“Jeezus…” he mumbled and gave his head a shake.
I waited for what seemed like several minutes but in reality was probably once again only a handful of seconds. I lolled my head to the side, so I could see my friend and asked, “How was she when you saw her earlier?”
He sighed heavily, and the resigned look on his face told me he was finally giving up on finishing the article he’d been trying to read. He laid the magazine aside then shifted in his seat and shook his head at me. “Pretty much like I said, Row. She just stares off inta’ space. Kinda like she’s…” he stopped mid-sentence and then craned his neck to the side as he appeared to spot something out the window wall. With a quick nod he said, “Looks like ya’ can see for yourself. Here they come.”
I turned my head and out of reflex tried to push myself upward on my elbows, not that I had enough strength to get very far. It had only been a little over twenty-four hours since I’d been rushed into surgery, so my body was still rebelling against sudden movements. The pain in my gut immediately erupted from a smoldering ache to a violent conflagration of agony. I stifled a groan as I lay back then fumbled for the bed controls and used them to slowly raise myself farther into a sitting position.
Through the windows and to the side of the nurses’ station, I could see a uniformed police officer. Next to him was a wheelchair. Due to its position at the desk, I couldn’t actually see the occupant, but I knew who it was. On the opposite side of the chair, Ben’s sister, Helen Storm, was nodding and chatting with a nurse.
As my heart began to beat a little faster, the fresh twinge in my abdomen started settling toward a dull but very prominent ache. I could tell by the way it lingered I would be reaching for the morphine button in the not too distant future, no matter how much I hated the inevitable nightmare that would be sure to follow.
By the time I had adjusted myself into something resembling an upright position, the door was already open and Helen was maneuvering the wheelchair into the room. She bore the same angular Native American features as her younger brother, and looking at them side by side there was no denying their familial ties, even though she stood quite a number of inches shorter than he. While her face still retained a youthful look, her long hair had gone almost completely grey just in the years that I had known her.
Once she was through the opening, she finessed the chair around Ben, who was already looking for a place to stand where he would be out of the way. Almost immediately behind her was the nurse who had been assigned to me for the shift.
“How are you feeling, Mister Gant?” she asked while Helen pushed the wheelchair close to the side of the bed and parked it.
“I’m fine,” I told her in an absent tone. My attention was focused on the occupant of the rolling seat.
“The doctor says you have about ten minutes with your visitors,” she explained. “Okay?”
“Yeah…” I muttered, still not tearing my eyes from Felicity.
“I’ll come back when it’s time,” the nurse reminded us as she exited, carefully closing the door behind her.
My wife was arranged in the wheelchair with what had been obvious care, but even so, she was now slumped to one side like a crumpled rag doll. She was dressed in a hospital gown with a soft restraint loosely encircling her mid-section, apparently to hold her upright in the seat. A blanket was tucked in around the lower half of her body, covering her from the waist down, and her hands rested atop it in her lap, palms turned slightly upward and fingers curled in a relaxed posture. Her head was canted to the right, and Helen or someone had positioned a small pillow beneath it and against her shoulder for support.
I continued to stare at Felicity without saying a word. She was pale even beyond her usual ivory complexion but from what I could tell had not yet slipped into an obvious unhealthy pallor. Still, her face was slack, lips parted slightly, and her half-lidded eyes stared vacantly into space, just as Ben had described. Now and again she would slowly blink, and if one watched closely, there would be the barest hint of movement in her neck, and she would appear to swallow.
“How are you doing, Rowan?” Helen asked.
“I’ve been better…” I whispered.
“That is certainly understandable,” she replied, genuine sympathy in her voice.
I tried to reach for Felicity, but the side rail of the hospital bed proved to be an insurmountable barrier in my present condition. Without any prompting other than my obvious distress, Helen immediately stepped forward and lowered the rail. When I reached again, she lifted my wife’s hand and slipped it carefully into mine.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
Felicity’s fingers were cold and felt lifeless, but I held tight and squeezed as much as my own lethargic muscles would allow. I watched as she stared, looking through me at nothing.
“How is she?” I finally asked, still not taking my eyes from her expressionless face.
“Physically, she seems to be in good shape, especially considering the circumstances,” Helen told me. “She is presenting in a state of catatonic stupor, the most prominent symptoms being mutism and immobility, quite obviously. However, she does appear to maintain a strong degree of reflexive and occasionally volitional motor control. For instance, she responds to being fed orally. If her condition persists for any length of time, as long as she can be fed, there will not be a need for a feeding tube. That is a very good thing.
“She has also been observed suddenly changing position of her own accord, but the movements are neither frantic nor labored, which is a good sign. Still, she displays little or no response to other external stimuli.”
“Hey,” I murmured in my wife’s direction while slowly stroking my thumb against the back of her hand.
I already knew that right now the body in front of me was for all intents and purposes nothing more than an empty shell. In my mind, that much was a given. The consciousness, the memories, and everything else that made Felicity who she was, had been forced into a dark void, and they were being held captive there by Miranda. Still, that didn’t stop me from seeing the woman I loved right there in front of me.
Helen cleared her throat and said, “There is something else I need to tell you, Rowan. Due to the violent outburst that culminated in Felicity’s attack on you, her tentative diagnosis made by the doctor on staff was catatonic schizophrenia.”
“But that was before you arrived, right?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I turned my face toward her and tried to shake my head. “Well, you of all people know that isn’t what this is,” I objected.
Helen was more than just Ben’s older sister, and more than a psychiatrist as well. She had known my wife and me for years and was intimately aware of the preternatural events that were my bane. She had even seen Felicity through her original possession by Miranda, so I trusted her with the truth, as bizarre as it was.
She nodded. “I know what Benjamin told me. And, I know what I have seen. I also know that I have never known you to be wrong, Rowan. However, what I know and believe is not at issue here.”
“What is then?”
“The beliefs of others. I am here because you requested me to be,” she replied. “However, there is opposition. Because of your own current status as a patient in intensive care, Felicity’s parents are taking legal steps to assume guardianship over her and wish to begin the hospital’s recommended course of treatment with anti-psychotics.”
“Jeezus,” Ben spat. “That was quick. When the hell did this happen?”
“They arrived upstairs at the mental health center with the paperwork and their attorney just as we were preparing to come down here.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. I should have expected something like this. Felicity’s father was definitely not in any danger of starting a Rowan Gant fan club, and this wasn’t the first time he’d tried to intervene in our marriage.