like an empty shell once Eva’s father left for his one o’clock appointment. Liv sat on the edge of the couch, the canvas bag with the journals clutched in her lap as Eva stared at her from where she sat in her grandmother’s favorite armchair.
The old clock that Eva’s mother found at some antique mall ticked loudly and the sound of it echoed through the whole apartment. Finally, after close to ten minutes of silence, Eva shifted forward in her seat as best she could, and spoke. “So, was it you that I saw at my grandmother’s funeral?”
“Yeah,” Liv said dully. She still wasn’t looking at Eva, her eyes fixed steadfastly on the small pile of broken 45s on the table. Eva didn’t understand why she was being so quiet about everything.
“Why did you go?”
Liv did look at her then, her slate-blue eyes flashing dangerously in the bright, noon-time sun that streamed through the living room windows. “Why do you think, Eva?”
“I don’t know,” Eva replied testily. “Some misguided sense of duty to Catherine Monroe?”
Liv sighed then, running a hand through her hair and leaning back on the couch, her head tilted up to the ceiling. “You still don’t get it, Eva.”
“Then tell me, Liv!” Eva said, wincing as she moved her neck and pulled at her stitches. “How the hell am I going to know if you’re not honest with me? You come in and out. You disappear for days. I’m terrified, absolutely terrified, that you’re going to end up like Wren and just disappear.”
And then they really would be repeating the past.
Eva refused to look away from Liv and Liv was trying very hard not to meet Eva’s eyes, her attention seemingly on everything else in the room. Eva wasn’t having it. Liv could be as stubborn as she wanted about this, but the truth had to be told. There was still something that had gone unspoken between them. At first, Eva thought it concerned the light of the world, but she instinctively knew it was more than that. She had to know what it was that Liv was unable, or unwilling, to tell her. There had to be more. Eva wasn’t going to accept anything less than the full truth this time.
Liv tiredly blew her bangs from her eyes. Liv leaned forward, her elbows resting on the knees of her cropped jeans. Eva tried not to look at her brightly colored socks and oxfords. She tried not to look at Liv, with her face set in an expression of regret. “There is a cycle, of birth and rebirth. One is born when the other dies, and the light finds its way from guardian to guardian that way,” Liv explained.
