Chapter 14

“W e need to go into town and get some groceries,” her grandmother announced abruptly over their afternoon tea.

Danica looked at Nana and nodded. “Where do you need to go?”

She frowned and thought about it. “To the butcher and down to the small veggie stand. We’ll need a few other basics, but, if we can at least get that, it’s a good start.”

“Sounds good,” Danica murmured, but, inside, her heart sank because, every time they went out, it got a little bit worse than the last time. She had no reason to expect an issue, but these escalating problems just kept happening.

As her grandmother looked her over a bit, she shrewdly noted, “Unless you sense any reason why we shouldn’t.”

“Remember how I’m not doing that woo-woo stuff,” Danica stated, as she glared at her grandmother.

“Doesn’t matter if you’re doing it or not,” Nana declared. “You know perfectly well that it’s all around you.”

“Maybe, but that was your thing, and this is my thing.”

“Meaning, it won’t ever be your thing?” she asked sadly.

“You can’t blame me for not wanting anything to do with it,” she replied, looking at her grandmother. “It drove Daisy to insanity.”

“I don’t know if anything would have kept her sane. Honestly, she was so desperate to get out that leaving was all she cared about.”

“Was it to get away from me?” Danica asked, hating the faint pain that still remained, a remnant of long ago.

Her grandmother looked at her in surprise, and then her shoulders slumped. “Probably from you and me,” she agreed, with a sad smile. “It’s not as if she left us any answers.”

“From all her screaming and shouting, she was definitely trying to get away from us and this town. So, we can hardly think of it as anything other than that.”

“That could be true,” Nana admitted. “I keep thinking that my daughter didn’t hate me as much as she appeared to. Yet I lose that argument on a regular basis.”

“Of course you do,” Danica agreed, looking away from the intense gaze of her grandmother. “As do I.”

“Do you still think about her a lot?”

Danica nodded. “However, I try not to because the thoughts are never happy and because there are no real answers. No good answers are there,” she said, struggling to keep the conversation on track. “Why don’t we go out for dinner?”

Her grandmother looked up with interest and then slowly shrugged. “There really isn’t any place where we can be alone.”

“We could pick up something and bring it home at least,” Danica suggested, looking at her hopefully. “We used to do that all the time.”

“Now that we did do,” she replied, with a chuckle.

“I don’t know what we would pick up though.”

“There’s that little fish-and-chips place.”

“Is it any good?”

“Oh, I think that’s Jerry’s place now,” she replied, “and it’s really good.”

“Jerry,” she repeated, looking at her grandmother. “Homer?”

“Yeah, that’s him. You remember him, don’t you? Oh, that’s right. You were friends in school, weren’t you?”

She nodded slowly, thinking about it. “We were. He was a terrible student in school,” she noted, with a smile. “I used to help him with his homework all the time.”

“Or he was just sweet on you, and that was his excuse,” her grandmother offered, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Maybe, but he wasn’t sweet on me afterward.”

At that, her grandmother’s smile fell away. “That really did stop everything in your life, didn’t it?”

Danica nodded. “Yes, that whole event—the combination of events, I guess, is a better way to put it. But whatever. Let’s go get fish and chips.”

“Are you sure?” her grandmother asked, looking at her anxiously.

“Are you worried that I’ll be upset at anything Jerry says? No, I won’t. I’ve been up against tougher people than him,” she shared, with a laugh.

“Okay, as long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. Don’t worry about it. Let’s go shopping.”

They managed to get to the butcher shop and the little veggie stop, so they had fresh fruit and vegetables for at least a few more days. Danica’s appetite wasn’t very good, but she was making a point of eating to ensure her grandmother ate. Yet Nana had cut down quite a bit.

As they left the veggie store, Danica pointed out, “We didn’t buy very much.”

“I’m not sure we need very much,” her grandmother said. “It’s not as if we’re eating a whole lot.”

“I worry about you though.”

“And I worry about you,” Nana said, with a smile.

“You’re not eating much.”

“Neither are you,” her grandmother stated right back.

Danica groaned. “Do you always have to be this snappy?”

“Do you always have to be this snappy?”

At that, she sighed. “All right, fine. Let me stop by the house and put up the meat and the produce really fast. Then fish and chips it is, but you’ll eat them.”

