Dr. Ana deTarlo ignored the stares of Williams’s staff and flight crew as she paced up and down the asphalt of the tarmac next to the car. Her cell phone was glued to her ear and her heels clicked severely. She’d called everyone she could think to, and was getting nowhere.
“Why don’t you just ask the Passers where they are?” she had demanded of Chester earlier when they realized they had lost Dreamer and Aidriel. Williams was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car, tapping furiously on his tablet device.
“I’ll ask Rod when it finds us, and Kara,” he answered without looking back. “But they might not know where they went either. Even if the Passers did know, they wouldn’t tell us. I don’t think the spirits want us anywhere near the guy.”
Williams had been receiving important phone calls himself, and had boarded the plane to use a more comfortable environment while he worked. He would get off the line with one of his employees just to have another call and tell him the same news. They’d been trying to get a hold of him since the story broke.
“Tell deTarlo to get on board right now,” he told his assistant, his phone lowered against his neck as he was still on the line. He hadn’t taken the time to locate his Bluetooth earpiece.
It had required one of the security guards to get involved before Ana reluctantly obeyed and clambered precariously up the steps to the plane.
“We can’t just leave without them,” she argued immediately. “What if they just got lost?”
“Shut up,” Chester hushed her, focusing his attention back on his call. With an icy glare, deTarlo stood over him and waited impatiently for an explanation. When he finally hung up with a troubled sigh, she demanded, “Well?”
“Within the last twenty-four hours,” Williams explained sullenly, “a strange migration of Passers has begun in Asia, Europe and South America, possibly the other continents as well. Seems that all the spirits are inexplicably disappearing entirely or abandoning their charges and heading for the U.S.”
It didn’t appear to sink in for deTarlo at first, and she just stared at him without speaking.
“What does this sound like to you?” he asked. “Things turn intense for our guy after the sentinel event, and all of a sudden, Passers are becoming violently bipolar and are now traveling great distances to get here.”
“Are you telling me that every single ghost on the planet is coming here after Aidriel Akimos?”
Chester looked grim, a flash of panic setting his eyes aflame.
“If they do,” he said, “that will be over a billion Passers converging on a single person. He’ll be like a piece of tissue paper in a hurricane.”
Stunned, deTarlo sank into a chair and let the hand gripping her cell phone flop into her lap. What could be done? She desperately wished Dreamer would answer her cell phone, or that they could somehow warn Aidriel about what was coming. It was truly meltdown worthy, but the shrink calmly took her clipboard out of her shoulder bag and began writing feverishly. Her report had to hit the press before this happened. Soon, the entire world would hang on her every word.
Dr. St. Cross leaned his elbow on the arm of his wheelchair with his head in his hand, his green eyes tensely following the movements of Todd, a thirty-something male nurse barely out of school. Andrei looked on from nearby, harboring a similar annoyance toward Todd, but for a different reason. The nurse was not a believer in taking Passers’ word as gospel.
St. Cross had known Todd’s parents for years; they used to be neighbors. Todd was a nice enough guy, and was eager to accept the psychiatrist’s request for private employment for the duration of the planned trip while the nurse was looking for a permanent job. But Todd could be pushy and overbearing, in an endearing way, and had no problem with telling the wheelchair-bound older man how things were.
“You don’t need so many books,” Todd had insisted, scooping an armload of them out of St. Cross’s suitcase and dumping them on the bed. The shrink had winced at the harsh treatment, but uncomplainingly bit his tongue. It was driving him crazy how untidy Todd’s packing of his clothing was; everything would be wrinkled.
Todd paused importantly after stacking the suitcase and medical case by the door. He crossed his arms and looked around the kitchen of the house, stroking his goatee and pretending St. Cross and Andrei weren’t there.
“Okay, we’re ready,” he finally said without bothering to consult the shrink. He glanced at his watch, muttering something about having plenty of time to catch the plane. St. Cross still did not complain and began to wheel his chair toward the door.
