Kennedy cautiously stepped around Eunice and through the door she held open. Julie followed.
Gabriel was shocked. It was as though he was looking at a young child with white hair, not a strapping teenage boy, strong from working for a living with his father. He was curled in a fetal position on the hospital bed, wide-eyed and staring at nothing. A small puddle of drool had accumulated just below his mouth and had run onto the small pillow. Eunice moved to her son’s side, wiped his mouth, and then dabbed at the pillowcase.
“Pretty sight, Professor?” she asked. Tears flooded her reddened eyes.
Julie had slowly pulled out a small notebook. Now Gabriel glared at her until she placed the pad back into her bag. He gestured for her to sit in one of the chairs in the corner of the room and out of the way, and then he turned to Eunice.
“Five minutes, ma’am. I’ll do your son no harm.”
Eunice’s eyes went blank for a moment. She allowed Kennedy to lead her to a chair and sit her down. “What more harm can be done?” she asked sadly.
Kennedy patted her hand and then turned back to the boy, and his demeanor changed. He was in his element now.
Kennedy eased himself toward the bed. He reached out with one hand and brushed the long white hair back from the boy’s eyes. He tilted his head and looked deeply into Jimmy’s vacant, bloodshot eyes. Straightening, he reached into his sport coat and pulled out a small notebook. Thumbing through the pages until he found the one he wanted, he looked up at Jimmy again, then sat down on the edge of the bed.
Eunice had stopped crying and was watching the professor. He leaned close and said something into Jimmy’s ear. There was no reaction. Kennedy looked into his notebook once more.
Julie Reilly leaned forward in her chair, also watching as Kennedy confidently read a page and then closed the notebook once more. Again he whispered something to the boy. Still no reaction. Again, Kennedy checked his notes.
The door opened and Charles Johansson stepped into the room, carrying a cardboard tray that bore three cups of machine brewed coffee. He gave one to his wife, and then placed the tray on the table. Standing over Eunice, they both watched Kennedy. When his eyes shifted to Julie, she couldn’t hold the man’s accusatory stare.
Kennedy put the notebook away and leaned over the boy once more, again whispering into his ear. Suddenly the boy sat straight up in bed, almost knocking Kennedy over. Jimmy’s vacant eyes stared at nothing and he started to shake. Kennedy was strangely calm. Eunice stood with a start, her Styrofoam cup of hot coffee spilling to the floor, forgotten. It was the first time since her son had been brought to the hospital that he had made a voluntary movement of his own. Charles Johansson took his wife by the shoulders and held her, not allowing her to go to their boy.
Gabriel Kennedy leaned over and said something else to the boy, and this time they heard it.
“It’s gone, Jimmy. It didn’t want you.”
Jimmy Johansson seemed to relax for a brief moment, and then he pointed insistently at nothing. His arm stretched out so tautly that they could see the muscles working under the skin. Kennedy gently pulled the boy’s arm down.
“No! It’s gone now. She will never bother you again. She wasn’t after you…she wasn’t after anybody. She was lost and she felt you in her room. She only wanted to be close to you. She didn’t mean to scare you.”
Jimmy’s eyes blinked, as though he were waking up. He looked over at Kennedy and blinked eyes more rapidly. Kennedy gestured for Julie to shut off the lights; he stood and pulled the curtains closed. When he went back to Jimmy’s bedside, he suddenly lashed out and struck Jimmy in the face, making his head snap back. This time it was Charles who started forward and Eunice who held him in place.
The slap produced the desired effect. Jimmy started to cry. Looking around the room, his eyes fell on his mother, and then he really let loose. Gabriel stepped back and nodded for Eunice to go to her son. She threw herself on the bed and took the boy to her chest. She was soon joined by Charles and they hugged their son together. Kennedy stepped away from the three and pulled a handkerchief from his jacket to wipe the sweat that had covered his forehead. He was soon joined by Julie, who was wide-eyed.
“What did you say to him? What’s in that notebook?”
Kennedy glanced toward the Johanssons, then turned and slipped out of the room, Julie following close behind. They soon saw a doctor and two nurses go into Jimmy’s room; as they passed Kennedy, they both gave him strange looks.
Kennedy sat down in a chair in the hallway, leaning forward to catch his breath.
“Well, what did you say?” Julie persisted, standing over him.
He finally looked up. “I spoke some words to him.”
“What words?”
“It’s not the words, but the language. I played a hunch.”
“Goddamn it, Kennedy…”
“German. I spoke German to him.”
“What did you say?”
Kennedy stood and walked a few steps. Then he turned and looked at Julie.
“You’re a non-believer, but you’ll have to agree, the boy woke up.”
“Yes, I agree with at least that. Now, what did you say?”
“The German opera star, the missing diva from the third floor, from the 1920s.”
“What about her?”
“She was taken by whatever is in that house. I don’t think Jimmy came across the real entity at Summer Place, because he wasn’t taken — he’s still alive.”
“So, what did you say to get him to wake up?”
“As I said, I played a hunch. I said something in German. I don’t know if it was the words themselves, or if he just recognized the language and it brought him back.”
“What were the words?”
“Helfen Sie mir,” he answered.
Kennedy turned his back on her.
“Just what the hell does that mean, damn it?”
Gabriel turned back and smiled. His small breakthrough with the boy had made his day, but frustrating Julie Reilly was the icing.
“It means help me.”
Julie said nothing.
“This means, I suspect, that we may have more than one ghost at Summer Place. Possibly several. But one thing is for sure… That boy didn’t meet the real entity that’s walking those halls. He wouldn’t be in there with his parents right now — he’d be missing, or dead.”
Julie climbed in behind the wheel of the rental car and glanced at Kennedy. He sat quietly, looking through the windshield at the crystal blue sky overhead. As she snapped her seatbelt, she blurted the question before she knew she was going to ask it.
“Feel like seeing Summer Place?”
He sat quietly, long enough that she began to think he hadn’t heard her question.
“Yes, I think it’s time. I’m ready to see it.” He looked over to her. “From the outside.”
“You don’t want to go in?”
“We’ll save that for your big night. It would be better for your cameras. Suspense, I guess you’d call it?”
“Yes, that’s what we call it.”
She put the car in gear and drove away from the hospital.
Kennedy was silent for most of the forty-five minute drive to the house. Julie took her time, watching Kennedy for any kind of reaction as they made their way closer to the property. Gabriel kept his eyes closed most of the way. It wasn’t until they were almost right above Summer Place, near the spot from which the UBC crew and Kelly Delaphoy had first caught sight of the house a week before, that Kennedy’s eyes suddenly popped open. It was like watching a small animal sense the shadow of a predator flying over its hiding place.