“Fish and chips it is,” Nana agreed, “and you’ll eat them too.”

Now chuckling, the two women were still smiling as they pulled into the fish-and-chips shop.

“We could just pick it up and take it home,” her grandmother mentioned, staring at the restaurant with an odd loathing on her face.

Sensing something that finally might be important, Danica waited for Nana to say more, and then asked, “You want to tell me why?”

“No, I really don’t want to.”

Danica groaned. “Okay, but I don’t want to go in there if something is wrong and if you aren’t telling me what it is.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Nana shook her head. “It’s just, you know, those memories.”

“But those memories count,” Danica said. “What on earth about Jerry could possibly make you upset?”

“It’s not Jerry.… It’s just, you know, Jerry’s family.”

“Do they work here too?” Danica asked, looking around.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Well then, let’s just go in and have fish and chips, and then we can return home.” As they got out of the car, Danica stopped, looked at Nana, and asked, “Are you thinking that they won’t serve us?”

“I have no idea,” Nana replied, looking at her. “I’ve never been here.”

Danica hesitated, then the door opened. A couple came out laughing and joking and walked around them, heading to their vehicles. She looked over at her grandmother. “Seems they enjoyed their meal.”

Nana just nodded and stared at the restaurant.

“If you’ve got something to tell me…”

“I can’t really have anything to tell you,” Nana muttered, “considering you won’t believe in this stuff.”

“But I believe in you,” Danica said gently.

Just then the door opened again, and a man bellowed, “Danica. Is that you?”

She stopped to look at Jerry, who had come out on the front step.

“Somebody inside told me that you were out here,” he said, with a big beaming smile. “I couldn’t believe it.” He snagged her up into a big bear hug. “Good God, I haven’t seen you in forever.”

Danica laughed. His exuberance was hard to argue with, and it helped lighten the atmosphere around her. She hugged him back and added, “I haven’t been back for very long. I was just trying to coax my grandmother to come in and to have some fish and chips.”

He looked over at her grandmother and smiled. “Come on in, Harriet. I haven’t seen you in forever either.”

She nodded and gave him a tentative smile. “It’s been a little bit tough these last few years,” she murmured.

“Oh, it has been,” he concurred affably, completely unaware of what she was saying. “Come on. Come on,” he urged, dragging them inside and seating them at the far side of the restaurant. “You’ll be comfortable here,” he said calmly. Soon he came back with water and menus, then left them alone for a few minutes.

Danica looked over at her grandmother, who was staring down at the menu but was obviously uncomfortable. “You need to tell me what’s wrong, Nana.”

Her grandmother looked at her. “If you would open your senses, you would feel it.”

“What on earth does that mean?”

Her grandmother sighed. “I can’t say anything here.”

“Okay, fine. But, when we get home, we’ll have a talk.”

Her grandmother stared at her and slowly nodded. “You’re right,” she agreed in an odd tone, as the color in her face came and went. “It’s definitely time to have a talk, but you should stay for all of it.”

“Don’t worry,” Danica replied. “I’ve been waiting a lifetime for this talk.”

Her grandmother winced and then slowly nodded. “You could be right,” she muttered, then gave her head a shake. “It’s probably time we cleared the air, but that doesn’t mean you’ll like anything you hear.”

“No, it doesn’t. But I don’t like very much about what’s been going on in my life for the last few years either.”

Just then Jerry came bouncing back in their direction. “What can I get for you?” he asked. “I’ll put your orders in, and then I’ll grab something to drink and come and sit and visit a bit,” he said pointedly, looking at Harriet. “Then you can tell me what the hell’s been going on with you.”

Danica quickly ordered fish and chips for both of them, and Jerry bounded off. True to his word, he returned with a big Coke in his hand and sat down across from her.

“Now what on earth,” he asked Danica, “brought you back?”

She pointed to her grandmother. “It’s simple really. I just wanted to spend some time with her before there wasn’t time to spend.”

His face immediately scrunched up, and he looked over at Harriet.

Harriet just shook her head. “I’m fine,” she murmured. “That’s just my granddaughter.”

“Ah. But you know that, if she says something, you should listen to her,” Jerry stated, with that same affable smile.

Danica looked at him and asked, “What does that mean?”