“Just wait here,” Todd said, holding out his hand in a stop motion. “I’ll take the stuff out to the car and come back.”
St. Cross stopped and waited. He had to implement some of his calming techniques to tolerate the younger man. Taking out his mobile, he checked for messages and was disappointed not to find any.
“My friend,” Andrei said suddenly, “perhaps you should take with you your case, the one in the bedside table.”
St. Cross looked to his Passer’s face, wondering why the ghost would tell him to bring that. Was it possible Aidriel would need it? The shrink was doubtful. But there was no denying Andrei’s ability to glimpse into the future. There was a reason behind its suggestion.
The psychiatrist wheeled down the corridor and into his bedroom, taking a magazine organizer–size plastic case out of his nightstand drawer and bringing it back into the kitchen on his lap.
Todd returned, and seeing the case, asked, “What’s that?”
“Absolutely essential,” answered St. Cross.
With a charitable shrug, Todd took the handles of the wheelchair and pushed it out the door, closing it on Andrei. The Passer stopped angrily for a moment before stepping through the wood panel and following them across the porch and down the ramp.
“I saw some of my medical record on deTarlo’s clipboard,” Aidriel said, poking holes in his foam food tray with his fork. “I noticed something about a ‘sentinel event.’ What is that?”
Dreamer dabbed at her lips with a paper napkin before she answered.
“Usually it means some unexpected injury, illness or death of a patient while in a hospital’s care, like surgery on a wrong part of the body or a baby that dies for no apparent reason. I think in your case, it refers to your suicide attempt, since it was less than seventy-two hours after you left the hospital last time.”
“Oh.” Aidriel thought for a moment and stabbed at his ravioli.
“I heard Mr. Williams talking about it with a doctor,” Dreamer continued. “They consider the increase of hostility toward you after Mr. Watts’s death a sentinel event also. It’s kind of like an illness spread to you while you were under their care, only it was, I don’t know, a mental illness.”
Aidriel made a face of disagreement but didn’t answer. He and Dreamer were sitting across from each other at the little table in their room, the Italian food they’d ordered from a pizza place between them. The sun was nearly set outside and they’d kept the curtains closed and turned on the lights. The remote for the television was lying at the foot of Aidriel’s bed where he’d left it after handling it earlier while debating whether to turn the TV on; he’d elected not to.
“How much does Dr. deTarlo discuss with you about your records?” Dreamer asked with a casual flick of her gaze at him.
“No one discusses anything with me,” Aidriel answered, eating a raviolo. Dreamer just nodded and waited.
“So how long have you been working at the hospital?” he asked her. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”
“Only a couple of weeks,” she answered. “I was a contingent, but one of the other girls is on maternity leave so I was working in her place. I also worked at a Coma Center.”
“That’s one of those hospitals for brain-dead people, right?”
“Sort of. Most of the patients are actually still alive in the brain, just indefinitely unconscious. Like from car accidents and stuff. I liked it; it was nice and quiet. They’d play classical or mood music, and kept the lights pretty low. I worked third shift, so I was never there when the families visited. I didn’t have to draw much blood, either, so I spent a lot of time reading. They just had a staff of medical workers for any possible scenario.”
Aidriel listened and simply nodded. He liked the way she carefully cut her Alfredo noodles into small, manageable bites with her plastic fork and knife and made him wait for her answers so she wouldn’t talk with her mouth full. It somehow made the disposable dishes from which they ate seem ridiculously cheap.
“You don’t work there anymore?” Aidriel asked about the Coma Center. Chewing, Dreamer shook her head.
“I was technically still an employee when I switched to the hospital. Since it was third shift, and the hospital was first, I went straight from one to the other, and pretty much spent any time off work sleeping. I had weekends off, though, and it was only going to be until the other girl got back from leave, so it wasn’t too big of a deal. And the Coma Center wasn’t a demanding job. I quit them both to work for Williams.”
“Why’d you do that?” There was a hint of guilt in Aidriel’s voice.