“Oh, you know very well what I mean,” he said, with a chuckle. “Every time I asked you a question back in school, you always had the answer, and it was always correct. I never went against what you said. If you told me that it would be a rainy day, I prepped for rain, and, sure enough, it would rain. If you told me that it would storm that day, then believe me that I prepped for a storm. If you told me that we would have a test that day, then we would have a test. Absolutely nothing you could tell me that I wouldn’t have believed,” he declared.

“Yeah? How did that work out for you though?” her grandmother asked with interest, leaning forward to register his facial expressions.

He laughed. “She was always right,” he stated with admiration, as he looked over at Danica, his grin kicking up a notch. “She was always right. It was so uncanny. We used to talk about it all the time. Man, she was good.”

Danica groaned. “I had forgotten all about that.”

“How could you forget?” he asked. “You’re the one who kept me alive back then.”

“Kept you alive?” her grandmother asked instantly.

“He’s joking,” Danica said.

“Not really,” Jerry argued. “She got me through school. She’s the one who told me who was sweet on me and whether the girl I was sweet on was sweet on me too,” he shared, with a laugh. “We’re married and have three kids now,” he announced, with a big grin in her direction. “You were a godsend when I needed it.”

Danica smiled. “All you needed was a little confidence.”

“That confidence and your insight,” he noted, with a burst of laughter. “It’s the insight you helped with. Glad to see you now,” he murmured. “How have you been?”

She shrugged and smiled. “I’m fine. It wasn’t the easiest time when I first left, but we all grow and change out of necessity, if nothing else.”

He nodded. “Man, those were some wild rumors they passed around here for a while. I’m really sorry. Anytime I heard anybody speak bad of you, I just—damn, I got myself put in jail for beating up so many people.”

She stared at him in shock, and he gave her a huge, affable grin. “Hey, I meant it. You were the answer to everything for me back then, so I wouldn’t listen to nobody spouting off about all that shit. I don’t know what happened. I don’t care,” he continued. “You’re good people. That’s all that matters.”

Her heart warmed, listening to him. “Thank you. It means a lot to hear that. Some people haven’t been so welcoming since I’ve been back.”

He stared at her, anger crossing his features. “They better not let me hear them,” he warned, “because that I will not tolerate. You’re always welcome here, and, if you ever need a hand, you just let me know.”

Hearing a bell in the distance, he hopped up and grabbed their meal, then brought it over for them. “Here you go,” he said, waving his hand. “I’ll leave you to eat in peace, but you come back and visit, you hear me? I want to catch up on everything you’re up to, and besides,” he added, with a big grin and a wink, “I might have a few more questions that need answers.” And, with that, he disappeared.

Her grandmother eyed Danica in surprise.

Danica shrugged. “Can’t say I remember much of that.”

“Can’t remember much of what?” Nana asked, staring at Danica suspiciously. “The fact that you used to help him out?”

“I knew I helped him out with schoolwork a lot,” she clarified in a confused tone. “He wasn’t exactly brilliant in the book department.”

“No, but it sounds like he’s done okay since.”

“I think so,” she murmured. “At least, I would hope so. He made it sound like he was doing just fine.”

“In which case, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

She nodded. “He did sound happy. So, in that case, I’m happy that whatever I told him worked.” She shook her head. “I don’t remember any of the particular questions, just that he always used to bug me about stuff.” She laughed. “And he’s right. He would phone me and ask, Will it rain today? I would instinctively know yes or no, and he would just go for it.” She was still chuckling over the memories. “But who would have thought that anybody would listen to my word on that?”

“People often do, particularly when you’re right all the time,” her grandmother pointed out. “You’ve always been a very good seer.”

At Nana’s words, Danica felt her smile fall away.

“I know. I know. It’s a word you don’t like.” Nana raised her hands. “Yet it’s not exactly a word I can stop using. It’s a part of my world.”

“It might be a part of your world,” Danica noted, “but that doesn’t mean it’s part of mine.”

And, with that, they quickly ate in silence.

Danica went to the cashier to pay, but Jerry would have nothing to do with it. “Nope. Nope. Nope,” he stated vehemently. “The least I can do is cover this meal for you,” he murmured. “I’m just so damn happy to see you doing so well,” he added, with a smile.

She thanked him and quickly led her grandmother out to the vehicle, and then drove them home.

When they got back, her grandmother suddenly announced, “I need to go lie down.”

Watching her grandmother, now with that old woman walk going on, Danica had never remembered seeing her grandmother so slouched over, so slow, so hesitant, even with the head injury.

Nana slowly made her way to her bedroom, where she closed the door.

Danica sat in the kitchen for a long moment, until she felt that nudge that it was time to go. She walked back outside with Benji, as the door to the house quickly slammed shut and locked.

“I know, Benji. It’s stupid. I won’t acknowledge the supernatural energies all around me, when the damn house has its own personality, its own likes and dislikes, and I’m on the dislike list,” she murmured. “How can there not be seers and witches and healers and a million other crazy things, when I’m living on the outside of a house that gets to decide who goes in and who doesn’t?”

Benji had no answers for her, but nobody ever did. Danica slowly walked back to her RV and settled in for the night.

*

“Danica,” someone called out.

She bolted upright from a deep sleep and stared around her. She hopped out of bed, put on a few clothes, and quickly opened the door. “Who called?” she whispered softly.

But nobody was there. Nobody that she could see or note and nobody that Benji was particularly bothered about.

Danica looked around but saw nothing. Hesitating, she was about ready to go back to bed when the front door of Nana’s house opened. It just swung wide open.

She glared at it. It’s only ever let her in the house when it wanted to, but that also meant that there was likely a reason she needed to go in. With Benji at her heels, she slowly approached the front door, and, when it let her pass, she knew that there must be a problem with her grandmother.

She raced into her grandmother’s bedroom to see her sitting up, tears running down her face. Danica sat down on the side of the bed. “Are you okay?”

Her grandmother just looked at her, and the tears kept running faster and faster.

Danica held Nana’s frail body, knowing her heart would break when her grandmother’s time came and went. When she saw her like this, something that she had never, ever thought to experience—seeing this strong woman brought to tears by something in her world—it just broke her heart. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on,” she murmured.

“But you don’t want to help anyway,” Nana muttered.

Yet no heat was in her tone, just the sadness that made Danica pull back and look at her. “What help do you want?”

“You know,” she wailed. “You already know, but it’s not a world you want anything to do with.”

Danica hesitated and then noted in exasperation, “Yet I’m asking the damn house for permission to come in. So, what on earth am I supposed to believe if not that some of this woo-woo stuff is true?”

“Some of it?” Nana asked, her voice gaining in strength.

“Okay. I don’t even know what I believe anymore,” Danica admitted. “I just know that some of it I can’t discount.”

“That’s something at least,” Nana replied, “but I really need you to step up and to not hide.”

“Stepping up and not hiding is a whole different story than being active in any of this,” Danica murmured. “It’s one thing for me to find a belief. It’s another thing for me to just blindly go with it.”

“Of course,” Nana agreed in a sage manner. “You probably want proof.”

“I don’t want proof. I watched you and Mother all my life,” she replied in a frustrated tone. “I already know how real a lot of this is. I’m the one who woke up in a damn morgue drawer, remember?”

Her grandmother cracked a smile at that. “You know, in a way, I wish that had been me.”

“Yeah, well, in a way, I wish I had been you too,” Danica declared in a burst of frustration, “because there wasn’t anything nice about it.”

“Yet, for many, it would have been a hell of an experience.”

“It was a hell of an experience, but not necessarily an experience I wanted,” Danica pointed out, shaking her head. “A lot of things in life we want, and a lot of things we could do without.”

“You could have done without your mother, I know.”

“No,” Danica countered sadly. “I could have done with my mother. Not living without a mother would have been nice, but, because I couldn’t control that, it’s just what life was for me.” She hugged Nana closely, trying to understand what was going on.

“We can’t hang on to the past and be sad and upset because of what didn’t happen. We’re already well past that now.”

“What I want to know is what’s bringing on all this pain and tragedy into your world?” Danica asked.

“It’s fine,” Nana muttered. “I just got really sad.”

“But why? What’s making you sad?” she asked. “You scare me when you do things like this.”

“Sometimes I just feel the pain. Everybody’s pain. Right now I’m feeling somebody’s pain, but I don’t know whose it is,” she explained.

Danica frowned, as she held her grandmother. “Is it important to know who it is? Or can you just send some healing energy without knowing?”