Dreamer watched him for hidden signals for a moment, waiting because they both knew at least part of the answer. Finally she shrugged and went back to eating.
“Better money,” she said simply.
Aidriel wondered if she was lying just so he wouldn’t feel like a total jerk.
“What about you?” Dreamer asked. “Where do you work?”
He had to think briefly before answering.
“My last job was at a gift store. You’d think it’d be a pretty safe place to work, but I had two heavy framed pictures and a glass statuette fall off the shelves on me. The last one cracked me open, and they thought I was just a klutz and fired me.”
He tilted his head forward and pointed to a recent scar on the top of his skull, barely visible under his hair. Dreamer swallowed hard and appeared troubled.
“How many times have you been to the hospital?” she asked.
“Too many times to remember. I don’t really want to dredge anything up.”
The phlebotomist looked uncomfortable for asking and quickly nodded, remembering patient privacy. Neither spoke and finished their food awkwardly. Aidriel pushed his foam dish aside and stuffed a stick of gum into his mouth. Leaning his elbow on the table, he rested his head against the knuckles of his fist, watching Dreamer. She quickly stood, collecting everything from the table and carrying it to the garbage can under the sink. Shyly refusing to look at him, she gathered clean clothes from the plastic storage tub and asked, “You mind if I shower?”
Without lifting his head from his hand, Aidriel shook it no, and Dreamer retreated into the bathroom. He sat still and listened to the water turn on, then indifferently got to his feet and paced the room. Three times he wandered from one end to the other, picking up the remote, pausing in thought, and putting it down again, finally finding himself at the window. Pulling aside the curtain, Aidriel looked out into the twilight, at the line of houses directly behind the hotel. There was no activity that he could make out, though several of the windows were illuminated in light. He didn’t see any Passers, and was relieved, at least for the moment.
The familiar thought came to Aidriel: when he lay down tonight to sleep, he might be awakened by an attack. Just the possibility made his nerves tingle with dread, and he asked himself if he were to die, would he be ready? He had thought he was ready weeks ago when he tossed the rope over the ceiling hook in the living room in his apartment. The former owners had a hammock chair hanging from the hook, so he had known it would support his weight. It was strange how fondly he recalled that rope. Did he wish for it again? Would he like to die tonight?
The lights in one of the houses below went out one room at a time as the occupants retired to sleep. Aidriel tried to think of what he still wanted to see or do before he died, in case the Passers would kill him soon. Every night could be his last night. The only good thing that had happened to him since his attempted hanging was that a girl had come into his life. A girl that he felt a connection to, however slight, and was beginning to feel affection for. He wouldn’t want her to be the one to find him if he were to die, and wondered if that meant that he really liked her.
Having come to the conclusion that Dreamer needed him and relied on him made Aidriel experience a sense as familiar as a memory, but entirely new to him. In his youth he’d gone through the usual teen stage of feeling he could take on the world and was impervious to anything as long as he wished to be. But all his dreams of grandeur had vanished when the attacks began and he’d been broken ever since. Having Dreamer with him, shielding him in the small way she could and relying on him for protection in return, he felt like he had reached the stage of maturity he had been cheated out of. She was strong, he suspected, but she was still a woman, and being with her made him a man. He was a target and a patient, but above all—most importantly, he reminded himself—he was a man and should act like one. The most basic aspect of fulfillment was accepting the weight of manly responsibility; a whole world might open before him if he would step up to face it, as Dreamer’s very presence was inspiring him to do.
For some reason, he imagined he was standing close to Dreamer, their fingers interlaced, her head resting against his collarbone, and his pulse began to pound like it did when he was afraid. There was no accompanying pain or fear; he must really like her.
Aidriel was letting his mind wander to what he’d like to do with her and was startled back to the present when Dreamer shut off the water in the bathroom. He continued to wait, his ears attuned to the slightest sounds she made. Presently, she opened the bathroom door and came out, her wet hair a tousled mess. She stood before the mirror over the sink and pulled a brush through the tangles, after carefully folding and stowing her clothes from the day.