Her grandmother stared at her and then nodded. “Maybe that is the best answer, especially in this case.”

“Regardless of what case it is,” Danica added, “I would think it’s always a good answer. Just because people have pain doesn’t mean they want anybody else to know about it. So you might want to keep that in mind.”

“I feel very disconnected from what people want in this world,” Nana shared, looking at her granddaughter. “I’ve had so much in my life, so much of my space taken up with the work that I do, that I feel very out of it now.”

Her words brought a question to Danica’s mind. “Do you want to tell me exactly what work you’ve been doing all these years? I’ve always wondered how you made money and what you did.”

Her grandmother chuckled. “I healed people. That’s what I do.”

“But—” The words just failed her. Danica sat back, studied her grandmother, and asked, “From here?”

“Yes, from here,” Nana confirmed, “and, a lot of times, people do pay me. They pay me in real money. Sometimes they can’t pay me, and sometimes that’s okay too. If somebody needs healing, I’ve never held back.”

“How?”

“I belong to multiple groups. Remember when you got me hooked up on the internet years ago?” Nana nodded wistfully. “I managed to join a group of healers, and, since then, I work with people all over the world.”

“Remote healing?” Danica asked, almost doubting it.

“Ever since your mother passed on, I felt the need to help others. I couldn’t help Daisy, but I could help others.”

“Ah, yes, God love the guilt,” Danica murmured.

Her grandmother nodded. “I recognize the guilt, and I understand it. It doesn’t matter whether there’s any believability in it, or if I can do anything, or if I don’t feel guilty about it,” Nana explained, “because healing was just something I needed to do.”

“That’s fine,” Danica replied. “I doubt anybody would begrudge you the opportunity to heal somebody.”

“You would be surprised,” she replied, “but thankfully a lot of people out there know the good that we can do. So I can do it from a distance. There are groups of us,” she added. “I don’t manage them. I did at one time, but now I just show up at a certain time. Other than that”—Nana faced Danica—“I don’t need any money.”

“We all need money to a certain extent,” Danica clarified, looking at her grandmother. “Whether it’s to pay rent or to put food on the table.”

“I’m fine. I don’t care about money, and money is in the bank if I wanted it. But I don’t spend it if I don’t have to.”

“That I can see.”

“Long ago I didn’t know how much longer I would have in this world or what worries I would face, but I figured it would be best if money wouldn’t be among my worries, so I began to live much more economically.”

“Money won’t be a problem for you now,” Danica shared, “because I’ll ensure that you’re fine.”

Her grandmother smiled at her and asked, “What about you? How will you survive?”

“My freelancing has paid the bills for years. I’m a big girl. I can make decisions for myself.”

“I do want you to stay here when I’ve gone.”

“You may want that, and I may even want that, but this house has a mind of its own on the matter.”

Nana groaned. “That could be true, but, if you would accept it and believe in it, it wouldn’t have so many problems with you.”

“Right. You always go right back to the woo-woo stuff that takes us so far off the topic.”

“It doesn’t matter whether it does or not,” Nana noted, with a smile. “The house is here to protect me. It was gifted to me by my grandmother—and I would love to gift it to you, but…”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t like me. You and I both know that.”

“Yet, despite what you say, it called you tonight.”

“It certainly opened its doors and let me in. Whether that was you or the house, I don’t know.” Danica gave her grandmother a look. “You also know there’s no way I can explain to anybody that the reason I can’t live in this house is because it won’t let me in.”

Her grandmother’s lips twitched, and she nodded. “I know.” Then she frowned at her intently. “Do you remember when it first began to happen?”

“Yeah, when I came back from the undead,” Danica replied, “just to make me feel even less like I belong in the world,” she murmured.

“I was trying to figure out what caused it.”

“Why would you even care at this point?” she murmured.

“Because I still would like to pass this house on to you. It’s still got a lot of good years left.”

“Maybe, but it’s also got some very defined notions of who should live here,” she pointed out, “and you and I both know I’m not on that list.”

Her grandmother didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I never could figure out why,” she murmured. “It makes no sense to me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Danica noted, “but I figured that, somewhere along the line, only people with gifts were allowed inside.”

Her grandmother slid her a sideways glance. “Yet you are more gifted than any of us,” she murmured.

Danica winced. “I’m not going down that pathway.”

Her grandmother groaned. “Of course not, and normally I’m okay to leave it at that, but today? I just got a little melancholy. What will you do with the house, if nobody else can live in it?” she asked.

“That’s not my problem because it won’t ever become mine.”

“And yet it will be yours, in monetary value if nothing else.”

Groaning, Danica replied, “I don’t know what I’ll do then. You and I both know it doesn’t like me and has never liked me since I came back from the hospital that day.”

“Yet, on a psychic energy level, that makes no sense. I’ve been trying to puzzle it out, but I have never asked anybody who might have any answers.” Bolting upright, she added, “That’s what I should do. I should ask Stefan.”

“I was going to ask if you could ask questions of somebody about all this stuff, and there you go.”

“He doesn’t really like it when I ask him questions because I don’t make an appointment. I just spirit walk and hit him up with questions out of the blue,” she said, with a laugh. “But I don’t think he really minds it. In fact, I think he likes that I come to visit. And usually I know when he’s a little low in spirits and could use a little boost.”

“And who is this?” Danica asked in fascination.

“His name is Stefan,” Nana replied. “I really don’t know very much about him. I tripped into his world a while back, surprising both of us. Now we have this regular highway that we can travel. I stop in and talk to him on an irregular basis.” She shrugged. “He’s a busy man. It’s not as if I can just have a cup of tea with him every day, although sometimes it would be nice.”

Danica looked at her grandmother in wonder. “So, you have somebody you can talk to psychically? And you just happened into his world, and he just happened to talk to you?”

Her grandmother looked at her, paused for a long moment, and then nodded. “Yep, that’s how it went.”

“Good God,” she murmured. “And what? He doesn’t think you’re nuts?”

Her grandmother laughed. “If I’m nuts, so is he. Therefore, I’m pretty sure neither one of us thinks we’re nuts.”

“Maybe not,” Danica muttered, “but it’s hardly normal behavior.”

“No, but I’m not sure anything is normal about us anyway.” She looked over at her granddaughter and added, “I can go back to sleep now. You better get back to bed too.”

“Oh, you think so? Has the house decreed that I should leave now?” she teased, giving her grandmother a mocking grin.

“In a way, yes, and it’s time for me to go back to sleep,” her grandmother replied. She gave Danica a quick kiss on the cheek, signaling that it was time to leave.

Danica got up, moved out toward the living room, then glanced back at her grandmother’s bedroom. To the house, Danica declared, “You better look after her. I’ll be pissed if you don’t.” And, with that, the front door opened, and she stepped outside, only to have it slam shut behind her with the force that she was used to.

She’d been at odds with this house for a long time and still didn’t know what to blame it on. As far as she was concerned, she hadn’t done anything, but the house seemed to hold a very serious grudge. She glanced back at the house and muttered, “I didn’t do anything.”

And, with that, she strode back to her RV for the night.

*

Cameron worked through the night shift. He didn’t get much of a break, but it also wasn’t at a pace that was enough to exhaust him. So, halfway through, he still felt pretty good. He glanced over at Denise, one of the night nurses.

“How long have you worked here?” he asked her.

She shrugged. “Not all that long. I came in on one of the incentive programs for new grads. So, I’m staying as long as I can, and then I’m out.” He looked at her, surprised. “It’s way too small-town for me,” she murmured.

He nodded thoughtfully. “I guess if you weren’t born and raised here, not a whole lot for someone is here, right?”

“Even if you were born and raised here,” Denise replied, with a wry look in his direction, “still not a whole lot for you here.”

He grinned. “That may be true, but I have family here.”

“But family still isn’t necessarily a reason to bury your life here,” Denise argued, looking at him curiously. “You could get a job anywhere. The whole country is screaming for doctors. Why limit yourself to this?”

“They need doctors here.”

“Sure, they do, but they could also go to the hospital in the next county over.”

“I go over there and do hours too,” he shared.

She nodded. “I’ve heard something about that. So, again we know that you could work anywhere. I don’t understand why you would come back here.”

“Don’t try to convince him to leave,” interjected Bridget, as she came over. “We’re already so short-staffed. For a while there, it looked like we might even shut down.”

“We should if we can’t get anything better than the old-timer back there,” Denise stated, with a nod to the doctor who had been on staff for fifty-plus years.