Aidriel watched her reflection in the mirror but pretended he wasn’t whenever she turned from it. She was round-faced, and her most attractive feature was her feminine lips, though there were varying shades of color in her glaucous irises. Aidriel hoped she was a little older than she looked.
He continued to follow her movements with his eyes until she stopped and began to rearrange the bottles on the sink, smoothing down the hand towel. Picking up his discarded gum wrapper from the table, he took it over to the garbage, leaning over beside Dreamer to put it and the gum in the trash. As he straightened, he leaned in toward her, his hand resting on the small of her back and his face nearly touching her head as he breathed in the sweet scent of the shampoo in her hair.
Dreamer instantly shrunk away from him, slipping sideways to take several defensive steps into the room.
“What’re you doing?” she asked, embarrassed. Aidriel took a step toward her and she drew back.
“Your hair smells good,” he said. Dreamer nervously tucked it behind her ears and looked away.
“Well, thanks…,” she mumbled, unsure how to respond. Aidriel took another step toward her.
“You smell good,” he said, his gray eyes fixed keenly on her face. She was becoming very anxious and he wanted to reassure her, but it didn’t feel to him like the right time to back down. She blushed, which struck him as wholly appealing; he was immensely magnetized and advanced further.
Dreamer’s hand shot out defensively as if to block him and she said, “No, I don’t think…” Her voice trailed off and she once again widened the gap between them. “I don’t know you very well.”
Aidriel smiled and put his hands in his pockets.
“Does that matter?”
“Yes, it does.”
They were watching each other very closely for the slightest of cues, but neither moved. Aidriel beckoned with his eyes, and the teetering Dreamer felt between surrender and resistance played out on her face. Her gaze gave way beneath his and focused on his arm at his side, squinting in close scrutiny before slowly blinking. She shook her head and pressed her fingertips against her forehead as if in pain.
“There’re no Passers around,” Aidriel said. “No one to get between us.”
“There’ll be…nothing to get between.”
“Why not?” Aidriel flashed his most winning smile, and saw her lips instinctively curve in response. It looked hard for her to speak.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she managed. “It wouldn’t be smart for us to act on something that could be so heartbreaking. We’ve only known each other for a few days.”
“Well I want to know you.” Aidriel advanced again, but she remained where she was. Her hands began wringing nervously, and he wanted to take them in his and make them stop. He wanted to seize her before she could get away again and pull her toward him, but he restrained himself.
“No…,” she started to insist when he whispered her name.
“I could die tonight.” Aidriel’s answer was both a plea and an excuse. “It’s tough to go with your instincts. You learn to live every day like it’s your last.”
“That could make you really selfish, though.”
“It makes you prioritize,” he answered.
Dreamer had stopped fidgeting and was once again holding eye contact with him. He got the feeling she was trying to communicate that there was something she had realized about him that was making her oppose his advances, but he didn’t care to let her solve the puzzle of conveying it. Women always wanted to make things about emotions and connections and protecting hearts, but he wasn’t interested. There was no point in thinking about or rationalizing something so simple; he wanted to act on how she made him feel.
She melted when he whispered her name again, stepping closer to her. Still she didn’t move, and when he came within touching distance, she lowered her head a little and closed her eyes, waiting. Aidriel gently closed his fingers around her wrists and touched her shoulder with his, leaning in so his nose brushed her cheek. Dreamer shook her head faintly.
It drove Aidriel crazy that she was resisting in action. He could have sworn she drew slightly nearer to him. His heart was thumping again, and almost felt as if hers was beating in unison. It took all of his self-control to not kiss her, and resisting made his desire to do so intensely stronger. He closed his eyes and savored an emotion beside fear, a pleasant buzzing in his senses much stronger than dread. He didn’t want to die tonight, so long as the feeling lasted.