“He’s still better than nothing,” Bridget countered, “so be respectful.”

“I’m not being disrespectful,” Denise declared, “but there comes a time when somebody should call it quits. And this is definitely that time for him.” With that, she picked up one of the files on the nurses’ station and walked away.

Bridget looked at him and said, “Please pay her no mind.”

“Not at all,” he replied, shrugging. “I was wondering what the staffing was like here anyway.”

“It’s rough,” Bridget replied, “and it won’t get any easier with the dwindling numbers around town. I’m surprised they have enough money to even keep the hospital open. We’re down to pretty basic supplies now, pretty basic services. If it’s bad, we send them off to a bigger hospital.”

“But at least we’re here if the locals need us.”

“I’ve been here all my life, and it gets pretty hairy at times. Enough that I would hate to see it shut down.”

“Speaking of pretty hairy, I’ve heard a couple rumors about Halloween.”

She looked at him and then slowly turned. “What about Halloween?”

“Not every Halloween here,” he clarified, looking at her sideways, as Bridget’s skin had paled ever-so-slightly, “but enough Halloweens that apparently it’s a bit of an ongoing problem.”

She stared at him, giving him a shrug. “People like to talk. They like to make up sensational rumors to make themselves feel important. Don’t you be paying it no mind either.”

“So, no ghosts come into the ER or the OR on Halloween?” he asked, with a smile.

She shook her head. “Nope, they don’t, and I wouldn’t worry about it if there was a ghost.”

“Why is that?”

“Because we’re good people, and the Lord protects his own,” Bridget declared. “I am not afraid of any ghosts around this place.”

“So, you work on Halloween?”

She stiffened and glared at him. “No, I don’t work on Halloween. Haven’t worked Halloween since I came here,” she shared, with a stiff nod. “That is an event I always share with my grandkids and the other neighborhood children.”

“Right,” he replied calmly, watching her. “Maybe you could tell me what it is that happens on Halloween that most people are talking about?”

“I would just as soon not,” Bridget stated, sounding a bit bitter. “I don’t like to gossip, and that gossip won’t do anybody any good.”

“Yet, if I don’t know what is going on—or what people are saying is going on—I won’t have a clue what I’m supposed to do come Halloween.”

“Do what you always do, heal people,” she suggested in a matter-of-fact tone, and, with that, she turned smartly on her heel and walked away.

It never ceased to amaze Cameron how people could either talk so much or not at all about such issues. One group of people couldn’t stop talking, and then another group wouldn’t open their mouths about it. That he had spoken to one side just made him want to seek out one of the others, so he could get more information on this hot topic. How was he supposed to understand exactly what was happening here if nobody would tell him?

As he walked toward the front desk again, Dr. Cumberback called out to him.

Cameron walked over to see him. “Hey,” he greeted him, with a smile. “How are you doing tonight?”

“Tired,” he snapped. “I am more than ready to go home. I guess I should have gone home a hell of a long time ago.”

There wasn’t a whole lot Cameron could say to that, but Dr. Cumberback was right. They were so short-staffed, and, as a doctor, he cared. Granted, Dr. Cumberback had been a doctor for just over fifty years, and maybe he needed to retire. He’d stuck around longer than he should have perhaps, but he was here, and that had to count for something.

“I appreciate your helping out,” Cameron said. “It’s not been easy around here.”

“No, it hasn’t,” Dr. Cumberback muttered. “We should have shut down this place years ago. It’s getting worse and worse every year. That damn bitch,” he snapped, venom spewing from his tone.

Surprised, Cameron said, “I’m sorry?”

“You’re too young to know, and you haven’t been here long enough to find out, but, ever since the haunting started,” he began, shaking his head, applying pressure to his temples, “this hospital’s damn-near reached the breaking point.”

Cameron frowned at him. “Would you care to explain that?”

“No,” he snapped, “I won’t explain it, and I’m too damn tired and too crotchety to give a shit. Ask one of the old people around here. They’ll tell you. Most of them will belly up fast with old wives’ tales that will last all day.”

“Sure, but then I’m listening to gossip instead of someone who potentially has dealt with the reality,” Cameron retorted. “I’ve been here most of a year now and haven’t seen anything.”

“Nope. That’s because it’s not Halloween yet,” he responded. “Believe me that, come Halloween, you’ll see it, all right. And it’s not every Halloween, which just makes it worse when it does happen because you think maybe it won’t, and then boom . Then the next Halloween it doesn’t happen. Yet, in the meantime, everybody is so edgy, you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing. I have one hard and fast rule—I don’t work Halloween. Just in case…”

“Just in case of what? What happens?” Cameron asked.

“We get a patient in. She’s bleeding terribly. Not a wound on her, but we don’t know that because she’s completely covered in blood. We send her up for X-rays, but she disappears from the hospital.”

“A flesh-and-blood woman?”

“Yes,” he snapped, “a flesh-and-blood woman, every damn year, or other years if I’m not on shift. And then we send her off, obviously thinking that she’s hurt and needing X-rays, CT scans, or something. She disappears from the hallway. Nobody ever knows what happens. The orderlies who are moving the gurney turn around to open the door or something, and, when they turn back again, she’s not there. It’s incredibly unnerving and very disorienting, especially if she grabs your lab coat. Don’t let her touch your lab coat.”

“What about the lab coat?” Cameron asked curiously.

“Yeah, she grabs somebody’s lab coat and leaves behind a bloody handprint,” he shared bitterly. “Then she turns around and disappears. Meanwhile, they are still wearing their lab coat, and now there is no longer any blood on it,” he stated, glaring at him. “Oh, I get it. Everybody thinks it’s just some big joke. Unless you’re the one who’s wearing the lab coat she keeps reaching for.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. “So, never any blood left?”

“No, never any blood left. The lab coat’s clean. I swear to God, she’s a flesh-and-blood woman we’ve been treating. And of course the doctor who treats her dies… like your father did… But now, every Halloween, I am absent,” Dr. Cumberback shared, with a chuckle. “I just don’t want to be here, just in case.”

“Do you recognize her?”

He shook his head, but it was almost too fast of a headshake to be believable.

“Surely somebody must recognize her if she’s coming all that often.”

“What? With all the blood, we are distracted. Plus, you think we have a registry for ghosts around here?” he asked, staring at him. “None of us have a freaking clue who she is, and I don’t want to know either. I want her to fucking leave me alone.” And, with that, he harrumphed and took off.

Cameron stared at him. One of the other nurses came up and noted, “He’s pretty touchy on the subject.”

“I would say so,” Cameron agreed mildly, looking over at her. “Wouldn’t you be a little huffy if you were the one she might grab?”

The nurse looked at him thoughtfully and nodded. “When you put it like that, it’s something I have wondered.”

“Wondered what?” Cameron asked.

“He’s got a pretty strong opinion on the haunting. Maybe it’s because he’s afraid?”

“Maybe no other doctors wanted to work that night,” Cameron suggested, looking at her curiously. “Or do you know?”

“Not as far as I can remember. There have been other residents and certainly other people around. He may be the only living doctor to have experienced her visitations. The orderlies get pissed off too, but, because she looks so real, nobody ever says anything,”

“I see.” Cameron frowned. “Have you seen her?”

“No, I would like to though.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I have a suspicion that I know who she is,” she shared, “but it would open a can of worms like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Halloween is coming up in, what? Just a few days I think.”

She nodded. “I’ll volunteer to work this year,” she added.

If Cameron didn’t know any better, she said it with a bit of excitement.

She continued. “Most people here avoid it. Just don’t let her touch your lab coat.”

“That’s been mentioned before. And how long has it been going on?”

“I want to say ten years, but maybe a lot longer than that,” she replied. “I don’t really know. The gossip, when you bring it up, just makes it sound like it’s been going on forever, but I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been that long.”

“Interesting,” he murmured.

“Yeah. I’m looking forward to it,” she declared, her eyes lighting up. “It’s one thing to hear these stories. It’s another thing to see it for yourself.” With that, she headed back to her own work.

Cameron thought about it over his shift, throughout the rest of the evening and into the morning, wondering why something like that would occur. He didn’t know anybody who dealt in this stuff, except Harriet of course. He wasn’t sure that she was the one to ask though. However, he did have a good excuse to go check on her. Not that he would necessarily get a decent reception, depending on what he asked.

No matter what, all of it did pique Cameron’s interest in Halloween night. He just needed to know the truth, and maybe he would get his wish soon.