But a sense of the pain that would result if he continued prevailed upon him for the briefest of moments; some notion that the ultimate cost to them would be too high. Aidriel’s lips brushed Dreamer’s cheek, but he let go of her and stepped back, taking a deep breath. Their eyes opened and looked to each other, and she smiled. He instantly hated himself for withdrawing, but it was too late to kiss her now. Stopping himself was an instinctual reaction to impending trouble, but moreover a subconscious choice to alter the course of his near future, simply because he could. It was empowering for something to be at his command.
“There’re scrubs for you in the tote,” she said.
His nerves still buzzing, Aidriel grabbed the clothes from the storage tub and locked himself into the bathroom, gradually recognizing what he had cheated himself out of. He threw the black apparel onto the floor in disappointment, yanking the faucet on. Switching it to shower, he held his head under the cold water, ignoring how it drenched the collar of his shirt.
Dreamer got into bed and laid on her side, listening to the water running and trying to relax enough to fall asleep. She was a bit shaken but was smiling. She had indeed been conflicted when he was holding her wrists, hoping he’d kiss her but praying he wouldn’t. To her it seemed his sudden desire for intimacy would prove harmful; perhaps a whiplash reaction to the scene they had set for themselves, and a playing-out of some unseen script written for them by the actions of others. There was no reason anything should happen.
Dreamer had no psychological training, but she thought Aidriel was too cynical and unhappy to be attracted to her. Giving in to his advances might have afforded him a temporary thrill, but would only compound his emotional damage when it was over and they realized that they were nobody to each other. Yes, Dreamer was increasingly drawn to him, but she had no idea if he was genuinely reciprocating. While he was pushing the boundaries of his safety where the Passers were concerned, she was balanced on her own edge of allowed actions, riskily close to crossing a line she knew she shouldn’t. If she were acting on a plan of any sort regarding him, which she wasn’t, he’d probably be exactly where she wanted him. She’d had her share of relationships; nothing serious, but she had learned that small things could make an impact. A few sly smiles, a coy invitation in the eyes, a slow wetting of her lips, and he might go crazy. He was damaged; it was unfair to play games with him, even if he started them.
When Aidriel got out of the shower, Dreamer was propped up on her pillows, reading a paperback. He turned off all the lights but the one above her, tossing his clothes thoughtlessly into the bin. Plopping backward on his bed as he had done earlier, he locked his fingers behind his damp head. She read on in silence, distracted by him; he stared at the ceiling.
Aidriel began to earnestly sing Sting’s Be Still My Beating Heart as if he were alone. Dreamer smiled and laid down her book, rolling to her side to prop her head up on her hand, listening to him sing the chorus, second verse and bridge. As he repeated the chorus and let his voice fade away, Dreamer reached up and turned off the light.
Dr. St. Cross was not partial to snakes himself, though he found it fascinating and soothing to watch them gliding over the network of branches he had placed in his aquarium at home. It was because of Andrei that he kept the reptiles at all. His Passer had come to him at the beginning of the Sentience, and had proved to be an intelligent, gentle companion, most of the time. Andrei died overseas, but it was not bizarre that it had found its way back to the States to keep company with St. Cross; Passers were often found great distances from where they had died, just as many were bound to a location by an invisible chain.
Andrei had been bitten by a snake, and had succumbed to the venom. This was not long before the Passersby stepped into everyday life. Andrei was a lover of adventure when he was still alive, and had traveled far and wide. While exploring the jungles of India, foolishly without a guide, he had come upon the snake without seeing it. He stepped too close, and the strike was delivered to his thigh. Unwisely electing to attempt to run to civilization for help, Andrei had only quickened the spread of the poison in his blood. He had died alone and in agony, lying in the undergrowth; his body was never discovered by humans.
But somehow, it comforted the Passer to wander a house in which the cause of its death was a harmless display to entertain the eye. None of St. Cross’s snakes were poisonous, but as a psychiatrist, he understood Andrei’s need to have the creatures near.
“Does it give you a sense of security to see them caged?” he asked the Passer once.
“No, I need to make peace with them,” was the response. “To make peace with my death, as it were.”